Don’t You Find Me Elegant?

“Zed... what...?”

Enishi, trapped in a state of pure denial, rushed toward Emilia. He didn't use a spell or a weapon; he simply threw his entire weight into a kick directed straight at her guts. The impact sent her sprawling. He scrambled over to Zed, whose face was a mask of gore and whose severed wrist lay nearby.

“Run, bastard... leave me... lone...” Zed wheezed, his voice bubbling through the blood in his throat.

Enishi didn't listen. He threw himself onto Emilia, pinning her to the pavement and screaming as he rained punches down on her face. “What did you do to him?! Who the fck do you think you are, you btch?! I’ll beat your ass up!”

Emilia took the punches, her head snapping back against the ground with each hit. But her expression wasn't one of pain; it was pure, icy annoyance. She was trying to maintain her beautiful smile even while getting hit. She held her chest with one hand while a new wire materialized in her other, shimmering like a dark halo. With a flick of her wrist, she looped it around Enishi’s neck and pulled with intense, mechanical force.

The wire snapped his head back and delved deep into the soft tissue of his throat. It didn't cut his head off completely, but the spiked metal buried itself in his neck, choking the life out of him.

“How dare you punch my graceful and elegant face? Don’t you find me elegant?” she asked, wiping a trail of blood from her nose.

Enishi collapsed onto his side, strangled and bleeding. His vision began to swim, but he glared at her through the haze of fading consciousness. “Ye... I... do... fin... you... eleg... bitc... go to hel—”

His voice cut out as his lungs failed to draw air.

“Who are you calling a b*tch?!” Emilia snapped. She stood over him and began to drive her heel into Enishi’s stomach, tightening the wire just enough to keep him in a state of agonizing pain without letting him slip into the mercy of death. Enishi lay on the pavement, his lungs burning as he gasped for a single scrap of air.

“Why are you just watching, Raine? Help them! Do something!” Kris ordered, his voice was tight with urgency.

“Bruh, I just came here for a shopping spree. My clothes are going to get dirty again,” Raine complained, though his tone was shifting into something deeper and more resonant. “That boy is a real handful, always inviting trouble.”

As Raine spoke, two thin, pitch-black horns began to sprout from his forehead, straightening upward with a slight curve. He adjusted his leaf-patterned shirt and looked toward the woman. “Hey, you! Ms. Elegant! Can you please stop kicking that brat? Because, you know, it’s lowkey not so elegant of you!”

“Ara! Another uninvited guest, and such disrespectful words,” Emilia replied. “Don’t worry, dear, I’ll teach you some manners.”

She whipped her wire back from Enishi’s throat, and he slumped into unconsciousness. Emilia dashed toward Raine and Kris with furious speed, closing the distance in a heartbeat. She appeared behind Raine and lashed her wire toward his neck.

“Old habits die hard. Better luck next time, you disrespectful buttercup,” Raine muttered.

Without even turning his head fully, Raine delivered a backhanded slap to her face. The force was astronomical. Emilia was sent hurtling through the air, slammed into a nearby brick wall with such power that the masonry shattered. She stuck to the wall for a split second before sliding down, the upper bricks crumbling and raining onto the pavement.

She spat a mouthful of blood, her face now marred by deep, bleeding scratches. “You! How dare you scar my graceful face?!”

She snapped, her grey eyes burning with madness as she began to chant. “I’ll kill you! You arrogant, disgraceful creature! I despise things like you! Pleiades: Dream Sanctuary, Seven-Fold Veil!”

She gathered Raine’s focus into the hollow of her palms, whispering the name: “Celaeno’s Shadow.”

With a sharp flick of her wrists, she cast the Seven-Fold Veil. The air filled with a shimmering, blue-white dust that smelled of ozone and old memories. Raine’s eyes didn't close, but his pupils dilated until the world vanished. His mind went blank as he began to plummet into an abyss of absolute, silent darkness.

Kris saw Raine’s consciousness fading. He immediately took a defensive stance and incanted, “I hereby summon the chalice of Apollo. Crater: Psyche Cleanse!”

He formed the Chalice of Apollo with his hands, though they were shaking. Seeing Raine fall into a magic spell with such ease had left him shocked and terrified. He touched two fingertips to his temple, and the spell took hold, summoning mana from the Crater constellation.

A burst of energy rippled outward. A quiet, chilling clarity filled the air, and the temperature seemed to drop instantly. The fog of Emilia’s illusions evaporated, leaving the nearby minds as still and transparent as a mountain pool at midnight.

“Sike! I was just acting. Got ya, Kris!” Raine looked back at Kris with a smug face and suddenly burst into laughter, the dark abyss in his eyes vanishing instantly. “Do you really think I’d get caught up in such a cheap magic trick?!”

He laughed heartily for a moment before his face snapped into a cold, serious expression. He turned his gaze back to the woman. “Sorry, disgraceful b*tch. We have a flight to catch and some kids to save, so I don’t have much time for our little playdate. Don’t worry, I’ll end this quick.”

“Oh, come on, dude! I thought you were a goner!” Kris exhaled, his heart still hammering.

“Goner? Me?” Raine made a face. “I don’t want my readers to think my cameo is a weak one. How could I get caught in such a shitty spell? I’d rather die from second-hand embarrassment than die from her magic.”

Raine casually adjusted his Hawaiian shirt and cracked his neck with a sickening pop.

“You two talk a lot. How friendly. How graceful,” Emilia hissed from the wreckage of the wall. “How disrespectful!”

She summoned a fresh length of wire, the metal shrieking as she pulled it taut, and charged toward Kris this time.

***

“Why is it so dark…? Where…where am I?”