A Journey Unwanted

[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Heart Kingdom]

[Pulchritudo]

[Banquet]

Mikoto watched the dust hanging in the air around the structure Trismegistus had collided with. The debris was still settling, small fragments of stone dropping from the damaged wall one after another. The impact had left a broad depression in the masonry, cracks spreading outward from the point of collision, but there was no sign of panic from Mikoto. He simply stood where he was, Sabre held loosely in his hand, his red eyes fixed on the ruined section of the estate.

("Runecraft is effective, but simple.")

His gaze remained steady as he considered what he had seen.

("Drawing certain runes in certain combinations produces different outcomes. You have to memorise the different formulas if you actually want it to be useful. There isn’t much room for improvisation unless you already understand the principles behind the symbols.")

Mikoto shifted Sabre in his hand, adjusting his grip almost absentmindedly.

("But it’s paltry magic. Too reliant on versatility and preparation.")

His beautiful features remained thoughtful.

There was a certain practicality to Runecraft. It could produce a wide variety of effects if the user possessed enough knowledge and enough time to construct the necessary combinations. But versatility was not the same thing as overwhelming power, and against someone capable of forcing the pace of a battle, preparation could quickly become a liability.

A Royal Guard should have been capable of more.

Mikoto therefore waited.

He did not advance toward the damaged building, nor did he attack again.

There was no reason to.

If Trismegistus had been defeated by that exchange, then there would have been no need to waste another movement. If he had not, Mikoto wanted to see what else the Royal Guard had.

The dust began to thin.

At first there was only a vague silhouette behind the haze.

Then the outline became clearer; a pair of legs emerged from the dust.

Then the rest of Trismegistus’s figure.

He walked out from the damaged structure at an unhurried pace, brushing a layer of dust from his attire as he approached. A few scratches had appeared across his clothing, and there were traces of debris clinging to him, but otherwise he looked remarkably unharmed.

Mikoto’s eyes narrowed slightly.

So he had taken the attack.

And remained standing.

"I suppose you’re not the type of opponent I can afford to experiment against," Trismegistus mused.

His tone was calm and conversational, as though they were discussing something far less consequential.

Mikoto’s expression hardened by the smallest degree.

"Tch."

He drove Sabre downward; the red blade embedded itself into the stone with a sharp impact.

Mikoto then rested both armored hands over the sword’s pommel, his posture becoming deceptively relaxed.

"Cocky bastard," Mikoto muttered.

His red eyes remained fixed on Trismegistus.

"You really think you can afford to play around here? Is that what that fancy title of Royal Guard has done to you? Gotten so far into your head that you think you can afford to test me at your leisure?"

His fingers tightened slightly around the pommel.

"Or maybe you’re just senile."

There was no humour in the insult.

Trismegistus regarded him silently for a moment.

"Admittedly, it was presumptuous of me to assume I had such luxuries," he conceded. "I allowed myself to believe I could spend time examining your abilities before deciding how seriously I needed to respond. That assumption was evidently misplaced. "He slowly straightened. "It is not every day that one finds oneself standing face-to-face against an Angel."

Mikoto’s eyes remained cold.

"That kind of thinking will be the death of you, old man." His voice was quiet, but there was more annoyance behind it. "You keep talking like knowing what I am gives you room to measure how much effort you need to put into this. It doesn’t."

Mikoto leaned slightly against the pommel of Sabre.

"If you’re fighting something you think is weaker than you, fine. Take your time. Experiment. See what it can do." His eyes narrowed. "But even when you’re standing in front of something you know you can’t beat, you should at least have the dignity to try as hard as you can."

The words were not delivered as a boast; that made them sting.

"Otherwise," Mikoto continued, "it just gets pathetic. And I don’t have much patience for an opponent who decides he’s already won before he’s actually proven it."

For the first time, something resembling deeper interest entered Trismegistus’s voice.

"I did not know Angels could be so proud." There was no obvious offence in his tone; if anything, he sounded intrigued.

Mikoto’s expression immediately soured.

"Tch. Stop using labels, old man."

He pushed himself upright, removing his weight from the pommel.

"I don’t care what you think an Angel is supposed to act like." His hand remained firmly around Sabre’s pommel. "You want to know what I’m capable of?"

Mikoto pulled the blade free from the stone; the red edge emerged with a scrape.

"Then stop talking." He lowered his stance as his red eyes locked onto the golden mask. "And come at me."

Trismegistus did not answer.

The golden mask remained pointed toward Mikoto, giving away nothing of the expression beneath it. His posture, however, had changed. His shoulders had settled and his attention had sharpened.

He was going to attack, Mikoto noticed as two enormous circular glyphs appeared behind Trismegistus.

They were orange rather than white, each one broad enough to dwarf a person. Zigzagging patterns ran through their interiors, the angular lines shifting and reconnecting as the glyphs rotated. The surrounding air grew hot almost immediately.

Mikoto’s red eyes moved between them.

The glyphs brightened, then they fired.

Two enormous torrents of flame erupted from the circles.

They were not neat beams like the Luxomancy from before. These were broad, violent streams of fire, dense enough to look almost solid as they tore across the estate. The flames consumed the air around them, sending heat rolling through the courtyard and igniting whatever remained unfortunate enough to stand in their path.

One torrent ripped through a stone wall.

The entire section of the estate disappeared beneath the flames.

Another swept across a courtyard, pulverizing decorative pillars and throwing fragments of stone through the air. Windows burst from the surrounding buildings. Roof sections buckled under the heat.

The two waves converged on Mikoto.

He looked at them.

Then scoffed.

"This all?"

His body lowered.

The next instant, he burst forward; the acceleration was so abrupt that the stone beneath his sabatons cracked.

He didn’t draw Sabre; Mikoto merely drove straight through the first torrent. Flames swallowed his petite armored frame. For an instant, there was nothing visible except fire.

Then Mikoto emerged from the other side, untouched. The heat had not even visibly damaged his armor. His red eyes remained fixed on Trismegistus as he continued upward, using the momentum of his charge to leap through the remaining flames.

He rose above the torrent; from there, he looked down.

And something changed; the fire began to move strangely.

Mikoto’s eyes narrowed.

The flames changed; the orange and red coloration gradually faded as the violent torrent lost its heat. The fire seemed to collapse inward upon itself before becoming transparent. Then it became water; an enormous mass of water was suddenly falling through the air where the flames had been.

Mikoto’s expression shifted slightly; there was genuine surprise.

("He changed the nature of the mana.")

The water continued falling, then it froze. The transformation happened almost instantly; the water hardened into ice, with countless thin structures forming throughout the mass before breaking away and shooting upward.

Sharp ice attacks raced toward Mikoto; he was still airborne. There was nowhere solid to push against, but Mikoto twisted. His body rotated sideways, one armored leg folding inward as a thin spike passed beneath him. Another shot toward his chest, he turned his shoulder, and it passed beside him.

A third came from behind; Mikoto rotated again, twisting his torso until the attack passed through the space where his body had been.

More followed, dozens; their trajectories did not seem random. They were being adjusted; Mikoto’s eyes tracked them as they climbed toward him.

("That’s not simply changing one spell into another.") His mind worked through the process while his body continued moving. ("He’s changing the state of the mana after manifestation. Fire into water, then water into ice. It isn’t dismissing the original spell and creating a second one.")

An ice spear passed close to his cheek; Mikoto tilted his head.

("He’s retaining the mana and reorganizing it while it’s already in motion.")

Another attack came from below; he folded his legs beneath himself, and it passed through the space between them.

("That requires control over the mana’s properties at an absurd level. Most mages would have to end the first manifestation before attempting something completely different. The structure of the spell would resist being rewritten once the mana had already been given a specific nature.")

His body twisted again.

("But he’s overriding that limitation, changing the nature of the mana while maintaining its momentum and purpose.")

The implications were clear: it was exceptional proficiency.

Mikoto finally used Sabre; the red blade gleamed.

An ice spike raced toward him, and he cut; the attack split cleanly. Another followed; he turned the blade and cut through it. Then another and another, the ice shattered around him in a storm of fragments.

Mikoto descended through the remnants, his body rotating once before his sabatons struck the ground.

He landed cleanly, the broken ice scattered across the ground. His gaze immediately found Trismegistus; the Royal Guard had moved farther away.

Mikoto’s eyes narrowed.

"You’re just getting annoying."

Trismegistus merely raised one hand; he snapped his fingers, and the ground groaned.

Mikoto felt the vibration before the earth moved; the stone beneath him cracked, and then it erupted.

Enormous spikes of earth tore through the ground, each one several meters across at its base. They rose violently, ripping apart pathways and destroying everything caught in their ascent.

Mikoto jumped backward.

The first spike erupted where he had been standing; another tore through an estate building. Stone walls split apart as a third erupted beneath a courtyard and sent an entire section of the structure collapsing sideways.

The spikes continued advancing toward him.

Mikoto watched them approach.

("Geomancy.") His expression became unimpressed. ("Pretty crude, though.")

The next spike erupted, and Mikoto disappeared as he shot forward. His acceleration was immense; the first enormous rock formation rose directly into his path.

Mikoto brought Sabre around; the red blade struck the stone, and the massive structure split. He continued forward without slowing; another spike rose, and he cut through it. The enormous slab separated into two pieces that crashed down on either side of him.

As he swung Sabre another massive formation was destroyed, one after the other. Stone exploded outward, fragments smashing into surrounding buildings and tearing through walls. Entire sections of the estate were reduced to rubble as Mikoto forced his way through the advancing earth.

The devastation was considerable, but Mikoto did not care. His eyes remained on Trismegistus as the final earth formation rose.

Mikoto stepped into it as Sabre came down; the rock split from top to bottom.

Mikoto landed on the other side; his feet touched the ground, and he immediately bolted forward.

The distance between them disappeared; one moment Trismegistus was several meters away, the next, Mikoto was directly before him.

His sword arm moved, and Sabre drove forward.

Trismegistus raised one hand, and the blade stopped against something invisible. The collision produced a sharp burst of force; Mikoto’s eyes widened slightly as the force changed.

His own momentum was redirected, and his strength was turned back against him. He was violently thrown backward, his body shot through the air.

But he did not lose control; he rotated once, and his tailcoat followed the motion while his armor shifted with each turn. He brought his feet beneath himself and landed gracefully, sliding backward across the damaged stone before stopping.

His sabatons dug shallow lines into the ground as he quickly straightened.

His eyes narrowed.

("Vectormancy.") He looked at the invisible space between himself and Trismegistus. ("Revolutio branch.") The realization came quickly. ("He altered the direction of the force behind my attack. My own momentum was redirected back through me.")

That explained the sensation; the barrier had changed a vector.

Mikoto stared at Trismegistus for several seconds.

("So you can be crafty.")

He lowered Sabre slightly.

The destruction around them was becoming difficult to ignore. The estate was scarred by fire, broken earth, broken stone, and collapsed structures. Yet neither fighter had paid attention to any of it.

Mikoto exhaled quietly.

("Fine.") His red eyes sharpened. ("I guess I finally have to use magic.")

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