Chapter 13: Accept Consent Override (Y) (N).
I knelt on the wet floor covered in sand and chalk. The charm was colder than the river,it took the heat from my palm.
Alma knelt across from me,her knees in the circle,her face trying to stay formed. She put her hand over mine and this time it actually landed, although I couldn’t feel skin but wires instead. Her pupils were too wide and it made my heart beat too loud.
"Ready?" Vesper asked.
"No," I said.
"Let’s us begin." Rhea said.
Vesper’s knife sang as she cut her palm,squeezed a line of bright red blood onto the charm and then mine and then Alma’s palm...though she didn’t bleed so much which puddles with the rest and didn’t mix, like oil.
Vesper began to speak, the words weren’t words, they were like chants,spells. Her rings chimed in counterpoint and the chalk circle began to warm up. My fingers went numb,the charm dragged down not physically,not gravity, something more personal, as if a hand had found my heartbeat and was politely insisting it lived in the charm now.
Alma gasped and her outline lifted in strands, her hair rising as if she was underwater. "No," she whispered, astonished at herself. "No....no...Eiji.."
"I’ve got you," I said, though my voice sounded like I was rehearsing how to be brave.
The door sang, high..needles arched into my gums. Rhea’s jaw clenched as she threw the knitted bone. It bit the hinge and cracked into powder. The song stuttered,a soldier on the far side yelped like a dog who had been in a fight with a porcupine.
"Halfway," Vesper hissed, pouring a vial of something silvery into the chalk. There was smoke as it wrote its own name and evaporated. The charm over my chest started to buck like a small living thing. My blood slicked my palm and then vanished into the steel as if it had been drunk by something thirsty.
Alma’s hair snapped like a flag. Her eyes were huge and wet with light. "Eiji," she said helplessly for the first time or maybe once again. "I....+...."
Her voice was cut into static and the charm but into my bone
The wall behind the bed exploded, not the door,the wall,the stones flew,the jars broke,the talisman leaped out of place. Vesper swore in a dialect I didn’t understand.
The horned figure stepped through the hole it had made and kept walking towards us like it was done being patient.
Up close, it was worse. The heat from it was absent and a cold that ate deep into me. Its ember eyes flared at the circle then softened at me as if it was fond of me
"Mine," it said gently.
Rhea met it with motion, her blade rattled the flat of its butcher steel and I felt the impact in my teeth. She slid,pivoted to the right,tried to cut,blocked, swore and moved again. It could have cut her in half three times but it didn’t, it kept angling for me.
Vesper spat hair out of her mouth,never breaking cadence. "Do not stop," she yelled. "If you stop, it’s over for Alma."
The charm hammered into my ribs from the inside and my vision narrowed until Vesper’s circle was like a tunnel and Alma the only person in it. She was being spooled,thread by thread into the steel, light winding from her wrists,her throat and her eyes.
The figure raised its free hand, space and wrinkled panels slammed me again.
[Emergency Prompt — Consent Override]
[Do you accept foreign handshake?]
[Y] N
The N flickered like a candles and the Y purred.
"Eiji!" Rhea shouted, her voice coming from a long way off through the metal. "Eyes on Alma! Focus!"
l found Alma, she had both hands on mine now. "Say it," she mouthed.
"Alma, I trust you," I said and the charm swallowed the words like they were part of the ritual. The prompt guttered the Y and the N stood strong.
[Borrowed Set —Anchor Link: Vision Lock (10s) — RE-APPLIED]
The horned figure paused, his ember eyes cooled a degree.
"Interesting," it murmured and if a coal could sound pleased this one did.
The door bolts blew inward and the guards poured through in a glittering and angry river. Lucien came first like he was in charge. "Captain," he said to Rhea, a sneer on his face "you look tired...allow me.."
The white fire Dragon roared somewhere overhead us so powerfully that dust fell. From the ceiling or what was supposed to be the ceilings. For a moment the guards faltered behind and Vesper took the opportunity and stamped her heels in the circle and cried out a word that sounded like ancient chant.
The charm under my hand flared cold and Alma arched, mouth open in a silent cry, her body unfurling into a line of light that slid into the steel and into me. Her eyes were the last part to go but they stayed on mine until there were no eyes left, just a bright seam and then nothing.
Silence took over the room.
[Kernel Scabbard: ACTIVE]
[Alma — Status: HIBERNATE (23% integrity, climbing..)]
[Borrowed Sets: UNAVAILABLE]
[Anchor Load: 87% —WARNING]
My arms shook,the charm had weight but now was soul weight. It pressed my heart into shapes. The whole room rushed at me, shouting,the sound of steel meeting steel, the smell of alcohol and brick.
Rhea cut a guard out,Lucien pointed at me, Vesper flicked three rings and three guards were flung to the side.
The horned figure reached across the circle with its empty hand, the air made my skin have goosebumps and my prompt returned like a fucking debt collector.
[Consent Override — FINAL]
[Do you accept the merge?]
[Y] N
[Timer:00:10]
The numbers began to countdown again.
"Eiji Don’t!!" Rhea snapped, blocking a cut and giving the guard a sharp kick to the knee. "Eiji...look at me."
"Do not move," Vesper hissed through her teeth, chalk flying. " If you break that circle now, I will personally send you to whatever afterlife takes people who ruin my work!"
The horned figure’s ember eyes brightened. "You came for me," it said again, soft like it was a secret.
I didn’t blink, I couldn’t. Alma was a weight under my palm and a hush in my skull and Rhea was a blade in a storm. Vesper was a hand dragging a drowning boy to shore with insults.
The time began to count faster.
[00:07]
"Eiji," Rhea said and that was all I heard
[00:06]
The figures palm opened wider and the cold compressed, the crickets chalked hissed.
[00:05]
From above, there was a crack and the dust rained down on us, a coil of white light leaked through the ceiling.
[00:04]
Charlotte’s voice boomed from a distance, furiously. "Seal the section..now..NOW!"
[00:03]
The prompt brightened and the Y grew bigger and the N grew thinner
[00:02]
The charm under my palm kicked alive like a second heart in my skull and I heard her voice, faint line a radio under water
"Eiji...please don’t let it wear me."
[00:01]
The horned figure’s hand touched the air above my chest and everything went white.