The Boy, the Spider and the Claymore

No matter how hard I rub my hands against my clothes, I cannot wipe off my brother’s blood.

The room is in utter chaos as the Night of Bonding is underway.

Focusing away from my bloody hands, I look up to see the bodies shifting around me. Metal dances swiftly and deadly in strangers’ hands as death screams fill the Room of Bonding.

Every few seconds, a body is bathed in light and translocated out of the battleground around me.

They are the lucky ones.

Taking the Seal from my brother’s cooling death grip, I crawl away from his body.

Looking around the Room of Bonding, I search desperately for any remaining eggs, my despair growing ever so steadily as seconds pass with none in sight.

The eleventh body is bathed in light and translocated.

Shouts of despair fill the space around me.

This is the end.

“There’re two more!” a girl’s voice yells out in the darklit room.

The air in the room stills at the declaration.

There are still four people standing, five including me. Though I am hiding out of sight, amongst the dead.

One of the two girls left in the room moves swiftly, aiming her holey, twin blades at one of the three boys and charges at him with a vicious battle cry that sends shivers down my neck.

The boy raises his claymore one-handed, a feat that should have been impossible for a body as thin as his.

At the last instant before their weapons clash, the girl turns on her heel, and the twin blades in her hands go flying.

The blades chirp like birds as they hit their true targets, the other boy and the other girl.

The two drop like straw dolls as the two holey blades pierce right between their eyes.

The killer girl clasps her hands together as she Blinks out of existence and reappears right next to the bodies, taking hold of her holey blades once more.

It is only the killer girl, the claymore boy, and me left in the Room of Bonding now.

“It’s only the two of us left,” says the killer girl, holding her blades defensively in front of her. “And there’re two eggs.”

The boy loosens his grip on his claymore and places it on his back where it remains even when there is no sheath holding it in place.

“Good. I didn’t want to kill anym—”

The word leaves his lips incomplete as a chirping blade flies across the space between them and pierces between his eyes. He groans out only for a moment, his last words unknowable, as he drops just like the two before him.

The killer girl doesn’t clasp her hands and Blinks this time around. She simply walks to the body and retrieves her holey blade.

“She lied,” the killer girl speaks to the body of the boy before her. “There was only one egg left. I suppose she wanted to create confusion and hope between us while she sneaked off to get it.”

The killer girl starts getting up when she hesitates and places her hand around the claymore, attempting to lift it as she gets to her feet.

A toothy smile graces her pretty face as she holds the claymore up with both hands before her eyes bunch up in pain and she screams, letting go of the claymore.

“Damned ego bastard.” The killer girl spits out, kicking at the giant weapon at her feet. “Won’t be held by the one who killed your master, huh?” Shrugging, she turns and heads to a darkened corner of the room. “Fine, burn with the rest of the room then.”

Looking ahead of the killer girl, I can see it. The final egg of the Room of Bonding.

“Kill her, boy.” A voice speaks in my head. “Take hold of me and kill her.”

My sight is drawn to the claymore as the voice speaks again—

“Hurry, boy! Kill her and bind yourself with the final egg. If she does it before you, we both burn!”

It wasn’t wrong. We were told the moment before we were translocated into the Room of Bonding: those who are left alive by the final egg’s bonding burn in Cleansing Fire along with everything else in the room, leaving no trace behind.

Not even ash.

The thought of burning alive drives me towards the claymore. I walk on all fours, careful not to make a sound.

Who knew this creepy ability would save me today? I think to myself.

“Hurry, child!” The claymore says inside my mind. “We only have seconds! Take hold of my hilt, and we can end her life in but a moment!”

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and hollow my mind.

As my body crawls next to the claymore, my hand reaches out to grasp it—

The voice in my mind gasps before it bellows a sickening laugh.

The ego claymore’s power rushes through my skin and into my soulcore, empowering me. As my joints shift back into place, my mind snaps back into focus as the claymore’s power urges my body forward towards my target.

The killer girl is on her knees, her Seal about to touch the final egg as I swing the claymore over my head and down at her—

Turning around, the killer girl gasps before falling on her back, her bare hands attempting to protect her face—

“Big brother—!”

The killer girl’s hair dances wildly from the air rushing down her as I stop the claymore just a moment before her life came to an end.

Sinking the claymore into the earth beside me, I fall to my knees.

“I can’t do it,” I declare. “I cannot take another’s life.”

I look up at the sound of the killer girl whimpering. Her expression is worried, before it grows pained with a sorrow I have never seen before.

Taking hold of the egg next to her, the killer girl moves it between her legs, holding her Seal right next to it. She would be translocated the moment her Seal touched the egg, and she spoke her name.

Yet the sound of her name does not come.

Biting her lip, the killer girl says, “I can end your life if you so wish. I… I’ve heard that burning to death is a terrible way to die. And this is Cleansing Fire…”

Cleansing Fire burns everything away, even ashes. But when it comes to the living, Cleansing Fire burns away the soul before it burns the flesh. There is no record of just how painful it is because no one has survived it to tell it.

Looking towards the pile of bodies where my brother rests, I shake my head.

“I wish to die next to my brother.”

The killer girl’s sorrowful expression turns into a grimace before tears fall from her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“There is to be no rancor born from the Night of Choosing,” I say, repeating the most highly held Law. “Just promise me one thing,”

Holding back a sob, she declares, “If it’s within my capability to grant it, I will.”

“Live a just life.”

The killer girl’s expression melts away until there is nothing left on her face. I’ve seen that expression only once before. I did not understand what it meant then either.

“Tell me your name.”

I shake my head. “There is no need to remember the name of one such as me. Just keep your vow. That is enough.”

Touching her Seal to the egg, the killer girl smiles softly before nodding. “My name is Rebekah Swallow.”

Light bathes her body as she and the final egg translocate out of the room.

And I remain alone.

“I cannot understand your decision, child.” The claymore speaks. “I know your soul. We are kindred.”

“I do not know what you mean, blade,” I say, dragging the claymore behind me as I go to my brother.

The scent of blood in the room is all-encompassing. Yet it does not bother me. Nothing does. For I am about to die.

I lay the claymore next to me as I grasp my brother’s body in my arms. His neck has been ripped off his body, leaving a bloody opening behind. His skin is cold; the color on his face has blanched. The expression on his face is pure horror.

I close his eyes and hold him closer.

“I wish I had experienced time with you, kindred boy.” The claymore speaks. “I have a feeling it would have been quite an adventure.”

I ignore the claymore’s words as an intense heat fills the room and a single, white flame flicks alight in the center of the killing space.

Taking out the Seal, I look deeply at the oval, black carved stone no bigger than an eyeball. The rune on it was of the old language. It supposedly means ‘soulbind’. Placed upon a living being that was not human, the stone would create a soul bond between the human and the living being it touched.

The soulbind runestone had one drawback: it needed both parties’ consent, and a wild beast would seldom allow itself to become a slave to a human. That’s why the Night of Choosing was carried out with eggs, as unborn beings cannot give consent and thus works as a loophole in the runestone’s magic.

Turning the runestone around in my hand, I see the secondary rune carved upon it: escape. When the primary rune activates, it would then immediately activate the secondary rune, causing my body to be translocated to the saved location on the rune.

Not that any of this matters now, as I await death.

Closing my eyes, I retreat into my memories of the golden hills and of my brother—

“The fire frightens me,” a voice speaks in my mind once more.

“There is no need to fear the fire, claymore. You won’t even feel its burn.”

The claymore laughs in my head. “It was not I who spoke, child.”

Sitting up, I look around but see no one around me. No one alive.

The Cleansing Fire has grown taller now, reaching the ceiling of the Room of Bonding and slowly making its way out to the edges of the room in an ever-expanding circle.

It’s so bright in the room that I can see the light even with my eyes closed.

“I’m here!” the female voice speaks once more. It sounds like a child younger than me.

“Where are you?” I ask out into the room.

I have no idea that a Whisperer was among us in the room. I’m surprised she made it this long, as they tend to be quite physically weak.

“On your hand!”

I look down at my hand holding the runestone to see a tiny black spider sitting upon it, looking up at me with alien eyes.

“You can speak?”

“It is the power of this magic stone. Because I am touching it.” Turning around on the stone, the small spider turns towards the blinding fire wall consuming everything in its path. “The heat frightens me.”

Any living being bound to a human would gain the power to change as the human grows. Magical beasts have no need for humans as they have this innate power of evolution within them.

Normal beasts have little potential for growth, even humanbound.

This small spider can never give me glory, but it can give me life.

And that is enough.

Kissing my brother’s temple, I hold him tight as the consuming firewall is but a few steps away.

“My name is Judes Toirakzi. Will you form a soulbond with me?”

The small spider turns on the runestone and lifts its front legs at me.

“Yes!”

As my body glows alight with white, I see that my brother’s body does not. He will remain here and burn. Nothing will be left in this world to remind me of him, except for my memories.

And my reflection.

As the blazing firewall touches my brother’s feet, I am taken away.