Totally, Completely Normal 2

Hi, I’m Eiko Yamada, I’m 17 and a half years old, I like cats and reading fantasy, and I was totally, completely normal.

Was.

But then the (evil) queen of the angels came to my bedroom and gave me angelic powers to exterminate creatures of hell, who ended up being really friendly and told me that Aurundi (the evil angel queen) was mean and did some pretty outrageous things in her lifetime, so I joined forces with them, exploded a giant angelic space laser, and accidentally killed someone who was meant to be sacrificed anyway. But everything became normal again!

I was living back at my flat, by myself this time, but Hel (who now ruled over heaven and hell) had performed a bit of magic and made my landlord forget that I exist so I don’t have to pay rent. I mean, it may be illegal, but I think since I saved an entire realm of existence, I deserve it.

I went to school every day with Xae, which wasn’t quite normal, considering I attacked her and exorcized an abyssal out of her (Kra) and then proceeded to befriend her. But then again, normal can be boring.

Occasionally Hel summoned me to deal with a troupe of Aurundi supporters that remained but other than that my life was back to as normal as it could be given the circumstances.

At least, until the day everything changed. Again.

It was a completely ordinary day. I got up, had breakfast, got ready for school, went to school, had lunch at school, learnt absolutely nothing at school, returned home from school, and sat down on my sofa to start playing this new game I bought for myself recently. It was called Eri and the Unseeing Forest, and it was like this game Xae had been playing recently called Hollow Soldier. I think it’s called a Metroidvania, but that doesn’t matter. I was waiting for the game to load (It was taking ages) when something strange happened.

Well, strange for a normal person.

But, then again,

I wasn’t normal.

No. not at all. Anyway, the strange thing that happened was a huge and blinding light filling my room. I had seen this about a year ago, when the evil angel queen Aurundi was asking for my assistance, but this time it was different. The light was blue-er, but warmer somehow, like an embrace. Then, a disembodied voice, which seemed to be coming from the light, said in a voice that was neither male nor female, “Her highness, Hel of the two eternal realms-” that’s what they called Heaven and Hell – “has summoned you to the palace of heaven, and is requesting your presence within the next hour. Since Aurundi’s spells have been disabled, you have been given extra travel time, using the angelic powers that saved your life. This is a pre-recorded message and you cannot reply.”

Ah yes, I forgot. After Aurundi had died, all the spells that she had put in place, such as the one that let you travel to Heaven in an instant had been removed. Ones like growing spells and speed spells still worked, but the ones that could be labelled as dangerous were removed from every syllabary.

Anyway, I began to prepare for the journey. I changed into my Angelic robes, a pale-yellow sleeveless toga-dress thing with a leather strap around my waist. It’s surprisingly comfortable. I looked in the mirror out of my one good eye. I had injured the other in the last war against heaven, and I had to answer a lot of questions about it when I returned to school. Luckily, everyone seemed to believe that I’d knocked a mirror and it broke and a shard scraped my face. Xae said she thought that was bad luck, but when we were alone later, I explained the whole story.

The scar actually looked really cool.

Anyway, I stood on the edge of the balcony outside the window and prepared to take flight. I heard a voice cry out from below but ignored it as wings burst from my back and I flew directly at the setting sun.

Oh yeah, Hel had told me earlier on one of my other trips to Heaven that Heaven lies in the sun! it’s very cool, but not important currently.

The trip to Heaven went swiftly and only took about 20 minutes. I arrived outside the gates and an infernal – who I recognised to be Vex – let me in immediately.

I wormed my way around the garden of Eden and ended up at the ornately carved gates. Applying a bit of force to push them open, I was met with a slightly frantic-looking Dawn in the main hall and she led me to the old study.

As I entered the study, a wave of nostalgia hit me. I remembered, about a year ago, I had been in here with Mikan, trying to find out more information about the monsters Aurundi wanted us to kill. This time, the desk was crammed not with papers and self-writing quills, but many magical objects surrounding a messily organised notebook. There was this strange thing that looked like a tennis ball mixed with a rubix cube – “No way, an arcana star map…” Dawn whispered, looking at it too – I obviously had no idea what an arkmana star map – or whatever it was called – was but either way, it sounded pretty cool.

Then Hel came in. She was looking dishevelled and disoriented, and basically every other dis- word you could think of apart from disappear, because she was there.

Sorry, I’m going off on a tangent. Hel noticed me and visibly calmed down slightly.

“I’m glad you made it. The journey wasn’t too hard, I hope?”

“Not at all.” I replied. It was true, the flight was enjoyable, and less scary than last time.

“Well, I have news. You are aware of supporters of Aurundi? Yes? An agent on the inside has discovered that there is a rumour. We do not know what the rumour is about but we know that it is of importance.”