In a clearing in the forest, two people stood on a torn-up trail of destruction and debris. With a Vulcan's carcass lying off to the side as a silent witness
"How are you alive?"
The young man with black hair and narrow eyes spoke first. He grimaced as he took his hand out of his pockets. Meanwhile, the girl with white hair and countless injuries spoke unfazed by his attempts to probe her for information.
"Who knows..."
All she could hear was a buzzing in her ears.
"Guess I'm stubborn," Mira joked with an offhanded chuckle, her eyes tilted back as she watched the man flinch before his eyes narrowed. Those snake-like pupils trailed down her broken arm and her array of bruises and bloody cuts before he seemed to reaffirm himself with a sharp grin.
"Looks like you're hanging on by a thread, brat."
Not that he was wrong.
"Bet even I can beat you, now."
Mira looked like shit.
"Yeah, you're probably right," Mira slurred her words with a haphazard laugh. Her grin was wide as she looked through her hair matted in sweat and spoke with a new sense of soft wonder: "My body feels like..."
It was strange.
"It's on fire."
The pain that filled her senses and the fatigue that pierced her mind made her feel better. It was like her body had pushed past its limits and was now free-falling, burning up whatever she had left inside her until she inevitably collapsed from it.
"I feel..."
She was in a burning world of exhaustion and fatigue, where even the air around her seemed to scorch her lungs.
"Fucking amazing!"
She had never felt such mental clarity. Everything was more apparent now; where her body could only feel pain, her mind could only see what was in front of her.
"Come on, snake bastard!"
An enemy to defeat.
"What are you waiting for!?" Mira roared as she watched the man grimace and build up his magic to a boiling point. It looked like he was piling all his remaining strength into the next attack, to the point that even the shadows began to shake at his feet. A final attack took her out before she could recover even a bit of her strength—a final gamble.
"I can take a little pain!"
That was fine with her.
"So bring it!" Mira roared challengingly as she watched the man narrow his eyes before taking a deep breath. The shadows at his feet bulged at the surface like a bubble about to pop, and his muscles trembled. He glared at her with a tense sigh.
"SHADOW MAGIC"
Sweat dripped down his forehead, and it looked like he had struggled just to activate this spell, but he did it. He held his hands together and pointed out with his fingers extended like a snake's fangs poised to strike.
"SNAKE PIT"
The bubble of shadows at his feet burst, and hordes of snakes shot forward, erupting in a geyser of black snakes that devoured everything in their path, even each other, as they cascaded through the forest in a wave of pitch-black fangs. All the while, Mira watched with a shaky breath and sudden realization.
If that hits, I'll be devoured.
This was Mira's last shot; if she messed up, she died. If she failed to beat him now, she'd die.
I can't die...
Then, there would be no one left to protect her siblings.
I promised...
That was unacceptable.
I won't!
Mira watched with wide-eyed concentration as she planted her feet. The attack barreled towards her as she held out her demonic arm and acted on as much of an instinctive level as she did a conscious one. Her magic took over her arm as dark magic bellowed into her open palm and began swarming into a ball of densely packed energy. The dark purple hue highlighted her eyes, which only looked forward.
I hate my magic...
She looked past what she could see on her fingertips.
But it's the strongest part of me.
She didn't have the luxury to hold on to her grudges.
If it means protecting them...
Her siblings were far more important.
I'll do anything.
Mira felt her magic surge to a climax as her senses were flooded with dark magic, and the right side of her body changed to match her inner power. Harsh magenta scales climbed up her right arm and down her right leg. Her right ear was pointed as she hissed with a sharp breath, using the magic built upon a foundation of self-hatred.
"Darkness Magic"
Her magic vibrated with an unsung glee, compounding until she couldn't contain it.
"Demon Blast"
Mira felt something rip out of her right shoulder, a wing of some kind if she had to guess, as the magic in her outstretched palm burst in a bright violet laser. Her vision was sharper than ever, watching as it punched a hole through the waves of incoming serpents and shot straight towards her opponent, who didn't have time to dodge a ranged attack he hadn't seen coming. She caught the moment he noticed the laser in front of him.
"Shit."
Then, it connected and consumed the landscape in a harsh violet explosion that billowed above the trees and shook the ground for miles.
An explosion reverberated through the forest as Erigor's face whipped back from a sudden strike. His ears rang, and his head was dazed as his attention idly wandered between the noise and his opponent.
It looks like Kageyama's dead...
Erigor stabbed his hand forward, aiming to gouge the boy's eyes out, only for the brat to duck under it. He was slamming his sheathed katana into Erigor's knee and bringing him to the ground before snapping his foot into Erigor's chin and dragging him upright.
It's just me now.
Erigor, for lack of better terms, was getting his ass beat.
That's good...
Erigor, for his life, couldn't seem to care about it.
One less thing is weighing me down.
Erigor grinned drunkenly as he snapped his fist forward, catching the boy at an awkward angle. His punch sent the boy flying as Erigor stood on shaky legs and gave a fleeting chuckle between harsh breaths. His eyes closed as he bounced on the balls of his feet like a boxer ready for round two.
I'm so close...
Even with countless injuries and a rattled brain.
I can feel it on the horizon.
Even with stars flickering in his eyes.
So come on, kid...
Erigor felt light as a feather.
Please show me a little more!
Erigor grinned as he shot forward, his foot gliding inches off the ground as he tackled the surprised kid with enough force to knock the wind out of him. His shoulder dropped into the boy's chest and pushed him to the ground as Erigor kicked the runt away.
One step from life...
Erigor took heavy breaths as he listened to the wind, his body instinctively ready to shoot up into the sky before it stopped. His neck prickled in warning, and he chuckled, settling back down to his place mere inches off the ground. Now aware of the threat.
Two steps from death.
The wind was telling him that he would die if he tried to escape to the clouds above.
That's where I'll find it.
This was where he had to remain, pinched between a quick death and a slow one.
Whatever the wind is trying to tell me.
Erigor gave a loose grin as he leveled his hazy eyes and oddly clear mind as he watched the kid clench his teeth and vault to his feet. The boy charged in and ducked a loose straight from Erigor before his sheathed katana into Erigor's shin.
He's either waiting for his sword to charge...
A loud crack reverberated from the impact, but Erigor paid it no mind; it wasn't important.
Or his shadow to find an opportunity to end it all in one fell swoop so I won't have a chance to escape to the clouds where he can't reach me.
It's not like his feet needed to touch the ground anyway.
I'll die, depending on which option he chooses.
Erigor snapped his fractured shin into the boy's head, uncaring for the pain as he twisted around and kicked the boy away. His eyes were wide and attentive as he heard the leaves above rustle in an unsaid worry; the boy's shadow must be getting restless.
A fifty percent chance...
The wind was getting louder, and its message was getting more precise. It was being revealed inch by inch.
I have a fifty percent chance of survival.
Letter by letter, he started to glean its message.
Lucky me!
Erigor grinned ferally as he watched the kid tumble to his feet, charge back in, and damage bloody Erigor a bit more before he kicked off his leg to avoid one of Erigor's stabbing hands and reached for the sword. Erigor licked his lips as he watched with inhuman concentration, his eyes clear and his hands twitching in anticipation as he watched the boy's answer.
'Click'
The wrong answer.
There it is.
Vera released a roaring blade of wind that cleaved through the air and was instantly in Erigor's face. Its vicious roar was poised to rip Erigor in half without a single second's hesitation or resistance.
This is where it'll be decided...
Erigor let out a breath, a single moment in the seconds between his life and its end, as he felt the breeze coming off the slash touch his skin. The air dispersed by the vicious attack tickled his senses and kissed his face.
The value of my life.
He let his instincts take over, letting the wind guide his body as it used the dispersed air from the attack to inch him out of the way. Erigor let his body rotate along the edge of the blade, his life spared by a few centimeters as its razor-sharp edge clipped his hair before he opened his palm to the blade, summoning a stream of wind that wrapped around the blade and chained it in his grasp.
Come on, kid...
Erigor spun with the momentum of the wind, and in its natural state and roaring speed, the blade began to follow the path Erigor set. Like a fish in a stream, it moved with a current of air guided from Erigor's fingertips before it was spit out.
Show me it...
Right back at the boy.
What makes you free...
Erigor watched intently, his mouth practically hanging open because he couldn't be bothered to close it. The only thing that mattered was the boy in front of him and what he would do when faced with death. What his life would amount to.
Come on...
Erigor watched with inhuman focus. Every neuron in his brain turned towards the boy. His eyes were clear as day as he watched the blade of wind roar towards the boy, who stiffened in surprise and tried to block it with his katana, an idea that held out for a few seconds before the green sword snapped in two.
Show me...
The wind blade continued its course and would've sliced the boy in two if it wasn't for his shadow, who fell from the trees and tried to protect him from the blow, taking most of the attack.
SHOW ME!
The shadow was cleaved in two, died as quickly as it had lived, and the blade carved halfway through the boy's right shoulder instead of his head. The surprise counter knocked the kid to the ground in a spray of blood that left a crimson wound diagonally spanning across his shoulder to the center of his chest.
Ah...
The only reason the boy wasn't cut fatally was his unnaturally resilient body and his shadow.
There it is.
His shadow that was more alive than not.
In the smoky aftermath of a swift battle, a girl with white hair and demonic features taking up the right side of her body stood with bloody lips. Her eyes peered into the dissipating darkness as she waited, always ready to start fighting if her opponent came out unscathed from her last attack.
Huh...
Thankfully, she didn't have to worry about it.
I won.
Mira let out a breath, which she wasn't aware she had been holding, as she saw the smoke begin to fade. Her muscles sagged with relief as she saw the charred aftermath of her attack. A long trail of destruction and carnage ended with the covered view of a man lying limp against a shattered tree. She could see hints of his body barely peeking out of the ashy cloud he lay in.
Thank-
What was left of his body anyway.
"No..."
Mira froze as she watched the smoke cloud dissipate completely. Her eyes widened in horror as her opponent's entire body was revealed, and she got a glimpse of what she had truly done.
"No, no, no, no, no..."
The right arm was missing from his body.
"I didn't mean to," Mira whispered in horror as she looked at her arm in a terrified silence. The contents of her stomach grumbled until she couldn't hold it anymore and threw up. The vomit landed at her feet in a splatter that looked like blood because that's what she had done. That's all she could see around the man lying in a pool of growing crimson—a red puddle of his blood.
He's bleeding out...
A man whose breath was getting fainter and fainter.
What do I do!?
Mira's breath picked up, and her eyes trembled with terror. Her body struggled to follow her orders as she stumbled towards the man with a shaking voice, her eyes tearing up in horror as she got closer and smelt the air. The iron that tinged every inch of it.
"I- I didn't- I don't-"
Mira didn't know what to do.
"I didn't mean- I wasn't- how-"
It was like the world was ending around her, and she couldn't get it to stop.
"I just wanted..."
All the memories of the villagers—their shouts, screams, hackles, faces of rage and fear—were cascading down on her, and she couldn't do anything about it. She didn't know what to do. What was she supposed to do?
"I'm sorry-"
"Shut up, kid," A raspy and struggling voice cut through the air. Her teary eyes wide as she looked up and saw the man peeking through a swollen eyelid. His breath was thick and tainted as if he was barely holding on to his last breath.
"I tried... to kill you... and... your family..."
Barely enough to get his words into the air.
"I... failed..."
Words that fluttered with the fading smoke.
"That's... all... there is..."
Until his head slumped down, and he succumbed to the weight of his injuries.
"To it..."
Kageyama died like that, right in front of her eyes: no last hurrah, no loud gasp. Death had come for him silently. Stealing his last breath from under his nose as his eyes glazed over, and he was dead.
"Hey..."
Just like that.
"Hey, get up..."
It was so sudden and quiet it could have been considered anticlimactic in a morbid sense.
"Snake bastard?" Mira asked with a trembling voice as she touched his hand. Her eyes shook as she felt the ice-cold touch and collapsed to her knees. Her eyes closed as she tried to catch her breath, trying to stop herself from diving into a panic attack.
I didn't mean to...
She failed.
I just wanted him to stop chasing us!
The villagers called back to her. Their voices tore at her head with a rampaging fury. Their words taunted her, and she couldn't stop them. She couldn't tune them out this time.
I'm not a monster!
She had killed someone.
I'M NOT A DEMON!
She didn't know what to do.
STOP CALLING ME THAT!
Mira broke down with a gasping wail. Her voice went raw as she sobbed and screamed and cried and everything in between. Her breath rose in a panic, a frantic rise and fall that squeezed the air out of her lungs and sucked it back in. The lack of oxygen was getting to her head as black tinted the edge of her vision as she began succumbing to her fatigue.
I just wanted to protect them...
After succumbing to her injuries and the fatigue of a long and harsh day. Where her heart had been liberated and crushed in a few hours.
My family.
Mirajane Strauss slipped into the realm of unconsciousness.
Vera blinked the darkness out of his eyes as he looked up at the sky in a dazed state.
Huh...
He was pretty sure he passed out for a second.
I'm alive.
Vera blinked the stars out of his eyes as he struggled to his feet. His breath was raspy as he touched the red liquid that had begun to ooze out of his right shoulder. His fingers returned a crimson color as he traced it to the center of his chest.
It didn't cut my lung...
It was shallow at his chest and got more profound as it went. It practically cut to the bone at his shoulder, but that wasn't a fatal blow.
If I don't hurry...
The blood he was steadily losing from the nasty wound was what would do him in.
I'll bleed out.
Vera took a shaky breath as the fact settled in. His eyes trailed towards the broken sword in his grasp, and he dropped it resignedly. His dazed vision returned to the assassin, who waited patiently, as if hypnotized, to see what would happen next.
Sho...
It was as if Erigor were a tiger waiting for his next meal.
Let's do the spell.
Vera felt his shadow tug harshly in response, expressing obvious displeasure with the idea as Sho stretched beneath his feet and stubbornly shook his head. There wasn't a doubt in Vera's mind that Sho would try any and every other option before that spell. The spell they shouldn't even be discussing since Jose banned it.
We're on a clock now, Sho...
They didn't have time for that, though.
If I pass out, it's over.
Vera's blood had already begun to stain the right half of his dress shirt. Vera had to treat the wound soon, and he couldn't do that with Erigor. It would be a death sentence.
Come on, Sho...
They had to give it everything.
Give me control.
Otherwise, they would lose everything.
It's the only way.
Vera held Sho's blank yet disapproving stare with a stoic one of his own. His will was unbending as he watched his shadow seemingly frown in displeasure before giving a reluctant nod as if permitting him but with a strict caveat—a promise he had to make.
I understand...
When Sho told him to stop and call off the spell, he had to listen.
The second you tell me to stop, I'll stop.
No matter the consequences.
'Tug'
Vera let out a relieved breath as his shadow gave an approving nod before he tilted his head back at his opponent with a deep stare. His head was oddly clear as he felt his magic catapult and his body started to thrum with a deeper connection to his shadow. The symbiotic system they had at the moment shifted as Sho willingly gave him control of its body, and Vera accepted that control with a gratefulness he couldn't put into words.
Thanks, Sho...
Vera felt Sho signal his agreement with a weak tug. Sho could no longer resist Vera's commands as he moved his body like a puppeteer. His magic roared with a new force as he made Sho's arms and legs crawl over his skin. His shadow became a living set of grieves and gauntlets wrapped around his appendages like a whispy shadow vortex.
"PARTIAL POSSESSION"
Vera felt his arms tense, his legs bulge, and his eyes alight with new power as Sho's body sprouted out of his back for one last look before dissipating. His shadow's body is now gone except for its arms and legs, which he wore like a living armor set.
"INKY LIMBS"
A shadow armor set.
Ready Sho?
Vera looked at his arms and living armor with a slight grin as he felt Sho tug on the connection. He was still there; he just couldn't deny Vera's orders anymore. Sho had willingly given Vera control over his body so that what once was two could become one.
'Tug'
Vera would be damned if he let it go to waste.
Thanks, bud.
Vera grinned as he tapped his foot, feeling the ground shatter under his step. He instantly closed the distance between him and Erigor, appearing in front of the assassin so quickly that it was like he had vanished from sight—a feat he attributed to the strength buff this spell gave him.
"Hey, Erigor..."
If before his power was five and Sho's was 10, then the most they could dish out was 15.
"I'm ready to fight for real this time."
Now it was more like 50.
"Try to keep up."
Vera grinned as he watched the shock that laced the assassin's eyes as he threw a punch that cracked Erigor's jaw and shot him deep into the woods, crashing through rows of thorny trees. The force of his punch was so much stronger than it used to be that it wasn't even funny.
Come on, Sho...
Vera would end this fight.
Let's do this.
Before it even bega-
"I! HEARD! IT!"
Vera froze in his steps as he heard the insane bellow of his enemy from the woods. His muscles tensed, and his breath sputtered as he watched Erigor shoot above the tree tops with a drunken smile on his bruised face and a declaration that teetered in between primal ecstasy and raw insanity. The sight knocked the wind out of Vera's sails as he watched in a stupor.
"I GET IT NOW!"
Erigor looked high.
"Your magic is alive, isn't it!" Erigor roared with a loud cackle as he swung his arms out and looked at the sky like it was divine, "Your magic is free! That's why it's so interesting! That's why I'm enjoying this so much! I understand what the wind was trying to tell me now! The essence of magic! Yours is the embodiment of it! I see it now!"
Erigor's words echoed through the air, ringing in Vera's ears as he felt Sho squirm uncomfortably. The wind rose to a howl as it converged on Erigor, with him in the center of a billowing vortex. His eyes flicked towards Vera's and lit up with a sudden burst of gleeful joy, contrasted by his unwaveringly enlightened voice.
"Magic is Freedom."
It was like he wanted to whisper it into existence.
"Let me show you mine."
The awakening that had gripped his heart and mind.
"WIND MAGIC"
Vera could only watch in a daze, the shadow gauntlets and grieves that he wore tingling with a sense of unease. Everything in Vera's body was telling him to be cautious, and it wasn't until the second he saw the wind swirling around Erigor's arms and legs, similarly to what Sho had done, wrapping around Erigor's appendages in vortexes of rampaging wind, that Vera realized why Erigor made him feel so uneasy.
6 years...
This Erigor was the one of x778, not the one of x784.
Is a long time.
Naturally, Vera assumed that the one he was fighting would be weaker than the one from the story. Since the one in the story would have had six years to improve and progress their magic, this was almost guaranteed, with very few exceptions.
Erigor said he hadn't taken a job in months...
The only one was if a mage grew too old like Makarov, which wasn't Erigor's case.
He said he hadn't even fought in years.
Or if one grew complacent and stopped training.
Would that have changed in the next six years?
No one was exempt from the decay of time, and even the most gifted of mages, the tigers born from luck and destiny, would have their fangs dulled beyond repair after years of inactivity, especially in a field where frontal confrontations are avoided at all cost such as assassinations. Especially after having a ban on their work and making the few instances of practical experience they once had nonexistent.
I get it now...
In x784, when Eisenwhalde declared war against the guild masters of Fiore, Erigor was a B, at most A rank mage whose first fight in over six years was against Salamander on the train tracks leading to Clover. A fight he lost in earnest and was promptly tossed in jail afterward.
That's why it felt off.
However, in x778, after climbing to the Ace of Eisenwhalde and only a few months of dwindling activity, Erigor's fangs had yet to fade completely. They were still bare.
He's like Siegrain.
It was at that moment, as Vera stared at the spell that had taken him months to utilize, copied in only an instant, that Vera realized what had been bugging him earlier on in the fight—the itch in the back of his brain that told him to be wary of the assassin who should have been predictable.
"TEMPEST LIMBS"
The Erigor of x778, the one floating above him, basking proudly at the raging wind wrapped around his arms and legs, differed from the one in x784. This Erigor still had the fangs of a tiger. The natural talent and ability to improve exponentially, whereas regular people would improve linearly. To bridge the gap that should have taken six years in nothing more than an instant of spontaneous inspiration.
"Thanks, kid..."
The Erigor of x778 was a genius...
"The wind has never sounded clearer thanks to you."
A genius of wind magic.