Author's Note
Okay, so remember my other RPG AU hibihiyo fanfic? This has nothing to do with it, plotwise. Hibiya is still a White Mage and Hiyori is still a Black Mage, and that's all. This will have multiple parts, and perhaps it will rival The Hiyori Trap in length because I have lots of ideas for this one. Please enjoy the first part!
"This stupid freaking HAT!" Hiyori exclaimed in frustration as her floppy, oversized, yellow hat fell down over her face for the umpteenth time. "Why the hell did they make me wear this stupid uniform? I can prove I'm a Black Mage just fine without it!" She adjusted the cone shaped, wide brimmed hat with a wounded humph, as it cast a shadow on her once more. She was clad in the Academy Black Mage standard issue blue jacket, but it was so long on her short body that it served as a dress, and the Academy conceded to allowing her to wear a pair of shorts underneath the complicated jacket instead of forcing her to wear the oversized, poofy pants with it as well.
Hibiya pulled his white hood over his head a little tighter, frowning slightly at his whining partner. "Come on, you know we have to wear our uniforms at least for our certification test. You wouldn't be having so much trouble if you wore your jacket all the time like I wear my robes all the time." The White Mage shrugged as he dragged his staff along the road that they walked on, which led to the dungeon where they would be taking their test, the red triangles lining his white robes contrasting sharply against Hiyori's blue jacket. Surrounding them was nothing but empty, green fields, pockmarked by the occasional ruins of a small cottage every so often near the side of the road.
"Oh, shut up," the girl replied, rolling her eyes. "It's not my fault you don't look good in anything else, idi- HEY!" Her insult was quickly cut short by Hibiya pulling her to the ground by the collar of her jacket, forcing her to ground, the boy landing heavily on top of her. Her black, ribbonlike hair spread out messily on the dusty road, her hat barely staying on her head.
"W-W-What do you THINK you're doing?" Hiyori started stuttering in rage, barely unable to contain her absolute confusion at the situation. "Get the FUCK off of me, I'll tear you-" Once again, she was cut short, but this time not by Hibiya. A trio of wickedly sharp icicles flung themselves through the air, shredding the space where the two had occupied not five seconds ago. Not wasting any time, Hibiya rolled off of his companion with a grunt and dragged her roughly behind a ruined cottage wall for cover.
"You're welcome," Hibiya muttered, looking off to the side like a shounen anime protagonist.
"No, no thank you!" Hiyori whispered sharply, still vibrating with fury. "Why'd you have to throw me to the ground? Gross! If someone's trying to kill us with magic, throw up a Shell! What the hell are you even a White Mage for? Frickin' brute!"
Hibiya balked under Hiyori's lecture, blushing shamefully at her lecture. "Well… I thought… it'd be cool," he said under his breath, but Hiyori was already peeking over the wall, scanning for their attacker.
He wasn't very hard to find; a man stood dumbly in the middle of the road ahead of them, shielding his eyes against the sun and searching for their corpses. He wore standard mage clothes under a huge green cape, but his strangest feature was what he wore on his head. Held up by a red band around his head was a long horn on his forehead, as if he aimed to pierce the light wherever he walked.
"That's…?" Hibiya started trying to phrase a question that would go along the lines of "What the fuck?"
"Summoner," Hiyori answered without pause. "Just what you'd think. They summon monsters to fight for them. That horn is meant to pierce the veil between our world and theirs. But they're also part of the Academy, why would he attack us…?" Hiyori furrowed her brow in concentration as Hibiya looked on. His partner continued to surprise him; although she had a short fuse and an explosive personality to match, she was a genius when it came to magic. She knew everything about the arcane arts from Alchemy to Zodiac compatibilities.
Their foe seemed all too eager to answer her query. "Academy bratsssssss!" He moaned out in a resentful tone, almost as if they'd offended him somehow. "Off to take your certification test, huh? Think you're gonna pass? Think you're better than everyone else that doesn't?" he continued to moan out in a loud pathetic tone. Hibiya and Hiyori shared an incredulous look, unsure of what this had to do with attempted murder.
"Don't answer, I saw that smug confidence on your faces!" he continued. "You think you're better than me, you brats! Why don't you respect your elders, huh? Huh? Let me teach you who's really better! Pain is an excellent teacher, twerps!"
Hiyori completely lost her cool with that. She thundered out from behind cover and into the middle of the road, her face red with her characteristic rage. "Well YEAH, I think I am better than a pathetic fuck like you, as a matter of fact! You think you can just try to straight up MURDER us and use 'I'm a sniveling little bitch!' as an excuse? Mister, with all due disrespect, PLEASE eat an ENTIRE bag of shit. The whole thing! Lick it clean, too!"
At this point, both Hibiya and the enemy summoner had completely blanched at the twelve year old girl's extreme verbal aggression. Even though she was still a child, her coarse language would intimidate the captain of the King's Guard when she truly lost her temper.
The summoner recoiled and then stepped forward angrily as if he'd just been shot. "W-! WHY! YOU!" he sputtered out, spittle flying out from his pursed lips.
"Too late, trash! FLARE!" Hiyori splayed out both hands in front of her in the direction of the man, her hair floating slightly behind her as currents of magic ran throughout her body. Immediately, the heat surrounding the summoner became visible, gathering into spots in the air, ready to converge into a singularity and explode into a superhot nonelemental maelstrom.
Their foe reacted too quickly for her onslaught, however. He put his hands together in prayer, and spoke an incantation, unique to summoning magic. "Impart light to fight our holy war! Carbuncleeeeee!" Of course, he finished his incantation with another pathetic whine, quite telling of this person's personality by this point.
Green spheres materialized around the mage and spiraled around him and up into the air, disappearing into the overcast sky. Suddenly, a strange, rabbitlike creature materialized above him. A large red gem was embedded in the creature's head, and as it twinkled, a similar twinkling came over the summoner, and the creature disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
Only milliseconds later did Flare finish charging, and the summoner was engulfed in all-encompassing heat.
"YA LIKE THAT?" Hiyori taunted loudly as she gave the finger in the direction of the explosion, her huge hat falling in her face one more and somewhat ruining the taunt.
The next part, however, was not standard procedure. Instead of dying out after the spell had been finished, the explosion instead rebounded off the target, and was sent flying towards Hibiya and Hiyori. The pair dove for cover once more, each mage crouching behind a ruined wall on either side of the road. When they peeked over their respective walls, they saw that the man remained unscathed, with a smug look on his rather punchable face.
"Do YOU like THAT?" he replied in his usual stupid voice, failing on the verbal aspect of intimidation although he thought he was pretty clever.
"Reflect, he has Reflect on him!" Hibiya yelled across the road to his partner as the summoner started chanting another incantation.
"No DUH!" Hiyori yelled back. "More importantly, why do I have to tell you how to do your job? SHELL! USE! SHELL! IT PROTECTS AGAINST MAGIC! USE IT AND WE WON'T HAVE TO RUN AWAY LIKE A PAIR OF-" A gigantic river of electricity coursing through the air between them drowned out her no doubt colorful comparison with its loud crackling.
"Okay, OKAY, we need to fight this thing!" Hibiya piped up when the summon had finally stopped charging the air with more volts than a giant's air conditioner used in the average year.
"How do you suggest that?" Hiyori retorted. "I can't use magic on him, it won't hurt him and it'll just reflect back to us! We have to go physical, and unless you have a bow in that bedsheet- oh, I'm sorry, robe of yours, that means tackling him and making him bite the curb! Now how the hell are we supposed to get close enough to that when he keeps-" An oversized pillar of flame cut her off this time, separating the road between them, sending countless blades of grass to the void. "-SPAMMING THAT?" she finished.
Hibiya stuttered in response, panicking as he tried to come up with a plan of attack. "I, I, uh, OH!" he suddenly exclaimed when the proverbial lightbulb went off in his head. "We'll run at him, and you can distract him from summoning by quickly firing whatever weak spells you have at him!" Hiyori opened her mouth to crucify him over seemingly forgetting about the problematic Reflect the foe was cowering behind, but Hibiya wasn't finished yet.
"AND, to protect us against your spells bouncing back at us, I'LL USE SHELL!" The White Mage clapped his hands together, his face bright as if he'd just invented the chocabo saddle.
"Frickin' FINALLY! Thank you!" The Black Mage replied in exasperation, rolling her eyes. "Okay, fine, we'll do that. In fact, we'll do that NOW, so let's go!" She hopped out quickly into the middle of the road once more, fully expecting Hibiya to appear at her side instantly. Luckily, her appearance broke the summoner's concentration mid incantation, and he ate his words.
Hibiya tripped clumsily on his way to Hiyori, falling on his staff, but then standing with an illusion of confidence. "S-S-Shell!" he stammered. Red beams of light surrounded the two, extending in a curve around them until they all met together in a sphere, rotating slowly until it disappeared. The two gave eachother sidelong glances, and with a nod, they started sprinting towards their target.
The summoner sputtered messily once more in surprise at their boldness, but then wasted no time in readying another summon. "Slash away with the Land's fu-"
"Blizzard!" Hiyori retorted sharply, raising one hand in front of her as she sprinted alongside her White Mage companion. A small iceberg sprouted out of the ground before the summoner, rising up towards his body to pierce it before hitting the Reflect and breaking off into ice splinters which flew wickedly towards the pair. Centimeters before it hit them, the red sphere appeared around Hibiya and Hiyori once more, and they melted softly, falling to the ground as a puddle. However, their goal had been achieved; the summoner flinched mid incantation, wrecking his concentration.
"N-n-no! You stop-" he started sputtering again.
Hiyori no longer had time for his annoying voice. "Thunder!" she commanded, causing her foe to waste time with his inevitable flinching with each basic spell she threw at him. And even still, they continued to approach the summoner, Hibiya clutching his curved staff and gritting his teeth as each reflected spell taxed his willpower; although helpful and protective, Shell wasn't free. Hiyori spammed first grade magic at the summoner nonetheless. Her voice was a constant chorus of "Fire! Thunder! Blizzard!" in random order, with the odd "Bio!" thrown in for good measure.
Finally, they reached striking distance of their attacker. Like a coward, the summoner tried to turn tail and run as soon as his advantage had disappeared, but Hibiya was too quick. He twirled his staff around in his hands and thrust the small end into the back of the summoner's legs, causing his knees to buckle under him. He fell sharply to the ground and promptly ate the ground, and Hiyori jumped on his back, wasting no time in pinning him to the road, lifting up his head by his hair so his neck was poking outwards, and pulling the small utility knife from her blue coat and pressing it to the man's neck.
"Wait, wait, wait," he stuttered, panic rising in his throat like bile. "I, I, wait don't! I'll do whatever you want, really, don't, don't!" Tears started to stream from his eyes, as he was certain he was going to die, even though he'd just tried to bring two children to their deaths.
"Teach me your tricks, scum. Teach me how to summon," she rasped into the summoner's ear menacingly, causing Hibiya to blanch once more, this time in fear. Her ribbonlike hair framed her face and fell down in folds, her cone shaped hat almost giving her the appearance of horns. Her expression was that of gleeful revenge and painlust, eager to make use of her prey somehow, before brutally torturing him in the most sadistic ways possible, her eyes wide open and her pupils shrunken to tiny black dots.
"O, okay! Wait! Listen!" The summoner acquiesced, shivering under Hiyori in terror. "You, you just, you know those fairytale monsters you always hear about? Those boogeymen in the closet, those monsters that are whispered about in legend! Well, the truth is that they probably exist, in some world, in some dimension! You just have to call their name, and say something that means something to only them, and then they'll come! You have to know exactly where to look though, because these monsters are really scary and powerful, they won't let just any regular human summon them from whatever world they want-"
"Shut up, garbage, that's enough!" Hiyori commanded as she stood up suddenly, stomping roughly on the summoner's neck and keeping her foot on him, earning a moan of pain from him. As if she was planning for this ambush, she reached into her blue coat and pulled out a small storybook.
Hibiya frowned in concern, leaning on his staff. "Hey, are you sure this is okay? You heard him, those monsters are-"
"Just waiting to serve someone, obviously," Hiyori finished, not even looking up as she continued to flip through her book. "It's simple, Hibiya. I'll use whoever, or whatever I want, whether they want to be used or not." At this moment she looked up from her book, looking right into Hibiya's eyes, something she rarely did.
The White Mage's heart dropped at that moment, confused and a little hurt. Does… she mean me? Am I being used? Am I willing to be used? Is that how this is-
"Found my pet!" the Black Mage exclaimed suddenly, putting her book away inside her coat once more and grinding her foot into the summoner's neck a little for good measure. "I think this merits a little test of its own." She splayed her hand once more and thrust it up to the sky, as if trying to grab the sun and make it serve her as well. "Attack by the master of commandments," she intoned ominously, her face suddenly cold as stone. "Zodiark." The green spheres of light characteristic of summoning appeared around her and spiraled up into the sky, as usual. Panicked screams and muffled begging came from the summoner on the ground, as he writhed around in a futile effort to escape.
"Oh, have you heard of this particular monster, Mister?" she asked sweetly, as she backed away from the man on the ground, Hibiya following her lead, still unsure of this situation. The man immediately rolled over onto his back and tried to crawl backwards, untainted terror apparent in his eyes.
"I'm glad!" she continued, giggling creepily. "You're about to have a very bad day, it seems. Please get better soon!" Finally, as if punctuating her sarcastic wishes, a low whine whistled through the air, as if a plane was falling on them.
The monster rocketed down through the clouds, parting them in a circle and approaching its target in less than a second. It was a giant black snake, red eyes flickering on the end approaching the summoner. Six large wings sprouted from its body, all pointed upwards as the beast fell in a sheer dive. Mere inches before reaching its prey, the horrible snake opened its mouth, man sized fangs gleaming in the midday sun. A final scream could be heard from the summoner, and he disappeared in the void of the snake's mouth, as if he never existed. The beast didn't even bother to process the fact that it had just consumed someone, and instead flapped its enormous wings, rocketing back up through the clouds just as fast as it came, leaving two children standing in the road alone.
The two were left in very different states. Hiyori smiled fondly at the sky, as if an old friend had come to visit her. Hibiya, however, was trying to decide whether to scream in terror or sob. "You… he… You…! You killed him! You took his life! I, I!" Hibiya backed away a step, unsure of who this girl who takes lives so easily really was. She tilted her head, as if confused by a toy.
"And? He would have done the same to us without losing a wink of sleep. He tried really hard to do that, in fact. Are you really going to do this?" she asked, putting a finger on her cheek as if thinking. "You kill the enemies you can't use anymore, that's all there is to it."
"You could have let him go!" he cried out, panic breaking his voice. "You told him to teach you summoning, and he did! Why didn't you let him go? Why did you kill him?" He gripped his staff even harder, holding it tighter to his body, still partly unable to process what had happened.
"What, jealous that I know how to summon now? You really can't be a real mage without a secondary skill, you know," she replied, laughing quietly to herself, but stopping when she saw that Hibiya's expression hadn't changed. "What part of this is hard to understand? He was an enemy. He stopped being useful. So I erased him. His life was meaningless. He forfeited it the second he attacked us, and I collected it once he entered into uselessness. That's all. Simple."
Hibiya didn't think it was simple at all. A human life with unknown intricacies and an unknown future had disappeared, even if it was evil. As a White Mage, he had been taught since the beginning to treat all life as precious. How could it be taken away so callously…?
"So, on that note, be careful not to become an enemy, alright?" Hiyori asked quietly, before turning and continuing down their way on the road. "Now, come on, we have a test, and we don't want to be late. Partner."
Hibiya found it very difficult to follow Hiyori down the road. Was that a threat? Will she really kill me if I stop being useful? Is the whole "partners" line… a lie? But, but, but…
And even so,
Hibiya jogged up to her, his robes swishing against the road, and followed Hiyori.