"2nd Saga!! Eliminate her now!”
“Hee hee.”
An alluring female face and limbs appeared in the dark night. She was around 18, at the midpoint between girlhood and womanhood.
But that was all that was visible.
The pieces floated separately. No, her torso had clearly been torn apart. It now contained strange hollow spaces. Had her human silhouette unraveled like bandages? Was it due to the thick ribbon that had been wrapped around her torso? The lights of the city were visible in the space beyond her partially eliminated body.
The space seemed somewhat distorted.
Or maybe it was a type of camouflage.
Aradia faced this person who was strange even for a Transcendent. She had the face of a girl with short flaxen hair with the interior dyed bright blue.
“2nd Saga. Do you derive some special meaning from covering and hiding things?”
“I’ve always had trouble choosing just one thing. I never want to throw anything out, so my room always ends up a mess.”
Saga was a goddess from Norse mythology.
She was said to be extremely powerful and to manage the spring where Odin is gifted with poetry and wisdom.
But she is barely mentioned throughout all the Norse monuments and texts.
Barely anything is known about her other than that her home is called Sokkvabekkr.
Information on her was scarce.
She was a mysterious figure who is simply known to share drinks with the top Norse god.
This woman had gone out of here way to choose a god like that.
She had wanted to be her.
Aradia spat annoyed words with the yellow and black railroad crossing barrier in hand.
“If a single performer tries to forcibly dress up as multiple gods, the traits of the gods cancel each other out, diluting their presence. We normally have strict rules about what we can’t do if we want to stay in character and keep our costume authentic, but I didn’t expect one of us to take advantage of that fact.”
“By intentionally keeping a low profile, I can do things other gods can’t. I am not the star of the show. But if a tree or a bush does something they shouldn’t, the audience has no way of knowing if it was correct or not. This allows me to be a performer on the stage while also freeing me from the bonds of the script. I am the only one allowed to be myself.”
“…”
“I am the Transcendent who saves all the bit parts and understudies who never get any attention. I can’t look down on them if I’m to do that. I need to understand how they feel and be one of them first.”
She disappeared.
Did she unleash her skill to the point she became one with the air?
The bluish-white armor partially surrounding 2nd Saga’s limbs vanished into the air, causing what little of her skin and face were still visible to look unnaturally alluring.
The bright round skin of her face was like a device for giving off sex appeal.
The pupils of her blue eyes were colored an impossible bright red. Did she use a light-bending technique to pull that one off?
Even with her full body unraveled, the individual pieces were made of captivating feminine skin.
But if a member of the opposite sex were caught by her like this, it would probably break his mind.
The strange avant-garde woman sneered.
“My name is 2nd Saga, a fictional god created on the mischievous whim of the compiler. Which allows me to add on any magic I wish which is never actually found in Norse mythology. …Now, it is time you lost your one and only life. The divine curse – that is, the light of Brisingamen, necklace of infidelity – can even trigger a war between world-destroying kings. Do not assume an individual can escape that deadly fate!!”
It started at the center, where her chest had been.
The thick ribbon, which bound her skin and showed the city behind her, created a transparent distortion much like sugar water, which spilled beyond her outlines.
It forcibly gathered Aradia’s focus on a single point, much like having a finger jabbed between the eyes at close range.
Aradia sensed a definite deadliness in this unknown phenomenon.
Was she mistaken, or had that been the true trigger?
The impossible distortion became a large artillery shell that tore through the air.
This was an assassination spell.
It was guaranteed to take a life.
And the user could sidestep their own sin by saying they were only adoring the beautiful gold and jewels. The necklace brought doom, but it allowed the user to claim they didn’t know it was cursed and thought it was only a beautiful piece of jewelry. Was that to insure they would not be hit in the unlikely case that the curse was sent back the way it had come?
Aradia snorted with laughter.
The rails were laid out nicely, but it was all nonsense with no actual mythological basis. The sky is heaven, the gods shine bright, the workings of salvation and divine punishment, cats are capricious and dogs are loyal – by combining the common symbols found across cultures, anyone could fake apparent legitimacy.
Yes, this was faked.
Her cosplay was sloppy. Gods were meant to draw a strict line between right and wrong, so they couldn’t accept – much less use – a loophole like this. A real god did not choose their words carefully for fear of backlash or controversy. Even the cruelest act could be written off as “divine punishment” if it was truly necessary.
And even if this curse would pursue Aradia to the ends of the Earth, there was only one thing she had to do.
“There just have to be two Aradias.”
“Wha-!?”
Immediately after 2nd Saga’s dumbfounded shock, the invisible curse tore itself apart with its own power.
The chilly moonlight shined on two identical people.
The black and yellow railroad crossing barriers resting on their shoulders crossed like swords mounted on a wall.
Aradia hadn’t actually done anything. The curse simply hadn’t been designed to handle an abnormal situation where two identical people existed. It was unable to deal with the situation it found, so the single shell attempted to pursue two targets at once, tearing itself apart from within.
It dissipated.
It disappeared.
