Chapter 6: Younglings

Chapter 6:
Younglings

 

“HEY, MARIA, I’m home.” Linus stepped into the small room where Maria was hiding out, his arms full of supplies.

Even with the mask covering her face, she still avoided looking at him directly.

“Welcome back.”

Linus chuckled to himself at the gentle sound of her voice and dropped the supplies in front of her.

“So I met up with Flum today.”

He began to set their lunch out on the table.

“Oh…really? So I guess you heard about what happened to me? And…my face.”

“The Origin core? Would never have guessed the church would be researching things like that…”

“I used it of my own free will, you know. I don’t intend to make any excuses. I was one of them, after all. I’m sure Flum has already told you all about me.”

“Aah, yeah. I guess Flum didn’t exactly have the best impression of you.”

Maria didn’t seem particularly bothered.

“Listen, Linus, why don’t we just run away? I know you said you wanted to wait until things calmed down, but I don’t see why we can’t go now.” The anxiousness was clear in her voice.

Linus scooted closer to Maria. “You know we can’t do that.”

“Why not? If we leave now, no one will ever know, and we can get far, far away, where no one will bother…”

“And how long do you think we could live like that?”

He had no idea how fixated the church was on finding Maria, but it was undeniable that they had gone out of their way to transform her body and lock her away. They would almost certainly come after them. All that aside, he had no way of knowing what would happen to her body if they just left the Origin core be.

“Two months…maybe one. But even that would be fine with me. At the very least, we could spend even a brief time together, as two young people in love.”

“Maria, I want to live with you forever. I don’t know if you’re just so afraid of what the future holds that a single month sounds tempting, or if you know something that leads you to believe that’s all the time you have left. But as far as I’m concerned, I finally managed to convince you to fall in love with me, and there’s no way I could be satisfied with only a month together. I hope you can see where I’m coming from.”

“You’re set on this?”

“Absolutely. Even if we would be happy, I don’t want my life with you to have some awful deadline hanging over it.”

The fact that Linus’s affection remained unshaken even after what happened to her body was reason enough to doubt her previous choice. She understood where he was coming from.

Linus is so strong. A far cry from me. I’m so jealous…but I guess that’s why I love him. And that’s why…

If he wasn’t going to concede, then Maria only had one choice left.

“All right. But will you at least stay with me for the rest of the day?”

“Maria…”

“Go ahead, call me a coward if you’d like. But if we ever go outside together, I’m not confident that I could even hold your hand again. There’s just such a sinister air about this city.”

“I understand.”

Linus could concede this point at least.

He placed his hand atop hers and gazed straight into her face. “I’ll be here with you for the rest of the day, thinking about nothing but you. How does that sound?”

“I’d…I’d like that.”

Though overcome with emotion, she no longer had eyes to cry with. Instead, blood spurted from the seams of the spiral in her face, dripping down her neck.

 

***

 

Flum wandered the entirety of the East District but came up empty-handed. There was no sign of the Children. She made her way through the Central District on her way home when something bid her to stop in front of the church.

“This whole place is practically deserted. Even the church looks empty.”

Even walking on a side road like she was at the moment, it was rare to ever find the place so devoid of people.

“The Central District church… I wonder how Sara’s doing with the demons.”

Sara spent so much of her life blaming demonkind for the hometown she lost; Flum reckoned that being on the lam with one would be uncomfortable at best. At the very least, Neigass seemed to have taken an immediate liking to her. Sara would be safe with her—or so Flum hoped.

Flum and the rest of her colleagues were the only ones who really knew what happened to Sara. The people of the Central District church, those who had raised Sara since she was a child, were probably still praying for her safety.

“…But still, it’s really weird for the church to be deserted like this.”

The more she watched the building, the stranger the silence seemed. The nuns would never leave en masse unless a small war zone’s worth of people needed aid.

Were the Children wreaking havoc somewhere that Flum missed? In that case, the main thoroughfare was the most likely location. Right as she turned in that direction, she saw a familiar face running toward her.

“Huff…huff…haaah. Finally, someone I know.”

It was Slowe, the young staff member from the West District Guild. His shoulders heaved, and sweat dripped from his forehead.

“Slowe! Are you here alone?”

“I brought an adventurer with me for protection, but we lost track of each other in the ruckus on the main street. It seemed pretty dangerous back there, so I bailed. This was the least-crowded route.”

“A ruckus on the thoroughfare? What happened?”

Slowe gave a grave account of Gadhio’s encounter with the runaway carts.

“Carts running loose…sounds like Luke.”

Flum witnessed the spiky-haired boy’s Rotation power firsthand when she fought him after Ink’s abduction. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that he could drive a fleet of carts without horses to pull them.

“Do you know him? I guess it takes a hero to fight someone that powerful.”

“I’m no hero. Amazing people like Gadhio and Linus, they’re heroes. By the way, do you figure the church is empty so that they can take care of all the injured?”

“Hmm. That sounds possible. I saw a lot of nuns out in the streets. Now that all the shops are closed, I guess I’m not going to be able to finish that errand for Y’lla…”

Only a villain like Y’lla would send him out to run an errand in a situation like this. Then again, she’d probably set him up with that adventurer to be his bodyguard; maybe she wasn’t all bad.

“Listen, I’ll deal with Y’lla if she says anything about it,” Flum said.

“Really? I appreciate it! So does that mean that you’re heading back to the guild?”

“Yeah. I doubt I can fight the people behind this amid all the clamor.”

She was worried about sending Slowe back to the guild all on his own. He wasn’t a target, but Rischel of the church knights nearly killed him once already.

Flum sensed imminent peril coming from behind and threw Slowe aside.

“Watch out!”

“Waaaugh?!”

FWIP!

A small stone flew past through the space where he’d stood moments before.

“Heh, so close. Just a moment sooner and I would’ve smashed his skull wide open.” The lone figure rolled several small stones around in their hand, making an audible clack—interrupted only by the sloshing sound of blood splattering out of the spiral in their face.

Judging by the spiky hair, it was evidently Luke. He had put a powerful spin on the rock to send it hurtling through the air at deadly speed.

“Eyaugh!! What’s that…that…thing?!”

“But you’re not getting away this time. You two aren’t long for this world!” Luke tossed all his rocks into the air. “Rotation! Endless Shot!”

The stones hung in the air for a moment before beginning to spin. The friction from the air slowly ground them down until they took on a conical shape and shot right at Flum.

“Looks like you weren’t just playing around!” Flum jerked Slowe back up to his feet with one hand, summoning her Souleater with the other. She drew a large cross in the air with two vicious swipes, leaving behind glowing arcs of prana energy. Stabbing through the point where the lines intersected, they spread and opened like an umbrella, forming a faintly transparent shield.

“A thin shield like that is no match for me!”

“It’s a lot stronger than you think! I made sure of that!”

The stones slammed into the shield, disappearing with a loud crack and a bright flash of light.

“Aaaaaaaaagh!!!”

Slowe, the innocent bystander to all this carnage, curled up into a ball and refused to move. But Flum’s shield held, keeping him from harm.

“Heh, so you managed to survive that one. I guess you got a lot stronger since we last met. Till next time, then!”

“Slowe, get out of here. I’m going to take care of him myself!”

“O-okay!”

Luke turned his attention back to the escaping Slowe and pointed a fist toward his back. “Rotation! Air Shot!!”

Flum immediately stepped in the way and used her Souleater to soak the invisible blast.

The noise was tremendous as the wind battered her blade. It was all she could do to keep her arms outstretched. The attack was practically identical to the one the ogres she’d fought before had used.

After letting it die down a bit, she channeled her reversal power through her blade to finally dissipate the blast.

While she was doing that, Slowe escaped into the church.

“Damn, looks like he got away. Keep your nose out of other people’s business, yeah?!” Luke glared angrily at Flum for interfering with his attempt on Slowe’s life.

“Why are you trying to kill him?”

“I swore that from here on out, if I see it, I kill it. No exceptions. And that applies to you, too! Rotation!”

It wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but at the very least, it seemed like he wasn’t specifically targeting Slowe. Flum held her sword at the ready, preparing for the next round of shots.

But this time, the air concentrated at his feet. The air spun with such immense force that she could hear it cracking as it formed into two crude wheels, launching Luke straight toward her.

“Whoa, how’d you get so fast?!”

He moved faster than she could have anticipated. Right before he made contact, two huge spirals formed around both of his arms, whirling at a speed that could bore through flesh and bone effortlessly. He stretched his right arm out toward her.

Flum made a panicked riposte. It felt like she had struck a stone. His attacks were far more intimidating now that he was close.

Sensing that her guard was down, Luke launched into a left hook that found its mark in her gut.

“Gyaaaaugh!!”

She heard a disgusting tearing sound as part of her side and intestines were torn to shreds. The spiral surrounding Luke’s left arm took on a red hue as it filled with blood and flesh.

He followed up his strike with a right hook to her face.

“Not gonna…!”

Flum screamed through the pain, managing to parry the blow in the nick of time.

Luke made for another face jab, this time with his left fist. She could only guess that he was intentionally aiming at her head because he knew that her regenerative abilities would only help as long as her brain and heart were intact. She wouldn’t survive a blow like that.

Fortunately for her, he was falling into an easy-to-read pattern.

She dropped the sword, twisting and weaving around his punches.

“How are you doing that?!”

“Your strategy is way too simple, kid!”

Flum moved into Luke’s spin and let the force carry her forward to throw a punch of her own straight at his face in retaliation for what he did to her stomach. Her reversal magic reacted with the power of Origin, filling his body and sending him flying backward.

Now that they weren’t in close quarters anymore, she recalled her Souleater to her hands. Letting the force of her blow carry her forward, she flipped through the air and swept the black blade straight at Luke’s skull. He was already off-balance and out of time to dodge. Not by normal means at least.

“Rotation!” Without a moment to spare, Luke summoned up his energy and created a gust of wind at his feet, sending him clear of the blow.

But Flum wasn’t done yet.

“You’re not getting away!” She summoned up her prana and slashed another cross into the air.

Luke took one look at her windup and, realizing that escape by any normal means would be all but impossible, leaped into the air.

He should have started to return to the earth the moment he hit the apex, but gravity had no hold on him. Flum spotted a whirlwind surrounding his feet and holding him aloft.

“So what do you think of Papa’s power, huh? Humans like you could never do this!” He let out a triumphant laugh before throwing several more punches, barraging Flum with enough spiral blasts that it felt to her like she was trying to dodge rain. A veil of dust and scattered, broken stones surrounded her.

“Funny how you sound so assured of your victory, and yet you resort to such cheap tactics!”

Right as she may have been, Flum also couldn’t pull off a counterattack while she was preoccupied with not dying.

However, she wasn’t merely trying to escape—she was also carefully analyzing Luke’s abilities.

Luke’s first attack put a spin on those small pebbles to make them pierce targets. They’re almost certainly more powerful than the air bursts he switched to later, even though they couldn’t pierce my prana shield.

This was a surprise to Flum. No matter how good her barrier of prana and reversal magic may have been, she still expected to sustain at least a few injuries.

Luke isn’t weaker than the other Children. Does it have to do with how our powers interact? His power involves clockwise rotation, while mine reverses everything. In fact, now that I look at the wind…

Flum stopped in place and waited for one of Luke’s blasts. Just before it struck, she met it head-on with her blade.

“Reversion!” She poured a great deal of her magic into her blade right as it made contact. Just as Flum suspected, the spiral faded away.

“Wh-what?!” Luke stared in shock but didn’t let up. He let off another burst, and—

“Dissipate and revert!” This time, Flum didn’t even bother with her sword. She countered the attack with her bare hand.

“How did you learn how to nullify my attacks like that?? Heh, no matter—I still have the high ground!”

No sooner had he said this than Flum reversed gravity and rose into the air.

“How in the hell did you get up here?!”

“Sorry to ruin your advantage, kid.”

“Don’t make fun of meeeee!!” He prepared another spiral blast, but he was already too late.

“Haaaaaaaah!”

Flum swung her sword right toward his neck, fully intent on killing him.

Much like Mute and Fwiss, she figured that he was also well past saving. At the very least, she could make his death quick and painless, before he had a chance to build on his sins.

“Uaaaaaaaagh!!”

But Luke had the desperation of a cornered animal. Just as the black blade was about to make contact with his flesh, he opened the floodgates of his energy and threw his right arm out to protect his head.

The Souleater slashed right through his flesh, severing his arm.

“Ga…auuuuugh!” Luke felt like he was on fire as he watched his arm disappear from the elbow down.

The wound began to twist shut, though it did nothing for the pain. He wobbled in the air, slowly dropping as his concentration wavered.

Flum let up on her gravity reversal and returned to the ground.

“What in the holy hell was that?! Hey, wipe that arrogant look off your face!” Luke held his injured arm and screamed in rage. “Are you trying to feign sympathy now? You and I, we’re here to kill each other. Now cut it out!!”

“Nekt wanted to save you, you know.”

“Heh, that jerk? Here I thought she’d stay out of this, but no, she was out seeing you.”

“Nekt meant to use me for her own purposes at first, but she opened her heart to us in time. We promised to help. She’s going to become a normal child again.”

“What, and become like Ink? We’re not like her! We take pride in our power, our bodies, in the fact that we’re Mother’s children! That’s why we need to leave our mark on the world—to prove that we were here and that we were more than human!”

“Is this really what you want to do, or have you just given up on finding another way?”

“That just makes it more important! Death. Murder. We’ll keep killing because it’s all we have!”

Flum hoped once that the Children would come to her for help, but it was clear that Mother’s influence was too strong for such a simple solution. It looked like there were no avenues left open to her. The idea that she would offer him aid, they would come to a mutual understanding, and this whole problem would just go away was a lost cause.

Flum raised her blade and pressed the tip against his chest.

“So you think you know where the Origin core is?” Luke shoved his hand into his pocket and ran his fingertips across the item Mother had given him.

“The one in your body? Pretty much. It should be right about…” Flum squeezed the hilt and drove forward.

“Waaaaaaaugh!!”

She was interrupted by what sounded like Slowe screaming from inside the church. In that briefest of moments when Flum’s attention was elsewhere, Luke managed to break away and put some distance between them.

Before she had a chance to close in on him again, he spoke up.

“You sure you want to do that? He’s all alone with the third generation, you know.”

“Grrr…”

Flum stole a glance back at the church. Sure, he could be playing her, but she already sensed some ominous, inhuman presence lurking in the church.

She took off toward the church, leaving Luke to make his escape.

“Gah, how do you even run like that?? Next time we meet, you’re doomed!”

Luke clenched his fist as he yelled, the bitterness evident in his voice.

 

***

 

Several minutes earlier, Slowe had slumped down in a long pew after managing to escape into the church. He could still hear the battle between Flum and Luke raging outside.

“I hope Flum’s okay.”

It felt a bit pathetic to rely on a young girl to protect him. Not only was he a grown man, but he had even trained plenty by himself to improve his mastery over wind magic. He’d thought this might be his chance to use it, but he was way outclassed.

“But that…thing, it was coming for me in particular. Just like that church knight a little while ago. Why? I was born to a completely ordinary mother! I’m a completely ordinary staff member at a run-of-the-mill guild!”

He couldn’t think of anything notable about his life, except that he couldn’t recall his father’s face. And it wasn’t like that was terribly unique for a West District boy.

“Gaaaaa…grrrooouuu…fraooo…”

Somewhere deep within the church, Slowe heard a faint voice…if you could call it a voice at all. He shot up to his feet, his eyes fixed on the door at the chapel’s far end.

“Is there someone there?”

As the battle outside intensified, it’d be no huge surprise if someone came to check it out.

“I’m coming in, okay?” Slowe grabbed the doorknob and stepped inside into a part of the church usually reserved for the clergy themselves—something akin to the “staff only” door in a restaurant. He felt a faint pang of guilt.

“Yes…good boy…I…hahahaha…”

“Is that laughter?”

As he moved down the hallway, he began to hear the sound of a woman laughing. Ominous, given the circumstances. Slowe was shaking by the time he reached the door separating him from the voice. He pressed his ear to the door.

“Yes, my child… Mine, all mine, my cute little child. Why are you so cute, I wonder?”

It sounded like a mother fawning over her child. It made sense for a mother with a newborn child to be at the church. Having identified the source of the voice, Slowe turned and began to make his way back to the chapel.

“Hm…what do…? Mama, I…ng?”

As he walked back down the hallway, he heard a loud thump, followed by the creak of floorboards under an unfamiliar weight.

“No…still…huh? You…kill…at all.”

The sound grew ever closer before it suddenly stopped.

BWAFOOM!

The door he’d put his ear to moments before shattered.

Slowe’s whole body trembled as he slowly turned to look behind him.

“Waaaaaaaaaah!!”

He was greeted by the sight of an infant’s head. But this was no ordinary infant—its head was at least a meter across.

A hoarse cry erupted from its half-open mouth as a thick tendril of drool poured out the side.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Overcome by fear, Slowe dropped to the ground and screamed.