Shaded Light [Job | Mura | Sorano]

… Sparks. In a black void, several sparks ignited with minimum intervals of time between each. That was just the visual part of his dream; the audial part involved a sliding, metallic collision between two objects in a fashion that could convince anyone with proper sense of hearing that two iron things clashed with each other. And since this was Mura’s dream, the case was simple; he was dreaming of swords. Not having had such a good dream since he was a C-Ranked Wizard, he dwelled deeper into the void and found himself constantly in need of blocking attacks seemingly from absolutely nowhere. He just held up his blade in parrying positions, and clash! Slash! Sparks erupted and he got pushed back by an unseen force. What was this unseen force that he was facing? Not even he knew for now, and it was weird given that this entity didn’t emit any magic power. Was he fighting an invisible man without any magic? That made no sense at all.

Safe to say, Mura’s subconsciousness kept him going. It wanted him to fight back with his katana, Harusame, and not a single time did he unleash any magic here. His subconsciousness called him to fight traditionally, reminding him of his home country Midi. It was a long time ago since he used to spar with his father and cousins, so this dream also functioned as a reminder and potion of nostalgia. And he had learned so much from them… an invisible being shouldn’t be so hard to beat for him. He proved that to himself with a quick jab with the tip of his katana, lunging it forward not even a second after his latest, successful block. Giving no time to counterattack, Mura outran the opponent’s movements and nailed the blade right at… solid matter. It was solid, because his blade was blocked immediately by what felt like a flat wall. “!” He slid the side of it to release his blade from the ineffective stance that the wall caused him to take. He still couldn’t see anything… he just swung his blade, and everything else fell in place like puzzles. He wasn’t being rational at all; he just did what was likely for him.

This stupid wall… he even laid a hand on it, and it wouldn’t budge. Whoever sparred with him earlier had stopped attacking him, because even after a couple of seconds, the shaman wasn’t cut down to pieces. This was weirder than he thought, and it ruined the monotone atmosphere of his dream. Mura started to push against the wall in an attempt to break through, but whilst leaning his shoulder and left side whilst having his legs press him forward, the wall didn’t budge a single centimeter. It was locked in place, almost unbreakable if he convinced himself of that. Who would ruin his dream like this? Also, what kind of dream was he having earlier? Since he was subconscious as dreams usually took place during slumber, rationality and all ways of thinking straight were weakened.

There was light now. The black void was illuminated by a ray, and the image changed drastically. Instead of the empty space from before, Mura now found himself on a classic, Midian maru in the middle of a raging sea with a dark-grey sky and pouring rain. He was quick to grab onto one of the ropes to prevent himself from falling over, because the scenery screamed sea adventure. Giant waves rocked the ship back and forth, side to side, and Mura wasn’t even alone. He saw but silhouettes of other people waving their mouths and saying unclear things about Wizard Saints and the war against Navrick that took place a long time ago. Why was he hearing those things? It was true that those topics were wide-spread and pretty darn famous, but it felt odd to talk about that kind of stuff in the middle of a fierce sailing. Something should put their serious natures up on the surface again-

And his wish was granted at the spot. First, it was one serpent that burst out from the bottom of the sea. Its neck was wider than the ship. That only escalated when the second serpent emerged, then the third one whose head cracked up right next to the ship and caused it to turbulent. The fourth neck rose up a little more streamlined with its neck forming an arc as it passed up the surface. Then the fifth head rose up behind the arc and darted its head over it like some dolphin. The sixth and seventh heads roes up at the same time, moving in a sort of spiral that was both oddly brilliant and incredibly packed with bad omens. Then the eighth head sprawled up from the waters as all eight heads travelled up above the view of the ocean, each head opening their jaws wide and emitting hostile roars and hisses. Its scales reflected the faint light from the moon, and a dark-blue smoke came out from its terribly poisonous jaws, covering its heads in a mysterious fog with its deep-red, winter-cherry eyes shining right through. Its back had firs and cypresses growing large enough to be spotted from the ship. Mura realized what this beast was, and he quickly moved out his hand in pure instinct. He had to grab Zirconis and merge his spirit into his body to take down a living legend, a center of several fairy tales in Midi; the eight-headed, eight-tailed dragon of the Hi River Legend…

… Zirconis was usually in his spirit ball form just like Kyuken. But Mura knew how a spirit felt by physical contact, and this felt nothing like a ghost…

… This felt squishy, but more fleshy. It also bounced by his touch a little, an effect that neither Kyuken nor Zirconis ever did. They were more solid and ‘maternal-dandelion-like’ in their touches.

His eyes opened smoothly. He had a few rings under his eyes due to how long that he had been sleeping, but he was able to enter the real world and escape his dream’s strange outcome. And by moving his head down a little, he spotted just what exactly he was touching… my god…

He had to experience it one day or another, just like all the fictional figures from the library. Accidently groping a girl in his bed definitely sounded like LV material; like an intro to a romantic novel of some sorts. However, Mura had no idea how Mythica even got into his bed, or his house for that matter! She had been in Magnolia before during the Christmas Event, and she had also… oh yeah, that was right. She knew where he lived given their Halloween adventure a few months back.

No wonder that Zirconis felt so squishy, because the spirit ball was instead a humble but ample boob. His irises and pupils faded away in pure shock, while a conversation went on in another room.

“Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-YES!”
“You seem too happy about this newly wed lady of Mura’s.”
“Yes, of course!”
“But don’t you worry about him?! He didn’t see any of this coming-“
“SHHHHHHH… see things on the bright side. Our shaman pal has grown up!”
“… *smacks Kyuken* YOU’RE JUST HAPPY BECAUSE THERE’S AN EASY TARGET FOR YOUR PERVERSIONS NOW!!!”
“*oww* B-BUT THAT’S A LIE! I ALSO CARE FOR MURA *gets smacked again*”
“PARTIAL?! IT’S PARTIAL OF YOUR JOY!?! YOU DAMNED CREEP!!!”

WC: 1246/8000