Adamant Blood

Isoko had been Chosen by Freyala.

But that was just the Goddess accepting Isoko, if Isoko wanted. The other half of the Choosing still needed to be done.

But how?

When she had left Mark and Eliot at that breakfast the other day, three days ago, she had been thinking of a great many things. From her uncertain present, with her burgeoning connections to Mark and Eliot. To her past, with Tokyo, and to Crystal Tower through her grandmother, Wandering Sage. To her future, and wherever that might take her, and to be allied with Mark and Eliot in ways that she was unable to fully reach, for her future was not nearly as big as either of theirs.

But Isoko had made peace with her Platinum Body, and it wasn’t just lip service anymore.

During the goblin clearing, Isoko had come to terms with her Power, and she loved it. Mark would get laid out with overexertion. Eliot would need actual protection from constant threats. But Isoko would never stop. She would survive everything. There was a place for Isoko, wherever she wanted to be, because she did want to be a healer, a protector, and a killer of threats.

She liked being untouchable, and she could do that with Freyala’s constant help.

She never spoke about her own history much with Mark or Eliot, which was a bit of a one-sided part of their partnerships, so maybe she should talk to them just to keep things even. Isoko had good reasons for wanting to be untouchable. It wasn’t anything deep, though. Not like Mark’s trauma, or Eliot’s big obligations to his family, and the world.

Isoko just didn’t want to be annoyed by other people anymore.

Growing up attached to Wandering Sage, the supervillain, had put quite a few stressors on Isoko, that most kids probably never felt. Fingernail polish dumped in her school bags, hair-pulls in hallways that dropped Isoko to the ground, tampons in her shoes, and even schoolyard fights. Isoko had experienced a whole bunch of childish shit that bothered her, but only because people were trying to bother her. The only truly terrible thing that had ever happened during her first 18 years of life was when her older sister, Riku, had gone into the Tutorial 5 years ago and never came out.

For a long while, the family assumed that she had just gone to Daihoon without telling anyone.

But then years passed, without a word.

So Riku was dead.

Honestly, Isoko had wanted to talk about her life with both Eliot and Mark, but Eliot always had cameras on and Mark… Well. He would have understood and commiserated, but Isoko could never talk to him about that. It would have been rude to talk to Mark about her own troubles when Mark had so many of his own.

Eventually, though, they would talk about it.

Because Isoko wanted to search for those mythical elves who could bring back the dead.

Mark hadn’t latched on to that part of Addavein’s words (because it was insane to try and bring back the dead, or search for elves) but Isoko certainly had latched onto those dreams uttered by a dragon. Even if she succeeded she fully expected to find it all nothing more than rumors that never went anywhere. But she wanted to try,

And so, Isoko needed power.

A lot of power.

Which had led to today, to choosing the path through the Freyalan Church that would get her the most power possible.

Some people went to Freyala in a System message, clicking off a box and declaring their attentions and choices in a private matter. Some went to a church, where they spoke to a priest who then asked questions and guided a person into the faith.

Isoko had been fraught with worry about her future. About what it all really meant, and about how she could ever hope to stand on the same stage as future superheroes… or supervillains, she supposed.

Isoko chose a traditional method.

Or rather, the traditional method chose her.

She had gone to bed last night, still wondering, sort of, what would happen next.

She woke up at 3 am due to a knock on the door. There was a clothing box sitting outside. The box had contained a simple white shift; basically a pleated white cotton bag, with holes for the arms and head. It was the traditional method of being inducted into the Church of Freyala, and now that the box was here, and the white shift felt soft in her hands, Isoko knew that she had made all the decisions she could.

It was time.

Freyala was calling, and Isoko would answer.

Isoko wore that shift now. She was not the only one wearing the same thing. 17 people stood near her, all of them wearing just a shift, and nothing else.

The ground was grassy and soft. The sun rose beyond the horizon, turning the world from gentle blues into true light. A golden sky glowed, announcing the start of a new day, alongside birdsong echoing in the trees.

The cleansing pool was brilliantly clear. Its banks were solid white marble. The basin was pure white stone, and a small fountain burbled in the center. Tall white stone pillars stood around the pool, like they were columns holding up the heavens.

The golden sky held the most colorful, beautiful clouds that Isoko had ever seen. The kind of clouds that Grandmother could only make when all things in life aligned correctly, from humidity, to time of year, to framing the sky from the proper viewpoint.

The beauty of today felt like something special, but also incredibly plain.

A comforting sort of beauty.

Instructor Charms was there, in the waters, wearing the same sort of outfit as everyone else, and nothing else. She was the half giant of a woman who sat on the far left of the instructor skybox. Here, the waters came up to her waist, and she looked a lot more gentle than usual. She smiled softly.

Isoko hadn’t attended the last few days of Brawny Sparring, so she had kinda missed whatever had happened there, but she was glad that Charms was out here again. She always seemed like the best one of the instructors—

The first rays of sunlight touched the tops of the white pillars around the cleansing pool—

The first acolyte, a man Isoko’s age, went in, walking across the grasses, stepping into the waters. He gasped a little as he touched the cold waters, as he stepped down into the basin, and his white shift clung to his skin, but also kinda floated.

Isoko watched as Charms said small words to the man, and then she took one of his hands into her own, and put a hand on his back. In a smooth motion, Charms dipped the man into the waters, hand too, all the way under. And then she brought him out and the guy was smiling, brushing off his face as though he had been crying, his face reddening a little bit as he chuckled and then walked out of the pool, away from everyone else.

One by one, people walked into the waters for a dip and then a walk out the other side.

No one rushed to get in. No one rushed to get out. Everything happened as it should.

Isoko recognized the dance after the third dipping. The air felt like Mark, but vastly wiser, and infinitely more powerful.

Freyala was here, and she was happy.

And then Isoko walked forward, right in time to the dance that was life.

The water was cold and Isoko’s Platinum Body reacted to the stimuli, her body briefly flickering platinum and then retreating as Isoko recognized the stimuli as just cold water. She stepped down the step, into the basin, her shift floating around her, up to her chest, as she walked to Instructor Charms.

Instructor Charms smiled gently. “Hello, Isoko Kanno.”

“Hello, Instructor Charms.”

Charms took Isoko’s hand in one of her own, and then she put a hand on Isoko’s back, saying, “I’m glad I got to be the one to introduce you to Freyala.”

And then Isoko splashed through the world itself.

- -

Isoko opened her eyes.

She was sitting on a park bench, next to a woman in a sundress.

The woman was dark skinned, but also made of light. She was pale as alabaster, and pink like a sunset. Purple, now. And then green. She was every range of human coloring, and also just herself. Just a woman. No confusion about her at all.

She was the world, and the world was her.

She was Freyala, and her voice was Unity Itself.

“What is your choice, Isoko?”

Isoko breathed out, “A Slayer, and a killer of monsters. To travel the world and kill what needs killing, to save what needs saving, and to explore what needs exploring.”

Freyala nodded, as though Isoko’s decision wasn’t a thing she had just decided yesterday, but in fact the revealing of a truth that Freyala had seen long before Isoko had ever known her own destiny.

Freyala said, “You will start off a Nascent Red Slayer, then rapidly advance to Orange, to Yellow, and then to Green. A distant goal for you is to become a Dragon Slayer, or to belong to the team of a Dragon Slayer. That is what I need from you. That is what this Choosing demands from you, Isoko Kanno. There are no individual goals for you; only the big one at the end, and then a life fully lived as a Dragon Slayer, as best you can.

“You begin with the Union of Breath, and the Union of Blood. Good and Bad, Durability and Weakness, and Resilience and Weakness. You will have access to lesser versions of Purity and Impurity, Sustenance and Deprivation.

“In time, your limitations will be lifted, and expanded.

“You expected to be a simple Chosen, but I need you to be a Paladin, Isoko Kanno.

“The world needs you.”

Isoko’s eyes were wide as she felt an ineffability press down onto her and then pull her upward in a swirl of bliss that showed her all of reality.

Colors clashed.

Pain was forgotten before it was even felt.

Isoko expanded in every direction at once—

- -

Strong hands pulled Isoko out of the water and Isoko brushed away tears and cold, clear waters from her face. She looked up at Instructor Charms, and wondered if the last moments with Freyala had happened, or not.

And then Charms smirked, an eyebrow raising, before she whispered, “Welcome back, Paladin Isoko.”

Words filled Isoko’s vision.

Attention Isoko Kanno!

You have entered into the Chosen System for the Goddess Freyala.

Current benefits: Union of Breath. Union of Blood.

Limited to these forms of Union: Good/Bad, Durability/Weakness, Resilience/Weakness,

Limited to these lesser forms of Union: Purity/Impurity, Sustenance/Deprivation

Current mission: Become a Nascent Red-ranked Slayer.

Distant mission: Become a Green-ranked Slayer, a Dragon Slayer, or a part of a Dragon Slayer’s team.

Charms patted Isoko’s back, saying, “Time to sign up for the Healer Club.”

Isoko grinned so very much. She wiped away a tear or two, and then she slipped on the bottom of the basin, flopping into the water some, only to laugh under the water, and then start swimming over to the exit.

She rose from the cleansing pool, feeling wonderful for her brief foray into the divine.

And then a priest of the church was there, handing out towels and a bag of Isoko’s clothes that she had organized earlier, and ushering people into dressing rooms. Isoko slipped back to normal life easily enough, but nothing was the same. Nothing could ever be the same.

She felt present in a way she could not articulate at all.

That feeling would ebb and flow, and never really go away, from that moment forward.

There was an exit interview with some clerics, and Isoko got placed into the system of the Church easily enough. Soon, she had a badge, an ID, a rule book to follow for best practices, and a question.

“How much do you wish to be involved in the organization? At the lowest level, which you are now, you’ll get big updates through COFR and be tied into the system for small updates, in whatever area you happen to be in. It’s a whole thing, and you can check it out. All paladins get that. You can raise your position in the organization through accepting quests and such. Mostly, though, paladins are all driven by their own quests, so you don’t have to be bigger in the organization at all, if you don’t want to. But there’s always work to be done and we can certainly find you some, if that is what you want. Taking on actual work pays actual money, too, so that’s a good reason to increase your standing in the organization.”

Isoko shook her head. “I know where I’m going. I’ll be paid money as a Slayer, too.”

The cleric nodded. “Very well, then. Now, as for learning about Union. Healer Club is always taking members, and...”