It was over. Their ten minutes of fighting had passed. But she had seen it, they had all seen it. They had managed to injure the mystery woman! They had managed to break past all the defences and stupidly absurd combat prowess and actually injure her!
The fact that it was possible for someone with their level of basic abilities –as far as physical capabilities went, at least– to be as ludicrously strong as that woman made her very suddenly fear what kind of monsters existed in this world. It also, in what she believed to be a very understandable way, made her suddenly a lot more cooperative to the idea of refining one’s technique and improving their basics.
Because the long and short of the situation was that if she hadn’t taken every lesson she had learnt from Headmaster Xyn, Alec, and her family, she never would have been able to contribute to a fight against such a monstrous opponent. Forget getting the final blow on the woman, she would have been just as worthless as Glenn had been.
She wanted to be sick at just the thought of that, but it was the truth.
The singular drop of blood, that somehow felt like every achievement that Olivia had ever been rewarded in her measly little life rolled into a singular, euphoric reward, dropped to the fallen trunk of the ancient tree with a near-silent plonk!
The canopy rustled quietly and birds –unseen but most definitely heard– trilled in a messy yet exhilarating melody. A shaky grin forming on Callum’s face as he clutched his bleeding and near-useless arm.
“We….We did it?” Alec muttered, the intensity in his gaze bleeding away alongside the rivers of blood oozing out of his torn and shredded arms.
“FUCK YEAH!” Glenn cheered, as if he had been the one to score the finishing blow on the woman, “WE WON!”
“We won!” Olivia barked in disbelief, her blade rolling out of her limp, powerless grip.
A giggle, halfway between exhilarated and manic, bubbled forth from her lips, at much the same time as a cheer tore itself from Callum’s. The green haired teen throwing an arm in the air with a cry that made their ears ring and their heads throb in discomfort. Yet none of them could find it in themselves to care, not even the ever argumentative and bullying Glenn; the bullish teen too busy laughing manically while pumping his arms up and down in the air.
A pained grimace cut Callum’s celebration off, his hand coming back to support his injured arm, his fingers slick with viscous red and his arm somehow both boiling hot and freezing cold at the same time.
While it was not the first time that he had experienced this particular sensation in the last ten minutes, he no longer had adrenaline and a chaotic battle on his side to keep him distracted. So, Callum thought rather logically, he could be forgiven on not being able to do anything except staying as still as he possibly could and trying everything that he could not to make his injury worse.
“Hah! Hahahaha!” A laugh, sharp and disbelieving, left the woman as she stared up at the canopy, still frozen in place from where she had stumbled back from her hasty attempt at a retreat.
Her fingers twitched and her head craned down four degrees; Alec had her own blade held in his grasp and pointed at her, the green glow over his arms spluttered out of existence.
She wasn’t sure how she was meant to feel at the fact that he, even this little baby version of him, had such a quick and drastic reaction to such small, innocuous movements. All that she knew was that it was nothing short of a rush of excitement and pleasure the likes of which she never could have foretold. There was something uniquely exciting about being a sworn rival and enemy to Alec Dius that no one in this current time could ever possibly understand, but she hoped that this little demonstration of hers had begun to highlight it to those that were, undoubtedly, watching.
“Relax, Dius. You won my challenge. Once I say what I have to say, I’ll kill myself.” She snorted, her form flickered and her blood-coated blade was grasped in her hands once more.
There was a look of surprise on Alec’s face for perhaps only a singular second before it fell into a scowl that the woman was more than familiar with, the green glow coating his arms once more with a quick flash of two magic circles beneath his hands.
“Just do it now!” Glenn cackled, pointing his blade at her with a wide, cocky grin and a gleam in his eyes that screamed exhausted insanity.
In response, the woman only levelled a flat, disinterested gaze onto him as she reached a hand into her cuirass and pulled out a darkened, well-worn rag. The woman flapping it out silently and beginning to wipe the blade of her sword with it in long, habitual strokes. Her gaze locked onto her weapon as she spoke blandly.
“Seriously. I don’t know who you are. Just take your win at getting carried through the trial and shut up.”
“Wha- You’re just a sore loser! How’s it feel to get your ass kicked by someone so much weaker than you!?”
“If you don’t kill him, remind me to do it in the future.” The woman spoke suddenly, flicking her eyes up to lock gazes with Olivia momentarily before they went right back to her blade, “Because I’ll make sure to savour it.”
“Noted.” Olivia groaned tiredly, trying to push herself into a sitting position and then back onto her feet.
Without the threat of death –which no longer felt that…oppressive, if she were honest– or adrenaline in her system it was like all of the energy that she had had been sapped from her entirely, leaving her with only a few drops of mana left and not much else.
She wanted to fall asleep. She wanted to fall into a sleep so deep that it made her family start looking into curses and her mattress develop an imprint of her figure. Yet she was only halfway through this accursed Trial, and thus was not allowed the sweet, oh-so tempting reward that sleeping had begun to sound like.
If anyone ever asked her to go through the Trial of Kronethia again, she was going to cut them into pieces so small it would make even this woman jealous.
“What…do you have to say?” Alec questioned, a pained grimace coating his features for a moment as more cuts along his arms began to seal closed, albeit slowly.
The closer he got to his hands, the mangled, bloody messes that they were, the deeper and more numerous the injuries became. Meaning, naturally, that it was more painful to mend them all.
The alternative was stopping the healing of them entirely and letting himself bleed out, but that didn’t mean that healing them wasn’t an incredibly slow, painful endeavour.
“Hmmm. Always with your eyes on the prize.” The woman purred, snickering a little at the look of exhausted annoyance that she got in return, “Oh don’t get pissy. This little baby glare is nothing compared to what I’ve seen from you before.”
“I’m starting to understand why.”
“You don’t even understand the half of it.” She shot back without missing a single beat, not moving a single inch in the stunned silence that followed.
“Stop stalling and speak already.” Olivia snapped, more than done with the situation and the woman’s intentional taunting.
Oh, the warmth of her blanket and the softness of her mattress. How they called to her…
“Right, right.” The woman rolled her eyes, the cut on her chin already healed over entirely, “Well I wanted to bring a couple gifts of knowledge, shall we say. A reward for besting me, even if it took three of you to do it.”
“You hear that Royal-Boy! You didn’t do shit!” Glenn cackled, pointing at the green-haired teen.
The attack that struck Glenn was too fast for any of them to follow, launching the boy off the slanted tree and deep, deep into the forest before any of the other teens could so much as twitch a finger.
“That should have killed him….I’m being punked.” The woman’s scowl, aimed at the sky once more, could have cut all of them in half just by itself with its intensity.
The sky, though, did not react to the woman’s glare. One of her ears flicked in aggravation and a huff left her lips, her arms crossing as she turned her attention back to the three teens still standing there. If not for Olivia’s exhaustion, she may have even let out a few giggles at the fate that had just befell Glenn. As it was, it was taking all of her energy just to actually take in and remember what the woman was saying. If not for that focus, this entire situation would probably be a complete haze for her right now.
“A reward for beating me.” The woman continued, as if she hadn’t been cut off by Glenn in the first place, “Even if it took the three of you working together to do it.”
“And that is?” Alec questioned, squinting at her a little.
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The pain in his arms was keeping him alert and his adrenaline pumping, but the moment that it finished, he was going to crash like a meteor. So Alec very much needed this woman to get to the point, and to get there quickly.
“My name,” The woman announced suddenly with a small flourish as she unwound her crossed arms, “is Nainika of Clan Bloodland.”
“Nainika…Bloodland…” Callum muttered, squinting his eyes at her in curiosity.
The name, unfortunately, meant nothing to him. However just knowing the name was already an important piece of information to know. If she was this much of a threat in just a few years, then if he could warn ‘her’ about Nainika now and make sure that she was aware of her…
“And I have one piece of advice for each of you!” She announced with a large, predatory grin, turning to Callum first, “First of all, you. Kick your ass into gear, if the me of your timeline met you like this, she’d rip your ass to pieces whether you have someone to protect or not.”
The way that Callum stilled, the haunted look in his eyes and the whitening of his increasingly tensed knuckles, was a cause for concern, but before anyone could address it, she moved on to Olivia.
“You! I get it, your family has the fingers of Thaum shoved so far up their asses that they couldn’t swing a butter knife if they were puppeteered to do so. But I think that you should realize what type of [Grand Huntress] you are after today, don’t you?”
“I…do.”
“Good. Because if I found out that you backslid because your family were being discriminatory dicks and can’t even take out a Lord, I’ll make sure you won’t have long to live.”
The glare and half formed snarl that spread Olivia’s lips only seemed to make the woman more amused if anything, her attention finally shifting to Alec.
“Finally, you.”
Alec’s eyes narrowed and his gaze sharpened dangerously. A cold, calculated anger and wariness that had Nainika, for just a moment, seeing the hazy echo of his future self over his back. Taller, lean, condensed wiry muscle and longer hair; majority of it resting around his face but with a low-hung ponytail stretching down to his shoulder blades. Sharper blue eyes that even in her own imagination glowed with near-apathetic animosity.
“Someday, maybe soon, maybe far away. I don’t know.” Nainika began, her voice lowering, “You’re going to receive a title. Whatever you do. Do not refuse that title.”
“A…title? How could it be so important?” Alec questioned, his brows furrowed and his head tilted to the side minutely.
“Let’s just say that names and titles are a bit more important than any of you realize.” She chuckled, twirling her blade experimentally with a flourish.
“That doesn’t help, at all.”
“I think you’ll find, Alec, that it very much does!” Nainika crowed smugly, “Now, it’s time for me to show myself out. Good luck on your Trial-“
Whatever Nainika said next was soundless. Her lips moved but no sound came out and the movement of her lips seemed to almost paradoxically shift the moment that any of the teens tried to focus on it.
The sky cracked, the trees roared and fizzled, and the earth bubbled and broiled. Stardust rained from the heavens and cold sparks floated off the edges of rustling leaves. The simulation, the very Trial that they stood inside, was falling apart at the seams.
And with a spray of blood that turned to raining daggers and sprouting flowers, Nainika fell to the ground, her own blade stained with her blood and her head separated from her body.
The reality around them flickered and fizzled, like it was trying to hold itself together and failing. But a few seconds after the death of Nainika, the simulation finally collapsed with a silent shattering that threw the three of them back, their forms tumbling to a stop in the blank white space of the waiting room between Steps.
“What the hell!?” Glenn’s loud, enraged shout reverberated through the painfully white room as he realized where he was, seeing the other three grouped together.
There was a moment where Alec simply stared up at the words on the wall, his mind blank and his body tensed. The next moment, an exhausted breath slipped from his lips and his body relaxed, sending him tumbling to the ground in a fatigued heap.
At his sides, Callum and Olivia weren’t too far behind him. The three of them laid flat on the ground while Glenn just took a quick seat, clearly quite tired as well, just not to the same extent.
“If we could take five minutes before the next Step-“ Alec began, staring blankly up at the ceiling of the room while half-starfish’d on the floor, “That would be amazing.”
The wish was a futile one, he was aware, but if he never asked then it was guaranteed to never happen and after the mess that was that entire Step, he thought that they deserved a bit of a break.
But oh well, he’d at least try and get as much rest as he could while he had the chance, he doubted that the next two Steps would be any less taxing.
XXXxxxXXX
Vibrant orange eyes blinked open and a blue tiger ear flicked idly as Nainika opened her eyes. The woman stood in the center of a path situated in what appeared to be the center of some grand palace of marble and gold. Tacky if you asked her, but people rarely seemed to be interested in her opinion.
A real shame that was, she had good things to say sometimes.
“Well now,” She began, placing her hands on her hips and looking around curiously, “Where might this be?”
“Nainika.”
The woman turned to her right, where she had already scanned over, and saw a figure of resplendent golden armour with wings shaped like enlarged, ornate clock hands. Their form that of a human a little taller than her with silken black hair and a look of thunder on their features.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
“You overstepped.” Both of Nainika’s eyes widened and flabbergasted laugh bubbled forth from her curled lips.
“Paaaardon?~” She laughed, turning her head to the side a little and squinting her eyes while keeping them locked on him, “I overstepped?”
“You revealed information that you were not permitted to.”
“Permitted? Permitted?” Something dangerous entered her eyes at that word, a gleam that hadn’t been there previously, “You were permitting me to do things then, were you?”
“I was, yes. You are but mortal.”
“And yet you tried to keep me out of that precious little ritual of yours.” Nainika shot back easily, taking a step forward that the figure was more than happy to match.
“Just because you were not the first intended-“
“Yet I broke into your ritual and had to do everything myself because your little junkyard recreation couldn’t so much as consider handling someone that didn’t serve on Thaum hand and foot.” Another step, this time it was matched far more aggressively.
“If you dare to dishonour this ritual one more time, I will show you exactly why mortals like yourself stand below us.” The thunderous expression on their face grew even more rageful, their fists curled so tightly that their arms began to shake.
“You clearly don’t know who you’re dealing with, Angel.” Nainika responded, taking a step forward and grabbing at the hilt of her longsword.
For the first time, the angel’s footsteps faltered, the rage on their face not diminishing in the slightest but now tinged with the slightest hint of both surprise and worry.
“I’ve heard the whole shpeel before. How many timelines all you ‘Hands’ of Kronethia have to look over. How many you need to intervene in; how many go nowhere and have to be put on ice. But you come before me and make these statements?”
In between one blink and the next, Nainika had her blade drawn, a ringing sound echoing off her that seemed to almost trap itself within the angels ears as a blinding pain erupted from his chest at the same moment as a light spray of blood exploded out of his chest.
“Damn, good armour you have there. I was expecting to reach all the way to your spine with that.” Nainika commented coldly, her tail flicking behind her as the Angel fell to their knees and clutched at their chests with both hands.
“Wha- How. You can’t- Physical means cannot-“
The snap of Nainika’s boot meeting the Angel’s chin went off like a gunshot, the entities head snapping up so quickly that the world spun for a moment and their back meeting the ground as they collapsed backward. The metal of their chest-plate screeched and creaked as her foot came down on their chest, pinning them to the ground beneath her.
“You, a mere Minute dragged me to this place, tried to lock me away despite that and then dared to get angry that I had done something that they did not permit me to?”
Sparks of silver filled the air and the tip of her blade stabbed into the shoulder of the Angel, forcing forth a scream of pain utterly unbefitting of a creature clad in such heavy armour.
“Let me tell you something, Minute. I’m not of the Golden Path, nor the Silver. I do not hail from the Dragon-Emperor Path, nor the Vampire-Ruination Path. I don’t exist in any of those ‘precious’ timelines of yours. I exist along one Path and one Path alone, the Mankind Path.”
The Angels eyes, previously screwed tight in grimaced pain, flew wide open at the woman’s suggestion. Not just at what it implied, but at the fact that she even had the pre-requisite knowledge to sprout such things off in the first place.
“Now. If you want to have a chat, let’s have a chat.” She closed her eyes and smiled before her hand twisted the blade buried in his shoulder, eliciting a startled scream and following whimper in return, “But let’s keep your words in mind, yeah? I’d hate for someone watching over this Trial to have an accident, wouldn’t you?”
With a haggard breath and a single eye shut tightly in pain, the Angel could do nothing but nod in return.
It may have been designed into the very foundations of the Ritual itself, but opening a door to that Pathway was a mistake, meeting this woman face-to-face was yet another. Right now, there was only one path forward that would keep them from facing a third, and very much final, mistake. So, with a shuddered breath to regain their wits as much as they could, the Angel replied without hesitation.
“N-No. It was….My bad. You are….f-free to go.”
“See?” Nainika grinned, eyes glowing and teeth on full display as she leered over the armoured entity, “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”