"So exactly what will these circles do?" Drake had never been one for idle banter, but between aiding an agent to kill her obviously-insane student and carrying what he was certain were toxic chemicals, he figured some knowledge would at least make him feel better. A little.
"Ano, they're used for surveillance," Yomiko explained as she disenchanted another circle. "But if Hisaki wanted to, she could also blast fire from them."
"So we're walking down a path of possible death? Lucky."
"Not exactly 'lucky' – "
"Sarcasm, Paper."
Drake took point, using the orbo to search for spell circles. When he found one Yomiko cautiously stepped in and disenchanted it. It took them almost an hour to make their way down to the vaults, where they found Hisaki. The girl, dressed in a faded blouse and jeans, had her back to them, was facing one of the vault doors, and did not seem aware of their presence.
Yomiko and Drake used this to their advantage. They immediately fired a volley of missiles on the girl with their respective weapons as they rushed in. Yomiko's cards abruptly burned up halfway across the large cavern. Drake fared slightly better: his orbo bullets exploded about half a metre away from Hisaki.
The pyromaniac spun around, surprised. The circles had warned Hisaki about Yomiko's impending arrival, but she had ignored them. Instead, the younger girl had been focused on trying to get into the vault, devoting her entire attention and magical energy on it. She had thought that she could enter, steal and escape before the pair arrived, but had apparently badly miscalculated her 'superior' abilities: all that showed of her progress was a hand-sized circle on the door that glowed a dull red. Four steel doors, the vaults of the Library, were set in the cement walls, each one about six feet wide and ten feet high. The entire cavern was roughly fifteen feet in diameter, dimly lit with a string of lights leading from the hallway the agents had arrived from.
Hisaki grimaced, then raised her arms above her head. A long spear of smokeless fire appeared above her. With a yell she hurled the weapon at the two, who barely dodged it and split up after doing so. Hisaki followed up with a series of fireballs aimed at Drake. He could only raise his arms in defence, but the fireballs shattered harmlessly on an invisible barrier before him.
Drake lowered his arms, confused but pleasantly surprised. "My lucky day," he said to himself. Looking around, he noticed that the vial of orbo on his chest was glowing brightly and bubbling. Assuming that he survived this, there would have to be one thing that went on the report: "Glowing, bubbling and untested 'orbo' chemical works under magical conditions, specifically when giant balls of fire are being hurled at the user. Send another idiot to do your damn field tests, Joker."
Hisaki frowned. The pyromancer didn't know why she couldn't hurt the man, but she didn't care to stop and think now. She turned on Yomiko, throwing several handfuls of fire at her. In midflight each ball split apart, forming a dozen darts of fire that flew at the Paper Master. Yomiko's response was to throw a cloud of paper darts back. When the two sets of weapons collided in midair they both vanished in tiny puffs of smoke.
Hisaki blinked in shock. Paper was just as strong as fire? Her thoughts were interrupted when Yomiko seemed to appear out of nowhere, slicing at Hisaki with a paper sword. Hisaki was just able to skip out of the way before conjuring up a sword of her own and blocking the next blow. The Paper quickly backed away, her sword showing a blackened nick where Hisaki had blocked it.
"What are you doing?" demanded Yomiko.
"What does it look like?" Hisaki retorted. "Are you dense or something?"
"Hey, only I insult The Paper and get away with it!" yelled Drake as he opened fire on Hisaki. Hisaki threw up a thick shield of fire; the bullets shattered on it, dissolving the shield.
"Um…" Yomiko took a moment to mull over Hisaki's question. In the meantime, Hisaki threw her flaming sword at Drake in retaliation, only to have it smash harmlessly over his invisible shield. Yomiko was brought out of her thoughtful meditation with a yelp when she dodged Hisaki's next magical attack, a fiery staff that attempted to spear her through the chest.
"You're trying to kill me!" Yomiko suddenly shouted. Hisaki rolled her eyes.
"Of course I am. Don't sound so surprised." As she spoke, several balls of fire formed around her, then shot at Yomiko. Hisaki kept up her attack as she advanced on her former master, who frantically batted away the balls.
"I read those diaries and found a few things out," Hisaki said calmly. "Like how Paper Masters get so powerful. Did you know that to get stronger, you have to kill your teacher?"
"That's not true!" Yomiko yelled, deflecting another shot. Drake attempted to shoot Hisaki again, but the girl dodged in a flash of fire. The bullets hit the wall near Yomiko, inches from her body, and sprayed her with orbo.
"Damn," Drake muttered. The girls were too far away from him and too close to each other to risk another shot. He also had a limited supply of ammo, which meant he couldn't afford to waste it on reckless shooting attempts.
If they were taking cuts from his overtime pay, they could at least use the money to buy ammunition. Damn pennypinchers.
"And that's why you didn't teach me anything good," continued Hisaki. She held out her hands, forming a glowing spell circle between them. A pillar of fire went up, engulfing her in its fiery embrace.
"Die!" she shouted, and the pillar exploded. A thick wall of fire travelled outwards from her like a shockwave, burning anything in its path.
When the wall hit Drake the invisible barrier went up, protecting him. The orbo glowed brighter and bubbled fiercely. Knowing what was going to happen (given the amount of luck he had used up today), Drake forced his way to the corridor he and Yomiko had come through and ran in just as his vial and bullets exploded, unable to take the magical pressure. The American hit the floor and rolled as flames rushed over him, passing quickly. Whatever did manage to catch fire on him he quickly smothered out.
"The Paper!" Drake yelled, re-entering the room. The room was blackened and smelled strongly of ash.
Hisaki stood near the opposite end of the room, laughing madly. A powerful and continuous beam of fire was aimed at Yomiko; the image of a dragon breathing fire came to Drake's mind. The Paper was barely visible through the curtain of flames that enveloped her.
"Burn, The Paper!" Hisaki laughed. "Burn!"
Somewhere in the flames there was a growl, then The Paper gradually appeared in the blaze. She had an arm raised defensively, as though she was pushing against a strong gust of wind; flames appeared to roll off of her clothes. Her eyes were narrowed in anger and her face looked determined.
The Paper suddenly lunged through the blast, spearing the stunned Hisaki through the chest with her paper sword.
The fire instantly went out as Hisaki's hands dropped to her sides. Yomiko stood in front of her former student, panting with exertion and sweating profusely. Her clothes looked a shade darker, her hair was wrinkled from heat, and she smelled faintly of something singed. The typically naïve and curious expression that rested in her eyes was gone, replaced by a fiercer, more forbidding look.
Hisaki stared at Yomiko pleadingly. The Paper's grip on her sword tightened as the teenager attempted a breath.
"How..."
Yomiko glared and her paper sword exploded, sending bloody paper razors and pieces of flesh and bone shooting in every direction. The Paper didn't flinch as Hisaki's upper half disintegrated in a bloody shower.
A whole...response...thingy. Yeah. I'm tired.
omasuoniwabanshi: I taught a grade 8 class, although I was technically on rotary and had to do some grade 7 as well. Whew. I would've written the previous chapter sooner, had the first draft not sounded horribly religious and angsty. It wasn't even good angst.
Then I went to Shanghai and, er, didn't write as much. Eh heh. I found the wet hair joke amusing too.
Karajima: When I look back on it, yes, Yomiko was fairly out of character. I had trouble writing her up in the beginning though, because I had never seen Yomiko interact with a teenager on a teacher-student basis. My excuse was that she was drawing on Donny's teaching experience (from my last story). Which didn't end well. So she had to be a little stricter in the beginning, just in case something went horribly horribly wrong. Which happened anyway.
So...this was a hard chapter to write. The first draft was really lacklustre, in my opinion, and needed stuff.
Technically, the story's finished. Hisaki's dead, the Library'll recover and...yeah. I might write an epilogue-type thing (this feels like it needs closure), but I'm trying to avoid something overly angsty.
I will try to write an epilogue. Yes, reviews will motivate me to write it faster. Hint hint. n.n;
Sunday, July 31, 2005