A Saniwa's Duty

Nightmare (and Upgrades)

The room was dark and quiet, as it should be in the wee hours of the morning. But something was amiss, and Chiaki awoke with a start, eyes narrowing as her vision adjusted itself to the sudden awakening.

Her window was ajar; a breeze blew softly as the moonlight poured into her room. Beyond the patch of silver light she sat in was pitch black, save for faintly glowing blue lights, looming high above her. The sage only looked up and blinked slowly, tiredly yawning.

"Get your boots," commanded a deep voice from behind the lights, tone firm but hushed. These words echoed in the sage's groggy mind, as if distant.

"What?"

The figure repeated themself, this time more clearly but hushed still.

Sighing, Chiaki crawled out of her futon at snail's pace and groped around in the dark, clearly not enjoying the idea of being woken up at gods know what hour just to get something so—

"Hurry up," the voice hissed. "I still have someone else to drop by.

"Mkay. Jus' wait a lil' bit longer."

Once she felt the familiar plating of her boots, the sage immediately plopped back onto her futon, looking at the figure with confusion.

"Empty them. Quickly."

Chiaki groaned, eyes squinting against the sudden light contrast of her Index screen as it popped up. Once the Fractals had all been removed from their spots and were now haphazardly strewn about the floor, the figure stuck out a hand, revealed to be wrapped in dark gloves, then made a gesture, as if requesting the apparel in question to be handed over.

"Excuse me? What do you want with my—"

"I thought you would have caught on by now. It seems I was wrong."

"Look, it's what, two fucking AM? I don't have enough brain power to connect the dots. You're also being obscure as hell, so that's not really much help either."

The stranger sighed in defeat. "Just... hand it over."

Begrudgingly, Chiaki did as told, glaring at the figure the entire time. She could make out the boots promptly being turned every now and then, along with quiet 'Hmm's here and there.

"Do you have any last words?"

"What?"

"Anything you want to say about these things?"

"Uh, no? What are you—"

"Good. You won't be needing these any more then."

A familiar arcana circle appeared beside the figure, it's reddish-orange glow illuminating the room for a moment, and the sage swore she could feel the temperature kick up several notches too many.

In arcane firelight, the stranger appeared well built and wore a dark coat, currently buttoned up to the neck, dark pants and worn boots. The lights from earlier seemed to come from the mask said figure wore, futuristic in design.

Chiaki and the figure locked gazes for a minute (or so it felt to the sage), before the latter held out their arm and promptly let go of the boots, letting it fall into the circle with a loud 'Fwoosh' as it was completely incinerated. Immediately, the circle vanished.

The sage's eyes grew wide and without thought or hesitation, she charged toward the figure. Unfortunately the figure was just as quick, lightly sidestepping the small girl. The last thing Chiaki remembered was a blow to the base of her nape as her vision went dark.