LAM! Lam!
The young man had recovered his former appearance, but his cheeks were still ashen. At a glance, he appeared to be sleeping. Nichika implored him to come back to her while thinking back on their time together.
The first time you talked to me was through Sumire at Lolo Village. You said you were going to make her throw herself off a cliff, so I thought you were the worst person in the world.
She remembered being shocked by how his casual approach to things and lighthearted comments didn’t match the vulgar actions he took. He acted completely aloof even when she destroyed the medium tethering him to Sumire and fought back against him.
And then I met you, in your own body, at Elminage.
He was a strange guy who approached her without any restraint and yet just as easily backed down. She still couldn’t forget the feeling of his lips brushing against hers when he stole a kiss. Though he poked fun at her, he showed her to the headmaster’s office as promised.
You came to see me when I was at my lowest and gave me the push needed to change an unwanted situation.
His smile as he pulled her into the starry night sky was dazzling. Nichika felt like she had become more of a positive thinker since he gave her a voice to get Oswald back.
“Hey, Lam, I haven’t done anything to repay you. You helped me out so much in your own way, I haven’t even thanked you properly for it yet,” she talked to him with a watery smile, desperate for a reaction.
Wind danced between them, forming a green glowing barrier.
“I still don’t know anything about you. I want to know everything, including the darkest parts.”
The young man didn’t open his eyes. Nichika’s stamina had reached its cap. Her consciousness pivoted, her vision blurred.
“Don’t you love my…magic? Is it still…not enough?”
Like a sponge soaking up water, his body absorbed her outpour of magic.
“Tell me…”
“Nichika.”
She sluggishly turned her eyes to the person softly calling her name. Oswald was looking down at her with a sympathetic gaze.
“Give it up. You can’t bring back the dead.”
Convulsing with sobs, she let her magic bleed out to him, wholly unaware the amount given already exceeded the level Lambert could’ve handled.
Wind mana gathered in droves to the fountain of magic. Nichika’s eyes rounded at what she saw. The light that had been smaller than a firefly had grown into a blinding beam. She shut her eyes against the offensively bright light.
“I don’t believe it,” Sylmia breathed. “Ascension of the soul…”
“What?” Nichika looked back just as the voice she had fervently wanted to hear reached her ears.
“Seriously, you’re too damn nice. Or should I say stupidly tried and true?”
“Ah…”
Lambert slowly opened his eyes and looked up at Nichika as if she was the most dazzling thing his dark green eyes ever saw.
“That’s why you get used by scum like moi.”
“Lam…bert!”
“Girl, you need to get your head checked. Most people don’t try to revive the person who tried to kill ’em.”
He wasn’t an illusion or a ghost. The young man she had come to know was alive and looking right at her. He patted her gently on the head. His warmth brought tears to her eyes.
“Thanks. You saved me.”
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Nichika threw her arms around his neck and cried her throat hoarse.
Even I’m capable of doing something.
Miracles can happen.
As long as you don’t give up hope, anything’s possible.
✦ ✦ ✦
OR so Nichika had thought.
“What about that was a freakin’ miracle, you idiot!”
Nichika shrunk away from her master’s outraged shouts in her guest room at Sylmia’s house. Just shrinking down on the bed made the whole world shake and her head fell back against the plush pillow.
“Agggh. So dizzzzyyy,” she groaned.
“You’re stupider than I thought! I can’t believe there’s actually a person in this world who’s dumb enough to pour out their magic without considering their limits. How’d I get stuck with such a reckless, brainless moron for an apprentice?”
She sluggishly pulled the cold wet towel Oswald chucked at her over her eyes. His verbal assault didn’t relent.
“Blockhead. Overconfident petacolon. Overreaching dime-novel heroine. Pretend priestess.”
“You don’t have to call me that many names…”
His insult parade made her feel as emotionally drained as she did physically.
After all that had happened, Nichika ended up passing out on top of Lambert. The first thing she felt when she woke up was fatigue worse than running twenty miles nonstop, and roiling nausea. Releasing magic beyond one’s limitations was the same as wearing down the soul, thus her wounded soul sought rest and she became bedridden.
“Shed a few tears and say a few prayers, and you can bring back the dead? Ha! That’s the kind of hackneyed plot development people write about in cheap novels.”
“What are you trying to get at?”
He wouldn’t stop slinging sarcastic remarks at her. Why he felt the need to be so pointed with her was simple—
Oswald thrust his finger at her forehead and slapped down his ultimate grievance. “Passing out and losing all your strength over something completely and UTTERRRRRLY meaningless is the act of ignoramuses! MOOOROOON!”
“Don’t say thaaaat!”
Indeed, all her strenuous effort to bring Lambert back to life by pouring her magic into him past her breaking point had absolutely nothing to do with his revival.
“You aren’t done lecturin’ her yet, ol’ pal?” Lambert, the man himself, opened the door and strode inside with a washbowl filled with ice. He placed it on the sideboard.
Oswald turned his narrowed eyes on him and exasperated, “Shouldn’t you be the angriest one here? It’s all because of this meddlesome busybody heroine that you became a ‘spirit enslaved to their body.’”
“Uggggggh…” Nichika groaned, recognizing the massive blunder she made this time relinquished her of the right to complain.
Apparently, Lambert would have revived as a spirit even if she had left him be. Nichika had not only healed his body back to normal, but pumped it full of magic on top of that, drawing a lot of wind mana into it. As a result, his soul returned to the original body it had a high affinity for, and so an unusual half-human half-spirit was born.
But the person in question was entirely nonchalant about it. “Yeah, but it’s not inconveniencing and I’ve got nothin’ to be dissatisfied ’bout,” he answered in the same casual manner as he had when human. “If anythin’, I’d say I’m grateful to have become a more human-like spirit.”
“R-Really?” Nichika looked to him, seeking forgiveness from his comforting words. Someone karate chopped her on the back of the head.
“Getting stupider? Becoming a proper spirit would’ve been incomparably convenient. Without a body to shackle him, he could have freely traveled anywhere he desired and become nearly immortal.”
“I am really soooooooooo sorry!” Ashamed to look at him, she buried her face in the blankets.
“It’s fine,” Lambert chuckled wryly. “Besides, it’s still partially thanks to you that I was able to ascend into a spirit.”
“How’s that?”
He sat on the edge of the bed and smiled sweetly at her with eyes that had turned green during his ascension into a wind spirit.
“You frantically called for me, right? I came back to this side following your voice.” He stroked the top of her head. It was a very affectionate touch. “As someone who only ever thought of revenge, I finally realized that I shouldn’t sadden the one girl crying for my sake more than I already had. That I had to get back to her.”
“Lam…”
“I really am sorry for betraying you and settin’ ya up. I swear I’ll never do it again.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks when he said that with a seriousness that had been absent from him before. Behind them Oswald was highly unamused, but Nichika didn’t notice. He folded his arms and took this as the moment to talk to Lambert.
“So? What are you going to do now?”
“’Bout that—”
“Lam!” Someone charged into the room, cutting him off with their loud shouts. “You’ve been here all this time?!”
“Geh!”
Cloaked in a cape of wind, Sylmia loomed over Lambert with a blue vein bulging in a corner of his beautiful face. “How could you ditch my lessons?! You may have become a wind spirit, but you’re only halfway there! Prepare yourself to be trained mercilessly by me to become my future successor!”
In other words, Lambert had snuck out of his lessons to visit Nichika. His eyes spun before he made a mad dash for the window and jumped off the second floor.
“Wait right there! Do you think you can escape me?!”
Sylmia immediately followed, disappearing through the walls. The master-apprentice duo was left dumbfounded.
“…Lambert’s at a serious disadvantage,” Oswald quietly noted.
“D-Definitely.”
The bulging curtains swayed in the bright sunlight. A peaceful breeze was blowing through Windy Village once again.