Chapter 9: Ghost of No Tomorrow

Nightshade clapped, snapping herself out of her daze. “Anyway! That’s enough of my stories on your first day. I still gotta go to the town hall and tell them about you, set you up with a house and whatever, so let me show you to the guest room in the meantime” —

“Wait, wait, wait.” Craft pointed behind him. “I’ve experienced a tragedy.”

Nightshade looked over his shoulder, and on spotting his shoes, recoiled backwards, holding her hair in frustration.

“Ah, shoot. Here I was wondering if that’d ever gotten fixed!” She shook her head, showing him a wry smile. “Sorry, you’re just unlucky. This platform’s got the only off-by-one error I know.”

“Off-by-one?”

“Yeah. Off by one inch. They probably told the guy who made this to make sure it put people’s feet on the ground. He wasn’t wrong — it’s perfectly aligned!” She threw her hands up in surrender. “Anyway, there’s a stock of shoes out back for when this happens.” She raised her eyebrows. “Wait here?”

He showed her thumbs up. “No problem.”

He gave her his shoe size and she rushed out of the chamber. Did she really have to be in a rush, though? That’s probably just something peculiar to her. Among other peculiar things was how she had a swagger like she owned the place. Was one of her legs shorter than the other?

He stopped himself right there. If he kept on taking mental note of someone’s mannerisms, it was like saying this world wasn’t peaceful enough for him. He shouldn’t have to worry about stuff like that, right? But damn it, it’s hard just dropping one of his most useful habits. It was a way to copy someone or later confirm whether they were truthful or lying. It was useful, sure, but when it came to casually hanging out with someone — he might be wrong here — but he shouldn’t have to feel the need to do that, right?

He was going to be dropping by again in the future, and it’d help him a lot not to be bothered by his own peculiarities every time — not just in front of Nightshade, but with everyone else he might meet.

Right. Coming into this world, it wasn’t exactly a garden of Eden with shining lakes, but he still found himself looking forward to meeting more people like her. Among all the thoughts he had, this was the one that made him smile.

Enthusia was right. It’s not all doom and gloom.

Footsteps resounded, and he looked towards the door. He was about to greet Nightshade with a more excited “Hey, you’re back!” but who he saw…it couldn’t be her. What was with that toe-heel way of walking? Why was she glaring at him?

That’s not her.

Having known danger all his life, he got to his feet, but there was nothing to do. If he believed Nightshade’s explanation earlier, then no one should be able to engage in combat without a formal request — something like a duel, he explained to himself. On top of that, if Nightshade’s explanation of Nickname Rights was real — he still couldn’t believe it — then the laws of Amatoria were enforced through some kind of world-pervading magic.

Wasn’t there some kind of provision to that rule to let him fight in self-defense? Maybe there were loopholes he could use, but prodding the rules of his benefactor’s creation on day-one was an ass move if he’d ever seen one. If he had any reprieve, it was that the imposter’s shoulders were relaxed. By this indication, they weren’t looking for a fight; it’s not as if he could relax when they didn’t look too friendly either.

He was stuck between risks whatever he did. In the end, he had to wager that the other person was also unwilling to break the rules. He would rather die than pull an ass move.

‘Nightshade’ smirked and aimed for the opposite end of the platform, sitting down what felt like miles away from him, crossing her legs and showing him a polite smile.

“Who are you?” he asked her.

“I just left a while ago, and now you don’t recognize me?” ‘Nightshade’ said. “I’m sad.”

It pissed him off somehow that whoever this was was impersonating Nightshade. Chances were that she’d keep on playing this stupid game he didn’t want any part of. He had to irrefutably out her somehow.

“Since you’re impersonating her, we’ve already got a problem. Depending on your explanation, I might let it go and stay hush about it,” he told her. He’d said it like an analyst’s frank explanation of a bad situation, but in this case, it was a frank threat.

“C-craft, you’re scaring me…”

No matter how he rationally knew it wasn’t Nightshade, the idea that he might cause the real one to say those words made him doubt himself for a moment. He was entirely capable of making the real one act like that, but having this kind of power over others wasn’t something he ever wanted in the first place.

Was making him feel this way the imposter’s goal? He didn’t like them at all. He narrowed his eyes. “If you’re really Nightshade, tell me about that time with Enty.”

She perked up. “Oh… That time, huh?”

She cutely put her finger to her cheek. Craft didn’t miss the bead of sweat rolling down the side of her head. “Yeah,” he said, sharpening his gaze. “That time.”

“W-well, Enthusia” —

“Oh? Suddenly calling her Enthusia now?”

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Silence fell between them. His gambit had worked; it turned out whoever this was didn’t have Nickname Rights.

“You’re insightful as they say, Agent Bowen.” The imposter’s voice had changed. Gone was the fake cheer, and in was the real scorn.

But, ‘Agent’? How’d she know? Craft crunched through the possibilities in his mind, but he couldn’t find one that would explain just how she knew about his past.

He hadn’t even been here for more than a few minutes and his cover had already been blown. Didn’t this place turn out to be a spy’s nightmare? It was his turn to sweat, and he found himself shifting his feet and putting his hand on his hip.

He didn’t feel a gun there, however. He chuckled to himself. He was supposed to have sworn off the killing, but now he was in a situation when it was convenient. What, was he still just an animal who killed when it was more convenient than fighting without fighting?

The imposter chuckled. “Let me help you,” she said. She didn’t make sense to him, until she extended her hand, palm-up , and a mist made of shadows coalesced above it, solidifying into a familiar item that fell in her hand.

He gulped. His gaze traced the polished faces and precision-machined reliefs…of a gun.

With a scoff, then a smirk, she placed it on the platform. He didn’t expect her to slide it over. It came to a tumbling stop near the top of the steps, almost within arm’s reach.

This world was supposed to be his chance to be peaceful, but in this situation, he couldn’t see a peaceful ending.

His gaze landed on the imposter. What did she event want? Nothing she did make sense. “What’s this for?”

The woman sneered. There was a crazed look in her eye, one that Craft had seen once in a doctor who liked to trap her patients. “I want to be your enemy,” she said, “I want you to give me a reason to stand in your every way. I want you to understand just how unfit you are for this world, and that you’ll be stuck in this starting town for a thousand years, trying and failing to reckon just what you’re missing.” She nodded her head to the gun. “So go on. Take it. It’s always been yours.”

He couldn’t even begin to guess her motives. As much as possible, he didn’t want that gun.

His choices quickly diminished as the imposter stood up and brandished two leaf-bladed swords. She took her sweet time taking one step after another, approaching him with a steady gaze, steady breathing, and a steady pace.

Fear froze his feet. He feared her, the resolve in her eyes, and the gun within arm’s reach — of what course of the future might change if he chose to pick it up.

Fear also kicked his training into gear. His feet moved towards the imposter without consent. He took the gun as he passed it. The learned trauma and responses from past battlefields spurred him onward. He held no want to die nor to kill, but as he got closer, it seemed more and more that he would have to choose one or the other.

The imposter grinned like any killer would. He could see his reflection fill her dilated eyes. It was obvious to him that she’d done this many times before — something that didn’t make sense in a land supposed to be as peaceful as it could be.

They stopped before each other, and the imposter’s swords caught Craft’s neck in a pincer — stopping at the last inch. “Go on,” she said. “Try. Kill me.”

By some fluke of magic and the cold grasp of fear, seconds passed as he couldn’t decide what to do…and nothing happened. That didn’t make much sense to him. She could just kill him right now and be done with it, but what’s this, was it that…she couldn’t do that?

She didn’t have his consent, after all.

Wow, people actually really follow that rule, huh? Putting a knife against his throat must’ve been some kind of gray area, or else she wouldn’t have pulled this stunt.

In another way of thinking about it: as long as he didn’t take the bait, he didn’t have to fight.

Ideas popped into his mind one after the other. The number of things he could do in this situation was crazy, but there was one kind of intimidation he’d always wanted to try.

He held up the handgun, pointing it to the ceiling. The imposter grinned, expecting him to get ready for war, but as he racked the slide — it came off. The whole thing.

The imposter jerked back. “Huh,” she blurted out. She looked like she hadn’t even known it could do that.

The slide fell to the ground, and the magazine followed. To the imposter, it must have seemed like the gun was just falling apart on its own, melting in his hands. Screws, levers, and springs bounced around their feet one after the other, and Craft did all of this without breaking eye contact with her. Forgetting all his questions about the imposter and how she got this gun, he gave himself this moment to enjoy how the imposter’s eyes widened in growing horror.

She took a step back. She seemed to have realized her faux pas and stepped forward again, hovering her blades next to his throat. “D-do you have a death wish?” she said, glaring at him in the eyes, her bloodlust drilling straight into his soul — or it should have, but she’d stuttered, so he remained entirely unconvinced.

“Nope,” Craft said like he was turning down a salesman. The bare lower frame of the handgun hung from his index finger, and he began to spin it around like a keychain. “To tell you the truth, you had me in the first part.” He chuckled to himself. “But this really is another world, isn’t it?”

The imposter gritted her teeth. She could do nothing against him, and they both knew that.

“You think this is over?” she said. There were still plenty of things she could do to get this guy’s true colors to show. All it’d take was pressing the right buttons.

Craft furrowed his brows. “You’ve got me confused here. I’m just trying to live in peace, but you show up, try to pick a fight, and I don’t even know who you are. If it was just that, I’d deal with you on your terms if you want, but” — his glare turned subzero — “getting Nightshade mixed into this wasn’t a good idea.”

The imposter stepped back, flinching — just barely keeping herself from cowering — betraying the strong front she’d come in here with.

What face had he made, he wondered? He wasn’t sure … and he didn’t care. He might not have been a happy person, himself, but that was exactly why he didn’t want to see anyone’s happiness tarnished. You don’t get these people involved, was what he believed, and by taking on Nightshade’s form, this imposter had crossed a line.

“You may be right,” she said, and that surprised him. Their form started to dissolve into smoke. “I will not take this girl’s form anymore. My quarrel is with you, Agent, and no one else — but you will always find me over your shoulder, mocking you until you understand: you are not fit for this world.”

The last of her scattered into the air, leaving him frozen and wondering: what was he doing, making enemies by literally doing nothing?

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. He’d thought this world would be a walk in a planet-sized park, but here he was already trying to figure out what sorts of allies he’d need, safehouses he’d have to build, and making up hypotheses for his opponent’s next moves.

Surely, this couldn’t have been the life Enthusia had offered him — but that’s when it clicked: “I want you to understand just how unfit you are for this world.” That’s what the impostor had said, and all this planning for war — wasn’t this exactly what she’d meant?

“Craaaft!” Nightshade’s voice echoed from the door, knocking him out of his thoughts. She came in with a leaning tower of shoe boxes, the whole stack oscillating like a snake as she over-corrected left and right.

That was him right now: a man wavering under the temptation to play his old games. If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose balance and fall, and there’d be no one there to pick up the pieces.

***

Except there were. He just wasn’t aware of it yet.