The Water Drop and the Pond
The first time Simon's skin had touched Flema's Pure White Flame, he'd been thrown into utter confusion.
It hurt.
God, did it hurt.
But was it really that unbearable? Kajan and Pier had reacted like they were living through the torments of the damned — was it actually that bad?
A small question had begun to nag at Simon.
Fwoosh!
The second blast of Pure White Flame struck him.
The searing agony dulled into something closer to ordinary pain.
To put it simply: he could endure it.
Whoosh!
Then came the third exposure, almost immediately after.
It felt like stepping into one of Kizen's dormitory baths — the ones famous for scalding anyone foolish enough to climb in.
Simon was withstanding the attacks of Efnel's only Saintess well enough to compare them to bathwater.
No — in truth, it went beyond that.
'Why are my wounds healing?'
Flema's Pure White Flame was closing the cuts on Simon's knees and elbows. The situation was absurd enough to make his head spin, but he didn't let a flicker of surprise show.
Because this was a chance that would never come again.
Flema was a fanatic to her rotten core. She took infinite pride in her title of Saintess, and this 'Pure White Flame' — the divine authority granted by her Goddess — was supposed to annihilate every evil thing it touched.
Because that power was, in her mind, proof of her God.
Her ability and her personal faith had fused into a single thing. And what happens when that faith cracks? A vast, gaping hole tears open in Flema's psyche.
Having seen straight through to her foundations, Simon chose deception.
The moment the white flame touched him, he rolled across the ground screaming and foaming at the mouth, just like Kajan and Pier. Worried he might still be suspected, he even bit his own tongue on purpose to spit out blood-flecked saliva. At the sight of a necromancer writhing under divine punishment, Flema looked utterly satisfied.
And when Serne intervened a short while later, Flema visibly strained under the stress of being unable to burn away thousands of feathers in a single stroke.
Fortunately, Flema seemed to file Serne away as a special case, and her suspicion never extended to Simon.
So Simon charged like a brute. Swinging the greatsword, being stopped by the white flame, eating the floor — again and again.
He repeated that cycle while waiting for his opening. But he still hadn't closed the distance needed for Pier's greatsword to actually reach her body.
Still, his patience was rewarded. When Serne unleashed her full assault, hurling thousands of feathers at once, Flema raised her Pure White Flame in response and committed everything to defense. And in that exact moment, Simon charged in from behind her — the same maneuver, timed to the same rhythm.
Thanks to all that careful build-up, Flema's guard was completely down.
She tried to shake him off with a casual burst of flame, but Simon barreled straight through the tepid fire and swung with everything he had.
[......!!]
The cleanest, deepest hit of the entire battle.
A savage gash opened from her shoulder down across her back. It hadn't cut her clean in two, but the fountain of blood erupting from it spoke volumes about how deep the blade had gone.
[Why?!]
Flema wavered.
She scrambled backward, desperate to close the wound — but the Pure White Flame refused to mend what the Greatsword of Ruin had carved.
[Why?! Why?! Why?!]
The greatest pillar holding up the person called Flema.
Her faith was shattering.
[Whyyyy!!!]
She screamed until her voice threatened to tear, then dropped low and heaved for breath. Her trembling eyes found Simon.
[You, what exactly...]
In the Saintess's eyes at that moment—
[What is this?]
—was fear.
Fear born of an 'unknown' beyond her understanding.
"I don't know either."
Simon answered plainly, steadying his grip on the greatsword.
The truth was, Simon had no idea why he walked away unscathed from the Saintess's fire. He was simply fine when it hit him, so he used that fact — he'd never troubled himself over the why of it.
But when a human being witnesses something they cannot understand — something they refuse to understand—
[Die!!]
—they want it erased.
Pure White Flame erupted from Flema's palms and engulfed Simon with the most terrifying firepower the battlefield had seen yet.
'Ngh—!'
Simon snapped his right arm behind his back to shield Pier within the bone armor, then took the baptism of white flame head-on with his whole body.
He heard Kajan and Serne scream out in horror.
He had some measure of resistance to divine power, yes — but at his core, Simon was still a necromancer. Under this overwhelming blaze, his body's durability was fast approaching its limit.
[Boy! What do you think you're doing?! Get out of there!]
'Pier.'
Enduring the fire, Simon managed a strained smile.
'How long are you going to hesitate?'
[......]
Pier's voice went silent.
'If you truly want to defeat a Saintess of Efnel, you have to change what you are at your very core. That is, if you really are the manager of my Legion.'
Simon's eyes sharpened.
'Follow me, Pier.'
[Khehehehehe!]
Pier laughed.
[Kheh! Kheheheheh! Bwahahahaha! KAHAHAHAHA!]
The laughter rang through Simon's mind — a mad, crowing cackle, thrown back with abandon.
[There are limits to insulting the dead, boy!]
And yet Pier's voice sounded positively delighted.
'It's not an insult.'
A smile crept across Simon's lips as well. Behind the torrent of white flame, Flema's expression had frozen solid in pure, unadulterated terror.
'It's called evolution.'
Plop.
A water drop falls into a pond.
Simon had been nothing more than a single, vanishingly small water drop.
Pier was the pond.
The white drop, falling into that stagnant black pond, had vanished without a trace the first time it landed.
Plop.
A second white drop falls.
But this time was different. The instant the drop struck the water, white bloomed outward like a splash of thick ink, dyeing the entire pond brilliant white.
[Kheheheheheheheh! BWAHAHAHA!]
Slide.
Swish.
Bones scattered across the cavern floor rose into the air and began fusing themselves onto Simon's body as he endured the white flame.
Clack.
Click.
Clack-clack-clack.
The bones wove themselves into armor with no gaps to spare — covering his right arm, linking torso and legs. The tattered cloak wound itself around Simon once more. And finally—
[Excellent! Son of Richard!]
Clang!
Pier's skull helmet settled onto Simon's head. Simon seized it with both hands and pulled it down deep, the bone covering his eyes until nothing remained but his nose and mouth.
[For your victory! I shall cast off even my identity as one of the dead!!]
Flicker.
In his right eye socket, the familiar blue-black flame blazed like a torch.
And then—
Fwooooosh!
A snow-white flame rose in his left.
Two flames in two eyes. At long last, Pier had caught up to Simon's growth.
"Let's go, Pier."
[KAHAHAHAHA!]
SHRAAAACK!
Simon swung the greatsword. The blade drew a single straight line, tore through the radiating white flame, and opened a wound across Flema's abdomen.
[What in the...!]
Her pupils trembled.
A necromancer that shrugs off the Pure White Flame — fine, fine, so be it.
But an undead wielding divine power?
The shocks were landing too fast, one atop another, and cracks had begun to spider through her reason.
[KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!]
Flema shrieked like something being torn in half.
Impossible. It was impossible.
Fear. Fear. Fear.
Nothing but pure, blinding fear seized control of her mind.
For a priest, this was no different from watching the foundations of a lifetime of faith collapse into dust.
Tat!
Simon kicked off the ground and launched himself forward. With the bone armor's effects fully awakened, his physical abilities soared beyond anything he'd managed before.
[Kuhhk!]
She recoiled as if watching something filthy crawl toward her, soared skyward, and rained Pure White Flame down on the ground. Simon stomped hard against the stone and swung his blade in rapid succession through the open air.
SHRAAAK!
A long-range slash carved through the flame itself and bit into her body — but white fire rose along the wound and knitted it shut almost instantly.
[As I thought! Against that Saintess, nothing matters unless it's the blade of Ruin cutting her flesh directly!]
'Right, but—'
Simon had no aerial combat techniques. His only option was to leap and chase her down.
As he sprinted, eyes darting for a launch point—
'?'
Serne's feathers were following in his wake.
—I'll help you.
Serne's voice reached him. The feathers matched his speed and slapped onto his shoulders and back with soft thwips.
'!'
Simon felt his focus leap upward by whole degrees in an instant.
The exact same mental image Serne had demonstrated during Magic Combat class was unfolding around him now — and the feathers on his back pulsed like boosters, blasting out power that lifted his body off the ground.
'Okay.'
Feeling the rhythm, Simon kicked off the stone and flew.
Shwing!
Riding the full momentum of his ascent, Simon carved a line straight across Flema's shoulder.
Blood geysered skyward, and the Saintess's face twisted in vicious horror.
[KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!]
Flema shot even higher into the air. A shield of Pure White Flame wrapped around her like a guardian's embrace, smashing through the cavern's ceiling and rock walls, boring holes upward as she climbed ever higher.
'Heup!'
Simon's eyes hardened at the sight.
He could not let her go now.
He was wringing out every last drop of stamina and willpower he had; the moment his tension slackened, the full backlash would come crashing in.
Before that could happen—
'I'm taking her down!'
Simon pushed the feathers to maximum thrust and gave chase.
Ratatatatat!
Divine orbs and house-sized shards of rock came pouring down like rain. Simon gave up on thinking and plunged headlong into pure madness.
'Everything in front of me gets cut!'
He swung as he flew. White blade-light shredded the air like a maniac.
Against a sky crammed with battlefield debris, shadows, and the baptism of divine orbs — things far beyond the reach of conscious thought — Simon simply cut, and cut, and cut.
And then—
Whiiiiiiine!
Every obstruction blocking Simon's view vanished. Bathed in blazing sunlight, his body rose above the clouds, thousands of meters into the open sky.
The biting wind raked through his hair. Looking down, he could see the gaping hole punched through the mountaintop where the Command and Control Room had stood, and beside it, the sprawling Kizen campus impossibly far below.
[Just DIIIIIIIIIE already!]
Far above, Flema flung both arms skyward.
Spikes of sculpted Pure White Flame — crosses — hung suspended in the air around her. Her mind had finally righted itself: she'd abandoned her obsession with burning him down through the Goddess's power and turned to physical force instead.
"Going up, Pier."
[Kehahaha! Do as you please!]
Simon rocketed skyward, and hundreds of crosses came screaming down. White blade-light split the heavens again and again, and the crosses flooded the gaps between each slash, dense as a storm.
Even the Kizen students on the ground, still fighting the Prima Materia monsters, kept twisting their gaze skyward at the rolling thunder overhead.
"Crosses!"
The students pointed up.
"That's a priest, right?"
"But who's he fighting—"
"Hey, move!"
Meilin shoved Dick's head out of the way and stared up at the sky, eyes wide.
Both her cheeks had flushed crimson.
'Lord Pion...!'
SHRAAAAAAAAAACK!
Simon's blade cleaved through the crosses one after another.
But he could feel the wall now. Her mind might be in ruins, but the fact that he was pushing a Saintess this hard was itself a miracle. If this dragged on and she recovered her composure, the fight would tilt overwhelmingly against him.
'This is the last attack.'
Grrrk.
He clenched his teeth. Something creaked inside his jaw.
Suspended in midair, he drew the greatsword back behind him, twisting his hips and dropping low.
The stance of a decisive slash.
He poured every ounce of strength into the blade. The greatsword rippled, beginning to churn with the fury of a tidal wave, and a radiant blaze of light poured from its edge.
"What is that?"
"I-it's blinding!"
The light gathering around the sword was intense enough to make even the Kizen students below throw their hands over their eyes.
'Through space itself—'
Both arms whipped around, his hips turning. The bones of Pier fused to his body reenacted every deed they had amassed over their long history, all through Simon's frame.
Simon felt his chest open wide, and he grinned.
'The sensation of cutting!'
KRAKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A snow-white trajectory ripped through wind and air in a single straight line, sliced a cloud hanging far below into two, and vanished beyond the far edge of the sky.
The colossal shockwave that followed shook the entire Kizen campus to its foundations.
[KAGHAK!]
Amid the scattered crosses, the Saintess's body split in half at the waist.
But a Saintess of Efnel was an absolute existence. White flame roiled across her two severed halves, straining to knit them back together.
'Not yet!'
SHRRRRRCK!
'It's not over!'
Simon, still airborne from the massive slash, spun his whole body through another full rotation. Mid-spin, every bone of Pier's armor clinging to him swung down and converged toward his wrist.
Chunk!
Completing the turn, Simon extended his arm and leveled the blade's tip at Flema.
Both of Simon's hands locked on the greatsword, along with the bones of Pier swarming over his arms, were trembling violently — a coarse, seething vibration, like gathered power straining against its restraints.
And onto exactly that—
'I will not miss!'
—Simon laid his Absolute Order.
⟨ Simon & Pier Original — Projection ⟩
TAKWAAAAAAAAAANG!
With a cannon-blast that threatened to burst his eardrums, both of Simon's arms swung upward, and the bones sheathing them scattered in every direction.
Flema, wholly absorbed in rejoining her bisected body, felt her gaze drift upward.
[What the—!]
In the instant before her mind could even register it.
The Greatsword of Ruin passed by her cheek.
When her dazed eyes finally followed it, the greatsword was already soaring away into the far distance.
And then—
[Ah.]
Her right arm was flying high into the sky.
[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!]
The Saintess's anguished scream rolled across all of Kizen.