Facing Fear | ✓ ONC 2023 Honorable Mention

13 | In Every World

After
Sixth Ring, Valor

Mori, you will not endanger the group because you want to play the hero. Stand down. That's an order.

My sister is down there.

Shiori needed her. Nothing else mattered. Mori fell from the heights, bracing for impact. Her protective bubble fractured and evaporated. She hit the ground hard, a tremor traveling up her legs. Mori's vision fuzzed from the pain that rippled through her body, her health bar declining to half. 

Stay awake. Stay awake.

Gripping her rifle, she ran toward the party fighting the minotaurs. Adrenaline pounded through her veins. She counted three players left against five bulls. 

At their forefront, Shiori dodged and wove through the monsters like a dancer. Hair aflame, she held her fists up and cracked the monsters' across the face with the spikes on her knuckles, the concussive force downing them for a few moments before they recovered. 

A moment of deja vu hit Mori. Even though the players dealt damage to the monsters, the red health bars refilled at a steady rate. "Potato!" she screamed through comms. "Tell me you know how to beat these things!"

"You have to one-shot them!" Perera cried out in response before someone muffled her voice.

Ren took over the line. "Mori, don't do this. You can't fight them all."

Another scream rent the air, like a tear in the fabric of reality. 

"Haruna!" Shiori yelled, anguish twisting her voice and sending a stab of pain in Mori's heart.

Mori dropped to one knee, dangerously close to the fight, but she couldn't trust to her fluctuating accuracy. She singled out a minotaur furthest from the players and fired. Her bullet chipped a horn. Breathe, Mori. A little lower and to the left. 

The second her accuracy spiked, Mori re-centered on the bull's forehead and pulled the trigger. Her shot still strayed to the side, but took the bull in the eye instead. Bellowing loud enough that the earth quaked, the beast exploded into red fragments. The poleax it had been carrying dropped to the ground.

As one, the remaining monsters turned to look at Mori, scarlet eyes gleaming in the dusk. 

The surviving members of the other party scrambled away when the minotaurs brandished their weapons and roared. The monsters charged as a unit, hooves striking the dirt and steam blowing from flared nostrils.

Trapped between the bulls and the cliffs, Mori didn't dare try to make a run for it at the risk of leading the monsters back to her party. If this is where she died at least Shiori would be safe. 

Mori stood and put her cheek to her rifle stock, tears trickling down her face and onto her rifle. All this time, she'd hoped that bravery lurked inside her, that her low strength stat was a fluke. But facing these monsters alone, Mori knew fear to be more than her match. She cried because she remembered that she would die in every world.

Even with her finger on the trigger, she couldn't bring herself to shoot because she knew she'd miss.

It didn't take long for the first beast to reach her. Barely able to see through the tears, Mori raised her weapon to block the downward swing of its hammer. Her rifle crumpled under the blow, the force of it knocking her to the ground. 

But as her gun vanished in a grey shimmer of sparks, a figure materialized to stand over her and deflect the following attack.

Cynthia.