(Snippet Ch. 1) Of Angels, Devils, and Magical Mayhem

The first thing I remembered was dying. 

Me. Elijah ‘Eli’ Carter; eighteen years old, fresh-eyed sophomore and Division-One quarterback for the Harvard Crimsons. 

I’d been one of those ‘special’ kids - not the mentally handicapped ones, but the type that was able to pick shit up and figure it out pretty fucking easily, no matter how difficult or complex. It was an alienating existence since children, especially teenagers, were vicious and jealous little bastards. I’d dealt with worse in foster care, though, so their insults, while stinging, didn’t do much to bow my head. It helped that my teachers seemed proud of me, at least. ‘Savant’, they would call me, or ‘Genius’.

Cute.

‘Slight above average’ was the term my college professors used, often with a frown to their brow. It was meant as an insult, I was sure, but life had a way of blunting expectations. Getting into an Ivy League school as some poor orphan was hard, but not overtly so, and the elitism I experienced there was staggering. Oftentimes, it felt like I was back in high school - except the roles were reversed, and the faculty and staff were the jealous ones.

But I’d gotten used to it. As arrogant as they sounded, those quotes about ‘being lonely at the top’ were accurate. It was lonely. But that didn’t matter.

I like the view. And I liked exploring my limits, exploring the world, and pulling every iota of greatness out of everything I did. Mom #3 had often said that I was too curious for my own good, but eh… What did she know? She ended up leaving me too.

But I digress.

I studied because it was what grounded me, and enriched my porous mind. I worked out and excelled in sports because I enjoyed the challenge, and the burn of my muscles was third only to academic breakthroughs and rough, bed-shaking sex. I worked part time at a shady hobby shop because I thought nerdy shit was cool, and the regulars would invite me to their Dungeons & Dragons one-shots every once and a while because I had an on-and-off situationship with their cute Dungeon Mistress. I always rolled a ‘Wizard’, because magic had a way of making life just that little bit more colorful.

Anime, video games, music, cheesy fantasy novels and manga… Those were the things that freed my overworked brain from the stressors of real life. 

The escapism. The innocence. The fun.

I didn’t have many friends, but I had a few. I wasn’t the most attractive guy, but I was big and well-groomed so I had my fair share of girlfriends and booty calls. I wasn’t rich, but due to my side gig, I wasn’t poor. For all intents and purposes, if you ignored the ‘savant’ tag I’d been marked with and the fact that I was going to one of the most prolific universities in America, I’d consider myself a pretty average dude. A bit of a loner, maybe, but I didn’t consider myself anything special.

Which made it all the more frustrating that I still managed to die in some bullshit freak accident.

You ever thought you’d die from an elevator malfunctioning, sending you falling down ten stories and turning you into a liquified pancake at ground level?

Me neither. But maybe I should’ve gone with my gut and stayed in my apartment for Spring Break, because the newly refurbished, fancy pants Ritz-Carlton resort the Harvard football team was renting out for the week clearly cut corners with their architectural design and budgeting.

I’d been the only one on the elevator at that time, on my way up to the rooftop to see the view. Ergo, I’d been the only one to die.

Curiosity truly did kill the cat. Except, in this case, it was a 215 pound black teenager with a serious case of resting bitch face.

It wasn’t funny, but I almost wanted to laugh. Hell, after I’d gotten over the shock and horror of it all, and settled myself down into the darkness of what was probably my world’s version of the afterlife - sheer, unadulterated nothingness - I did laugh. A lot. Until I felt spiritual tears falling down my spiritual cheeks, and my spiritual lungs were devoid of spiritual air, I laughed.

And that was how He found me; an incorporeal spirit, floating like a discarded sperm cell in the nutsack of one of Humanity’s greatest fears and biggest mysteries, laughing for what could have been hours or days or years because time did not exist in nothingness.

And He asked me a question, in a loud, booming voice that would have liquified my eardrums if I’d been alive. This question, as I now understood it, meant far more than it had seemed at that moment. It was a deep, thought-provoking question that I, even in all of my alleged ‘genius’, had never found an answer to, and not for lack of trying.

That question was…

“Are you an ass man, or a tits man?”

It took me another inordinate amount of spiritual time to answer.

“Both, of course. Who do you think I am?”

He spent what could have been the next minute or hour or year laughing, before putting me through the most inane interview questionnaire I’d ever participated in. That initial question set the tone, oddly enough; there were questions about the extent of my sexual escapades, my talents, my age, my interest in video games and comic books, and even hypothetical situations that had me generally struggling to come up with answers that felt satisfactory.

They weren’t difficult to answer, but it was tedious. Repetitive. Truthfully, though, I think some part of me was just happy to have another person to talk to after however long I’d spent drifting in this dreary nothingness, because I answered each question honestly.

It wasn’t until he asked about my interest in cheese and whether I’d choose a wheel of it over a freaking Valyrian Steel sword did something in my spiritual patience snap, and I asked him what the fuck was going on. I was genre-savvy enough to recognize a ROB when I- well, not saw, but heard one, but I couldn’t figure out just what sort of misadventure He was planning. We’d talked about everything from tits to dungeons to Pokemon eggs to Wizarding Towers, and nothing was making sense to me.

So, of course, at the peak of my confusion and suspicion…

“Your Build is complete, young Wizard, and your new life awaits you. Do not waste your second chance!”

He stonewalled me. Flat out ignored me, actually, like he was reading from some shitty script.

And from one spiritual blink to a physical one, everything changed.

It was seamless. Instant.

One second I was staring out into darkness, speaking to what could only have been some sort of deific being of the afterlife, and the next I was sitting in the back of a taxi cab, cruising down a long, winding country road beneath the cloudy gloom of the night sky. My forehead was pressed against the window, misted over from the warmth of my breath, and the radio was quietly playing some sort of upbeat J-POP track. My brain swam and pounded within the confines of my skull, a combination of nausea and fatigue forcing me to close my eyes to shield them from the dizzying sight of trees blurring past.

But my body… My body felt light. 

Energetic. 

It wasn’t some sort of sugar rush, or caffeine, or anything mundane, either. Each time I breathed, inhaling the stale air of the taxi and breathing it out through my mouth and nose, something infinitely more pure than oxygen flowed through select paths inside of my body. I could almost see it, even with my eyes closed and darkness filling my vision once again. In my mind’s eye, this energy was a bright, almost silvery blue, so blindingly luminous that something inside of me cringed away in pain.

It saturated my body, my mind, and what I intrinsically knew was my soul. It saturated the area around me, too, flowing freely through my being and out into the atmosphere, where it wrapped back around and eased into my mind once again.

It wasn’t just energy, though. For some reason, I felt like I should’ve known what this undeniably magical phenomenon was. My brain swam again, pressure building up more and more until I felt like something was going to burst…

And then, all at once, it faded away, and new knowledge soothed away the lingering pain.

‘Magicka,’ I realized, a tired, yet excited half grin curling my lips. ‘Is that why He asked me what my favorite video game is? … Heavy handed as fuck, but I’m not complaining.’

If appearing in the back of some random ass taxi hadn’t made it clear enough, the sudden awareness of my magical capabilities was like getting a bucket of ice-cold water dumped clean over my head.

In Elder Scrolls lore, something I’d dove into one night while high on gummies and hyper-fixated on modding my game for the hundredth time, I’d read that magicka was the raw energy that flowed from Aetherius through the sun and the stars. It permeated every single thing, be it living or dead, and was basically the building block of existence in that universe, threading together all that was and all that would be. 

But here and now, wherever the Hell I was, there was no Aetherius. 

As far as I knew, Nirn didn’t have J-POP and taxi cabs. I was given access to magicka, and the knowledge of dozens of spells and enchantments and alchemical recipes, but more important than any of that was the fact that I, if my understanding was correct, was the wellspring in which magicka flowed into this Earth, and back into me - a cycle of magical energy that would grow bigger and bigger the more I enriched my mind, body, and soul. There was no sun-touched sky bleeding magicka into reality, no cosmic influx of divine energy, no Godly beings tearing holes through space and time. 

I was the source, my very being the conduit through which my magicka would flow, and the weight of that realization settled over me like a particularly toasty and comfortable blanket.

Out of all of the magical systems in the world, I could’ve gotten stuck with a lot worse than Clever-Craft.

I felt like a fucking kid at a candy shop.

My fingers twitched, instinctively reaching for a sensation that wasn’t physical. I could feel it now - see it, if I focused; how magicka flowed through unseen channels down my neck, through my arms and legs, up into my torso where it pooled and rotated through my core, shifting and surging with every errant thought. 

It wasn’t static; the magicka breathed with me, responding to my will. I inhaled, and it ebbed like a receding tide. I exhaled, and it returned in waves, circulating, replenishing. In the games, regenerating your magicka was an inherent, automatic process. But this was my reality, and there was no arbitrary pool to deplete and refill. No mana bar. Only myself, my will and knowledge, and my capability to channel more and more of this mystical energy.

As I delved deeper into this deluge of knowledge and the intrinsic understanding that came with it, the hows of actually casting magic, unbidden yet instinctual, flooded my mind like I’d flipped some mental page in a How-To pamphlet for spellcasting. Performing magic was, at its core, the act of shaping local reality with your intent, understanding, and, above all else, willpower. Incantations, gestures, focus - they weren’t the source of the magic, only the structure, performed to ground your mind and thinking to make it easier to connect to the magic. To help with the mental and physical burden that breaking the laws of reality imposed on the spellcaster.

But, at the end of the day, magic was thought, will, and personality given form, forced upon the world to take or leave. It was the inevitable ‘leaving’ aspect that burned through your magicka. Though, it did make me think about-

THUD.

The taxi hit a bump, causing my forehead to bounce off the window and slam against it loud enough to echo through the vehicle. I exhaled sharply, feeling my magicka flow along with the deep breath.

Ouch.

I’d allowed myself to get lost in my thoughts. In the back of some dinky taxi cab with no fucking idea where, who, or when you were, that was a really, really stupid decision. I needed to lock-in and handle the world around me before allowing my overactive brain the freedom to hyper-fixate on my shiny new magical powers. ‘One thing at a time. C’mon.’

“You alright back there, kid? You were out like a light,” the taxi driver spoke up, his reedy voice gruff, yet curious. He stared at me through the rearview mirror, eyes dark and weary beneath a hairy unibrow. “Must’ve been a long flight. You’re from America, right? I’ve got family over there. Nice people. Loud, but nice.”

A flight? But-

Another dizzy spell struck me, but this time, I was half-expecting it. Gritting my teeth through the accompanying pressure, I waited a couple seconds, counting down the time for the pressure to pop and release whatever care package of information I was missing.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

‘Rei Akiyama? A little weeby, but not bad. I can work with this.’

The driver cleared his throat impatiently, narrowing his eyes at me through the mirror, and I arched a bemused eyebrow in return. “I was born around here, actually. Moved to America with my mom when I was a baby. Nice woman. Loud, but nice.”

I paused, searching for a certain emotion, but it didn’t come. So I shrugged, and finished, “And dead, now. Rest in peace Mama Zuri.”

The accompanying awkward silence was as entertaining as it was satisfying. I’d never been one for forced small-talk, and something about this haggard-looking man was giving me bad ‘stranger danger’ vibes, so I busied myself with making sure that I had everything I needed ready to go just in case I had to pull an emergency duck-and-roll. 

Rei Akiyama, more commonly known as ‘Ray Akiyama’ by his peers back in America, was a rich boy with even richer, and deader, parents. His father, Kuoh native and award-winning novelist Kenji Akiyama, apparently owned land and property outside of the city proper. 

Quite a bit of land, if my counterpart’s memories of the deed were to be believed. A hundred or so acres. More space than I’d even know what to do with.

All of that and a hefty sum of money had been disclosed at the will reading, and, with me being the only child and closest family, I was the recipient of it all. Terrible news for Rei Akiyama, losing his parents and everything, but for this Eli turned Rei? I had none of his emotional connections; just a vague recollection of his privileged life, his fluency in Japanese, and the overwhelming satisfaction of knowing that I now had a big, lonely mansion to practice my new magic in.

This mansion was where the taxi driver was taking me. We’d recently made it out of Kuoh Town, the name of which was itching at something in the back of my brain, and if the GPS glowing faintly from the console of the taxi could be trusted, we’d be there in roughly… Ten minutes. Give or take.

Oddly enough, I doubted that I even needed a GPS to find it. Something was calling out to me from across the night sky; a subconscious pinging that urged me forward, down the long, lonely roads and thick, sprawling forests. Somehow, someway, I was connected to my new property on some level deeper than a physical sheet of paper. It was curious, but…

I just chalked it up as part of the Isekai experience. If this tether persisted after I arrived, I’d experiment with it more, but for now, it was just comforting to know that I wouldn’t be lost if I ended up naked and stranded in bum-fuck Kuoh nowhere.

‘God, why the hell does that name sound so familiar?’

It was weird - I could remember my life down to some of the most minute details, that’s how sharp my memory seemed to be now, but random little nuggets that weren’t important to me seemed as distant now as they had been weeks ago when I hadn’t been thinking about them at all. I didn’t doubt that my recollection would sharpen once I had my eureka moment, but as of now, it simply wasn’t coming to me.

So I turned my attention down to the silky black bag, tied to a cinch by a crimson drawstring, resting on the seat beside me.

That triggered yet another one of the endless surprises this new life seemed to have for me.

Bag of Holding (S Grade)

A magical bag created from silk bathed in the arcane splendor of Aetherius. Merely by reaching your hand inside, you can instantly retrieve anything you’re looking for, the desire plucked straight from your mind. This bag has infinite space within, and all items - or persons - stored inside will be held in stasis.

Containing: Wallet, Phone, Suitcase (x2), Tattered Notes, Deed of Land, Book of Learning, Wizard Castle Blueprints, Build Sparknotes

…

My right eyeball stung, erratically twitching beneath my eyelid as I read over the fancy, ornately gilded text box hovering over the apparent Bag of Holding. It wasn't necessarily surprising that my isekai adventure dropped me in with what was basically the quintessential Observe ability, and holy shit would it come in handy, but it was the items that my Bag contained that piqued my ever-present curiosity.

Tattered Notes, Book of Learning, Wizard Castle Blueprints, and the most important piece of the puzzle… Build Sparknotes.

Build, as in some sort of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure document? Was that what all of this came from?

I bit my lip in thought, sliding my hand along the silken material of the magical bag and willing the fancy box away with a blink of my eye. The stinging faded, and when I felt for that sensation again - like scratching at something indistinct on the inside of my eye socket - the box reappeared.

Neat.

“Ahem,” the taxi driver faked a cough; a clear ploy for attention. When I swung my gaze up to meet his, he grinned at me - a very forced, yellow-toothed grin that shone unevenly beneath the pale glow of the dashboard lights. “Sooo...”

What the Hell was up with the awkward conversation?

“What is it?”

Idly, I attempted to Observe him - but nothing happened save me straining my eye for no reason. Perhaps it was an ability limited to objects instead of living, breathing entities. Or, beyond that, magical objects?

“Haunted Hill Manor,” he breathed shakily, the name oozing from behind his teeth like some sort of disgusting secret. I couldn’t tell if it excited or scared him. “That’s where you’re headed, right? Huge, spooky mansion on the hill, surrounded by overgrown grass and dark forests? That creepy ass place?”

I met his gaze, keeping my expression neutral despite the way my instincts screamed at me. There was something off here. The way he looked at me, the way his grip had subtly shifted on the wheel, the way he kept licking his dry, chapped lips and cutting his eyes around the dark street.

Talk about raising red fucking flags.

Subtly, I grabbed my Bag of Holding by its lip and slipped it into the pocket of Rei’s - now my - sleek, expensive black overcoat. Adrenaline flooded my veins, pounding in time with the churning of magicka flowing through my body, but my heart beat was quiet. Steady. I kept my lidded gaze locked with the driver’s side, bloodshot eyes, the picture perfect example of calm.

That was weird. I could feel the anxiety, but it was a distant thing. Detached. More than anxiety or fear, I moreso felt curiosity. What was this guy’s deal? Was I dropped into some C-list horror plot, a la Blair Witch Trials? Was he about to start screaming about ghosts and demons? 

These thoughts fluttered through my mind at lightning speeds. In reality, a couple seconds after he spoke, I blinked, offered a slight smile that failed to truly meet my eyes, and replied, “Depends. What’s your favorite scary movie?”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind.”

The heavy-handed reference failed to land; I could tell by the puzzled expression that took over his face. That was good, though; that lapse in our staring contest gave me the opportunity to try something else. I glanced at the only other noteworthy object in the car - the big silver cross dangling from the rear view mirror, and tried to Observe it.

Blessed Crucifix (B Grade)

A crucifix anointed in holy water and blessed by a Fallen Angel’s light. Though shoddily made, this pendant acts as poison to unholy beings, with mere contact searing the flesh of the damned. Curiously, crude, archaic magical symbols are engraved upon this crucifix, but providing the wearer with a very minor resistance against magical effects.

… Oh.

But why would- …

Ohhh.

My stomach did a tiny cartwheel as the puzzle pieces fell together, each one seamlessly connecting around a big ole’ Kuoh Town sized question mark. The implications and what they meant could wait, however; it was clear to me that my life was more than likely in danger, and I had zero plans to die now that I had honest to god magic.

I had the advantage here. I knew that he knew something, but he didn’t know that I knew. More than that, he probably didn’t know what I was.

That was big.

I just needed to leverage it properly.

“You must think I’m joking around. You do know what they say about that place, don’t you?” The driver’s wet, suspicious eyes were back on me now, but the car was starting to slow. I didn’t even need to check the GPS to know that we were nowhere near my property. That feeling in the back of my head, the one that tethered me to the mansion - it made that abundantly clear.

This was it, then.

“New here, remember? But do tell - you seem like you really wanna let it out,” I sighed, blinking slowly as I worked to connect my mind, soul, and body to magic. Magicka rushed to greet my breath like an excitable puppy. 

The taxi driver, who I suspected was only a taxi driver part time, let another nasty-looking grin slip through. “Cheeky. No, they say that it’s haunted. Real nasty shit. Unnatural. No one’s lived there for decades, but the place looks spotless. All shiny and new for twenty fuckin’ years. And then forests that surround the property? A trap. You try to approach the damn place for a better look, cutting through the trees, and-“

“Let me guess; You black out and wake up back at the beginning of the forest, don’t you? Like Children of the Corn?” I interrupted boredly, though the words were more for grounding myself than it was to engage in meaningless banter. I could see the magnificent blue shine of my magicka as I willed it across my skin like an armor, threading it through the surface of my flesh until it shone like metal. Like iron.

Because that was what it was, if I willed it. I would not become iron, but my flesh would take on its hardness. Its durability. That feeling - that belief that I could make it happen, that it would happen if I believed it to be true - coalesced in the palm of my left hand, an orb of warbling blue and silver that begged me to impose it on reality.

Ironflesh.

But I held it there for a moment, covering its glow with the dark fabric of my coat. I knew, intrinsically, that there’d be a light show when I casted the spell. I had to be absolutely sure.

“Yeah, that’s about right.” The driver chuckled - a dry, humorless thing, like gravel and mucus rattling together in his throat. His hairy fingers drummed noisily on the steering wheel, slow and deliberate. The car had nearly come to a stop now, idling in the middle of the long, dark country road. “You try to take a shortcut, and next thing you know, you’re back where you started. Most folks wise up and take the hint.”

His free hand, the one not tapping a slow rhythm against the wheel, drifted down towards the center console. “Some don’t.”

I kept my posture in a loose, casual slouch, still hiding the glow of my magic behind the bulk of my body and coat. “You’re telling me this like I should be worried,” I drawled, tilting my head slightly to the right. “Like I don’t know exactly where I’m going. I booked the taxi, didn’t I?”

His ugly smile faltered for only a moment before sharpening to an edge.

“Maybe you do,” he mused gruffly, “Or maybe you just don’t know what the fuck you’re walkin’ into. Warlock scum!”

His hand jerked towards the console.

But I’d already been expecting it. My Initiative was higher, in other words.

I moved first.

Ironflesh surged outward with the clamor of clanging blades, a wave of shimmering blue magicka crawling across my skin like liquid metal, hardening in an instant. The moment his fingers wrapped around the grip of whatever weapon he was reaching for, I lunged into the passenger seat, my left hand slamming his wrist against the console before he could fully draw. The car rocked from the sudden shift in weight, tires screeching over gravel and cobblestone. More importantly, over two hundred and twenty pounds of raw, sculpted muscle and fat crushed the notably smaller man’s wrist against a hard, angular plastic surface.

CRUNCH.

The sickening sound of bones snapping filled the cramped space of the car, followed by the driver’s sharp, agonized howl. His fingers spasmed open, releasing the gun before he could even lift it. A quick, almost casual glance confirmed my suspicions - the weapon was a sleek, silver-plated pistol lined with glowing engravings, humming with power. Light-aspected magic. A weapon meant for something significantly more devilish than me, but a gun was a goddamned gun.

“Motherfucker-!”

The implications barely had time to register before the driver reacted, thrashing wildly against my grip. His free hand flew up, nails raking at my face, but my Ironflesh-enforced skin turned his desperate clawing into nothing more than an annoyance less severe than a cat scratch. He adjusted fast, pivoting to the next best thing - his forehead, which he slammed into my nose with a dull, resounding thud.

Pain flared. My head snapped back from the impact, white sparks dancing across my vision, but the sensation was bearable. Distant.

‘Okay. That hurt.’

But judging by his yowling, his skull took the brunt of the blow.

Instinct kicked in, along with something deeper - more natural. My right hand lashed out, fingers curling into a tight fist. No form, no technique - just pure, untrained aggression from a teenager who took one month of boxing lessons in high school. I aimed for his throat and missed in his flailing chaos, my calloused knuckles slamming into his jaw instead. It was enough. His head snapped sideways, spittle and blood and something tiny and white that could’ve been a tooth flying from his lips as he recoiled against the driver’s side door.

I pressed the advantage.

Flames.

Such a basic spell required next to know focus to release - not at the level my natural skill with magic seemed to start at. One exhale, a draw upon the flow of magicka writhing through my body and soul like a rushing river, and my will brought forth a roar of fire so hot and angry that it burned white and blue more than it did red and orange. The cab was instantly bathed in its flickering glow, streaming from between my cupped palms in a blazing flamethrower of writhing flames.

The revolting stench of burning flesh and singed hair filled the confined space.

The driver’s screams were guttural, inhuman - choked gurgles of agony as his skin blistered and melted beneath the touch of my flame. His frantic flailing became erratic, hands blindly swiping at me through the inferno of fire, but the fight had been won the instant he gave me enough distance and time to bring my magic to bear. Distantly, in some unimportant corner at the back of my mind, the logical side of me had to wonder why cooking some random Asian man alive in a rundown taxi wasn’t as scary as it should’ve been. Why I wasn’t hesitating like any other teenager would be in this situation.

Louder than that was my more calculative, inquisitive side, wondering how long it took for a human’s body to die from an arcane flamethrower. 

‘No longer than a couple minutes, maybe.’

But clearly he wouldn’t go down without a last minute attempt at survival. Calling upon the willpower of a man too desperate and spiteful to die alone, through the fire and pain, the taxi driver that wasn’t a taxi driver at all groped for his last option - a silver hilt tucked into his belt. With a hoarse snarl that bubbled wetly from within melted-together lips, he tore it free, pressed some button on the side to extend a long, shining blade made of light, and drove it toward my ribs.

Too slow. Too weak.

Casual observations made by a man in an unquestionable advantageous position. He was practically falling apart already, flesh bubbling and sloughing off of pink, sinewy muscle, and his aim was absolutely fucked. It was more like a zombie lunging for a bite than a swordsman going for the kill shot. I killed the flow of magicka powering the Flames spell, cracked my right elbow into the recline lever, and exhaled softly as the passenger seat immediately slammed backwards just in time for the light blade to slice an arc through the air above me.

The swing was weak, but I knew solely from its hum that even a weak touch would part my flesh as easily as one of those one thousand degree knives from Youtube, Ironflesh or not.

He wailed - some agonized, primal cry of suffering and desperation that wouldn’t have been out of place in a National Geographic episode, and I wasted no time scrambling back up and throwing my full weight across the console. The upholstery was burning hot and melted to the metal, scorched black and flecked with blood, but I felt none of it as I crashed into the half-dead fucker and slammed my forearm against his neck. 

His face was a ruin. Half-melted flesh peeled away in gruesome ribbons, his left eye a charred, useless socket. And yet, his remaining eye - bloodshot and nearly unseeing - burned with such pure, unrelenting hatred that I almost questioned whether or not I’d actually done something to warrant such raw animosity. Bloody froth bubbled along his nonexistent lips, charred crust flaking off and staining my glowing sleeve with detritus, and for once…

I felt a pulse of revulsion. 

Not towards me or my actions, but towards this sad sack of shit’s wasted potential. So much fire, so much will, and he allowed it to be snuffed out because of some ignorant, black and white hatred for the supernatural.

Stupid.

“D-de-deaaa…-” He croaked wetly, before breaking off into a bone-rattling cough.

I raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Speak now, or forever hold your peace. One last try.”

The psychopath wheezed, a sickening, black-toothed grin spreading across his cheeks. “D-death to all warlocks. Dea-... Death to all witches. Death to all heretics! Long live… Long live THE INQUISITIO-”

CRACK!

Flesh, bone, brain, and glass pulped and shattered beneath the shining blue comet that was my clenched fist, blasting back towards my face in an explosion of gore and razor-sharp shards. 

I cursed, letting go of the headless corpse and falling back against the console on my ass, feeling glass and bone fragments slice thin rivulets through the soft and decidedly fleshy skin of my cheeks and forehead. Ironflesh had already faded away, something that I should’ve been conscious of, but my attention had been taken away by that peculiar feeling in my hand after I’d focused a decent chunk of magicka through it.

Clever-Craft, and some sort of magicka-activated bodily empowerment? Fist Magic? An eclectic mix, but I wasn’t complaining. It was effective at shutting up the ravings of a complete and utter madman.

I clicked my teeth, staring dispassionately at the charred, half-melted body.

“What a fucking waste of your last words…”

The Inquisition. That was new. But, then again, I’d only watched a few episodes of High School DxD, dropped it, and trolled on Reddit about how garbage it was for a couple days before getting bored and moving onto better anime. For all I knew, they were actually a faction connected to the Fallen Angels and Stray Exorcists. And therein lied the problem.

I didn’t know. I didn’t know shit. And right now, my information-less ass was in the middle of the road at midnight with a headless, melted corpse and a busted up taxi. If anyone showed up right now, I’d be caught with my pants down at my ankles and my ass cheeks spread wide open. That wasn’t kosher.

I’d never enjoyed being in compromising positions, unless it involved me, a hot chick, and lots of rope.

“Okay,” I murmured to myself, “Okay.”

I glanced down at my hands, covered in blood - almost all of it not mine. I glanced around the scorched taxi, at the stains of crimson and fragments of white and clumps of squishy gray - none of it mine. And then, I turned my gaze towards the silver hilt of the light sword, now deactivated, and the glint of the pistol lying innocently in the backseat.

Those were now mine.

… Should I have been feeling guil-

‘No. Enough second guessing yourself. I’m smarter than that. My empathy has lessened, but I still feel emotion. Certain feelings, like fear or anxiety, are distant, but they’re still there. I’m still me. That’s all that matters.’

And that was that. I was stubborn to a fault.

It didn’t take me longer than a few minutes to yank my body out of the passenger seat and slide the two holy weapons - and the cross - into my Bag of Holding. I moved quickly, racing against the clock, since it was only a matter of time until someone took this back road and came across what could only be described as a fucking serial killer + serial arsonist snuff scene. Before long, with my minor injuries knitted by a quick channeling of Healing and my loot properly secured, I’d dragged the Inquisitor’s body into my Bag of Holding, put the taxi in neutral, and shoved it the rest of the way into a ditch so that it was, at the very least, out of plain sight.

My muscles ached, but they felt better than they had in a very long time. Like I was back in peak shape for the FCS. Channeling magicka through my body in a constant, active loop seemed to increase my strength and speed even further, but doing it for too long exhausted me on a level much, much deeper than the physical. It hit me right in the soul, and gave me a pounding headache. Not too good for the five or so mile walk I had to hike to make it to my new home.

But repetition and pain was gain. Only by deepening my soul and sharpening my willpower would my capacity to channel magicka grow, and even beyond that…

I could use a nice, freeing run right about now.

So I cycled my magicka through my physical channels, inhaled the crisp night air, and let it out in an explosive breath dotted with particles of sparkling blue light. 

When I ran, it didn’t feel like I was running away from a bloodbath.

That was just another notch on the wooden post of ‘weird shit that has happened to me since I died from an elevator mishap’.

No, when I ran, it felt like I was running towards my destiny. To a place unknown. A magical, mysterious place - a castle and a mansion, all in one.

And for the first time since coming to this world…

A full, gleaming grin formed on my face.

I could not wait to get started.

__________________________________________

Light Pistol (B Grade)

A pistol created solely to channel the power of a Fallen Angel’s light into the small, compact shape of bullets. These ‘light pistols’ are an Exorcist’s long-ranged response to the offensive presence of Devils, Vampires, and any other unholy being harmed by the light of God. They are common tools found amongst those who follow the Church, and require no reloading or physical ammunition. All it requires is the Grace of God.

Light Sword (B Grade)

A sword created solely to channel the power of a Fallen Angel’s light into a long, flesh-scourging blade. A button on the side of the hilt activates the contained light, shooting it from the top of the sword and arming the Exorcist with the power of God - anathema to any Devil, Vampire, or unholy creature. These swords are commonly found amongst those who follow the Church.