Gambit Of The Living Weapon

Her name was Hana. She was a nice little kid, precious like a flower around the age of six who had a beautiful pair of blue eyes, brown hair that reached all the way to her shoulders, and a slightly worn out long dress also drenched in the color of blue, chosen by her mother so that it would match her eyes.

Hana was a well-loved girl. Her friends and family always treated her with care and affection, always doing their best to make sure she was as happy as someone of that age could be. However, even with their best efforts, they couldn"t give Hana the thing she wanted the most, a future.

The girl had an extremely weak body. So weak that she had to be constantly carried by people around her on their backs if she ever wanted to go anywhere. The experts of her village found out that she was suffering from a rare disease and because of that, she would never make it past the age of ten.

All of the people around Hana tried their best to cheer her up, trying to show that they would be by her side and providing all the support they possibly could, but none of that mattered to her. The girl knew that they had good intentions, but at the end of the day, they were all just trying to distract her from her sad reality. They were going to live, and she was going to die.

All Hana wanted was the chance to live a life, her life, to the fullest. Not having to be afraid of one day her body simply stopping to work and having to face the fact that her last day had come.

One night, Hana tried to run away from home while everyone was asleep. She a.s.sumed that if she was going to only have four more years to live, she might as well try to experience at least one adventure before saying goodbye to this world.

She packed an improvised bag with all her favorite snacks and started to walk under the moonlight on any direction the wind would take her. She could feel the cold breeze in the air surrounding her body pus.h.i.+ng her back as if the wind itself was trying to tell her to return home.

But Hana was tired of living a life dictated by others. Just once, she wanted to live in her own way.

She kept walking and walking, getting further away from her village, probably the most she had ever walked in her entire life, completely fueled by her desire to live. Sometimes she would make a stop to eat something from her bag, enjoy the night sky, or simply catch her breath.

The girl also could feel her body getting weaker by the second, almost as if it was trying to fight back against her resolve and trying to convince her to return as well.

Time was against her, the wind was against her, and now even her body was against her. All Hana wanted was to feel alive for a bit, and yet everything seemed to not want to be on her side.

Hana decided to start running before her mind turned against her as well and tried to convince her to go back. She moved her legs as fast as a kid with such a frail body could possibly move. She continued to run without catching a break and suddenly started to feel her body getting warmer. She almost wondered if maybe she was going crazy since it was impossible to feel anything resembling heat in such a cold night, but she also began to look up as she could hear the sound of an incoming object flying in her direction.

"Aaaaahhhh!!!"

Hana screamed once she saw a ball of fire coming at her and used all her strength to leap out of the way.

She rolled on the gra.s.s like a barrel of wine out of control and once she finally regained her sense of direction watched the ball collide with the ground raising a pile of smoke.

"Wha... What was...?"

Her curiosity took the best of her and she tried to approach the spot where the ball landed.

[h.e.l.lo...? Anyone there...?]

"!!"

Hana was shocked to hear the voice of someone coming from behind the smoke. The voice seemed to belong to a young girl. Hana came closer and she saw it, the ball of fire wasn"t a ball at all, it was a little girl, a kid completely on fire about the same height as Hana herself standing in the middle of a crater that was created from her impact.

The fire girl looked at her surroundings as if she was lost. Her fire had a very unique appearance, it kept changing from the colors of red, green, and white.

"h.e.l.lo...?"

[Oh! h.e.l.lo!]

The girl on fire didn"t have a mouth but Hana could hear her voice as if she was speaking inside her mind.

[Do you live here?]

"... Huh... Yes...? Kinda? My house is a little up ahead..."

[I see... Could you please help me? I got lost from my parents and I"m trying to find my way back...]

"Your... Parents...?"

[Yes. My parents! Does your race not have parents in here? How do you reproduce yourselves?]

"Reproduce...?"

[... Huh... How old are you?]

"I"m six..."

[I see... Well... Nice knowing you, six-year-old girl... See you around.]

"Se- See you around..."

Hana waved at the fire girl as she started to charge herself up and began to fly towards the sky. But once she reached a certain alt.i.tude she proceeded to fall until she landed on her crater again.

[Ouch!!!]

"Are you ok...?"

[I"ll live... I think I"m a little too weak to fly...]

"Do... Do you need a place to stay tonight...?"

[... Pardon...?]

Hana was fascinated by the fire girl. She just wanted to keep looking at her flames all day trying to see what other colors she would show. Apparently the girl was unable to leave right now so Hana wanted to take this chance and find out more about her.

"If you want... You can sleep at my house..."

[That"s very nice of you but I don"t really need to sle- ... Oh!]

The fire girl was about to reject Hana"s offer but was stopped once she noticed something wrong with her. She could sense that Hana"s life force was really weak and that it would soon extinguish itself.

[I mean... I guess I could hang out for a little bit...]

"Hang... Out...?"

[Huh... It means... Spending time with your friends...]

"Friends?"

Hana was a little skeptical about the word "friends". All of her friends were just people who pretended to like her so she wouldn"t feel bad about her condition. She never felt like she had a true friend in her whole life.

"You wanna be my friend?"

[Huh... Sure...? You look like a nice kid... I mean... You keep staring at me and that"s kinda making me a bit uncomfortable... But overall... You look ok...]

"..."

Hana tried to slide down the crater that the fire girl had created and approached her. She was warm, but Hana felt like she wouldn"t feel pain even if she touched her.

[Again... Staring... Uncomfortable... Please stop...]

"Ah! Sorry!!"

[It"s ok...]

"I just... Never saw someone on fire before..."

[Really? I see people made of meat all the time during my travels...]

"Travels? You travel a lot?"

[Yeah, it"s kind of my job... Visiting places and taking notes of how they are progressing. I was about to visit a different world but I ended up having a fight with my parents and also ended up running all the way here by accident.]

"Your parents?"

[Yeah... They wanted to take me to a really boring world to observe... I wanted to go to a different one and we ended up having a discussion, which resulted in us getting separated... I tried to look for them but... Well... You know the rest...]

"..."

The fire girl continued to talk about her family problems but Hana couldn"t stop looking at her flame body.

[Are you listening?]

"Ah!! Sorry, sorry..."

[... You really never saw someone like me, did you?]

"No, never..."

[... Here...]

The living fire extended her hand towards Hana who simply looked at her confused.

"Huh...?"

[You can touch it... It"s ok...]

Hana followed the girl"s command and tried to lightly touch her arm very carefully with one finger. Just as she imagined, she didn"t feel any pain. The fire was simply circling her hand producing a very nice warm sensation that began to spread over Hana"s body.

"Who... Are you...?"

[Huh... I don"t think your race would understand my real name... Do you have some kind of expression for beings that live above the clouds?]

"Huh... I think angels...?"

[Angels...? Ok, just call me Angela then!]

"Ok... Nice to meet you, Angela, I"m Hana"

[Pleasure to meet you too Hana.]

Hana then proceeded to take Angela back to her village. The girl made of pure energy continued to chat about her life, her job, and her relations.h.i.+p problems with her family, while the girl with no energy continued to gaze at her flames completely ignoring most of the words she said.

As they got closer Angela began to fill herself with worry.

"Huh... My parents might get scared of your appearance..."

[Do people not like fire in this world?]

"Fire... Doesn"t usually talk..."

[I see... I have an idea!]

Angela then began to s.h.i.+ne and her small figure of a young girl started to lose shape as her flames proceeded to swirl around Hana until they disappeared.

"Angela? Angela, where did you go??"

Hana began to panic feeling that her first real friend might have abandoned her.

[I"m right here, stop yelling...]

"Aaahh!! What did you do??"

[I just turned myself into pure energy for your body, no big deal...]

"You... Huh...? What does this mean?"

[It means... That until I get enough power to be able to return home by myself... In order to avoid the concerned eyes of your parents, you will be my new home.]

"You can do that??"

[I can do lots of things... Don"t worry... Your race will learn this and many more tricks in a couple of thousands of ten thousands of years... You"ll see... It will fly by in a flas.h.!.+]

"I... Don"t think I will be able to live for thousands of years..."

[Oh! Oh... Sorry... I didn"t... I mean...]

"It"s ok... I" used to it..."

[...]

Angela could see that she had just killed the mood and was desperately trying to think of something to cheer Hana up.

[Hey... Wanna see something fun?]

"...?"

[Try to jump.]

"Jump...?"

[Just jump.]

"...Ok..."

Hana crouched her knees and tried to gather strength on her legs. She then proceeded to try and propel herself upwards and before she noticed she was flying so high that she could almost reach the clouds.

"Whooooaaaaa!!!!!"

[I told you it would be fun.]

Hana could see her whole village from that height. She started to panic as she began to fall once again and saw the ground coming closer.

"Ah... Ah... Angela!!!!!"

[Don"t worry...]

The girl crashed into the gra.s.s, and just like Angela when she arrived, created a small crater beneath herself from the impact.

"Wha...?? How...??"

[As long as you have my energy, I won"t let any harm come to you.]

Hana tried to check her body and indeed, there wasn"t a single trace of damage or injury on herself.

"Angela... You"re... You"re...!!!"

[...?]

"You"re amazing!!!"

[Hehe, thanks, Hana! You"re amazing too!]

As she continued to amaze herself with the power of her new friend, Hana began to develop a little bit of concern.

"Hey, Angela...?"

[...?]

"How long will it take for you to get your power back?"

[Mmmm... Not sure... How long does a decade lasts on your world?]