Reimi

  The air in the Railyard didn't smell like rot to me anymore.

  It smelled like home.

  The stench of hot metal, discharged molten plasma, and ozone. The specific, coppery tang of mana-rich ichor. The static hiss of a reality threatened by the forces beyond.

  It was the perfume of my soul.

  The new power humming in my veins wasn't the tainted, chaotic energy I'd gotten accustomed to.

  It tasted of Maya's saccharine hope, but it was filtered through my own void core. It was like mixing sugar and gasoline. A volatile, high-octane fuel.

  That hug.

  That damned hug.

  That brief intrusive link had force-fed me so much high-density mana that my channels felt like they were vibrating out of my skin. It wasn't the dirty, recycled void-sludge I was used to scavenging in my quest.

  It was premium, unfiltered Light. What Bastet had once referred to as Lumina.

  It felt disgusting. It felt like wearing a sweater in a room that was too hot.

  I needed to burn it off.

  The rustling and chittering from deeper in the dungeon was an invitation.

  I answered.

  My feet didn't touch the ground. I launched myself, pushing off a floating rail, my black skirt whipping around me. The world became a blur of rust and shadow.

  A pack of Scrap-Hounds materialized from the fog, greeting my presence.

  Clack-thud.

  I racked the slide of The Withered Calyx.

  The sound was the only thing that made sense. A heavy, mechanical punctuation mark in a run-on sentence of emotions I didn't want to feel.

  A Scrap-Hound skittered across the floating wreckage above me, its metal claws shrieking against the rusted beams. It dropped, a blur of jagged iron and malice.

  I didn't even aim.

  I just let the excess energy - Maya’s energy, flood the runic channels of the barrel. The matte black steel flared with a violent orange explosion.

  BOOM.

  The recoil hit me like a sledgehammer. It was a beautiful, violent grounding. The Scrap-Hound didn't just die; it was flat out erased.

  The kinetic force of the shot, amplified by the overcharged mana, turned the monster into a fine mist of shrapnel and black oil that painted the wall behind it with its ashes.

  I walked through the mist.

  Clack-thud.

  The pump action was stiff. Heavy. It required twenty kilograms of force just to cycle the shell.

  A normal human couldn't do it. They'd tear a rotator cuff trying.

  I wasn't a normal human.

  My fingers wrapped around the grip, the cool, familiar wood settling into my palm. The metal was cold, the grip warm.

  It was a shotgun. A double-barreled pump-action bullpup shotgun.

  An engineering abomination. A gunsmith's fever dream. An over-designed magitech weapon designed by a mad poet.

  The stock was carved from a single, impossibly dense piece of petrified enchanted Ironwood. Etched into the wood was a complex, silver filigree of twisting, thorny vines that seemed to twist when you looked at them out of the corner of your eye.

  Each was fed by two independent magazine tubes - sixteen rounds. Seven in each tube, two in the chambers. They would never jam. And when they did, the ammunition Ruri had taught to Majalis could be converted into pure heat.

  The barrels were flared, like the trumpets of some dark, elegant flower, the metal polished to a black, mirror-like finish. They looked like the twin blossoms of a deadly, carnivorous plant.

  On the left side, sculpted in jagged silver, was (贖). On the right, scorched into the metal, was(咎).

  The whole thing was over a meter long. It weighed as much as a small child. It was impractical, unwieldy, and completely useless in a close-quarters fight for most people.

  Not for me.

  ("It’s not just a gun, Reimi.")

  The memory hit me in the silence between the echo of the blast and the hiss of the steam.

  It wasn't the clinical white of the lab that greeted me this time. It was the roof of the university dorms, under a starry sky. Waves crashed in the distance.

  A girl with shoulder-length blue hair was sitting on the edge of the roof, her long, slender legs dangling in the air. She was holding the stripped receiver of the shotgun, humming as she polished the breach with a microfiber cloth.

  ("Sorry for complaining about a birthday gift. But why double barrels?") I had asked, sitting next to her, watching her work. ("Why not an auto-loader? Something with a higher rate of fire? Something that makes sense?")

  She had smiled. It was a patient, knowing smile.

  ("Because you’re heavy, Reimi,") she said softly. ("You don't float like Akane. You don't dance like Kohaku. You sink. You carry the weight of everything we’ve done. And everything we’ve lost.")

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  She handed me the receiver. It pulled my hand down.

  ("A semi-automatic would float on you. It would jitter. You need the pump to throw your weight forward. To lean into the shot. And the double barrel...")

  She tapped the two gaping muzzles.

  ("One for the past. One for the future. You fire them both, and for a second... you stop time. You stop thinking. You just exist.")

  ("That sounds like poetry,") I had scoffed. ("I just need a weapon, not a metaphor.")

  She just smiled the way she does, the glint in her eyes. She adjusted her lab coat as she took the part back, reaching for the tools and components around her.

  ("Your entire life is a metaphor, Reimi. But yes, I felt you would need this. Double-barrel pumps usually have too much recoil to be practical except in very specific niche cases, but you?")

  Another Scrap-Hound. This one tried to circle around, using a floating cargo container for cover.

  Clack-thud.

  I tracked it through the rusted metal. Images flooded my mind. Returning to her workshop. Ruri chewing her bubblegum and blowing a bubble.

  KA-BOOM.

  ("Do you know what a Calyx is, Reimi?")

  I nodded slowly, turning the shell she'd handed me over over in my hands as we returned to her workshop. A slug, this one. For big targets. Armor piercing. Core-busters. I felt the familiar weight in my palm.

  ("It's a flower bud,") I had answered. ("A protective layer.")

  ("And what is a flower?")

  I remembered I had glared at her. ("A plant's reproductive organs.")

  She had laughed. A real, genuine laugh that always made me want to strangle her and hug her at the same time.

  ("It’s the part of the flower that holds the bud before it blooms. It’s tough. It’s green. It takes the wind and the rain so the petals don't have to. It's a promise, Reimi. A promise of life after death. A promise that no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much you lose, something beautiful will grow from the wreckage.")

  She closed my hand around the new magitech ammunition she'd forged herself, her own cool fingers closing over mine.

  Another Hound. I didn't even break stride. I just swung the shotgun up and pulled the trigger from the hip.

  The Hound exploded mid-leap, its upper torso disintegrating. The lower half, propelled by momentum, cartwheeled past me, skittering to a halt in a shower of sparks.

  ("But a pump action?") I had complained. ("It’s inefficient. The cycle rate is garbage compared to a semi-auto.")

  Ruri looked up then, pushing her magnifying goggles onto her forehead. Her eyes were blue and tired and terrifyingly smart.

  ("You won't miss,") she said simply. ("And as I hinted at earlier, that's not why I built it this way.")

  She stood up, hefting the weapon with a grunt. It looked way too big for her.

  ("When you fight, Reimi, you stop thinking sometimes. You stop breathing. You turn into... that thing they tried to make you. You burn until there's nothing left but ash.")

  She handed the gun to me. It settled into my grip like it had grown there. Then, she placed a hand on my chest.

  ("One. Two. Breathe. That rhythm. The pump. The trigger. It reminds you that you're not a monster. You're the person pulling the trigger. You're in control. You are the one who decides when to breathe. That’s the reason why.")

  I'd scoffed.

  ("Sounds like a bunch of hogwash. Besides, Kaito always gives me a nice smack up the head whenever I get a little too deep in the thick of it.")

  Clack-thud.

  A larger creature emerged from the gloom. A scuttling thing, this one. A beetle-like abomination made of fused gears and pistons, its mandibles clicking, the glowing red core in its chest pulsing like a weak, greedy heart.

  I didn't even bother with a slug or shot. I just raised the Withered Calyx.

  Every one of these reminded me of that eccentric girl. The one who'd permanently turned her hair blue experimenting with and writing papers on mana and magitech. The one who always saw things the rest of us couldn't.

  The pink haze in my vision was getting stronger.

  I saw a flash of a smiling face.

  A girl with a pink bow in her hair turning around, beckoning me to follow her.

  I squeezed the trigger, firing raw mana and incinerating it.

  A new wave of monsters. A tide of them.

  This one was different.

  My blood sang.

  The rage was a familiar song. The anger was an old friend. The grief was a fresh wound.

  I walked forward, the Calyx a steady, comforting weight in my hands.

  And I fired.

  Again.

  Inhale on the pump. Exhale on the trigger.

  "I'm breathing, Ruri. Kohaku," I whispered to the dark.

  I missed them. I missed them so goddamned much.

  "I'm... still human."

  Skittering. Hissing.

  Not scrap hounds. Something new. They crawled out of the darkness on long, spindly legs. They were vaguely humanoid, made of tangled cables and broken circuit boards, with single, glowing blue eyes.

  "COME ON!" I shouted, feeling tears at the edges of my eyes.

  I didn't care what they were. They were in my way.

  I started walking.

  Clack-thud. BOOM.

  A head vanished in a shower of sparks.

  Clack-thud. BOOM.

  A torso exploded.

  Clack-thud. BOOM.

  Legs were sheared clean off.

  A massive, six-legged tank of a beast made from a locomotive's furnace stomped into view. Its chest glowed like a forge.

  A boss. Something with a core.

  Good.

  "At the end of the day, we all know I'm not a goddamned flower," I snarled at nothing in particular.

  I sprinted.

  The heavy thud-thud-thud of my boots on the metal grate sounded like war drums. The construct swung a massive, piston-driven arm. I didn't bother to commit to a dodge. I slammed the pump forward, using the momentum to slide under the swing, the wind of it ruffling my hair.

  I came up inside its guard.

  "I'm the gods-forsaken dirt."

  As I always will be.

  BOOM.

  The blast severed it in two. The upper torso toppled forward, crashing with a sound like a collapsing building.

  I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

  If I stopped, I’d have to think.

  I spun, racking the slide.

  Clack-thud.

  A spent shell casing, glowing cherry-red, spun through the air in slow motion.

  "Scouting," I muttered to myself, stepping over the burning wreckage. "Just scouting..."

  Yeah, I knew it was bullshit. I wasn't scouting.

  I'd come in here with the intention of getting Maya and her stupid little group of friends some practical, guided experience.

  A live-fire exercise with training wheels.

  But now...

  This was rage.

  This was grief.

  This was all the years of being a weapon, a tool, a number. All the loneliness, all the loss, all the pain. All boiling over.

  I remembered a tiny hand slipping into mine. The warmth of a smile that could make a dead world bloom.

  A promise.

  I had promised her I would come back.

  And here I was.

  Stuck in this pastel-painted nightmare of a world, playing babysitter to a bunch of sparkly-eyed morons.

  And now they had seen... her.

  I had tried to lock her away. To bury her in the deepest, darkest corner of my soul.

  And now, she was out. Maya knew. They all did.

  Exposed.

  But it was my fault.

  I was weak. I let my guard down.

  I spent so much time side-eyeing the things I could kill. Could overpower with levels. I ignored the little things I couldn't.

  A memory.

  The sound of music from a festival in the distance. Getting teased by a stupid, annoying redhead on the beach. The feeling of sand between my toes.

  That's what got me.

  The little things.

  The promise of a normal life I'd never have.

  I didn't know what'd caused my mana to create a projection in this world, but I had a feeling it wasn't the fight itself. It was those little, stupid things.

  The "home-cooked meal" I had with them. The "family" I saw. The "normal" I'd been wanting for so long.

  It made me remember what I'd lost.

  What I had thrown away with my own stupid and selfish actions.

  And it hurt.

  It hurt so much I thought my heart would explode.

  Scouting? I wasn't scouting.

  I was venting.

  I was going to kill every single thing in this dungeon. I was going to scour it clean.

  I was going to make sure that when Maya and her soft, fragile little friends finally caught up, there wouldn't be a single shadow left to scare them.

  I’d be the Calyx.

  I’d take the wind. I’d take the rain.

  I’d take the blood.

  A pack of shade-like creatures materialized from the walls, hissing.

  I grinned.

  But to be honest?

  It didn't feel like a smile. It felt like I was baring my teeth.

  "...Next."