Of sharp willpower

Reisen didn’t need to think about it: as the beast moved, she did too, jumping in the kid’s direction and pushing them away from harm’s way. They both fell on the damp grass below, while the spot the chimaera landed on was gouged by four deep grooves. Reisen lost no time and got back up on her feet, dragging the pliant and shell-shocked kid with her.

“We have to run, come on!” She turned in the direction of the town and tried to make a sprint, but the child-shaped inconvenience chose that exact moment to come to their senses and tug forcefully at her arm, stopping her momentum and nearly making her lose her balance. She turned to them, more than annoyed. “What the hell are you even doing, we must-”

They shook their head, desperate. “We can’t!”

Reisen shot a frantic glance at the beast, that was slowly turning around, and then refocused her attention on the kid. “Of course we can, don’t be obtuse-”

“No! We can’t outrun it, and imagine what could happen if it reached the town!”

“There would be people who could help, that’s what!”

“Still-”

They were interrupted when the creature growled and targeted them for the second time: this one, however, instead of just jumping at them it also made a sweeping motion with one of its front paws, and Reisen barely managed to dodge the blow and protect the kid.

“We can’t defeat that thing!” she shouted over the sound of the rain, that was falling with more intensity than before, creating constellations of droplets on the lenses of her glasses. “And surely not in these conditions!”

The kid’s eyes were widened with fear and their breathing was shallow, so she didn’t even wait for an answer from their part: before they could actually find their words she hauled them up in a fireman’s carry, ignoring their protests, and ran away.

“Hey- Let me down!” they exclaimed, weakly swatting her upper arm.

“No, it’ll be faster like this!”

“Miss Hagane, please, we can’t-” They inhaled sharply. “Miss Hagane, the chimaera! It’s nearing us!” They swatted her arm with more agitation. “Miss Hagane, dodge! Dodge!”

Reisen heard the heavy steps of the unnatural beast approaching at a high speed and managed to avoid its charge at the last second, but they both ended up falling hard and skidding on the wet grass. Reisen got up again, already aching, and realised that there was something the kid was right about: try as they might, they couldn’t outrun that creature; so, obviously, there was only one thing she could actually do in that situation.

She took a deep breath. “Kid, listen to me, you have to run and search for help, you understand?” she said, being careful not to let the beast out of her direct line of sight.

“What?! No, I can’t leave you-”

“Tsuchifuji!” she shouted, clenching her teeth. There was no space for patience. “With that magic of yours, you can reach the town faster than me! So use it, and search for help! I’ll stall this thing!”

The kid was sobbing. “I can’t- Miss Hagane, I can’t!”

Reisen would’ve liked to say something more, maybe even try and comfort them, but there was no time anymore: the beast quite literally reared its head again, and its glowing eyes focused on her.

Now, Reisen was pretty fast and had good reflexes, but she couldn’t just continue to dodge and hope for the best: she would’ve exhausted herself, sooner or later, and she didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if the chimaera decided to go after the kid instead of only concentrating its attacks on her. She had to react too, somehow, but what could she do? She was pretty sure that the few notions of karate and self-defence she had would’ve been more or less useless against that bad copy of an animal, after all, but what else did she have? It would’ve been one thing if she could’ve used her fencing sword, however-

It was in that moment that the thought struck her: she didn’t have a sword, per se, but had a weapon nonetheless. From her damp pocket she took out her keys for the second time, and brandished the keychain as though it was a proper blade, clenching the keys in her fist and assuming the guard position: it may have been an outlandish idea, but it could’ve worked; it had to, since it was also her best and only bet. Moreover, if one looked at it from another perspective, it was simply a question of distance and timing, and she was very good at that.

The beast prepared to jump, and Reisen took a deep breath, more focused than she had ever been before, even more than when she had reached the finals of a few regional fencing tournaments. That sorry excuse for a wolf threw itself at her, and – she heard the kid cry out her name; why were they still there? – she sidestepped at the last second, ducking the attack of its paw and making a lunge at its flank at the same time.

Maybe she should’ve had more faith in her plan, but she couldn’t hide she was surprised when she actually managed to leave a respectfully deep gash on the creature’s mismatching skin. Sadly enough, though, it didn’t seem like it felt any kind of pain or change: it made sense, since it was a magical amass of elements, but it was still disappointing to say the least.

Regardless of that, she had to continue to fight: it didn’t matter if it wasn’t hurt, she just needed to stop it from attacking – the kid hadn’t run, she had to protect them –. Therefore, she ignored the rain falling all around her, she ignored it dampening her clothes and rendering them heavier, she ignored her hair sticking uncomfortably to her face, she ignored her glasses being very bad at the one job they had to do, she ignored everything that wasn’t the beast in front of her, and fought.

After some time she’d managed to hit it on the legs and flanks – thankfully it wasn’t capable of reason or strategical thinking, so its attack patterns were more or less all the same, like those of a video-game boss –, but she had also gained more than a few cuts and wounds all over her body, and she was getting tired very quickly.

Because of a mix of all that, she made her first big mistake when she tried to go for the eyes.

A moment, she was attacking.

The next, she felt something in her side crack, and was hurled in the direction on the ground from the force of impact, rolling for a few metres before stopping to a halt.

“Reisen!”

Everything hurt.

She tried to take a deep breath to hopefully begin to calm down, but found out she couldn’t.

Everything hurt.

She gasped, which was about the most she could do in that moment.

Everything hurt.

She felt like all the air in the world wouldn’t have been enough.

Everything hurt.

Her side was wet, but not only because of the rain. It was warm too, and when she glanced at it she saw that her once white hoodie was stained with red splotches and had at least four gashes in it.

Everything hurt.

She would’ve preferred to stay there and rest – even just for a few minutes, she wasn’t asking for much –, but the beast had shifted its attention on the kid. The latter had their arms raised in some terrible combat position and was using magic against the chimaera, but none of their earth attacks, despite how powerful they seemed, managed to deal actual damage; worse, it seemed as though they were getting absorbed-

In that moment, nearly buried memories from her magic lessons in school resurfaced, and everything clicked together: of course those attacks weren’t working, that creature was made of magical wood, rocks and metal, so their earth spikes and boulders were basically useless against all three. Reisen was aware that the kid could control other elements, though, so why weren’t they doing that? Had they forgotten about it in their distress, or was it because they couldn’t for some reason? At the end of the day, however, what mattered most was that, per the connections between the elements, she already had something that could hurt that beast. She couldn’t rest yet.

She was freezing cold, despite the impossible warmth in her side, her body was an amass of different types of pain, her breaths were irregular and painful, she couldn’t see well, but she still clenched her teeth, summoned all of her willpower and slowly stood up. If there was even just one small chance, she would’ve taken it: after all, she was stubborn if nothing else.

“Tsuchifuji!” she shouted, doing her best to ignore the blood gushing from her wounds. “My keychain, transform it into an actual blade!”

They glanced at her and at the chimaera, their eyes wide, but then they extended a hand in her direction and the bloodied keychain she was holding between her stained fingers glowed, broadening until it became a rough sword. It was heavier than a fencing one and poorly balanced, but that was to be expected: she adjusted to its weight, thanking all the years of training she had undergone, got closer and lunged one last time at the beast with all of her remaining energy, arriving from the side and cutting its legs and head clean off with a move she had learnt in sabre fencing.

The severed body parts were continuing to move independently from the main body, a sight that could’ve been nightmarish had she not expected that on some level, so Reisen chopped them in smaller pieces for good measure, but after that she completely lost her grip on the keychain turned blade, and crumpled on the damp ground with no force left.

She was gasping from the wounds and exertion, shaking and aching all over, and at that point there was nothing that didn’t hurt, but she had done her part, hadn’t she? The beast couldn’t harm them anymore, the kid was safe, so now she could rest a bit. Right? In a daze, she looked at the sky, covered by a blanket of heavy, angry, grey clouds, but a yellow-ochre head appeared in her blurry field of vision.

“Miss Hagane!” they shouted, fretting over her. Were they crying? “Don’t worry, just watch, I’ll- I’ll do something, you’ll be fine in no time, I promise-” they rambled, frantic, their voice breaking.

In no world a kid should’ve been that miserable. She would’ve wanted to comfort them, to pat their head or maybe pull them into a hug, but all that she managed to do was lifting a hand and putting it on their arm. “Kid…”

That seemed to shatter them. “Miss Hagane, please, please don’t exert yourself even more, I promise I’ll do something-” Their breaths were short, and their hands were trembling, but when they put them on her side, probably in a desperate effort to staunch the bleeding, they were way firmer that what she was expecting. “I promise…!” At that point, first their palms and then the silhouette of their body started glowing and she felt her biggest and gravest injuries slowly begin to heal, something that seemed akin to a miracle: she had an inkling that the kid was skilled, but that was more than she could’ve ever expected. As soon as they were done, however, they swayed, closed their eyes and fell limply on top of her, completely knocked out.

She carefully sat up, noticing that she could breathe more easily again, and took a moment to take stock of everything. After that, she attached her keys to the belt of her skirt, so that the blade would stay at her hip, and hauled the unconscious kid up in her trusted fireman’s carry for the second time that day, grunting for the effort. She was exhausted beyond all limits and still ached all over, but staying there under the rain for even more time would’ve been terrible for the both of them; therefore, she forced herself to take a step in the direction of the town, and then another, and another, until she finally, finally reached its outskirts, where a familiar figure was looking worriedly at the horizon.

Only then, with her single goal achieved, she actually felt safe to crash.