Misaki's spell-flame roared in her hands, crystallizing into a blazing sword of astral energy. This mage's command of invocations and abjurations were beyond what a human should be capable of. Like with the battle against Isao Tsukimura, Misaki correctly assumed that the only way we'd be able to turn the fight around would be to force a melee.
“Leave us alone!” Misaki roared as she struck, ignoring her wounds. The terrible burns split and bled in multiple places, but Misaki was too focused on the fight to care about the pain. Her blade of frozen flame slashed outward and opened up a burning line in the mage's left arm. Bright blood poured from the injury, but she seemed not to notice.
I managed to get to my feet even through my own pain and the weakness in my left leg, firing as I closed in. The mage's form continually flickered to avoid the MQ rounds even as she was fully engaged with dodging Misaki's swings. This time I materialized the Relic of my own volition. I kept firing my automatic until again the weapon was empty and tossed it aside, taking the ancient longsword up in a two-handed grip.
The mage's flat gray eyes widened in almost imperceptible alarm, but it was far too late. Already overbalanced after dodging one of Misaki's strikes, she had no time to evade as the Relic's impossibly-sharp edge bit deeply into her midsection. I felt the weapon connect and sink into flesh. Blood spurted out from the wound far too severe to simply ignore.
Reality fractured around the mage as she attempted to phase out and pull away, but the Relic was more than capable of reaching across the astral boundary to damage the incorporeal. Her form flickered again, but it was no use. I yanked the sword back as viciously as I could, tearing it free from the mage's torso and spraying a plume of hot blood across my arms and face.
Shadows engulfed the mage as she stepped back, going on the defensive. I allowed myself a satisfied smile; that attack had
definitely
hurt. Rather than continuing to press the advantage she'd gained, the mage dropped back, changing tactics. A quartet or shadows detached from her body and became animate, spreading out across the empty lot. Each of the four shadow-clones began to trace black-glowing runes in the air.
I glanced over at Misaki, the determination obvious in my eyes. No matter how hopeless it got, I knew neither of us would give up. I knew that no matter what happened, we'd go down fighting together.
“It can't really get much worse now, can it?”
If she answered me, her words were swallowed up in an abrupt and thunderous roar of gunfire. I watched, open-mouthed, as two of the clones' heads were blasted from their bodies, splattering strange shadowy goo that dissolved away as if it were mist.
Their companions reacted quickly, flickering away to avoid the incoming hail of lead. Ghostly fingers twitched and I felt my muscles freeze up as a potent spell of restriction settled around me. Fortunately, Misaki was expecting such an attack—she inscribed a dispelling rune and I felt control of my body return to me almost as quickly as I lost it.
With the Relic in hand I charged forward recklessly, slashing wildly at the nearest shadow clone. The ancient blade's edge burned with intense magical heat and I felt only the slightest resistance as the weapon cleaved one of the clones in half. The shadowy substance that composed its body dissolved away, joining the rest of the loose mana piling up in the vicinity.
I glanced over my shoulder as Misaki threw a defensive barrier over me, just in time to intercept a gigantic bolt of lightning that arced from the remaining shadow clone. Misaki struck back against the magical construct, flinging a barrage of explosive fire that boiled away large portions of the clone's substance.
I wasn't surprised to see Star running toward me, armed with a high-powered military assault rifle. She braced the weapon against her shoulder and loosed a three-shot burst of hot-loaded 7.62mm MQ rounds at the damaged clone, severing it from its power source and causing it to vanish as if it had never been.
“What the hell is going on, Karin?” Star demanded.
“How the fuck should I know?” I shrugged helplessly and pointed the tip of my sword at the dark woman. “Ask the creepy shadow lady trying to kill us!”
I kept the Relic in a guard position, my eyes warily scanning the battlefield. Star arrived with two of her AEGIS operatives, both of whom I recognized. Malcolm and Renne were veterans of the supernatural crisis-management agency, talented sharpshooters that had helped Misaki and me defeat Isao Tsukimura a little over six months ago.
Star turned her attention to the shadowy mage. I was not surprised to see that she'd taken full advantage of the distraction provided by the shadow clones; the deep slash I'd inflicted with the Relic was almost completely healed. Blood streaked the mage's suit, but if she was in pain, it certainly didn't show.
“Cease your hostilities at once or be destroyed,” Star called out in challenge. The mage's flat eyes narrowed just slightly and a profusion of runes materialized around her head. I winced as the storm of shadowy magic blasted forth, aimed directly at Star.
My boss's lips split in a challenging grin and the gauntlet on her left hand glowed. The Spell Engine was a magical emulation system, a curious bit of technology that allowed a person without any knowledge of magecraft to execute invocations programmed into the device. The Spell Engine's core blazed as a blue-white barrier enveloped Star's body and deflected the shadow bolts, sending them careening off in random directions.
The mysterious mage let out a hiss of frustration. Star's thumb flicked the fire-select switch on her carbine and unleashed a devastating blast of fully-automatic fire, ripping out a third of her thirty-round magazine in the span of less than a second. I felt a grin of my own start to form as the mage's phasing defense couldn't keep up with the assault rifle's impressive cyclic rate.
Blood spurted from the wounded mage's midsection. That expressionless and coldly beautiful face was now ashen and drawn from exhaustion and pain. Her body flickered again, vanishing and reappearing at the edge of the street, over a hundred meters distant.
“I've got this,” Star insisted. I noticed the sophisticated scope perched atop the accessory rail on her rifle. She brought it up to her eye and loosed another ten-round fusillade.
The other two AEGIS operatives raised their own weapons, identical to Star's carbine, and joined their commander in utterly laying waste to the shadowy mage. With the enemy's attention focused on the other three, I decided to risk checking on my fiancee.
“Misaki, are you okay?”
Her ears flicked toward me and her tail swished. I winced as I noticed a considerable amount of the fur on her tail had been melted by the redirected flame. The burns on her body looked horrific, but she didn't appear to be hurt too badly. So long as the Relic existed, Misaki could come back from nearly any amount of damage.
“I'm fine,” she said as she traced a runic phrase into the air before her. I recognized the spell as a healing invocation, one of the few Misaki knew. I watched as the charred and bleeding burns covering my love's skin began to fade away and close up, leaving little indication that she'd ever been so badly hurt.
The invocation affected me, as well, but Misaki's ability to heal natural flesh was far less potent. I felt the pain in my left leg start to numb, and some of my abrasions stopped bleeding and scabbed over rapidly. Misaki sighed and gave me an apologetic look.
“That's the best I can do.”
“I know.” I turned my attention back to the shadowy mage. Star and her AEGIS people were putting up one hell of a fight, but the creepy weirdo had apparently gotten wise to their attack methods. Instead of flickering in and out of the material world rapidly in order to avoid being shot, she was instead using an invocation of telekinesis to tear makeshift barriers of pavement from the parking lot.
“Learns fast,” I growled.
“Karin, this mage is obviously more powerful than Lord Isao, but there isn't even a hint of fused spectral essence within her. That should be impossible. No ordinary human should be able to channel
that
much mana that quickly.”
“There's no way this creepy fucker's ordinary.” I kept the Relic held at the ready, just in case Star and her agents failed to drive the mage off. At this point I doubted that we'd be able to actually kill this one, even if all five of us worked together as a unit.
Misaki's expression became even more worried. “That's just it, though. I can't feel any miasma at all. There are no specters anywhere within a hundred kilometers of us.”
“So you're saying we have no idea what we're dealing with.”
Misaki didn't respond to that. It was just as well, anyway; I'd already figured out that whoever or whatever this mage truly was, she was several orders of magnitude beyond the enemies we usually faced.
“Come on, Misaki. We need to help them out.”
Her tail swished in anticipation. “Let's kick some ass.”
Misaki's fingers traced the runic symbols that would grant us both the power of flight, thus completely negating the disadvantage caused by my bad leg. I felt myself growing lighter and becoming unbound from the earth. I willed my body to hover just a few centimeters above the pavement, remembering well what happened the last time I tried using this tactic against a powerful spellcaster. Things were bad enough
without
handing our opponent additional weapons.
Misaki's spell-flame blazed into existence around her hands and she rocketed into the sky, clearly intent on coming down from above with the promise of fiery death. I decided to take a different tack; I willed my body forward, picking up speed as I streaked toward the embattled mage.
Considering how many hits Star and her agents scored, I expected the mage to be on fire at this point, but for whatever reason the special magic-mangling bullets weren't working nearly as well as usual. I could see small plumes of steam and smoke emerge from the gunshot wounds on the shadow mage's body, but this was ridiculous.
Still, the enemy was badly outnumbered. Even if our weapons were only minimally effective, we'd still be able to drive her off. Maybe.
I whipped the Relic around and came charging in like an enraged bull, blasting through the mage's outer defensible ring. The sword's edge glowed hot as I slashed outward in a horizontal arc.
My eyes widened in shock and extreme frustration as she leaped straight up a split-second before the blade struck her, narrowly avoiding the eviscerating strike by less than a centimeter. Despite being overbalanced from the blow, I managed to reverse my direction of acceleration and fly backwards just as a shadowy detonation ripped through the spot I'd been only a split-second earlier.
I could see the mage's face more clearly as Misaki cast one of her favorite offensive spells. Innumerable iron needle constructs rained down from above, saturating a five-meter radius around the mage. Highlighted by the pink glow of the conjured weapons, I saw her expression locked in a mask of determination.
“Star! Defend!” Misaki cried. Her fingers rapidly traced a defensive rune and threw it over me. The familiar shimmering gold barrier enveloped my body a moment before the mage threw her head back and
screamed
.
Star, Malcolm and Renne all glowed with supernal light; no surprise there, their Spell Engines ensured they could defend against most attacks no matter how quick, so long as they expected it. Misaki was airborne, well out of the blast radius, and I was protected by her magic.
Still, though, even with the protection, I'd never felt such incredible, nerve-shattering and excruciating pain. I felt as if every single cell in my body screamed in protest as the scrambling magical field enveloped me. Misaki's golden barrier protected me from the more debilitating effects of the attack and the pain quickly passed, leaving behind a dull throbbing numbness.
Such a desperation attack was clearly meant to overload our nervous systems and leave us all temporarily incapacitated. Her intent foiled, the mage's gray eyes narrowed to slits, nearly vanishing under a dark slash of a brow that angled down with such iron determination that I was taken aback. She just wouldn't quit.
“She's not done yet!” Star called out and slammed a fresh magazine home. Yanking back on the bolt, the AEGIS commander chambered a fresh round and started laying down a devastating barrage. Misaki swooped down and lit on the ground next to me. Her clothes were a mess, but her wounds looked to be mostly on the mend.
It was then that I noticed two things: the rain started lashing down at us from above and our opponent was no longer alone.
the fall
Huge, nightmare creatures sprang from their hiding places within the partially-demolished warehouse. The overcast sky darkened as the storm clouds intensified, bringing with them the torrential rains. Despite the storm dimming the light of the sun, I blinked, certain that my eyes were playing tricks on me.
The monsters that appeared and arrayed themselves in a defensive formation around the shadow mage appeared to have a similar look to that of great black cats. Their bodies were coated not in fur, but thick, inky blackness that seemed to shift and warp as the rain fell upon them. Enormous heads filled with razor-sharp crystalline teeth roared in barely-contained fury.
The mysterious mage stepped back and etched a single shadowy rune in the air, silently commanding the blighted beasts to attack.
Star and her people started running back toward us, firing as they went, but it was immediately apparent that the MQ rounds were having as little effect on the otherworldly beasts as the raindrops. They simply charged at the AEGIS operatives and pounced, dagger-like claws bared.
I gawked at the creatures and glanced toward Misaki. “What
are
those things?”
“I don't know,” she muttered as she intensified the power of her spell-flame. “I've never seen anything like them before. I can feel miasma saturating them—
so
much of it—but they aren't specters.”
“Does it worry you as much as it does me that you couldn't detect them before?”
Misaki nodded grimly. “I think we just found what killed the AEGIS operatives.”
I didn't bother trying to retrieve my gun. Star and her operatives had discarded theirs, as well and instead were flinging bolts of magic with their Spell Engines. Star gripped an Emulated Relic in her right hand, the short blade's quintessence-inlaid edge burning with stored power.
The miasma-suffused beasts roared as Star parried one's claws with her sword, managing to deflect the blow but the sheer force of the pounce knocked her to the ground. I felt my heart leap up into my throat as one of the other cats immediately took advantage of Star's momentary vulnerability.
“Fall back!” Renne cried, a searing blast of magic from her gauntlet-clad right hand sending the opportunistic beast tumbling end over end. The creature snarled and scrambled to its feet, deciding to switch targets yet again. Malevolent glowing eyes narrowed and the creature focused on Misaki.
I set my stance and whipped the Relic around as the beast closed in, charging toward my fiancee with impossible speed. We needed to end this fight
quickly
before the local authorities' curiosity overpowered AEGIS's ability to keep them away. The very last thing we needed was for these monsters to start rampaging through a bunch of defenseless police officers and the inevitable crowd that would gather.
Misaki loosed a huge jet of blue-white plasma, pouring extra astral energy into her attack hoping that it'd burn through the sheath of miasma that protected these creatures from harm. The cat-thing howled in pain as it was wreathed with flames hotter than the surface of a star.
“That's it, Misaki! The miasma's burned off!”
I took advantage of the cat-thing's sudden vulnerability and stepped into a powerful downward cleave. The Relic's edge sank deeply into one of the beast's forelimbs, severing it just above the wrist. Black blood and gaseous miasma burst from the stump of the creature's appendage, starkly reminiscent of the Tsukimura lord who had fused his mortal soul with an enslaved spectral essence.
I leveraged the flying spell to veer backward, narrowly avoiding the enraged monster's gnashing teeth as it brought its huge jaws into combat. The shifting, flickering coat of miasma was already starting to reform, but it was irrelevant at this point. We knew how to make them vulnerable now.
Misaki clearly wasn't fucking around anymore. Her small, pointed fangs were bared as she poured her power into plumes of super-hot magic that engulfed the cat-thing's head and massive shoulders. The monster attempted to flee, but I was far faster than normal under the effects of Misaki's flying enchantment. The Relic flashed again and this time I angled my strike upward at the same moment as I willed my body to rocket into the air, placing all the momentum of my own muscles and that of Misaki's magic into the strike.
Ancient blessed steel briefly warred with darkness-corrupted flesh and won, scything through the thick, muscular neck, bones and all as I rose into the air. I arrested my ascent and looked down, letting out a whoop of triumph as the monster's decapitated body fell to the ground, motionless and completely dead.
“We have to help Star,” Misaki called out.
I nodded and descended back to the ground. Misaki's flying spell would expire soon, but now that we knew what to do, it'd only be a matter of time before we took out the other two. Dimly I realized that with the arrival of the monstrous cat-things, the mysterious mage disappeared.
Misaki sent a withering blast of spell-flame at the creature nearest to her, drawing it away from Star. Our boss stepped back and reasserted her grip on her Emulated Relic, but she lifted her left hand and executed an invocation instead. The gauntlet crackled with energy and she extended her palm at the weakened cat-thing.
A huge bolt of lightning arced across the lot, striking the monster in the center of its forehead. The cat-thing wailed piteously as tremendous amounts of electrical current fried its miasma-saturated brain. The beast fell to the ground; I wasn't sure if it was dead or just badly hurt, but it was out of the fight for now.
The remaining beast kept its distance, growling low. It was obvious that the creatures weren't the brightest in the world, but even an enraged beast knew when it was outmatched and had no hope of victory. I kept my eye on the monster, reminding myself just how dangerous these fucking things were, and veered toward where Star stood guard near a concrete pylon.
“How's it going?” I couldn't see Malcolm anywhere. Renne was collapsed on the ground, leaning against the broken pylon that once supported a floodlight. She was covered in blood, her breathing coming in labored gasps.
“T-those things got Malcolm,” Renne wheezed, her face twisting in pain. “A-ate him…”
I avoided her eyes, trying to keep my voice confident. “I'm sorry. We'll make them pay. Malcolm's death won't be in vain, that much I promise you.”
Renne managed a shaky nod. “Y-yeah…”
The cat-thing was still staring at us balefully, refusing to flee, but unwilling to go on the offensive. I was becoming increasingly suspicious that we were left to play with these pets in order to distract us. There was no way to be certain, though, and no time, either. Eventually the last monster cat would tire of waiting and strike.
“Misaki, blast the miasma away. Star, hit it with another one of those lightning bolts, and I'll take it out.”
Star nodded. “Right.”
“Got it,” Misaki added.
I had maybe only another thirty seconds of flying time left before Misaki's spell ran out of juice. It was now or never; if we didn't kill this thing quick and get the hell out of here, Renne would absolutely die from her injuries.
“Now!” I roared.
Misaki poured flame from her outstretched hands, the roaring plasma engulfing the monstrous cat and stripping away its miasma coating. The thing shrieked in agony as the boosted spell-flame ate into its corrupted flesh, the flickering shroud of miasma peeling back from its huge head.
The cat-thing, no longer able to contemplate its situation, retaliated swiftly, leaping into a great crushing pounce that would smash Misaki to the ground and shatter half the bones in her body. It wasn't unexpected, though, and Star quickly adjusted, lifting her Spell Engine up as she released the invocation stored within.
Brilliant electrical discharge filled the air with the scent of ozone as the tremendous lightning bolt struck the cat-thing right on target, blasting it out of the air and cutting the monster's pounce short. Misaki and Star both stepped back as I rushed forward, carried on the astral momentum of the flying enchantment.
I drew back and with all of my flagging strength brought the blade of the Relic slicing around in a spinning uppercut slash, tripling the force of the blow by once again leveraging my ascent into the air. I struck the creature in mid-fall.
The Relic's preternaturally sharp edge sheared through the monster's neck and dropped the massive head to the ground. There was a tremendous
thud
as the headless body likewise fell to the asphalt. Mindful of just how little flight time I had left, I quickly descended.
Not a moment too soon, either. The flight spell expired with my body still a meter above the ground. I dropped the rest of the way, letting myself fall to my right side to avoid any further shock to my fucked-up left leg. It was only partially successful.
“Not too bad for a wounded warrior,” Star commented.
“Um, that'd be wounded, half-baked, wannabe warrior, thanks very much.” I groaned as I rolled over and levered myself into a sitting position. I stabbed the Relic's blade down into the ground, using it to try and get back to my feet, but I was wiped out.
“I'll help you up,” Star offered and started to walk toward me, but Misaki's terrified scream stopped her dead in her tracks. I whirled toward the sound, an awful void opening up in my stomach as I realized I had been right—the mage summoned the monsters to buy enough time for an overwhelming strike.
“
Karin! No!
”
A huge column of shifting chaotic power materialized from above. The kaleidoscope of mangled, fractured reality pulsed and twisted around me. I couldn't hear anything or see anything. My sense of smell was cut off. I couldn't feel or move my body. I felt no pain, but I knew that was because I didn't feel
anything
.
The incomprehensibly-powerful beam of astral might blasted the ground beneath me, cratering the asphalt and creating wide fissures and cracks that spread outward. It wouldn't be long now before the native protections of the Relic and Misaki's spells would fail and the beam would rend my body down to its constituent particles.
Within the timeless, formless magical disjunction I could make out the sword, still embedded in the asphalt less than a meter away. The entire blade now glowed with white heat. The red silk wrapping the rayskin grip burned away as the raving energies saturated the Relic, filling it up to bursting.
If I was capable of movement, my eyes would have popped out of my head in shock and horror as the Relic's blade began to glow more brightly than I thought possible. In the back of my mind I knew that such a brilliant radiance would destroy my eyes, but I couldn't move or look away.
It didn't matter, anyway. I knew what was happening.
The Relic was dying.
My world was consumed into a white void as the ancient blade, forged six centuries ago, attempted to absorb far, far more energy than it had ever been intended or designed to. The white-hot steel began to fracture, beams of pure astral energy leaking forth.
I didn't want to watch it. I wanted to close my eyes and fade away. I wanted to die before the Relic did, but I couldn't. For the first time in my life, I legitimately
wanted
to die with the Relic. I could see no purpose in continuing to live in a world without Misaki.
A pale, slender hand appeared within the chaotic roar, the fingers wrapping around the cracked and blasted hilt of the Relic. The hand's owner, bathed in infinitely-warping colors, yanked the weapon out of the tarmac. My eyes were seared by the light of the blade, but I couldn't move.
There was a faint whisper of pain as the Relic's incandescent blade was thrust through my chest. The razor-sharp point, overflowing with indescribable energies, parted flesh and bone as if my body were insubstantial wisps of smoke. The tip erupted from my back as the frenetic bursts of color vanished.
I felt sensation return to my body almost instantly and the world went dark. I could feel again, but all I could feel was pain, radiating from the blade shoved through my body. I was blind, I was going to die, and the Relic was dead, my connection to it severed.
I barely noticed the gentle hands that cradled and slowly eased my broken body to the ground. An incredible expansion of astral energy began to pulse outward from the broken Relic still embedded in my body. It was all too much for me to handle. My awareness faded, seeming to lift up, peeling itself away from my body and rising into the darkness. The world transformed into an empty blackness of violent motion and acceleration.
The last sensation I recalled was the embrace of a familiar and comforting warmth as consciousness abandoned me.