Arena Event #1: Shiv vs. Kusanagi

She didn't know how, but finally, she slept. The pain of her dressed and tended wound had lowered itself to a dull sche, and she slowly felt her Mana restoring its volume through her veins. Kusanagi couldn't tell for how long her mind had detached itself from this pseudo reality, but when she finally had the strength to rise the heavy curtains that were her eyelids...She wished immediately to return to the darkness of slumber once again.

Something wrong had happened. The Library was gone, the City was gone, Keansi was gone. Kusanagi sat up, and found she was still wearing the sundress she wore under her coat and scarf, a large tear in the side of its mid-section, revealing the side of the bandages wrapped around her waist. She had removed her coat and scarf so as to make her wound from earlier easier to access and treat. Instead of the makeshift bed Keansi formed for her of books, the kitsune now found she had been laying in a bed of sand. She was no longer in the library at all, rather, she was sitting in a small chamber, where outside a grate, a vast plain of sand awaited her, in what appeared to be some sort of ancient stadium. 

Where was she? Why was she here?

The grate rose, and from across the field, she saw a figure scurry out from another chamber like hers. Slowly, steadily, Kusanagi lifted herself from the sand, testing the strength her legs had in them. It seemed that they were steady enough. It didn't hurt her torso too much to move either. She must have been asleep for quite a long time before coming here.

The kitsune girl took her first few steps outside of her chamber and observed her surroundings. Indeed, it was an Arena, rows of shadowy figures sitting where an audience would. They did not seem to be human however. Perhaps they weren't even real. She was relieved to feel the breeze of outside air ruffle against the cloth of her sundress. The scent that carried through the air was familiar to her. Could she somehow be back upon the Floating Island somewhere? She hadn't taken the liberty to thoroughly explore it before, but she remembered the scent of the high atmosphere.

As she took in the air in her breath, she glanced upward and saw it. The great serpent, its size dwarfing Yamato-no-Orochi by tenfold. Fight and live, or die, it had said. The kitsune's eyes narrowed. This beast was far different than the others she had seen in this world so far. No, it was nothing like them at all. It was more.

"You," Kusanagi, spoke. "It's been you this whole time, hasn't it? You are this world's Administrator."

She turned her gaze back down to the Arena. Her opponent, the one that she was to fight and kill, was but a girl, no older than Keansi, running about in a confused frenzy around the arena. "..." Kusanagi did not approach the panicking girl. It wasn't that she considered her a threat, no, far from it. She, herself, was the threat here. It was herself whose blade was stained of blood. Had she come here, long ago, she would not hesitate to maim this poor creature. 

But now? After meeting those that she knew, and those she swore to protect, after Keansi...She knew she couldn't bring herself to kill an innocent child so easily. She could kill herself, she supposed. It was a grim alternative in most cases, but here, in this world, the concept of "death" was warped. Here, she would only be revived, as Ophelia, an anthropomorphic feline she had met, had shown her. (It was quite the spectacle, really, even if it was a pile of identical corpses.) Were she to take this plan of action, the girl would surely win based upon technicality.

...But she knew better. She knew, even here, in a place where death held no meaning, that even if this girl rose victorious over a "technicality," she would not be so fortunate next time if there were more duels in the future. It was mercy, really, that Kusanagi herself were the one to kill this child as painlessly as posible. The girl could hate her if she wanted to. She would be in the right.

But before any of that, the girl had a right to know why. But as things were now, Kusanagi would be hard pressed to catch the scurrying thing without severing her legs from her body. The less pain wrought here, the better. And so, the kitsune girl lowered herself back down into the sitting position onto the sand, watching the panicking girl grimly. Waiting for her "opponent" while she prepared herself mentally for what she knew she had to do...

It took a while, all that running, bumping into a rack, getting tangled with weapons. Kusanagi was honestly surprised the strange child hadn't accidentally impaled herself by now. However, she finally stopped and slumped against a wall, peeking in and out of her scarf as she chattered to herself.

Kusanagi decided this may have been as calm as she was going to get and proceeded to stand up from her seat in the sand, easier the second time than when she woke a moment ago. Brushing herself off, she slowly walked towards the child-thing, a gust of wind blowing between the two of them as she did. She stopped about three feet from her and waited. She didn't want the girl to burst out in a frenzied run again, that would just make all of this harder.

She wasn't familiar with what kind of creature this girl was, as it did not appear to resemble any of the Common Gaia or Yokai type beings of her world. Her overall appearance, however, reminded her of some kind of woodland being. Perhaps a dwarf of some kind, perhaps something a little different. In any case, it was obvious that her kind weren't meant for battle.

The fox girl lowered herself to sit on her knees. It was as close to level height as she could physically manage. She had wondered what exactly she was to say to the girl. Not to be afraid? That everything was all right?

That she wouldn't hurt her?

With a heart becoming heavier by the second, she settled on a simple question instead of a white lie. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Shiv," Kusanagi repeated. A curious name, she thought, but she had no desire to dwell on that now, of all times. "I am Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi. Although, I am certain that should that be too difficult for you to pronounce, you will surely conjure another nickname for me to keep tack of as I am referred to," she said. She wanted to say something along the lines of "its nice to meet you," but that didn't feel appropriate given the situation. "As for where you are. Well, I ask you try to keep a calm and open mind of it."

She spoke slow and clear, hoping to make each of her points in her explanation easy to understand, as she could not be certain of Shiv's intelligence level or suspension of disbelief. "On a broad scale, you have been brought here to this world from the one you are familiar with. The culprit...may or may not be looming above us right now. And on a smaller scale, I do believe we are very high in the air upon a floating island, inside of an arena."

She hesitated for a moment before moving on to the last question. "As for why you, and I, are here...I would rather explain some oddities of this world first. Here, in this world, there are many impossible things that take place. The weather is unthinkable, the time of day inconsistent, and more notably, the law of death is null and distorted."

She paused then so as to allow for questions or confused outbursts from Shiv.

Kusanagi saw how Shiv had examined her chest after her explanation. It was the gesture of anticipating where a wound should be, only to find nothing. The kitsune knew then, that this child had already died once, and likely very recently. But to be restored and brought here of all places...

"You've already experienced it, haven't you?" She asked, her voice becoming heavily with pity. "The pain of fatality, the terror of oblivion. You glimpsed an illusion of death. In truth, it is, indeed, but an illusion in this world. When one such as yourself is seemingly 'killed' here, instead of truly dying, they are revived elsewhere in this world. If I am so bold as to guess, you died elsewhere and were revived here. You are not dead, young one. And so long as you remain in this world, it will be impossible for you to die. However, the pain you will feel at such a moment in which the illusion of death comes for you will feel very real."

She provided Shiv another pause so as to let this fact sink in. In any other world, what she was saying now would be absolute lunacy. She wouldn't blame Shiv for doubting her. "You are probably wondering, should you choose to believe me, how this is possible. The answer to that is in the true nature of this world around you. A world of illusory death, impossible periods of day and night, and unnatural weather. The purple sky and endless landscape. This world is only but a Dream. Meaning, you are not truly here at all. You are still in your world, in the land you know as your home. Somewhere, in your world, you are sleeping."

Kusanagi gestured to her head, so as to indicate the mind. "In your sleep however, your dreaming mind was brought here into this Dream World, and trapped inside of it. The truth is, Shiv, that you only exist in this realm in mind and spirit, but not in body and flesh. You can not die here, because you are not alive here. You are only dreaming."

She brought down her hand and looked down upon it. Pressing the nail of her thunb sharply against her forefinger, she felt the pressure akin to pinching ones-self. "However, you can not simply wake from this dream. You have been locked inside of it, likely be the creature looming high above us. It has absolute control over this dream, and is intent on keeping you and everyone else in it trapped inside, away from their sleeping selves in their own world."

Kusanagi sighed. Despite her effort, it seemed that Shiv would not believe her so easily, and as things were now, she knew not how to convince her otherwise. She simply wasn't ready to see the truth. If only circumstances now weren't so cruel. "...It's as I've said," she explained, her eyes downcast. "This is an arena. This is a place of battle, bloodshed, and of death."

She looked back up to Shiv once more, her expression grim. "Shiv...We are here to fight until one of us is killed. After that, it is likely that the survivor between the two of us will be pit against another who has split the blood of their opponent." A foul taste entered her mouth as she uttered her next words. "Either you have to kill me...Or I am going to kill you."

Thats the only way this could happen, she was convinced. Even if she were to commit suicide here, whomever Shiv was thrown against next would very likely not do the same. After all, they would have had to kill their opponent, child or adult. They would likely already be prepared to take another life.

...And like it or not, Kusanagi was already prepared to take the lives of others if she had to. The only positive point in this world was that they would be revived.

There was no word for 'arena' in the language of Shiv's people. There would not be for generations to come, for centuries, and all she heard was a peculiar, round noise like sound one made when they rubbed their hands against the rind of a pumpkin. 

But the rest she understood, and she felt her breath hitch. "I don't want to die. I don't want to die!" She could feel her eyes stinging. There were no tears. Her throat felt suddenly dry, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd drank. 

The Monster bellowed at them. Shiv looked up. The Monster was going to crush them. Once again, instinct kicked in, and she rolled to her hands and feet, and took off, bounding away, slowed by the sand shifting under her feet but still moving quickly. She was well out of range before the Monster smashed its tail into where it once was. 

Shiv refused to look behind her. She understood now, fight or die, but she was too small to fight. The closest thing Shiv had to a plan was the buzzing in her ears and the instinct in her spine and chest telling her to run. If Kusangino-Sugi was going to kill her, she would have to catch her first.