Chapter the fourth, in which people talk about doing things for the whole chapter, and Hitomi learns how to fight.
May 20, 01:09 PM – Fifty-four days, ten hours, fifty-one minutes remaining.
"What took you?" Lilly said as Hitomi approached the gate. She felt horrible shame pass over her in waves.
"I'm sorry." Hitomi said mutely. "I tried to get here as quickly as I could, but Sayaka's home is twenty minutes from the hospital, and another twenty from the school. It took me longer than I expected." she looked up at Lilly, blushing from the internal disgrace she felt. "Please forgive me."
"Stop that, Lilly." Max said. "That's just cruel."
"Sorry." Lilly said quietly. "I can't really control it, you know."
Hitomi shook her head, clearing it. She shuddered, looking up at Lilly for a moment, then sighed. "Are we ready to go?" she asked.
"Should be." Eve said.
"Hold up, I want to finish this." Alice was eating a candy bar of a brand that Hitomi didn't recognize. "Just give me a few more seconds." she took another large bite. Hitomi noticed a good five empty wrappers in her left hand.
"Apparently, her healing costs a good bit of chemical energy too." Eve explained. "Which explains a few things, actually."
"Don't complain." Alice said. "You know you like cooking anyway." Eve stiffened and looked away. Alice giggled. "You do, even if you won't admit it."
"How did you get these?" Hitomi asked Alice. She giggled. Eve stiffened further. Max sighed. Lilly laughed.
"Do you think that was really that hard?" Lilly asked airily.
Hitomi sighed. "Forget I asked." she looked at Eve. "I could have given you money if you'd told me."
"We didn't think that we'd need it." Eve said. "There weren't supposed to be pit stops."
"Finished." Alice said, vaporizing the wrappers with a quick spell circle. She giggled and flexed her hand. "Oh, that feels good. It might have only been a few hours, but I missed spell-casting."
"Come on, then." Max hit the stone, blue sparks from his hand going into the runes and making them glow. As the portal began to form, Hitomi turned to him.
"Hey." she said tentatively. "I've noticed, the magic you and Eve do seems to be different to the magic Alice and I can. Is that right?"
"Yes, it is. There are several dozen mutually exclusive systems of magic." He nodded at Lilly. "Her beast-magic and voice control is a third, completely separate type. And Fox is something different again. It's actually more rare that we'd have any two people using the same kind in a party of eight, even stranger still that we have two groups of two."
The portal finished forming, and Eve stepped in. "Enough exposition. Come on now." she went in fully and disappeared. Alice bounced in second.
"Jaxx is going to be so worried!" she said, jumping through without pause.
"Well, you won't let me be left alone with anyone, so I have to go next." Lilly said, shaking her head and stepping in. "At least there's actually five of us this time. When we came in, Eve and Max held my hands together the whole way through." she sighed, and went through.
Hitomi shook her head. "Does she not realize how scary she is?" she gave her school a final look, then stepped through the portal. This time, she just kept her eyes shut and mouth closed until she felt the cold marble floor beneath her. She opened her eyes. Surprisingly enough, there were even less people here now. It looked like only two or three people outside of their group were awaiting arrivals or getting ready to leave this world. Eve was looking at the nearly empty room with sadness. Hitomi supposed it made sense. Every time she used the portal, it must remind her of the decaying of her world.
A few seconds later, Max appeared through the gate, shivering slightly for a moment before recovering. Eve nodded when he arrived. "Let's go." she said, motioning to the group. They followed in silence.
The trip through the city was uneventful, though Hitomi did notice that it seemed almost grayer then it had been the last time she had seen it. The people walking around were just slightly more muted, slightly less energetic. It wasn't much, but everything felt just slightly off. As if the people somehow knew that they were on the edge of some tragedy, but couldn't really tell what.
They reached the teleport gate in no time, and within three minutes they were gathered together in the meeting room. Hitomi looked around. This was the only common room she hadn't been in yet. It wasn't much to look at. There used to be stained glass windows lining the back wall, but they were all shattered now. The left wall was partly collapsed, rubble still piled up in heaps. A few scraps of red carpet still lined the floor in front of the door, leading through what was likely at one point the middle of the room and ending at the broken remains of what might have at one time been a throne. The room was fairly well lit at least, the old touch-holders filled with florescent light-bulbs. Hitomi was briefly swept with curiosity as to the events which lead to the destruction of almost exactly half of the castle, but her attention was brought back to the present by Eve, who addressed the assembled group.
"I called this meeting to explain certain things, and to also make sure everyone in the group is up to speed with the plan." she started, looking around. "Our first order of business is-"
"Our first order of business is giving you a good smack." Jaxx said, leaping onto the table and approaching Eve angrily, his tail swishing back and forth with barely contained rage "How could you let poor master Alice go out on her own like that! I will hold you personally responsible-"
Eve's eyes flashed red, and she threw an array of sparks at Jaxx, who promptly started yowling. After a few more attempts at normal speech, he angrily hissed and walked back to Alice, curling up in her lap. Eve sighed. "Alice, can you please keep tighter control on your familiar?"
"Sorry." Alice said.
"As I was saying, our first order of business is at this point a formality, but as there are still matters involved with it to discuss, I do believe it merits our attention." Eve continued. "Alice, while on her way to pick up Hitomi, was attacked and injured. She has been safely returned to us now."
"Hi." Alice said to the group.
"However, the details of her encounter has led me to believe that the devourers, our enemy, are to at least some degree aware our movements." Eve said. "This has led me to make three conclusions. First, we need to move more quickly than I thought. If we are already singled out as at least some level of threat, then we have no time to loose - and no time to spare. As such, I have decided to move up the date of our first attack to tomorrow at dawn, some five hours from now."
There was a murmur from the rest of the group. Hitomi saw Derick and Max exchange some words. Fox grinned. Lilly sighed. Alice seemed nonplussed.
"Secondly, none of our group should be allowed to travel alone." Eve said. "We should always stick in groups of two or three at all times when going on any kind of mission, even just to the store. There are only three exceptions to this rule: When we are here, when we are in Derick's world, and when we are in Hitomi's world. Does everyone understand?"
Everyone nodded. Hitomi sighed with relief. For a moment there, she thought she might have been disallowed from attending classes. She looked at Derick briefly. She supposed it made sense that he would have some kind of normal life as well. If he was from an advanced alien civilization, it wasn't very likely that he lived here. He probably had a house, and a family, and went to school just like she did. It was a bit weird to think about.
"Thirdly..." Eve said, then paused. She gave a brief look around the room, waiting until she was sure that everyone was giving her their full attention. "It seems likely from their knowledge of our movements and their ability to so easily identify and ambush our second-weakest member, while on her way to pick up our weakest no less..." she paused again, and sighed. "I really don't want to say this, but I think we have a spy in our party."
No one said a word. Eve continued. "We can rule out Alice and Hitomi from the list of possible candidates, being as one of them was attacked and the other has barely known of magic for two days. But it could very easily be any one of the rest of us." Eve said. "This is in part why I've been so frank about exactly what I'm planning right now. I can't explain now, but what happens when we arrive in five hours will confirm or deny one of my suspicions. With that in mind, Hitomi, Derick, please do not speak of what happened between the three of us last night until after the assault."
"What happened?" Alice asked Hitomi, confused.
"I can't say, apparently." Hitomi whispered. "Not that I understand it anyway."
"Wait, so there's a spy among us?" Max said, looking around. "One of the five of us is a spy for the enemy?"
"One of the six." Eve said. "I could theoretically also be the spy. It's only Hitomi and Alice who are ruled out for sure."
"No, you really couldn't." Fox dismissed the notion with a wave. "You'd need more than then a confession to convince anyone here that it was you. Heck, if the king of the devourers came over and told us it was you after you had confessed I'd still have a hard time."
Everyone around the table nodded, looking at each other with suspicion. Eve sighed. "Look, there's no point in trying to figure out who it is right now. It's in their best interests, especially now that we know that there is one, for them to be as normal as possible. As such, being that this is the first assault and all, it would be rather stupid for them to blow their cover now. We can count on them to act normal in combat, at least for today. From a 'not dying' standpoint, the less time we spend distrusting each other and the more time we spend working together, the more likely we'll be to succeed. From a purely combat perspective, it's in everyone's interests to act as if there isn't a spy until we can be more sure of what is going on. Otherwise, we'll just tear ourselves apart before the enemy even reaches us."
"Well, that won't be hard at all." Silvia said, shaking her head slowly. "It's not like this makes us afraid that we're going to be stabbed in the back at any moment."
"Just concentrate on doing your best." Eve said. "After this attack, we'll have some time to really try to figure things out. Then everyone is free to play the blaming game all they want."
Hitomi looked at Eve with confusion for a moment. She couldn't really see the point in telling everyone that there was a spy and then expecting them to not do anything about it. There was something else going on here, she could tell.
Everyone shot a few last looks across the table, but they settled down fairly quickly. Eve sighed, then began to speak again. "Our second order of business is the actual attack plan. Luckily, it's nothing to complex, so we won't be loosing much other than surprise if the spy does contact them in the next few hours." Eve opened her palm, and blew a flurry of red sparks into the air. They hung there for a moment, then formed into a rough holographic projection of what Hitomi could only assume was the surrounding area. "We are here." Eve said, a red dot flashing briefly. "And there are three enemy encampments within two hundred and fifty kilometers of us." Three small red boxes were highlighted. If the area in the projection was really two hundred and fifty kilometers, they were at least one hundred from each other. "The plan is the absolute simplest thing I could devise. We're going to attack the group geographically closest to us. Each of the groups should have one commander of some kind. I've never actually seen them, unfortunately. These dots are just where I've detected large amounts of corruption. It should be fairly obviously, with any luck, who is in charge. So we go in, kill anyone in the camp, and then through the power of Lilly's sweet words we extract the location of one of the champions from whoever is in charge. If we fail in the attack for any reason, we try again the next night against the next closest target. The morning after that, we attack again. We continue to do so every twelve hours until we get the information we need."
"Simple enough." Derick nodded. "If the plan involves killing everyone, there's not much they can do to plan around that."
"Alright." Eve said. "Are there any questions?"
"Um..." Hitomi put her hand up. There was a brief pause.
"Yes, Hitomi?" Eve asked. "What is it?"
"Well, given the scale of the map you were discussing, that nearest encampment is more than eighty kilometers away." Hitomi said. "How are we going to get there?"
"Leave that to me." Derick said. "I can handle localized teleportation of up to fifty kilometers. Two hops, and we'll be there."
Eve nodded. "We'll be using everything we have. The enemy isn't going to hold back, so neither are we. This isn't a game. Clean kills don't earn you more points, and saving your special attacks for the final boss is just wasted opportunity to kill something else quicker. We want them dead and us alive. That is the only objective."
"Yeah, yeah." Fox said. "Don't worry about that, Eve. If there's anything this party is bad at, it's self control. I don't think 'holding back' was really ever in the plans."
"Is that all?" Eve asked the assembled group.
"Seems it." Lilly said. "If you will excuse me, I need to find my arrows. They've gone missing, and if we're going to attack in five hours..." she trailed off, standing up. "I can't say I agree with moving up the times, but I will differ to your judgment, for now."
Hitomi noticed Eve letting out a sharp sigh as Lilly stopped talking. She looked shaken for a moment before her eyes cleared and she turned back to the group at large.
"Hitomi, Derick, I'd like you two to stay here for a moment longer." Eve said. "Otherwise, you are free to go."
"Hey, come and see me when you're done here!" Alice said, nudging Hitomi. "If we only have a few hours, I'd better show you a few combat spells right away!" she giggled. Hitomi couldn't tell if she was just putting on a brave act or if she was legitimately excited at the prospect of going into battle. Probably both. She got up and skipped out of the room, followed by Lilly and Max. Fox gave Eve a wink as he left, disappearing from notice before he made it to the door.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Silvia asked Eve quietly, but easily loud enough for Hitomi to hear.
"No." Eve said. "But we have to try at some point."
"I don't have as much combat experience as you do, but I am more than twice your age." Silvia said. "If you need help, you can ask us, you know. You don't need to do everything on your own. Part of being a good leader is knowing the skills of the people under you and using them to your best advantage."
"I know." Eve said. "I just wish we had a good leader to make those kinds of calls."
Silvia paused, opened her mouth, closed it again, then sighed. She patted Eve on the shoulder twice and walked out.
Derick turned to Eve. "So, I'm guessing this is about what Hitomi did last night."
"Yes." Eve said. "We need to figure this out before she goes into battle, preferably. I know we're down most of our brainpower, but hopefully the three of us will come up with something."
"And if I'm the spy, I already know about it, so there's no use in trying to keep it hidden from me." Derick said. "You know, spy's just add another layer of unwanted complexity to all this."
"I hand picked half of you, and that damn cat found the other half." Eve said. "If there's a spy here, it's my fault. I have an idea of what's really going on, but unfortunately it doesn't work if I tell anyone what my suspicions are. If I'm wrong, I might give them ideas; if I'm right... things are going to get even more complicated."
"Let's not dwell on that now. I trust you know what you're doing." Derick said, turning to Hitomi. "Besides, we have other things to think about."
Hitomi felt a chill pass down her spine as Eve and Derick examined her intently. No one said anything for a few tense seconds. Eventually, Eve broke the silence.
"You don't have the slightest clue what you did, do you." she said flatly.
Hitomi felt herself relax a little. It made her feel better for someone else to say it, for some reason. "No, I'm sorry." she said. "It's certainly never happened before to me."
"Well, then." Derick said. "Let's examine the facts. First, you underwent a clear transformation when it happened. I mean, your hair doubled in length magically; that's not something that normally just happens. And you somehow managed to cast some kind of force spell on your sword, despite not knowing any combat magic of any kind."
"Then there were those two green marks behind your head." Eve said. "One over each shoulder. They seemed to be two eighths of a dashed circle, from what it looked like."
"I felt a huge wave of magic course through me when it started." Hitomi said. "Not quite as shocking as when I first became a witch, but still pretty big. Also, my hands had glowing runes on them."
"Can you draw the runes for me?" Eve said, handing Hitomi a sheet of paper. She looked at the page for a moment, then pushed it back to Eve.
"No. I wasn't really paying attention, and they were fairly complex. I can only remember that there were some number of runes inscribed inside what looked like glowing circles."
"Well, that tells us for sure it's not the same kind of magic that you witches use. If it was, you'd remember the runes instantly without effort." Eve said. "So it has to be something else."
Hitomi nodded. Derick opened his spell book and flipped through the holographic screen for a few moments, searching for something.
"I wouldn't suppose you would be able to do it again, would you?" Derick asked after a moment's pause.
"I think it only happened because I was scared for my life." Hitomi said apologetically. "I don't think that I could activate it again at will."
"Could you try?" Derick said, and Eve slapped him on the back of the head. He rubbed it and scowled at her. "Ow! It's not a stupid suggestion." He turned back to Hitomi. "Try remembering your fear, and see if you can pull up the energy again. After you activate a mysterious ability the first time, it seems to go that it gets much, much easier to activate it a second time."
Hitomi nodded. "I can try." she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to feel her past fear again. She plunged into her mind, calming down as she attempted to let herself go back into a previous state. Her thoughts began to settle as she looked through herself for the feeling that she had, to call up the mysterious power that she had felt. After a short time, she came to the conclusion that any introspective thought which led her to calm down this much was probably not what she wanted. She was about to admit she had no idea what she was doing and give up, when she felt something. It flowed up through her as she became calmer, using her mental leave of absence to push its way through her. She took a hold of it and let it flow into her, until she felt a tingling spread across her body.
Hitomi opened her eyes slowly. A magical circle appeared beneath her feet, and runes materialized on her palms. She felt a wave of energy overtake her, though less severe than the night before. A glowing green mark appeared behind her head, centered down her core. She turned to the others, her eyes radiating green light.
"Well, I'll be." Eve said. "That certainly is something else." she shook her head slowly. "You look like a regular little demi-goddess."
"I wouldn't go quite that far, but it's impressive for sure." Derick said. "According to this, her energy signature just roughly doubled."
"That's still huge." Eve said. "And she's nowhere near as fully transformed as she was last night."
"I feel... strange." Hitomi said. She shook her head, and her eyes dimmed, the runes fading slowly.
"And..." Derick paused. "Back to baseline."
"So, that confirms it, if anything does." Eve said. "It's definitely not your normal magic, if it serves to make you more powerful in and of itself. It forces a magical transformation, and apparently can happen in at least two different levels. It also allows you to use magic you don't really know, as long it's something simple. Hold on..." Eve seemed to be thinking, putting a hand up against her forehead and knocking on it lightly. "I think I might know what this is." she stood up. "You two wait here. I'm going to get a book from the Library." she looked down at the other two. "I'll be back in a minute." she left the room.
"Well, Hitomi, looks like you're quite the special girl, one way or another." Derick said. "You've got quite the ability there, whatever it is."
Hitomi didn't say anything. She wasn't sure this was such a good thing. She highly doubted she would be able to do it on call; she'd basically done it through luck this time, and was fairly certain that while she could most likely reproduce the effect, it would take another minute for her to do so. It wouldn't be a particularity effective tool in combat, especially given that she couldn't seem to maintain it and hold a conversation at the same time, let alone carry out a battle plan. If they started to rely on her being able to do this, she could only see it ending in disaster.
"Don't we all?" she countered. Derick laughed.
"I suppose so." he sighed. "Hey, if this lets you become a good combat mage, it'll take a lot of weight off of my shoulders. With Alice being a utility mage, Lilly being... whatever she is, Fox only being able to do stealth, and Eve concentrating on melee combat, I'm really the only good ranged magical fighter in the party. Having another combat mage who actually used combat magic instead of magic to help their combat would be nice."
"I wouldn't jump to any conclusions." Hitomi said. "We just figured out I could do this yesterday, and we're not really sure what it does yet."
"You've only had magic at all for two days, yet you seem confident enough with that already." Derick said. "War has the effect of turning the sweetest schoolgirls into hardened heroes in a span of time you wouldn't think possible. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon enough."
"Humanity has been warring since... well, as long as there have been humans, most likely." Hitomi said. "We haven't figured out everything yet, and we've been giving it a quarter million years at least. I'm not sure I'll break any new ground in fifty days. I don't want you to get your hopes up. I don't think I'm going to be that great of a warrior, war or not."
"People change in strange ways, given enough pressure." Derick said, looking at Hitomi curiously. "I would think you'd be happy. I mean, it looks like you're going to be quite the little fighter. Plenty of power to protect those friends of yours with."
"I don't think I have to become someone else in order to be strong." Hitomi said. She shook her head. When had they transitioned from talking about her fighting style to her personality? She must have missed something.
"Hitomi, do you seriously expect to make it through this without changing?" Derick said. "Because that just won't happen. Don't get me wrong, I think sweet innocence is a precious thing, but it doesn't have a place in a hero. It's a luxury, and one you can't really afford if you want to make it through this alive. We fight so others can keep it, but us? We don't have a chance." he looked directly into her eyes. "I'm not going to sugar coat this, Hitomi. You might be only thirteen, but you've been an adult since you agreed to take on this quest." the reflections of florescent lighting flashed across his eyes. "Within one week, you will have killed someone who is just as human as we are. I can nearly guarantee it. Not some monster, not some evil creature, but another person. There's always someone. Heck, for all we know, you'll have to do it in five hours. Heroes change. That's how it works. They have to do terrible things to protect what they care for, and doing terrible things is what makes jaded warriors out of children."
"I am fully aware." Hitomi said, looking up at him with forced defiance as she trembled from his words. "I am more than willing to give up my innocence. That isn't a question. But I don't think I need to lose my humanity to do it." Hitomi paused, then looked back up at Derick, her gaze intensifying. "Most people think being mature is the same as being self-centered, that all kindness is naivete, and that anyone who goes through hell still thinking there is good in the world is asking for it. But being cynical isn't being mature. It's just as stupid as being naive; perhaps more so, as at least naive people have the chance of finding happiness later. No matter what happens, I won't let my humanity die. I'll shed naivete, but I'm not going to throw all my kindness and hope out with it. I refuse to accept that all that exists beyond childhood is suffering, that life is one grand struggle to find the softest spot on a bed of nails."
"Hitomi..." Derick said. He seemed to want to say more, but he sighed. "I'll just hope you're right. But if we're going to be fighting in a real, honest-to-goodness life-or-death battle in five hours, I don't want something like the fact that the enemy has faces to hold you up. We're going to have to kill people in less than three hundred minutes, and that's a bit of a leap for someone who's never even really been in a fight before."
"I'll handle it." Hitomi said. "Or I'll die." She blinked again. Had she really just said that? Perhaps she was changing.
"That's just it. I don't want you to die." Derick said. "And as much as you might think you're ready, you never really know until..."
Derick was interrupted by Eve reentering the room. She looked back and forth between the two of them, then sighed. "I have no idea what you two did while I was away, but you both look mildly upset now. Can we please put whatever quarrel you two have managed to start in the span of the three minutes I was away and apply ourselves to the task at hand?"
"..." Derick paused. "I'm sorry, Hitomi."
"I wasn't really under the impression that we were fighting." Hitomi said flatly.
"Whatever." Eve said, putting a book down on the table. "I think I've found it, and if I'm right, there's no wonder why Jaxx led me to you."
"I did say give it two days." Jaxx said, appearing by Hitomi's legs and hopping onto the table, seemingly recovered from whatever Eve had done earlier. "It might have taken a few hours longer than forty-eight, but I think you can forgive me. It's hard to keep things straight when you have one paw in the present, one paw in the past, one in-"
"-the future, and one out of time altogether." Eve finished. "If you don't have anything useful to say, please don't say it, Jaxx."
"I don't understand it." Jaxx said. "You seem to hate me so much, Eve, and all I do is help you." he sighed. "You humans are so weird. You never seem to do the logical thing."
"I am not human, and I take offense that you would say such a thing." Eve countered. "I am a proud Valkyrie warrior, thank you very much."
Hitomi wasn't sure, but she thought Jaxx might have rolled his eyes. "I'm going back to Alice. She appreciates me." he paused, rubbing against Hitomi briefly as he left. "Oh, and Hitomi does as well, of course. My masters are nice, unlike some people."
"Anyway," Eve said as Jaxx left the room. "as I was saying, I think I know what you've done, Hitomi." she smiled at her kindly. "Don't worry, it's a good thing. Well, mostly a good thing. Like anything, it has its dangers, but it's not an inherently evil power or anything."
"What is it, then?" Derick said. "I don't get this weird obsession you have with the pronoun game, Eve. We're not in a movie or a book. You don't need to artificially increase the suspense."
"Geez." Eve said. "Fine, fine. Well, Hitomi, it looks like you're a form shifter. Maybe."
"A..." Hitomi blinked. "form shifter? What does that mean?"
"Seriously?" asked Derick. He seemed shocked. "I mean, that would explain it, but..."
"Form shifters." Eve said. "They're physically normal humans, but for some reason they possess an incredible internal power. They seem to get this power at random, with an incidence of around one in every billion or so." Eve opened the book, flipping through it to a page with some diagrams of people in different states of transformation. "Its called form shifting because they change their form, as we saw. The first few levels aren't that huge of a change, but around form five or six they usually get very elaborate. The change can manifest itself as anything, really, but glowing runes on the hands and clear, floating glowing marks denoting each level are always present."
"A form shifter." Derick said. "This is... huge. This is really huge."
"Each form a form shifter takes gives them three times the power of the previous form, up to at least seventh." Eve said. "Beyond that, there isn't much data, apparently. It is noted here that there has been one recorded case of someone reaching form eleven, but no information was gathered due to the destruction of most of that world's biosphere during the next three minutes."
Hitomi looked at her hands. A form shifter? Eve said there were one for every billion people, so she supposed that on a world of seven billion, it wasn't that unlikely that one would be a young girl. Still, her? She wasn't anything special, certainly not a one in a billion.
"What are the costs?" Hitomi asked tentatively.
"That's just it." Eve said. "That's the reason form shifters are so incredibly powerful. There are no costs. As long as you can handle the power flowing through you, you're absolutely fine. No lifespan reduction, no soul corruption, no insanity, nothing. It's basically a superpower." Eve paused. "Well, there is one thing. As I said, form shifters are normal humans. So, while your output will increase uncontrollably if you get to the higher levels, you don't actually become any tougher. A single bullet will kill you in seventh form just as easily in zeroth. And as you cast stronger and stronger spells, you run greater and greater risk of burning out. If you lose control of the magic, it could tear you apart. But that would be true whether you were a form shifter or not. There aren't really negatives." Eve smiled at Hitomi. "Sometimes good things just happen. For instance, I'm just naturally damage resistant. There's no cost to it. You shoot me and I don't go down; you stab me and I stab you back, pull out your blade, and keep on fighting." she ruffled Hitomi's hair. "You got lucky, Hitomi. And I'd be proud to fight with you."
"Uh..." Hitomi said, shrinking back slightly. "I'm no chosen one. I don't even know any combat magic yet. And I can't do this form shifting thing at will."
"Yet." Eve said. "The book says that now that you've done it the first time, it'll be much easier. It also says that usually people can reach only second or third form to start with, but most reach fourth, fifth, and even sixth with enough practice. Apparently, going higher than sixth is fairly rare, but with that being 486 times baseline power, I don't see why you'd need to go much higher, to be frank."
"So she's the glass cannon." Derick said. "Highest output, lowest damage tolerance." he looked at Hitomi with considerably more apprehension than he had been a moment before. After a moments pause, he laughed. "Well, fancy that. You really have put together a world saving team, haven't you? I was wondering what you were thinking, dragging a thirteen-year-old girl into this, but I suppose this explains that pretty well."
"Don't worry." Eve said to Hitomi. "I don't believe in the concept of a MVP. Everyone on a team is needed just as much as every other. That's why they're a team, after all. So if you're worried about getting a huge amount of responsibility dumped on you all at once, don't. It doesn't work that way. Besides, there's still the whole 'glass' part of 'glass cannon'. Don't go thinking because you've got this superpower thing that you're suddenly better than anyone else. And, even if you do, definitely don't let yourself think it somehow makes you invincible. The worst thing you can do is let something like this get to your head."
Hitomi nodded. "Does the book say anything about how I can train this power?" she asked. She felt a little pressure in the back of her mind, prodding her lightly. "And, also... can I tell Alice? I mean, you already said she couldn't be the spy."
"No." Eve shook her head. "To both, unfortunately. The book is a reference guide on human powers, and wasn't really made for the use of the one in a billion, unfortunately. And as far as Alice is concerned, while there's no problem with her herself knowing, anything Alice hears has a tendency to be known by everyone within twenty minutes." Eve sighed. "Though if she does find out, I won't hold it against you. She is your spectrum leader, after all. You should be more loyal to her than anything else in the world."
"You really need to let that go." Derick said.
"I know." Eve sighed again. "If I'm going to battle with you in a few hours, I better trust your judgment. Still, I just know that you're going to regret this at some point, Hitomi. Give it forty years when Alice still has your leash, and things will be a bit different." she shook her head. "Perhaps I've just fought too many spectral witches."
"How did you come across Alice, anyway?" Hitomi asked. "You were together for a good half year before you found out about this quest, right?"
"That's a story for another time." Eve said. "Alice is waiting for you, Hitomi. She's right, you need to learn at least a few combat spells before we start. I don't think five hours will be enough time to get you the required sword training, judging from last night. You showed good instinct but no skill. You're going to need a magical method of defense."
Hitomi nodded, standing up. "I'll make sure to not be a burden. It's my first fight, but I'll do my best."
"I know you will." Eve said. "You have a good heart, Hitomi. Keep your will strong, and you should be okay." she flashed a grin. "Oh, that and avoid enemy fire. See? Simple."
Hitomi laughed nervously. "I'll be sure to remember that."
She bowed to the other two and excused herself, noting the somewhat anxious looks Eve was giving her when she didn't think Hitomi was looking. Hitomi exited the room and went up the stairs as fast as she could manage. Five hours. She hoped she could learn enough combat magic to be at least not a burden by then.
She knocked on Alice's door. There was a brief pause, then Alice's voice called from inside. "Hitomi? Is that you?"
"Yep." Hitomi said. "Can I come in?"
"Of course!" Alice said. "The door is always open to you."
Hitomi pushed against the door, and heard the lock unlatching automatically as she entered. Alice was sitting on the floor, a large pad of blank brown paper laying in front of her. She smiled up at Hitomi. "So, what was that about?"
Hitomi felt a pressure in the back of her head. She had a strange desire to tell Alice exactly what had been discussed. It wasn't in the same way as when Lilly made a request, not a natural feeling of trust. It was more like a fear of not telling than a willingness to give. She felt her mouth go dry.
"Eve told me not to tell." Hitomi said after a pause. She felt sweat begin to drip down the back of her neck. "She said that anything you know is know by everyone in twenty minutes."
Alice rolled her eyes. "Yeah, fair enough. With a spy about, we do have to be more careful. Tell me as soon as you can, though. We shouldn't keep secrets from each other. We're friends!"
Hitomi felt the fear inside her subside quickly. "Yeah, we're friends." she said quietly.
Alice motioned for Hitomi to sit next to her. "Come on now. We have a bit of work to do. Combat magic don't work like utility magic. It's much better to know one spell well than many spells poorly, and the initial learning period is much larger. I think it would be best for you to learn two spells, a basic shield spell and a standard attack spell. I have a couple of each for you to look at, but we only really have time for one of each."
Hitomi nodded, taking the sheet of paper that Alice held out to her. There were a few spells with brief descriptions of each written on the page. She looked at them briefly before turning back to Alice.
"We also should set up your witches barrier." Alice continued. "It'll be useful for after the battle, as you heal and recharge magic about five times faster while inside your barrier than you do normally. It has other useful things too, but those two are the most important for us right now."
"Witches... barrier?" Hitomi asked curiously. "I think I remember something about that from the contract."
"Yeah. Every witch has one." Alice said, flicking her wrist. The room became outlined by a thin rainbow sheet, glowing softly. "This is mine."
Hitomi stood up, touching the rainbow barrier with her hand. It disappeared at her touch.
"No one can get through my barrier unless I say so." Alice said. "I could keep anyone I wanted out, or trap anyone I wished inside. There are some very powerful magics which can take down a witches barrier, but if you're fighting someone capable of that, you probably won't live long enough to make it to your barrier anyway. They're very useful."
Hitomi nodded. It seemed it. "How do we make one?"
"Drink this." Alice handed Hitomi a glass filled with a brown liquid. "Trust me, just do it."
Hitomi drank the liquid. It tasted funny, but not too bad. She felt fortified all of a sudden.
"Half protein shake, half alchemical potion of fortification." Alice said, taking a knife from her desk. "You'll need it. This is going to take a lot of blood, and we can't have you falling unconscious on us."
Hitomi took the knife. "How much are we talking?"
"Enough to line the edges of whatever room you chose with a five centimeter thick band." Alice said. "It took me about a liter to do my room here."
"Is this such a good idea?" Hitomi asked. "I mean, if we're going into battle in less than five hours, shouldn't I not be down a liter of blood?"
"Silvia will fix you right up once we're done." Alice said. "She's got potions for just about every injury or illness." she looked at Hitomi. "Hitomi, this is really important. A witches barrier is their home."
Hitomi sighed. "Okay. Where are we going to make this?"
"Your room." Alice said. "Everyone here has one. There are ten rooms on this floor, so you have your choice of the three remaining ones."
"Here?" Hitomi said. "Shouldn't we do my room at home?"
"It's really easy to change where your barrier is once you've made it the first time." Alice said. She paused. "And it'll be easier to get you here if you do get hurt then to get you to your room in another world." she said quietly.
"Okay then." Hitomi nodded. She was much more willing to do this now; even this apparent rite of passage was only being done for practical reasons. Alice was still considering this in terms of how it would effect them after the battle. Hitomi shivered. She hadn't really internalized it yet, she guessed. She was going to war. There wasn't any time for anything else.
"Lets get started." Alice nodded, and Hitomi slit her arm.
-*%*-
"No, the second semi-fold marking should be a few centimeters to the left." Alice said. "You got it pretty close this time, though."
Hitomi sighed. "I have to start again?" she shook her head. "You weren't kidding when you said combat spells were harder to learn." she looked down at the large brown paper pad, which had been moved into her new room. It had taken them only about ten minutes to get her witches barrier up and running, twenty more to recover with the help of some potions. But this spell...
"Perhaps we should take a break?" Alice said. "We've been at this for two hours now. Maybe a little time out before trying again will help."
Hitomi sighed. "Nothing else is working. We might as well try, I guess." she leaned back, sighing. She chose this spell from the list because it was apparently easy to learn, but inefficient. She was glad she chose what she had. If this was 'easy', then she didn't think she would have had the time to learn the others at all. As it was, she figured she would get this one down in perhaps another half hour or so. She sighed again. Alice nudged her reassuringly. "You're doing really well for your second day, Hitomi. It took me a week to learn my first ten spells, and this particular spell took me two days to get. You already have forty memorized, and I can't see this taking us more than another few tries."
"Yeah, and you were, what, six at the time?" Hitomi said flatly. "I'm not sure how reassuring this is."
"I'm a seventeenth generational spectrum witch." Alice said. "Witchcraft has been running in my blood for almost six hundred years now. The fact that you're capable, on your second day, of doing things I had trouble with would be really impressive if you were thirty-five."
"Fine, fine. It just doesn't seem that way." Hitomi said, looking to the pile of crumpled and discarded pages in the corner. She let her eyes wander around the room, trying to take her mind off the spell. She'd chosen this one because it had an electrical light fixture installed already. Alice said they had used it as a storage room at one point. While Alice's candles did give a very nice atmosphere to her room, Hitomi was more comfortable in the glow of florescent light. Aside from the light-bulb and the paper pad, the room was empty except for a small cot in the far corner. Hitomi highly doubted she would use this room for much outside of recharge and recuperation, so she didn't really feel the need to make it any more homely. She supposed perhaps a small chair would be nice, in case she needed to seat anyone for some reason.
She shook her head. Bare or not, she hadn't ever expected to get a room in a castle, let alone a castle in a magical world. It seemed a bit silly to her, the fact that she was still found her situation to be interesting. It had been more than two full days now. But there was still a voice in her head saying that the fact that she was sitting in a stone room in an ancient castle next to a spectral witch who was teaching her magic was not normal. She guessed it would fade with enough time.
Hitomi turned to the pad, ripping off the top sheet and crumpling it, tossing it into the pile with the others. "We should probably get going before I scab over. My fingers are already going to scar from this, I can tell."
"After the battle, I'll teach you a spell for erasing scars." Alice said.
"That would be nice." Hitomi said. "Hopefully, I won't need it for anything other than my fingers."
There was a brief pause. Hitomi saw Alice's face drop. Two and a half hours of wait had sapped any enthusiasm from her, and it was clear that the idea of the battle ahead now only brought feelings of fear and sadness. Hitomi was about to try to comfort Alice when she stirred again. She took a deep breath and turned back to Hitomi, determination in her eyes. "It's going to work this time. Come on."
Hitomi nodded, turning to the blank page. She felt Alice's hand on her shoulder, and a calming sensation went through her. Rubbing her thumb against her index finger until she felt the blood flowing again, Hitomi began to outline the spell. Her mind cleared. Somehow, it felt more natural now. She streaked her blood across the page, precisely outlining the circle from her memory. Each iteration had been bringing her to this. She finished the pattern in a minute, standing up as she completed the final strokes.
Nothing happened for several seconds.
Alice peered at it closely. "I think you drew one of the internal symbols backwards." she said slowly after a moment. "But otherwise it's perfect. I wonder..." she closed her eyes, flicking her wrist. Hitomi's inscription flashed blue-white for a moment, and the offending symbol disappeared. "Quickly, retrace it before the blood dries!" Alice said, and Hitomi did so. This time, she felt the magic inside her resonate as her new line intersected the edge of her old, completing the circle. A half second delay, and it began to glow with emerald light. Hitomi giggled. Finally.
"Lucky you didn't bring anything into the room." Alice said. "Quickly, chose a target or the attack will just go off randomly!"
Hitomi turned quickly, pointing at the far wall. Five spectral swords appeared, hovering before her for about one second before spinning to point in the direction she indicated, streaking across the room almost too fast for Hitomi to follow. They slammed into the wall, her room briefly lighting up in a ghostly pale green as the impacts forced her barrier to become visible. The blades shattered on impact with the barrier, the shards scattering and fading in flashes of green light. Hitomi blinked. "That was certainly something." she said after a moment.
"No fair." Alice said, pouting. "I only get three shapeless beams." she sighed. "I suppose it makes sense. I do specialize in utility magic. Still, I mean, that was mid-level meta-weapon casting." she punched Hitomi lightly in the shoulder. "Looks like you're a combat specialist; specifically, a weapon-caster. You'll be best at short and mid range, and your combat spells of choice will be those which summon magical weapons." she giggled. "Usually it takes longer to figure out a specialization than this, but we got lucky. Now I know what combat spells to teach you in the future."
"Weapon-casting combat specialist?" Hitomi said. "Well, I suppose that's fortunate."
"I'm sure De-De will be happy." Alice said. "He always complains about being the only combat mage in the party. Apparently he thinks it makes him a bigger target."
"Always gank the wizard first." Derick said, leaning in on the open door. He tapped lightly on the invisible wall of Hitomi's barrier. "Alice, can you let me in?"
"Oh, yeah, I should probably teach you how to how to let people in and out of your barrier, shouldn't I?" Alice said to Hitomi, turning to Derick. "Though why, exactly, are you here De-De?"
"I heard a loud crashing noise." he said flatly. "You two seem to have a knack for making a lot of strange and sketchy sounding noises whenever we leave you alone for any length of time. One of these days you're actually going to have hurt yourselves, and we're just going to ignore it."
"Sorry." Hitomi said. "I didn't expect the spell to be so... flashy."
"Neither did I." Alice said. "That was really impressive, Hitomi."
"Good!" Eve said, walking towards the three. "I'm glad you managed to get something down, Hitomi. We leave in five minutes."
There was a brief pause as the other three people turned to look at Eve with semi-incredulous looks on their faces. She sighed. "What, did you think I would tell my plan exactly when there was a spy about? Of course I lied. Come on. We don't have time to gawk."
"Five..." Hitomi said, looking at her hands.
"Don't worry if you can't do much yet." Eve said. "You and Alice are on backup anyway. Hopefully, you won't need to fight tonight at all." she winked as Alice pouted. "Don't give me that. You've gotten more action than the rest of us, remember? And I did say hopefully. If something comes around at us from behind, then we'll need you two to be ready. But it's a simple fact that you don't put your utility mage out on the front lines unless you have to."
"Fine." Alice said. "But you can't keep me in reserves forever. If the first time you let me into the thick of it is when we're up against the final boss, I won't stand a chance. You're going to have to let me grow enough on my own before that."
Hitomi saw sadness pass over Eve's face for a moment before she regained her composure. "I know. But you have a friend to protect tonight, Alice. I need you with Hitomi because Hitomi can't handle herself yet, not because you can't handle yourself. If you're on the front lines, you can't concentrate on protecting her, can you? And you know that you're the weakest combat wise, so you're the only one we can spare off the strike team to protect her."
Eve's eyes flashed briefly to Hitomi, who nodded to her curtly. She knew what Eve was doing. She could handle being the needy child for a while if it meant Alice would keep out of the fight.
"She's right." Hitomi said. "I only know one combat spell that I've used one time. I've never knocked someone out before in my life, let alone killed anyone. I'm not ready, Alice. I need you to help me tonight."
Alice didn't seem happy about it, but she sighed. She put an obviously false smile on and gave Hitomi what she could only assume she thought was a reassuring look. "Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you."
"Good. So, that's settled then." Eve said, nodding at the others. "Meet me downstairs right away. We head out as soon as everyone is gathered."
Hitomi nodded. She turned to Alice, grabbing her hand. "Let's do this."
Alice nodded, squeezing Hitomi's hand back. The two girls stepped through the barrier together, and marched downstairs, set in lockstep like soldiers off to start their war.
##########
End Chapter Report:
Shizuki Hitomi has unlocked the achievement 'Natural Born Killer' for discovering her combat specialty.
Shizuki Hitomi has unlocked the achievement 'No Turning Back' for reaching fifty hours without regretting her decision.