232: Reunited (Part Two)

“No way!” Vir seethed. “Princess Ira made you go through that awful ritual? When I saw you in the Ink of Clarity—”

“You saw that!?” Maiya shrieked. Her face flushed with embarrassment, and her toes curled as she cringed. “That was the worst! Oh, gods! The whole time, I kept thinking how lucky I was that you hadn’t seen! It was that thought that let me weather the ordeal!”

Maiya held her face in her hands. Vir patted her back awkwardly.

While he was relieved that she hadn’t lost her way and actually fallen in with those cultists, another part of him resented the princess for forcing her into such a demeaning ritual.

Princess or not, nobody should have had to endure anything like that. Least of all her personal operative.

Through it all, a small voice in his head whispered that everything—all of this—couldn’t possibly be fake. It was far too detailed. Too real.

It whispered that Maiya wasn’t real.

Vir wasn’t even sure if he wanted it to be fake anymore. Yes, something strange was happening to Maiya, and her presence here put her life in jeopardy. Had he a choice, he’d send her away at once.

But if this really is all a dream, or a hallucination… It’d mean their time together here never really happened. That it was a made-up figment of his imagination. He’d awake, and just like a dream, it’d all be gone.

“You were… very brave,” Vir said haltingly, earning him a scowl. They stared each other in the eye for a long moment before bursting out laughing.

They sat together atop a grassy hill in peaceful silence, Maiya resting her head on Vir’s chest. The spot bore a striking resemblance to Rabbit Hill, their hangout spot in Brij. It, too, was adorned with a large tree, though the scenery it overlooked was incomparable to the backwater village.

Floating islands drifted lazily before them, the peaceful scene betraying none of the chaos that had taken place earlier.

For that brief moment, Vir seemed to forget the world. Content to be reunited after so very long. Longer, Vir suspected, than Maiya had, owing to the time effects of the Ash.

“I’ve… really missed this,” Maiya said after a while. “More than I thought.”

“Me too, Mai. Me too.”

Maiya cocked a brow, smiling coyly. “Mai, huh? Since when did you start calling me that?”

“Since… now? I guess?” Vir honestly hadn’t even noticed. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“I like it,” Maiya said, smiling gently. “Mom and dad used to call me that.”

Vir wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her semi-translucent figure closer, though even as he did, he worried he’d somehow break her if he grasped too hard. Like she was made of glass.

“That demon back there?” she said after a moment. “You said it was Ekanai? Was it the Ekanai?”

Vir sighed. “Do we really have to talk about that right now?”

While he knew this blissful moment couldn’t last forever, he dreaded it coming to and end.

But when Maiya turned and looked into his eyes, confused and distraught, Vir knew that the feeling was a lie. There was no true bliss here, only willful ignorance. There could be no peaceful reunion until Ekanai had been dealt with.

“I wish I could tell you, Maiya. Ekanai should’ve died a long time ago. He had to have died for me to have been born. Did he hurt you?”

“N-No. Nothing like that,” Maiya said, looking away. “I was… at an Orientation Camp with the Children of Ash. It was going pretty well, too.”

“Really?” Vir asked with suspicion.

“Well, as well as such a camp could go. They made us do this leap of faith—we had to jump off a cliff into a pool of blood far below.”

“That’s…”

“Insane? Yep. Welcome to my world. Thing is, they designed it for people jumping off one at a time. The three of us—”

“Wait, who are these people?”

“Ah, right, I haven’t told you about them, have I? So, Yamal, he’s a real character…”

Maiya spent the next minutes filling Vir in about Yamal and the Silent One, and how they met and became close.

Vir was immediately suspicious of the man, and when Maiya mentioned how he was useless in a fight, Vir grew anxious.

“Hey,” Maiya said with a smile, squeezing his arm. “Relax. He knows not to make any moves on me. Besides, having a group that’s loyal to me is really useful in an organization like that. Despite Yamal’s issues, I feel like I lucked out. Him and the Silent One are among the few sane ones in my batch. He’s pretty smart, too.”

Vir exhaled. “I know. Just… I wish I could be there for you.”

“Me too,” Maiya said quietly. “Anyway, we jumped together. I knew we wouldn’t make it, so I  relied on my blunt force protection orbs to absorb the impact.”

“Did that actually work?” Vir asked. Mejai defensive armor wasn’t designed to nullify falls like Light Step did. He’d never thought to try using the magic protection in that way.

“Sorta?” Maiya grinned sheepishly. “It did keep us alive… But I kinda broke some bones. And one of my B Grade Life orbs. Oops!”

She stuck her tongue out and winked at him.

Vir rolled his eyes. “Most people would be in tears over losing such a precious orb, you know? I guess you’re just swimming in seric, aren’t you?”

Maiya waved away his concern. “It’s fine. I can get as many of those as I want. Problem was, I only had one left, so I healed my broken leg, but couldn’t heal my ribs.”

“Your ribs are broken?” Vir asked in alarm.

“That’s the thing. They aren’t. Not here. I’m not even wearing the same clothes! I was wearing a faded brown robe, not this old one piece. I haven’t worn this since Brij! And I’m obviously not in the practice of walking around barefoot,” she said, wiggling her toes.

“So, how did you end up here?”

“We missed the pool, but we crashed through the ground, into a large shaft of some kind. That led down into a tunnel that was protected by Children guards.”

“A secret lair?”

“Who knows? I took out the guards and entered the room they were defending. There wasn’t much. Just a pedestal at the end with a tome on it. I… can’t remember what happened after that. I think I might’ve opened the book? Next thing I knew, I was in those caves.”

A teleporting tome? Vir thought, but then looked over Maiya’s form. No. This is something else entirely. If she were really here, she’d have died from prana poisoning immediately. Is there more to the Children of Ash than I thought?

“I roamed around for a bit, then heard a sound so I went towards it,” Maiya continued. “I found that demon in a room, just standing hunched over. Imagine my surprise when he whirled and attacked!”

“He attacked you?” Vir asked, panicking. Was I too late? Is that why she’s this way?

“Don’t worry,” Maiya said hurriedly. “You came before he could do anything. But, er… I can’t use magic, Vir. It’s like all my blood, sweat, and tears have come undone. Like… it’s been a waste.”

“It hasn’t. Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. I wish I had the answers, but I don’t. And until we know more, you can’t say things like that, alright? Maybe you’ll just wake up and this’ll all have just been a bad dream.”

Maiya rolled her eyes. “Uh, huh. Sure.”

“Whatever it is, we’ll find a way out of it. Together. I’m… I’m strong now. Strong enough to keep both of us safe.”

“I know,” Maiya said quietly. “The way you Leaped up here? I didn’t want to distract you, so I didn’t say anything before… But that’s impossible, Vir. No Talent wielder moves that far. If that’s any measure to go by, I can’t even begin to imagine the gains you’ve made.”

Maiya bit her lip as she said that, though Vir failed to notice. He was busy retrieving his katar, though doing so just reminded him of the chakram Ekanai had stolen.

Vir popped to his feet and held out his hands, helping Maiya up.

“Check this out,” Vir said, firing off a Katar Launch Barrage. Deadly arcs of prana blasted out of his blade one after another, so thick with prana they became visible, even to Maiya’s eyes.

The prana blades ripped deep gashes in the grass, as if ravaged by a giant claw.

It was the same Talent Kamna had used against him in Daha, just thrice as powerful and with a dozen more blades.

He looked back to see her jaw hit the floor.

Prana Current flared and Vir allowed a trace of his accumulated prana to seep out, forming black flames that burned off his skin.

This time, Maiya fell on her butt, pointing comically at where his strikes had landed.

“What the grak! That’s. Not. Possible!”

Vir grinned. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I can only do stuff like this in the Ashen Realm.”

Mostly, he didn’t add. The immense prana reserves in his body allowed him a few full power blasts regardless of where he was, and Prana Current ensured he’d able to regain what he lost, though perhaps not immediately.

Vir looked forward to testing his powers against the challenges faced by the prana-starved Demon Realm. Despite the setbacks he’d face, he was confident his gains in the Ash would give him an unfair advantage.

Maiya shook her head. “Well, I guess this is all just karma, compensating for the lack of prana you had to live with your whole life, isn’t it? I’m happy for—!?”

Vir Blinked to Maiya, nearly smashing into her as he grabbed her by the waist before Blinking away.

A moment longer, and Maiya’s head would’ve been cut clean off.

Standing where she’d been just moments earlier was none other than Reaper Ekanai, twirling Vir’s Artifact chakram with a wicked grin.

“Enjoy your little reunion?” A raspy voice said. “I hope you said farewell. No? A pity. At least you will die together.”