“Faster!” One liquid voice cheerily hopes for that.
“What you’ll get is…?” The second averts that hope at the moment a blade flicked out impacts an elbow.
Sparks fly at the exacting strike. “Useless!” The lifted arm winds up a great poleaxe’s full length to the side struck despite a second blade careening off a strike at an armpit. “Useless!” A poleaxe swings horizontally with such strength that the air pulls with it!
The swishing blue swirl it chases puts a tree between it and her as she twists.
“USELESS!” A cleaving head clutched by a vibrating blur shaves through wood! Barely a shock, Still hardly notices the way her wrist feels Kol’s strike. A single instant of hard resistance puts the poleaxe head beneath the jumping duelist instead of through her soft waist. The young tree of dark umber suddenly liberated from its roots floats after her.
“USSSEEEELESSSSS!” The dark knight’s scream steals the momentum of her swing by letting one arm carry it as she turns her body. She throws up a leg to thrust out!
A hefty rough log bends like a twig at impact, launching end-over-end at the enemy that ducks under its rotating devastation to face back.
Still feels the tingling of Kol’s kick replicated within herself, then uses the same leg to throw herself into another angle of attack against Kol.
“Fast against firm.”
A boy wearing a male slave’s revealing skin suit takes in this wildcat duel with somewhat of a yawn. “Even without the cross, Kol has developed what she already was.” It’s not the first phantasmal tree to be freed like a blade of grass, then be hurtled by unimaginable strength through the forest they play in. The scars on a dark mockery of Kol’s true armor tell of Still’s pinpoint attacks designed to bypass plate, to mail beneath, crunching to stops instead.
“After manse, stupid corpse before, Kol has…!” An overhead swing with all her midget might erupts the floor of the forest into chunks! “BECOME MIGHTIER KOL! Rooster, witness better than bird!”
The impact of moving wind is shared, and Still can’t believe the high that being in such mortal danger brings!
Two trees creak as they lean, but the shadow that uses them as stepping points to leap away, then circle from branches to dizzy the pink eyes following her, has a delusional agility that feels so…!
“Fast, but… you were already that, Still?”
“Faster, and faster still!” The rush of speed is felt by all when Still haughtily cheers and steps even quicker! She leaps in with a wide swing of her left arm to steal distance against a poleaxe slow to loom into her path. Sparks off the back of Kol’s right armored palm make Still “tsk” though when hurriedly throwing her weight into the opposite direction of her approach.
She’d meant to hit Kol’s wrist.
“Over-trying does terrible work on your balance.”
“Nnn!”
Still catches her flower’s tongue when annoyed by the same feeling of disappointment at how her legs move too irregularly in their strides, then her vaulting of distances feels ungainly. At Kol’s turning back briefly, Still thrusts into Kol’s flank with an over-extended arm to test herself again.
The blade point ricochets off the lip of a plate because Still’s own wrist’s angle is lazy!
“Complexity hates success when it’s how your blade moves.” Adris tries to sound jovial, but his restrained frown heats up Still’s own inner criticism.
“I’m better.”
“Wrong!”
A poleaxe nakedly swung to catch her in the escape path is naive, not complex when Kol takes over the conversation. The air it cuts too strongly catches nothing, just like always.
“Are, coward!” The kobold screams that when missing; but, there’s no joy found when Still loses the opportunity for vengeance against that slur by jumping too far away. Kol loosens her body opened up by a wild swing, turns, and charges!
“Childish.”
“Says big baby!”
“For once…?”
Kol’s rising thrust almost scrapes a mask.
“Not you, mutt.”
“Hah!?”
Kol being right about “uselessness” ends this back and forth with a single jump putting Still fifteen feet away from Kol.
Even if Still covers twice the territory in the same amount of time; even if her blades are so devilishly fast that it would make a hummingbird jealous; it means absolutely nothing if those are the only improvements.
What lacks is the experience and theory that unites agility and dexterity to make her not miss her chances.
She cannot be as beautiful as he knows she is without witnessing perfection in motion!
Still flips her dual blades, then catches them. “I didn’t take to heart the important points, I guess.” During the brief break, Still turns to stare softly at Adris.
The two fighters have broken all the ground at the center of the world-bending play tree of the elves while Adris loafs upon a wooden railing at the edge. Without a sense of danger or hurry, his mild comments are the most torturous part of this dust up.
Because he should be having the most fun.
“Hmm?” Adris’ lazy eyes open wider when Still twirls one sword into a plunging strike and twists her body to show off her full breasts with the twilight. Her snaky movements imply that she’s coming closer to someone. “Like…? Hah!” returning her stare for a few seconds, he grins impishly and laughs. “If you already know what to do, I’ve nothing to add except… it’d definitely end the slander.”
“Nnnn?” Kol must feel the growing tension between two partners that isn’t combative. “Plotting against Kol!?” The armor-clad titan stomps after Still slowly.
“Kol already said…!” Stomps become a leap when Still leans in ready to commit to her own!
“USELESS!”
“Maybe?” Still tilts to her right…
“HAH!?”
And then bursts from her crouch straight toward Kol instead of jumping into the direction that a descending poleaxe at the apex of its arc was aimed toward!
“Coward…!?” Kol can’t even finish her complaint when wrenching her swing straight ahead over her shoulder instead of to the side. A sick rush of vomiting fear is fought back by the exhalation of everyone’s baited breaths when the two warriors lock in at point-blank.
After breaking through the fear, the superhuman dash Still flows into takes her right into Kol’s strike.
Kol’s mystically honed edge that can cleave through trees hits a lifting flame-bladed short sword with its flat laying against an arm. It instantly shatters with metallic crackling! Still’s shoulder accepts the full force of the blocked impact traversing her arm; but, the poleaxe head plunging through the blade touches mesh and deflects off of a screen of silver that rolls over her mesh, briefly changing it solid as steel!
Instead of being sheared off, her arm sloughs off the slowed poleaxe and is blown across her chest. With that momentum she snakes it out through the recoil to stretch forward.
Her inhuman agility has her point blank after the hit. She latches onto the top of Kol’s imagined wolf-head helm’s visor. Still’s other sword flips into a reverse hold when Still ducks low and pulls it too across her chest to angle it.
Still tries for a kiss by lifting the blade!
Neither girl can breathe in the momentary span of this carnage. Kol can only free one hand to chamber it at her side as a beautiful moth alights on the small knight.
Like Kol said, it’s useless.
It’s foretold that Kol spurts black from her helmet and Still rolls through a weakling’s punch, for the phantoms did the same.
The narrow slit that protects Kol’s face bends around the narrow tip of Still’s thin tip piercing it!
It’s all so simple when you have an imagination…!
A single crack and shattering of plates resounds through the twilight in that split second of uncertainty.
That same twilight spins around and around as the cold air embraces the immense pain that was born. Twirling vertically at first, it all becomes strange when hitting hard grass and coming to a stop neither ceases the world spinning, nor halts the agony flowing through her.
“GYAH!? Uhhh, that…!?”
Some loathsome creature, maybe almost sentient, screams out over the white pain that flares up, then vanishes in an absence of anything, then awakens with shivering. This whole experience comes in repeating waves.
Trying to find the earth beneath when conscious leaves Still clawing at what feels like the sky.
But it can’t be, because when she tries to lift up to, somehow, maybe fight back against the horrible pain of being crushed, she manages only to get her butt upright before sliding on the source of her suffering face first.
“NGAH!? Ow, ow…!? KYAKYAKYAAA! BUG!” Something close, or far, screams through the mind-shattering white pain. “Puddle…! Get hit, crash, return to bug! KYAKYAKYAKAKAKA!”
Crushed? No, it can’t be the word spoken.
The plan was infallible. All calculations made it so, and a more perfect noble intuition would roll over any flaws, anyway.
Victory was… envisioned!
She can’t be… collapsed on the ground in shame!
This was HER moment!
“Still!?”
Both hands push against the fluffy crystal green blur underneath her when she finally recalls her name, only for balance to fail again and leave her falling into the embrace of something harder.
“Aaaagh!” What she lays on moans as she continues to vibrate without dignity. “How… how can a single punch, even Kol’s…?”
The source of the pain isn’t from her… jaw, though!
Vibrations closer to her waist burn as a circle.
The burning circle is what she paws at, then throws to the ground!
This is why she’s sprawled out.
Loathsome, ugly, betraying trinket!
Stealing victory and putting it in a dog’s ugly claws!
Still can’t even speak her hate when staring at this ring made of miniature blunted and bent blades. It gleams in the fairy lights that reflect also in Adris’ eyes when staring at it, then at Still with…!
“What?” Through the pain he moans that dubious question. So unsure.
It’s enough to vanquish the thousand slurs that Still was about to unleash upon him.
He doesn’t know.
For once, or yet again, he has no idea about something that Still knows the answer to.
And it feels as great as it throbbingly hurts to moan a quaking question back at him when Still makes a split-second decision.
“H-H-How…?” Indignant at first, Still cruelly makes her controlled, pleasing voice shriller and sadder to assault him. “Could you…?”
Adris’ strained face goes white, and without a thought in his own head he pulls her into his arms so tightly that she can’t even see the delectable tormented expression she aimed to steal.
“Nah? What this, Boss?” Even a walking dog that avoided her eye being impaled at the last possible moment can’t interrupt their embrace; no, she can only make it grander as Still hears Kol’s clanking armor bending over and picking something up from where it rolled to. “This, what Kol felt calling for Kol to punch at! Stupid Puddle ring was it? Hm, smells like… ‘gold’?”
“Gold? That… bitch Lycia… scammed me!?” Adris hisses this delicious admission of ignorance while Still handles parsing the facts at hand! It’s a balm against the shaking that’s finally diminishing when Still feels his roaming hands openly looking on her body for harm that isn’t found. “But, it protected Still against the goblins’ weapons! And your poleaxe, Kol. It’s a damn Castillo magic tool, though!? Always a downside! No wonder it was so… Ah.” In a moment of almost truth, Adris refrains from using what is probably the word “cheap”. Instead, he says nothing while tenderly squeezing Still…
Failure and struggle is, sometimes, ‘most charming’.
That is a lesson Still taught herself at a very young age that applies solely to women when men are watching.
“… Fuu… fuahahaha! I’m not a fool. So cute you are, ‘Partner’!” And… into the flow of Fate’s river as it abruptly changes, Still allows herself to let go of all bad feelings. Adris’ response of flinching, then letting up on his bear hug is also most charming to Still! “You’re barely good for cash on hand, so it’s not like you’d get credit from Lycia. Anything affordable is ‘worth the danger’, right?”
Stung by that, though not obvious about it with his expression, Adris’ voice becomes less tense. “You knew, and still used it? Isn’t it a risk?”
The question says that he didn’t truly know what it did, and also that he doesn’t know about her take on it while trying not to sound bothered by being called cheap, so she strokes her… face where she was hit and winces hard before whispering.
“Trust, then leap?” Both of them in turn wince when she whispers and strokes harder. “You saw all my troubles, and thought, ‘ah, a kindness against blades for her’? I never refuse kindnesses~. It wasn’t so pretty that I’d overlook the potential benefits of using something possibly cursed, either. It’s just, I hadn’t thought enough about ALL the potential problems…” Still manages to twist her thick legs toward Kol while lying so openly, staring up at the hateful beast that tosses the ring back at Still with a huff to land it on Still’s womanly figure to slide between her legs. “Hitting hard mundane surfaces didn’t hurt much more than usual. But? The brick’s obnoxious touch is as magically charged as her weapon’s edges are. The ring’s alchemy converts an advantage against bluntness into a nullification of weakness against blades. That’s all alchemy does, really, serves as a catalyst for change.”
“Alchemy’s ‘miracles’ are transformations…?”
Adris whispers this tidbit that Still nods at, then goes silent.
“Ah, it hurt so much, Adris. But, finally giving her smug face a different look would’ve felt so much better~!”
“Is… that so?” When Still openly dreams of mayhem with happy thoughts, Adris only stiffly pats her side.
“Creamed Puddle so good! Worth pain, true!” Kol pumps her fist, then uses the hand she struck with to lift her wolf-head visor up to reveal her face. “Finally come straight at Kol, no running.” Her deep, womanly voice is tight, though, and, despite the attempt at camaraderie, she’s not grinning. “‘Admirable’, Moon’s word. But, of course, not win! Kakaka!”
With the kobold gloating before her, Still boils up with a berserk impulse…!
“Winning is a relative thing.” Before the ire passes swiftly along with the last of her vertigo into a cold sigh. “From that little fight, I think I’ve finally understood… so ve-ry much.” Still’s boast goes along well with Adris not having congratulated Kol on a ‘win’. “Girls should talk things out, but all we share is pain. So painful…~!” Instead of jumping up, Still feigns weakness and collapses further into a man’s embrace as he tightens again in response.
“But, you’re so much better, huh? Glory, fortune?” Even if he’s shorter than her, he’s a man who knows how to let her sexually recline on him without allowing his roaming hands at her breasts and stomach to squeeze too obviously. “They’re the only rewards you care about.” She moans a bit the last part while stretching out her legs and appearing suitably coy.
“Right, only important!” A quick cheer overcomes doubt, “Nnnn?” then, Kol grunts unhappily while her thick eyebrows curl up. Staring so much harder than even during the fight, the kobold tries to speak, but swallows her words when shifting closer, then pulling away.
Antsy! Unsure!
Finally noticing that “victory” leaves her out!
“What did you do that made your struggle a win, Kol?” Just as Still predicted, Adris uses her rope to hang the dog with his melodic tone growing cynical.
Kol’s face hardens!
Her lips become tight when she growls. “Boss, if say… Puddle won, then Kol…!”
“‘Nobody won’, is what he’ll say, don’t you know by now?” Still interrupts before another can answer, then explains as she feels she should. “If it weren’t for the ring, I’d have had your eye. After that, I’d shake off your punch and then…? So sad! Our game wasn’t a contest to see who is unluckiest, but I couldn’t clinch it, either.”
“Nah?” Kol chirps at that logic, then slowly shakes her head. “But, Kol won fight!”
“Yet, you didn’t envision your victory. You simply stumbled into it.” Finally, Adris takes over the conversation as Still knew he would.
When arriving at his teaching moment, the boy finally has the gravitas of an instructor when motioning with his curving hand for Kol to approach.
Kol almost stomps at him!
“Tsking” her tongue when deciding not to, Kol dutifully shuts up and clanks closer to sit down peaceably.
“Luck is a fickle temptress.” Adris solemnly says that, shifting behind Still to push her off of him. When there are no favorites in this conversation…
“There are many aura schools for those who are strong and skilled, and fewer for those who are skilled and lucky.” Crossing his legs as Still sits beside him sideways, Adris’ hands move as he illustrates his ideas with the rainbow grasses tinkling beside him. “But, none for those who are strong and lucky. Why is that, Kol?”
Kol closes her eyes, thinks for a [Turn], and then opens them. “… Kol, understood the words used by Boss.”
“Ahhh, yes. This lesson was originally about ‘vision’ anyway, so let’s…?” Adris smiles, then lifts his hand to let three extended fingers show. “Let’s have a story instead, to visualize?”
“Kol likes stories!”
“Good. In this story, a regent must marry to prove his worthiness to rule. In his lands dwell three sisters of the same family, all who have the same Father of Heaven, but different Mothers of Fate.”
The titles given swirl in Still’s mind as wisdoms which cleave the black sky, only to descend to the earth seeking soft comforts of the lands!
Even the crystalline grasses beside them sparkle with sharp color alterations with each word used that is foreign.
Shapes start to form from them just like swords and armor once did…!
“There will be none of that.”
Adris’ left hand cuts through the small illusions forming before him! The tinkling ends.
“Words have their own meanings. You, Kol, must comprehend within without aid.”
“Umu…” Kol nods, wary of the grasses that quieten down.
“The youngest sister met the regent first when he came to their great palace.” Not losing momentum, Adris continues his tale. “Before he could even enter, she was upon him! ‘I am peerless under the sky, and one day it shall break by my hands. You shall be my husband, and past the black we shall climb with you on my back!’ From her, his children would be giants like the Ascended even if he was not, and heaven was her lifeblood that made her able to run leagues with a single breath.”
“Kol, VERY MUCH likes this one! Kakaka!” Falling to the ground on her butt, Kol’s tail swishes as she listens with gusto.
“And so, he promised himself to this wild, forward woman who bothered with no customs or finery, whose hair was shining black like the sky even when tangled, and who needed no sword because her very hands could twist them. They were married before nightfall with all the regent’s followers in attendance. Looking upon her, they could know only fear and awe as they beheld her might and the immensity of her dowry of jade, cinnabar, and Drops of Creation. Because she married first, she claimed all of the family’s wealth for herself.”
“But?” Still scoots closer to push her thigh against Adris’ foot, pulling him from his own growing reverie.
“… But, the regent felt that those who beheld her knew only those two emotions. They did not respect her, for she drank to excess without any ills when others needed her to suffer like them; and, when any problem arose, she would destroy it without bothering to dwell on peaceful answers. After the wedding, by chance the regent met the middle sister. It became obvious what his wife lacked.”
Kol slams her palm upon the ground! “Strong Wife should break them, then, keep in line.”
“That’s… one possibility, but not how the story goes. Instead, the regent found the older sister carried a blade that the wife did not need, for the older sister needed an extension of her body to compete. When she drew it to dance for the entertainment of guests at the regent’s request, this thinner, subtler beauty became wreathed with the dew of the sky. Her mind was pure, and her movements bore no stain, so aura clung to her always. The regent fell for her the instant her bared sword slowly carved through legions of his enemies that he saw come into her path as if apparitions. If it were this woman, she would know justice and defend him wisely. Even if called a delusion that all experienced, her aura art captured the hearts of his retainers as well.”
“Dancing? Boring!”
“Boring…?” Adris’ placid eyes sharpen. The boy’s curled lips flatten! “Some of the most skilled aura users on Xin… are performers for the Xin’el. They are sanctioned by the strongest regents and warlords, Kol. Given unfettered authority wherever their bands travel.”
“Nah? Why, would…?”
“Skill, and a honed mind, the older sister possessed under heaven these traits. His retainers sought her despite no dowry, but were turned away. She was who the regent came to at night after the youngest had her way with the regent to his collapse. Even weakened by his wife’s carnal might, his heart that wanted the respect of the people, too, roused him to find it. Only if the blade dancer became his concubine could his rule have that, and so he… longed for her.”
“Concubine?” Still scoffs at that title; then, when Adris’ interest at Still’s thoughts peaks, wondering whether she disapproves, Still leans closer and whispers.
“Wouldn’t a mistress be better? A recurring chase, so many prying eyes, everyone so… jealous~?”
“O-Oh…? Mistress, is it?” A tanned face that should be turning a bit red… instead turns whiter. Adris’ eyes that were enticing go dark and pull away. “Positions of power don’t forgive all indulgences.” Still abandons her teasing at obvious signs. “Rightly so, for his mind was like hers, and so she agreed to the offer that was made out of affection. His tastes became hers when she awakened also to passion.” Adris grins, even if it’s fake. Still has only suspicion to suggest what wrong of his soured her joke, but it doesn’t matter when Adris turns back to Kol. “A wife whose strength was unmatched gave him legitimacy to rule. A concubine whose skill was unsurpassed made him enviable to others, and so loved. Equally, these two women, no matter how much they worked against each other as those who do not wish to share will, through the regent’s wishes they found harmony under the sky. He reigned well. Honoring them both.”
“… Umu.” Kol nods with her arms crossed, creaking as she rocks around while thinking. “Kol… can’t only be strong, then, to be the best? Like Crackbrass say of Kol’s weapon: ‘balance’?”
“Nor only lucky, for the third eldest sister was one the regent didn’t meet even after marriage… until one day, he was sought by his enemies when both wives were away. Through the town he ruled they chased him. At the moment of death, a woman pulled him into her dwelling and rolled down the screen.”
Even Still leans in when the story changes so fast.
Such a woman tempting her own death for a mystery man is intriguing, for… why would she!?
“Before the regent could thank her, this woman had drawn him to her bed after a quizzical study of him. While the tumult outside was going on, she gave him pleasures he could never imagine, nor comprehend even after. When morning came, he asked who she was. To his shock, the woman turned out to be the third sister whose beauty changed depending on the angle he beheld her from. Rich, poor, stately, or humble, when she walked about the dwelling which also changed by her whims, this sister was not easily beheld to one form. And, by her admission, she would never be his even when he rose to bring her back to bed. For, the woman was she who had set the regent’s enemies upon him, then changed her mind and saved him when he cried out for a savior, only to vanish the moment dawn struck her while laughing at his confusion. Her duplicity which made her both his hero and tormentor became chains upon him without him comprehending, for he dreamed of her constantly thereafter.”
“… What an interesting one… a good little skit she developed.” Still’s dreamy adulation breaks Adris’ stride, though he quickly finishes to answer Kol’s face of obvious incomprehension.
“Do you know the eldest sister’s mastery? It was the deepest secrets of aura, the Power of Spirit. Her mind was wicked, but also chaste, and she could be both inescapable woe and weal when letting her body’s aura take form as Technique. Because the regent had not sought to marry her, this sister was piqued. After proving the true worth of the spirit over mind and body, though…? No matter how often he sought her, nor who he hired to find her and bring her to him, he could not have her again as he willed. Only when she snuck into his embrace when unbidden, unknowingly, did he feel a vixen’s care again…”
The word brings a twitch to Still, then a broader smile.
Still has always prided herself on her blades; but, she’s toyed with them until recently. It took this forest, these elves, and even Kol to make her remember lessons that now rebuild from lost words spoken by a humbly-bragging rogue.
Because they have appeared suddenly, she has hesitated to let them come to her.
If she could appeal to this [Power of Spirit], though, to inhabit her as well as these old, half-learned lessons, then…?
A shiver runs through her at the possibilities!
“And, as the regent relied more and more on her gifted ‘ups’, he needed his concubine to avert calamity foretold by the ‘downs’ that came with certain whimsy. No matter how strong his wife was, not even she could defeat so many problems if their eldest sister sent them.”
“Kol, knows many like that.”
One is sitting very close, too, for it’s Still that Kol stares at!
“Luck… is sweeter than any fruit… until she tastes like a lemon. Fortune is the final plateau an aura warrior reaches to earn the winning certainty of divine fate. If you’re not skilled and strong, even the strongest fighter will be destroyed if she prematurely challenges the heavens without fate decreeing it should happen.” Adris steeples his hands. “Health of Body is the foundation of aura. Our plate that holds the mystical power must not break. But, each level of existence is more important than the last. A healthy body is meaningless without a will to focus its might. Acuity of Mind is the next plateau for you to reach.
I understand that the slayers rely on Technique-holding crystals, and weird divine gifts, and some nebulous [Modus] to make them stronger. I also know that you claim most of your strength through using those methods. To become stronger quickly, it feels so very rewarding, right? However, aura is sacrifice, not reward. Enlightenment does not heed simple effort. To truly reach it…?”
Adris doesn’t name how. He instead chastises.
“Don’t let pride be so blinding when what you wish to behold might be right before you.”
Opening her mouth, Kol shuts it when Adris stares hard at her. Instead, Kol looks then at Still.
A hungry sort of stare, very unpleasant!
Minutes pass while Kol closes her eyes and dwells on the-gods-only-know what.
“… Puddle.” At the conclusion… it’s Kol that rises first. “Understand, mistake… Kol thinks!” Clenching her fist, the shorty then opens her eyes and breathes in. “Kol, will beat Puddle true this time! Will know HOW Kol must beat before doing it!”
“I don’t know,” A tension that didn’t exist until now goes taut. “A rematch sounds boring~.” After blowing off the invitation, Still lets the resentment in Kol simmer while not betraying how happy Still is to get to put Adris’ lesson into play.
“Nah!? Rematch… no, not finished! Same fight! Also, Puddle got hit, not Kol!”
“Well, no, boring because only I changed the dynamics.” Still pats her chest with distinction, then points at Kol. “You didn’t do anything differently. Always relying on that armor to make up for what you’ll never be able to do without it.”
“Nnnn?” Kol bristles at that, then scoffs. “Kol, won’t chase after all day!”
“What if you don’t have to?” Still finally languidly rises with pure leg strength. After whipping up slowly like a living corpse, she muses. “Blade against… that. I’ll move only forward. Could you?”
“Hah!? Forward…” Kol disbelieves, then grins! “Promise!?”
“If you don’t hide in that chamber pot, I’ll stop dancing.”
“Oh!?” Kol slaps her breastplate, then grabs the tabard. “This gone? Only forward!?”
The blackened, demonic armor she wears that was conjured by memory bursts into rainbow motes without a sound when Kol opens her closed fist! Her ragged tunic that covers top and mostly down to her knees is all that’s left.
Only the poleaxe planted into the grasses remains for her to take it up once more.
“Hands defeat Puddle. Ones that hold mightiest weapon! Try, Kol.”
“If it’s okay with Adris~.”
Giving an out so that she doesn’t sound too interested, Still turns to find Adris grinning with too much enthusiasm.
“Kol and Still… a fight of pure skill. I’d…! Hah, like to see what you would both learn from each other.” When he’s too carefree, there’s a cuteness to how he pulls up one knee to hold it and stare up that makes Still shiver. “It’s strange? Such struggles in the past were ones I enjoyed. Watching the wonders of the pavilion stage is something all would make time for. As an… emperor.” Catching himself, Adris’ lonesome expression hardens.
“I know the two of you would’ve deserved to fight on that stage…”
Still’s vision blurs with a sudden strange rainbow radiance lifting around Adris. “Every city I went to along the trail of broken islands, Serras and I… but, before Serras, my absolute favorite show was…”
The lifting colors chaotically swirl, then the shocked Adris disappears into it!
Heavy surroundings become nearly weightless.
Still lifts her hand to block the light show. When it abates, she hears a whipping sound at her waist.
“NAH!? Where… this!?”
“Zon’til!”
Adris’ answer is a distant scream that can barely be heard over the thronging crowd all around! He’s seated within it, and so locked away by the masses!
“We’re at the [Last Facing] show!”
At the center of a massive gathering is a floating rectangular pavilion of ruddy, polished wood, pearl flagstones, and a jade-inlaid roof that Still stands at one end of and a loathsome kobold stands at the other. Banners bearing the same symbol on Adris’ mask proudly hang unmoving with weights at their tails.
“Before Zon’til goes dark for the long, cold nights, they have this show!”
This beautiful pavilion hangs over the open sky, for between two sides of a sheared cliff Still is beset by a crowd seated upon enormous stands built into the sides.
No true details exist about the multitude.
“ “ “ “ “GLORY TO THE SERVANTS OF THE EMPEROR!” ” ” ” ”
The crowd howls that in unison, then the pavilion Still stands on shakes with the great gongs rung all around by hooded men.
Colors paint the spectators into half-remembered shapes and impressions. The only living energy is pure excitement.
“ “ “ “ “REVEAL TO US THE PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT!” ” ” ” ”
A walled city in the distance larger than any Still can think of encompasses an entire floating island that is nothing but rocky wasteland all around it. It, too, has an impression: hungry.
As if it only takes in what lets others live, never releasing it.
“OOOH! Kol, how lucky! You’re the [brave man]!”
“NOT MALE! Also, not understanding!?”
Kol’s shock comes from the fact that she’s wearing a grass-woven tunic very similar to the one she used to, with the difference being the four-foot blood-red sash tied around her waist that stays aloft while whipping. Her janky transforming poleaxe seems foreign now, more curved and elegant.
“The brave man is the future hero of the tale! Sanguine, naive, but ready to be bled to prove his worth! Still… your mask holds the symbol for ‘dark’ now. That’s the same character as the sky!”
It’s Still’s turn to yell indignantly! “Meaning what, you crazy foreigner!?”
“You’re the [perfect storm]! The harrying challenge sent to test a budding warrior’s worth!”
“I am perfect… but, also, isn’t this very unusual for a stage!?” Slats in the pavilion make it a grid, and the constant plummet should Still tumble off it is concerning! “Did… you imagine this!?”
“I…!?” Adris screams the question, then struggles against the faceless crowd he’s a part of. “This is, was, my first time seeing the stage where the aura dancers fought! It’s a memory, a real place!”
Still’s grip tightens.
Suddenly, the weight of her weapon feels wrong! So very off, as if she’s never held it before now.
If it’s Adris’ memory, then anything in it, especially if she graces it with her presence…?
“… Sounds…?”
Still takes in her outfit, which excepting the stormy colors replacing the old ones is an outfit much the same as her one of a cloak and dress covering opposing sides.
A long sash whipping with the rising wind is colored deep, gray-blue. At its end, a brass spike sings along with the mithril links weaving over her.
If she’s a part of his fantasy,
then she’ll never be found lacking!
“Fun!”
Her clenched hand swings to hear the corrected whistle. A sword too short for its own good is now long with a flash of rainbow just like her memory of it. Curved as a lazy “C”, it eschews the flame-bladed fixation.
“Oh!? Kol, knows that… kah, sword! SABER!”
“Right you are!”
That devilish vagrant’s is a red blade and black edge, like the sunset after battle.
So, hers has to be better: blue blade and white edge, like the shining waters at dawn.
“Kol, said to fight! Not do show!” Complaints make the crowd boo and hiss at Kol, though the kobold merely raises an obscene gesture in response.
“All life is a stage!” Still leans into a stance by planting her weak foot forward. “And we are…!”
With no path but forward, Still scoots toward her PREY.
“Here to be loved!” The blade’s point aims at Kol.
“OH!? Coming at Kol!?” So confused that she becomes enraged, Kol marches to meet Still head on when longing for an outlet. “Puddle… coming toward Kol!?”
“The ‘middle sister’ can’t teach you if she doesn’t come closer!”
“HOOH? Big claim!” Kol swings up her extended poleaxe, chambering it over her shoulder. “Then! Come… right up to Kol! Nobody loves puddles!”
“… You’d be surprised. People love most those who learn.”
The many ways to torment Kol bring to mind an image of herself walking ahead of herself, meeting a Kol that is ahead of the fool.
As the distance closes, the cries of the crowd begin to drown and these ghosts become more solid.
Kol doesn’t react to either doppelganger. Existing only in Still’s imagination, Kol’s doppelganger makes many different wind ups of her poleaxe from different directions as the illusory self splits into others.
To meet each one, the slowly shifting Still also…?
“HAAAH!”
Before the doppelgangers conclude their choice, Kol rushes into the same path as hers and thrusts her poleaxe straight for Still’s head.
A momentary whisper of intuition shifts Still’s head to the side. Kol’s spike goes past, then the kobold’s immense strength hafts the poleaxe straight up and then chops down with her axe blade.
Just like one of the phantom’s movements, Still leans away to let it curve past her breasts… hitting nothing.
“Nah?”
It’s still effort on Still’s part to recover from her lean and shift back into her slow creep forward in her duelist stance.
“Didn’t jump…?” Too much effort, as Kol shifts her own rear foot back with sudden wariness.
A calculation like that, dodging without even moving her feet, is, after the sudden rush of alarm Still felt despite her best efforts…?
Quite trivial.
Kol’s full repertoire of strikes is known to Still from past battles, and reminded of first hand again in their last one.
“… Was it always me getting in the way of… me…?”
Still whispers that, then swishes her saber before Kol.
“KOL!”
“Boss!?”
“Forget your prejudice! Still is not ‘playing around’ anymore!” Adris’ mighty shout drowns out the rest of the spectators, but he’s not afraid. “She’s found it again!” Only smiling brightly is he.
“Her [intent to kill]!”
“That, being!?”
Attention shifts when Still dwells in the growing sensations of uncertainty that lessen with each thought of how she can prevail with every step and swing she takes.
Kol turns her stare from the crowd to Still’s mutely shining blade that comes ever closer.
A rogue gust plays with the banners that hang on from their pavilion roof.
“Nnn…? Sudden, chilly?” Kol steps forward, despite that.
And levels her poleaxe again at Still!
“Kill, die, doesn’t matter when Kol fights!”
Rage hones the shimmering edge of the poleaxe. Instant impaling death for Still without her protective ring, Kol thrusts out again to take Still’s heart this time.
A saber not even a quarter of the length of its opponent swings with a ringing slice.
Metal shrieks when the weapons clash. At just the right angle, the saber’s meager strike somehow knocks the poleaxe off its path to stab just shy of Still’s breasts.
Kol pulls it back, thrusting again!
Another deflection, then a third.
By the fourth, Still’s unsure swings that placed too much power and off-balanced the slices lessen in violence. She becomes unhurried when shifting her body around to avoid being spiked.
“Oh, no… I can’t have been spiting myself against this for so long?”
“NAH!?”
By the seventh report of a clash, Still is already within the next gate of Kol’s weapon’s range. The reach of the poleaxe demands that Kol either retreat or shorten it to keep engaging Still.
“We’re going to become much closer friends now, Kol~.”
When Still lifts her saber to her own face, then turns it in a mock salute as her long, stormy sash whips loudly in a growing wind…
The crowd all around them erupts in cheers!
Unseen drums beat faster, wildly to match the feeling of Kol’s heart beat that Still also experiences.
“But…”
Still lifts her hand to her… face, and pulls it off.
“I am not a [challenge].”
A face pulled free clatters on the pavilion floor. Still’s already freed burgundy hair billows in the wind. It feels good to be completely kissed by it at last.
“Tch!” And Kol finally steps back when faced with this; her expression turns gruesome at sublime beauty revealed!? “Mask better! When on, Kol could maybe pretend not all bad!”
“Me? Bad?”
“Puddle’s fat face… terrible, worst bad! Liar’s face! HUT!” A swing from right to left is what Kol can manage instead of stabbing with the distance still shorter.
Still ducks low without difficulty and swings upward to deflect it over her head. The wild kobold wrenches the overswung weapon around, and aims it lower to cleave through Still’s forward leg.
“My cheeks are fine.”
A saber rattles against the incoming weapon to drop it under Still’s lifted foot and instead lodge into the pavilion. Kol bristles at the miss, then rips up shards of a white-stone tile when yanking it out.
“Yours are thin.”
“Weird!?” Kol huffs out her breath. A mist comes with the complaint. “Weak Puddle can’t…!”
Still closes with ease. Kol grabs further up her poleaxe to bring it closer, then furiously launches swings at Still that end up only carving through nothing when Still leans away, or smashing the floor to force the duelist to step to the side.
“All so predictable.”
True to her word, none of these stop Still’s steps creeping forward.
The endless rebuttal strikes upon Kol’s poleaxe send it careening away with no control from Kol.
“Haah! Not work! Not right!” Kol’s alarm is visible by how white her skin is going as Still gets within feet of her. “Fine! CHANGE UP!”
Kol slams her fist against the poleaxe and knocks its mechanism. The extended weapon grinds its shaft shorter, and Kol twirls with both hands driving it straight from above to slam into Still’s path!
“Careless~.”
A simple sliding jab through the erupting rubble sends a shining saber’s curved point toward Kol’s face!
“Hngh!?” The kobold rips back her axe and wipes something dark onto her white-furred hand. “… Scratch… Kol?”
Black-shining Vigor droplets stain her hand, wiped from a tear on Kol’s cheek. The kobold huffs harder. A fog forms every time she breathes.
“A bit hypocritical to make fun of performing given how often you strut around.” Still’s tone is smooth, thick with amusement when drawing first blood. “You have… no imagination at all about others. Always barreling head first at whatever irks you.”
Still lunges then, sliding a second saber poke past Kol’s arm that raises up!
“Ghk!”
“Always snuggled in steel.”
Both of Kol’s cheeks are cut now at exactly the same spot and angle. The fresh one weeps hard. Kol’s arm, too, bears a line of black where she tried to block with it but couldn’t.
“It’s different when the bug sheds its shell, notice?”
“Puddle! Complain, even now!?”
“Not a complaint.”
Still swings once, a lazy strike from her left side that just flatly catches Kol’s poleaxe that rushes to block it with its head angled to lodge the saber between the axehead and spike.
They meet in a squeal, then part.
“Ka! Block, even without!”
“A skill you’ll need to master… very quickly.”
Still’s saber draws back. With it pulls a figment of the air.
A wake of swirling nothingness follows the blade. It rushes in a wave when Still swings once more.
“Kuh!” Kol twists her axe with both hands and slams the butt of it against Still’s edge.
“Great, you can finally parry.”
“Kol could always do that! Huh!?”
Still recovers her swing and diverts it from above as she lunges forward. The shaft held between both hands on high blocks with a clang.
“You sure…?”
“NAH!?”
Held for a second, Still’s saber edge turns, then slides down the shaft to slice Kol’s finger.
The miracle of Vigor preserves bone, but black splashes onto the weapon when Kol pulls back.
“C-Cold!” Kol screams that, then in a frenzy swings horizontally.
Rather than ducking, Still tilts her body and interposes her saber with an angle that catches the axehead on edge and sends its momentum straight upward.
“How… could…!?”
“It’s easy.”
Still resets her saber into a slash coming from her left side. She studies the phantoms of herself and Kol that leap from their own bodies in many multitudes.
Each time their weapons have met, they were presaged by these phantoms offering so many other possibilities. Her saber carries the wakes of swirling air that excite most when trying to follow the phantom Still that succeeds with her attack and defense.
“I have an ample imagination. Now…”
It won’t do to hold back now.
But, she also can’t hurt this wastrel too much!
Others are watching, and Still can hardly contain her motivation to unleash herself before them.
Just as she wanted to achieve, Still’s movements become far faster the moment she gazes at the arm that holds her blade and ceases to believe she is purely normal.
“Let’s be a little ugly, together.”
Still flips her saber into the air. Shivers run through her as she thinks of becoming fluid upon catching it.
Every phantom of potential vanishes into the wake of the one that succeeds. That sole victor wins by slinging an arm around that feels like it has no bones with how fluid it becomes!
“Sing~!”
Kol angles her weapon’s head into the riotous attacks that assail her as best she can; but, inexperience and inelegance cost her a finger, wrist, arm, and shoulder as Still amps up her momentum of strikes.
A lazy start becomes a flurry of blows that would no doubt make Adris squeal.
“Kol… didn’t mean… AGAH!? Block that…!?”
The crowd’s cheers return, merging with the inevitability of Still’s advance that causes Kol to yelp each time she’s cut!
None of the cuts are deep. They make flashy expert swishes that pattern Kol’s canvas skin without maiming her!
“WHY!? Axe not go…!?”
A wild defense from the axehead leaves Kol’s defense in vain when the stabs and cuts sweep right past it when it can’t even keep up.
“GYAAAH!? AAAAHHHHH!!!”
“Fuahaha! Such a nice voice!”
The number of phantoms before Still’s assaults reduce. Where before there was a multitude of possible outcomes, upon becoming meaner, more beast-like with her motions Still’s predictions of Kol’s responses are never wrong.
Every cut produces more wonderful notes!
After earning a full song of howls, Still pauses to let the panting girl stumble around.
“That’s how you sing, Kol!”
“‘FFFFUCK YOU’, Kol… SAY!” The kobold spits Vigor from her lip that’s also chopped.
“Teaching never rewards the teacher! But, I don’t mind! Us girls have to learn so much, so let me demonstrate how to…”
Still’s shining saber pokes!
“Dance!”
“AGAH!? Why… PAIN!?”
The stricken “brave man” recoils each time her skin is pierced, and muscle and fat is toyed with. To hit her left arm sends her jolting right. Striking low sends her jumping. Still relishes the puppeteering that has her blade, which moves so fast that it’s a shining blue blur dragging an ocean of dark currents, spinning Kol in place and jerking away from it.
Pain is so exquisitely sharp that Still feels her own soul flayed by it, because Still shares everything Kol experiences with absolute clarity!
“Aren’t we getting better, much quicker together!?”
Flaying the puppet to make it properly gyrate also flays Still!
A fear of pain that Still has always clung to seems a fever dream now. Being called spoiled because of the aversion, no one could now witness anything wrong with Still’s dance of blades.
It exemplifies the storybook prowess of Adris’ embodiment of skill when the duelist begins to dance along with Kol!
“Even the stage adores you now!”
Into Kol’s screaming gyrations that coat the white and jade pavilion with a fresh coat of black, Still gets even closer to meet a desperate fist that lashes out just as the phantom versions of the two fighters promised would happen.
“So… pretty.” Still hisses that word when rolling off Kol’s fist and grabbing it with her hand. Stretching out, Still seems like she’s joined Kol in a lunge!
“Just a tiny bit, I should thank you.”
“DIE!” Kol roars that, lifts her foot, and slams it toward Still’s leg.
Only for the duelist to hop it, spin low around the short Kol, and drag her saber over the kobold’s kicking leg.
“Agah!? H-H-How… so… cold…!?”
“Between a rafflesia…?”
Still whips herself around the spike of Kol’s axe that Kol lifts and plunges into the ground when trying to impale the relaxing Still.
“And a peony.”
Unrestrained breasts jiggle with the escape Still pulls, one that ends with Still rising as a stork would to then spin and slash Kol’s spine.
After stepping away, Still whispers. “The crowd knows what scent the king craves~.”
“PUDDLE!!!” Vigor splatters as the wasted talent screams when Still cuts Kol’s brow too.
“Feel this pain called ‘black’! [Cethra] are self-evident like this, Kol!”
“… C-Ce… CETHRA!?”
Still’s exclamation earns a shout from the crowd; but, the queen of this pavilion doesn’t cease her lesson when continuing to carve black into white with a rain of slices that moves faster than sound and sight!
Wind currents that feel deliciously vile trail the saber’s tip to ensnare Kol!
“Red is only one color of [Promethium]!”
“GAAAH!?”
After the storm of blows, the collected, frozenly-hanging Vigor reaved explodes outward. Not a single drop stains Still’s precious outfit or mesh. The threads of her cloak and dress burn with scintillating greenish beauty threaded through them briefly before the Vigor stops glowing.
“Your own colors aren’t mixing with its.”
“What… is wrong… haah…!?” Kol huffs white clouds when trying to talk. Struggling to even stand, the kobold refuses to drop her poleaxe that she clutches tightly to her now revealed breasts as she leans on it.
“… With Kol’s… colors?”
“The fire you bathed in is one that will never let itself be snuffed. I bought that STUBBORNESS for a reason. You stole it from me, and some… idea from it.” Still halts her strikes, lifts her front leg, and adopts a raised saber pose before the crowd.
When the cheers only grow louder and the beats of the drums deafen her, Still laughs.
“That flame is one that will lose, but never succumb. But you’re just a little thief, Kol. A brittle type that never learns from battle. So… aware of defeat.”
“Not… lose…!”
“Life is full of losses. For losers.”
“Not…! Cold… so cold…”
“And losers worry about losing. A loss isn’t a loss if you enjoyed it! Learning is fun~. Hmm, I think Adris would enjoy a discussion with someone brilliant, don’t you?”
Kol finally drops to her knees when Still nicks one of them with a swish of her saber!
The poleaxe is the only reason she stays upright, planted into the stone as Kol struggles to breathe.
“Everything has a color.”
And every being in creation has a place.
Kol’s? It’s at Still’s beck and call!
“Often, more than one. Just like what the deluge of them he sees, but you don’t!”
For some reason, crystals of phantasmal ice cling to Kol’s weapon more like how salt grows upwards from a cavern’s drippings. These formations stick to Kol’s shivering hands.
“Every moment alive blends those colors together around us. Maybe… aura is pliable like that, too? Tempted by emotions, like we are? Always changing without truly changing?”
A phantom of Still coalesces from her body and steps forward. It easily takes the weight off Kol’s shoulders with a wicked slice!
“Unless you’re riding the wave, you’re sucked into it. With aura, then, unless you can envision it also as a part of yourself, it’ll… well, explode?”
Still feels the wake clinging to her saber reach out for Kol as a new wave.
“‘Embrace everything, or be left behind.’ You chose poorly!”
“Kol… liked better… before Elf helped Puddle talk!”
A dry amusement hits Still at that and she rubs the petals of the flower at her breast.
“Maybe if…” The mockery in Still’s voice settles into a cat’ purring.
“If I’d taught you humility sooner, you’d have been able to be special?”
The crowd demands a climax that is the end of this dance, and there’s very little Vigor left within the reservoir for Still to paint more with, anyway.
“Fade away happily, Kol: I’ll be everything you can’t~.”
This paintscape needs a name and a conclusion.
“… HNNN?” Barely able to breathe, the tin play knight slowly lifts her head.
“Mmm!?” Still jolts when the first rush of heat blasts through the invisible currents surrounding them.
As cold as Kol keeps complaining about, the blaze that erupts from Kol and begins burning off the black Vigor coating her seems just as chilling when Still can’t pull away from it.
“… Kol… is… Boss’… only disciple!”
From her knees, Kol rises!
“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
A volcanic eruption slams into Still!
The pavilion is an inferno in an instant, and the stone itself starts to crack as rainbow motes burst from it to be consumed by the flames.
Banners shine darkly as sigils blaze!
“Break, PUDDLE!”
“… Hahaha!”
Momentarily stunned, Still’s drooping saber swishes back up to aim at Kol’s ugly face!
“I’ve never known why! Why is everyone else terrified of a child!?”
“SHOULD BE!”
Because Kol can’t move, this titanic midget whose very fur seems to have caught ablaze channels all her feelings into the phantasmal fire.
Still’s soul buckles from the diabolic intention that envelops her:
[FEAR, FALL, BE CONSUMED]
It’s a dictate so close to what Still has heard at the deepest corners of her own thoughts.
A driving desire to hurt that she must muffle constantly!
“Not from before,” Still’s saber gathers the invisible wake that only she can see. “Even until the end of this,” The phantoms become so many in the aftermath of Kol’s inner fire unleashing, and Still has trouble following them as so many copies of herself are eaten by the reddish-orange blaze that is slowly changing color.
“I, will never be afraid!”
Still twirls as she advances in a duelist’s stance toward Kol, wanting a little flair like Adris used in their death struggle against each other. Her saber’s edge follows precisely the phantasm of herself that ends its movements by beheading Kol.
An extra addition reminds the spectating Adris that, you know, he’s not all that!
“…
… FEAR…”
When the whirling Still’s blade is inches from Kol’s neck, it lodges into Kol’s splattering hand that meets it.
Which is impossible, because that’s not what the phantoms foretold!
“KOL!”
A misbegotten creature’s free hand extends towards Still’s neck without reaching it. The reddish-orange flames that only tickled Still bleach into a pure white that matches exactly her fur.
“I was born for glory~!”
Still bathes in the blaze without succumbing and places her other hand upon her hilt to saw harder into Kol’s palm.
Denying the encroaching halo of blackness coming from behind her vision, Still longs for a final victory!
Black Vigor must’ve given birth to this flame, though; because, the wave of nausea, confusion, and hysteria that strikes despite Still fearing nothing…
“What?” Her flower gasps that.
… Still’s sight, all of her senses, even the ones she was borrowing from Kol and Adris, blur together while degrading. The white mutates Still’s surety into a terror so primal that sentience cannot withstand it once realizing she’s losing.
“Why—!?” Still’s cultivated voice cuts out.
After the white blaze turns colder than the most smothering winter, she plunges through the crumbling pavilion floor into the endless black sky!
There is nothing here.
“Nothing” is a word that is imprecise. It implies that there is the possibility for “something” if one were only to introduce it.
In the place that a lady finds herself, there is less than nothing.
(It’s not fair.)
At the moment of victory that was destined for her, it was replaced by isolation.
(I recognized what I lacked, claimed it, used it, and… didn’t even…)
She tries to see, but there’s even less than blackness.
She tries to hear, but cannot even recognize the existence of silence.
She then tries to feel, but realizes there isn’t even the touch of herself, within, moving or… existing.
Within a nothingness that is total, one that has stolen all sensation or recognition of existence, Still…
(… I’m alone. Oh, gods, I finally feel…!)
Discovering that there are no red serpents here, a lady also notices that the endless hunger is gone.
Without the watery shadows everywhere that prove that the living have committed so many sins, the rage that always nips at this lady’s mind abates.
Not even the Great Placid, the shadow realm between Zennia and somewhere else, could ever be so liberating.
(It’s so peaceful now, father.)
If death, truly dying, means coming to a place like this,
then maybe she made the wrong choice back then.
To be free of resentment.
Not have to mingle with those who revile her.
Giving up on vengeance, even if her evaporating hatred of the color [gold] demands nothing but that…?
Maybe… she could let go, finally.
At least, letting go might spare her from the sudden shriek that startles her.
Nothing about nothing could possibly cause fear sufficient to give life to this howl that sounds like an animal being skinned to death.
Close, far, near, and not, there is something here finally with her since that scream won’t stop.
Some unseen other is being torn apart. And its torment is inconceivable to the lady given how nice the experience of being here was for her before this shriek became all that is experienced in isolation.
When light, real light, something that finally exists abruptly pierces into her blissful seclusion, the gods-chosen heiress and genius duelist wonders…?