Note: Added a scene at the very end of last chapter to tie it up better. You guys might want to go back and read that real quick before continuing on with this one.
Chapter Ten:
Where Monsters Don't Exist
|ii.|
"Focus."
"I am."
"But don't think too much about it."
Frustration peaking, Noé groaned and threw her hands up in the air along with the exasperation Toto was causing with her more than vague explanations. She liked the girl and all but this was beyond frustrating. Storming out of her seat across from the young warrior's was the least she could do without causing damage to anything in her surroundings and it caused Toto to let out a hefty sigh. Both of their patience had worn thin after the first three hours of attempting to explain to Noé the concept of magoi manipulation in vain. It wasn't like Noè didn't understand what it was either; she'd known about it for as long as the practice came to exist, though she never put much attention to it until now. Regardless of her knowledge on the subject, her body wouldn't obey what her mind told it to do. And though she had an inkling as to why, it still pissed her off that she was getting nowhere with the Yambala's training.
"Looks like you two are having some trouble here."
The deadly glare Noé shot Shambal's way as he stepped into the room they were in could've very well killed him five times over. If only looks could kill. But she let that thought flee her mind as she stormed around the room trying to let some of the steam off. Toto approached her teacher, surely telling him how fruitless their lessons had turned out after three hours, before Shambal dismissed her for the day and approached Noé, asking for her hand. Too upset to care, Noé gave it without a second thought and only spared a sidelong glance as Shambal ran two poised fingers across her open palm and down the middle of her forearm. The old man gave off a pensive hum before letting go of her hand.
"Odd."
"What?"
"Your magoi," he explained, a hand coming up to stroke his beard. "It almost seems too densely packed in your body to properly travel through it."
Emerald eyes narrowed at this and she turned fully to him as she languidly leaned her elbows against the opened window behind her. "Is that a problem?"
"You don't sound perturbed by these news."
"I don't see a reason I should be," she deadpanned.
Shambal nodded in understanding but nonetheless brought the issue up once more making Noé's already high irritation mount all the more. "I believe you should find a modicum of concern in that, child. After all, a body should never be filled to the brim with magoi." Even as he explained it to her, Noé already knew the consequences of her overflowing with more magoi than her body could sustain.
It was akin to a cup densely filled to the brim with water. Though it could hold it readily enough, the collective pressure over long periods of time would cause more and more cracks to appear until eventually it breaks. The image was vivid in her head and brought to mind exactly the source of where that surplus of magoi originated from. To begin with, Noé wasn't a person with a large reservoir of magoi, something mostly due to her ancestry. Being that the case, possessing Grace of Sunlight—something that practically acted as a lodestone for light-based rukh—had its pros and cons alike. The excess magoi it brought into her body regardless of choice thus was a big mixture of both. Mostly, though, it came with one caveat: an unquenchable thirst.
The thought alone bringing a dry spell to her mouth, Noé stepped over to the table in the middle of the room and took a couple of drinks from the jug of water there. Its contents done with pretty quickly, she turned to Shambal, interrupting him midway through his explanation.
"Got anymore water?"
Though he frowned slightly at her disinterest, Shambal took her to the small cookery the Yambala used in their abode. There, once shown to the barrels filled with their reserves of water from the nearby aqueducts, Noé ravaged freely through one, plunging her head through it to take the biggest gulp she could. Through the water flooding her ears, she could still hear Shambal as he picked up where he left off.
"Noé, if you wish to be taught, I need to know what we're dealing with here."
You wouldn't believe me if I told you.
In her head, Chief let out a hefty sigh both in thought and annoyance. "Perhaps offering the necessary information would make things run smoother, Noé."
Not you too.
"Do you want to spend more time here than you really need to?"
Why bother ask when she already knew the answer? Pulling her head out of the barrel she'd mostly gone through, Noé wiped her wet hair back to eye Shambal while trying to figure out an easy way to explain something like her gift in simple terms. Magic was always a safe bet to go on. Besides, it wasn't completely a lie.
"I've got magic cast on me," she simply said as she leaned over the barrel's rim. "With how small my normal magoi well is, it takes in raw magoi from the sun and anything light-based into my body whenever my reservoir falls below the maximum I'm allowed."
"Magic you say?" Noé nodded, sinking her head in momentarily for a gulp before emerging once more to meet Shambal's thoughtful expression. "Foreign magoi is quite unpredictable."
"It's stronger as hell though," she deftly added.
"Perhaps," he agreed, though not for long. "But it's also too raw for your body to process correctly. Its sheer intensity may give you more power but it should also be harming your body in the process."
Wow, the old man knows his stuff.
"The nature of magoi is his area of expertise."
True enough. Noé waved a dismissive hand at that as she covered the barrel back up and hopped off of it, trotting up to a basket of fruits and taking an apple to chomp down on. Some of the sweet juices spilled over the corner of her mouth and she quickly wiped them away as she spoke.
"You're not wrong but tell it to me straight here. Will this hinder my learning magoi manipulation?"
Shambal hung his head in thought only lifting it after she finished with her apple. "It will be an obstacle, yes, but not one impossible to surpass. You'll need special guidance is all."
"I'm alright with that," she said with a shrug of her shoulders, tossing the core she didn't eat off into a bin before walking out of the crowded kitchen with Shambal coming after her. Turning up to the old man while stretching her arms lazily over her head, Noé tucked them behind her head before eyeing him fully. "So, who's gonna teach me?"
"You'll join me with the other boy, the one who fought Garda—Alibaba Saluja." When Noé narrowed her eyes on him, Shambal explained further. "Don't worry, he won't impede your own training. It's just easier to teach the same thing one time rather than multiple times to two different people."
"Why are you teaching him personally?" she asked, paying more attention to his words now that they had promptly changed the subject to little Alibaba. "I thought he was just any other kid that was going to study under the Yamabala in general."
"Well, that isn't completely wrong. However, when you first saw him, his body was being torn asunder from the inside by the two conflicting types of magoi dwelling inside his body."
Past tense. "He's better?"
"Miraculously," he admitted, awe lacing his words now. "The two magoi merged into one the day of the fight. It was incredible to see something like that happen without the need of intervention."
"Mm, sounds like Ali, alright."
Ever since meeting him and Aladdin in Old Man Amon's dungeon, Noé figured there had been something about Alibaba that she liked. A fire that sparked in that dungeon that burned even brighter when she met them again at Zagan's. Though she would admit he was sometimes uncool and, by proxy, rather unpopular, Alibaba had a doggedness to him that she liked. One she maybe even admired a little. Mind made up, Noé agreed to Shambal's proposal. But seeing as Alibaba was still recovering from the injuries he got from the fight the other day, her training would have to wait a few days.
"Let's give the kid a week to recover and then we'll start."
Great. Just freaking peachy.
What the hell was she supposed to do till then?
"You do know you have the Fanalis Corp to spar with, right?"
Oh, you're right!
Learning magoi manipulation had been the issue at the forefront of her mind because, in all honesty, it'd help better than just mindlessly sparring. That wasn't to say, though, that sparring by itself wouldn't be good either. Leaving the gladiators' training grounds behind her, Noé flashed onto the lavish rooftops of Remano's edifices and scouted out her surroundings.
Well, they hadn't been at the colosseum from what she saw. And by the looks of it, the training grounds she and lil' Sera spent the night target practicing were more for the soldiers and people that resided in the Alexius residence. Her next best guess would be military barracks. Flashing to the closest part of town to them, Noé leaped off from the rooftops onto the ground below, scaring a few unsuspecting citizens in the process. It was while brushing the dust off of the skirt of her dress that a distinct smell caught onto her nostrils.
Hard spices and...the earth. No blood this time.
Chuckling to herself at recognizing the smell despite it having been years, Noé followed the scent till she spotted the bright red mane of a certain cub as he made his way into the military base. Too excited to bother sneaking up on him, she flashed right above him and fell, grabbing onto his neck and almost pulling him back with her added weight.
"Hey, little cub!"
The Fanalis cub stumbled on his words and feet as he fought to get his balance back and pull on her locked arms to keep her from choking him. "M-Miss Noé!? Where did you—did you just appear again?"
"Flashed, yeah!" she corrected as she hung now from his back, her feet a good foot from the ground. She didn't mind the pseudo-piggyback ride, though the slightly tight grip on her forearms to keep her from strangling him did make her scoot up and get a better grip around his broad shoulders. Too broad. Leaning her head on his shoulder and right next to his face, Noé flashed him a cheeky grin. "You would've spotted me if I snuck behind you after all! So I knew this'd be the best way to surprise you!"
"Well," he chuckled lowly, "you certainly managed to do that."
"Hey, hey, cub." Swinging her feet back and forth in her attempt to get his attention was a little overkill seeing as she was already so near his ear, but she lived to pester people. "Take me to where the others Fanalis are, yeah?"
"You came looking for them?"
Noé nodded her head vigorously. When the movement got to be too much, Muu asked her kindly if she could stop swinging her legs behind him to which she agreed though calling him a killjoy while doing so. "I've got a whole week to spare before I start my training with the Yambala. I thought it'd do me some good to spar with them instead of sitting on my ass doing nothing."
"That's certainly a way to put," he muttered under his breath. Words she clearly heard by being so close to him. Turning to her with a smile, his cheeks matching the hue of his hair a tiny bit, he continued, speaking with a normal volume now. "I'll show you to where we usually train."
"Great!"
But when neither of them moved, Muu had to clear his throat to get her attention again. "Will...will you please get off me now?"
"Why?" Noé proposed, swinging her legs just once to punctuate her words. "I'm already here, aren't I? It'll be much faster if you just take me there."
"It's not really appropriate."
"Who cares?" she called out with a slight snicker. "Besides, I'm tired from all the flashing around I did to find you guys. Do me a favor here, cub."
A moment of thoughtful silence fell over them while Muu mused over his options. Noé waited patiently, knowing full well how stubborn she could be if she tried.
"If he knew you as well as I do, he wouldn't have bothered asking."
I know. But he'll learn. Snickering to herself as she hung from his back, adjusting her grip from time to time, Noé started humming to herself a senseless, discordant tune while waiting. It took another minute before Muu's shoulders slumped under her arms and a defeated sigh escaped through his nose.
"Alright." Oh, fast learner. "But—" Her ears perked at the word, not accustomed to hearing anybody put any sort of caveat to her outlandish requests. "You have to stop calling me cub."
"It's cute though," she protested with a feigned whine through her smirk.
"Not to me," he confessed while forcing back a groan.
Noé hummed pretending to think about it before smacking her lips and tilting her head to one side. "No, don't think so!"
"Then I'm not moving from this spot."
Eh?
Chief's own amused chuckle reverberated from the back of her head. "Quite the fast learner, indeed."
She wanted to shut Chief up but she opted for actions instead. They spoke louder. "Oh, come on," she complained, kicking a little harder but never hitting his legs. When she didn't budge, Muu added weight to his point by slowly coming to a seat on the ground with her having to scramble to not end up like a mess of limbs behind him as her grip stayed true around his shoulders. The crowd around them merely passed by with spared glances and quiet murmurs, but none distracted her from the ordeal. One where neither was budging. And that just peeved her all the more.
"He caught on fast to your games."
Whose side are you on?
"The logical one, you capricious brat."
Sulking, her lip pouting a bit, she muttered under her breath, "I'm not a brat."
"I'll beg to differ after what little I've seen from you," Muu replied instead. When he turned his head, this time to look at her, the reddish hue on his skin was gone instead replaced by a smile that she was getting tired of rather quickly. "But I'm not against putting up with that though if you're willing to meet me in the middle."
Annoyance mounting rather fast, Noé was ready to get this exchange over with so he could take her where she wanted to go. "What's this middle ground?" Sure, she could've easily just gotten off and searched herself but that would mean giving up and handing him the victory. And Noé would be damned if she'd let the cub have this.
"Let's lay off of the 'cub' for as long as you're in the barracks where the others train."
Not satisfied with his suggestion, she said, "Convince me."
Letting a long, tired exhale out, Muu tilted his head away from her before turning back to meet her gaze. "You said you wanted to be trained?" When she hummed in agreement, he continued, "Well, the others acknowledge strength and respect. If you belittle me in front of them, they won't bother taking you seriously if you spar together."
"I'll make them."
"Only a few are easily spurred on like that and soon enough they'll tire of such antics." Lifting a finger for her to see got her attention, her emerald eyes fixating on the callouses running along the appendage. "If you treat me and the rest as equals though, they'll find it in them to take you seriously. Eventually." That last bit came out after a second of thinking it through which got Noé to scowl at him. "I promise you, I've known them most of my life and know how they are."
Her eyes wandered as she silently thought things through. Maybe this was the better choice. Muu knew more about his kind than she did in this world after all. Especially this group of Fanalis. Exaggerating her exhale and letting it blow off the loose strands of her auburn hair, she slumped her chin down onto his shoulder and muttered, "Fine."
"You promise me?"
"Yeah, yeah," she groaned, frustrated a bit that he was making her back down on the argument. "I won't call you cub or anything like that when we train with them. Now, will you take me to where they are so I can kick someone's ass and let all this anger out or are you gonna volunteer?"
This time the small laughter that bubbled out of him rumbled through his entire body before he deftly stood from his seat, her weight meaning nothing to him as she dangled from his shoulders again. "It's just around the corner. Hold onto that until after I introduce you to them, alright?"
Blowing a raspberry that made him chuckle a little more, she let herself rest from her flashing as Muu took her to the barracks. This wasn't a loss, she thought sourly to herself, her head bouncing with each heavy step Muu gave. No, it's just a draw—a petty compromise about nothing important.
"Isn't a draw the same thing as a loss though?"
No. It isn't, alright? Shut up. Her sulking got a laugh out of Chief that only put her in a worse mood than she already was in. Good thing that the barracks were close because Noé didn't think she'd be able to hold her ire in for much longer. She needed something to hit—hard—like ten seconds ago.
"We're here."
Taking that as her queue, she released her hold and landed on her feet without a problem. Noé rounded the tall Fanalis to meet a whole ground full to the brim with them. Women, men, and even some children, she noted, clammored through the large field seemingly made specifically for them. It's range, from what Noé could see, was as wide as the colosseum itself except shaped like a rectangular box divided into three separate parts. On the left side, the young ones were being taught by older members. By the looks of how they easily destroyed half of what they were given to kick or punch, control might be one of those lessons. The opposite side looked more of a mixed crowd and much more of a tranquil space than anything. From what she could see, it could be where they rested before going back to whatever they were doing. But what was happening smack in the middle and closest to the entrance where they stood piqued her interest more than the others. Most of the older members where there and were going all out on what looked to be free-for-all sparrings. The sight of them fighting one another with the intensity and ferocity compelled by their animalistic souls brought a broad, toothy grin onto her face.
Instantly, a memory came to mind about the old crow of Theone telling her the chilling tales of the red lions ravaging Vastagian chicks by ripping their heads clean from their bodies with the mere snap of their jaw. It sent her mind into overdrive. Not with fear but with vigor. And it boiled the blood in her veins with an intoxicating mania she couldn't ignore.
"Now this is my kind of crowd!" she cried out. But before she could leap down the several steps leading down onto the grounds, a strong hand gripped the back of her drape and held her aloft, refusing to release her even as she struggled and hissed against it.
Muu scoffed at her tantrum before reminding her that he needed to introduce her to them first. Hating to have to wait but knowing she had to if she wanted to get on with it, she stopped her tantrum in its tracks. Muu, however, refused to release her even after she stopped, much to her chagrin, and carried her by the scruff of her drape like a trouble-making feline all the way to the group of Fanalis. At spotting them—or more like, at spotting Muu himself—most of them stopped with smiles and grins on their faces as they rushed towards them.
All of them, without missing a beat, called out to him with the same title. One she hadn't heard anybody call the cub before.
The word slipped from her lips tinged in confusion. "Wait?" Noé attempted to turn her head over her shoulder but his grip on her drape kept her head from moving much. Thinking out of the box, she grabbed onto his arm and spun around so that her drape itself twisted in his grip. "You're the commanding officer of the Fanalis corp?"
"Well, I am a Fanalis," Muu commented with a smile. With a gentleness that surprised her, the cub lowered her to the ground and her feet touched the beaten dirt beneath with a soft thud.
"Yeah, but…" Her words dragged on as she fixed her drape over her left shoulder properly before turning sideways to him with a tilt of her head. "Don't rich boys rather not dirty their hands?"
"How dare you insult my brother like that!? And who even are you?"
The high shrill that spat out those questions piqued Noé's interest as she turned to meet the crowd that gathered around herself and Muu. Just a few inches shorter than her, the redhead girl—well, remembering who's who is going to be a pain when they all look practically the same—practically fumed from the ears out of ire for Noé. Ignoring it, though, Noé focused instead on her features that, although pretty much the same on everybody, seemed rather familiar for some reason. It wasn't until the word 'brother' registered in her brain that she caught onto why.
Wanting to cause some havoc, Noé turned with a sly grin at Muu and winked mischievously. "Your sister's kinda cute, c—" Her lips pursed at catching herself but thankfully no one heard her over the immediate shriek Muu's sister gave out at hearing the compliment.
Saved by a banshee.
"Makes sense. If she's Muu's sister, Diana's an ancestor of hers."
Before she could comment on that rather unfortunate familial connection, another one of the Fanalis spoke up as he grasped the crown of the girl's head with his open palm—really easily too—and shoved her aside. Whether playfully or not was hard for Noé to tell since he did it rather forcefully. The culprit was some inches taller than Muu which meant that he towered over Noé and that itself didn't sit well with her. Not at all. What stood out with him was the nasty scar left on the left side of his mouth; a wound that left most of his teeth exposed in a rather maniacal grin. Rather fitting too.
"You must be blind, lady." The slight feral growl in his words perked her ears. "Nothin' 'bout Myron is cute."
"What did you say!?"
"Now, now," Muu called out as he stepped forward to put some distance between the two of them. "Let's not bicker amongst ourselves in front of new company."
When they stopped in their tracks to give him their attention, all eyes fell on Noé after Muu motioned to her. A chill ran down her spine at having so many Fanalis stare her down out of pure excitement. Raising a hand and saluting them with two fingers, Noé's lips turned up into a feral grin of her own.
"Name's Noé and I'm here to train with you guys." Crisp and short as her introduction was, it let the rest of the Fanalis break into a mocking and boisterous laughter that rang through the grounds and irritated Noé to no end. And though Muu tried to get them to be civil about meeting her, they were having way too much fun with what they perceived as a joke to give him any mind anymore.
"You, train with us?" Muu's sister, Myron, said. Her annoyance with the other Fanalis forgotten, she held onto her stomach and burst out into another cackle when Noé nodded as reply.
Their underestimating her just because she wasn't a Fanalis irked her, her hands stubbornly coming to her hips in defiance. "You doubt I can?"
"We'll kill you, little lady," the scarred, smiling man cackled as he held onto his side too. Dismissively, he shooed her away, his large hand obscuring her view with the motion right in front of her face. "You're better off just leaving."
These...assholes.
"Remember—" Though her voice in the back of her head was calm, Noé could tell that Chief was just as peeved as she was. Nobody insulted the strength of a Vastago and got away with it scott-free. Especially if they were belittling her without knowing what she was capable of. "Strength is shown through actions, not words."
That brought an idea to her head that she rather liked. Her lips turned from a frown to a smug smirk, as she shrugged her shoulders and turned to leave, her hands innocently twining behind her back.
"Well, who am I to argue against a bunch of scaredly cubs when they ask me so nicely to leave them alone." Almost instantly, the laughter died and was replaced by a solemn silence that brought a certain heaviness to the air.
Glancing over her shoulder, Noé could practically feel the intensity coming from the Fanalis at her depreciative comment. Crimson eyes all around glared daggers at her back and some of the younger ones even let out a growl. Her grin widened at now having their undivided attention.
"You surely know how to cause a scene."
What can I say? It's a gift.
Spinning on her heels and masking her ferocity with a coy smile, Noé giggled before taking the few steps back to the Fanalis and standing before the hoard that still scowled down at her. Nonchalantly flipping a few long strands of auburn hair over her shoulder, the smile never disappeared from her lips as she said, "But if that's not the case, well, I'd say proving me wrong would be best, right?"
"Miss Noé, please—"
"You're on!" Both Myron and the scarred, smiling man shouted at full volume, almost making Noé teeter back from her place. The two of them were going at each other wanting to be the one to beat her to a pulp, leaving Noé to whistle in delight at her ploy having worked so easily. Sighing heavily through his nose, Muu ran a hand down his face as she made her way to wait beside him.
Though his expression said he had so much in mind to say, only one word came through. "Why..."
"Well, you said they acknowledge respect and strength." Noé balanced herself on the balls of her feet as she mindlessly examined her nails on one hand while the dispute went on. "I ain't getting the former, but I know I can demonstrate the latter. And since you said only a few of them would respond to taunts, I just took a wild gamble and tossed the dice to land where they might've." A snort left her as she turned to give a sidelong glance to the cub. "Disappointed your sister's so easily swayed?"
"No." Muu sighed again in defeat but the small smile that came afterwards told Noé that perhaps this outcome had been exactly what he predicted. His words only reassured her assumption. "I expected they would." His vibrant red eyes turned down to her then. "Though I think I should've expected you'd resort to this too."
"You agreed that I'm a brat, right?" Though she didn't like admitting to it, she knew how true it was. Which baffled her all the more with how simplistic Muu had been to think she wouldn't do anything she wanted regardless of consequences to get the results she sought. Naive would be the right word. But that would just be adding insult to injury. "Well, if I am, what does that make them?" With a nudge of her chin in their direction, Noé watched as the two continued to argue, not even letting anybody else in on their 'conversation'. When it started to last more than she wanted it to, a groan escaped her and she swatted at Muu's arm before motioning to them with a brandished arm. "Can you do something about them? I kinda want to start fighting soon."
Eyeing the situation briefly, Muu pursed his lips into a taut line before breaking out into a easy-going smile as he approached the hoard. "Alright, Myron, Lo'lo, let's break this up." Nothing. What a great captain. Almost as if hearing her chiding, Muu huffed, never losing his smile as he approached them again, this time grabbing the arm that Lo'lo used to grabbed onto Myron's clothes to lift her clean off of the floor. "You guys, stop—"
Emerald eyes went wide at suddenly seeing Muu fly across the field and hit against the closest wall to them with a heavy crack as the stone broke to pieces on impact. A crude silence spread for a moment before the Fanalis broke out in concern and rushed to Muu's side. Worrying a little that he might've concussed himself with how seemingly hard Lo'lo inadvertently threw him, Noé flashed ahead of everyone stopping them in their tracks as she bent over the thrashed Fanalis captain.
"Damn cub, why am I the only one that isn't tossing you around like a sack of potatoes?" she muttered under her breath with a taunting chuckle.
He answered with a chuckle of his own at first before turning up to mumble back. "Your promise, Miss Noé."
Waving that away for now, she offered her hand to him which he gladly accepted. Muu hurriedly dusted himself off before turning to his fellow Fanalis with a half-smile. As Noé turned to them, turning her body halfway around, she met the myriad of wary stares directed her way. Flashing in front of them must've freaked them out more than she thought it would.
"Fanalis seldom dabble with magic, Noé. Much less anything close to Grace of Sunlight's."
That didn't matter much to her at the moment. Tired of wasting time—playing around or teasing them not included—Noé stood apart from Muu and leered down at the bunch of them. Once she eyed every possible Fanalis to get their attention, her downright irate expression changed at the drop of a hat into a fearless grin as she pointed at all those in the front row.
"So, who's gonna go first?"
When another tirade exploded from her mere question, she sighed having had the inkling that her asking would just ignite that spark anew. The steady footsteps that stopped beside let her turn to Muu who grinned at the rest of his comrades and raised his voice to be heard over the shouting.
"How about I pick and we go on from there?" Hearing this, the Fanalis fought for their captain's attention, and while they fought over that, Noé took the time to stretch her legs and arms as she waited for her opponent to be picked. Muu's crimson gaze fell over his comrades and ultimately came to a halt on someone in particular. "Razul, want to give it a go?"
"Sure would, captain!"
Noé's emerald gaze searched for the origin of that peppy voice that cried out and found a girl of a much shorter stature than herself, blazing red hair long and tied into two low ponytails, and scars jutting from the skin on her chest and face. Though she thought them awful and could imagine the injury that left them painful, Noé knew not to give them a hint of leeway even if she felt bad. A wide spread of disappointed groans washed over the crowd as those that hadn't been chosen stepped out of the bounds of what looked to be the area of the fighting ring. Muu walked over to Razol and got a word in with her, Noé's perked ears catching the exchange briefly.
"Don't underestimate an opponent, Razol. No matter how they may look."
Razol's face shone with the broad smile she gave as she nodded. "Yes!" And with a last encouraging pat on the shoulder to the younger Fanalis, Muu receded with the rest, standing with his sister and Lo'lo. Razol began stretching out her legs beneath her, her red eyes set on Noé as she stood at the ready. "You sure you want to do this, lady?"
"Absolutely."
"Alright. Don't say I didn't warn you!"
Razol wasted no time.
As soon as she finished, her legs folded beneath her in a crouch before she launched at Noé. Though too fast to see, Noé felt the change in the air and how it got cut by the mass that traveled through it at such high speeds. Feeling it to her right, Noé raised her arm to the side of her head to take the brunt of the kick Razol sent her way. Though she took it, the impact still lifted her off of her feet out towards the left. Quickly as she could, she caught herself on the beaten dirt, ignoring the numbing pain on her forearm and instead eyeing Razol who stood where she'd been with her leg raised. A ferocious smile came to Razol's lips at finding her still conscious.
"Nice block!"
Noé returned the compliment without a second thought. "Nice kick."
"But, y'know, blocking's not a way to win a fight!" Razol charged again at the same speed but now, a little more prepared for it, Noé managed to see the trace of her trajectory. Her brain worked a mile a second to decipher where she'd attack next and, just a moment before her kick landed, Noé followed the telltale air pressure building around her and ducked. Seizing her chance, Noé charged from her crouch and snatched her by the ankle. Razol let out a shocked yelp, unable to contort in time to avoid being brought down against the ground or block the subsequent kick downward that Noé gave to her breastplate. The forceful hit with the young Fanalis so close to the ground dented it somewhat, but before Noé could strike again, Razol grabbed her ankle from on the ground and twisted it beneath her. Noé caught herself before falling and crouched down as Razol picked herself up and put some distance between them.
A feral smirk spread across Noé's lips at seeing Razol's red eyes narrow and her smile disappear into a taut line. The crimson feathers behind her ear bristled to stand straight against her head as she crouched further down before launching forward. Red eyes widened at the speed she'd rushed with and barely dodged the punch Noé sent. Seeing her reaction, Noé feinted the punch at the last second and instead caught Razol by the shoulder as she moved into her free, expecting hand before bringing her down and kneeing her in the stomach. Warm saliva that Razol spit out at the hit fell onto Noé's skin but it didn't distract her in the least. Taking her staggering in stride, Noé swept Razol's feet from underneath her and knocked her onto her back.
Instantly Razol tried to recover and pick herself up but Noé didn't allow it. Almost as quickly, she crouched over Razol and pinned her down by the neck with her forearm while keeping her legs immobile behind her with one of her legs pinning them both down. Her other free hand pegged one of Razol's arms, and with only one free hand left, the Fanalis tried to pry herself free but couldn't concentrate enough with the force that Noé put on her throat, cutting her airway for the briefest of moments.
"Nuh-uh," Noé said, releasing a little bit of the pressure on Razol's throat. "You move, I cut it again."
"You cheated." Razol's eyes narrowed in a scowl, the corners of her eyes pricking with tears from the forearm on her throat.
The accusations brought a pout on Noé's lips before she clicked her tongue a couple of times. "No, little pup. It's called bluffing. It's not my fault that Fanalis charge in without thinking, believing their strength will be enough. So here's a free lesson for you—" Noé seamlessly pulled away from Razol and as the Fanalis sat up, rubbing at her mildly sore throat, Noé stretched her hand out peacefully with a lopsided smile on her face replacing the pout. Razol took it and once up, Noé kept the hold of her forearm as she shook it in a pseudo handshake. "Learn to think as you fight; don't just rely on your strength. Sure, it's a heck of a thing that not many will be able to beat but I've learn that there's always a bigger fish out there."
Letting out a boisterous laugh that rose from her stomach, Noé smacked Razol's back as they approached the rest of her comrades. "But you really gave me a run for my gold there! I may be just a bit faster than you but you all beat me in brawn 100%; you gave me just the smallest of windows to think of something!"
Returning to the cheery girl she'd shown to be, Razol's broad smile widened with the compliment. "You gonna be training with us, right, lady? Can I fight you again?"
"Sure thing." But her grin become a tight-lipped smile as she turned to the crowd of Fanalis. "That is if I'm allowed here by your friends."
Razol sprinted over to another tall Fanalis, one that, from what Noé caught between their chatting, was named Yaqut and gleefully teased Razol about the match being too short. True. It'd been short. But only because Noé knew that she wouldn't last on a drawn out fight with any Fanalis, period. If they let her train here, she'd definitely be working on longer bouts.
"So!" Her hands clapped together letting silence spread across the ground again. "Who's next?"
"I am." Myron stepped forward and stopped right before Noé, glancing up just a tad bit from the disparity of heights and defiantly laying her hand on her hip. "But I don't want just a mindless brawl. You can use magic, right?"
Noé thought about her answer for a second, one finger scratching at her cheek pensively. Counting Chief as just 'magic' seemed unfair; plus, using even her weapon-equip would be going a little too far for just a spar. As for Grace of Sunlight...well, it technically was magic but one she'd rather just use for flashing around. But wanting to be truthful for once, Noé shrugged her shoulders dismissively. "I suppose so."
"You're a dungeon capturer too, right?" Myron motioned behind her to the crowd and to her brother. "My brother told me while you fought Razol."
"What about it?"
"Fight me with it."
Noé pursed her lips, a frown appearing on her face. "That wouldn't be fair."
"It will be." Lifting her right arm, Myron showed her the metal arm guard on it. At first Noé didn't know what to make of it until she noted the dark energy that slowly crept around the metal.
A metal vessel?
"No." Chief's correction was subtle but it gave enough away for her to understand.
Hands on her hips as she bend a bit forward with a thoughtful frown, Noé hummed loudly before springing back up to stand straight without losing the frown. "Even if you have a Household Vessel, it's still a tad unfair, isn't it?"
"No." Alright, Myron was either really stubborn or just that stupid. Knowing she was Muu's sister made Noé think it might be a mix of both. As if tired of arguing back and forth, Myron sighed and readied herself by stepping apart from the crowd. "But I guess if you don't do it willingly, then I'll make you use it."
Turning to the older brother of the stubborn girl in front of her, Noé motioned to Myron with a stunned, wide-eyed stare directed at Muu. "You gonna allow this, cappy?"
"I told her you would refuse." Noé blinked a couple of times at hearing this. How? But when Muu shrugged his shoulders and smiled it confused her even more. "But she's adamant that she can force you to use your metal vessel."
She wants me to use it that bad, huh?
"Are you going to cave?"
That depended. Though household vessels were strong themselves, they weren't anything compared to metal vessels. She knew this and being a metal vessel user himself, so did Muu. And Noé had an inkling that Myron knew this too. Which made this all the more interesting to her.
"What are you trying to prove?" The words escaped her in a muttered breath, hidden behind the crooked grin that played itself on her lips.
Tightening the knot on her obi and fixing one of the shoulders of her drape, Noé's knees bent slightly as she took a stance. Myron did as well but as she was about to charge, Noé beat her to the punch and lunged forward. The Fanalis barely caught sight of the motion and dodged out of range of Noé's axe kick, leaping to the side and feeling the sole of Noé's sandals inches from her left arm. Not wanting to give her a moment's reprieve, Noé's foot hardly touched the ground before she sprung forward to roundhouse kick Myron. The Fanalis, though, blocked the kick quickly enough, bringing her arm upward to take the brunt of the kick with practiced ease. Emerald eyes narrowed at recognizing the move but widened almost instantly at noticing the dark energy coating the golden arm guard. Erring on the side of caution, Noé put distance between them and just managed to avoid the shot of Strength magic that Myron fired with a well placed punch in her direction, hitting the wall behind her and demolishing a good chunk of it instead. Though wanting to spare a glance at the type of destructive power she possessed, Myron allowed her little time to as she ravaged through and left no time for her to think or react. Noé couldn't spare a thought to counterattacking when all her mind was on was not getting hit by the magic shots.
That in itself was an arduous task seeing as those damn things were coming almost at a rate comparable to her light arrows.
"Strength magic manipulates space. Those could very well be traversing through a wormhole created by the magic itself to improve on its speed."
They're not. That was very much clear to Noé. If they were, she wouldn't be able to just barely skid past them. And she knew what Strength magic of that magnitude looked like too—she'd bore witness to it too many times not too— and Myron's didn't hold a candle to that. Not to say that it didn't pose a threat itself, especially with the Fanalis firing with reckless abandon leaving in her wake a trail of shattered wall and upturned ground.
What little train of thought she could muster told her that waiting this out was the best thing to do. Fanalis held small reservoirs of magoi, even smaller than her own, and with how recklessly Myron was shooting her household vessel off, it'd be a matter of time.
Only a matter of—
Not thinking of where she was going, Noé failed to see the pit behind her—one of many Myron dug up with her magic—and stepped on the edge of the loose soil, slipping back and losing her balance. Cursing under her breath and gritting her teeth, her crude attempt to regain her footing wasn't fast enough. It left no room to avoid the shot Myron fired at her with a fierce grin that bared her canines at Noé.
Instincts kicking in, Noé flashed. It meant very little—just enough to move her head out of the way to shirk major damage. Not all of it though.
Taken aback by her disappearance, Myron skidded to a stop and searched about to find Noé appearing to one side. Just as she was about to shoot her household vessel off again, though, she stopped in her tracks as a heaviness that hadn't been there before permeated the air.
Noé stood still; her head pounded faintly, making her eardrums thrum, but what had her attention the most was the slight sting on her cheek and ear, and how her hair fell now freely around her shoulders. Myron's magic—it nicked her even as she flashed away.
"The sudden clash changed the magic's properties somewhat. It swallowed the light when you flashed and caught you."
Though reasonable, Chief's words fell on deaf ears. Noé's blood boiled too fiercely through strained veins from some eerie emotion that she couldn't name but felt crawl under her skin. Not helplessness, not even excitement.
What was it?
"Finally...prey that fights back."
Ah...hunger.
Emerald eyes widened for a mere instant before closing as a scoff escaped her lips, turning them into the trifling ghost of a smirk. Blood ablaze, Noé gave no warning as she flashed behind Myron to strike a kick behind her knees, making her fall in front of her. Before the Fanalis could move, Noé jumped and swept a clean strike onto her back, smashing her wholly against the beaten ground and robbing the air from her lungs on impact. Flashing again, she dodged out of the way as Myron shot out to drive her back and give herself time to regain her lost breath. The bewildered gasps and wide-eyed stars behind her turned Myron around to find Noé perched on the far off wall, arm drawn back on a nocked light arrow before setting it free to burst through the air. Myron didn't think of avoiding it and instead shot Strength magic from her household vessel against the arrow.
Magic clashed in an explosive array of black and gold before exploding into a blinding light that threw the Fanalis back. The destruction she'd haphazardly caused cost her the same mistake it had Noé and Myron tripped and fell onto her back, slipping on a pit beneath her feet. Not blinded by her own light, Noé flashed once more high into the sky just above Myron and high enough to fully bask in the rays of the afternoon sun. Drawing her arm back, she let an arrow consolidate into shape and aimed down.
But gathering so much from both her metal vessel and through her seal made her face and throat both burn intensely. And the pain brought a sliver of conscious back.
I need to hold back.
"Don't. It's prey."
She's a kid.
"It taunted you. A mere cub believed itself superior to a full grown predator."
Hurting her won't prove anything.
"Making an example of it will put the others in line. It'll gain you respect."
"Not respect," she muttered under her breathe as her boiling blood began to slow almost to a cold stop. "Fear."
And I will not give others the very thing I hated the whole of my life.
Haziness cleared from her mind, Noé let her arrow separate and compound into the palms of her hands instead. The two small spheres of shining light glimmered as she reached down to her ankles and instead shaped the light around her feet into oversized talons. Letting gravity take over, Noé dove through the air, letting it blow her loose hair out of her face. In the span of half a second, she landed with heavy crack beneath her and caged Myron's body between her talons, each claw avoiding every and any inch of her skin and only pinning her into the ground. Crouching with the crystalized light still attached to her feet, Noé let her hair obscure her face and briefly glanced up to Myron's face.
Crimson eyes were wide with crystal clear astonishment. With blatant disbelief. With bitter disappointment.
But no tinge fear.
A faint smile curved on her lips. Reaching down to Myron's face, Noé toyingly poked her nose earning a blank and baffled stare from the Fanalis. An airy and relieved chuckle escaped her lips then as she brushed her hair behind her ear, the crimson feathers behind it accommodating themselves against her head peacefully.
"Congratulations," she said softly as she leaned her chin against her knees to look down at Myron. "You won."
Letting the light shatter as she stepped out of it, Noé stumbled back and fell to a seat. While an uproar erupted near her as the Fanalis busied with their comrade's safety, Noé's mind wandered to what just happened seconds before. Disbelief clouded her mind at what she had been ready to do. What she almost did.
Hurting Myron, or any of them for that matter, had never been her goal. This was but child's play to her. Nothing serious. But something about Myron's own ferocity and flagrant ruthlessness ignited something in her core. Something foreign and so familiar.
Her own savagery. An instinct so beaten and flayed into her core that it became innate. The instinct to fight and win.
To kill and survive.
I became...that child again.
"I tried to stop you but I couldn't reach you." Chief's tone stunned Noé for a moment. It was raw. With panic. With concern. "You couldn't hear me."
What? "But…I heard you."
"Whatever you heard wasn't me."
"Miss Noé?"
Jerking out of her sudden stupor and blinking a few times, she turned up to meet crimson eyes, a frown marring the pretty looks of the young cub. Muu stood over her—sheathing his sword that she hadn't noticed he'd drawn—his head obscuring the sun completely from her view and allowing her to see him without trouble.
Thoughtlessly, her lips parted, an apology slipping from them. "I'm...sorry." Confused at her own words, she turned down and thought about what she'd said. No, it felt right to say sorry. "I didn't mean to get so carried away."
"I appreciate the apology." The dirt shifted beneath his feet as he crouched to see eye-to-eye with her. As if he were talking to a child. Odd...but also fitting for how she felt. "It seems you get carried away rather easily."
"Not easily," she deadpanned. "It's just that the certain things that provoke me..." Do it to dangerous extremes more often than not.
What he filled her silence with did fall around her general line of thought. "They get to you rather badly, huh?" That she averted her gaze in slight shame of being read so readily gave it away to him. With a nod and a spared glance over his shoulder, Muu turned back to her. More specifically to the small wound Myron had caused. When he tried reaching up to it, though, Noé jerked her head away and glared at him. "I just want to check the injury."
"It's a scratch."
"Not the one on your ear."
Ear? Reaching up herself, she winced at barely touching the outer edge of her right ear. Was...a chunk of it missing? Or was it cut? From merely touching it, she couldn't tell.
Muu pursed his lips as he kept his hands to himself this time around. "You need to get that stitched."
"It'll heal by itself."
"It'll be better if you get it treated though."
Tired of bickering back and forth, Noé stood from the ground and dusted her drape off along with her dress' skirt. "Forget it. I'm leaving anyway."
Though Muu uttered words of shock and disbelief, she didn't put any attention to him. Too tired to flash, she turned and started making her way back the way she'd come from when a shrilled shout stopped her.
"Wait right there!"
Noé spared a glance over her shoulder to see Myron and the rest of the Fanalis standing beside Muu not too far from the steps. Flustered and somewhat peeved, Myron's cheeks were dusted a darker hue than her hair as she shouted her way with an accusing finger pointed at her.
"This wasn't a damn victory!" she cried, anger flushing her face darker and darker the more she spoke. "You held back."
I didn't want to kill you. Despite her mouth opening to say those words, Noé stopped herself, still at odds about just what that conversation in her head had been. Instead—and for the first time in awhile—she gave some thought to her words.
"Metal vessel against household vessel was never a fair fight."
"Fine!" The volume of her bellow rivaled that of her foot stomping violently against the ground. "Then next time it'll be no vessels, just a clean fight! And then we'll see who exactly is stronger!"
It took Noé a moment to realize the specific phrase she'd used. At finally noticing it, her brow furrowed in bafflement. "Next time?"
This time, Lo'lo spoke for the rest as he stepped up and pushed his hand down on the head of a sulking Myron. "Guess it won't be such a waste of time to spar against someone like you if that's how you fight."
Yaqut, who stood beside Lo'lo, nodded in agreement. "A bunch of us want a piece of you too. Myself included," he said, pointing a thumb at his own chest. "Don't you dare leave us hanging, you hear?"
"Yeah, so come back again!" Razol perked up, jumping up and down.
Taken aback by how welcoming they were after all that, Noé needed a second to process it all. But before she could, a couple of long strides that skipped steps at a time brought Muu next to her and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Come on. Let's get that ear of yours fixed up."
Still trying to figure out how they could be so nonchalant about her obvious vicious fit, much less so accepting about it, made it easy for Muu to take her away from the battlegrounds and to a small room: an infirmary with a window looking out to the grounds they just left. Silent as he gathered what he needed, Noé watched from the window as the Fanalis corp busied themselves with clearing the mess their fighting with her had caused. Even after all that, they appeared so carefree, so content.
Bafflement didn't even begin to scratch the surface of her current state of mind.
"Alright." Cautiously eyeing Muu as he took a seat in front of her right side, Noé watched intently as he lit a candle and passed the slim, threaded needle across the orange flame. The thin metal took on a similar shade for a second before he brought it out of the fire to cool off. Crimson eyes turned to her and he smiled before saying, "Could you hold your hair away?"
Raising an eyebrow as she eyed both the needle and him a couple of times made her scoff. "You seriously think I'm letting anywhere near my ear with that?"
"It'll be quick, I promise."
"Yeah, no. I don't trust your needlework, young lady."
Muu snorted and brushed off the insult like nothing. Noé rolled her eyes at his reaction, getting real sick and tired of how her blase attitude just slid right off of him like water on wax.
"I've done this after battles more times than I care to count," he admitted with a tight-lipped smile. "So, yes, you can trust my needlework."
Thinking long and hard about it for a moment, Noé finally exhaled deeply and groaned before brushing all of her auburn curls away from her right ear and over her left shoulder. With a clear way, Muu scooted closer and first cleaned away the blood with a small, clean rag and water before inserting the needle. The prick that went through her outer ear and the sick feeling of the thread going through as well made her wince and the feathers behind her right ears bristle. Muu curiously eyed the feathers for a second but quickly went back to work.
Wanting to ignoring the disgusting feeling of the sutures, Noé's eyes wandered to the outside where the other Fanalis were. Her mind swam with a lot of questions, most of which didn't she feel like asking, and she most likely wouldn't have asked them had her quandary not been so pressing on her mind. In the end, she caved and asked the most imperative to her.
"How could they let the fact that I tried killing her slip through their minds so easily?"
Muu's fingers stopped for a brief moment before continuing. It might've been too brief for anybody else not to notice but not for her. Wanting to have her answer, she prodded further.
"You noticed it too, didn't you?" Though her question was one that already had an answer in her mind, she asked it anyway wanting some confirmation from his own mouth. "It's why you accepted my apology, childish as it was. And why you had Barbatos at the ready back there."
You knew what I intended if only for that split moment.
"You knew I could have killed her."
"But you didn't."
The simple sentence answered nothing and only served to confused her further. "Had I not stopped myself—"
"I would have. They all would have. But you did." Tying off the thread on her ear, he leaned forward and tore the excess off with his teeth. His breath, for that one second, so near to it made her avert her eyes, only slightly moving her head away. It was done with quickly though and he set the needle aside to grab a small, round container. Twisting the cap off and dabbing a couple of his fingers on it, he daubed over the suture with it. At the slight sting it brought on, Noé jerked her head away and glared at him, not so much because of the ointment stinging her but because of his own nonchalantness about the issue.
"You had no way of knowing I would have though." Even now, Noé wasn't so sure herself that she would've stopped had the pain not snapped her out of the hunger for bloodshed that crawled so briefly throughout her entire body. "The things I've done before should have given you an idea of how volatile I am, how fickle I can be." No shame came in admitting any of that. Noé knew her own faults from her meistras having pointed them out so long ago. "Which is why I can't understand for the life of me what makes you so damn trusting."
Now, Muu didn't seem as quiescent as before as he lowered his gaze. "You're not wrong. The few times I've met you, you've done nothing but terrorize others on a whim and disappear just as easily. But I also recently realized that those times—it was almost like you were playing with them. Taunting them. Wanting for them to shun you before they had a chance to form any concrete idea of you."
"You sound like you thought about this too much," she chided.
Scoffing, Muu shrugged his shoulders, tending to the small cut on her cheek by cleaning it and daubing some ointment on it too. "Maybe. But Lady Scheherazade helped me figure out why you—or more precisely, why your words and your actions—appeared so disparate to me."
"She tell you all this?"
"Like I said, I figured it out."
Flinching a bit at the pressure he put when placing a small gauze over the scratch, her fingers reached up to cup her cheek as she shook her head in denial. "Even if you figured whatever you did out, it's strange that you'd just accept it as is and let me get this close to hurting someone dear to you."
"Because I had the notion you wouldn't." His confidence was unmistakable. The small smile he gave her only added to the feeling that sank into her stomach. It sickened her and baffled her all the same. "Because I've seen that even when you say you will, you never hurt anybody."
Emerald eyes widened at hearing such stupid, ignorant, and erroneous words.
"I've killed before…" It wasn't so much a confession as it was a statement of fact, and the thought was so great that it brought her out of her chair. "I've killed people of Reim, of Kou, of Parthevia—people of every nation you can think of. Even those who belonged to none. I've killed men and women alike. All for what I plan to do, what I said I'll accomplish: to clear this world of its weeds. You heard me say this to Scheherazade."
"I did," he agreed with a heavy sigh, his head hanging a bit before he stood up and looked at her in the eye without backing down. "Perhaps I'm wrong to think as I do. Maybe you only held back today out of merit. But you yourself said that Reim is one of the last places you intend to 'clean', isn't it?" Not understanding where he was going with this, Noé nodded slowly. "Then, for now and for as long as that remains true, I guess it's safe to say that you won't hurt anybody here, much less kill them."
"That could easily change," she told him, adamant to veer him in that direction. To make him see she was to be feared. That he needed to be cautious around her. That he shouldn't accept her so haphazardly. "You said so yourself, the things I do, I do them on a whim."
"Then, if those things come to happen, I'll stop you."
Why are you so damn stubborn about this?
"Perhaps…" Chief didn't seem to want to finish her sentence but after a deep breath, she did. "Perhaps there's something in you...that reminds him of them."
Noé found no sense in Chief's words. Them?
"The Fanalis, those he leads. Those he saved from slavery. The ones that everybody, doubtlessly, saw as nothing but monsters—the very thing he knew they weren't."
Her mind couldn't grasp the stupidity of what Chief said and in her bout of perplexity, she spat out words of frustration.
"Then you'll die a meaningless death just like your foolish ancestor did."
Noé flashed out just as she said that, unable to bear being a second longer in the presence of such an utterly delusional fool who refused to see her for what the threat she really was.
A/N:
Finally finished chapter ten! Boi, was this a drag to write; mostly because I knew where I was going just not how to get there (u -w-) Can't believe I got into the double digits already and this barely getting into the first third of the story! o(*ω*)o I think this one might be somewhat longer than Silent Lamb ended up being but I hope you all stay along for the trip all the same!
Well, it's getting late where I'm at so I'm gonna give some quick but huge thanks to suzume27, Yamidori, and shika93 for the favorites and follows! And also to Aviantei for the review! I love you all so much and you give me so much strength to keep writing this story (TwT)b
For now, I'll leave things at that. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you stay tuned for the next update! Have a great night/day~
- Evie