Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The lime haired girl opened the doors to the Temple and walked in with a less than cheery step.

She was anxious.

It seemed that finally having her freedom from being shackled to one place wasn’t entirely as refreshing as she had thought.

Skullius had jogged her memory, making her brain recall that mankind wasn’t the most benevolent race. In fact, her new powers wouldn’t do her any favours unless she learned to harnessed and used them to protect herself. Before that, if anyone discovered them…

Yuyui gulped.

This sentiment, coupled with the fact that she was walking in the most gruesomely designed section of the Temple of Unlusted, the Slurred Grounds, where the bodies of men flayed, disembowelled and disembodied could be found, didn’t make her journey any more pleasant.

“Come on, it’s just a bunch of dead bodies. You’ve seen your corpses thousands of times, haha. This isn’t new…” Yuyui tried to cheer herself up but the looks on the faces of these persistently ‘fresh’ bodies made a chill run down her spine.

If it wasn’t fury permanently sculpted onto their visages, it was unbelievable agony and terror.

The stench of unpure death reeked from them as well.

It was only recently that Yuyui discovered that she had a sort of kinship with death. It was enough for her to realise that she wasn’t exactly scared of death in the conventional sense. She moreso feared the type of death and even then, this fear was comparable to preference — like how some people dreaded servings of live seafood but would still eat them for sustenance if there was no other choice.

To calm her mind, Yuyui began to sing a song while walking through the narrow corridors of the Temples.

Her voice bounced off the walls and echoed in the rooms that she came across.

Along the way, she began to recall the glimpse at her past that she had remembered after Skullius said a set of words that mirrored what her father had said.

She sighed.

At the centre of it all, there was Skullius.

Their relationship was supposed to be master and servant but most of the times, it felt like she was talking to a parent or… an older brother, her being killed multiple times by said brother or parent aside.

She had resolved to become anything possible to leave her prison in the Temple back then, thinking that she choosing one evil over another but…

She smiled.

Her face turned from forlorn to determined.

‘That’s why I’m here right? To learn how to be become more useful. If I continue to do what I did against those terrifying fire creatures, I’ll definitely grow stronger in no time,’ Yuyui thought.

That was the purpose of this visit, along with another integral mission that she felt was possible with the help of the two guardians.

As for the other, related spur for all this…

Yuyui pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket.

It looked to have been taken from a small book.

Skullius had asked her to read it to him before they had attended the gathering, claiming that its origin wasn’t Yuyui’s concern.

The contents had been cryptic, written in a poetic fashion.

Fortunately, Yuyui was a bit of an expert in this form of art as a bard. Creating songs with hidden meanings along with composing long strings of lyrics about different subject matter had been what she lived for in another time, thus dissecting what the writings meant had been easy for her… and for Skullius as well.

Upon reading through them however, Yuyui felt… danger.

‘Do you see the bashful dancer in the square?

You do not.

Do you see her elusive steps traced through man-shaped shadow?

You do not.

Do you see how closely she performs near your stage?

Possibly not.

Can you see her ripped frown as she twirls about you?

Of course you can’t.

Can you meet her eager gaze with your own?

Of course you won’t.

Have you felt her nigh approach, her sinking voice?

No you have not.

Did you know she sent her faithful crow?

No. Yet you will.’

It had said.

Yuyui couldn’t put a finger on it but… this was a threat.

After reading this to Skullius, his expression hadn’t changed but the air around him flinched, as if his emotion had soared for a brief moment.

Yuyui had never seen Skullius fazed in that way before. Even death didn’t scare him.

She should know as she had been obliterated along with him when fighting the Grand Flame Bringer but he hadn’t shown anything other than excitement and mild frustration.

Whatever could cause Skullius to behave that way…

She wanted to be able to handle it for him, somehow.

Maybe if she awakened more of her eyes, she could defend Skullius from the unknown.

Motivated by the sentiment, Yuyui walked faster, reaching the large double doors to the Ground of Communion quickly.

She pushed them open and entered the large open space populated with the statues on the walls and marred with a very distinctive deep red stain on the floor.

Yuyui walked towards two of the statues and gazed at the stone figures of Bassbion and Yagrina with a partially fearful and brave visage.

“What’s with these visits? Do you all think we’re counsellors or something?” the stone figure of Bassbion wedged into the tall statue of her previous master said with an annoyed tone. “First that odd thing and now you?”

Yuyui took in a deep breath and spoke with a determined voice.

“I… I have awakened another eye,” she declared.

“Oh…” Yagrina expressed mild surprise, her stone figure shifting a little. “It is true it seems. You awakened the Eye of Dispersal, a weaker eye than I hoped but progress all the same don’t you think, Sister Bassbion?”

Yuyui was uplifted by Yagrina’s encouraging tone, gaining a few degrees of courage to speak more of her mind when….

“So what? She’s still nothing of the ideal image that our masters intended,” Bassbion said, her stone body folding its arms in front of its chest.

Yuyui furrowed her brows.

“What? Did you think this was enough for me to suddenly respect you as a host? Ha! You have it all wrong, girl.”

Bassbion’s words pinched Yuyui’s fragile heart but they were not enough to break her spirit.

“I don’t care about your respect. That’s not why I came,” Yuyui said steadfastly.

“Why did you come then, host?” Yagrina inquired.

“I want you to train me. I want to know how to fight. I want to protect myself. I.. I can’t fight to protect someone else before I grow my own vision of a stronger, more confident me. That’s what I want.”

A brief silence ensued after Yuyui’s words echoed through the Ground of Communion.

The seriousness of the lime haired girl’s words was palpable but a certain degree of fragility could be felt in them, as if they were forged out of glass.

A burst of laughter came from Bassbion’s stone form.

Following its raucous release, the spirit guardian stormed out of her wedge like an especially turbulent hurricane and appeared right before Yuyui’s face!

The violent mana blasted mercilessly against Yuyui, sending her flying and tumbling messily on the floor a distance from the source of the attack.

“Look at you. I can tell you scrounged up some feeble will to finally take your position seriously. Because of it you feel invincible, emboldened by the powers you are awakening. Now you storm in here as if you weren’t the weak-willed idiot who didn’t even have a shred of fighting spirit before and command something of me?” Bassbion said in a cold but calm voice.

Yagrina seemed to disagree as she remained wedged in her hollow silently, not intervening or rebuking Bassbion as she would when she felt that the tall guardian had gone too far.

“We are not bound to you yet and the Deities forbid I wouldn’t obey you even if you awakened the third eye. You are nothing like my maste–“

“I don’t care!” Yuyui suddenly yelled, cutting off Bassbion.

She slowly rose, her body bloodied from the fierce mana that had shredded her skin.

The lime haired girl took in a deep breath, her eyes glassy as she indeed felt that she was fragile.

However, she was starting to break out of that cocoon of weakness.

Was it not natural to hold onto every opportunity for change and ride it out to the very end?

She could feel that she was growing out of her comfort zone.

More importantly, Skullius felt that way too.

“I don’t care what you think. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for myself and my master,” Yuyui said as she stood.

“All the more reason for me not to care then,” Bassbion said.

Yuyui huffed angrily and stomped towards Bassbion with an angry expression.

As she did, her forehead throbbed, the skin parting to reveal an icy blue iris surrounded by dark matter which focused on Bassbion.

The spirit guardian frowned.

She immediately felt something around her start to fade, her body growing weaker and dimmer.

The chain riddled armour she wore started to fade as well and she realised…

‘The array used to keep me in Aigas is getting dispelled!’ she thought in horror as she switched her gaze between her body and Yuyui.

Bassbion knelt down, feeling a severe, dreadful fatigue overpowering her mind and body.

No!

This was bad!

If she dissipated without fulfilling her purpose… how would she face her master in the Yormuness?!

Yuyui looked directly at Bassbion with what could only be described as an adorable fierce expression.

“I’m the host and you will do as I say. I don’t care how long it takes. I will make you do it. I’ll keep coming here until you do,” Yuyui declared with a shaky but determined voice. “If you don’t like it, you can kill me as many times as you want. That won’t stop me.”

Bassbion was outraged but there was nothing she could do.

She was quickly losing her strength and if this went on for long enough, she would disappear.

This brat!

She had the gull to…

ARGH!

And yet strangely…

Both Yagrina and Bassbion couldn’t help but start to see a glimmer of what they hoped the host to be.

What their masters hoped.