Chapter III.XXXIII (3.33) - Escape Plans

  After an hour spent weakening the glyphs with spatial manipulation, Kizu decided to take a break. While he hated the idea of being approached by Necro on the necromancer’s schedule, he needed to regain his strength. He was managing spatial rifts with more ease now, but his blood still wasn’t completely back to its full power.

  So he decided to sleep. He needed to rest and let his body recover a bit more.

  “You’re trying to escape, right?” Mitsuko asked him. She dragged her own sack of hay over next to his.

  “I am. Tomorrow our prison’s wards will break.”

  “What about us though? Are you going to leave me and Shika behind?”

  “Of course not,” Kizu said. “I’ll get us all out of here.”

  Mitsuko paused and Kizu looked over at her. Her eyes glistened slightly and she blinked rapidly.

  “You should take Shika and go.”

  “What? Why would I leave you behind? Don’t tell me you want to stay here.”

  “Shika won’t hold you back. At least she is useful. She can’t feel pain and has unnatural strength. I’m no good. I can’t do anything. I’m weak, can’t cast spells, and don’t know anything about what’s out there. It’s stupid to let me join.”

  Kizu shook his head. “You haven’t gained strength yet. It takes time. The world’s a big place full of possibilities. There’s something out there for you.”

  “But you’re trying to escape now. I’ll drag you down.”

  “Everyone starts at the bottom. You won’t drag me down, I’ll just lift you up.”

  She said nothing to that, just flipped over on her sack of hay, her back to him.

  He wondered briefly if this was actually Mitsuko. The girl he knew was vain and a bit silly. She prided herself in her looks and didn’t put work into much else. This version of her was acting selfless. He stared at the back of her head, trying to figure out what changed.

  His eyes scanned her, as if he expected the new dimension of her personality to physically stand out to him. And then he blinked when he saw it.

  She lay on her side, not her front or back. Because of the massive gash in her stomach and back. A gnarly scar that would be with her the rest of her life.

  In their first few hours together, Kizu had lent her his undershirt to help her cover up and stay warm. In truth, he’d done it more because a half-naked young woman made him extraordinarily uncomfortable. And even more so because her scar was a reminder of what he’d done to her. He’d stabbed her with his blade and ripped open her insides. But what if she saw that exchange differently. Him handing her his shirt, avoiding looking at her exposed skin.

  She always loved her body. She flaunted it constantly. And one of the first things he’d done after meeting her was give her something to cover up her scars.

  He groaned quietly.

  “Listen to me, Mitsuko,” he said. “You’re coming with me. If you want, I’ll take you back to your village. But if you want to go somewhere else, I can do that too. I have…influential friends. Where do you want to go? Daitoshi? Kyonaka? Even Shinzou Academy. I can’t get you enrolled, but if you want to live in the town nearby, I know people willing to hire you.”

  At least, he thought he could probably convince Jeri to take her on as an employee.

  There was a minute of silence.

  “Pa can teach you necromancy too!” Shika chimed in helpfully from where she crouched over in the corner.

  Kizu looked over at her. The zombie had torn out all the straw from one of the sacks and begun to tie together little dolls. They reminded Kizu of the ones used by witches for special hexes.

  Mitsuko rolled over and wiped her eyes with the bottom of her shirt. Kizu caught a glimpse of the bottom of the scar right over her belly button before she dropped the cloth back over it.

  “You’re serious?” she asked him. “You’ll help me get out? Escape my life?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  She threw herself at him, knocking him back. She wrapped her arms around him, hugging tight.

  “Thank you,” she said, burying her face into his shoulder. “Thank you. I want to see the backwards waterfalls in the highlands of Edgeland. I want to see a shooting star pulled down by Xavier’s Crater. I want to see the scattered Opal Ruins in Ilson-don. I want to see the great Hikari Lighthouse. I want to see it all. Everything. Everywhere.”

  Kizu was only vaguely aware of some of the places she spoke about and he had no means to show them to her, but he silently promised to help her onto that path. He awkwardly patted her back for a long time until they both eventually fell asleep.

  When he awoke, he found Mitsuko’s head resting on his chest. He carefully moved her off of him and then approached Shika.

  The zombie girl had created an army of straw dolls while he slept, and she hummed while she played with them.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about the witches and necromancers outside?” he asked her.

  She frowned down at her dolls and then started shuffling them around.

  There were eight with straw hats and six without.

  “I saw nine girls and five boys. Like I said, the boys weren’t very good with zombies. But one of them bossed all the rest of them around.”

  Kizu listened intently, occasionally redirecting Shika’s rambling back on topic. She really liked complaining about how one of the necromancers reeked of garlic. The rant somehow resurfaced on four separate occasions.

  A couple of the necromancers were women, splitting the numbers evenly between the two groups, from what Shika had seen. Fourteen enemies. Maybe more that Shika hadn’t seen. That was already a lot. But, as a whole, they sounded like the dredges of the necromancer and witch community living in the Hon Basin. Mostly because they were all still relatively young and inexperienced. Still, that hadn’t stopped them from committing the most high-profile assassination in recent history. Add the fact they had a mind mage with them as well as whatever Chiame was. Those two witches alone were devious enough to be a major threat to him. He needed to act with care and discretion.

  He wished Anata was here to give him info about who was out there.

  Then it hit him. She’d found him despite her being trapped in a time dilation chamber. She’d been attracted to him by his blood connection to her while exploring the academy. But then, after he’d used his divination ritual, she’d zero’d in on him completely.

  It would be a gamble, using such a blood taxing spell right before he wanted to break free, but a risk he deemed worth taking. He’d performed the ritual enough times that, even if it failed, he should still have enough blood to escape so long as he didn’t get in more than two or three fights in the next day.

  First, he walked over to the wall and ripped off a long sheet of the wallpaper which revealed a stone wall. Perfect. Without chalk on him, Kizu instead removed a peg from a nearby lute and began scratching the stone with it. His muscle memory kicked in. He’d sketched out this exact pattern hundreds of times before.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  As the last piece of the puzzle, Kizu pulled out Anata’s eyepatch from his pocket. As far as connections to his niece, this wasn’t fantastic. She’d only worn it for a bit more than a week. But it was all he had on hand. He slapped it onto the wall and activated the spell.

  At first, he saw nothing. Only a thick veil of darkness. Then he pushed a little harder, trying to reach out.

  Anata appeared before him. The shimmering visage of her astral self.

  “It worked!”

  His shout woke up Mitsuko who rubbed at her red eyes and squinted over at him. If she saw Anata, she didn’t comment on it, instead rolling over and returning to sleep.

  Shika, however, wandered over and stared at the girl.

  “A ghost? I didn’t know you were a necromancer now too! You should have told me, Kizu.”

  “She’s not a ghost.” Kizu turned his attention back to his niece. “Anata, are you safe?”

  Very slowly, Anata cocked her head and blinked at him. The blink alone took nearly three seconds.

  Kizu then realized his new predicament. Back when he and Anata were trapped, they’d leave, and the world was slowed down around them. Now Anata was on the other side of that. He spoke too rapidly for her to comprehend.

  Out of notebook paper, Kizu took the strip of wallpaper he’d torn down and started writing a message on it with his enchanted quill.

  Are you all safe? Basil, Mort, Ione?

  Anata nodded after reading the message. Then she pointed up.

  Kizu let out a sigh of relief. That was the most important thing. His friends were safe. Now, to plan out his escape.

  We’re trapped here. But I have a way out. Can you get us any information about who is behind this door? We need to be prepared. Is it possible for you to help us map out the surrounding dungeon?

  Anata took nearly two minutes to read his message before she nodded. But, instead of disappearing, she reached out and touched him.

  His body collapsed at his feet.

  This time Mitsuko looked over and screamed at the thump of his body crumpling to the floor. Kizu tried to calm her down, but she didn’t hear him any more than she could see him. She ran at his body and started shaking it and crying even more.

  Meanwhile Shika was snickering over to the side. She was looking at them, clearly still able to see their souls.

  Anata drifted through the wall. With another helpless look around the music room, Kizu sighed and followed after her.

  Anata floated at a walking pace as she led him forward down the hallway. But Kizu cut her off before she entered the sitting room. If Shika could see them in this form, it was possible that a soul mage like Necro might as well. Or any of the other necromancers in this place, for that matter.

  He quickly poked his head through the door and planned to jolt back quickly so no one inside would notice him with his heightened speed. But the sight within caused him to freeze. His eyes locked in on the person.

  Sitting in a chair with his legs crossed and chatting with Necro was…Kizu. An exact replica of himself. Only a little different. It took Kizu a few seconds to realize what was off about the copy. This version of him had his hair longer and his ear was pierced on the wrong side of his face. It looked like a disheveled mirror version of himself.

  “Your missing piece,” his soul stowaway said in his mind, startling him. It rarely woke up unless Kizu interacted with something that directly involved it.

  The words broke Kizu out of his stupor and he pulled himself back.

  Anata peeked inside and then looked to Kizu with wide eyes.

  “It’s not me,” Kizu told her. He spoke extremely slowly, trying to make certain she understood. Then, just to be sure, he pointed at his copy, then crossed his arms in an X.

  “That’s not true,” the voice said. “It is you.”

  “Okay, then how did a piece of me get inside the room and start chatting with Necro?”

  “It’s the chunk of your soul that gave me access to you.”

  The voice didn’t clarify any more than that, despite Kizu’s questions. He wasn’t sure if it was because it didn’t know the answers or chose to not. Or maybe it had just fallen asleep.

  Kizu had no idea where he might have lost a piece of his soul. But, judging by his clone’s appearance, it was before his haircut during his shopping spree with Anata over a month ago.

  Kizu risked another look inside the room, but now he was even more worried. He could see Anata back before he knew what she was. Likely due to their blood relation. And, if he could, then a piece of his soul might also be able to. It was a huge risk.

  So Kizu instead navigated around the sitting room and down the hall to a different room. Here, witches lounged about surrounding a massive cauldron, taller than him. The only light in the room came from the roaring fire beneath the iron pot. Kizu floated up to the brew, wary of any of the witches noticing him. But they remained oblivious to his presence.

  A swirl of blues, greens, and violets bubbled in the cauldron. It bubbled only on the edges, near where the cast iron touched the liquid. The center spiraled inward like a whirlpool. The bubbles popped in slow motion and the slow swirl looked akin to some invisible force monotonously stirring the concoction.

  The witches whispered amongst themselves. As he listened, he caught some words about brewing techniques. He thought they talked in a Hon dialect he should be able to understand, but they spoke so slowly as to be nearly incomprehensible.

  It struck Kizu then how remarkable Anata was in being able to understand anything. She’d been raised in a time dilation chamber just like the one he currently found himself trapped in. Sure, the bloodspawn likely spoke to her occasionally, but this slowed down jumble of words would have been the majority of her education as she wandered the overworld in her astral form.

  Kizu floated into the next room, passing through the door. Then, he nearly fell back through the wall as a zombie lunged at him, trying to bite into his flesh. Thankfully, it passed through him, harmless. But it still startled both him and Anata.

  The entire room was nothing more than a pit full of zombies. The door had glowing enchanted bars over it to prevent them from escaping. No matter how much the zombies gnawed on the metal, nothing scratched it.

  But in the center of the room, Kizu spotted a familiar zombie. Or rather, a familiar ghoul. Prince Zenchi, Warlord of Hon. The once handsome middle-aged prince now had his skin peeling from his body, exposing yellowed tendons and sinew. Kizu saw clumps of hair scattered on the floor throughout the room, still attached to flesh. He watched as Zenchi ripped another patch from his head, taking a piece of his scalp with it, and hurled it at Kizu. The other zombies flinched back and scattered.

  The zombies kept their distance from the feral ghoul as it strained against the chains binding it to the cement floor. The chains vibrated with a similar vein of magic as the bars over the door. Kizu noticed smears of blood surrounding Aoi’s uncle. Likely the reason the zombies avoided him. However, there were no bodies to be seen. Not even bones.

  “Does he…eat them?” Kizu asked into the room.

  Anata cocked her head, her eyes slowly flickering from Kizu to the ghoul.

  “It’s rhetorical. I don’t think I want to know. Come on, let’s check out the next room. There must be a tunnel leading out of this area.”

  If the worst came, he could try to get Mort and Ione to use the bell. He could vaguely feel Mort far above him, though he lacked the ability to contact him directly while in this state. He’d have to rely on Anata to pass a message along. But that also came with a lot of risk. To his friends, as well as risking the artifact. Necro had been willing to attack an Elite for that bell. Keeping it from him his grasp was a top priority.

  But, as Kizu passed into the next room, he realized that idea wouldn’t be necessary.

  A massive portal arch stood in the center of a circular stone room. It looked similar to the one in Shinzou-cho that connected to other parts of the island. Only far larger. And far more powerful. Even in an astral form, Kizu could feel the magic radiating from the stone artifact.

  Slouched against the arch, a necromancer dozed. Acne dotted his brow. He looked small in his black hooded cloak. Kizu doubted the necromancer was much older than himself. Maybe a year or two younger even. Hone had mentioned the Death Party necromancers were young, but Kizu hadn’t thought much about it.

  “I suppose this makes sense,” Kizu said, floating around the portal as he examined it. “Most of the mages here likely can’t jump. It’s common among the higher-ranking witches in covens, but these are low level apprentices.”

  But where did it lead? Probably several places if activated properly. But Kizu would rather not end up deep in the World Dungeon under Edgeland.

  The necromancer’s head bobbed, and he startled himself awake. His eyes widened as they met Anata’s. He could see her.

  “Ghooooust!” he screamed the drawn out word as he languidly scrambled to his feet.

  “Time to go,” Kizu said. He quickly flew back over to his body with Anata following after him with a bit of delay.

  He slammed into his body and jolted back into awareness.

  Ten Blood Curse Academia chapters (5 weeks) ahead of Royal Road.