236: The Reaper’s Wish (Part Two)

Vir found himself sitting on a stone bench. A long hearth fire burned a few paces away, its smoke rising to a circular hole cut in the top of the thatched yurt. The warm glow filled the dwelling with a sense of peace and security, something so foreign that Vir had nearly forgotten what it felt like.

A precious luxury, soon to be missed, Vir thought. The thought was not his own, but rather came from somewhere else.

Vir tried to move… but couldn’t. He had no motor control, nor could breathe, or even choose where to look.

Oddly, however, panic did not well within him. The opposite, actually. There was a certain calm serenity to the whole scene. Vir felt warm, happy, content. And a little anxious, though it was  the anxiousness one felt when dreading the future.

Vir looked—or rather, was forced to look—up to find the room full of demons. All Ghaels.

Displayed across the far wall was a flag. A gray-bordered purple flag with an icon of a white eye and a brown iris at the very center.

The flag of Clan Iksana. While Vir had never seen it before, he immediately understood it as such. It was knowledge the person in the vision possessed.

“Don’t leave us!” a ghael boy rushed up to Vir, tears in his eyes. His gangly limbs looked less hideous than Zora’s—the adult ghael Vir had seen in the Pagan Order.

Vir’s eyes lowered, and he found that his own body was all wrong. His arms were long, gangly gray limbs that reached almost to the floor. His legs, were also misshapen, and he noticed he sat with a hunched back.

I’m… a ghael?

The boy crashed into Vir, who grasped his shoulder and ruffled his wispy gray hair, smiling gently.

“Don’t leave, Ekanai! You’re the Akh Nara! You can’t leave!”

Ekanai!? This time, Vir did panic. I’m in the body of Ekanai!? Is this his memory, then?

“Who do you think you’re talking to, boy?” Ekanai said with a warm, hearty laugh. “You know what they call me?”

“Yessir! You’re the Reaper!”

“A title given to me. A title earned. You understand? I will delve deeper in to the Ash than any demon ever has. And I shall return. For the Iksana. For demonkind!”

‘If I only knew what the gods want of me…’

For a moment, Vir didn’t understand why he’d thought that until he realized it’d come from Ekanai’s mind.

The other ghaels cheered, and the boy looked up at Ekanai in wonder.

What kind of sick joke is this?

This wasn’t Ekanai. This wasn’t the same being who considered Maiya dead weight. Who’d violated Vir’s control over his own body to make attempts on her life. What right did Ekanai have to smile like that?

The difference wasn’t one Vir could chalk up to the ravages of time. The person in this memory was someone else entirely. As if some gentle soul had possessed the body of the most heinous of demons.

But why am I even seeing this? Shardul said I’d never receive their help again…

Though, this wasn’t quite helping. Vir—despite the sorry state of his body—was confident in his pranites’ ability to heal him up. With the amount of prana in his body, he didn’t have to worry about them running out of fuel, either.

And thus far… Vir doubted he’d gain some new insight from this memory. It looked exactly as it was—a warm, cozy scene. Just with Iksana ghaels. And Ekanai.

At least, it would be cozy, if it weren’t for the emotions flitting through Vir’s mind. Not his emotions—Ekanai’s.

Confidence. Bravado. Ruthlessness. Vir had expected to be drowned in those emotions, yet there was no trace of them.

Instead, what he felt more than anything else, was terror. Not for his own safety—Ekanai had long understood the perils of his upcoming quest—but that he’d die without fulfilling his destiny. It was the fear of total, absolute failure.

Vir didn’t think Ekanai rightly knew what fear was. Nor did he ever believe in his wildest dreams that the demon was capable of feeling such insecurity.

The scene abruptly shifted, and now Ekanai stood in a blighted landscape, gray and barren, fighting off Ash Beast after Ash Beast. It was, without a doubt, the Ashen Realm.

Vir moved with the demon. They were his own movements, but they were also Ekanai’s. It was as if Vir was a puppet manipulated by strings.

Despite the awkward sensation, Vir understood one thing. Until that moment, Vir had believed he’d mastered his form and perfected his combat over the past year, fighting within the Ash.

He now understood that he’d been wrong. He hadn’t attained perfection. Ekanai had.

The demon was old. Centuries old, like Cirayus, and Vir was once again shown just how much of an insurmountable advantage that wealth of experience was. When applied to Ekanai’s Balancer of Scales, Dance of the Shadow Demon, and his other Iksana Bloodline Arts, it became an absolute, unfair advantage.

Ekanai didn’t fight Ash Beasts as much as he decimated them. He only fought a small fraction—the rest he killed simply with his Warrior and Crown Chakra attacks.

Vir could feel the Chakras fire from Ekanai’s body, though how the demon managed it was beyond Vir. It was akin to watching a master artisan as they worked. Any layman could marvel at the spectacle, but if asked to replicate it, they’d be entirely unable to.

Beasts flopped over and died, seemingly at random, having been touched by Chakra. Ekanai melded with the shadows. Each time his blade departed the Shadow Realm, a beast died.

He executed one after the other with brutal efficiently, barely a second between kills. Sometimes, he traveled hundreds of paces within the shadows, sometimes he assassinated a half dozen beasts from a single position.

It put Vir’s own usage of the ability to shame. Vir had to remind himself that, unlike Ekanai, he was making do without the actual tattoo, and that he’d only had a couple of years to learn it.

Despite this, Ekanai’s finesse was in another realm entirely.

Vir’s only solace came when Ekanai used Balancer of Scales on his enemies. His lack of experience wielding the ability was immediately obvious. Where Cirayus handled the magic like a scalpel, Ekanai used it more as a hammer to lay suppression down upon an immense field of foes.

Useful, to be sure, but incomparable to Cirayus when he reduced Sikandar’s weight while multiplying his own, before finally making Sikandar as heavy as an Ash’va before the moment of impact. The effect was oftentimes comical.

Sometimes, the beast was hurled away with such force that it looked like a rag-doll. Sometimes, the giant cleaved right through as if it were made of paper.

While Ekanai could do none of those things, his particular combination of tattoos showed Vir exactly how he’d earned his name. In less than a minute, hundreds of Ash Beasts lay dead in a ring around him.

How am I supposed to defeat such a monster? Vir thought in awe. Awe that quickly turned into worried concern. He hasn’t even used Clarity yet. Or Yuma’s Embrace.

As if triggered by Vir’s own thought, a flight of Shrikes dive bombed Ekanai from behind. The speed at which they plummeted was truly awesome. Even with all his progress, Vir still had trouble detecting and avoiding them in time. It usually ended in broken bones, which hampered Vir significantly as he fought off hordes of beasts over the next hours while his pranites healed the injury.

Ekanai jumped lightly.

He’s too late! Vir thought. But then, something impossible happened. Reality seemed to bend over itself. The Shrikes that should’ve impaled him were now under him. Ekanai’s gangly arm extended, and the Shrike flew into it, as if guided by Fate itself.

No, time hasn’t rewound… I was simply living the reality that Ekanai saw when he used Clarity.

Then, that reality exploded into a million possible futures. Vir was so overcome with dozens of scenarios, he begged for the sensation to cease. In some, Ekanai was impaled. In others, Ekanai jumped atop the Shrikes’ backs, and yet others where he lopped off their necks before they dive-bombed him.

Just when Vir felt like his head would explode, the variants all collapsed into one reality, and again, events seemed to flow according to Ekanai’s will. He stepped onto the Shrike, crushing its neck, and then jumped into the air, swinging his katar in a large arc.

There was nothing but air where he jumped, and Vir was sure he’d fall, or worse—become an easy target for the swift birds.

Nothing of the sort occurred. A Shrike suddenly appeared right under Ekanai’s boot. The demon’s katar cut cleanly through the bird as he jumped off it, cleaving another Shrike in two before his boots finally hit the ground.

What in the Realms did I just witness?

It was, of course, the Iksana Ultimate Bloodline tattoo Clarity. The ability to gain a limited prescience, glimpsing the immediate future of the area around the caster. But it operated so unlike anything Vir had ever imagined.

He’d hoped that witnessing the Ultimates might give him an edge for when he obtained them. Cirayus said it took decades, if not centuries, to truly master, but Vir was optimistic he could shorten that by leveraging his prior incarnations, even if his command wouldn’t be as strong.

After seeing Clarity in action, however, Vir began to wonder if it truly might take as long as he’d feared. There were not simple abilities. Not even close.

Ekanai landed again, and this time, he was truly alone in the field of corpses. The demon took a single, deep breath, and soldiered on. Deeper into the Ash.

Through it all, Ekanai felt no glee at having destroyed his enemies. He felt no pride. All that came through was his growing worry that he still didn’t know what the gods wanted of him. He didn’t know how the power at the heart of Mahādi was supposed to help him fulfill his destiny. Nor even how to go about obtaining that power, assuming he survived the Mahādi plane.

The demon clutched his chest, heaving. While Vir couldn’t feel Ekanai’s pain, it was obvious just how much misery the demon was in.

But he hasn’t taken any injuries. Why’s he in pain—!? Vir suddenly understood. Prana Poisoning.

Ekanai appeared to be in a deep area of the Ash, and the prana density was obviously affecting him.

He’s going to die if he continues on like this. Why? What’s driving him? Why does he sacrifice himself?

The scene darkened and shifted. Perhaps with this next memory, Vir would understand. Perhaps he’d uncover the darkness that Ekanai had hidden all along.

The scene cleared. Ekanai had arrived at Mahādi.