Chapter IV.LVIII (4.58) - The Necromancer’s Stand

  Kizu immediately connected to Mort’s senses. He couldn’t communicate the exact danger to his familiar, but Mort still bristled at the connection. He understood danger lurked around the corner. For the moment though, Anata, Mae and Mort were perfectly safe. Like the rest of the audience, they’d evacuated and moved alongside the crowd.

  Professor Arclight fought her way against the crowd, Professor Oasaji riding on her shoulder. They clearly understood there was danger. Help was on its way. A relief. But still at least a minute away at best.

  Silently, Kizu willed Mort to guide the children underground. Somewhere that would be safe from the barrage of fire Necro promised would soon be upon them.

  Kizu dodged to the side as a shard of bone pierced through his spatial barriers, aimed for his head. Necro’s head snapped his mouth closed aggressively.

  Time to end this.

  “What hexes do you know?” Kizu asked Akira. While Kizu might have had the memories of how to use them removed from his mind, his knowledge about that study of magic still likely surpassed all other students save for maybe Stina. Knowing what he was working with would help him throw together a plan.

  “Paralysis,” Akira replied.

  Kizu waited for the list to continue. Then he glanced at the prince. “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  Kizu closed his eyes and quickly thought over his current resources. Then he reached into his ring and removed one of his three soul removing potions. They were prototypes designed in some of his attempts to develop another solution to remove Chiame from Ione’s body. Unfortunately they targeted the complete soul with nothing excluded. So it would take out Ione’s soul alongside Chiame. Still, for this purpose, he deemed it a perfect solution for Necro.

  A rib zipped through the air and bounced off of Kizu’s barrier. He felt the barrier shudder under his control. That had been a stronger attack than it had any right to be.

  Kizu needed to gather all of Necro’s pieces in one place. He scanned the area for a solution and his eyes fell on the quivering, abandoned, pile of skin. Raygen’s soul remained tied to the flesh, despite now being disconnected from Necro’s control. Necro had worn her skin for the last few months as cover as he infiltrated the academy. That fact might offer a solution.

  Kizu jumped to her side. She flinched as he set a hand on her. While without a doubt undead, Raygen clearly still had a lot of her own soul linked to the stretched out flesh. Could someone like Aoi save her?

  “I’m sorry about this,” Kizu said.

  He picked up her flesh and jumped back into his box of barriers with Akira and the unconscious Professor Krimpit. Then he flicked his wrist, creating a sword of ice. He pressed the blade’s tip against the floor and slammed a boot down on it, snapping the tip off. Then, shard of ice in hand, he looked at Raygen again. She undulated. A single eye met his.

  “This…might be painful,” Kizu admitted. “But it’s my best chance at getting rid of the necromancer. Would that be okay?”

  “Blink if you accept,” Akira suggested. He grinned down at the flesh.

  Raygen blinked rapidly, not even glancing in Akira’s direction.

  “You’ll likely die,” Kizu added.

  Somehow, Raygen managed to blink even faster.

  Kizu knelt next to the flesh and began to carve a divination ritual into Raygen’s skin.

  The flesh flinched as he cut into her, but she didn’t pull away. In fact, she leaned into the blade once she understood what he was attempting. Her craving for vengeance was clear.

  Twice, an attack that penetrated the barrier walls while Kizu carved into Raygen. Both times Akira shut down the assault with wind elemental spells. Kizu sat in the eye of a swirling hurricane bottled up within a spatial box.

  “Finished,” Kizu said. He held out a hand to Akira while the other rested on Raygen’s skin. Akira took the offered hand with a grin.

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  Kizu activated the divination ritual at the exact same moment he jumped, dropped the barriers that stood between Raygen and Necro, and flung Krimpit’s unconscious form into the auditorium.

  Immediately after the jump, Kizu crafted a barrier under their feet. He and Akira stood suspended in the air under the hole in the ceiling. Every piece of Necro ripped out of the building below them, as if sucked towards Raygen by a powerful gravitational spell. The pieces ripped out of the walls and floorboards. One of the auditorium seats flipped as a knuckle tore out of it. It was far stronger than Kizu had expected. If anything, he expected that since he wouldn’t be physically holding the ritual, that it would be far weaker.

  “Interesting,” Akira commented. “She’s feeding her soul’s essence into the spell. Impressive.”

  “That’s something that can happen?” Kizu asked.

  “Only with suicidal intent. It’s something I once considered. But thought better of it. Sometimes I wonder though….”

  Kizu gave the prince the side-eye. Akira simply smiled down at the clump of Necro’s body assembled on top of Raygen’s skin. He cast his paralysis hex on it, keeping the bits of the necromancer in place. Then the skin began to fold, covering the body bits like a sack.

  “Thank you, Raygen,” Kizu said. “Just so you know, I never blamed you for the leg injury. Mistakes happen. You deserve better than this.”

  With those final words, Kizu poured out the first bottled potion. The stream of glowing liquid fell through the air. Then there was a sizzle as it splattered across the skin. It burned through down to Necro’s body.

  “Agghhhh!” Necro called out as the liquid burned into his soul. It sounded like he was trying to form words, but they were lost in his pain. Kizu hadn’t been aware that undead could feel pain.

  Then there was blessed silence.

  Akira stepped off the platform and floated down to the limp sack of flesh. He nudged it with a foot then smiled up at Kizu.

  “Dead. Nothing left here,” he proclaimed. “Well done, Kaga Kizu. I now see a glimpse of how you managed to best my uncle.”

  That out of the way, Kizu turned his attention to the backstage. He ran. With each step, he formed a platform under his foot, like running down stairs.

  He burst through the doorway that led to the backstage only to faceplant into a soft, newly formed wall. Stumbling back, he looked the wall up and down. It writhed. A wall of flesh melted together and stretched out to block the entrance to the backstage.

  Kizu considered using a spell to blast through. But then shook his head. He jumped forward. Not beyond the wall, but instead into it, forming a human sized hole in its defenses. There was a plop behind him as the displaced flesh fell to the floor.

  Fire blasted over his head. He ducked. Ione’s summoned grotesque floated in front of him, wings battering the air. It took another deep breath, clearly intending to send more flames in his direction. Raising his reptilian leg, Kizu prepared to kick the creature with the most fireproof part of his body. He enhanced his other leg, ready to lunge forward.

  “Kizu?”

  A battered Basil ran up to him. Half of his arm was missing, only a skeleton of malformed bone remained. It was formed into a blade of bone made out of his forearm.

  “Ione!” Basil shouted. “Call off your creature! Kizu broke through!”

  “Everyone safe?” Kizu asked, lowering his leg.

  “Your girlfriend is hiding somewhere commanding her summons from afar,” Basil said. “We were ambushed by undead during your scene. It’s been a battle back here but I think everyone survived. The undead all went still a few seconds ago.”

  “When I killed Necro,” Kizu said. That timing matched up. “Good. Now I don’t have time. I need you to find a scrying orb. Message every professor. Tell them this is a distraction. We need to get to the western side of the island.”

  “What? Why? Distraction from what?”

  “Dragons. They’re coming.”

  Kizu thought about it. He should stay behind with everyone. Regroup. Give a detailed report to the professors and let them take care of it all. Keep Anata, Mae, and Kon safe.

  But he had information nobody else had yet. It might be only a minute until the professors could begin preparing themselves for battle. But that was a minute Kizu had to stall.

  “Basil. I’m going to do something stupid,” Kizu said.

  “I think through context I know where this is going,” Basil said. “Bad idea.”

  “I know.” Kizu sighed. “Keep everyone safe. Go find Anata and Mae. I’ll use Mort as an anchor to jump to you as soon as I’m not needed.”

  “Kizu, they’re a lot more powerful than other Calamities,” Basil warned. “It’s not a balanced fight. Let someone else take care of it.”

  “Take this.” Kizu tossed him a knife, pulled from his storage ring.

  “What am I supposed to…does this say Anata?” Basil examined the carved letters on the side of the blade.

  “An old keepsake from her time growing up with Otochi. Stina can use it to guide you to Anata,” Kizu stated. “Time for me to go.”

  Kizu stepped back through the hole in the flesh. He walked past a smiling Akira. Then looked up through the hole in the ceiling. The sky blue overhead.

  Then he jumped.

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