Took a bit of time, polishing, a few rewrites. Nevertheless, it is stil improvable, but whatever ... You try the best you can.
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One day when I woke up from my unsettling dreams, I found myself ...
No, no, no, not original enough, not creative enough. Neither did I wake up nor had I unsettling dreams. On the contrary, I had actually quite pleasant ones. I need to use something else for my opening lines, something with, ehmm, ehmm, ehmm, with more esprit. Hmm, esprit, esprit, esprit. However, where do I get that from?
Whatever, let us try again. Ahemmm, drum roll please.
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Ehm, uhm, ehrrr, how shall I put it, I still have no idea. No, wait a moment... Wait a moment… Wait a moment… No, sorry, still nothing.
Aarghhhh, to hell with introductions. Because who needs them anyway, right?
Long story even longer, I didn't anticipate, honestly I didn't, that I would end up in a situation like this. Considering my incredibly bad luck in the past, I probably should have, though.
To be honest, I have some kind of nuclear ordnance detonating straight into my face at the beginning of such a, not so much in retrospect, decisive battle. Like, for example, tripping on a nuclear landmine in a, clearly, futile attempt to evaporate me. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
No, no, no, what I got instead was a vicious, insidious, bla bla bla insert a few more suitable adjectives here, horde of pissed off mages calling for my head and trying to spill my guts out. The latter part would partially explain their extensive usage of unpleasant melee weaponry. Tsk tsk tsk, always this fetish with these sharp and spiky objects. Clearly, they had only limited success, which is pretty much self-explanatory. Because otherwise I wouldn't be around anymore and couldn’t tell you the wonderful story of my life, or rather my recent past.
Anyway, based on my personal assumptions, I would say that tried to pin me down by throwing enough bodies at me in a classical mass attack until they could practically burry me with their number of corpses alone. Not in the iconic Hollywood fashion, however, which would have made things so much easier.
It may have been an extremely “inefficient” tactic, not to say incredibly stupid, but it was indubitably effective. In the end, their approach, more or less, worked and a few times they almost succeeded in rendering me completely “combat ineffective” forever. Not that they could realistically defeat me and kill me, but they certainly came quite close a series of times.
So, who I am to criticize their methods? Well, as long as it works, it isn't stupid, even when it is evidently stupid by every standard imaginable.
Because there aren’t many things more dangerous in your life, certain exceptions are being made, than a combat mage who is not swiftly and properly dealt with. Which means in more practical terms that you are advised to kill the motherfucker as fast as possible or you will be the one to be dead within a reasonable time frame. Otherwise these mages will bring out the big, nasty spells, which is not recommendable at all.
All in all, by engaging me in close combat they effectively prevented me from effectively utilising the more destructive spells in my magic repertoire. Normally, I would simply blow any resistance to kingdom come with just a wave of my hand. Which I did, or to be more precise I tried to.
Unfortunately, I only succeeded partially in my endeavour and my personal counterattack didn't go precisely as planned, not to say everything went totally wrong and the consequences were slightly unpleasant to say the least. Apparently, it wasn’t my day.
Nonetheless, charging at me over an open field was an utterly foolish decision. Despite close combat not being my forte, never was and never will be as I personally prefer to blow things up, I was at least skilled enough in the most noble art of cutting and thrusting to give my friends a run for their money. And luckily, the majority of my spells were still applicable on close range by reducing their power output.
Because considering everything I have already gone through, it would have been more than a little bit embarrassing to be killed by “friendly fire”, or rather by blowing myself up with my own magic. Imagine dying from your own cataclysmic creation and on your gravestone being written in bold accusatory letters " killed by your own magic”. Now that would be a bit of a mood killer, wouldn’t it?
Especially, if you pretend like me to be some kind of omniscient and omnipotent entity, which I clearly wasn’t. Because in the end, I am still only human and. I may be exceedingly difficult to kill and a stubborn person in general, but I would be the first to admit that I am neither omnipotent nor omniscient. Otherwise I wouldn’t be now in this shitty situation.
However, that doesn’t mean necessarily that I am, or rather was a toothless paper tiger. No, no, no, I am by no means comparable to a divine entity, but I am undeniably a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, a fact that many hostile acquaintances would testify if they were still alive.
Anyway, after this digression, let’s return to the original topic. So, what happened exactly or how did I end up here? To keep it short and concise, I got surrounded by them and they attempted to overwhelm me with enough cheap cannon fodder until I either died or drowned in their blood. But to their dismay, I didn’t make them that easy and refused to go down without a fight, and that was the crux of the matter. They were unable to kill me and I was unable to defeat them. It was basically a draw. Yes, a draw, and I surely wasn’t running out of stamina and about to lose. No, no, no, that didn’t happen.
Therefore, the tricky question was whether it was even possible to defeat someone like me who was considered practically invincible? And if yes, then how?
The first answer is definitely yes. Yes, it possible. Everything that bleeds can be killed and this was also true for me. The how is, however, a bit more complicated.
So, if you can't beat someone in a fair fight and have no viable options left, what would you do then? Ignoring the fact that you should under no circumstance ever fight an enemy under fair conditions because if you are doing that, then you have normally done something seriously wrong. Anyway, what would you do? Exactly, you cheat and use every underhanded method possible.
Therefore, someone came up with the elegant idea to simply displace me instead of trying to killing me. A lot of complicated space-time magic, I am not totally sure but I have a hunch, and using me as goddamn battery to power the spell later, I have absolutely no idea where the hell I am, which is unsurprisingly quite annoying.
Normally, I would approve of such ingenuity and I would congratulate the person who is responsible for sending me to this place, but obviously not this time. After all, I am not particularly happy with my current situation.
Nevertheless, I would say it is important to remain optimistic at the moment and I have collected a few potential clues to my current location, even though I am in my heart sadly a convinced pessimist.
Since the first day that I am trapped in this never ending limbo of consciousness and unconsciousness, I am registering some unidentifiable sounds and noises which can sometimes even be described as language with a bit of good will from my side.
Moreover, I have noted that all mental task require an almost inhuman amount of effort and concentration compared to what I am used to, which makes any attempt to gather further information annoying as hell.
Not to mention, that any attempt to move seems to put an even bigger strain on my rather body, or rather what I define as moving these days. But I should consider myself lucky that I still have a corporeal form after this whole catastrophe. Because the fact that I can still move is at least a reliable indicator that I am not some sort of nebulous ghost or wraith floating around in the immaterial world.
Furthermore, I was able to get in recent times a few short glimpses of the world around me. And what I saw could be defined as an unidentifiable, bright, and warm watery nothingness. In conclusion, I had no meaningful successes in this area yet.
The most infuriating thing is, however, that I have no control over my own situation. I am just trapped here without having a choice and slowly I am starting to think that it is impossible to escape from this place. A feeling of inescapable weakness, vulnerability, powerlessness grips accompanies me, a feeling that I have always despised, always hated. Because it is a cruel fate to be at the world's mercy, a world that doesn't care about you as an individual in the slightest.
Whatever, let’s talk about something more cheerful now. Interestingly, I notice a serious lack of a certain energy, an energy that I am quite fond of since it had been accompanying me since my childhood. Where had all my beloved mana gone to? Instead of the typical warming and calming touch of mana, I just don’t feel anything in the air, aether or whatever plain of existence I am currently residing. There is nothing but a vast infinite emptiness interrupted by minuscule amounts of brightly shining stars of concentrated mana. Truly mysterious.
Moreover, I don't register a single strong magical signatures in my immediate vicinity. Granted, there a few ones, but they are all so incomprehensibly weak and can’t be really considered strong in the traditional sense of the word. But to be fair, I am not that strong either at the moment and my own magical signature isn’t that spectacular too compared to what it used to be, not to say a shadow of its former self.
The reason is that my entire mana reserves have simply evaporated into nowhere and now I am literally dried up. All my original mana is gone, completely gone, zero nada, nothing. And currently, I am just left with nothing more than a few tiny, tiny grains of precious mana, what a cruel fate.
Fortunately, my totally empty mana reserves have finally started to steadily replenish themselves again. Even though it might take a few decades at the current pace, which is a by the way optimistic estimation, very optimistic, some far day in the future I might be fully operational again, or at least partially operational. Aargh, what a mess.
Anyway, who was the guy again who bet that the entire operation would turn into a total catastrophe? What was his name again? I scratched my metaphysical hairs desperately. Aargh, I don't remember. Nevertheless, he was spot on and it seems that I have lost the bet.
How much do I owe him again? Together with the money from last time, the time before, it should be around … Well, I guess quite a lot. Not that he will ever see, however, a single penny from me now that I am dead. You see, being dead has a few advantages, granted not that many but they exist...
Whoa. What the fuck was that? It feels like I am ehm, ehm, pushed out of somewhere by an unknown external force? Ehm, strange.
Why am I here again? Yes, because the extremely brilliant me thought that leading from the front was a good idea. Tsk tsk tsk, stupid me.
Ah, I am apparently approaching something bright. Seriously, is that the famous light at the end of the tunnel? Hey, come on these are probably my final moments before I dissolve literally into metaphysical dust and what do I get? A stupid lightshow, eh? I have to admit that I am disappointed, really disappointed. Because even the end of your life looks kind of cheap and cliché all things considered. Yaaaay.
And to be honest, I expected something far more enlightening and spectacular. But Death is, as far as I can say, a mean asshole who unable to afford even a halfway decent scenery. Did you hear that, Death, you uncreative bastard? Because I hope so, asshole.
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A new sensation crawled over my unprotected skin. It was an indescribable coldness, uncaring and merciless in nature. I sensed this coldness surrounding my weak body like a veil and my body longed for the ever present warmth from before, I wanted it back. A warmth that I was forcefully separated, brutally ripped apart from without question, without a second thought. I felt alone now, I was alone now, completely alone and thrown into a hostile, unforgiving and frozen world. Contrary to my expectations, it was clear by now that I was somehow still alive as I was apparently still breathing. I had never thought that dying was such an overly complicated, surprisingly time-consuming and primarily such an unreliable affair. I should have clearly died, but I didn’t.
The moment that the fresh air entered my weakened lungs, I felt a sudden urge … to cry. But I didn’t get why? For some strange reason, my body told me to cry and I only managed to suppress this instinct by sheer force of will and mental discipline.
Afterwards, I was enveloped by a soft fabric and a pair of hands carrying me. It may have taken a small eternity, but eventually my eyes adjusted and I got my first, not completely blurred, view of the world around me. A small victory admittedly, but a victory nonetheless.
I opened my eyes and a pair of affectionate eyes filled with pure motherly love greeted me in return. An Asian looking woman embraced me holding me firmly in her arms. It was beyond my knowledge, however, how that was physically possible.
I examined my mysterious counterpart who possessed an unnaturally pale skin. Either a sign of a rich household probably or simply caused by being barely exposed to the sun light in general, either was possible.
Long black silken hair. I furrowed my doubting eyebrow. Yes, evidently Asian and suggesting an extensive use of beauty products.
A petite oval shaped face. And no sign of any sort of manual labour. No scars, no wrinkles, no pores, just nothing. It was almost scary. But she was definitely rich or wealthy at least. Even old money perhaps?
And stunning lapis lazuli blue eyes, a blue that was tainted, however, by inexplicable sorrow. Well, her eyes had a relatively weird, not say unnatural eye colour, but I have to admit that I have seen stranger things in my life. Wait a moment, perhaps I am only imagining it? But doesn’t she look right into my direction…
She opened her smooth lips and spoke. Her was voice tired yet overflowing with infinite happiness, "You have the eyes of your father."
The eyes of my father? Startled by her words, I furrowed my, to my dismay, non-existent eyebrow, which didn't achieve therefore the desired effect, none at all to be exact. Moreover, it seemed like she was speaking what was supposed some Asian language? Which one exactly was, however, another question altogether. But on the other hand, I had finally a hint in regard to my current location, and that was something I could work with.
"Even when he doesn't acknowledge you, I will", her next sentence didn't help me and only increased my inner state of uncertainty further.
I blinked in confusion. What was going on here? What was she talking about? I didn't get it. What did she mean with acknowledging and father? Surely, there was some crucial piece of information that I was missing to solve this mysterious series of events. The only question was what exactly? I tried in vain to scratch my head to show my cluelessness.
The woman took a deep breath and a radiant smile appeared on her petite face, "I will give you the name Asami, Minami Asami."
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Whhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttttttttttttttt! My eyes widened in realisation and the full implications of the situation hit me. It finally dawned on me what had transpired in these last few minutes. A name, a name, a name. I was given a new name. I lost any force in my limbs and I felt how the world around me shattered like fragile glass into millions of tiny brilliant shards. I cried as loudly as my new born lungs were able to.
Forget congratulations. If I ever met that dammed bastard who devised this nefarious plan, then I will rip him apart with my own bare hands and plant his head on a pike. Aarghhhhhh.
