"You- You did—"
"Never do that again." Ikky interrupted. I know you're not her, so never attempt to manipulate me like that ever again."
"... But you still didn't die. So thank you."
"Tsk. Say that again."
"Don't get comfortable. Know how much danger you're in right now, and focus!"
A bright light enshrouded his form, clicking his bones back together as the bones and flesh around him rose again like an axe to murder him.
To get rid of a curse, he requires a blessing. Knowing that Yaga's thanks was a blessing made Ikky realise that her desperate pleas were genuine. It was another burden on his shoulder knowing he had to live for someone else, truthfully.
"I'll stop interrupting your thoughts, so we can both think harder. But know this, the black fluid around that spirit, and the ones on your body are the same. That creature must be related to whatever you'd done previously. If it got angry, maybe it can be appeased."
Keeping that in mind, Ikky forced himself to get back up.
"Līfwin took his seat in the mud, and only drank from what the clouds poured for him." He recited, trying to wake up fully that instinctive emotion that had guided him this far. Fighting against it was clearly not going to yield any good results. Also why not embrace the Totem.
"He would spend his days wishing goodness to whatever he laid eyes on." Ikky looked up at the massive cluster of rotten flesh and bones— at the black murky fluid that held it all together.
"To him was the boundless love of all things and their love from him. His clothes was the pattern of existence in all of its colours." He took a step forward as the axe descended from above.
"He was so down to earth, so beautiful in nature." He chuckled to himself.
"I'm also down to earth, but called something only a mother could love. I am not Līfwin. My name is Equinox to Svarga, and Nox to my mother. I do not know your friend Līfwin, but I guess my Totem is what remains of him."
[Please do not taint Līfwin's good legacy.]
He placed his palms over the murky blood of the ones he'd slain mercilessly. And feeling his strangely genuine caresses, they stopped moving and wrapped around his fingers. The black murky blood soon turned into black mist instead, now glimmering with tiny stars as they turned into small animals running over Ikky's outspread hands.
The axe of flesh and bones fell, while the man shrouded in snow and misty night stood calm and in place. The Totem Līfwin seemed to bring out the complete opposite traits of the man who wielded it— restrained, graceful, and surrendering to fate. Even as the axe, bursting with power came down on him, he did not move, and only eased the souls of the animals.
A loud bang sounded throughout the mountain, the snow bursting into the air because of the impact.
"What do you think you're do— wait, who are you?! Where is Ikky?" Rick yelled, one hand in the air as a canopy of rotten flesh slid down from the barrier above he and Ikky's head.
"Hello, Rick." The man behind Rick answered with a smile on his face.
Rick's eyes widened.
He heard a few bangs on his dome barrier, so he turned to the right, and was surprised to see tiny shadow animals carrying a big white sword as they tried to break in.
"Would you be so kind as to allow the little ones in?"
Rick wanted to ask why. He wanted to ask a lot of things. But from this person's mannerism and their current situation, he complied and opened a hole for the sword and tiny animals to fly through.
Ikky took hold of the sword's handle. He held the sword to the side, with the animals still standing attached to the blade, and swung it horizontally.
"Like this?" He asked how to swing the blade when Rick replied,
"It's a longsword— good for a lot of techniques, but excellent for thrusts and reaching.
"Hm. Well then, you have it."
"What? You hold it for safety. We'll make a break for it as soon as I deactivate this barrier charm. So stay close."
But Ikky shook his head. "I don't need it right now, so just give the sword to me later. I am the weapon after all."
"Ah." Rick exclaimed in understanding. Ikky is using a Living Totem.
The flesh above the barrier soon cleared as the strange spirit absorbed them back into its body before expanding like a balloon. Spikes soon began to appear on the bloated evil spirit as it finished preparing.
However, a strange creature that looked like a wildebeest carved out of the night sky suddenly began to bounce on the bloated belly of the evil spirit.
"Haha." Ikky let out a laugh as he and Rick watched clearly the small wildebeest play, from afar.
"What is—" The night creature bounced up again, only for it to fall on Rick's head this time.
Without being allowed to process things clearly, the middle aged man was again taken aback as Ikky had apparently teleported right on top of the evil spirit, his legs pressing right into the spirit and making it explode.
"It's not over yet, Rick."
Ikky looked to the sky as he watched the countless bits disperse, yet moved with struggle to reform.
Stretching his hand out in one direction, the black fluid attached to the various scattered body parts reacted as if to his call. And with a swipe of his hand, the fluid turned into beautiful mists of night as they rose to the sky. Some of the night mist were in the shapes of wild spirits, others even in the shape of humans.
"Now it's done." Ikky said to the man now standing beside him.
"...I guess." Rick replied as they both watched the white sky littered with beautiful figures of night— the departure of grieving souls.
"Rest well."
[What Līfwin was not friends with, simply... does not exist.]
"I'mma... I'mma need you to carry me home now Riiii—" Ikky fell face first in the snow, knocked unconscious from the intense drain of spiritual essence.
———
"Bloody hell!" Ikky cursed as soon as he woke up.
He sat on his bed and stared at the glass of his room's window.
"Why do I feel even more tired after that nap?!"
Falling back on the bed, his small Augur spirit who happened to be standing on the pillow, placed her cold palms on his forehead and stared at him from above.
Ikky looked into her one hollow and one white eyes and then brought his finger to tap her small horn.
With a stoic expression on her powdery face, she thought out loud, "I wonder what summoned that Curse."
"I wonder why you kept quiet during my epic moment."
"Hmm?"
Ikky grabbed her like a doll as he sat on the bed excitedly.
"Did you see that,Yaga?! I was like, yo, rest in peace yo you little babies. And those tiny spirits were like, not before helping you oh great saviour, ahh! Then the wildebeest from that other time — the one I stabbed in the butt. It was like, lemme set you up real quick bro. And then bam! That fat fungus chungus didn't even know what hit it and just exploded! I was then like, ahh mighty swell view, huh Rick! And he was like, you were totally awesome back there bro. I respect that, truly, that drop kick was imma- immaculate."
"Immaculate." Yaga corrected as the man stopped waving her around for a second to think.
"That's what I said."
"No. And put me down, Ikky!" She hissed.
"Shh!" Fearing she might actually bite his finger, Ikky quickly let her go.
Yaga adjusted her cape with an angry expression on her round face. She started,
"Your spiritual essence control is very bad. I had to hold our link together with full focus so it doesn't break off suddenly."
"Wh-what?" Ikky had already known that he couldn't use spiritual essence, but he was more surprised to hear Yaga imply that she could help him manage the consequences of his lack of skill.
"Please Yaga! You have to teach me Yaga, how?" He begged, almost grabbing her again by mistake, if not for her threatening stare. It seemed like she was daring him to actually do it, and then suffer.
"I can only teach you properly if you have the slightest bit of common sense about a variety of things you'd need to understand before even learning about controlling spiritual essence! Or did you think just churning the energy in your mark like a bowl of soup would be enough?! You'd be throwing up— As a matter of fact, do just that."