Warning: Suggested Violence.
Kaoru crouched by the door, fingers slick on the hilt of the ceremonial dagger she had snatched from the belt of an unconscious guard. It was too heavy, too ornate to be any good at throwing but the blade was sharp. Sweat beaded at her temples; the oppressive heat that had been bearing down on the city was turning damp with the storm building to the west. When the rain finally broke it would help cool the city off, but until then everything and everyone was covered in a fine sheen of moisture.
A soft clatter had the hair on the back of her neck rising and Misao's soft, yet furious swearing had the muscles clenching painfully.
"Misao!"
There was silence and then a word that Kaoru was certain did not apply to anything in this realm.
She didn't dare attempt to silence Misao again. Either her friends clever – if sweaty and overheated – fingers would get them into the desk or they wouldn't. And either luck would be on their side and that was where that short, fat balding little cricket of a man was keeping it… or it wouldn't be. But as long as they managed not to alert the very sensitive spells (or worse, the very sensitive guards) to their presence, they should manage just fine.
Still, the fact that they had found what was most certainly the remains of a rustic if well managed circle in the courtyard made her uneasy. Demons always complicated matters. Demons that required circles to pull through the barriers made her nervous. There were only a few that she wouldn't be able to feel right off and the way her luck had been holding lately…
They just really needed to get that amulet and get the hell out of this realm. Another muffled noise from Misao had her shifting silently, so that she was balanced on her toes and the strain of her current position was on her calves. Misao's normal knack for any sort of challenging lock was apparently failing her and they were running out of time.
Even as hyper aware as she was, she wasn't expect the mage that casually strolled into the office. Kaoru swore viciously in her mind. Their scouting report said that no one had the power it took to pull of that particular 'no see and no hear' spell.
The mage's attack was reactive and Kaoru dodged the very nasty spell swung her foot out, knocking the mage off balance. Her free hand yanked a herb packet open and she flung the salt and herb mixture directly into his face. The mage screamed, clawing at his eyes. She didn't want to waste the power silencing him so she clocked him in the jaw with the dagger and rolled to her feet. The sounds of magical and physical alarms were blaring; if the mage's twisted spell was the idea of 'instinctive' around here, she didn't want to stick around.
"Misao!"
"Got it, got it just… five seconds…."
Kaoru didn't bother looking to see what she was doing. Instead, she slammed the dagger into the door jam, blocking the immediate opening of the door. All the locks had disengaged to allow easy access to the troops and the dagger would hold as long as that demon wasn't fire based.
Reaching for a spell, she fed it just enough power to make the lettering spark along the paper and then left it on the floor. If anything was flung at their backs while they were making an escape it would create a distraction. Depending on the force of the spell flung at them, it could be a very large distraction.
"Got it!"
Her voice crowed triumph just as Kaoru flung herself over the top of the desk – scattering everything on the desk as the door blew open.
Fire demon.
Rolling to her knees, she shoved her hand straight into the desk, felt for the box that her informant had sworn was there, yanked it out – ignoring the bite and sting of a thousand tiny spell needles and twisted around the edge of the desk to see what they were dealing. Misao grabbed the box and used her second specialty magic to force it open.
The soft tap told her all she needed to know and she grasped her last pre-set roll of spells just as the fire demon strolled through the door. Her eyes clashed with molten yellow and she froze. Familiar red bangs framed a pale, sharp jawed face and the demon stilled, eyes holding hers. Shock slammed into her stomach and rose, twisting into a knot she couldn't swallow around. The sudden rise in temperature in the room made it almost as difficult to breathe at the small curve of thin lips.
When had he gotten wings?
That sort of power upgrade in just a few decades was alarming and meant that she had been right about him. It was the realization that it was him and that he was watching her with eyes that saw too much and he had gone and lied to her – again – about his particular power level.
And she couldn't make herself move.
Thankfully, her partner could and did. The demon in front of her might have been a fire demon, but her partner was half water nymph and used it to their advantage whenever possible – and it had started to rain. Kaoru didn't pay any attention to the cadence of her words, instead she curled her fingers into the scroll she needed and waited for the chance to amplify whatever it was that Misao was doing.
K – the demon noticed her movements and shifted forward, a graceful motion of muscle and bone, the snap of his wings flattening against his back a sign of his temper – then the world exploded into blues and greens and she let go her of own spell. Misao's grip on her hand jerked her up and backwards just as whatever K—he was using as a counter spell hit her original scroll and the force of the explosion shoved them both out the open window and airborne.
Kaoru had the energy for a safety net but it would delay her ability to handle more than a single realm skip. But since broken bones were worse, she quickly fashioned what she wanted out of the remains of Misao's spell and used the cold of nymph magic to hide from the rush of heat that arched near where they had landed.
When she dared open her eyes again, they were on a roof several hundreds of miles and at least one realm away from that thrice damned city. Collapsing onto the roof, she panted. The last spell had hurt and her arm was still stinging from the alarm spells.
Wherever they were now, it was raining much harder than it had been… so that meant south and east and possible into one of the nymph realms. But for the moment they were safe and she could feel the heat of the tattoo against her spine already working to counteract whatever the safety spells had been.
"Damn." Misao said as she flopped. "You would think after fifty years of this, you would have gotten a little better at being a conductor, Kaoru."
"Oh shut it you." Kaoru said. "I would have heard that mage coming if you hadn't been swearing the air blue."
Misao made a rude noise. It was silent for several moments before she spoke again.
"So I take it you know the redhead?"
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