Chapter 3: Born to Resist

Disclaimer: I do not own Magic Knight Rayearth or the lyrics to the Foo Fighter's "Best of You." I am merely a poor, starving college student who wants to play with Clamp's lovely world for a while.

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"Everyone's got their chains to break

Holdin' you

Were you born to resist

Or be abused?

Is someone getting the best,

The best,

The best,

Of you?

"Best of You" – The Foo Fighters

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Umi noticed that something was very wrong from the moment he had stepped through the threshold.

The air about his entire being seemed to thicken and throb violently with each passing step toward her…

Clef was angrier that she had seen him in a very long time.

If that didn't immediately arouse an empathetic feeling of indignation from her, the sight that came behind her consort certainly made her blood boil.

Aria walked in at a shuffling pace following a few paces behind her father, her bejeweled head bowed, with a mixture of hurt, confusion, apprehension, and deep sadness painted on her face.

Seeing this, Umi immediately put down the collection of Cephiran folktales that both Clef and Aria had recommended to her and shot a pointed, searching look at her consort. She could feel her whole body stiffen from the grave look he returned her.

After a brief moment had passed, he nodded purposefully to her and, as if a switch had been flipped somewhere, he masked the rage he had been clearly displaying moments before.

Turning to Aria, with one hand, he gently raised her chin, and looked straight into her eyes. He whispered something to her that Umi could not hear.

His little daughter (or so he fondly referred to her as, although she was already a bit taller than his own height. In his mind, however, he would always be the tallest one in the little family.) nodded almost tearfully and then launched herself into his arms for a hug.

Clef, again said something to her in soft measured tones that carried only a feeling of calming to Umi and not the actual content of what was said. For a brief time Aria remained clinging to him while he merely stroked her hair.

Umi could not so much as fathom what would make her usually reserved and serious daughter act in such a way. It made her anger build up all the more.

Quietly, taking on an air of forgotten dignity, although it was still a bit tinged with an aura of melancholy, she pulled away from him, and nodding slowly to her mother, she made her way up to her own quarters.

The practiced, diplomatic mask that Clef had so carefully cultivated in the years in his position fell away and his earlier tenderness dissolved into his previous heavy mood. Now, however, he was not so much enraged ad he was grave.

Umi watched him as he made his way across the remaining distance between them, she was almost afraid to hear just what he had to tell her.

Today was supposed to have been a day of celebration of Aria's promotion to her new apprenticeship.

Something was indeed very wrong.

Clef sat heavily next to her, looking first pensively at his folded hands in his lap. Not yet breaking the silence, Umi merely reached out and silently put her hands on his in a comforting gesture.

After so many years together, she had learned that her direct manner of immediately questioning him sometimes merely kept her from getting any useful answers if he was feeling in a particularly stubborn mood. Silence was sometimes what he needed to gather his thoughts and clearly tell her whatever it was that he needed to.

However unpleasant in may be for him to do so.

Suddenly, he sighed very deeply, shattering the quiet in an ominous manner. He looked at her, the substance of infinite enigmas hidden directly behind his eyes, "Her apprenticeship to me was not approved."

Umi's eyes widened in surprise.

"…Ascot wouldn't approve her?"

He sighed. It was hard to tell if it was because of the power the name still had when she uttered it or that there was something else he knew to be much worse than the old family skeleton.

Long ago, when Aria had been ready to walk the path of a mage, he had explained to her the system that had been in place since time out of mind.

No matter what their status at birth, no one but the Pillar was placed under the tutelage of the Master Mage until they had proven themselves within another apprenticeship. At the time that the apprentice achieved the rank of Rin, they would be allowed to take on a new apprenticeship under the Master Mage. In this manner, not only did all manner of students, rather than one's of certain statuses and parentages allowed the honor of being the student under the Guru, but it also guaranteed the quality of the apprentices who came under Clef's tutelage.

Despite Clef's objections, Aria herself, after being given her magic by her father, had also been assigned to a lower ranking master. However, most would argue that her placement with the High Summoner Ascot was nothing to scoff at.

At that time she had assured him that he would be allowed to complete (and he had growled "refine" in addition to this) her training at the time Aria reached the rank of Rin. She didn't understand why Clef was so intent on changing a system that had been in place for the span of recordable memory simply because, this time, it was his own daughter.

In response he did what he always did when he found he could not win a verbal argument against her – he simply gave a venomous parting remark (in this particular instance it was, "Isn't that what we've already done?") and retreated into the silence of his study.

But, returning to the present moment, Umi knew that there would be no reason for Ascot not to allow her daughter to become a student of her father. Even if some vestige of jealousy still lingered, Ascot simply wasn't the kind of person who would do such a thing.

As if reading her mind and affirming her thoughts Clef responded, "It's not Ascot. He believes she's more than ready."

Her mind reeled, because, if not Ascot, than the only remaining person who had the authority to make the decision was Clef himself…and that was simply apart from all rational sense.

She could feel rage welling up in within her, simply waiting to be released until a target was named.

Having seen that look countless times (as it was usually directed against him), Clef knew exactly what was occurring in the mind of his consort and moved to preempt her.

He took her hand.

"Don't yell, Umi, you know her…she'll be listening. She already thinks that somehow she has done something wrong."

"She already thinks that she has done something wrong."

Umi had to work to beat the anger within her down, as if it were a pot almost boiling over, in danger of scalding everything that came within its reach.

Clef, seeing that his words did nothing to calm her, sighed deeply and heavily.

"The council seems to have taken my speech about changing the ancient laws to adapt to the realities of the present to heart. They passed a law that allows them to monitor the changing of apprenticeships from one master to another – including those of the Master Mage. Apparently, they are such a bunch of fools that they are still unable to tell which laws should be changed and which laws have a damned good enough reason not to be."

His words, spoken with a quiet, piercing, intensity, shook Umi. She must have flinched, although any movement was unknown to her, because Clef gripped her hand all the tighter.

Suddenly a fact dawned on her. The image of Aria's face as she had entered, lagging behind her father, swirled in her mind.

She hoped that they didn't have the nerve to do what she thought they had done.

"They said that in front of her, Clef?"

His mask, put on for her benefit, cracked a bit and let an ephemeral bright undertone of fury out into the world. In a moment he had recovered, but his grip on her hand tightened a bit more so that it resembled less of a comforting gesture than it did a man desperately clinging to his last hope of salvation.

His face returned to being an expressionless mask as he answered, "Yes."

In the wake of that answer, she didn't feel as if she would be able to hold her anger in. Abruptly, she resorted to a technique that she hadn't used in years and materialized her sword from the jewel on her glove.

She swiped and stabbed at the air furiously, working out the fury she felt that she would usually just scream at Clef about to cleanse. He looked on, a little stunned by her display, but looking half in love with the idea himself.

After she had continued to stab at some invisible enemy for a lengthy duration, Clef, at some peril to himself finally stood and expertly grabbed her wrist. Sighing, she gave into his insistence that she return to her place on the couch and quietly withdrew her sword into its protective jewel.

She placed her head in her hands.

"Clef, why can't they just leave us alone?"

He measured her mood silently, perhaps hoping that she would not attempt further acts with sword in hand.

"I spoke with them –"

"It's your right anyways, Clef! You shouldn't have to speak with them." Her voice was rising in volume despite her best efforts. "She's your daughter and you are the Master Mage. We've done so much for those ungrateful fools….and they go to every possible extent to preserve the law and then change it on a whim to keep you from taking your right!"

He sighed again, knowing that there was nothing he could say to her to cause her anger to dissipate.

They both understood the system and the ancient laws that had governed it.

Lantis, Zagato, Alcyone, Ascot and countless others had all been chosen and trained under it.

However, as the council had been so good to remind him, the celibacy of the Master Mage was also an aspect of this code.

…and, if that fact was acknowledged, in the minds of the councilmen there was only so much of a legitimate argument anyone could make against their current measures.

What did they care if a legitimate reason existed or not for their actions?

They also both clearly understood the political chess game the council was playing, using Aria as their pawn.

He began explaining the rest of his impassioned conversation with the council to his consort.

"They said that oversight, in this instance, is quite necessary in order to ensure the purity of the system itself. They couldn't have the child of the Master Mage, who apparently blinds everyone to her faults with her birthright, merely rising up to any position on the hems of her parents' robes." He spat the words out as if they were poison, "The fools wouldn't even listen to Ascot's own recommendations nor Ferio's admonitions for changing the law for such a selfish purpose."

Clef looked aged and weary, and for a splinter of a second, his face took on all the weight of all of the years he had lived. He leaned on her shoulder, as if the action would distribute some of the heavy burden he carried.

He knew she would gladly take it if she could.

Drawing in a deep breath, he came to the most aggravating aspect of the day's events.

"Then the arrogant bastards said that they would change their recommendation on one condition – that she prove herself to them."

"Prove herself!" The words exploded out of Umi's mouth like fire pouring forth from the mouth of some craven idol. She could not even help yelling now nor did she attempt to bring down the volume of her disdain, "How is she supposed to do that?"

He looked down at his lap.

From many years of experience with the nuances of his gestures, she knew that that simple action was an ominous indicator of the nature of his answer.

"They want to test her skill against a junior councilman. Unaided."

Umi thought that she had heard him wrong, she must have heard him incorrectly. Obtaining, at the very least, the rank of Ile was a base qualification for joining the council. Aria had barely reached the rank of Rin and would still have to achieve two further ranks to be on an equal footing with even the most incompetent junior councilman.

It was impossible. There was simply no way. She must have heard him wrong.

Seeing her grapple with the same demons that he had when he had first heard their pronouncement, he gently stroked her hair.

"Clef," she said quietly, not even at a small fraction of her usual volume, "What are we going to do?"

It was true that she might receive training from Clef and remain Ascot's apprentice in name only. That would mean that her daughter would be saved from their absurd command, but at the same time it would mean that the council had finally won.

And more, they would win by punishing her daughter, who was innocent in all capacities for the bad blood that had developed between the council and Clef and herself.

That made her simply furious.

"Umi," he said, his voice not betraying his inward turmoil, "she wants to do it."

Despite its simplicity and the calm tones that composed it, the simple statement drained the life out of her.

"Clef…no…she can't."

Suddenly he laughed derisively, "They think I'm too busy to oversee my own daughter's training. They don't know who they're dealing with…on either count."

He smiled a little mischievously at her, "Aria is, after all, very much like you and we both know what you do when someone tells you that you can't do something."

Umi had to smile at that comment. He knew very well what happened when someone told her what her own limitations were. Her stubborn daughter wasn't much different.

She smiled angelically at him, "I think she gets that from her father, personally."

He frowned slightly, in mock sadness, the issue of Aria's stubborn tendencies always merited some light hearted banter between them.

"You were right, however," seriousness shown through his features once again. It seemed as if it caused him some effort to say the next part. "Ascot has done well with her. She certainly has the will to do it…she might just be able to."

The "might" still bothered her, however, and she could see that, despite his attempt to mask it, it also bothered Clef.

It was that "might" that made her feel somewhere between helpless and wanting to take Selece to the council meeting in order to quite literal beat some sense into them.

"How long does she have?"

"Only three weeks."

Three weeks to match an Ile at the rank of Rin. It still seemed vaguely impossible…but, as she thought about it, no more impossible than three girls from another world battling the most powerful sorcerer in the land.

In the end there were no choices to be made.

"We just have to believe in her, Umi."

It was one of the first things that he had impressed upon all of them when they had mysteriously come here from Tokyo: "In Cephiro, the believing heart is power."

They sat for a long time, lost in the worlds of their own thoughts. Several minutes had slipped by, unnoticed in their quiet gravity.

"Clef," she finally asked, "What did you tell her?"

This time he smiled indulgently.

"I told her we'll always be proud of her no matter what they try to do to her."

Umi still couldn't wrap her mind around it. She knew it would take a while before she could.

"It has nothing to do with her."

Umi's voice was a hollow waif that could very easily have gotten lost in even the smallest clamor.

"I told her that as well."

She sighed and buried her head in the thick robes about his shoulder, hoping that when she opened her eyes, the entire matter would have been one horrific nightmare or something that had gotten so weak that Umi's own will could merely sweep the problem away.

That was how Aria had found both of them much later, sleeping soundly (and "soundly" was quite an appropriate word for her father's snoring) when she had heard the sound of voices stop for an acceptable amount of time.

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For the next three weeks, the already tenuous schedule of the Water Knight's wing of the council went out the proverbial window.

Clef, the precious times when he returned from the Palace's assembly rooms from his task of meeting the abnormally high quantity of diplomats that seemed to have all shown up unexpectedly, came back looking exhausted and immediately withdrew to the gardens with Aria for training.

He did not return until very much later and then, usually a restless sleeper, he would drop off into a very deep sleep and did not wake up until the crack of dawn the following morning when he started his exhausting schedule anew.

Meals, which came at intervals of dubious regularity even on what qualified as normal days, came at spotted intervals and she sometimes had to yell and chase Clef down (more literally than she cared to admit) just to make sure he ate something now and then. Aria didn't question her when she came into their practices, but merely chewed what was brought pensively and with little comment.

Other than her nightly sword practice, where Aria was considerably more focused than usual, but laughed less, Umi did not see much of her daughter.

She did not seem unhappy…simply very determined. She did however giggle when Umi told her that if all else failed she could merely stab the councilman.

In that maddening way that time has, when she wished that it would slow down to a crawl it sped up and seemed as difficult to manage as holding water in one's hands is.

If it wasn't for Hikaru and Fuu's constant visits, Umi thought that with Clef and Aria both secretly hiding away from her, lost in their training, she would have taken her sword to the council chambers long ago.

They mainly sat at her table and gossiped about the goings-on in the castle (although careful to stay away from the word council which would certainly cause Umi to fly into a rage) including the latest mayhem of Caldina's two children, Fuu's imitation of one of Ferio's imitations of one of the notoriously obnoxious diplomats, and also quite a few reminiscences of their own past antics.

It was Fuu, however, who finally found a tactful way of broaching the issue of Aria with Umi.

"I do not believe I have seen Aria in these past weeks, but, since she's your daughter Umi, I'm quite sure she's alright."

Umi immediately sighed. Hikaru and Fuu exchanged a knowing glance, knowing that their friend was about to explode with the force of a tsunami.

"I wouldn't even know. Clef and her spend all their time hiding from me in the gardens. Even when I go in there they just shoo me away as if I'm in the way of their grand plan or something and I barely see either of them but, at the same time I'm just hoping my only child doesn't get killed so its not exactly as if I can yell at either of them! Now who I'd like to give an ugly piece of my mind to-"

"Umi," said Fuu calmly, cutting her friend off before she could really work herself into a frenzy, "You don't need their permission to see how Aria is doing."

She looked indignant.

"I told you that Clef just pushes me out-"

Hikaru had figured out what Fuu was saying and mirrored her mischievous grin.

"Ya know Umi, we don't have to ask him anyways."

For a moment she could do nothing but stare at the both of them, realization slowly dawning in her eyes. The same smile finally lit up her lips. She had been letting the seriousness of the past few weeks get the best of her…when had she ever obeyed Clef so easily, anyways?

Laughing, as they had in junior high, they began their nefarious mission.

How on Cephiro Hikaru had found the passage into the garden or how Fuu could so easily dismantle Clef's carefully placed wards, Umi would have to find out later, but somehow the three found themselves perched on a wall, with a view of Aria and Clef only slightly obscured by a very large stand of shrubbery.

They all leaned in, straining their ears to catch small bits and pieces of what was being said. Finally being able to fixate on the sonorous thread of Clef's voice, Umi felt a wave of nostalgia wash over her.

"Focus and listen to the words within you. I know you know them, Aria, but know their substance and texture. Focus it slowly into the heart of your staff."

Umi had heard the same words herself when he was finally at leisure to properly (he has emphasized the properly before Umi could so much could even protest) teach her how to control and use her magic.

She had always had raw talent and raw will, but Clef had taught her how to hone it and refine it into something even more powerful.

Belatedly wondering if the same memories were going through his head as well, she listened more.

She had to keep moving forward when Clef moved farther away, pacing as he always did when teaching his students, and caught his next set of instructions "…any type of ice magic takes a much higher degree of focus. Don't tell your mother this," Umi's ears perked up at this segue and Fuu and Hikaru immediately held her back just in case, "But you should have less of a problem than her concentrating."

Umi apparently missed the joking tone of his voice. Aria however, caught it and immediately continued on in the same way that the family had for years.

"You better hope she never hears you say that!"

Aria gave her father a severe look, reminiscent of Umi's own dissatisfied expression.

"She'll kill you, you know and as you very well know, I may plead ignorance or simply realize that there is no way a simple Rin like me could possibly beat a magic knight…"

Clef gave her a bemused look. "Oh, we should both know that when your mother hits her stride…well, Pillar help the world. But you," he gave a truly mischievous look to his daughter, "you have my sense of concentration."

Aria simply rolled her eyes at him, far too used to her parents squabbling over her in this same manner.

Her mother, however, did not take such comments so nonchalantly, Hikaru and Fuu were straining merely to keep even a very tenuous hold on her.

Meanwhile, Aria had raised her staff and was preparing to start the spell.

At that very moment, Hikaru and Fuu's grip broke and Umi raced out with the speed of one of the bullet trains that had brought her to school in her youth, crying "CLEF!"

The guiltiest expression that had ever, in all his long years, graced the Master Mage's face appeared as Umi charged near him, Fuu and Hikaru sprawled on the ground behind her in her wake…and she continued to charge…with her sword in hand.

"Aria!" He shouted, "Shield spell!"

Aria merely looked at him, completely dumbstruck. After recovering from the initial shock of her mother leaping down off a garden wall and running at her, she looked at her father and merely shrugged in a silent intonation of, "I warned you."

There wasn't time to concentrate on anything due to the piercing volume of Umi's enraged cries.

"You sneak off so you can tell her things like that! Is that why you didn't want me to see what you were doing you short pervert?"

Clef, however, was not known for his subservience…quite the contrary…his stubborn reputation rivaled that of his consort's.

However, there was the matter of the sword in her hand to deal with.

Clef however, was at that moment far more interested in getting even with Umi verbally.

"You don't appear to trust us enough to leave us alone!"

"Now I know that your trust means that you poison my daughter's mind against her own mother, you short old pervert!"

"Well it isn't as if you can train her properly!"

Well, at least that answered Umi's earlier question.

Fuu and Hikaru merely looked on, used to such interactions by now. However, they hoped that this time it would not come to the use of spells. That seldom turned out to be very pretty.

Aria looked on, a vaguely annoyed look on her face. After a moment of merely observing the squabble, Fuu noticed that she attempted to cough in a manner that looked so much like Clef that she had to stifle a laugh. She tried once again to diplomatically gain the attention of her parents in the same manner.

Fuu doubted that they could even hear the delicate noise over their screaming.

They were indeed busy scuffling – Umi's blade grinding against the handle of Clef's staff and a series of escalating insults being traded between the two.

Now, Hikaru and Fuu could see that Aria was fast going into what they called "Umi Mode." In a moment, the situation would not be very pretty, indeed.

Loosing her normally calm demeanor, she planted her hands squarely on her hips and it looked as if the rash personality that her mother had won a reputation for (and that her father had more or less tried to hide from more public view) would gush out.

Stamping her foot and readying her own staff, Aria did something few people in Cephiro would really dare – she took on the Master Mage and a Magic Knight all at once.

With a cry of "PARENTS!" she leaped in as if to smack them both upon the heads.

At that moment they seemed to recall exactly why they were squabbling. Clef attempted to regain his aura of dignity and give her a chastising look for Aria's impertinence, Umi however kept her dagger like eyes upon him. It was obvious to both the Knight of Fire and Knight of Wind that Clef was struggling to maintain his serious composure in the midst of that expression…it was too well ingrained in his nature to at least attempt to fight back.

Fuu and Hikaru exchanged a knowing look between them. They were, however, not surprised by any of the antics of the bunch.

Indeed, sometimes it seemed like the entire castle knew exactly how those three acted.

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Aria entered alone, stepping silently to the middle of the platform surrounded by an intricate network of waterfalls.

She knew that her mother would be seated at the top with both of her aunts. The box in which the Magic Knights sat was encircled by a small ring of gold, so it was unmistakable.

However, she had no clue where her father was amidst all the water-obscured grottos, nor did she so much as shift her focus to an attempt to find either of her parents at that moment.

She was very conscious of being alone.

All of the council's eyes were upon her and she merely hoped that her nervousness was not nearly as transparent as she thought it was. The long skirt of her formal robes billowed behind her, and she became very conscious of the blue and gold of her robes, the distinguishing mark of Rin, amidst the hints of black and gold denoting the rank of Ile that lingered just beyond the water's opaque surface.

She walked directly up the chairman of the council, a man named Marduk. She bowed deeply and formally, the jewels of her robes tinkling and seeming to echo in the profound silence she found herself faced with.

He began the proceedings.

"Rin Aria, daughter of the Dragon Princess and Guru Clef, you have come here today to petition to overturn our ruling regarding your apprenticeship."

There was not a single note of apprehension or fear in her voice as she answered with a clear and ringing, "Yes," she paused a little bit and Marduk looked as if he would go on, but she added, "I have come to regain the right that was falsely taken from me."

She wondered briefly if her father would disapprove. He had explicitly told her not to say such things. Aria, had of course, not given him a definite affirmation that she would follow his request. It wasn't lying in that respect.

Around her, voices gossiped in low, throbbing tones in the wake of her comment. For an ephemeral moment she thought as if she had heard a solitary clap from the Magic Knight's box. Perhaps it was merely her imagination. Meanwhile, the chairman regarded her with a look of contempt.

"It has been decided that you shall be allow to choose your opponent for yourself, Rin."

She nodded, but there was a stiffness and haughty dignity as she did so.

In a loud voice, with a tone that sounded as if it were delivering a prophecy of condemnation unto the body assembled, she called, "Those in the committee who judged me unworthy of advancement, please step forward."

Another murmur rippled throughout the hall in the wake of the pronouncement of the Guru's daughter. Even among the junior councilmen, she had been long known to be enigmatically dangerous, although the reason was never directly revealed. She seemed to at least be proving that she was a force to be reckoned with today.

However, in all the sleepless nights of the past three weeks she had been contemplating this speech. The men who had put her in her current position would thereby be recognized, and if she won and proved them to be unequivocally wrong, their influence and competence in future matters would fall into question.

As young as she was, the political games that were being played were not lost upon her. She would show them that she was just as capable of such games...indeed, Aria could beat them.

But…if she were to lose the consequences of her actions would be more severe…

She did not linger upon this thought; she merely smiled as a number of the waterfalls opened up revealing a number of mages, all clad in the ornaments of multiple apprenticeships, as well as at least two Palus.

She regarded all of them. The Palus she did not so much as consider. Two of the others she also discarded immediately. They both had a long trailing pennant with a jewel with a golden crown embroidered on top of it – the mark of students of her own father. Aria knew that she had no need for masochism in an already difficult battle. Two others, she knew, were wind mages…a very difficult element to effectively counter with her own specialties.

That left three. After another short moment she was left with two whom she knew to possess the correct magical element and also came from a Master that was widely considered (well, at least considered by her father) to be a rather sub par instructor.

Considering the choice before her for a fraction of a second more, she pointed to one, sharply. He looked vaguely queasy.

"You have seen it fit to judge me, now we shall see if you yourselves are capable judges."

The low murmurs took on a bit more animation and a scattered quality of anger. In all, as the junior councilman made his way down to the center, it almost sounded as if a thunderstorm was drawing closer and closer to her.

It gave her a bit of satisfaction to feel the tenuous feeling of discomfort invade the council room.

The man arrived and produced his staff. She could tell instinctively that he had not advanced enough for it to have fully evolved yet. He bowed very shallowly, barely inclining his head for the sake of politeness. He clearly saw the girl before her as someone beneath his rank.

She impudently returned the same gesture as if she were his equal. Touching the jewel at the center of her necklace, her formal robes vanished into the armor and simple tunic of the outfit she wore primarily for dueling.

After an eternity, Marduk signaled the start of the bout, gliding swiftly into the bottom most alcove and was subsequently swallowed by the water. For a moment she thought she saw her father's white robe in the same space, but did not allow herself to focus on it in the slightest.

This was her own battle. She must prove that she herself was worth it.

The man immediately leaped up and out of the way.

This was a fortuitous sign for Aria. One could always tell the caliber of mages by their initial movements.

Simply put, the stiller they stayed the more skillful they were.

She had seen her father take down enormous monsters with a nonchalant flick of his index finger and a single spell word (and often this was mispronounced just slightly…but she did not dare to question her father in his professional capacity.)

Her opponent resembled a slightly frightened rabbit, preemptively dodging from here to there when she had not so much as even uttered a single spell.

Very quietly she muttered a phrase.

A bolt of lightning, very narrowly dodged, whizzed down beside the young councilman. He looked slightly surprised that a simple Rin would have any command whatsoever of such a difficult spell.

It was well known that storms were not a natural occurrence in Cephiro and thus, such spells ranked very near the highest level of difficulty.

Aria, however had not only listened to her mother's stories of storms in her homeland, but had lived amidst the storm of her parents for her entire life. The difference was negligible in her own opinion.

But she still remained cautious – the single spell, even should it have hit, would not have caused much damage and her focus in producing it had been imperfect.

No matter how clever she could be, there was still a very noticeable skill gap. She knew it would only be accentuated as the time went by.

Meanwhile, the man countered back, sending a lighting spell of greater intensity her way. It was time to put her three weeks of intensive training to good use.

"Shield!" She shouted, and she was immediately surrounded by the faint golden halo of the spell she was the best at.

If she had not been so concentrated on the work at hand, perhaps she would have heard the small noise of approval that drifted around the chamber.

Her opponent, a councilman named Tiamat, was by specialty a mage who was in the process of mastering lightning spells.

Another one came her way, this time she leaped out to dodge, cushioning her fall with a simple wind spell.

The slow, macabre dance between the two began to speed up considerably for the audience, as flecks of gold were traded between them.

To Aria, however, everything seemed sluggish. She knew what she needed to accomplish, but she was also infinitely aware that she did not have even half the magical stamina that her opponent did. Tiamat was at least 400 years older than her and, it was a severe understatement to say that he had had more time to cultivate his energy. Her youth would indeed work as a grave disadvantage in this aspect.

She needed to buy herself some time so she could proceed with her plan.

After dodging a succession of attacks and shielding herself by turns, she made her way to the middle of the council floor.

Hoping that he would make the mistake of Tiamat believing she was making the mistake of becoming an easy target. He took the bait, unleashing an attack of the greatest intensity yet.

Taking a page from her mother's book (she had seen it in a particularly silly and elongated fight between her parents) she called forth a water spell. Rather than blocking the attack, it dispersed it and the bolt of lightning spread out like a shimmering curtain, utterly obscuring Aria from her opponent in a shower of electricity.

The battle had been going on for at least twenty minutes by now and she could feel her heart pounding and her breathing becoming more labored. She prayed her magical stamina would hold out….especially since she had the more difficult steps were still to come.

Using the brief window of opportunity she had she grasped her staff firmly in both hands and held it straight and erect before her.

"Creature summon!"

Firenza was called from the jewel held in the tiny hands of her staff's little fairy. She jumped onto the Leviathan's back and held on for dear life, knowing that the intensity needed to sustain the creature's materialization would sap her energy at triple the rate that she had been through the simple exercise of her arsenal of spells.

Amazed that a person of her rank had acquired such a powerful creature, the assembled audience gasped. The notion that a mistake had been made was already beginning to form in the minds of the more impartial members of the council.

Aria, once more, did not have the energy to notice or contemplate anything but the task at hand.

She needed to land two more spells. Only two more.

But she was running out of time. The world was already swimming before her.

Firenza's speed made Aria a difficult to target and, directing her friend to fly, as swiftly as he was capable of going, she was able to get behind Tiamat's guard. She then, seemingly at random, made a complicated maneuver of both recalling the creature and diving off of it all at once. In the moment in which her opponent was both processing her seemingly rash action a then trying to track her movement, she swung her staff out and performed the most complicated water elemental spell she had.

Her aim, for the first time during the battle, was true.

While it did not overly hamper the Ile, it did succeed in sweeping him a short distance along the floor and interrupting his concentration for a precious few moments.

Those were enough. Holding the gleaming staff high, she fairly yelled out the phrase, all traces of dignity forgotten in her exhaustion. The spell landed a small distance off…by design.

She knew that they thought she was not skilled and she was indeed hoping that Tiamat took her apparent blunder as a mark of that.

He was again off balance, though, and in the moment of his hesitation she sent another lightning spell straight at him with all of the rest of the intensity she was capable of mustering.

The water he was already doused with was a valuable ally. It intensified the already strong attack to a strength well above what her level was capable of, even when she was at her fullest strength.

He crouched, defeated. And by a girl two ranks below him, no less. She had won, not perhaps by superior skill but by dint of superior intellect and dumb luck.

Unfortunately, even as she saw him fall, the swimming world in front of her had become a torrent of pitch…she had used far more magic than she had ever thought she was capable of.

Aria could feel herself falling and falling and falling, but she just merely sank down and never hit. With her last conscious thought she hoped Tiamat did not get back up.

-----------------------------------------

Clef, from his stance next to Marduk, could see Aria collapse. And despite his protestations parted the waterfall and ran to her.

A number of people, including Umi and the other Magic Knights, had also spilled out of their boxes in the wake of the unexpected ending.

But, despite the movement, there was no uproar of sound. Instead, an eerie silence permeated through every nook of the massive room and all eyes seemed to be on him as he ran.

Not even he himself had thought that the battle could last so long. But he had been proud of her nonetheless.

But even his pride in her faded in the wake of the sight before him. Now, for the second time in his life he found himself scared out of his wits and in a dead run. Aria was sprawled grotesquely on the smooth stone floor, her breathing shallow and labored. She was drenched in sweat from head to toe, and her staff lay where it had clattered noisily some time before. He hadn't heard it. He immediately crouched beside her and rested her head in his lap.

She was in even worse condition than he himself had been in during Cephiro's slow collapse. His little daughter was simply not advanced enough, even for all her confidence, to use magic so extensively. She was too young.

Umi had finally made her way down and looked at him wildly. He slowly picked Aria up and walked away. Umi, walking beside him, brushed the hair gently from her eyes.

He might have made a speech condemning their rash action and exposing their hypocrisy and vengeance…but he didn't feel as if he had to. The old argument had finally been set to rest. The council could not legitimately do more without exposing their own hypocrisy.

Aria had given them all the proof they needed.

End

A/N: This was a hulking monolith of a chapter…and one that wasn't even in the original outline. But I had a lot of fun writing it….people weren't just standing around. And if you're wondering why Clef is suddenly alive when he died at the beginning…this is your reminder of the non-linear nature of the fic…it is moving backwards. Yes, I'm still crazy. Also, same applies to this chapter…if something caught your eye that you want to know more about, simply let me know…perhaps I can work it into another chapter (perhaps it will become an entirely other chapter…who knows.)

Also, because I am not a fan of copious physical description, there are some (read: not so good, kinda small) sketches on my lj of Aria. The link is in my profile and it should be only a few posts down.

Thanks for reading! Send me all comments, assertations, dissertations, acclamations, declamations, etc. etc. They will be received with love!