Nathaniel Moriya
The tactician was the one who broke the prolonged silence.
“What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You uncapped your anima.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Which Circle was it?”
“Again, what does—”
“Was it the Thirteenth?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“It was only me and the Headmistress remaining, and she was gravely wounded because we were in a week-long battle. There was barely enough time to recover.”
“How many times?”
“Twice.”
The purer the anima, the faster it breaks, she remembered from her research after authorizing Theo’s spell.
“You knew you would just come back after everything reset. Why did you—”
“The Headmistress was going to die, and her survival was the only way we could perform another reset.”
Silence.
“She said it was the only way.”
I am a weapon, not a person.
“Did you know, Tyche, that there’s a door on the top floor of the Lecture Hall building that you can take to get on the roof? That if you walk over to the very edge, when you can see the entire campus below you, it almost feels as if you’re a bird flying over everything? The freedom you’ve been searching for, just a step away?”
Silence.
“I’m only alive today because of her.”
“So you destroyed your soul for her?”
“Yes.”
“Was it worth it?”
“…I don’t know anymore. On a good day, the best I can do is pretend to smile. Sometimes a rare laugh comes through, and I feel like a part of me is coming back. But then the sensation fizzles, and the numbness is back. On a normal day, I feel trapped in a body that is indisputably mine, yet not mine. I carry on with my life as I always have, not because it makes me happy or gives me a sense of satisfaction, but because I am still trying to cling onto the part of me that used to feel alive.”
“What were you like…before all this?”
“I was childish. Mischievous. I spent most of my time studying and reading, learning as much magic as I could, even under the threat of war. I was at the top of all my classes and regularly challenged my professors and other students. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed winning. I’d do anything to prove that I was the best, even if it meant I got hurt. I got injured a lot because of it, though. My healer despised me; my physician even more. After a point, she wouldn’t even tend to me in the infirmary. I didn’t blame her. No one liked me or wanted to be my friend because of how crass I was, how boastful I always was about being better than others, how I’d chase after my selfish desires without caring about whether I was being an inconvenience, how I’d go off and do what I wanted without telling anyone…though I suppose, like most things, there are some exceptions.”
“Your tactician?”
“Yes. But it was just who she was—optimistic to a fault, she thought she could fix anything that was broken, even if it was as big as the world. Even if it was the lonely caster who only cared about himself. She loved me for the parts of me that could be loved—the better half of me, when I comprised a whole.”
“Chelsi.”
“When I met her for the first time, it was because my physician didn’t show up. She was on duty at the infirmary with another student. I could tell that they were both terrified, but when they realized no one was coming for me, they did their best to help. She stayed with me until morning came, and then stopped me from leaving, even though I threatened her, and she was trembling like a leaf.”
Silence.
“And then we chatted until noon. She was so nervous, she talked to me like an equal—even though she was in her first year, and I was in my fourth. For the longest time, I could not remember how that had felt like. To have a friend.”
“You must have loved her.”
“I would have endured the pain a thousand times over if it meant I could initiate that reset and bring her back.”
“I…I’m sorry.”
“There is nothing to apologize for. I am the only one responsible for my actions, and you from three Circles ago is not the same as you right now.”
“No, it’s my fault for taking so long to figure out what I need to do. You all must have waited a long time. If I had just…if I had just figured it out before it happened. Chel has a right to be upset with me.”
The child professor shook his head. “Because of you, I got more time with her than I ever imagined. Even if not all those years were good ones, even if it made me end up this way, I’m glad I got to spend that time with her.”
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Ty raised her head to meet Nate’s eyes—hardened, sharp, and unyielding. It was a closed book, glued shut on all sides except for some missing pages she now held in her hands. Soft, thin pages that felt like they would break if she held them a bit too tightly, if the wind blew the wrong way.
“It’ll be okay when this is all over,” replied Nate quietly, averting his eyes to the fireplace behind her as if he had been found out.
She tried to remember where they had been. What she had to do. “Who’ll…take care of the Headmistress? The other Anchors? You?”
Still staring at the fire, Nate spoke. “It falls on us, the ones who will carry on. On Theo. It’s too risky to tell you any more.”
Her heart sank. She had forgotten about Theo’s involvement in everything as well. That fight in the Darkwoods—she could remember it as clear as day. “Em is an Anchor, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“That fight—Em…kills Theo?”
The professor’s voice sounded colder than usual as his gaze returned to Ty. “That wasn’t the plan.”
“What do you mean, that wasn’t the plan?”
“He must have shown him something. I don’t know what it was, and neither does the Headmistress. Only Theo knows, and he’s been wiped clean.”
But—their flowers. A pastel world. Hand in hand. Warmth that she could feel lingering across decades, if not centuries. Since the beginning of time.
How could so much have changed so fast?
“Memories from previous Circles can come back, though,” she replied quietly and hesitantly, not sure if it was common knowledge.
Nate nodded stiffly. “Yes. Rare moments of overlap can trigger specific memories between Circles—likely because of imperfect magic—but many memories, however important, do not come back. Our best bet would be to reproduce the exact same event, which we shouldn’t because you saw what happened last time.”
Ty felt a sense of dread, thinking about how Theo was going to stand up against someone who saved him, someone he loved more than words could express. “How…is he going to kill someone who can live forever?”
“You give him a reason to fight. You give him a reason to want to save the world instead of watching it burn.”
Abandoned by the world. Bondless.
Revenge.
“I haven’t found the time to reprimand you, but I think it can go without saying that you can’t keep doing this.”
She nodded slowly.
“You’ve been slipping in your duties, and your class is worried. Theo sometimes comes to my classes so sleep deprived, I just send him to bed. You can’t enjoy your time at school, and I can’t prepare Theo to fight Em. Can you see how difficult this is for everyone involved?”
“I know.” Her voice was quiet, yet the words were far from empty.
“If he’s going to take your place after you go, then he’s going to need a lot of help. And no one understands your class better than you two—so can we put an end to the childishness?”
She nodded more forcefully this time, sending the tears she had tried to hold back down her face.
“I’ve been there, Circle after Circle, reset after reset. Watching over you two. I know that for you, every time, it’s always him. And for him, even though he doesn’t like to show it, even if it takes a bit more effort to get there, it’s you. Distancing yourself isn’t going to make leaving any easier for either of you. Can’t you two just be happy while it’s an option?”
More tears fell as Ty nodded again, biting her lower lip to hold back the sobs.
“And maybe…maybe that will give us a fighting chance. Maybe that’ll give him enough reason not to give in. Raise the sword against his teacher, the one who saved him. Fight another day, even though it feels impossible.”
It was then that she broke again, for the second time that day. She covered her face with her hands as she fought her sobs for air, crying and crying in the silence of the study room. Crying for all the time she had lost, that she would never have again; for the time she wouldn’t remember, when she was happy with her classmates; for her friends, who would have to fight without her; for a world where she could have been happy.
Do you…do you remember when we were happy?
…I do.
Do you think…we were truly happy? Back then?
…It must have been a long time ago, when we were truly happy.
Do you think it counts, even if we don’t live it now?
We can’t go back.
“Where are you going to go?”
After crying for so long, her throat was dry. Her mind was a blur. All she could think about was getting out of the suffocating study room full of sad memories. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No.”
Her legs started moving, hands feeling for the surrounding desks.
“Ty.”
In her stupor, she kept walking, making her way to the front of the room.
“Tyche.”
She stopped and looked up at the figure in front of her blocking her way.
“Theo…may take your title after you’re gone, but to me—to me, you will always be The Tactician.”
“No.” She shook her head, even though it made her head feel light. “No, I haven’t earned that title. I haven’t done anything yet.”
No time. Never enough time.
She tried walking forward, hoping that the professor would move, but he did not budge. She waited, bowing her head to the side when she could feel her eyes welling up again.
“They say that leaders know when to pull back, when to give up when they’re fighting a losing battle. I think they’re right. You’ve got to pick your battles, know when to stop fighting. But what if what you’re fighting for is the right thing to fight for? What if the fate of everyone you love is on the line, what if it’s so important that even the slightest chance of winning, of making it through to the end, gives you the will to keep going? Every time…every Circle, year after year, time after time, failure after failure, I have never seen you give up. You have always continued fighting. Despite the world working against you, despite the pain. You’ve always found a way to keep going, to do what you believe is right. And I think that means something, even if you don’t.”
She tried to push against her warm wall again, but it did not give way.
“Did Halle ever tell you why she hates you?”
The question was so out of the blue that Ty finally looked up. It was not the darkness looking back, but Nate. Nathaniel Moriya, who against all odds, let a memory slip through his inescapable numbness, across years of Circles and repeats, all to reach the present.
There were tears in his eyes.
“It’s because you’re just like her. The one she loved. My tactician. You’re so innocent, so optimistic about the state of the world, so confident in yourself that you think you can save everyone by yourself, that you think everyone is worth saving even when they don’t want to be saved. You don’t care about what pain it causes you, what you’re forced to sacrifice because, if it’s to save the world you love, if it’s to save the people you love, no cost is too steep. Not even your life.
“Every Circle, when I look at you, when I watch you in your first year at school, innocent and off doing what a schoolchild does—I feel so pained. In a way, it feels like she’s back again. It feels like my old friend is back, and she’s living the life that I stole from her. But then I tell myself that you’re not her. You’re burdened with so much purpose, so much duty that you don’t get to have a normal school life, a quiet ending like she did. And what momentary happiness you have? I have to be the one to tear it from you. I have to be the one to take you away from your friends, away from what you love, what truly makes you happy, even though I want to see you continue to be happy for just one more day. Just one more week. Just one more month. One more year. But you know what I can also do that she never got? I can tell you when you’ll go. I can let you say your goodbyes. I can tell you to spend as much time as you can with your friends, doing what you love with the people you love before it’s too late. I can give you a proper goodbye. I can tell you I’ve always admired you, that I wish we could have spoken more, that I wish we could have spent more time together, that I wish I had met you earlier so I could have had even just one more day with you. One more second. I can tell you what I never got to tell her, which is that I love you.”
