the crow is white [exam]

Eireen yawned, her gaze directed at the cherry blossoms swaying gently in the breeze.  Beyond the eternally pink hues of the trees, the pale blue sky stretched across the horizon, not a single cloud in sight.  And yet, the reaper felt as if there wasn’t actually much to do.  Her current assignment was too far away to make there if she wasn’t absolutely rushing, but at the same time EIreen was enjoying Sakuramori.  It was, after all, incredibly scenic, if not for all of the odd things that happen in the area.  She was almost about to go ahead and bother Chance about something to do when she detected a sudden spike in magical energy.

The pink haired mage immediately got to her feet, scarlet eyes scanning her surroundings for anything amiss.  The sudden increase and subsequent decrease was sudden, but there was no doubt that is occurred.  A grin began to spread across Eireen’s face, she always liked it when something interesting lande right on her lap by chance.  Of course, it was also fun to go out and actively look for them, but that had a different feeling to it.  If you’re looking for something interesting, you half expect for there to be a little treat for you.  But, when the surprise finds you, there would've been no way for you to think that’d happen at that instant.  However, for a moment, those thoughts had to be put away.  After all, a big ol’ opportunity was looking Eireen straight in the face.  Who knew what the source of the magic power was?  It could be some terrorists, a group of scientists doing some unethical experiments, anything!  Well, whatever it was, she wanted to see it.

The reaper leapt up into the branches of the tree she had been resting against, already having leapt off before the limb had time to react.  From one cherry blossom to the next, Eireen made her way to the source of the disturbance.  And when she arrived, she really didn’t find what she had been looking for.  Well, what she had looking for was simply something but she didn’t think what she found really as it.

The dead corpse of a young girl said sprawled out in the small clearing, petals clinging to her hair.  The source of sudden magic power was probably the thing that killed her, and whatever it was wasn’t around at the moment.  Eireen landed neatly next to the unmoving lump, bending down to inspect it more carefully.  The now deceased girl was dressed modestly in typical villager clothes, their hands stiffly grasping a small arrangement of flowers.  And as for the thing that actually led to her death, it was undoubtedly the gaping hole about the size of a baseball where her heart should be.  Something had simply ripped right through, allowing EIreen to see the ground under the girl.

Eireen stood up, her sharp gaze briefly scanning the area before landing on a rather large cherry blossom.  It emanated a tad bit of magic energy, and even though it was faint there was no doubt it was there.  The reaper walked right up to it, but instead of stopping she simply passed through, seemingly merging into the tree.  However, the tree itself was simply a “passageway” to somewhere else, a rather robust one at that.  Eireen’s new surroundings consisted of a picture-esque meadow, a village only a ways away, and a figure in white armour standing right in front of her.  In their hand was a flawless silver lance, just about the right size to make a baseball shaped hole in someone’s chest.  And now, that same lance was coming straight at the woman’s head.  The reaper narrowly evaded the attack before creating a bit of distance between her and the armoured attacked.  To Eireen, it was rather that this wasn’t actually a human being, instead being more of an “echo” of one.  Requipping some armour of her own, the pink haired wizard couldn’t help but smirk as she assessed the situation.

This armour assailant was closest to be compared to a “ghost”, the representations of a dead person’s lingering attachments.  And from the magic power it was giving out, its power actually exceeded Eireen’s.  Now, the reaper really didn’t like to fight battles she couldn’t win, but this time around she actually had a good idea for going about this.  If this ghost had some lingering regrets, it had the capacity to be added to Eireen’s “Melancholy”.  The only thing Eireen had to do was to destroy their anchor to this world and then establish herself as the spirit’s new one.  And in this case, it was probably that village they were standing in front of.  Why else would the ghost randomly kill one of the villagers who tried to re enter it?  The only thing the spirit was capable of processing was its desire to not allow “anyone to enter this place”, so it didn’t identify things before acting.  In that case, the course of action was simple really.

Eireen sped off towards the small collection of buildings, a scythe manifesting into her hands.  Faces turned towards her, and a splash of blood followed.  The reaper’s white coak had been stained red by a villager she hadn’t even properly registered before cutting down.  In the corner of her eye, the mage could see the armour rapidly approaching their lance poised to pierce through EIreen.  Maybe if it was under normal circumstances the armour would’ve been able to outspeed her, but with this isolated space they were creating there was no possible way for them to keep speed, attack power, and their own manifestation stable.  So, before the armour even arrived, Eireen had time to reduce all the buildings to rubble and silence all screams.

The suit of armour stopped in its tracks once it saw the blood stained streets, the faces of the villagers with their mouths eternally opened in terror.  Sitting leisurely on top of the ruins of a house was Eireen, the reaper watched as the spirit began being reduced to a dust-like substance.  She had already established herself as its new anchor, but whether or not it would actually work was the question.  The mage sighed as she stared at the fragmenting sky, the isolated falling apart.

1059 ❈ 1059 [WC Met]