43. Trials And Tribulations Of An Honorary Witch
「Katsumi」
Hotaru cares for me, she was trying to protect me. I get that. Still, that was super scary.
I'm fidgeting.
Okay, maybe I’m not over this 'slight' readjustment of my worldview, just yet. How could I?
That tangible magic—the thing I can do now—is a bit more than a convenient way in the light novel for Tarō to be a badass demon-hunter, having his wounds always healed before the next big fight without spending months in the hospital.
It runs much deeper.
Wait, does Hotaru know that other girl who can cast healing spells? Should I ask her? What was her name, Reina? Something like that. Fellow witch I guess. She ends up falling for Tarō, that’s the only thing I remember, but he won’t meet her in this timeline, because that's all tied up with the train yard fight.
Or maybe he will?
No, this world isn't self correcting and the responsibility to clean up this mess still falls to me.
What a drag.
Anyway the important thing is, I can now add a honorary witch status to my honorary girl one, adding another uncomfortable layer to the 'what’s my gender again?' cluster-fuck that my life is turning into.
Apparently there aren’t any male witches because of some deal an ancient shaman queen made with the kami, to only ever teach spells to women.
Thanks Hotaru for the impromptu history lesson and thanks Ouha for the complete obliteration of my already shaky manhood.
Not that I'm particularly fond of it but still.
And it’s not that men can’t learn spells on principle, they can. It’s more that thanks to this whole history, casting spells is kinda cringe and unmanly and better left to women who can do these dainty little hand gestures.
A true man uses summoned weapons or carves protection spells into concrete but casting? That’s too feminine.
This world is so freaking stupid!
No wonder this 'hiding in plain sight' bullshit works.
To be fair, only as long as one doesn’t overdo it. There's a logic to Hotaru’s words. The moment one looks bad-ass in a way men would like to emulate or they get wind of what's actually going on, it's over.
And I might not be able to instantly advance with my spellcasting, but I can see it accelerating my growth anyway. Like for example, I can put my flame on my weapon and pretend to have a magical katana or naginata, or cast it up close and personal where no potential onlooker would notice it.
Everything is fine.
Okay not everything, there was an intense if hastened talk with the whole gang after Chie and Haruki arrived and joined us about the keep-magic-hidden rule with me as the prime target, which was a bit unfair. Hotaru is a witch too, the more powerful one of us two, but whatever.
And I haven't stopped buzzing.
Probably full of adrenaline.
The discussion soon explodes over a totally different manner as Mayumi huffs, “This is an open Guild contract!? From the app?”
Haruki crosses her arms “Yup. I took it. Looked straightforward. Two class-C flesh eaters, giant centipede looking bastards. We still got half an hour for completion before it goes up on the app again.”
“You do know if you fail a Guild contract they deduct points!”
"They also add more for completion than out of the system kills.”
“But they don’t pay better.”
“It’s two class-Cs. That’s a good payday. And they don’t have any hidden talents or magic—we checked the encyclopedia. They’re just big and nasty.”
“It’s a good deal”, Chie contributes.
Mayumi scrunches her face, “I don’t like it.”
Scooting closer to our miffed queen of darkness, Haruki lays her arm across Mayumi’s shoulders and points down the road to a dark underpass in the distance.
“Two nasty demons, right there, waiting for you to kill them.” She says with a grin, and like that, Mayumi’s ice melts away.
“If you put it like that…”
It dawns on me why this area has been so deserted all this time. There are demons about a hundred and fifty meters from us, lying in the shadows for their next meal.
I strain my eyes.
Oh fuck!
They’re actually there—the familiar disgust fills me. Two giant black lumps under the underpass. Those things are as big as a horse!
What the fuck!?
“We'll pair off, one close combat fighter with one ranged.” Haruki’s battle-plan pulls me back, “Mayumi is with me and you Chie, you go with Katsumi. Hotaru I need you keep your distance so you can run interference for both teams.”
“But I have the most training and synergy with you," I complain to Haruki.
“You saved our asses with Chie against the fear demon, and you've grown since. I believe in you, you two got this.”
Not the answer I wanted, but okay.
Chie eyes me over her glasses and gives me an ok sign.
Yeah, sure I’m kind of an expert on the whole giant bug exterminating front, but I think I'd take a stone monkey or an ink tiger over whatever is lying in ambush down there.
Everyone huddles in for last words of encouragement, the hurrah before battle, then our glowing blades are summoned.
In we go.
I’m tense with trepidation.
There is a certain weight to your breath when you go willingly into a fight. It lies in the certainty that your mistakes are going to be paid in pain and blood.
Your body will fight you on this, drawing attention to itself.
The sensation usually drowns in the rushing adrenaline, but if you face enough moments like this, the awareness surfaces nonetheless.
I feel the weight of my naginata, the waistband of my skirt, my feet making contact with the ground. It’s all present, while every instinct in me screams to run the opposite way.
Chie is in front, with me right behind her.
We’re going to take the left lump of black nothingness hiding in the shadow of the underpass entrance. She’ll draw it out and I’ll cut it into pieces when it charges at us.
The air smells damp, holding on to the long passed rain.
Mentally I play through potential opening moves. Once the fight starts in earnest there will be no time for it. You have to rely on your muscle memory in the heat of the moment.
The harsh chime-like pings of Chie’s pistol mark the beginning. The shadow unfurls, accompanied by the chilling surge of dozen upon dozen chitinous clicks, of legs pushing an abomination forward with a terrifying speed.
Under the bright light of the streetlamp, true horror manifests.
A writhing mass of segments, waves of limbs clawing at the world. Fast, deadly and numerous.
Unfiltered pure dread shoots through me.
I've seen the demon’s smaller mundane cousins, who already look alien and kinda scary, but at this size my mind has me begging to look away.
In its race, the distance between us and the demon evaporates in a few seconds.
I take Chie by her shoulder, turn her away and move in front to shield her.
At the last moment, more like a snake than anything, the giant centipede, dark and ominous lifts its head and front half, to strike like a whip.
I slam the pole of my weapon between its enormous pincers, blocking its attack. With a twist clockwise, I force its head and body to roll with the motion pushing it off us and redirect the force of its assault away.
It flips and tosses around, while I feel Chie’s arm on my waist keeping me out at harms way as she unleashes a second salvo at the beast. She retreats and I put the blade of my naginata towards the ground.
Like a steel spring under tension, the giant centipede snaps back at us, and I use its own momentum to drive the edge of my weapon into its side, taking four of its legs, but it scrapes against the body. The demon’s armored segments appear to be about as tough as a certain stone monkey’s skin.
Shit.
Hurt by the loss of its limbs, it abandons its attack for a split-moment, enough for Chie to fire her pistol again.
Behind our demon I see Haruki throwing her mark in a wide arc.
My pride takes an uncharacteristic hit. I’m really weak aren’t? I could never do such a thing.
A blitz attack of our centipede cuts any further thought. I brace and catch his pincers once more.
My feet slide across the pavement. Too little weight, too little strength.
I twist my weapon like before to get rid of it.
It works, barely.
The long, writhing, segmented body flails around as I shake the demon off. I intercept its follow up strike with my blade, cutting nothing.
The demon’s armor is too strong.
In fast succession, I stab after it, trying to hit in between its segments, but its extreme speed renders my attempts impossible.
The demon feints another head on attack with its pincers. I recognize it too late.
As I doge and pull Chie with me, the giant centipede’s back half soars at me and hits me center mass.
Sharp pain.
My breath is taken from me.
I get thrown to the ground.
I can feel my whole ribcage ache.
Chie fires wildly.
To my far right I see a barrier blink into existence and a centipede crashing against it.
Not ours!
It's still at large.
I force myself back onto my feet.
It’s a blur in my periphery.
MOVE CHIE!!!
Inky darkness, crawling horror, giant pincers.
I shove Chie out of the way.
She flies.
I stare at the burning red eyes of the demon racing at me. It’s maw wide open. The trajectory is set in stone.
No time to move out of the way myself.
My weapon lies on the ground, out of reach.
I could resummon it.
Or…
A syllable on my lip.
A flick of my hand pulling index finger and thumb together.
A visualization of channels running through my body.
Goosebumps.
Nothing…
『 F U C K 』
The demon slams into me.
The pain is immediate.
An unrelenting fire of screaming nerve endings as its pincers close tight around my right upper arm, right below my shoulder.
I get pulled away.
As me and the demon careen past Chie, I glimpse the horror in her eyes sitting there on the asphalt where I pushed her.
The world retreats and I can almost taste the glee of the demon, jubilant that it has caught its prey.
Its revolting chitinous face with its long antennas is so close to mine. It reeks of decaying flesh and I almost pass out between the pain and the rot.
I should be thankful that at this size it doesn't need any venom.
It hasn’t let go of me, dragging me with it.
Only one way out.
Through the enormous pain I force myself into the here and now.
Fuck you I'm not dying here.
Its incredible speed is nullified from my perspective, for the moment.
I focus on the gap between its head plate and its long writhing body with is myriad legs.
My good arm pushes down hard on its head.
I prop myself up, aware of the increasing pain of my right arm.
The demon slams me to the ground, my breath gets punched out of me—doesn't matter.
In this split second as I go down, I take my one chance.
A forgotten friend manifests in my left hand.
My short sword.
I force the blade into the small space behind its head plate and yank it to the side as hard as I can. The sounds is awful yet indescribable.
A screech of nothing.
Whatever control the demon’s head had over its body is gone the same moment, seeing how the connection is now loose at best.
The body flails around, still deadly and terrifying, but beginning from the separation I forced, a ghostly flame consumes it, ever hungry.
The tension on my right arm falls away with the ash of the dead demon.
My arm feels cold.
A warm stream runs across it.
I look down at nothing but red.
That’s a lot of blood!
Oh fuck, am I bleeding out!?
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
A shiver takes hold of me.
I hear Chie’s screams as she scrambles to reach me, Hotaru soon follows.
It doesn’t even hurt that much.
Not anymore.
Big eyes frozen by shock stare at me, before Hotaru manages to move Chie to the side.
Hotaru’s gaze grabs mine and a short understanding passes between us.
She'll take care of me.
Her hands wrap around the wound on my arm, while she yells, “Chie go help the others, I got her.”
There is a brief flick of her left hand which is full of blood—my blood—and two mana barriers in a pointed wedge shape close us off from the mayhem beyond.
The second demonic centipede has half a dozen glowing arrows sticking out of it and infrequent gaps in its row of legs but displays no sign of slowing down.
Behind the sheen of the barrier it raises the front portion of its body and snaps down at the three girls with ferocity.
Each strike gets parried by a hefty swing of Haruki large sword, sending the demon reeling every time.
Watching the fight, I notice how little the monster actually cares for Chie’s shots. Haruki’s blows on the other hand appear to stun it every time even as they seem powerless against its armor.
Underneath the noise of the raging battle lies Hotaru’s steady hum of incarnations. I feel the spell like the ebb and flow of waves on a calm shore. With every repetition of her short phrase another pulse washes through my mangled upper arm.
I close my eyes.
I try to picture what Ouha showed me. Of resonance and silent sounds, of mana flowing past channels and behind everything I can make it out, the thing Hotaru is doing.
I get the impression of a stained cloth being rinsed, as if my wound is something to be washed away, to leave an unblemished body behind.
I feel Hotaru’s mana, strange and foreign, guided by an invisible hand that is clearly not hers, entering my body, restoring what got stained.
I want to help this kind, unseen stranger that is assisting Hotaru.
Is there a way?
Can I lend them my own mana?
Would that help?
But I don’t know how.
I let myself dive, determined to at least memorize the syllables Hotaru is chanting, trying to grasp their intent.
If I can’t help, I’ll do my best to understand.
Through our connection I can sense Hotaru running dry. A kettle with little water.
She has stopped chanting, the link to her still active barriers is tentative. They’d fail under any significant assault.
Hotaru is close. She doesn’t let go of me, even as her magic has done its work. The wound is gone.
Her face hovers right in front of mine.
“I saw it. Why didn’t you summon your weapon?” She mutters.
“Tried to burn it.”
Her eyes tremble.
“You stupid stupid idiot. You can’t even reliably cast out of battle, what made you think you could do in a moment like this? You stupid idiot! Never do that again!”
I see tears.
“Okay.”
“Idiot! Never again!”
A sob.
“Okay.”
“Never! You understand?”
Streaks are running down her face.
“Yes.”
Her head rests against my shoulder.
“Thank you for saving Chie.”
“Thank you… for saving me.”
A dry chuckle, forced and hollow.
There is little else for us to do but watch. Hotaru is out of mana.
I’m somewhat surprised that she's still maintaining the barriers she cast earlier.
And I?
Well it’s probably better for me to stay put for the time being. I definitely feel light headed and haven't really stopped shivering.
After minutes that stretch out to an eternity, Haruki manages to pin the head of the demon to the ground and Mayumi unleashes a powerful arrow that is capable of piercing the hard shell right between its antenna.
It’s done.
The second demon burns to ash.
It’s over.
Soon all the girls pile onto me dotingly.
Tired and cold, I acquiesce to my fate.
I have to reiterate over and over again that I’m fine.
Even if Hotaru refutes the assertion, immediately saying that she might have healed my wound but I still have lost a lot of blood.
So I have to promise up and down that I get myself some iron tablets and even an traditional medicine concoction she writes down, and then as if that isn’t enough, I get benched and have to promise to not hunt or train for at least the next couple of days to see if I get dizzy and might actually have to go see a doctor.
Chie hands me a spare t-shirt from her messenger bag so I don’t have to run around town in a top that is soaked with my own blood and off we go to cash in our contract and demon hearts.