Karmic Balance

"Get out of the way! Injured coming through!" Someone yelled. Was that Cecilia? Dawn? Jun's thoughts felt weird. Distant. Cloudy.

"Looks like it might snow," Jun whispered to herself, staring up at the grey clouds in the sky. Her voice croaked.

She sounded like a frog. Jun tried to smile, but smiling hurt so she stopped.

She heard gasps and muttering all around her. Was something interesting happening? She wanted to see! But she was so tired, and moving hurt.

She was forgetting something important, but she was so tired. Maybe she should just take a nap.

"Don't go to sleep Jun! Just hold on we're almost there!"

The voice kept yelling at her, telling her to stay awake, but she was so tired. She always got tired on long car rides.

But the voice was insistent. So she tried to stay awake for it. But it was a losing battle.

"Shit! Marcus stabilize her now!"

"I'm trying but the spell's not working!"

"Fuck, get one of the Professors!"

Cecilia watched, heart in her throat, as three senior student healers pumped healing magic into Jun's body, their spells setting off flares in her mana sense. She itched to go find Inari, certain the foxkin could heal Jun up. She'd healed far worse in their private training.

"She's fading! I can't find a pulse!"

"Casting [Revive]!"

"Pulse is back!"

"Out of mana!"

Even though she didn't know where Inari stayed, Sara would know. Cecilia turned to Dawn. "Go find Sara and tell her Jun's hurt bad," she said.

Dawn nodded with understanding. "I'll let her know." Dawn's mana circulated throughout her body and she vanished, the front door to the infirmary slamming shut in the distance as several students screamed.

Less than a second after Dawn disappeared, an older man marched into the room radiating power. "What's so important that you need me right now? I was busy making sure that Sloan's latest victim would still be able to walk!" he snapped irritably, his eyes gliding past Cecilia to stare down one of the exhausted healers working on Jun.

"We can't get her stable! Our magic keeps slipping off of her while barely doing anything," one of the healers gasped, dripping with sweat.

The professor's demeanor changed immediately as he strode over to the infirmary bed, pushing the exhausted student to the side and taking his place.

Strong magic buzzed in Cecilia's mana senses as the man began to mutter something, his hands slowly moving over Jun's body.

"Bruised trachea, punctured lung, multiple serious fractures and internal hemorrhaging. There's something else eating the mana out of your spells. The drain is slow, but steady spells won't work. You need to overpower it with burst healing."

Cecilia's teeth seemed to vibrate as a storm of power bled off the professor, stronger even than a Gold ranked monster. The bruises on Jun's neck faded a bit.

"Shit, the drain's stronger than I thought. Get Professor Cottage!"

Cecilia gritted her teeth as another powerful healing spell flooded into Jun, barely doing anything. She hoped Inari would get here in time.

Jun wiggled her toes in the warm sand of a familiar beach as she gazed out at the ocean. The water gleamed with endless possibility, reflecting the shining lights and swirling colors of the sky above. The ocean was endless, stretching out further than she could comprehend, as if the horizon didn't exist.

The sky above was filled with the bright lights of a galaxy of stars that twinkled in a riot of colors as they moved through clouds of golden gas. It was a captivating sight. One she thought she could stand and watch forever. One she had been watching forever. How long had she been standing there watching the sky? Minutes? Hours? Days?

It didn't matter. Time wasn't important. What was important was the beach and the sky and the endless ocean stretching out in front of her. An ocean of possibilities, a sky full of potential, and a comfortable beach of her own to enjoy it all from. It was perfect.

Except something was missing. Someone was missing. Jun blinked as the thought glided across her mind. Someone? No, that's not right. She was the only one on the beach enjoying the sky. Watching the stars dance to the song of the universe alone. Always alone.

"That's right, you've always been alone Jun," a voice called out from behind her.

Turning around, Jun's eyes widened as she saw a copy of herself standing behind her wearing a flowing white dress. The copy smiled at her.

"Always alone, unloved, misunderstood," the copy said.

Jun met her eyes and she saw something dark in them. Fear and revulsion crept through Jun's soul as she looked at her copy. Something about the copy of her was wrong, but she couldn't think of why. Her thoughts felt murky, her mind sluggish as she tried to understand what was happening.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"You fear me because I speak the truth. The unpleasant truth of your life. You've always been hated, both in this life and the one before." Her copy raised a hand, conjuring a dark sphere.

Images began to play across it.

Images of a small town that seemed so old but so new at the same time.

A large metal building appeared in the sphere with a simple white sign reading "Stone Creek Auto Repair." A group of people moved about working on cars. Two men worked on a car, one young and lanky, in his teens with long black hair tied up in a high ponytail. Grease covered his faintly tanned skin and coveralls, a darkening bruise on his cleanshaven face. The other man wore another greasy coverall, cursing as he worked.

"Damnit Jun, what'd you do to the damned bolts!" Her father cursed as he pulled himself out from under the hood. "You fucked up a simple battery replacement! You're fucking useless!" He screamed. "Get the fuck out of here you useless sack of shit!" The man angrily shouldered past the young man, sending him stumbling.

Jun remembered that day. She'd just turned 16 and her father started teaching her to work on cars.

She'd accidentally snapped a bolt trying to take a battery out and her father had gone ballistic. She could still feel the aching pain in her cheek from her father's anger. Unconsciously Jun reached up and touched her cheek, half expecting to wince in pain though the bruises had long healed in a body she no longer had.

"Some wounds don't heal," her copy said as the scene in the sphere changed. A face appeared, one she hadn't seen in months. Ash.

"How could you do this to me?!" she cried, tears streaking down her face. "I tried to give you everything, and now you say it's not working out?"

"B-But you said you felt the same!" Past-Jun said, voice cracking. Confusion and pain. She thought Ash felt the same way, that she could feel that something didn't work between them just like Jun did. Ash had even said their relationship was broken. But that didn't alleviate the sickly hot feeling in her chest or the bile burning in the back of her throat.

"That doesn't mean you just give up! You always do this! When things get hard you just shut down! You never fight back! You're always a coward!" Jun, both her past self and her present, recoiled as Ash slapped her across the same cheek her father had punched. Both Juns worked their jaws, but only Past Jun's jaw clicked where it hadn't healed properly.

"Ash could always see right through you. See who you really were, not just who you pretended to be. You played at bravery and stoicism, putting up a front, but you're just selfish. Only caring about yourself no matter who you hurt. A coward that only follows after people because its easier than working hard for yourself."

The scene in the sphere changed again. Ash was crying and leaving her behind in the woods. Bobby, Ray, and Charles.

A short fight.

Flames.

Pain.

The sphere fixed on Bobby's scowling face "Your weakness. Your cowardice. You destroyed lives with your existence. Your mother was happier before you were born. Your father was gentler. Ash would have left on her own, but she stayed because of you and you were too afraid to leave. You murdered Ray. Bobby was right to end you. You didn't deserve life." Jun's copy crushed the sphere and walked towards her as Jun stood frozen, staring at where the sphere had been.

Jun felt a pair of hands on her shoulders spin her around. "Look at the truth of what you are."

The brilliant sky and endless sea filled her vision, promising infinite possibilities. But as she watched, one of the largest stars in the sky started to dim and turn dark. It stopped spitting out light and began to suck it in. It gobbled up the swirling golden gas and the darkness began to grow and spread, taking up more space in the sky until it brushed against another star.

Pain ripped through Jun's very being as the dark star swallowed the brilliant blue sphere whole and ballooned in size. Jun sagged, only to be caught and held up by her copy, who lifted her head up to keep watching.

"Your friends put themselves at risk for you, killing and shedding blood all because you're too afraid of being labeled a murderer." The sphere grew like a cancer as it glutted itself on the golden gas and stars in the sky. Each light consumed sent more pain ripping through her, nipping at her sanity.

Make the pain stop! She tried to say the words but nothing came out.

"The pain won't stop," her copy purred gleefully. "No matter how hard you've fought and tried to change, you can't change. You won't. You were so afraid of becoming a murderer when the truth is you already were one before you ever came here." More lights winked out as pain ripped through the core of her being.

"Or did you forget poor Ray? Did you forget the way you smashed his head in with a bottle? The way he crumpled as the light vanished from his eyes? The way you enjoyed it when Charles said he was dead? You were already a murderer, and Bobby was right to kill you. You're just a monster in disguise, hiding the truth from everyone, even yourself."

"And then you met me. Invited me in just to seal me away. Your cruelty knows no bounds, but your little kitty isn't here to save you this time. Not that she would even if she was. After all, You're not really her daughter. How could she possibly see you as hers? She didn't give birth to you. No one did. You abandoned your true parents after ruining their lives and you're such a wretched thing that not even all of your karma could give you new parents. You're a reject. A failure. No one loves you. But you won't have to worry about that for much longer." Jun could hear the glee in her copy's voice as more of the sky was consumed.

"Just stay there and watch. It'll be over much faster if you stop resisting. Give in. You don't deserve this body." Her copy squeezed her jaw tight and forced her to turn her head to look at her copy. Except it was no longer her but a twisted mockery.

Only hints of her now familiar face remained in the entity staring back at her. Her mouth was spread too wide in the caricature of a smile that stretched from ear to ear, revealing hundreds of needle sharp teeth. Alien eyes stared at her, the skin to the sides splitting as if her eyes were too large for her skull. More pain ripped through her as another star was consumed and Jun screamed.

"You stupid cat! You let your daughter get taken by a soul parasite and did nothing?!" Inari cursed as she pumped even more potent healing magic into Jun, excising the strange mutations before they could take hold of the girl's body.

Jun writhed and squirmed on the infirmary bed, blood soaking the white sheets.

"She was born with it. The only thing I could do was seal it until she grew strong enough to deal with it herself." Shiori dodged back as another of Jun's snares tried to strangle her. A cloud of sharpened barriers and arcane missiles swarmed about the room, each spell sprouting snares. With precise blasts of mana Shiori shattered the spells before they could hit anything. Shiori hopped over another unconscious healer, their mana fully drained by Jun's spells.

Her daughter's magic was far from a threat to her, but if she let her daughter's magic consume any of her or Inari's mana, it would only strengthen the soul parasite already breaking free from its seal and gorged upon the mana of multiple Iron, Silver, and Gold ranked healers.

"So seal it again! What're you waiting for?!" Growling, Inari slashed through a spell as it was coalescing before returning her attention to her patient.

"I can't. Jun's soul can't take the burden of another seal and the first one hasn't fully dissolved yet. I already repaired what I could, but a shard of it broke free. Jun will have to beat it herself."

"Did you teach her anything about soul combat?"

"Nothing, she wasn't ready. She'll need to figure it out herself."

"If she loses…"

"I know. We can't let it get free."

"Then—"

"I'll do my duty and kill Jun myself."

"We'll buy her as much time as we can."