Necromancer's Requiem

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All I have to do is open my eyes. Should I do that, the nightmare will end. 

Just open my eyes. Just this once. Please.

Please, my body. Don't fail me now. Please. Please, don't fail me. My lungs, my heart, the organs I had grown so used to fixing, had already collapsed. 

If so, isn't it time for me to move now? One last time?

I just need to look at them. The explosion had damaged me beyond what I could tell and likely obliterated my local research. The person responsible for this — I had to see them.

 Just this once — but I can't move my body at all. How fickle, humanity. Even I, after so long, could not escape the indistinguishable frailty that comes with the very title, the very concept, of being 'human'. With my chest burst open and my eyes shut, I could do little but contemplate this pathetic end of mine.

I had already lost far too much blood. Because of that, my death was inevitable. None of my spells would ever change that. Slugged against the broken wall I'd been thrown at after my impalement, I still struggled feebly to get my cold, unmoving body to even twitch at my command.

My consciousness was far beyond hazy already. My heart had long since stopped beating, and that was before it was completely destroyed. My lungs were pierced and my spine was severed. My left arm had been completely blown off.

If I weren't flowing magical energy through my brain to keep it active, I would have long since died already. Even now, I was more dead than alive. 

Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it — move! Move, please! Just a bit. Just let me look at them. That 's all I need —

"Hey. This kid's… still alive, I think."

A woman's voice echoed through what little remained of my sanctuary. Cold, sharp, but surprised. Almost admiring, in a sick way. Her steps clacked against the marble floor, approaching me ever steadily.

Damn it. I just have to open my eyes. Please. Please. If I can look at her, then —

Pain.

I felt a woman's hand, burning warm, grab my face and tilt it up. The fingers tightened with enough force to crack the bones of my jaw, and the flames that flickered between them ate away at my skin and flesh, causing hot, searing pain to coarse through my senses. If I could speak, I would have cried out in pain.

Fuck. Damn it, damn it, damn it —

"Hey, bastard." She slapped me across the face. "You can hear me, right?"

I only had a flicker of magic left. If I used it to force my eyes to open, I wouldn't be able to communicate what I saw through my link. I needed to do this the old way. 

Come on.

Please, body. Please —

Once again, she slapped me across the face — no, that hurt way too much. A punch, then. I felt my head bounce against the wall, my thoughts blanking for a second. More blood. I was losing more blood.

"Hey, asshole — I said to look at me!"

The woman grabbed my face with her burning hands, right over my eyelids. With force, she pulled them open and met my eyes with her purple own.

And suddenly — I could see.

I focused my senses on what little magic I had left, pulling from the small magic core I had implanted into the back of my neck during one of my experiments. As a necromancer, I took pride in my ability to manipulate the body, both human and dead.

It paid off.

«Communicate» — a simple spell I had designed, to transfer every sensory input in the brain of one of my undead to the database regardless of distance. It worked by liquidating the very body itself into magic energy, which can then travel at near lightspeed toward an energy signal opposite its own. It takes little magic to activate because most of it is drawn from the draining of the flesh.

I saw it — the moment the woman's eyes widened in realization, and she drew the dagger she wore on her waist and raised it, ready to strike me down. Too late, I thought to myself, grinning inside even as my body was quickly mummified and my brain started to melt.

My laboratory in Erenen had been a secret divulged to only the top-ranked in the Alliance. And it hadn't been attacked outright along with the city — it had been exploded from within, as well as I. The only person who could have gotten into my Haven was the traitor — and now, I finally knew her face. Within an hour's time, so too would my allies.

Anastasia, Duchess of Gadun. A woman with whom I had fought alongside for many years. A woman who had tricked me — no, all of us — for all of them. 

A woman I had looked up to.

Despite having no energy left at all, my lips curled into a nasty, vicious grin.

"Got you, bitch." 

And thus ended the life of Kyo, Deathweaver, the greatest necromancer of the Celestic Alliance. My life. 

And that was also where my life began.

For deep within the bowels of a ruined city, locked away in a series of tunnels and dungeons I had carefully transformed into my laboratory, home and Core, I found myself breathing anew.