The Hollow Sword

My hands were trembling, which was strange since I didn't feel particularly cold. Sight was a bit strange as well. He'd had no problem dealing with the puppets before, but now he was destroying them one at a time. Not to mention, he seemed wobbly. There was only one explanation. The ice was zapping our body heat. Since Sight was more exposed to it, it had to be affecting him more.

At least, the process was slow enough that we had ample window to attack Silver. When Sight had completely engaged all the icy puppets, and I knew I was shielded from them, I began focusing on Silver. She was a little far away than what I'd have liked. But no matter, I could still use my trump card.

At first, we were relying on the idea that with so many icy puppets, she'll run out of moisture to use but apparently the puppets didn't need much water to be formed. Even if their barrage was likely to stop at one point, we couldn't wait until then. So I had no choice but to use my trump card right then and there.

When my senses had heightened enough, I moved my fingers, like I was conducting an orchestra. Before long, I had full grip over what I was targeting. On the other hand, Silver's puppets suddenly stopped. She began breathing heavily, feeling something weird inside her body.

In fact, I'd slipped half a drop of Nasty's blood in her body when we were sparring. Now I could control it as I saw fit. She immediately realized what was happening.

"Getting ahead of yourself, young man?", she said as she froze a part of her body right near her stomach.

I was moving the blood drop to her heart but she froze the area around the drop. It was clear that she didn't care for her body. It was then that it became evident to me that we were missing something crucial and that our efforts against her were pointless. Still, despite her freezing the area around the blood drop, she apparently couldn't freeze the drop itself. This meant that I could still move it in her body, although it required a bit more effort.

I intended to rupture her heart which would have ceased all her functions.

"It's futile", she muttered, trying to keep herself up.

I knew that. But this was all I could do for now.

"Boy", Sight looked at me, as Silver struggled to prevent the clot moving to her heart.

By freezing her insides, she was also dampening her own strength. It was bound to fail. As a last ditch effort, she shot some ice bullets towards me, but Sight shielded me by quickly deploying a barrier. After that, she was all out of strength, and I penetrated her heart with the blood drop and wreaked havoc inside her.

Blood rushed to her mouth and soon flooded out. She was limp, barely standing. After two more bouts of blood escaped her system, she was practically gone. Still, she refused to give in, and kept standing on her feet, leaning against the tree. I could sense that her bodily functions had ceased.

Through the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Grey's face. It felt like he was feeling all the pain that Silver had just gone through. Without thinking, I had caused this bloody mess and not even thought once that Silver after all, wasn't just a threat. She was a human, and a friend. Regardless, I'm sure Grey understood that something like this needed to be done.

On the other hand, Sight wasn't looking too hot. The ice had stopped spreading but he was still half frozen. If not for his enormous size, the ice might have reached his heart and he wouldn't have been much different from Silver.

Now that Silver was immobilized and vulnerable, I just needed to get to her. But with the icy floor all around us, it wasn't so easy. Just as I was thinking about it, Grey walked right up to me.

I was shocked, "You weren't frozen?!"

He shook his head and placed his hand on the ground. Slowly the ice came undone and turned to snow. Sight and I were free. He then went up to Sight and unfroze the rest of his body.

"Wasn't this ice supposed to never melt?", I asked.

"Yes. But I've lived with her all my life. I at least know my way around her ice. She and I are not so different after all", Grey answered.

He wasn't cold at all. Sight and I were shivering. The snow was unusually cold.

Luckily, Sight wasn't feeling any after effects. When we'd made sure that everyone was doing okay, we went up to Silver. By now, she was almost on the ground. Her eyes were half open, staring emptily at nothing. Blood smeared the lower half of her mouth and painted her leather corset with a layer of red.

"What should we do with her now?", I asked.

The drop of blood was still somewhere in her heart. I wasn't going to remove it just yet.

"Destroy the sword", Grey answered.

I leaned over to check if Silver had her sword on her. I couldn't find it anywhere near her.

Just then I heard a gashing sound and felt something on my back. Before I could look back to check what it was, I noticed something protruding out of my abdomen. By the time I had discerned the protruding shape to be like that of a sword, I could feel a sharp pain in my back and a coldness that can only be described as being impaled. Grey stood wide-eyed, Sight wore a weirdly tense expression too. None of us had expected it. And I was frozen in my place, leaning over Silver, as the corner of her mouth twitched into a vague, broken smile.

Grey had undone all the ice. At some point, Silver had fixed Excalibur overhead with her ice. I don't think she aimed to hit me with it. This was just a lucky coincidence. She just intended to hide it somewhere where we won't be able to get to it. She didn't expect Grey to melt all the ice in that garden.

As for our current predicament, even with the sword impaling me, I thought I wasn't going to die. Now that Excalibur was embedded into my body, I could tell that whatever powers it was supposed to hold weren't in it anymore. All it had were hollow memories.

I'm glad that's all it held within it. That hollowness answered all my questions.