[Katsuya Akiya (MC) POV]
I walked back down the endless hallways, passing the wooden guillotines until I finally made my way back to the third floor. I pushed open the heavy wooden doors of the library and spotted Maka and Soul right away. They were standing near the front desks, looking over a large map spread out across the table.
I walked over, tapping the plain brown book against the wooden desk to get their attention.
"Hey," I said. "I found it. Aisle 42."
Maka blinked, looking at the book under my arm and then up at my face. "Wow. That was incredibly fast. Soul and I were still trying to cross-reference the old regional borders to narrow down the cave."
"Yeah, I had a little help finding the right aisle," I admitted, remembering my embarrassing conversation upstairs. "But hey, quick question. Did you guys know Death the Kid is a girl?"
Maka completely froze. The pen she was holding slipped right out of her fingers and clattered onto the desk.
"Wait... what?!" Maka gasped, her green eyes wide with absolute shock. "Kid is a girl?! Are you serious? I've seen him fight! He wears a tailored men's suit! I thought he was just a really formal guy!"
"That's exactly what I thought," I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. "I actually just met Lord Death and referred to Kid as his son. It was pretty awkward. He had to correct me, but my brain is still having a hard time believing it."
"Yeah, I knew," Soul chimed in, leaning against the desk with his hands stuffed lazily into his jacket pockets. He didn't look surprised in the slightest.
Maka slowly turned her head, glaring at her partner. "How in the world did you know that and I didn't?!"
"Because I ran into him in the hallway a few weeks ago," Soul explained with a casual shrug. "I was walking to the bathroom, and I saw Kid open the door to the girls' restroom and walk right in. I was super confused, so I actually stopped him and told him he was walking into the wrong bathroom."
"And what did he say?" I asked, my brain still stubbornly defaulting to calling Kid a 'he'.
"He just looked at me like I was an idiot and said, 'Because I am not a man, Soul,'" Soul recounted, totally unbothered, doing a surprisingly spot-on impression of Kid's deadpan, serious voice.
"When I asked him why he dresses like a guy, he gave me this whole lecture. Said dresses are terribly inefficient because the fabric flows and ruins the symmetry when you walk. Told me a suit is way better because it's tailored, easy to keep perfectly neat, and always stays in one solid shape."
I just stared at Soul. My mouth was definitely hanging open a little bit behind my mask.
Since Maka and I were once the same person, I knew with absolute certainty that she was having the exact same internal meltdown I was having right now.
Not wanting to look like absolute weirdos freaking out in front of Soul, I quickly pulled up the system chat in my mind.
[Maka]:I'm just trying to wrap my head around it! I keep wanting to call him a 'he'. It's going to be so incredibly awkward to adjust when I actually have to talk to him!
[Katsuya]: Same. My brain is just refusing to update the information.
Right as I sent that, a brand new notification violently shoved its way into the chat, completely derailing my entire train of thought.
[Scathach]: Let me suck that dick Katsuya.
'Are we really quoting Dashie right now?! Too can play at that game!!!'
[Katsuya]: Let me think about it Scatach!!!
I aggressively slammed the mental 'send' button and swiped the entire interface away, banishing the blue screen from my vision before she could type another word.
When my eyes snapped back into focus on the real world, my heart was hammering against my ribs. Soul was still casually leaning over the desk, idly tracing a finger over a mountain range on the paper map. He was completely oblivious to the absolute whiplash I had just experienced.
But Maka wasn't looking at the map anymore. She was standing right next to Soul, glaring at me with the intensity of a thousand suns.
"Uh, Maka? What's wr—"
"Soul," Maka interrupted instantly, her voice dangerously low and sharp. "Give us a second."
"Uh, sure," Soul muttered, raising an eyebrow but taking a few steps back toward the bookshelves, completely unfazed by Maka's sudden shift in mood.
"Wait, Soul, don't leave—" I tried to reach a hand out to him, fully realizing the immediate danger I was in.
It was too late. Maka grabbed the collar of my crisp white suit with a surprisingly strong grip and forcefully dragged me into the next aisle over, completely out of Soul's line of sight and earshot. I stumbled along behind her, a single, highly pathetic tear forming in my one visible eye.
Why are my other selves always so mean to me? I cried internally. I'm just a guy trying my best here.
As soon as we were hidden behind a towering wall of encyclopedias, Maka let go of my collar and jabbed a finger directly into my chest.
"What is wrong with you?!" she whisper-yelled, her face flushed red with secondhand embarrassment. "Even if you weren't thinking straight, why in the world would you actually respond to her with 'Let me think about it'?! You know Scathach is clearly the most lustful one out of everyone we've met so far! You basically just gave her a green light to keep doing it!"
"I panicked!" I whispered back defensively, my hands flying up as I stepped back. "My brain completely short-circuited! You try having someone drop that line on you out of literally nowhere while we're having a mental crisis about Kid! I didn't know what else to type!"
"You type 'No', or you just close the chat!" Maka groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose as she tried to calm down. "Ugh... whatever. Just... please get it together. Don't let Soul catch on that we're talking to people in our heads."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry," I sighed, reaching up to straighten out the wrinkled collar of my suit.
Maka took a deep breath, smoothing out her own clothes before we walked out from behind the bookshelf and headed back over to the front desk where Soul was waiting.
Maka grabbed the plain brown Excalibur book I had set down and opened it up, quickly skimming through the map I had found to give me some actual directions. Her green eyes darted across the drawn lines, picking out the landmarks.
"Okay, so the Fairy Tale Cave is located right around this northern mountain range," Maka muttered, tracing the path with her finger. "It's a bit of a trek from Death City, but the path looks pretty straightforward once you get past the valley."
She snapped the brown cover shut with a solid thud and handed the book back to me.
"So, good luck with all of that," Maka said flatly. "Because just to be completely clear, Soul and I are not accompanying you. We have our own academy assignments to catch up on, so we can't go right now. You're completely on your own for this one."
I let out a small sigh. I was kind of hoping they would tag along for moral support, but I couldn't really blame them. Catching up on actual schoolwork and academy assignments was definitely more important than voluntarily subjecting themselves to what was waiting inside that cave. Plus, since Maka had the exact same anime knowledge I did, she knew exactly what a massive headache that sword was.
"Yeah, that's fair," I nodded, taking the plain brown book and the copied piece of the map Maka had handed me. "Focus on your assignments. I'll handle this myself."
"Good luck, man," Soul said, giving me a lazy two-finger salute from the desk.
"See you later, Katsuya," Maka waved. She smiled, though her expression still held a lingering, silent warning for me to keep my system chats under control.
I gave them a quick wave goodbye, turned around, and pushed my way out of the heavy wooden library doors. I navigated my way back through the bizarre, skull-lined hallways of the DWMA, eventually making it to the front entrance and stepping back out into the bright sunlight of the massive courtyard.
Thankfully, walking down the monumental mountain of concrete stairs was a lot faster and easier on my brain than walking up them.
Once I finally hit the winding cobblestone streets of Death City, I stopped for a second. I unrolled the map I was holding, tracing the path north out of the city and toward the distant valley with my gloved finger. It was going to be a pretty long walk to the Fairy Tale Cave, but physically getting there wasn't what I was worried about.
I stared at the little star marking the cave's location on the paper, letting out a heavy, exhausted breath before the journey had even started.
Excalibur is the greatest threat in this world... I thought to myself, mentally bracing my twenty-year-old brain for the absolute sheer annoyance I was about to endure. ...to my mentality.
———
The hike was awful. By the time I actually reached the mouth of the Fairy Tale Cave, I was completely over it. I stood at the entrance, brushing some dirt off my white suit, and mentally cursed Shinra.
If Shinra really did recreate this entire world from scratch, he seriously didn't need to make the mountains this ridiculously steep and annoying to climb.
I shook my head and stepped into the damp, echoing cavern.
Deep inside, resting directly under a single beam of sunlight that poked through a crack in the ceiling, was the sword. It was wedged point-down into a solid block of stone. I had to admit, just looking at it, it was a genuinely beautiful weapon. The golden hilt gleamed, and the exposed blade looked absolutely flawless.
As I stared at it, I felt this sudden, weird sense of longing pulling at my chest. It felt like a deep instinct, silently urging me to step forward and claim it.
I stopped, completely confused. I frowned, second-guessing myself. Why the hell was I feeling drawn to it? I knew exactly what this sword actually was, and I actively did not want to deal with it. But that weird, magnetic pulling sensation in my soul just wouldn't go away.
I let out a heavy breath, walking up the short stone steps to the pedestal. I reached out, grabbed the golden hilt with my gloved hand, and pulled.
It slid out of the stone completely effortlessly.
Holding the weapon in my hand, I decided to just get it over with. I pushed my energy forward, using Soul Resonance to directly reach out to the entity inside.
The second our souls connected, the blade began to glow with a blinding white light. A pair of glowing wings suddenly materialized, sprouting out from each side of the golden guard. The light grew brighter and heavier, vibrating intensely in my grip.
I quickly tossed the glowing sword into the open space in front of me.
The light flashed, shifting shape before dying down completely. Standing on the cave floor where the sword used to be was a tiny, weird-looking white creature wearing a pristine white top hat and holding a cane.
"FOOLS!" the creature suddenly announced, pointing his cane straight into the air.
I twitched, already feeling a massive migraine forming. I braced myself for the incoming barrage of absolute nonsense, but... it didn't come.
Excalibur just lowered his cane and looked up at me. He was actually being surprisingly tame. He wasn't singing, he wasn't starting a five-hour storytelling session, and he wasn't immediately forcing me to read a list of a thousand daily provisions. It really threw me off.
Then I remembered Maka mentioning that Black Star and Kid hadn't actually come to this cave yet. Maybe Excalibur hadn't reached his absolute peak level of annoyance yet since he hadn't dealt with those two breaking his patience.
Looking at him standing there, I had to admit he was actually kind of cute in a weird, cartoonish way. It was just a shame his personality was normally so horrible.
Excalibur took a step forward, giving me a polite, surprisingly respectful bow.
"It has been quite some time since someone has resonated with me so perfectly,"
Excalibur said, his voice clear and lacking its usual obnoxious, commanding tone. He tipped his top hat toward me. "I am entirely at your service, Master."
I just stood there, staring down at the little white creature in the middle of the cave.
"wait, what...Master?" I repeated, staring down at him. "I just pulled you out of a rock. I haven't even agreed to any provisions yet."
Excalibur rested both of his tiny white hands on the top of his cane, looking up at me with absolute certainty. "Provisions are for the unworthy fools who seek to claim my glory without the strength to back it up. But you... you are different. It is only natural that I serve you. You possess the exact same soul wavelength that wielded me in the ancient times, long before this current era began. It is an honor to be reunited at last."
"Okay, sure. Let's go with that," I said, crouching down slightly. "Hey, come over here for a second."
Excalibur didn't question it. He gave a polite nod and began hopping over to me, the little tap-tap of his cane hitting the stone floor with every jump.
As he got closer, I reached my gloved hand out toward him and quickly opened up the system interface in my mind.
[Katsuya]: System, how exactly do I copy him? Do I need him in sword form, or can I do it like this?
The translucent blue screen glitched for a fraction of a second before a new line of text appeared.
[System: Physical form is irrelevant. To copy the entity's properties, simply utilize your Soul Resonance while simultaneously activating your innate power.]
Alright, let's try this, I thought.
I kept my hand extended, hovering just above Excalibur's white top hat. I focused on that weird, magnetic connection I felt when I first pulled him from the stone, pushing my energy out to initiate a Soul Resonance. At the exact same time, I mentally triggered my cheat power, visualizing the spinning wheels and pulling on that invisible gear inside my chest.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then, a massive, heavy wave of energy rushed directly up my arm and slammed into my core. It didn't hurt, but it felt like my entire body just suddenly expanded on the inside. I felt something fundamentally change within me, like a brand new puzzle piece slotting perfectly into my soul, carrying an ancient, blindingly sharp power.
I dropped my hand, letting out a sharp breath as I stood back up straight, trying to process the sudden shift.
Excalibur paused, tilting his long face up toward me.
"Master? Are you alright?" Excalibur asked, his tone laced with genuine curiosity and a hint of surprise. "I suddenly sense a profound, incredible power resting within you. It is as if my very essence has been mirrored."
"Yeah," I breathed out, shaking my hand a little as the tingling sensation faded. "I'm fine."
The power was secured. My cheat had worked perfectly. I now had the abilities of the Holy Sword locked inside me.
But as the rush of energy settled, a new, very practical problem suddenly dawned on me. I looked down at the tiny white creature standing patiently in front of me, waiting for my next command. I had his power, but the actual, physical Excalibur was still right here. I couldn't just throw him back into the stone, but taking him back to the academy with me sounded like a massive complication.
I just stood there in the quiet cave, staring blankly at the legendary weapon.
"Uhh..."
Having the power of the Holy Sword was great, but carrying the actual, but he was going to cause way too many problems especially back in my world.
"Actually," I started, holding my hand up. "I need you to stay here in the cave. Go back into the stone."
Excalibur didn't even blink. He just tapped his cane on the ground and bowed. "Your word is absolute, Master. But may I ask why I am to remain in this damp cavern while you walk in the light?"
"Because you have a job to do here," I explained, leaning against the pedestal.
"Eventually, two people are going to come in here and pull you out. One is going to be a loud kid with spiky blue hair, and the other is going to be a girl wearing a perfectly symmetrical black suit with white stripes in her hair."
"And what shall I do when these fools arrive?" Excalibur asked, tilting his top hat.
"I want you to do the most annoying dance possible," I instructed with a completely straight face. "Just be absolutely insufferable. Tell them your long stories, make them uncomfortable, and disgust them so much that they put you right back into the rock and leave."
Excalibur let out a refined, knowing hum. "A test of their patience. Brilliant, Master. I shall be the absolute pinnacle of annoyance."
"Perfect," I nodded. "But later on, after them, a blonde boy named Hiro is going to show up. When he pulls you out, I want you to agree to work with him. Be his partner."
"I shall grant this 'Hiro' my blessing, as you command," Excalibur agreed.
"But," I interrupted, raising a finger to make sure he understood this next part perfectly. "I am only allowing you to work with him and unleash your *full* power if the situation meets exact specifications. Since I'm your master now, I'm setting the rules on your true strength."
I figured if my cheat was letting me access the conceptual power of the sword, the actual conceptual restraints would work just as well to lock its true form behind a wall.
I looked down at him and began reciting the commandments of the Round Table to bind his power.
"The battle must be one-on-one," I commanded, my voice echoing slightly in the damp cave. "The battle must not be against an Elemental. The battle must be against one who is evil. The battle must not involve personal gain. The battle must not be against comrades. The battle must be for truth. The enemy must be more powerful than oneself."
I paused, letting the weight of the restrictions settle into the connection between our souls, before delivering the final, most important seal.
"And above all else," I finished. "The battle must be to save the world."
The very second the last word left my mouth, the cave completely changed.
The air grew impossibly heavy. A blinding, immaculate white light suddenly erupted from Excalibur's tiny body, forcing me to throw my arm up to shield my face. The light didn't just glow; it roared, swirling like a massive pillar of pure energy that illuminated every single dark corner of the cavern.
From within the blinding pillar of light, a new voice echoed out. It wasn't the weird, cartoonish voice from before. It was smooth, echoing, and sounded incredibly delighted.
"But of course, Master..." the voice resonated, vibrating right through my chest. "Only you could achieve my power beyond the capacity upon your will..."
The intense light shattered like glass, dissolving into a shower of glowing, ethereal sparkles that slowly faded into the damp air.
I slowly lowered my arm, blinking the spots out of my vision.
When I looked at the spot where the weird little creature had just been standing, my jaw completely dropped.
The cartoonish blob was entirely gone. Kneeling on one knee in front of me was a tall, heavily armored knight. He was wearing an incredibly intricate, silver and black plate armor suit over a dark tunic. One hand rested respectfully on his knee, while his other hand loosely gripped the hilt of a massive, beautiful broadsword planted firmly into the stone floor.
But it wasn't the armor or the sword that made my brain completely flatline. It was his face.
Looking at him was almost like looking into a mirror. He had my exact same facial structure. The only difference was that he lacked my mismatched odd eyes, having completely normal ones instead, and his hair was a wild, untamed mop of spiky white.
He kept his head bowed slightly, waiting in perfect, absolute loyalty.
I just stood there, staring slack-jawed at the literal anime knight kneeling at my feet.
"Wha—WHAT!?"
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(Author: well uhh...we're back im still playing pragmata but I just finished armored core and was awsome...and i wonder what happened to excalibur?)
(Author: also his sword in his hand is white because its his cane he hasn't summoned his real Excalibur yet)
(Author: and uhh...yes pragmata is game of the year for me, might be slow posts but im back allergies beating my ass though)