Reborn with a Necromancer System
Chapter 153: A Silver-Haired Pair

Chapter 153: A Silver-Haired Pair

The deeper they walked into the forest, the more the world shifted.

The sunlight broke in fragments through layers of sapphire-hued leaves. Strange vines twisted across their path like veins beneath translucent skin. They passed glowing toadstools that swayed without wind, moss that blinked shut when stepped on, and the low guttural murmurs of beasts watching from between the trees. The air was thick with mana. Not in the way of spells or sigils, but living mana. Breathing, dreaming, hunting.

Kai’s senses sharpened with each step. The forest felt like memory, like stepping back into a dream that had ended too early.

Mari followed at his side, expression unreadable beneath her focused eyes and furrowed brow.

They didn’t speak much, only when they had to. The Forest of Arcane Creatures was too old and too alive for idle words.

After hours of walking, Kai stopped.

His head tilted slightly. His nostrils flared.

He sniffed the air, no, not just air. Mana. It drifted like the smell of rain before a storm, thin and fading, but unmistakable.

He dropped to one knee, placed his hand on the moss, and let his mana sense feel along the roots like tendrils in the dark.

There.

A wisp of something. Weak. Like the pitter-patter of a mouse’s feet across a war drum. But he knew it.

He knew it as surely as he knew his own heartbeat.

"...I found the trail," he said.

Mari followed him as he pressed ahead, his pace faster now, weaving through thick underbrush, leaping over fallen trees and sliding down earthy slopes.

Eventually, they arrived at a place Kai hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

It was a graveyard of broken trunks and shattered stones. The wreckage of a battle—his battle. Iron Bear corpses had long since decayed, but their bones left behind twisted, rust-coloured stains in the earth.

In the center of it all, blooming defiantly from between the roots of a felled tree, were a cluster of strange black flowers. Thin petals like soot-wings, and a pungent, iron-rich smell.

Mari stopped short.

"Ravenroot..." she whispered.

Kai turned. "What’s that?"

Mari crouched, brushing her fingers over the delicate stalks. "Used in a lot of remedies. They only grow from corpses with a high concentration of mana."

Kai frowned. ’Arcane creatures are bursting with it... Makes sense.’

He rose again, letting his senses spiral outward like feelers, brushing the terrain with a necromancer’s sensitivity. The trail wasn’t far now. It pulled at him, a bond more than a scent.

They came upon the cave not long after.

To anyone else, it would’ve looked like a shallow maw of stone and moss. But Kai remembered it intimately. He hadn’t found Vepice here. Vepice had found him. Dragged him to safety when he was half-dead and delirious, broken by his own recklessness.

Kai stood before it now, motionless.

Then stepped in.

Inside, it was quiet. Dim. A gentle trickle of water echoed through the stones, and the smell of old ash and damp cloth hung in the air.

There, huddled beneath a ragged wool blanket, was Vepice.

Just when Kai thought how peaceful they looked, a knife shot up from under the covers with the speed of a striking viper.

It missed his cheek by half an inch.

Kai didn’t flinch. But he raised a brow. "Now, that’s a part of you I never saw before."

A weak voice followed. "W-what... are you doing here?"

He blinked.

That wasn’t the same ragged rasp he remembered. Still rough. Still cracked. But clearer. Higher.

Kai subtly brushed his illusion—just in case. They shouldn’t be able to see through it.

Mari stepped past him, planting her staff into the ground. "He brought me to heal you. Come out from under there. We don’t have that long."

"No... I’m supposed to be this way," came the answer, slow and hollow.

Kai sighed.

"You don’t seriously believe that, do you? Your master was wrong. Burning you, cutting you, hurting you—just because you’re different? That’s what’s wrong."

There was silence.

Then, a whisper.

"A-are you sure...?"

Kai’s voice was steady. "I’m sure."

Vepice looked at the two of them. Their eyes glimmered, not with tears, but with something different. Something like disbelief. Like hope clawing its way through years of self-hate.

Mari’s tone softened, but only just. "Sounds like you’ve had it rough. You deserve some peace."

Kai flinched at that. He knew what kind of peace Mari could give.

A final kind.

But he’d been very clear. Healing. Not cleansing. Not release.

Vepice rose slowly from the blanket.

Mari gasped.

The firelight illuminated them, burn scars warped across their skin like molten rivers. Patches of skin discolored or missing entirely. Limbs slightly crooked where bones had broken and never healed right. The kind of damage that looked more undead than living.

But Vepice was breathing. Alive. And when they turned their eyes to Kai, there was no shame in them. Only tiredness.

Kai gave a nod.

Mari knelt and began drawing glowing circles in chalk and stone, pressing small offerings into the ground at each point: root bark, crystal dust, a drop of some sort of nectar. Things Kai didn’t even recognize.

He furrowed his brow. "Magic circles? That’s not... typical."

"It’s not." Mari didn’t look up. "But when channeling healing magic directly from a god, sometimes you need more than faith and a focus. And for damage this deep, this old... I need more than magic."

Kai let her work. He was thankful for her help.

When she was finished, five concentric circles lit up around where Vepice stood, each glowing with different hues: rose gold, amethyst, sky-blue, deep emerald, and a harsh white that pulsed like a heartbeat.

Mari gripped her staff.

"Ready?"

Vepice nodded, trembling.

And then the world erupted in light.

Blinding, writhing, burning. A pulsing flash of light that could cause seizures in certain people.

Screams echoed through the cave. Vepice’s body arched against the force. Their skin cracked, bled, and melted, but not from damage.

From unraveling.

The magic stripped away the old wounds layer by layer, carving through years of pain like molten glass. It was healing them for sure, but violently healing. Like remaking a person from shattered clay.

Kai lunged forward instinctively.

Mari’s voice cut through the cacophony. "DON’T!"

He froze.

"This sort of healing requires pain," she said, without looking at him. "Let it happen."

So he waited.

And waited.

And listened to the screams of someone who once dragged him out of death.

Screams for it to stop. Screaming for him to save them.

Eventually, the light faded.

And in the aftermath, Vepice was kneeling. Breathing. Shaking.

Kai’s eyes widened. Beneath the loose, torn bandages, he saw smooth skin. Pale. Untouched. No boils. No ash. Just flesh.

And something else.

Two not-so-subtle, curved shapes beneath the remnants of her shirt. A softness that hadn’t been there before. And when Vepice, when she, not be, looked up, her eyes were round and bright and full of light.

She smiled.

The first true smile Kai had ever seen on her face. It lit the whole cave.

She staggered forward and threw her arms around him.

"Thank you, Kai!"

Her voice, softer and higher now, rather than the raspy voice she once had, sounded like water flowing over stones.

As though untouched by the damage that had once marred it.

For a moment, Kai stood frozen.

Then, slowly, he hugged her back.

And for the first time in years, something warm broke through the numbness in his chest.

Kai didn’t let go of Vepice for a long moment. Her body trembled against his, still raw from pain, but now glowing with something she’d never dared to hope for. Freedom.

A future.

Something outside of the forest and the cave.

He clutched her tighter, unwilling to release her. To face whatever came next. Just a moment longer. Just let this warmth stay.

But something else broke through the moment.

Footsteps.

Staggered. Slow. Crunching against the cave floor like the weight of broken glass.

Kai turned his head.

There, silhouetted by the dying glow of the magic circle behind them, stood Mari.

Her eyes were wide.

And not with relief.

But horror.

"K–Kai...?" Her voice cracked. "No... No. You can’t be—"

He pulled away from Vepice, his arms falling to his sides like dead weight.

’Not now.’

’Not now.’

’I was going to wait for a better time!’

His breath caught in his throat as he met her eyes.

The warmth that had filled him seconds ago drained like blood from a wound. The illusion he had kept up so carefully, the soft eyes, the smoother features created by the Mirage’s Veil, gone in an instant.

He let the illusion fall.

His real form shimmered into view. Shadows clung to his limbs like loyal dogs. His eyes gleamed with the green glow of a necromancer too long from the light. His skin returned to the pale hue, his hair lost the darkness and turned silver.

His face. His true face. Kai’s face.

And her face crumbled.

"No..." she whispered again, this time lower. "You lied to me."

Kai took a step forward and raised both hands, palms open.

"Mari, listen to me-"

"Lied to me!" she screamed.

Her staff rose.

Not to heal.

But to destroy.

To burn away the unholy thing she now saw him as.

---

Kai’s heart thudded in his chest, but not from fear.

He wasn’t afraid of the pain. Not of dying.

He’d died before.

But of her.

Of what she was about to do.

Of what he’d have to do in return.

Of what could happen to Vepice afterwards.

"Mari..." His voice came low, almost a plea. "I didn’t lie. I kept myself hidden because I had to. Because if I didn’t, you would’ve reacted exactly like this."

She didn’t lower the staff.

"I trusted you!" she hissed. "I brought you into people’s homes. You touched the sick. I broke bread with you!"

Her hand trembled.

A crackling gold light began to gather at the tip of her staff. Divine. Judgemental. Final.

Kai’s mind raced. He took a shaky breath.

"You’re not thinking clearly. You’re still tired from the channeling. From healing Vepice. This... this is your magic talking. The church and the gods talking. Not you. You’re not like the others. You’re better than this."

"No!" she shouted. "You’re not like the others! You never were! And she looks just like you! That’s all you wanted! More tainted people by your side! You’re a parasite!"

Kai winced. The words cut deeper than he expected.

He glanced back at Vepice, who had stumbled to the far wall, clutching her arms as though they could protect her from what was coming. Her freshly healed face was streaked with fear.

He turned back. Tried to smile.

"Mari, look at me. Really look at me! I’m still the Kai you know. The Kai you used to play with in the forests and fields."

But her eyes were wild. Hurt. Betrayed.

There was no reaching her now.

Kai’s stomach sank.

This wasn’t shock.

It was resolve.

The golden light flared into a full glyph in the air, a flaming halo spinning behind her. Her aura swelled. Not unlike an angel.

She was ready to cleanse.

Kai’s hands curled into fists. He felt the shadows slithering up his arms in instinctive response. Felt his soul tremble with the tug of the dead in his shadow space.

She was going to do it.

She was going to try to erase him from the world.

And he would have to kill her.

No more illusions.

No more talking.

No more hiding.

The path forward was now paved in blood.

And it would be her body, or his, left behind on this forest floor.

"I didn’t want this..." he whispered. His voice broke with it. "I never wanted this."

But Mari only narrowed her eyes.

Vepice stood back, completely unsure of what to do, or say.

And with a scream, she brought the staff down.

The battle had begun.

A battle that had long-since been in the making.