I am never guessing how long a new chapter will take me again, argh. *weeps* I'm REALLY SORRY this took so long, and on a cliffhanger! Life got all interfere-y, and apparently I have an evil genius for getting a complete draft of a chapter done just when life gets busy for my poor beta too.
She had to work so hard on this chapter – and she's already getting me to fix bits of the next. (Half of which was actually in this chapter until about an hour ago. My inability to tell where a chapter ends is ongoing, it seems…) (Which should mean that the next chapter is FAR FAR SWIFTER than this one. HOPEFULLY. I'd say it would struggle to be longer, and then I remember I took an unexpected gap of years. I am not the best at this, but I SWEAR I will not do that again, ever!) Now I'm not feeling guilty at being so behind, I should be posting to my blog rather more, if anyone's looking for a better idea at how far I am with the next chapter.
I've also started drawing again, frequently, which I haven't done in years. …and of course, Clef and Umi are my favourite practice targets, so there should be some art to go along with PY in the moderately-near future. (I need to relearn how to draw first. XD)
But thank you to everyone who has been waiting! I hope you enjoy it. The spells in Japanese are all translated at the end of the chapter for neatness, and I think I've finally managed to reply to everyone who has reviewed recently – comments following for those of you who I couldn't pm them – thank you to all of you!
Haruka3 – glad you're enjoying it, and I have FAR too much fun writing Clef in denial (…as is probably obvious now I've been doing it for so long. XD) Thank you!
Ginja – I'm sorry you had a bad day, but happy that I managed to cheer you up? XD
Momo yo maki – I'm glad you and your sister both enjoyed it. XD I rather like James too, which, uh, is rather unfortunate as I started liking him AFTER I worked out the plot!
Rain – Thank you! I'm glad to hear there are still people getting dragged into the fandom after all the years I've been hiding around in it, and that review was a terrific morale boost on a very grey morning. I have to admit, I get bored of stories where there is nothing but romance – obviously the thing to do was add assassins. Um. XD The intrigue grew on me in the writing gathering layers. I just hope I can set them all out neatly now I'm getting to the end…
Right. Enough of me rattling on and worrying about letting this into the wild. XD
oOo
Chapter Twenty One: Head on, Headlong
oOo
Umi heard Eagle snap at her to stop, and ignored him. Clef had nodded, that was all the permission she needed, and she wanted this fight, this simple here-is-the-enemy, this action. She called her armour about her; it formed itself, ever helpful, to her needs. The shoulder guards were smaller, the cloak missing, and the body lengthened into shorts which gave the top of her legs some kind of protection outside her Mashin.
The assassin was quick. Faster than her, pulling away down the corridors. There were rooms both sides of them, and Umi's fear was he'd charge into one and take hostages. But he even ignored the people they passed, people who leapt back as he charged through and then stumbled again as Umi followed.
He led her outside, across the paving stones of the courtyard, each stride jarring her body from foot to skull. She chased him right onto the grass of the landing zone, softer footing a relief - and then pain spiked through her chest as Clef yelled a warning at her, through her. Umi jumped, unthinking, momentum carrying her forwards. The ground yawned wide below her as she flung herself through the air. Crags of rock-laden earth launched up, reaching for her legs, sharp splintered edges glinting like razors, and she was falling down, over them, into them –
"Mizu no ryuu!" She screamed, hand flung before her, and a furious dragon snarled along her path, flattening some stones and shattering others with lightning-bright teeth.
Flecks of shrapnel hit her, stinging her arms, one cutting across her cheek. The attack crashed into the ground and churned the rising dirt, flattened and subdued it, and she landed hard but safe. One glove smacked down in the sloppy, grainy mess, the damp creeping in through the material. Umi pulled a face at the feeling. Still, she kept her eyes forwards, on the ducked-down shape of the assassin with his hands pressed deep into the grass, staring straight back at her.
His eyes were narrowed but without the rage or triumph she'd expected. He looked less involved in this fight than he had been when Spark accidentally almost struck him with a gesturing hand - a memory, a context, which jarred badly against the tight, professional focus.
A sharp anger burned in her chest, painful enough she thought something had hit her. Then the cracks in the ground lashed forward to surround her and she snapped to watching them instead. The earth ripped upwards, shuddering high into the air, and took new forms; writhing, vicious, hissing forms which all turned inward, turned to her.
Each creature reared out of its own fissure, displaced soil packed together into snake-like things three metres tall. They were alien, awesome, and something in their motion triggered deep-held instincts to run as they watched her, swaying back and forth, waiting for some signal to attack. Bright stones glinted for their eyes, green-fronded manes of grass flared about their heads, and each set of wide jaws was readily supplied with fangs of jagged crystal. Stones protruded in a hard layer from their backs, rougher than she wanted to call scales. More like the blade of a file, a big one, used for taking a half inch of wood off at a time.
So the first thing Umi did was dart forwards and slice across the bare underside of the closest.
Sods of earth spilt away from the body along her blade, but the gap closed immediately behind it, with a faint rumbling from the fissure, leaving no trace of the injury. (Not that she knew what a scar would look like, in these lumpy, roughly-moulded creatures.) It took exception to her attack, the head diving forwards in a rush, but Umi had been expecting a violent response. She skidded to one side as crystal fangs snapped where her neck had been seconds before, teeth closing with enough force that a shard of gleaming stone sheered off and flew in her direction. It clattered off her shoulder guard. Other chips littered the floor, uncomfortably lumpy through the soles of her boots.
The hefty bodies wound closer, a dull grating sound reverberating in the air about her. The woven forms built a massive cylindrical wall, bodies blurring into each other, reaching far above her head. The circle of sky shrank as their heads darted in one at a time to snap at her. Umi skidded this way and that, stabbing out reflexively but doing nothing more than trimming a few blades of grass from their manes, dropping a few more sods of earth into the ground. Flecks of mud clung to her armour, and the air tasted rich and earthen on her tongue. She was reaching desperately for an idea to get herself out of here, before she was crushed and mauled, and the assassin beyond – the assassin who was free to act as long as she was trapped – could be planning anything. Aimed at her, or aimed at Clef, still in the building but getting closer and closer.
Sweat began to trickle down her back, an itch along her spine; she had lost her sense of time, had no idea how long it had been since she spotted the assassin. Not long, given Clef hadn't crashed into the fight yet, but.
She was distracted a moment too long with the instinctive reach to the bond, to check where he was, and a sharp teeth broke through her right shoulder-guard, snapping it away, scoring another hot red line on her arm.
Enough! A growl vibrated in the base of her throat.
Gasping in a breath, she thought of Hikaru luring a creature made of dirt into a pond, years ago, and as the latest head hissed back up she dismissed her sword and raised her hands. "Aoi tatsumaki!" She called, hands out to each side of her head. Water howled into place about her, the noise so loud the air in her lungs felt compressed, stray drops of water joining the mud on her clothes.
So much for calm at the heart of a storm...
The earthern wall blurred behind the widening funnel of water. Streaks of brown grew in the spell, soil ripped away from the creatures as they flung themselves at it, trying to reach her.
As soon as the spell was more than half-chocked with soil she let it fall. The wall was worn down to a metre and a half of lumpy unshaped earth, but it was bubbling. Streaks of it flailed up, reaching out. Umi took two paces as quick as she could and jumped, got one hand on the top of the wall. Her glove sank into the clinging mud - then her knee was up, and a foot, and she propelled herself up and over.
She called her sword back to her hand as she ran and aimed it at the assassin where he crouched, head down, muttering to the soil.
"Kouri no yaiba!"
Ice sliced through the air but she hadn't time to see if it hit because the mud behind was glooping and wriggling and rearing up into a single massive creature. She wheeled back to face it, planted her feet firmly on the ground, and glared up.
The creature's teeth must be as long as her arms, all the fangs joined together in unholy serrated union. It was very damp now, great drips of mud running off it, and it seemed faster - the head absolutely still, but the body writhing from side to side. When it lashed forward she jumped to the right, swiping down with her blade. The tip passed through the mud with no effect whatever, like trying to slice water; the snake coiled back, leaving long smears on the grass.
Umi studied it as quickly as she could. The tail now grew out of the largest fissure, the mud fading into the natural, motionless soil. She gathered her breath and her will, and aimed carefully, just above the join. Her dragon-attack snarled through the air, maw as wide as the snake's above, and blasted with concentrated strength through the entire width. It shuddered, rearing high and shrieking at her - Umi's ears rang and her heart stopped, and she was certain she'd misjudged.
Then the snake collapsed all at once, splattering down so hard that it splashed Umi from six metres back.
…Why did it have to be earth magic? Gah! MUD. She thought, inanely brushing at a stain on her glove before shaking her head and turning. Selece was clamouring at the edges of her mind, held back from manifesting about her by determination alone, and in her distraction he pushed against her again.
/No!/ She thought at him, fiercely. /You can't! He has no Mashin to call on, I have to fight him myself./ And she didn't say, but she understood with a bright borrowed clarity that all the fears people held about Cephiro's alien, extreme powers; of Cephiro lashing out and claiming reparations for attacks the UCA hadn't stopped – or reaching out for more and more power, now they were looking outside their land… All that fear would be flung up and condensed by the sight of a great God-machine crushing a single man. On top of which, in the Mashin she'd be slower, and she already struggled to match his reactions.
(And there was the sharp possessive urge to keep this fight hers, a tension in her jaw and her throat and her hands which wanted to grab this obstacle and hit it until it gave way before her.)
/He tried to take you from me!/ Selece snarled, crashing force in his voice. /He uses weapons which subvert all nature, he defiles Cephiro!/
/Believe me, I don't mean to let him get away with it!/ Umi shot back, and with her promise he subsided a fraction.
Her earlier attack had done nothing; the assassin was crouched just as he had been, chips of ice melting in a line on the grass before his hands, and she sighed, gave up hope of a long-range assault, and broke into a run.
The ground lurched below her feet when she had crossed half the distance, and her first thought was still, ridiculously, earthquake! But the shuddering came first in one direction and them another, tipping her to the ground, and she began to sink through scratchy remnants of grass into powdery soil seconds before the ground erupted about her, huge walls reaching up to the sky.
Umi held her breath until she was certain she wasn't sinking further, then scrambled to her feet, testing bruised legs. She could see nothing but the short corridor she stood in, others crossing each end. Getting to the closest was a fight against sandy ground which stole her momentum and balance, shifting below her feet, and when she got there all she could see were more brown walls leading off each other.
A labyrinth. No, a maze. She was trying to fight, and this guy trapped her in a maze? Oh, HELL no!
And at that moment Clef ran out onto the pavement, out of her sight, his sharp /Finally!/snapping through her.
For a terrifying heartbeat her mind went entirely blank and she stumbled again on unsteady ground, caught herself with one hand on the wall. At the touch the wall shuddered and began to topple over on her.
Umi shoved back and her glove came free damp with mud; she caught an idea as clods of soil fell thick through the air about her. Dragging together as much power as she could manage she threw it into the walls separating her from the others. She grasped the moisture binding those walls together and ordered it into the air as she yelled "MIZU NO RYUU!"
The air howled. It went on and on, the spell dragging heat from her chest, air from her lungs, as she wrapped each measure of dampness into the figure which roared into the sky. Before her the walls crumbled with a deafening rumble. Earth and stone thumped down, inanimate, neutralised. A stone thumped against her shoulderguard hard enough to drive armour into her skin.
Now she could see her quarry, and Clef - and the summoning circle blazing in the air between them as yet another of those bladed creatures was dragged through into their world.
She felt power stirring, saw the light gathering by Clef's hands and knew he was gathering an attack, realised that as Representative of Cephiro, he shouldn't be fighting any more than Selece should. Not with an audience! And an audience was gathering behind him, peering out the windows and spilling from the doors. Watching and vulnerable. The spell sharpened in Clef's hands, and he should not be fighting here!
/Blast that!/ Clef snarled at her, catching the thought, the spell rising in his throat, and Umi wanted to reach out over the bond and yank that spell out of his hands.
She faltered away from the impulse before she could even try to, but Clef felt it, and the lightning fizzled out into nothing - which, great, but now he was stood staring at her and utterly ignoring the monster charging towards him.
/Shield the hall!/ Umi ordered, and at least he could drag together a shield without thinking; Clef slammed power into the air with no finesse at all, and she could hear the echoes of his voice yelling "Cresta!" for a moment before it was drowned out by the water filling the air, her spell falling back to earth, split by the air into a hundred thousand droplets. If she could catch even a fraction of them -
"Kouri no YAIBA!"
Rain hammered down, cloudburst from a cloudless sky, and she was working her will against gravity and all common sense but when had that stopped her in the past? The effort of catching so many fragments weighed on her, pricked cold and sharp over her arms and down her spine. She pushed up against it, turning her face into the deluge, gasping for air as the rain ran over her face. It slid down her neck and seeped under the collar of her armour, all her clothing growing heavier. Without trying to aim she flung all she could straight forwards, at Clef's shield where it rang in her head - at the enemy caught between the two of them.
The assassin cried out, calling strange words she could barely hear over the rain but she saw the darkness ripple and flex as he dragged a shield of negation about himself, and the shards of ice hissed apart on it, and against the brighter crackle of Clef's spell.
The creature, in the open between them, had no such protection. The ice tore through it, a hundred frozen bullets, and it screamed as blood darkened the mud. Three seconds and it was gone, collapsed into ashes which the rain slammed down, churned into the soil. Umi stared beyond it, drenched and gasping, caught up again in the tangled swirl of Clef's thoughts.
His shield spluttered in the air and cut out with the same uncomfortable tug as their earliest attempts at magic after the bond. /Umi! You-/
/But I didn't!/ She wailed. The assassin's dark shield spluttered away at the corner of her vision, but she couldn't look away from Clef. /I didn't, I wouldn't, and you have to focus and stay out of this! Please, Clef!/
/No!/
/I need you to protect everyone else, so I can concentrate! Come on, you're good at shields! You have to trust me, keep them all from getting in the way. I can do this!/ She needed him to agree; Selece she could hold back. Clef? Not so much, so she thought it as fiercely as she could. She could feel him wavering, knew he was still on the slightly-safer pavement. /Please, trust me!/
/… If you get hurt, you're going to every single council meeting, and you're going to have to take notes. You won't be able to sleep through them! You'll be writing reports for a century./ He promised her, reluctance laced through every syllable. /...We should have found you a shield back on Chizeta. Be careful, Umi./
He spread his hands again, stepping to the very edge of the paving, and power flared between them as Clef cast a larger, heavier shield than she'd seen since the days when Cephiro was crumbling about them and the entire castle was encased in a single spell. But this, when she looked up, was nothing orderly or comforting. It spat blue-white flickers and loomed with dangerous intent over them, pushing hard at the boundaries of a defensive spell.
But it would do. Umi sighed in relief, flung gratitude at him, and then she shut out thoughts of everything but the assassin. Her opponent stared at the shield a moment, then spat at it and turned to face her - and they were dropping to the ground the moment they were looking at each other, scrambling to get their hands into the ground before the other.
He was an earth-based mage, fine; Umi couldn't control the ground. But the topsoil here was heavy with water, and water was hers. "Kouri!" She snarled. "Kouri ni nare! Come on, freeze!"
Fingers of white sped out from her hands, building a layer of ground solid with ice - a layer as hard as steel. Umi pushed magic through it grimly, working the same way as Clef spelled their rooms; no words, just intent. The ground bucked below her, and she held on. The searing cold should have made her hands ache, the sodden cloth of her gloves no protection against freezing, but the pain came instead from the force being pushed up against her spell as she was tried.
He was a strong mage, and a versatile one. But Emeraude had chosen each of her Knights carefully; in a sheer battle of wills, Umi had the upper hand.
He changed tactics. Standing and abandoning the ground between them, he called a long weapon to his hands, with a strange three-bladed head – a long spear-like point, with a spike curved back from it on one side, and an axe-like head protruding on the other. (Umi thought back to her history lessons – and then to the fantasy games she had played before she went to Cephiro. That was… a glaive? No, a halberd? Something like that.)
It glinted wickedly in the air at the end of the six-foot dull brown staff, but he attacked neither Clef nor Umi directly. Instead he swung it through the air about his head, calling out those strange words again. There was a static crackling in the air. Black lightning gathered about the halberd, an anti-halo, drinking in all the light hungrily. He spun again, weapon spinning faster still – to face Clef, and the crowd spilling out of the hotel, drawn by the disturbance – and Umi couldn't run over the sheet of ice she had built between them.
But she didn't need to, because Clef was standing his ground, hands spread to his shield. The pull on her power increased as he laced more water through the pulsing light, keeping it thin enough no one should spot it amid the brightness. Just enough to confound the negation spell as it slammed against the shield and tried to drink it down. It still drained some of the power from the shield – it wasn't like the negation bomb, she realised. Less precise, less tailored, but it still didn't like the blending of magic. As much as it took, Clef steadily restored.
Umi ran, curving about the edge of the ice as the assassin, glaring with frustration, tried again. Darkness split apart on the shield and cascaded in all directions, worms of power writhing across it, making little to no impact. Even when they burrowed into the ground, they couldn't get through – Clef was holding the shield down through the soil, as well, forcing it to stay together even though the lightning in it wanted to be grounded.
The assassin tried a third time, whirling the halberd faster than ever. Umi was close now, close enough to feel the sharp pressure in the air, a bitter metallic taste clinging to the back of her mouth as she breathed in. When he twisted suddenly to fling the spell down on her, she was too close to break sideways and avoid the spreading edges of the attack.
Flinging herself down, she skidded underneath it instead. Umi felt the spell thrum through the air, her scalp tingling painfully as all her hair tried to stand on end. Her boots tore through the grass as she bounced along the ground. Her heels connected solidly with the assassin's ankles, and he crashed down alongside her.
The assassin was too well trained to stay down. He rolled out of the fall and pushed himself off the ice, digging his fingers knuckle-deep in the earth before Umi was on her feet. The ground tore apart again – fissures roared open, and she scrabbled for a hold on the grass below her as the world shook and each section of displaced earth reared into a new snake-like creature, a grinding-stones hiss coming from each of them as they dove for her, crushing mouths open wide.
"Come on!" Umi snapped, flinging herself sideways, heart racing so loudly she could feel it in her throat. "Stop doing the same thing when it doesn't damn work!"
"Giving tips on how to defeat you, Magic Knight? Not very sensible, are you." He taunted, loud enough for her to hear over the rumble of grinding stone, keeping his hands pressed firmly to the soil.
"When I'm fighting someone so incompetent, it hardly makes a difference!"
She ran three steps and flung herself into another skid, slamming her sword through the tail of the snake. Clods of earth hammered down about her as she shoved back onto her feet, and lunged forwards, sword point aimed straight for his heart. "Fight me, damn you!"
Metal rang loud on metal as he caught the blade with the curved hook of the halberd and turned it aside. A snarl twisted the corners of his mouth. "Fine." He said, and whirled to his feet with a swipe of his weapon which would take her head off her shoulders if she didn't move.
Umi ducked, and she felt herself grinning as she went.
oOo
Clef watched, heart racing high in his chest, as Umi drew their aggressor into battle, parrying and dodging with margins so small that he could barely see if she had avoided each attack until the next was in process, and yes, this was the way she fought best, but that didn't make it any less risky!
He fought to keep himself still and the shield in place, even though it blurred his view of the fight. If the assassin struck at the crowd, and blamed it on Clef's presence, Cephiro would be damaged. If he was openly aggressive, the balance between awe of Cephiran powers and fear of them would fall apart - but not responding would look weak, and Cephiro would be an easy target wavering on the bottom of the Table. Again. Umi was here as his bodyguard, allowed to fight – and capable of fighting with a sword instead of merely magic.
She was fighting now the very best way she could for Cephiro, and he didn't, couldn't, want to stop her - he just wanted to be out there with her. But at the same time it was for her sake he stood and held the shield, to make sure her efforts were worthwhile. He held onto the reasoning grimly. For her sake, and for Cephiro's.
(Curse both of them.)
Clef grit his teeth and blocked out the rumble of the people massing behind him, focusing on keeping the shield up and his eyes fixed on Umi as she danced about her opponent. She slammed her sword down two-handed on the pole of the halberd, all her weight behind it, and a dull sound rang out - the haft didn't give, and he could almost taste her frustration as she had to bounce back out of the assassin's longer reach. Motion beside him distracted Clef a second - Eagle was standing by his shoulder, Geo close behind, and Princess Tatra stood on his other side. All of them were watching almost as fretfully as he was. At least he wasn't going to be the only one angry with her if she got hurt…
"Let me through the shield." Eagle said, quietly; "I'll help her."
A wave of jealousy rocked Clef, and he gripped onto the shield spell harder, minimising the accidental flare of power as much as he could. Vision saw it, though, hissing a breath out through his teeth. "Someone should have her back!"
I do! Clef thought, and he bit sharply down on his tongue until his temper was closer to under control, vibrating with the wish to get out there and help more than just standing here. Worse, he knew just how often he'd been the one insisting he stand alone; not only was he trying on shoes he'd forced onto Lantis, LaFarga – onto Umi herself, however poorly – but in a situation where she was right and he had to stand firm.
He couldn't even yell at her for it, terrified of distracting her at the wrong moment.
"No." He managed to reply, just about able to see Eagle bristling from the corner of his eye. "We're Representatives, both of us. No weapons."
"Geo, then! He has the same dispensation as she does-"
"Shaky as you are on the Table, you still want to interfere in our business?" Clef's voice was hoarse. He shifted his weight, setting his feet a little further apart, steadying himself. Holding a shield this large and forcing it down below the ground was beginning to weigh on him, shoulders pressed down and his arms aching from being held out so long, but he didn't dare let up. Each time the assassin broke far enough away from Umi he turned to stare across at the crowd. More than just the few visible spells had run through the ground to slam into his defences. "Think she'd kill you herself anyway for getting in the way."
"We can't just leave her out there alone!" Geo hissed, urgently.
Clef's reply stuck in his throat for a long moment as Umi folded herself scant inches below the twisting halberd. Then she was up, and he forced the words out. "We have to. She asked me to." He sighed. "Umi asked me to trust herwith this."
"…Ah." Eagle's posture slumped minutely. "Damn." Geo hunched too, losing enough height to go from tensed-to-spring into resigned-and-worried.
Princess Tatra said nothing, just nodded, face without expression.
"She will be okay." Clef insisted, his voice coming out grim, but steady. "I've already told her she's going to be stuck in every single petty council meeting for the rest of her life otherwise."
"…Bet she'd find a way of avoiding Cephiro when the Council's in session. She's resourceful." Geo muttered, and Clef didn't know if that was meant for reassurance or reproach, couldn't look away to see the accompanying expression...
The assassin twisted his halberd and jabbed it back out at Umi, getting through her guard as she tried to slip past it. Clef's breath caught, lungs tight, hands shaking. Metal rang with that strange dull tone as she locked the hilt of her sword with the shaft and swung it over her head, the point flicking long strands of her hair up, but catching no skin.
Tatra's hand rested on Clef's shoulder, and he remembered to breath again, caught the shield as it was about to waver and slammed it back into place. Spirits wept, old man, get a hold of yourself! Acting like a rank amateur – are you Guru or what?
He forced his hands an inch higher in the air, the burn of his muscles keeping him lodged firmly in his body. On the field, Umi slammed the halberd into the ground with another two-handed blow and leapt away before the assassin could recover, playing it comparatively safe by not leaping to attack while he still had the blunt end of the staff to strike with, and again she began to circle him.
"Can't she break the haft?" Tatra asked, softly.
"No. It's clay, bound by his magic, and he has a grudge against us strengthening his will. Not even Escudo will make it through that." She'd been testing it with those heavy blows. Nothing would beat that pole in those hands without some kind of extraordinary help behind it, and he couldn't think of any spell to offer her. But Umi's determination hadn't faltered when the halberd refused to break, even though his reach was so much longer than hers, and he wouldn't let her down by doubting her.
oOo
The duel ran quicker than thought, both Umi and her opponent relying on instinct and well-trained reflex to guide defence and attack, twisting through motions drilled into their limbs by long hours of practice, eyes searching for chances their hands reached for without the interference of thought. The sheer speed of each motion trapped Umi into the narrow forms of her fencing style, the way she had duelled for years; she was holding her own, but she knew that she couldn't break past his weapon fighting like this.
I wish I had Fuu's sword. With such reach and weight, she might have bashed the halberd far enough out of the way to reach him. Her own blade was too light and too slender to push the halberd back.
Sweat stung in her cuts, and the rain-damp cloth was now warm, clinging unpleasantly to her skin. It peeled away with each motion and then stuck to her again. Her fingers were too hot in her gloves, and she wished she could pull them off and fight bare-handed, but the deceptively thin fabric was easing some of the sting from each blow that landed. Without that protection, she'd be struggling to even grip her blade. All the bruises and the minor cuts she'd gathered earlier were telling, and she was missing chances to attack because she was slowing down.
Selece still clung to her thoughts, but he no longer pressed against her will, and she battled against the urge to call him out anyway and end this in a storm of truly draconic proportions. Only if I'm desperate. She hissed at herself, at him, eyes following each steady motion the assassin made.
She was stronger, but the assassin had reach and stamina she couldn't match, and the small hurts she'd managed to deal him weren't anything like enough to balance the scales. Umi dropped awkwardly below a thrust straight at her face, and the staff slammed into her side; her breath escaped in a whoosh and the world before her fizzed into a screen of darkness. Focus! She ordered herself, gasping, and blindly flung a blast of water at his feet to have him stumble back, to have time so she could recover.
Dragging air into her lungs, Umi shook her head as the dizziness cleared, and managed to block his follow-up strike. But this strategy wasn't working. She hadn't enough time to gather the power for a larger spell – but neither did he, as she kept pressing him, so the ground below her stayed mostly stable. If he managed to rock it, he would be able to trip her onto his attack, and so she had to keep pressing forward until she (please!) came up with something better.
All that time worrying about fighting two blades, and I come up against this?
It was morethan a little irritating.
(Though it did have, technically, more than one blade on the single head. Pity that didn't count.)
If only she could trim that blasted pole and shrink his range... but he had to have made it from the earth itself, burnished it with his will, pressurising it like carbon into a diamond, and his magic kept it that strong while letting him swing it like wood…
Clef's thought, earlier, rebounded into her mind. We should have found you a shield.
...That halberd was made of his magic…
Umi jumped back, far and fast enough to hit the frozen ground and skid, dropping to one knee as she came to a halt. The ice was beginning to melt already, frigid water seeping into her boot.
Her hands had to be free; Umi set her sword down, biting her lip hard as she let go of it, hoping this wasn't a mistake. She needed water, so she muttered "mizu no ryuu" and let a tiny dragon chase its tail between her hands, spinning faster and faster until she held a bright disc of water between her palms. Reflected light glared off it, and glimmers of lightning condensed at its heart.
The assassin ran towards her, weapon thrust forwards. Umi ignored him. Focused. Held her breath and visualised, just as she did with the clothes, imagined what she needed, and dragged power from her chest until it gave her the words she needed and she gasped them into the fast-chilling air; "kouri no TATE!"
The assassin was bearing down on her and she was half-blinded by the flecks of ice in the air, all moisture frozen with the force of her spell. She had no idea if it had worked but her sword was too low to grab in time and she flung her left arm up through the stinging haze, bracing for the pain if she'd failed –
oOo
A sharp hush swallowed the pavement and Clef hoped, prayed, as hard as he could, as the pike flashed down with aching speed into the glittering cloud where Umi crouched.
There was a clang like the knell of a bell and the assassin froze, his weapon still, and the haze blew apart to show Umi holding the halberd back on a gleaming shield of ice, blue-white light beaming from the boss at the heart of it. And when she looked up at the assassin, lips curving up below the grime and the blood on her face, Clef's breath stuttered in his throat once more, for entirely different reasons.
How can she look so-
"…Surely that cannot be comfortable." Geo breathed out, staring at the bands of pure ice wrapped about Umi's arm, and Clef laughed quietly, helplessly, she flowed to her feet, flicking her blade out before her and ripping through the assassin's sleeve, the point coming away with a flash of crimson spilling down it, and the assassin's face paling.
"She's the knight of water. Even when it's really, really cold."
Umi's triumph licked across the bond to him, a distracting heat which coiled into his own chest, breeding an urge to fidget at the strange half-ticklish feeling as it spilled down to his navel. He could shut out the talking behind him, the mutters and the hisses and the mix of shock and horror - he could ignore their friends stood about him, their focus flung out through the shield, he couldn't keep his attention from being dragged back again and again to where Umi danced and parried through the wreck of the landing area.
The last of the shields between them had fallen in his moment of panic, hers of concentration, and he daren't try to raise anything anew while she was pushing her opponent so closely that she barely slipped past increasingly wild attacks; the air from each of them played cold on her skin and ghosted through him, sending tight shivers down his spine. He could feel each motion she made like an echo in his limbs, each twist of decision, and the smooth cold of the ice about her arm as she blocked the next attack and slid under it. He tried closing his eyes, but that made it worse, and he forced them open again. Only the heat of power about his fingers kept him grounded in his own body, and he clung to that burn, recklessly calling more power to roar through him, trying to drown out everything else before he lost control.
Come on, Umi. You can beat him - just, please, do it quickly!
oOo
A frown displaced the smirk on the assassin's face as Umi turned his halberd aside again along her shield, the pole clattering on the ice as she drove her blade forwards. He leapt back to normal ground with a cut-off curse, then yanked the halberd back towards him. Umi's ears rang as it scraped over her shield. She barely realised what he intended before the back-swept spike slammed into the edge of the shield, catching it between the spike and the main haft. He kept on pulling with all his weight, yanking her forwards and off balance.
Umi twisted her arm as she took that half-step, and the spike slipped to the side, slithering off the curve of pristine crystal white. There wasn't the slightest mark. Like his halberd, the shield was stronger than physics could imagine. Confidence growing she put her faith in it and pushed harder.
The sunlight glinted from white-tinged earth behind him as they turned a full hundred and eighty degrees. Umi squinted against the glare and pressed him, unrelenting, giving him no chance to look back until he was back onto the melting ice and water splashed up from each step he took in the sloppy mud. He stumbled, swore, glancing down - his concentration broken for a second.
Umi lunged forwards, her whole body behind the blow, over-extending so much she was off balance and her back exposed. The assassin whirled the halberd to catch her blade and swing it aside, then brought his weapon up over his head and slammed the axe-blade down over her, but Umi had her shield ready above her head. The great blow hammered into the ice instead of her skull, but the force made her arm ache from wrist to shoulder and right down her back, pushing her into a crouch.
The axe skittered off her shield and thumped into the mud, but the ground was far too damp to hold it; the assassin pulled it free with barely an effort and spun his whole body round with it, like a hammer-thrower, aiming for her exposed back. Umi stayed where she was, heart pounding, and got her sword back over her head, both hands on the hilt.
The blow slammed into her sword like a bullet train, propelling her forwards. She let it, pushed herself up as well as along and brought sword and halberd up with her, locking her hilt with the pole. She swung her arms up and over her head and then down before her with all of her weight, all that momentum behind her, dragging the halberd from the assassin's hands and slamming it into the ground in front of her and Umi yelled as her sword came down hard as she could manage.
There was a vicious screeching as she sheered the halberd into two, echoed by the man behind her.
Umi's hands were numb from the blow. She dropped her sword, but it didn't matter, because the assassin was screaming those foul-tasting words again, louder than ever before, and she had maybe three seconds to finish this before he did.
The shield she had summoned while sparring in Chizeta had been like a prison, just not strong enough to hold her; since then she'd had time to plan what she might do instead. She dragged up an image of what she'd decided on, holding her hands out towards him as she twisted about, and she shouted "Kakuen boujo!" the same second he flung a spitting ball of darkness at her, and the two spells collided, steam exploding through the air, scalding her face and forcing her eyes shut.
oOo
Clef felt the sting of the smoke and boiling water against his face and shut his own eyes in reflex. As he opened them the air cleared, and 'James' was slumped in a globe shaped by bars of solid ice, protected by a woven shield of swift-moving water, gleaming here and there with a little too much light to be merely reflected - Clef's magic, ready to resist any spell of negation he might try to break out. The assassin was distorted by the ripples, but even so Clef could see he wasn't moving to fight anymore.
Umi, triumphant, proceeded back towards them, head held high and her back to the floating prison cell she had created. Clef pulled the shielding away as she came closer. Light cascaded into his hands from all sides, a fountain reversed. He stepped towards her, once, twice, unthinking – then Tatra's hand fell from his shoulder, and he realised where he was. What he had been about to do. His cheeks flushed hotly, and he stopped dead.
In that moment's clear frozen silence came a single thought, perfectly clear: they think she's your lover. You have the perfect excuse to go ahead and kiss her anyway.
If Eagle and Tatra and Geo hadn't stood with him, if Kuregu wasn't stood a bare two metres away, if Umi hadn't been walking toward him so high with victory that she'd entirely missed what he'd just managed to not do, he would have retreated. Fast, and more than just two steps. But he was being watched, and he stood his ground, face flushed.
Umi was… a picture. Sweat gleamed on her skin where she wasn't splashed with mud, her armour was damaged in more than a few places, and her white boots were almost black all the way up with dirt. Her hair was tangled and wild. Her eyes shone. There were smears of crimson below the muck, too; hurts she hadn't really noticed yet under the adrenaline.
Clef meant to stay where he was, but he had to reach out, hand shaking. And… their audience would be expecting something, wouldn't they? As she stepped close enough he lay a hand on her cheek, thumb smudging the mud which decorated it. She stopped still, leaving him to take the last half-step forwards so they were nearly touching, nearly - and that was even worse, her smile so close.
Blast dignity, anyway.
He wrapped his arms about her and dragged her in until her head was safely resting on his shoulder, Umi's laugh spilling against his ear as she wrapped her arms in his robes and held on. She winced when his arms pressed against her battered side, but laughed again, softer, at his whispered apology, and wouldn't let him ease away.
Leaning his head against hers, he closed his eyes and whispered the healing spell, not bothering to direct it. With her shields forgotten, emotion so high, he probably knew every ache and scratch she bore better than Umi did. The magic twisted between them gently, after the unsubtle roar of the shield; it brushed away cuts and bruises and went on to remove the mud and the sweat and even the rips in her clothing, something he'd never managed before.
"Shields aren't -" He began in a rush, stopped himself, hissed at himself as Umi focused and he was going to have to finish the sentence or she'd give him no peace. "I'm not actually good with shields, not naturally. I just-"
"Have had too much practise." She murmured for him, and her arms tightened about him again. "Thank you, Clef. For letting me fight."
"...You were right." He muttered. "This time, anyway."
She stayed where she was, grin hidden against his shoulder, and let him hold on.
When Clef finally managed to let his arms drop, she stepped back far enough to grin at him; pristine, but no less wildly dangerous. She looked ready to take on a dozen more opponents for the hell of it - as far as he could tell through the tangled, near-vicious glee flowing off her, she felt just as she looked. Even so, there was enough of a tug from the co-opted gaol-spell to keep them both mindful of the man trapped in the ice.
"What now?" Umi asked.
Kuregu was stood close enough to hear, and, typically, was the first to speak. "What will you do with him?" He said, voice quieter than Clef had ever heard, in one short sentence giving Clef authority to do as he wished with the prisoner Kuregu should have been demanding control of.
It might have been a final test of Clef's judgement, Cephiro's willingness to play by the rules. It might have been a general offer - or it could have been the wondering question of a man somewhat more overawed than he'd ever expected to be by the woman at Clef's side. After all, Dleivus didn't see too many open displays of combat, especially those involving magic. Clef liked the thought of the last option.
The question, though, had only one answer he'd get away with.
"It's my duty to bind his powers, to cut his connection to the heart of Cephiro, until he has been tried by the international courts of the UCA and can be brought back for a hearing before the High Council. They will decide whether he should remain forever exiled from Cephiro's magic. Without power, your guards should have an easy enough time of it dealing with him in the meantime." Clef recited, pulling his thoughts back together and away from Umi as she faced Kuregu beside him, her head fiercely, proudly high. "His abuse of his powers is an offence against Cephiro herself, and must be remedied in her name - and we cannot take the chance that it will continue before he is tried."
"Can you do that?" Asked a voice in the crowd behind; Robin, her blinding robes making her stand out, and Clef was on the verge of pulling out the treaty on dealing with Cephiran crimes beyond Cephiro when she added "Cut off someone's magic, I mean. I thought that was part of one of you! It can be taken away?"
"It's a binding, not a negation. It cuts the connection between a mage and Cephiro, so they cannot touch her power. It's intention is to stop any corruption of the heart of Cephiro, as much as to keep the suspect from using magic." Clef explained. "Nor can it be done by a human - we merely call upon one of the Gods to perform it."
And as he said it, his resolve faltered.
/Why do I feel like you're about to announce a problem with something?/ Umi asked, silently.
She was right, of course. /I need to use my staff or something equivalent to perform the binding - a symbol of Cephiro's authority to channel the power through. It's an invocation of the rune gods; even the Guru can't be allowed to block another mage's powers directly. But if I summon my staff, it'll be clear how pointless it was to leave it behind, and I doubt that would go down well.../
/My Knight's sword would suit your purpose, would it not, little mage?/ Selece boomed all of a sudden, and Clef heard it, inside his head, reverberating and pressing so hard at his thoughts that it felt like an entire new dimension was trying to fit inside his skull; inside Umi's dream he'd been loud, but nothing like this; he felt like the clanger in some extra-dimensional bell. Clef bit his lip hard on a whimper, felt Umi's hand catch his - then the pressure was settling back to something more bearable.
Selece's next words were still shatteringly large, but they didn't actually feel like they were about to break Clef apart. /Apologies. It has been a time since I spoke with one other than my Knight in this dimension. But the sword is a symbol of this one, and would serve for your binding./
/I, well, yes, my Lord Selece/ Clef thought, hesitantly, lacing his fingers with Umi's. /But an Escudo blade? It was not made for me, I cannot wield it./
Umi looked thoughtful. /Even with the bond?/ she asked, curious. /That and my permission to do so?/ Pausing, Clef had to think about that again.
/I... don't know./ Clef admitted, and felt the rumble of Selece's distant laughter. /I suppose it might work after all. My Lord Selece?/
/Borrow of my strength and we shall seal him, little mage. In my name, my Knight's blade will certainly serve you./
He needed to try - it was one of his duties, to do this. One of the most important responsibilities laid on the Master Mage was to stop any misuse of magic which could harm Cephiro. If Umi's sword didn't work he was going to have to summon his staff anyway, but with the word of a God urging him on... He might as well make the attempt. Probably. ...And if he kept telling himself that, he might eventually believe it?
Clef turned to Kuregu, Selece's deep laugh rumbling in his head. "May I have permission to wield the Lady Umi's sword for the binding? I realise that Representatives are not supposed to hold a weapon at the Assembly, but in the circumstances..."
Kuregu looked him steadily in the eyes for a long moment, and finally nodded. "Go ahead. You have permission to bear a weapon for this purpose, Clef of Cephiro."
Another rattle of noise rose among the audience Clef didn't dare look at - there was enough pressure with merely Selece watching him! Six of the guard were waved forward to flank them as Umi and he paced out to the ravaged patch of ground and the sphere of ice floating above it, and the rumble of voices followed at a distance not half as great as he would like.
The man inside hadn't tried to escape, and he did nothing now but watch them, his eyes unreadable through the blur of the water. This close Clef could hear the rushing sound of the spell. Their guard stopped a healthy distance back, keeping the crowd away as well as surrounding the floating prison. Clef winced a little as he and Umi stepped into the mud, sinking an inch. "Did you have to be quite so liberal with the water?" He asked, plaintively, and Umi - still beaming, still high from the victory which he should be sharing her joy in - laughed at him.
"Afraid to get your boots dirty, Clef?"
"...I'm more worried about my hands." He muttered, with a glance at her gauntlet. She blinked at him, but before she could ask quite what he meant he spoke out, loud enough that the assassin should be able to hear him, even through the water. "You understand what's about to happen, don't you. You attacked openly using a negation; even if you had done nothing more, it would be my duty to seal you until you can be tried. "
The man stared at him a moment longer before closing his eyes and bowing his head. "Yes."
That was it. He made no other response, but sat still and left his head bowed. Clef shivered. He turned back to Umi, dropping his voice again. "You'd best keep hold of the sword, I think. I'll just lay my hand on it. That should work?" He said it with more hope than conviction, and the knowledge their extra-dimensional advisor was still listening in, though the pressure of him had settled back about Umi's shoulders for the moment.
/It would be best for you to wield the blade, little mage. You are the one wielding the spell, and the symbol is not complete elsewise./ The great voice turned thoughtful. /That is not to say we could not find some way to channel this without the sword at all, given your current position, yet while neither of us have experience to draw on.../
/...You've never done this before?/ Umi asked, including Clef in the thought. He shook his head, and Selece's affirmation rang through them a second later.
/The Creator usually saw to such things, or else Windam. Rayearth and I were more... volatile, when we were first brought into being, and we never thought to try once we had grown, not while Windam was still free to do so. For the moment, I certainly think it safer for the both of you if the mage take the sword alone. Even the risk in showing yourself capable of holding it is a lesser to that if the binding should rebound upon you.../
Clef flinched. He'd not even considered that possibility, and now he did so... /I see your point, yes./
/I will manifest, that they may see me. I suspect it will be assumed this one has granted you permission to wield my symbol, among those who know to wonder, rather than even those of Cephiro present suspecting it is my Knight who gives you hers./
"Symbol, or permission?" Clef wondered, voice low, looking at Umi. Her grin softened.
"Both." She said, and they were distracted from the moment by a pressure above them, the heavy weight of a storm front coming in - then it burst, and a great winged shadow reared in its place. Clef turned and made his bow.
The dragon was just as large as he had been in Umi's dream, and there were shouts from the watching crowd before Kuregu's voice rang out and called them to order. The two members of the guard now overshadowed by the descending dragon jogged rapidly out of the way, hands tight on their weapons.
"...Possibly we should have warned them." Clef said, but he was fighting back a laugh.
Selece settled on the ground, wings folding shut and his neck curving down until Umi could press her hand to his jaw in a rather less formal greeting. "We should certainly get you away before some idiot freaks out and tries to shoot you." Umi muttered to Selece, and the rumble of the dragon's laugh made the ground hum below them, setting off another round of dismay. "...Definitely. What now? Will I have to do anything particular? Should the shield come off?"
/This is no magic spell, the shield will not interfere with our purpose. Draw your sword, little one, and hand it over to the mage. The rest will be our duty; you have served yours already this past hour./
Umi blushed, and rushed to turn, water flowing into her hand as she stepped up to Clef. He stared at the slender sharpness of the sword, paying attention as he never had before to the unmarked glint of the edge, the spread wings of the dragon which formed the guard.
"That was good thinking, earlier." He told her, fully aware he was stalling, but this was a thing out of legend as well as so wholly hers, and phasing him badly, not to mention he could hear Selece. "The shield, and then getting the weapon out of his hands. This spell, too. I thought it, but I haven't said it, so."
"...Thank you." She stepped closer, almost leaning against his side, holding the sword before him, and then she said nothing else, just waited.
Clef took a deep breath, and reached for the hilt.
oOo
end chapter twenty one
oOo
translation:
Kouri ni nare: Become ice! (As an order. XD)
Kouri no tate: ice shield/ shield of ice. Simple! Plain! Does what it says on the tin!
Kouri no yaiba: Arrows of ice/ Ice arrows
Mizu no ryuu: Water dragon/ dragon of water
Kakuen boujo: encircling shield. (pretty much. ^^)
I hope you enjoyed it. (And if you want to review… *encouragement* XD)