*Disclaimer: I do NOT own Love Live!
Almost as soon as Anzu, Honoka, and Kotori disappeared through the mirror, a number of fairies appeared around the remainder of the group. Though small, seeing dozens of them appear at one time made the group a little uneasy. However, that feeling was quickly swept away by what followed.
"Ah… this feels amazing."
Feeling completely relaxed, Rin sighed contently.
Currently, the fairies that appeared were spread out around the room performing various tasks. There were two fairies by each girl, covering them in a light blue light. The light had incredible healing powers, clearing away all of the fatigue and stress that Rin didn't even realize her body was feeling and leaving her in a renewed state.
When they had first arrived, the room was nothing more than two pieces of furniture and empty walls. But when the fairies approached the walls, doorways appeared to reveal connecting rooms. To the left seemed to be a kitchen, as fairies flew in and out bringing plates of food for everyone. On the right was Anzu's bedroom. Although it seemed like they were allowed inside, everyone chose to stay in the center room instead.
"You're right. It feels like all my troubles are being cleansed away."
Eli agreed while letting out a relaxed sigh. Rin noticed how calm she looked right now, compared to her usual look she adopted as commander of the Knights. She couldn't help but think how pleasant Eli looked right now.
Attempting to stop her thoughts from going any further, she cast her gaze to her friends around the room. She spotted Nico and Nozomi sitting side by side at one end of the room. They seemed to just be talking, although their gazes would occasionally meet and both would quickly turn away. Although the majority of the time, their eyes were both fixed on the other couple sitting at another end of the room. It wasn't hard to understand why either.
Maria and Maki were sitting face to face, rather than side by side. Maki had both her hands on her lap, head down and eyes closed. Maria also sat with her hands in her lap, but she had her head up and her gaze was fixed forward. You could say she was looking at Maki, or you could say she was focused on the object floating between them. In addition to the fairies healing them, an extra fairy was holding a rod with an ice cube attached on a string at the end. The fairy was floating up and down, left and right in random patterns. Although Maria wasn't visibly moving her eyes, experience told Rin that the maid was tracking it.
And then it happened in an instant. Maki's right hand shot up from her lap. The fairy attempted to pull the cube up, but it was no match for Maki's sudden speed. The young mage caught the cube in her hand and the fairy was forced to release the rod. Maki fixed her posture and sat up right, a smile forming as she revealed the ice cube in her palm. Maria smiled as well, picking a snack out of a nearby bowl and feeding it to Maki. Then the roles switched. Maria lowered her head and closed her eyes as Maki held the cube up for the fairy to hold once again.
"That's fifteen in a row between the two of them now."
Umi commented from Rin's other side. Like the rest of them, she had been transfixed on the couple's activities since the two had started.
"Their bond doesn't look as weak as they say with that kind of result."
It was Hanayo this time who commented, sitting on Umi's other side. Between them, Umi nodded.
"But still, it's nice how dedicated they both are. Doing whatever they can to practice and grow closer together, even when they could be resting."
"It's not that surprising. Maki learned from a young age about working hard for what she wants, and Maria is Honoka-sama's maid for a reason."
Eli reminded them of the two's backgrounds in a casual way. The other three simply nodded as fell back into silence while relaxing under the fairies' healing light and watching the couple practice.
"For them to talk about those things so easily..."
Maki sighed in her mind. Whether or not the group of four realized it, their voices were barely loud enough to carry over to where they sat.
"Relax. It's not like they mean anything bad by it."
Maria replied to Maki's thoughts in an almost inaudible whisper. Through their mental connection, Maki could feel comfort coming from Maria. While they still weren't at the stage to communicate mentally like Kotori and Honoka, they were already able to clearly understand each others' feelings and emotions through their Link thanks to the exercise with the ice cube.
Maki felt they were quickly approaching that same level of Mental Connection. They were already able to sense what the other was sensing, which allowed them to do this exercise. With feelings and emotions now also clearly shared between them, Maki concluded that communication was the last thing for them.
With their goal in mind, both refocused on their practice.
"Again."
Although kind a second ago, Anzu's face become serious as she demanded another round. Although Honoka was starting to feel the strain of the repeated attempts, she knew how important this was, so she nodded and got herself ready.
Anzu didn't hesitate. At the moment Honoka gave confirmation, she swung her right arm out and cast her spell. Blue mist formed momentarily in the air in front of Anzu before shooting forward toward Honoka.
Honoka reacted in kind. She raised her rapier in front of her and cast a shield spell. Although the shield was placed a few meters in front of her, Honoka still felt strain from the impact of Anzu's spell crashing into her shield.
10... 9... 8...
10 Seconds, that's how long Honoka needed to hold Anzu's spell off.
7... 6... 5...
Sooner than the last couple attempts, Honoka started to feel incredible strain from maintaining the shield against such a strong continuous spell.
4...
Her focus wavered ever so slightly, and the ice started pushing the shield in.
3... 2...
Honoka did her best to focus, but the pain to her mind still increased.
1... 0!
Almost as soon as the 10 seconds were up, she felt a familiar presence rush to her side from behind her. The blade of a sword, whose design was the same as her rapier, came into view. As soon as the blades touched, the pain Honoka was enduring from the ice was released all at once. The barrier pushed back to its original position. Honoka let out a relieved sigh.
But they both knew it wasn't over yet.
Kotori flashed a smile to Honoka before she began her part. Looking ahead where the ice spell was clashing with the shield, she began to think. She imagined a wall strong enough to resist that spell, even if it was for a second. To proceed, they would need to move out from behind their defense and switch to offense.
There was no opening present, so she had to create one.
As if responding to that desire, the wall she had been imagining in her mind began to materialize in front of them. The base formed in an instant, but that was no where near strong enough to resist Anzu's power for long enough. So Kotori remained focus, continually altering the material to become stronger.
What Kotori was doing required almost complete focus. Should she lose focus even by a little bit, then everything would fall apart. Because of such an extreme condition, she couldn't even communicate mentally with Honoka to signal when the moment was ready or to plan their next move.
Kotori knew that she didn't need to communicate with her either. She knew that when she felt the moment was right, Honoka would know as well.
And that moment was now.
Kotori finished her thought and the wall became reality. Just as it was fully formed, Honoka released her shield spell and both girls jumped in opposite directions, Honoka to the left and Kotori to the right. As expected, the wall only stood for a second against Anzu's spell before it broke through, despite it being a nearly unbreakable material in most cases.
"What power..."
Kotori couldn't help but think, both in admiration and in slight fear.
In the short moments from releasing her shield and dodging to the side, Honoka started to build up magic within her. At the same time she thought about her next spell, which fired light arrows at her target. As her feet touched the ground, the spell she was imagining set itself up in an instant, with five light arrows appearing around her. With a quick flick of her wrist, the magic she built up inside of her released all at once, causing the spell to activate and the light arrows to shoot toward Anzu.
Though, Honoka didn't aim the spell for the Creator herself. To her right, Kotori had began rushing forward as soon as she touched down from her jump. Anzu created ice shards and shot them at Kotori as a response. Kotori had sensed the counter-attack from the start, which was only about a split-second of time. But that was enough of a window for Honoka. With perfect accuracy, her light arrows intercepted the ice shards and allowed Kotori to continue her advance.
Anzu held her ground and prepared another counter. Both Kotori and Honoka sensed the magic build-up, but they weren't focused on the same thing. Anzu attacked with two different spells. One was a rain of ice shards from above, while the other was erupting shards from the ground.
Kotori focused on predicting the shards erupting from the ground, building a bit of magic to help her evade. She sensed a very small window for her to escape, and releasing magic at her feet, she kicked off the ground and jumped forward and to the right. She narrowly cleared the distance before the ice shard popped up where Kotori was not even a second ago.
Anzu had predicted Kotori would be able to dodge. Rather than having aimed the two spells at Kotori and Honoka separately, Anzu had meant both spells for Kotori. The ice shards from above were aimed at the area Kotori had evaded towards. The timing was to work out that before Kotori could land and jump again, the shards should fall.
Of course, Honoka wouldn't let that happen.
Her view of Kotori was interrupted intentionally by Anzu using the erupting ice. And with the timing of the second attack, Honoka wouldn't have enough time to make a wall big enough and strong enough to fully block the attack.
Even so, Honoka was determined not to fail.
Using their Link to find Kotori in her mind, Honoka quickly imagined her defense. She prioritized strengthening the wall and decided on making the wall just big enough for Kotori to fit behind. With conviction she accelerated the build-up process and materialized the wall. A soon as it became reality, Kotori pushed her body against it. The shards that made contact with the wall shattered. The rest landed around Kotori where the wall didn't reach.
Importantly, Kotori remained uninjured.
But she knew she couldn't waste time on that. She quickly got back up and ran forward, moving to the right to dodge another spell sent her way. Finally having closed enough distance, Kotori switched her mindset from defense to offense.
For the first time during this, Anzu's expression wavered.
Knowing she would be at a disadvantage the closer Kotori got, Anzu was forced to fall back. She used very quick spells as she did, but they did nothing in stopping Kotori as she closed in quicker than Anzu could fall back.
Kotori saw the opening, and she committed fully to it. She waited until Anzu had used another small spell, and in the moment she was casting it, Kotori released the magic she built up to move at an almost blinding speed. She swung her sword as she overtook Anzu, but the Creator managed to defend against the blade at just the last moment.
Having cut off Anzu's escape path, Kotori knew she had the advantage.
Anzu knew it as well, and she got a little more desperate.
She sent another freezing mist at Kotori while turning around and creating a barrier, just a moment before Honoka's rapier could reach her. The moment she realized her strike didn't make contact, Honoka jumped backward to create some distance.
On the other side of Anzu, Kotori had rolled out of the way of the mist. As soon as she was on her feet, both Kotori and Honoka closed in on Anzu. Predicting this, Anzu jumped to the side just as Kotori's sword came down.
As she did she, realized too late that it was only one blade.
Rather than going straight for Anzu like Kotori, Honoka moved to the side she knew Kotori would force Anzu to go with her sword. As soon Anzu started to jump, Honoka used magic at her feet while kicking off the ground to move almost instantaneously.
Anzu's body started to turn toward Honoka, only for her to stop when she felt a blade pressed against her side. She turned her head further to see the princess beside her, smiling.
"Gotcha."
Following the end of the round, the space they were in almost instantly repaired itself to look brand new. Not a trace what they had done was left, and it looked as empty as when they had first arrived.
"So... How did we do?"
Honoka was the first to ask for Anzu's assessment.
"Hmm... Let's see..."
Anzu had already decided on what to say. But she wasn't about to pass up the chance to get back at the duo she had just lost to. So she put a finger to her cheek and tilted her head as if thinking.
"You two quickly learned how to utilize the Gift's special properties to strengthen your magic, cast spells nearly instantly, and to create objects. Because of that, we proceeded to test how well you could utilize your Gift during combat. The goal was to land a single strike on me."
Anzu proceeded to summarize the events of their training and what led to their fight. Kotori and Honoka exchanged glances, both having quickly caught on to Anzu's stalling. Realizing she had been found out already, Anzu offered a smile before continuing.
"The goal was to achieve success within 10 attempts. Seeing as how it took only four, I would say you've passed this training and have mastered utilizing the Creator's Gift."
Hearing that, Kotori and Honoka's expressions relaxed significantly.
"Thank goodness."
Honoka let out a relief expression.
"I'm surprised though. It takes partner's with Soul Links years together to pull off some of the combinations these two were doing. Most never reach that point. Yet for these two to be so closely Linked together already..."
Anzu thought that while offering a smile to the two in front of her.
"I have one final thing to tell the two of you two."
Ending her reflection, Anzu called back for the couple's attention.
"Be very careful. While it's true you finished this training, you've only mastered controlling the Creators' Gift within you. There's still the demon magic you possess that you must be cautious of."
Hearing Anzu's warning, both Kotori and Honoka made surprised faces.
"Demon magic?"
Honoka echoed. Anzu nodded.
"Just like you inherited our gift through your parents, Kotori inherited demon magic from her mother. Though they have been suppressed for the most part, because I'm not familiar with what it can do, I can only caution you about it for now."
Anzu made a fairly grim expression compared to her usual smile, which made the girls realize how serious this was.
"Is there a way for us to get rid of it?"
Although Kotori asked, she had a feeling of what the answer would be. Seeing Anzu shake her head confirmed it.
"As I have said, I'm not familiar enough with its properties to answer that. If you get a chance to learn more about it somehow, I encourage you to do so as long as it doesn't put either of you at risk."
Anzu's voice sounded almost like she was pleading. Sensing that, Honoka nodded.
"Don't worry. Kotori-chan has been suppressing it so far, and it should be easier now with the both of us in control."
"We also won't go risking anything just to try anything out."
Kotori agreed with Honoka and added her own promise. Anzu couldn't help but smile and nod.
"Very well. Shall we return?"
Hey everyone, nobodD here!
As a quick little comment, this chapter might look a little different than my usual writing. I was experimenting with a slightly different writing style. Just thought I'd let anyone who noticed know, haha.
Anyway, moving onto the chapter. So the opening is just supposed to be a light scene, as I wanted the training to be the main focus of the chapter. I didn't want it to be a completely boring scene, so I threw in Maria and Maki's little exercise.
As for the properties of the Creator's Gifts, it has a lot of influence on something I just binge-read heavily over the last week or so. It was an idea I personally loved, and it fit perfectly with my intent of giving Kotori and Honoka something just for them to use but that wasn't overly broken for the rest of the story. There are going to be moments where they can't brute force their way through, so I had to give them something that wouldn't ruin that.
Sorry, again, about the long wait time between updates now. I'm either working too much, gaming too much, or reading too much, that I don't always get to writing. At the least I've lessened the amount of games I play each day, and I'm not 1000% invested in this new series I started reading. So, in theory I should have more time. But we all know how that goes, haha... Sorry t.t
Anyway, hopefully I didn't just drive people off by admitting that. See you next time~