Normal POV
"Okay," I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose, forcing my voice into something light, in order to distract me from my shaking "I'm gonna stop you right there."
Both yellow eyes slid over to me.
"Seriously" I said, "I mean for someone sneaking around at night with murder vibes, you've got the musical taste of a drunk uncle at karaoke."
Flat blinked "he's got a point you know that was just terrible," he quipped still not all bothered by the danger in front of us.
Yellow eyes looked at us amused.
"Oh?" he drawled, voice syrupy and cruel "you don't like it? Pity I was told it soothes the nerves before... unpleasantness."
"Yeah, well," I shrugged, knives still clenched tight in my hands, "next time try something more upbeat. Now why don't you tell me what you want with us?"
The man chuckled low in his throat, then tilted his head as if finally noticing me properly.
"Oooh I am not here for you," he said lazily "but rather for that other boy."
His gaze shifted.
Locking onto Flat instead.
Flat stiffened, frown cutting deep into his face "me?" he asked, confusion flashing into suspicion "did my family send you?"
The man smiled.
A slow, knowing, and ugly ass smile.
"Sorry," he said, shaking his head gently, "but that would be telling and telling would be quite unprofessional for an Assassin."
Then suddenly like the wind he was gone.
There was no warning or sound beyond a sharp crack.
Flat's head suddenly left his shoulders.
Blood sprayed up in the air splattering itself against my face, my jacket, and the pavement. His body remained standing for half a heartbeat before collapsing like a puppet with its strings severed.
I slowly turned with wide eyes in horror and shock.
I could see how Flat's eyes were still open.
His mouth half-formed around a word that never came.
Time froze.
My lungs forgot how to work.
"F-Flat?" I stuttered.
His body hit the ground with a wet, thud.
I stared.
My first friend.
My only friend.
Gone just like that.
"How!" my voice broke as I staggered back, legs shaking, and vision blurring "how the hell did you move so quickly?!"
The man casually wiped one blade against his poncho, the metal drinking in blood like it was thirsty.
"Oh?" he mused, genuinely thoughtful "well I suppose since you're about to die, I can tell you."
He looked up at me and smiled.
"My body was naturally enhanced from birth. Strength, speed, regeneration, anything you can name really. Of course a reinforced magus might stand a chance..."
He tilted his head "but even then," he finished softly, "they wouldn't last long against me."
He moved.
Pain exploded through my chest "my name is Eins Laphroaig remember it as you depart to the afterlife."
Cold terrifying darkness swallowed my vision.
Ah...I just died again, didn't I?
[Reset x1]
"Nah man, it was no problem. If I am being honest, I think your the only person from our classroom that wanted to hang out with me. Although my roommates Svin and Caules sometimes hangout with me for a bit before they get all serious with their 'researching'" Flat voice enters my ears again.
My lungs suddenly convulsed as air slammed back into them, my body snapping upright like a corpse yanked by invisible strings. Cold needles stabbed into my skin before the world suddenly lurched.
My hands flew to my chest.
No wound.
No blood.
I gagged and vomited onto the pavement, bile burning my throat as my heart tried to beat its way out of my ribcage.
"Woah Rai you alright man?" Flat asked in concern
"Ah," I croaked, teeth chattering, vision swimming "F-Flat there's no time I can't explain it but somebodies going to try and kill us. It's an assassin we can't beat him Flat he's too damn fast and strong," I hurriedly explained.
Flat stared at me.
Not confused but rather concerned.
"Rai... bro you're shaking," he said slowly, trying to laugh it off "did you see a ghost or something?"
"I'm not joking!" I hissed, "please trust me on this."
He opened his mouth to argue.
The streetlights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then the familiar feeling of the bounded field surrounded us in the park.
My stomach dropped.
"No-no no no no!" I whispered in fear.
He was here.
Flat felt it too his joking expression melted away as his shoulders tensed "someone's just set up a bounded field around us," he informed.
Yellow eyes bloomed in the darkness.
Eins Laphroaig stepped out from between two buildings as if he'd always been there, humming that same goddamn tune.
My throat closed.
I shoved Flat back and shouted an incantation with trembling precision, forcing mana through my circuits.
"Reinforcement!"
Pain detonated in my arm.
Bone exploded outward in a spray of blood and fragments as my spell misfired, flesh tearing like wet paper.
I screamed.
Flat screamed louder.
Eins tilted his head, intrigued.
"Oh my," he murmured "that's just unfortunate."
He moved.
I didn't even see him swing.
Flat's chest caved inward like it had been struck by a truck, ribs piercing his lungs from the inside. Blood poured from his mouth as he crumpled. I barely had time to feel my own scream tear itself raw before a blade punched through my throat.
Darkness.
[Reset x2]
I came back sobbing.
I hunched over with my hands in my hair as my brain tried and failed to stitch itself back together.
"Rai?" Flat asked carefully "you okay bro?"
"Run," I whispered.
He froze "what?"
I sucked in a shaking breath and forced myself upright if brute force didn't work, then "Flat, run when I say run. Don't ask questions or stop."
He shook his in confusion "what bro I am not just going to run without an explanation."
The lights flickered "there's no time just get the hell out of here!" I roared pulling out my knives and altering them to lengthen down.
Eins had appeared again with that damn song.
"RUN!"
Flat hesitated.
The hesitation costed him as Eins appeared in front of him his left blade stabbing into Flat's back.
Flat screamed in agony.
He collapsed, convulsing as his insides rotted in real time skin graying, veins blackening, an blood bubbling from his mouth with the stench of decay.
I stared in horror as whatever that blade was murdered him alive from the inside out.
"No-NO!"
The right blade pierced my stomach before I could even think to block.
Poison burned through my veins like liquid fire. I felt my organs shut down one by one, nerves screaming as my body drowned in agony.
Eins leaned close, yellow eyes bright.
"It's quite unpleasant, isn't it?"
He slit my throat.
[Reset x3]
I started screaming the moment I came back.
Not a word just a sound.
Raw and animalistice, ripped straight out of my lungs as my body jerked upright like it had been dragged back from the grave by the throat.
Three.
I had died three times.
My hands were shaking so badly I couldn't even clench them into fists. My teeth chattered hard enough my jaw ached. My chest burned like my lungs were still full of blood.
"R-Rai?" Flat's voice came from beside me, cautious now, no jokes, or grin "hey... hey, you're scaring me, man."
I looked at him.
Alive and breathing..
My relief was so intense that it physically hurt. Like someone had just driven a nail through my sternum and twisted it.
My vision blurred instantly.
"Flat," I said hoarsely, grabbing his jacket with both hands, fingers digging in like claws, "listen to me. Please. Please don't joke and don't argue with me right now were going to die."
His eyes widened "huh what are you-"
"We have maybe thirty seconds," I said, words tumbling over each other "there's an assassin here. He going to set up a bounded field. He moves way too fast for the two of us alone if we stay here-"
The streetlights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
My blood went cold.
"There," I whispered, terror clawing up my spine "that's him."
Flat turned sharply, finally feeling the bounded field.
"Yeah," he muttered "I can definitely feel that"
I yanked him backward "LOOK WE HAVE TO RUN NOW! WE JUST NEED TO HACK THE BOUNDED FIELD AND ESCAPE!"
This time he listened and we started running.
Shoes slapped against wet pavement as we tore down the street. My heart hammered so hard I thought it might rupture.
For half a second hope sparked as we made it far from the park.
Suddenly the air screamed.
Eins Laphroaig stepped out of nothingness directly in front of Flat.
"My that was quite the fun hunt~," he sang.
Flat barely had time to gasp before a blade slid clean through his throat.
Blood arced out in a hot red ribbon, steaming in the cold night. He staggered forward, hands clutching uselessly at his neck, eyes bulging as his vocal cords tried and failed to scream.
"FLAT!"
I lunged for him.
Too slow.
His knees buckled before his body hit the ground with a sickening thud, blood pooling beneath him, before it trailed over toward my shoes.
Eins turned to me, smiling.
Pain blossomed behind my eyes as a knife buried itself in my skull.
Darkness.
[Reset x4]
I woke up sobbing.
Ugly and broken.
My breath hitched so hard it felt like my ribs were cracking.
I pressed my forehead to the cold pavement and retched, hands scraping against stone like I could dig my way out of this nightmare.
It hurts! Everything hurts so much why?!
"Rai?" Flat knelt beside me, panic obvious now "okay, that's it, we're going to the hospital or something because this is not normal."
I grabbed his wrist hard "Flat I need you to trust me like your life depends on it."
"Huh why?" he asked.
"Because it does."
The lights flickered.
I flicked my arm out and surged my mana through "Reinforcement!" I tried to use the one spell I still could not control.
Agony tore through my arm again just like the first time I tried this.
I screamed as my forearm ruptured, skin splitting as muscle overgrew its limits, bone twisting wrong, and shards punched outward through flesh in a wet spray. Blood splattered the ground, warm and thick.
Flat shrieked "RAI!"
Eins appeared mid-scream.
He watched my arm fall apart with both bewilderment and fascination.
"Hahahahaha!," he laughed at me "oh that is just hilarious I've never seen a magus blow off their own arm!"
He flickered.
Flat's head hit the ground before his body did.
I didn't even feel the blade enter my heart.
Just pressure.
Then Death.
[Reset x5]
[Reset x6]
[Reset x7]
The deaths blurred together.
Sometimes Flat died first.
Sometimes I did.
Once, I tried shoving him out of the bounded field to buy him some time but it didn't matter Eins' blade always took my spine in a spray of bone and blood.
By the tenth loop, my hands wouldn't stop shaking.
By the fifteenth, I stopped screaming when my bones and organs exploded from the rushed use of reinforcement.
By the twentieth, I finally managed to get the reinforcement spell down and made myself harder than steel.
That time I was able to land a couple of blows on Eins and even casted a [Vita] to make him heavier and for a while I had the upper hand until the effect of the spell was gone.
Flat was able to launch some elemental spells at him before he managed to cut my head off.
[Reset x35]
My breathing was ragged and my mind was tired.
If someone were to look inside they'd probably see cracks inside of it.
Maybe.
My memories were overlapped with so much death and trauma.
I am so tired, hurt, afraid, and scared.
No matter what I did Flat and I just kept on dying.
There was no end in sight.
Each time I saw Flat's life end, my heart fractured further.
Each loop shredded my sanity a little more.
By loop twenty six, my hands shook so violently I couldn't even hold my altered knives properly. By loop thirty, my mind began to split between reality, anticipation, terror, and memory of death.
I became something broken.
Fear and guilt gnawed me from the inside out.
My thoughts were stuck in an endless spiral 'f I stop, Flat dies. If I act, Flat dies. If I hesitate, Flat dies. If I run, maybe... maybe he'd let me live?"
No other solutions had worked so far...so it's okay right? I should just run away and live?
I hate seeing the constant darkness, I hate feeling the constant cold, and I hate the pain that comes with it.
Most of all I hate...dying.
Still my mind flashes back to the memories I created with Flat.
My lips tremble no Flat has to live I can't just give up damn it!
My knees hit the ground as I reached over and held his head "Flat," I whispered, voice trembling, and tears burning my cheeks, "I don't care how long it takes but I swear that I will definitely save you. No matter how long it takes. The current version of me has already failed so...I'll leave it to the next me to take it from here," I vowed.
Then in a cold flash my head was lopped off.
[Rigel Jones has died again]
-end of chapter twelve-
Oh man so much suffering and a bit more in the next chapter before Rigel finally comes to a solution on what he needs to do in order to win.
Eins Laphroaig skill set is based off a mix of Elsa from Re:Zero and Toji Fushiguro from JJK. He loves fighting with his short blade mystic codes and is an expert in curse-poison related magecraft/techniques.
Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts thus far.
They serve as good motivation for me.