Misfortune is Luck in Disguise

Kairo felt his anger and desperation impact his energies, as he fumbled his defense to both protect Genie and deflect his attacks. He dug Zeus into the stone to hold out against Genie's continuous magic waves.

"Curse you witch!" He bellowed and pleaded as he added, "Hang on Genie, fight her. I'm coming to save you."

"Keep attacking, puppet!" Leela smugly ordered as she took the chance to regather her magic and strength. The soul bells dangled at her waist on her belt, continuously ringing to control Genie.

"Genie, just hang on. I'll break you free." Kairo bellowed with all his might, feeling his cosmic power coursing through his body as an adrenaline rush.

"Kai...ro."

"Genie?" Kairo's heart raced with hope, feeling relief that Genie was fighting the power somehow.

"I'll attack with a wave blast. Quickly... lace your... spirit energy to Zeus... absorb it." Genie managed to say via their mind-link.

Kairo grabbed Zeus. He ran his finger over the blade's flat, using his will to absorb its energy. He hoped it would work as he blocked Genie's wave blast attack. Zeus absorbed it to empower his magic.

"Unleash stasis... Kairo... your sea."

Genie's voice fell silent but Kairo understood what he wanted him to do.

He used the short supply of replenished spirit energy to tap into his spiritual sea and unleash Timebound: stasis.

Rather than perform the follow-on rapid kill attack, he re-entered his spiritual sea for the spell's duration.

"Genie!" Kairo rushed to him, keen to make sure he was okay. He saw Genie's soul form sitting beneath the starry sky, struggling to keep his image from fading.

"This is my fault. I used my magic to cause all this." Kairo knelt before him, unsure on what to do. No matter what, he will save Genie. He had to, for without his partner... He didn't want to think like that.  "I'll fix this somehow."

"The spell will keep her at bay for a short while," Genie whispered, grateful and empowered by Kairo's determination to save him.

"Tell me what I need to do. Trust me. This world needs you..." A tear of rage slipped from Kairo's eyes as he felt frantic on how to save his most important person in this world.

"Kairo, you saved my soul, and you can save my body. Relax," Genie calmly said to ease his friend. It was the first time he saw Kairo so frantic, which made his heart race with both worry and warmness. He adored his wizard even more: his most cherished person.

He reassured him: if he hadn't used cosmic power, it wouldn't have clashed with his link to open a spatial rift in the spiritual sea. Genie's soul form escaped through the rift before the curse took effect.

"We have a chance, but while the Soul Bells hold my body, I'm weak here."

Kairo felt at ease from Genie's faded smile. There was no time to waste as the spell would end soon. He focused on solutions to negate the situation.

"How do we deal with your body?"

"The soul bells give her control of it like a true puppet. But because my soul is here, my body is only at a third of my strength. You can KO me with your weak strength."

Genie felt reassured by Kairo's intense focus toward problem-solving.

"I don't want to hurt you, but I see that we need to knock you out cold." Kairo smiled as he added. "Be a piece of cake anyway, you're not as strong as you think you are."

"Ha, you still have time for cheek." Genie flippantly added. "Do your chores, chosen hero, and hurry up and save me. I would prefer my body to remain its sexy, handsome peak condition."

"Sexy? Really..." Kairo's expression lapsed into a 'meh'. 

But, he felt calmer and in control when he devised a resolution before the spell wore off. Genie was impressed that Kairo could come up such an ingenious plan. He prayed it would actually work.

As time resumed, Kairo gripped Zeus with purpose. He fed a load of energy restoring pills into his mouth as he ran around the platform's edges.

Genie-puppet tossed his daggers in an attack for him.

Kairo deflected them with Zeus and unleashed a cross-blade magic wave attack to knock him unconscious.

"What?!" Leela bellowed with outrage. "How can that fool be this weak?!"

She reset her magic to her daggers and began an assault on Kairo, but this time his body was more responsive. He maneuvered around her fireball attacks, focused on his tasks. She couldn't catch on to what he was about to do, so he ducked, evade-rolled her attacks, giving her the confidence that she was winning. One of her fireballs singed his arm, which boosted more of her confidence.

"Step one, gather the tea," he quietly said to himself, as he rolled next to the fallen teapot, which had dropped out of Genie's storage pouch earlier.

He uncapped the teapot and rolled around to face her oncoming attack, his focus was on the ringing bells to her belt. With all his might, he splashed tea on them.

Leela skidded to a halt as she felt her side wet and saw the soul bells smoking with black, corrosive, energy.

"Step two, while the Soul Bells protection barriers are being dissolved by the Acerbic Tea, cast this spell." Genie had said earlier as he hastily taught Kairo a spell, which was administered with sign language.

Kairo rapidly moved his fingers to activate the spell. White lines of magic flowed out of his fingers like ribbons being thrown in the wind. They snaked their way to the bells.

Leela growled as she hastily cast a fire barrier spell to block the magic, but the magical ribbons flowed so fast, splitting and navigating around her barrier to strike the bells.

She cursed and yelped when white magic wrapped her hands from stopping their piercing attack on the bells.

"Don't you dare!" She cursed as she used her magic to throw a dagger at Genie's lifeless form.

Kairo swung his scythe wide, casting a swift strike to cut off her forearm. She screamed with pain and rage, hastily sealing the wound with her magic when her good arm became free.

During her distraction, Kairo performed a spell to extract a round, red-gold, drop of Genie's soul blood from the bells. It sailed into the air towards his direction.

Leela gritted her teeth as she cast her magic to pull it back to her.

He rose tall, steadfast and determined. With one twist of his hand, the soul-blood rushed to his grasp and entered his Holy Ama Cross.

"No! NO! I'LL KILL YOU BOTH!"

Kairo moved his fingers to form another spell, which made the bells ring at her waist.

She squirmed and writhed as she felt an acidic power eating away at her and the bell's spirit energy.

Her aura faded and became weak as her magic power was being neutralized by the same poison that was weakening the bell's.

She dropped to the ground, unable to withstand the feeling of bugs crawling under skin.

Kairo sternly raised Zeus to release a devastating blow on the soul bells, which was fiercely ringing and shaking, the acid continuing to eat its metal. A blast from the bells knocked him back, he was able to save his fall off the edge by stabbing Zeus into the ground. He regained ground to make another blow.

Leela tilted her head back with hostile laughter. "Absurd!"

Her laughter was silenced by Zeus's clean strike on the bells, as it unleashed the Power of Mundane to nullify its power and make it shatter into dust. 

Kairo released a cross-blade attack to strike Leela at her chest and heart. Her lifeforce was drained: unable to defend the death defying blow.

"Curse you alien." She uttered her last words through her mad laughter as her form and soul was dissolved by magic. 

Genie indicated the price she paid for being the master was linking her lifeforce to the bell curse, in doing so the bells' deterioration would've made her vulnerable. Any magic attack would negate her spirit.

"It seems he was right, although it did more than that."

Kairo dropped to the floor and slipped his last healing pill into his mouth. He eased into an instant meditation to restore as much of his health and magic as he could. Then rose and carried Eldor-sekkat's body to be next to Genie's. 

He searched the ground for the hidden portal mechanism Genie had mentioned to him earlier. It was a section of runes in the center.

His heart raced when he pricked Genie's finger to draw a drop of his blood, and used his magic to guide it into the activation rune symbol.

The platform glowed and swelled with magic around them. They were surrounded by white light as a teleport activated and moved them to another location.

--

In Valerr's office, within her mansion outside the Palace of Princes harem grounds, the crystal soul token disk, which represented Leela's life, cracked and shattered into dust before Valerr. She closed and slowly opened her eyes. Realization sunk in as she stared out the window to a view of a valley and palace.

She pulled out a round communication crystal from her storage pouch. It hovered midair before her.

"Manfred-nun. Leela failed." She delivered the message then crushed the crystal in her hands.

In a manne, Yanmu received the update. 

He pocked his crystal, and sat at the bar nursing his drink. His pirates were getting merry around him, but his mind was drawn into his own plans that he had to quickly adjust. It was just as well he held the Andes Power Scroll.

"Manfred-nun. Your chances are less by one," a papery voice said near his ear, which broke him out of his thoughts.

He gulped as he saw a hooded figure seated beside him, and hadn't noticed earlier. Suddenly the manne ceased to exist, and he was sitting in a vast and empty gray space.

"Tell the High Lord that I have another plan. I won't fail." Yanmu kept his composure, but internally he was on edge.

"Good. You have one last chance." The hooded figure pressured a bony figure to Yanmu's forehead.

Yanmu screamed when he felt a twisting, crawling pain and misery he had never experienced before. The moment was fleeting.

"A taste of your failure."

The boisterous and energetic tavern-like scene surrounded Yanmu again. The seat was empty next to him.