Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Spanish Rhapsody ❯ Skill Building ( Chapter 1 )

Spanish Rhapsody

By Terdwilicker

[Sora No Woto][Oregairu]

“Niisan, can you teach me your healing spells?” I asked my older brother Hachiman. He turned to regard me.

“Hmm. Well, not here I can’t. I mean, these are Skyrim spells. You learn them from spell tomes, and I don’t have any here.”

A portal opened in the living room, showing a stone wall.

“It seems my boss has approved your request. Put on your shoes. Hurry up.”

I got my shoes and carried them up the portal edge, put them on, and followed Hachiman through it, holding onto his hand. Its important to make sure my brother feels like a big brother at times like these. I’ve only mentioned my dreams of other lives to him, and not all of them. Lately, I’d dreamed about a Spanish mountain fort in a town that blows glass for dishware and optics.

The air was chilly, and wind was blowing off of some kind of ice, like when you go to the mountains and you can just barely smell the snow? It was like that. I shivered, wishing I’d brought my jacket. I followed Hachiman along the wall and he pointed to a series of walls and a castle.

“This is Whiterun, which is one of the cities of Skrim. There’s only about a hundred people here, so its more like a village back home, but it has some useful services. First of all, see if you can call up your interface.”

I strained myself, then stretched and eventually moved some odd muscle and there was a screen in front of me.

“Any skill points? One? Well, put that in Restoration. Oh, and select Mana. Good. Okay, close that.” I did. I could see the world again. Hachiman led me towards the castle. We climbed up some steep stairs past a bunch of waterfalls and pools and under a sturdy pine arch of ancient darkened wood. A guard looked at us.

“I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee,” he said. Hachiman cringed, pulling my hand to get me away from the guard. There was a flash of lightning and immediate thunder and the guard collapsed after a brief flash.

“The gods are tired of that phrase. The priests tell the guards not to ever say it, but they do it anyway, like they just can’t help themselves,” Hachiman explained. He shook his head at the Darwin Award winner and we continued climbing towards the castle.

“The wizards up in Winterhold found something in the ruins of Saarthal,” one guard told another as we passed by. No lightning.

We reached a pair of gigantic doors at the front of the castle. They were big enough the Emperor would probably enjoy owning them. My brother pushed them open like it was nothing so I followed him inside. The interior was a high ceiling, more broad staircases and a set of tables on either side of a long fire, without a chimney. Just holes in the roof up high. Drafty, and smoky too. We climbed the steps and went to the right into a side-room, where some guy in a robe was bent over a table with a skull on it, and it was glowing. This was presumably a wizard.

“Hey, can I buy some spells from you?” Hachiman asked. There was a brief exchange of books for gold coins worth thousands of Euros and a hundred thousand yen each, and he handed the books to me. Where he’d been keeping all that gold I  had no idea. It was a lot of coins, probably worth millions of yen.

“First, read the tome titled Heal.” At first it was written in runes, then it shifted into English, then German, then Japanese and I read it. After an uncertain amount of time I understood it completely. It was amazing. I apply magic in this certain way and it would heal any wound on me. Wow!

I tried it. I felt the aches in my muscles from climbing all those stairs suddenly vanish and it was like having gotten a good night of sleep. If this feels like this, why does niisan still drink coffee?

I read the second tome, Heal Other. This was different, but based on Heal, only it also gave you understanding of anatomy of multiple species, including elves, lizardmen, several kinds of humans, and half-elves, known as Bretons here, and wild elves (carnitarians, because they eat no vegetables), and dark elves, who were cursed. Also Orc, who were likewise cursed by a different dark god. I tried casting the spell on my brother and found no problems. He waited patiently and I ran out of mana, which made me gasp for breath, like I’d just run a lap around the track at school. Exhausting!

I read Cure Disease, which gave me power of that America doctor in New Jersey, only from Magic, then Cure Poison, and finally Dispell Magic/Curse, which was completely different but still interesting.

“Do you have anything defensive?” I asked him. He spent some more coins and handed me Sparks tome, which I read. I could now cast a spell like the lightning bolt in Return of the Jedi, when the Emperor gets thrown off into the bottomless pit inside the Death Star by Darth Vader. He also handed me Lesser Ward.

“Practice Lesser Ward to build up your strength in Restoration. It is from the same school of magic. Sparks is combat, which is from the Destruction school,” he explained. I followed him outside and tried the spells against the stone wall while the guards were farther away.

“ZZAAAPPP!” and my mana sank by half, something I could just feel. I waited for it to mostly refill and tried Lesser Ward. That took a third, but then refilled quickly and held stable in front of me. Interesting.

“Spark will taser any guy attacking you. Knock him unconscious with only a second’s application. It will also fry any computer and most electric devices. I use it sometimes on unfriendly people when I’m sleepwalking. Very useful and can be non-lethal if you’re careful with healing them afterwards. If you get things wrong you’ll stop their heart and they’re dead. So be ready with Heal Other just in case.”

“Heavy. What about this shield spell?” I asked him. 

“Lesser Ward will stop bullets, arrows, and a few sword strikes from someone determined. It takes a second to stabilize, so learn to cast it fast if you think you’ll need it. Let’s head back, alright?” Hachiman suggested. We returned to the wall area where the portal had been but I saw nothing.

“Niisan? Where did it go?” I asked him in my squeaky girl voice.

“Over here. It is only visible from one side,” he gestured and I followed up to him, then turned and spotted the inside of our house. He stepped through and I hopped over the edge. There was a FWOP and the portal was gone.

“Shoes,” Hachiman reminded me. I took them off, noting the dirt and grass smeared on the floor, sighing I got the cleaning supplies after dropping my shoes near the front door in their usual place.

I bathed after my ordeal, made dinner, and eventually dozed off to sleep on my bed, listening to old anime music, oddly interrupted by Amazing Grace played by a trumpet solo.

I awoke with a crick in my neck and a chill, though I felt reassured by this for some reason. I looked around and found a huge open space inside metal walls and an enormous metal box and a bunch of bent metal pieces probably as tall as the house when stretched out. I turned back to where I’d been resting my head, noting my tan had been replaced by very pale skin and I felt very tired, very much non-genki. I dosed myself with Heal to see if it helped… and it did for around a minute, then I was back to yawning. I feel really tired. This is not my body, is it?

Is this how my brother wakes up while sleepwalking? What does he always say? Oh, right.

“Unfamiliar ceiling.” Strangely satisfying, actually. I wonder why? How does he avoid getting imprisoned or burned at the stake everywhere? Oh, right, there was a problem with Evangelion where he nearly was, and woke up with straps several times. Not a fun time. I listened to the mind of the body I was using and learned several things. My name is Noelle, not Noel as the idiots keep writing it. I am from Croatia, a scientists in the Helvetian Alliance, and sent far away to Spain in the cease fire negotiations so they wouldn’t demand the head of The Witch of Helvetia.

I was here to work on this tank where I’d be out of sight and mind from the war crimes tribunal. Yes, I never knew what I stuff I was inventing or reinventing was getting used for. Even my specialty in applied biology never got around to telling me the stuff I’d made for the lab was being weaponized by other scientists and used in attacks on people. I found that out later. Or rather, this body did. Better think I for the meantime.

The tank, which is what the metal box was, was super advanced technology. The girls here had named it the Takemikazuchi, and barely understood its more primitive aspects. The computer would not boot up without special parts installed, including various sub modules like the gun sight computer, which required highly advanced glass lenses with special coating and very precise thickness. I’d restored the laser sighting system already, but this lens array needed to work for the computer to actually use it properly. Any parts missing and it would fail and shut down automatically. There’s no way around these requirements.

When is this? The brain responded. Centuries after my time? Really?

I eased myself up out of my uncomfortable stool and stretched, applying more Heal to cure sore joints. The aches faded. I headed for the personnel door out of the hangar, shutting off the overhead lights and stepping out into the dawn. I’d worked much of the night, apparently. I noted a white shape in the window of the abandoned wing of the old barrack, where the schoolhouse used to be.

I headed for the occupied area and ducked down to the still door and unlocked it, checking on progress there. Aging was nearly done with the casks and it would be ready for bottling in the next few days, just as soon as the taste testing was completed and I got the go-ahead. Then we’d be getting more apples and start the fermentation process again. Every batch was getting better, thanks to my help. The trading portion between Rio and Felicia and the local merchants interested in our Calvados kept us fed and provided paychecks, since the empire had largely forgotten about us otherwise. It was possible that nobody was getting paid anymore, and that wasn’t going to keep the Army going if so. I heard a motorcycle arrive across the way and observed in the morning light a girl with a huge backpack and Major Klaus issuing the girl orders. The little private looked very new, very innocent, and her backpack was nearly as big as she was. She proceeded in the opposite direction from our footbridge and ventured into the town, where the Fire Festival was being held. I’d been through that last year, and the red dye was traumatizing to say the least. Or at least that’s what this body thought. So confusing.

Major Klaus crossed the bridge and reported to Felicia, a mere Second Lieutenant, but our commander all the same. He delivered mail, the wage slip and presumably actual money for wages and she provided him a large bottle of our Calvados and a tender smile. He grinned, and that romance continued at its usual slow pace. Felicia is the sole survivor of the last tank battle of the war and while she was upright, she’d been wounded in the battle and was suffering from terrible nightmares at losing all her comrades to enemy fire. She only survived because she’d been outside the main body of the tank blowing her bugle and when the tank absorbed the shot, blowing her clear and incinerating the others, her dear friends, in front of her eyes. She’d fallen down a hole and found another corpse, this one from decades prior and hallucinated it speaking to her.

I only know because she’d been stone drunk in the bath with me and had vented about it. I’d gotten her out and dried off and to bed before she could puke but it was a close call. Rio had been drunk and looked after by Kureha, stumbling off to bed. Having another girl here will distract our elders nicely, and maybe give me someone who doesn’t know my dark past. Maybe she can cheer me up. Maybe.

This is a nice place. It isn’t the lab, but I’m not killing people here, even if I don’t know it. The spider tank is a challenging puzzle, and there are thousands of them wrecked out on the battlefield, where bombs shattered the sky with light and radiation permeated the ground. We’re lucky that the wind wasn’t blowing this way or this town would be just another ruin.

There had been some damage to the Earth in the form of widespread radiological materials, limited nanites, various pathogens in the soil, and a number of chemicals which had prevented growth returning to battlefields. It all needed to be cleaned up. Curious why this wasn’t the most important detail, but the armistice was only signed six months ago. And we’d be getting a new girl today.

The most important thing about the Time-Keeping Fort is it was a carefully preserved dumping ground for young women who’d survived the war intact and was there so the veterans of the military would know they weren’t on a battlefield getting our legs blown off by unexploded bombs or land mines. Our being safe was a comfort for them. And also for a couple maidens of high value, politically.

I suppose I was here for similar reasons, keeping our precious eggs in this conveniently remote basket. The townspeople were friendly, liked our booze and paid for it in services and coin we could actually use ourselves, and otherwise get along well.

I strode out to examine Klaus’s motorcycle, a restored BMW from centuries back, found in the same cache as our rifles and helmets. So obsolete that half the weapons were rusted into trash, and the ammunition a chemical stew, but I’d managed to work up a replacement cartridge and part of my job was loading them and keeping our arms functioning. I also restored that bike into working order, something Klaus thanked me for and ran packages for me on the side. A nice thing to do for a not-retired tank commander veteran with multiple kills, great success and he still had all his limbs and both eyes. He was both lucky and smart.

He’d been courting Felicia since she arrived here, very carefully and gently being available and never scaring her. She was very kind to us, and very maternal. If I had to guess, she’d make a good wife. This body isn’t interested in such things, being the local Einstein-equivalent, but I could see if the war actually ends properly and all the treaties signed, she could leave this army and be a housewife, and probably like it. It might be the best thing for her.

Alas, Kureha, who was a year younger than I am, is hopelessly crushing on the Major, and he treats her like the little girl she is, very politely and kindly as you would a friend’s daughter. She was largely blind to the evidence of the romance between the Major and our Second Lieutenant Felicia Heidemann. How he made special trips and always made a point to see her in person. He’d attempted to deny he was the Desert Wolf, but I knew he actually was. I’d seen his file. He wasn’t just a dispatch rider who happened to be far too high rank to deliver packages. No, he really was the famed tank commander, and his reason for doing this job was purely romance, and the love of riding motorcycles rather than cooped up in a tank commanding men with firing maneuvers. For him, this job was as much a vacation as the Lieutenant pretending this was a summer camp and Master Sergeant Rio pretending she wasn’t a princess. She was too high ranked to be bossed around by a second Lieutenant, but they were friends after arriving here. Anybody else try and push Rio around would get a knee in the testicles. Her temper was no joke.

I heard the firework signaling the start of the festivities. All the village kids and many of the adults were spraying each other with red dye across the bridge, laughing and happy re-enacting the story of the Fire Maidens calming the beast. It was a happy festival, and a fine folk tale, right up until I’d caught the light on the canyon wall and found the enormous flying skeleton in the rock down there, just under the surface of the river. It wasn’t a pteranodon, and the sample I’d gotten off the bones found it wasn’t fossilized, merely covered by calcium carbonate in the water itself. It was well preserved. Some of the villagers had to know about it. I suspect it was an advanced biology experiment by a prior civilization. Every war we survived we tended to lose a bit more old technology, and many things couldn’t be replaced. Much like the problems I had with lenses in the tank.

I headed for our dining room. We did not have a Mess, because Felicia sat us down at a dining table for our meals, which she cooked. I entered the room, finding I’d missed the meal but there were leftovers in the ice box so I warmed them on the stove in a frying pan and made the eggs and sausage into a sandwich, drank a tall glass of milk before it turned bad and reminded Kureha that Major Klaus was visiting, across the foot bridge. She perked up at this and headed out the door, buttoning up her uniform and tucking it in properly. She looked ridiculous, but she was a girl in love, so what could you do?

I headed for the baths and found Felicia there cleaning in her house-clothes, very matronly and not at all military.

“Klaus is visiting. I saw him drop off a girl with a backpack as big as she was and then she headed into the town. They’re doing the festival today. Is Rio in town?” I asked her. This was a lot of words and it was hard to say them all. This body does not like talking.

“Oh? Really. I must bring him a gift for his efforts as thanks,” she insisted, standing up and regarding her cleaning clothes.

“You might give him a kiss if you really want to make his day,” I muttered. Felicia blushed at this suggestion and looked at me sharply.

“What’s gotten into you, Noelle?” she asked. “I thought you were working all night in the hangar.”

“I was. Fell asleep at my workbench. Woke up a little while ago. Ate, want a bath, then a nap in a bed.”

“I wanted you to show around our new girl,” Felicia complained.

“She’s getting sprayed with red dye. Won’t be back till she gets bored with the festival, and that’s probably tonight. I can nap until then,” I suggested. Felicia frowned.

“I don’t like to pull rank, but set your alarm clock for three hours, then come help,” she ordered. I saluted lazily and headed for bed, the bath clearly too dirty for use with all these cleaning products everywhere. I snoozed. The windup bell rang me awake far too soon, feeling like I’d just laid down minutes earlier, and I sat up, finding my alarm was merely the one in my bedroom in Chiba. Wow.

So this is what it’s like to sleepwalk?