“Oh, c’mon Mada, let’s play again.” Nevi begs me while tucking my shirt.

“I’ll play with you.” I try to release Nevi’s hand from my shirt. “But after you’ve done your homework.”

“Nooo, you’re no fun.” Nevi cries as she falls on her knee.

Ahh, I can’t seem to win against Nevi.

Nevi is three years younger than me. Now she’s 8. Ariana has left us for one week counting today. Before leaving us, she left us some homework for us to do. Of all kid in this place, Nevi is the most pampered one. When she cries like this, nobody wants to deal with her and simply left her to me.

“Okay, okay. I’ll play with you.” I pat Nevi’s head to calm her down. “But you’ve got to do your homework after I play with you. Deal?”

“Deal!” Nevi shows a wide smile on her face.

Her favorite play is just a simple house play where I play as the father, she’s the mother, and some doll as our children. Sometimes I’m thinking this kind of life is not too bad.

“Mada, when we grow up, would you marry me?”

“I’ll consider it.”

~~~

“Oh, Mada, why would you do that?”

No. No way. All my gut is trying to deny this voice. The voice of a kid that’s always clinging to me in the past. The voice of pampered kid that cries every time I didn’t want to play with her. But yet, deep inside my heart, I know this might be happen.

“Nevi, why?”

In the dark, a figure of a woman in a veil come forward and shows her face, illuminated by the torch. Nevi is standing in front of me with a big smile on her face.

“I can’t really answer your question if you ask me so vaguely.”

I’m speechless. I don’t know what to say. A lot of questions pop inside my mind. But yet I can’t seem to ask any of it. My mouth won’t move.

“Have you really fallen for her?”

“She has nothing to do with all of these!” I shout in reflex of her words. “Why a mere two words fugitive got a treatment of one word fugitive!?”

“Ah, so you already know the punishment of one word fugitive. Then, it will be easier for me to explain it.” Nevi walks in a circle around me. “You know, this kingdom was just a small kingdom with no true power whatsoever before I came. But yet, how do you think this city manages to became one of the biggest and strongest kingdom in the beast man territory? If, you’re thinking because it didn’t discriminate against any race then you’re totally wrong.

“The king offer me the position of high priest because at that time, this kingdom is in riot and demanded a change of king and such. You know, the classic situation. Even religion couldn’t keep them in check anymore.”

“So?”

“So, we needed something to keep them in check. We needed to take all of their negative emotion. Did you know that extracted pain and fear, mixed with some magic, could take all negative emotion surrounding it? By using this room, we extracted the pain and fear as much as possible and use it to take all negative emotion in this kingdom. That’s why people only welcome me without even take a look at the bandits when we came. Without this place, the kingdom would collapse in just a single day.”

Nevi stops in front of me.

“But, why? You’re not this kind of girl. You–“

“I’m not the same little kid that used to tuck your shirt.” Nevi interrupts me. “I’m not that kid anymore. Right now, I’m Nevi Frendezcht, Nevi the Anti Magic, the high priest of Sairkhan. To tell you the truth, I hoped you would take the king’s offer and come to our side or at least you stayed away from this place.”

“And, now what?” I ask her.

“Now that you’ve seen this place, the only path left for you is to die.”

A pair of sword suddenly flying towards me. I deflect them by using Roaring Tiger and then I swing it to the ground. The floor in front of me is opened and create a fissure. She jumps to the side and sends out another swords flying towards me. I deflect them and take a step back.

“Please, Nevi. Can’t we talk about it?”

“No, we can’t.”

Another swords flying toward me. I swing my sword and make it deflect back to Nevi. She grabs a pair of flying swords and deflects them. She’s the kind of lazy type that prefer to use swords as projectile but she’s also a master at swordsmanship.

She runs at me and thrusts her sword. I let go of Xiel and bow back to avoid it. She takes a chance of my weakness of holding Xiel. I spin and send out a kick to her hand. My kick made her let go of her swords. But as the swords are flying in the air, they fly back to me. I use kick her shoulder and use it as a foothold to jump. I avoid it and she holds the sword again.

As I realized, a lot of swords have already surrounded me like a dome. The swords are spinning around. Ready to move.

I look into Xiel and make sure she lies low.

“Please, Nevi, you’re the last person I want to fight.”

“You’ve got no choice!”

She raises her hand and the swords stop spinning.

~By the will of red blood, let this body of mine contain your whole might. As I say, blood transformation.~

All the swords thrust toward me. All at the same time. I spin my halberd fast and pass it by my left hand and right hand. I deflect all the swords and make them hit one each other. She covers the weakness of possibility of me breaking through one point if she sends the swords one by one. But by sending all the swords at the same time, it gives the chance of the swords hitting one each other.

Finally, I deflected all the swords. By the end of it, everybody in this room has died. Stabbed by flying swords I deflected. The only one standing other than me is Nevi on the other side of the room. I look back into the Xiel and let out a relief breath as I see she’s unharmed.

“You really have fallen for her, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not.” I deny her statement again. “She’s my pupil.”

“So, it is true when she claims that she’s an apprentice of Mada the Raider?”

“Ahh, umm, not entirely. Just say she’s an illegitimate pupil of mine.” I answer her words. “Enough of her. I need you to stop. We’ve got no reason to fight.”

“I’ll stop if you agree to take the security supervisor and left your party.”

I’m not letting out any answer.

“See, the answer is clear. We’re not on the same page anymore.”

“Please, I beg of you.”

~illumination~

Nevi cast out a magic spell and the torch light up the whole room. I can see a sword in every inch of the wall. If she makes those swords come at me, I’m not sure I can get out of this thing unscathed.

At that time, I can feel my body is back to normal. She has dispelled my blood transformation magic. Just as I thought, using magic against her is no use.

~The almighty time is no ally to you. You stand on your own feet without the time. Oh, I yearn those powers of yours. As I say, the eternity.~

The eternity is not a combat magic like any other magic I normally used. The eternity is a spell for increasing the blood circular speed, relaxing the muscle, and increase my nervous system. So, it’s like a combination of blood transformation, flesh of immortal, and hand of creator. The main different is it’s not affecting my body movement as it can’t stand it, but my mind is the target. While my body can’t move, my mind processing things way faster than before. it’s like time is nearly stop for me to think everything through without my body acting at all.

I look into everything we’ve been through for the past few days. She still acts like the same old Nevi in the journey but yet she’s claiming she’s not the same child back then. She says she has to kill me because I know this place but yet she’s still expecting me to take the security supervisor position. But the way she told me, it’s like she knows me all along that I’ll never take the jobs. She teaches Erfia the anti-magic. It’s a normal thing for a teacher to want a disciple to continue the teach or magic. But a young girl like her, especially a pampered girl like her shouldn’t have to think about it yet. If my guess is right, she’s preparing herself to die in near future.

I look into the freezing body of Nevi. As I look through her eyes, I could see a killing intent toward me. But the killing intent is not the usual pure killing intent. It’s like the real killing intent is meant for someone else. But yet, there’s something else I can feel from her eyes. A wavering will and an expectation. Both of it mixed in one thing as sadness. In other words, she expecting something entirely different from me.

~Time is ally to none.~

As I dispel my magic, everything moved normal again. I take a stance with both my hand spins Roaring Tiger above my head.

“Nevi, I’ll try to fulfill your expectation.” I whisper to myself.

I stop my swing and swing my halberd into the ground. As the tip hit the ground, it let out a shockwave of sound and breaking the ground apart. All the swords that are flying to me deflected by the shockwave. Nevi take a few steps back trying to stay out of the breaking ground. I put the Roaring Tiger back to the keeper and jump. I take Xiel with me and closing in to Nevi. I take one sword and approach her. I throw Xiel at her and she dodges her. She’s letting her guard down.

“You finally made it.” Nevi let out a smile. A nice and warm smile.

I stand low my left leg kneel. My right hand is holding a sword while I hug her with my left hand. I can feel Nevi’s warm body that’s sticking to me. She’s kneeling with a smile. She’s trying to tell me not to think about the sword that’s sticking out of her back.

I let go of the sword and take off my mask. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I keep on ranting. Without realizing it, I dropped a river of tears.

“It’s okay, you’re not at fault. I’m the one at fault.” Nevi put both of her hands in my body to give me a hug. One last hug. “We’re an adult now. Would you marry me?”

“Yes, I would.”

I hug her with both of my hand. Our face is closer and she closes her eyes. As our lips about to meet, right at that moment, I can feel her lips is avoiding me. Her body becomes so heavy. Both of her hand slip through me. I hold her and slowly put her on the ground.

“Nevi, Rest in Peace,” as I give her our first and last kiss.