Chapter 21 ~ Searing

As the barrel of the blunderbuss stared her in the eye, Kurai tried to swing herself to the side to avoid being shot, but there was nothing she could do at this point to evade it. All that changed was the buckshot tearing through her shoulder and collarbone rather than her skull. Her grip on the railing failed her completely upon the impact, and her mangled form crashed hard into the wooden flooring far below the loft.

Kurai's consciousness was struggling to hold on. If she tried to cling her form to being a mere human, she would no doubt have far too many internal failures to function. In a panic, she began to shift her organs and their functions to try and keep her body intact as this torso with only arms and a head, lest even more of her decorates the dusty, mildewy nave floor. A novae could survive even as a mere blob of flesh at a fraction of her current size, but she doubted any good would come from losing functionality and possibly even consciousness with such severe wounds.

After everything she told me, Irene... she...

Before she could fully reshape, Kurai already found her efforts being halted. as Something poured onto her from far above. It was a liquid. Boiling. Searing. Her very flesh was scalding, and her wounds found their regeneration efforts all but burnt away in an instant. She reached up with a limb to try and block the flow. It felt oddly familiar...

Away...!

In a primal, urgent frenzy, she went through everything she could think of to spare herself. There was little she could do to drag herself away, and running was impossible with her body bisected aa it was. A thousand possibilities flashed before her eyes. Among them was a nascent talent that had little practice and never under such duress. It would have to do. The latent magic around her surged and sparked as she cried out. She had no direction nor goal in mind, only a frantic need to do something. The spell went off, erupting a surge of wind into the ground. It was forceful enough to send the novae toppling and rolling several meters before she hit a pew. It was more than enough to get her out from under the water source.

And yet it didn't stop. The water only followed her in its flow. Even worse than that, the water that would have washed over her to puddle on the floor was instead flowing around her head in an unnatural ring. The constant flow of more boiling water ensured it wouldn't cool down. It felt as if her very brain would boil at this point...

Through all the pain, Kurai could just barely see it. Irene stood far above, red-hot hatchet in one hand, a large bottle of water in the other. The heat from the former was intense enough to boil the water on contact, and her water magic was enough to ensure the flow of water would follow Kurai virtually anywhere she tried to go. Maybe if the novae broke line of sight by going under the loft, but her panic had instead ended her up in plain sight. It would be nearly impossible to reverse her direction in time to escape in time. Even if it didn't kill her, the heat was unbearable... As a novae, she wouldn't die immediately just from her current form's brain shutting down, but it would render her trapped inside her own body. There was no way she could recover from that much before Irene caused even worse damage, and creating enough of an opening for her core to escape would take just as long.

Instead of escaping, she only had one option left. This time, she directed the gust of wind magic into the water flow. It wasn't just to break the stream, but also to send it flying right back to its source... A shout from far above confirmed it; the boiling water shot back right into the apothecary. The magically-flowing water all around Kurai stopped in an instant. She saw Irene glaring down at her, before quickly turning and moving out of sight.

It was only now that Kurai could exhaustedly catch her breath and take a good look at the damage. Everything below the ribcage was gone, along with the majority of her left shoulder and clavicle. Even drawling was goong to be difficult. There was an untold amount of dead tissue throughout her outer layer with varying degrees of burns, especially on her head. Frankly, she was a mess. It hadn't even been a full minute since she first saw the hatchet come out to.ending up like this.

Through all the daze and confusion plaguing her head, Kurai still understood that she wasn't in the clear quite so easily. If the apothecary was running, she could easily be down the long stairway in fifteen seconds, roughly thirty total to get close to the half-living novae from the loft. The novae needed to hide fast. She shot out another gust of wind to try and send herself lunging across the room, but she didn't have the aim for such a stunt. The first try only sent her crashing back into the pew she was already next to. She didn't have time for a second one.

However long it would take the apothecary to descend the stairs was irrelevant. She flew out from over the railing of the choir loft, showing no regard for any danger. Odd bubble-like pockets of water surrounded her feet and lower body, which proved to be more than effective cushion as she performed a similar technique to a parachute landing fall. The water helped to absorb the impact even more, leaving her entirely unfazed as she rose to rise to her feet immediately. The water receded from her and coalesced into a bottle strapped to the apothecary's hip.

"...If you were to strike down evil, you would want to see them adequately punished. Is that not what you said?" Irene gazed at the supine novae with a discerning gaze, doing little to hide the disappointment on her features. There was a splotch of red across her face from where the boiling water had struck her. "My answer remains the same. I would only wish to remove the threat. I had thought to do so with you, but your endurance surpasses my expectation. How are yo6 still alive? The shock alone should have already incapacitated you, if not killing you..."

"Stop this! You're... you're hurting me!" It was such an understatement for the mutilated novae that it could only have been born from sheer desperation. She tried crawling backwards with what was still intact, but it was such a pathetic effort that it garnered no response from Irene. "Is this what all your talk of euthanasia was?! Killing people you decide?!"

"No, in their cases it was at their request. For you, I am simply removing a monster before it fully grows its fangs. Though I can't deny it would be a mercy for you too. You said it yourself, didn't you? No matter what, you wouldn't be any less alone in this world. A world you're not equipped to handle on your own either, only receiving punishments one after another as bitterness festers your heart... There's no way you can end up as anything other than a vengeful menace. A fiend lashing out to repay as much harm as you can until your carnage leads to your own demise. Is that really what you want?"

"Is that really true, or is it just your little surmising game again...?" Kurai couldn't help but grit her teeth in anger, yet she truly couldn't do anything to fight back. Not yet. The longer the conversation went on, though, the more time she had to reform and recover her flesh. There was no way to truly regain all of her severed self, but she could still do... do something.

"It's inevitable. The being I see before me would always end with such a fate. So I ask, stop your struggling, nova vitae. It's the only way to avoid a lifetime of pain. I'll make it as quick as I can."

"...What would you do in my situation? Would you really just lay down your life because someone else felt they knew better than you yourself?" She hoped it was going to spark a genuine curiosity in the apothecary and keep her talking. If it moved Irene at all, she didn't show any of it.

"...Your attempts are prevaricating aren't subtle. I know you benefit the longer this goes on. This conversation is over, nova vitae. I would strongly consider what I've told you. You know deep down that you stand no chance of escaping from this." She calmly lowered her hatchet, now being completely cooled down from its earlier glow. Irene marched on Kurai's helpless form. There was a caution to her gait; she very easily could have been running headstrong instead.

"S-stay back! I want to... I..." Her words failed her as she couldn't think of a single persuasive word at this point. She still had only stopped her own bleeding; full functionality was still a far off goal. Her flesh, for all its strengths, could still do little to defend her now.

It's no use trying to flail and cry out. Look at her approach... It's as if she thought I could do something if she was carelessly running at me. She's not wrong. If I could fire off a gust of wind, it might have done something if she was off balance mid-sprint. As it is... all I can think of is, maybe if I had a third arm, I could...

Wind wasn't such a blunt force that it could only target what was ahead of Kurai, nor was the sanctuary a flat, barren ground. Her jaw clenched as tight as it could as she mustered for the capacity for magic again. It still did not come naturally. As she tried to swipe her hand right-to-left, all she managed was scooting the loose broken pews somewhat. A second attempt had more vigor, managing to swing a fallen bench towards Irene. The telegraph may as well have been an announcement in advance for how simple it was to predict. The apothecary moved her hatchet to block it, but even that was excessive. It couldn't have knocked her over if she was asleep standing up.

"...Are you feigning weakness with that display?" It was a good strategy, now that Irene said it. But Kurai would have to be capable of more for this to be a feint. The exhaustion on her features was impossible to fake, with how she tried and failed to hide it.

"...No. You tried to reach beyond your means. Your inexperience holds you back." The novae didn't need to say a word; the reaction on her face alone was answer enough. Seeing caution was not necessary, the apothecary rushed down Kurai.

Of course, just because Kurai had not intended it to be a feint did not mean it couldn't have functioned as one. She had tried all this time with purposeful gusts of air: the positive aspect of wind magic. While she had never tried it, there was another aspect as well. Negative aspected wind magic: a complete vacuum effect, able to turn any area into just as void of air as outer space itself was. If there was ever a time to try it for the first time, it was now.

Kurai tried to call forth all power she had in her to try and force the wind magic to coalesce to her will. Dust and debris all around them began to stir, lift. With this kind of vacuum force around a single point, she could gather such powerful, inescapable winds. It was nothing short of the birth of a tornado.

Yet that's all it was: a birth. Had she more time, perhaps it could have become a legitimate threat. If she just had more time, she could have done something more. Anything. Just a little more time to grow... The clock was not so merciful, and neither was the apothecary. She reached the novae without any impediment, and her hatchet swung down just as swiftly. Kurai raised an arm, and in return it was cleaved through the bone.

Kurai yelped in pain as the axe-head was ripped out of her. Irene raised it high over her head before bringing it down once more. The novae could do nothing to stop the second swing as it crashed down into her skull, splitting directly through the middle of her forehead.

The chaos in the church had all but ground to a halt. As steel burrowed deep in the novae's head, all fell silent for both of them. Irene stared for a long moment into Kurai's eyes. Despite everything, her gaze was met with the novae's own.

"...Of course. Even this isn't enough to end you, is it? You really are a monster." Conscious as she still was, everything was growing cold for Kurai. Far colder than she had ever imagined. "You weren't the only one buying time to come up with a plan earlier, though. I see that even your regeneration has its limits. I'm sure you've come to understand I have the nature of fire to go with my learned water magic. There's only so much you can do to boil water, but... I'm sure you understand negative aspects well enough by now." Ice shards were beginning to form a dangerous shell along Kurai's outermost layer. Water flowed out of the apothecary's bottle, adding even more fuel for the freeze.

"Even you can't survive long in this cold. Negative aspected fire magic can take all heat away, you see. That's not simply reaching freezing point. It can go all the way to absolute zero." She spoke in the unsettlingly gentle tone of a doctor explaining a procedure to a patient. Her hands were firmly against the open wounds on the novae, letting her icy magic go as deeply as it could. "...I've only risked going that low a few times. At such intensity, even your own magic can be hazardous to yourself. I'm fine taking such risks to see this through. Don't worry, Kurai. It's only during the drop that you feel it. Absolute zero... is a silent world."

True to the apothecary's words, Kurai could hardly feel a thing. After all this pain, the freezing was like an ice pack to a wound. It felt like a thousand needles at first, but in an instant it became overwhelming to the point of no longer being processed. The unbelievable coldness never went away, but the pain was all gone. There was a feeling of serenity washing over her. It was as if by letting go her hopes, she could also abandon her woes altogether. Her eyes became heavy, and it seemed as if it would be peaceful to give in and let the darkness filling her vision to take her altogether.

"...Are you... going to... look Meus in the eyes... when you tell him you killed another of his family...?" She could barely manage a murmur at this point, but in the silence, it was deafening to Irene's ears.

"...You... You're nobody's family... You're not even human." She tried to appear unaffected, but the words clearly got under her skin. She wouldn't have even responded at this point otherwise. Her magic stopped, if but for a moment, with how much the words made her falter.

"So are dogs... Can they not be loved too?" She cracked a smile. It was disturbingly gentle for such a situation. "I may not have had much... but don't bother telling Meus or Robin that I love them... they already know that much." Her breathing was on its last legs as she tried to cling on to what little she had left in her. "...Just tell them... that even at the end... I know they loved me too."

"D-don't say those things... You're not anything to anybody. You are nothing!" Her faltering only lasted so long before it was overtaken by resolve. Kurai knew there was nothing she could say that would convince the woman to grant mercy at this point. That was fine. Even this much borrowed time was enough.

With the last bit of strength she had, Kurai used her wind magic once more, this time aimed directly behind her. A final, desperate push, sending her hard, frigid form crashing directly into Irene. With the one arm she had still intact, she plunged her hand into Irene's mouth. Her negative wind magic couldn't muster the strength to create a tornado, but it was still enough to form a genuine vacuum. This time, as deep as she could manage in Irene's throat...

The human body can survive for minutes at a time without air, but that's only with oxygen still circulating in the bloodstream. With complete lack of oxygen, it can take well under half a minute for consciousness to be lost. More than that, a true vacuum doesn't merely cause the cessation of airflow. The air pressure plummets in seconds, resulting in rapid decompression of the sealed system. Normally there would be too many gaps from just an uncovered mouth cavity alone, but the wind magic created a complete seal at the point it started. At that depth into the apothecary's throat, it even sealed off the sinus cavities from offering any reprieve.

In other words, there wasn't merely decompression sickness at risk, it could easily lead to outright barotrauma to the point of risking lungs bursting, along with rupturing down the entire esophagus into the stomach. There wouldn't need to be time for oxygen deprivation to kick in; even the very bodily fluids in Irene would boil at such a pressure. All Kurai had to do was hold on for just a few seconds...

...And yet, the apothecary still wasn't going down. After a few tense moments of struggle, she only began to recover her strength rather than losing it. Kurai frantically tried to hold on and keep the vacuum going, as if any moment Irene would finally succumb to the decompression, but that moment never came. Before she knew it, Kurai was ripped from Irene and tossed off of her. The plan failed, and she had no strength to try any more magic at this point.

"How did you...?" Kurai began to ask. It was a gambit, but she had it calculated. There was no way it should have been possible to shrug off such an intense effect, no matter how much willpower the murderous ex-nun seemed to have.

Irene rolled up from the ground, rising to her knees as she coughed and spat up fluids. Far, far more fluids than should have been possible from just her throat, as if she had just drank an entire liter. It couldn't have been from the bottle... All of that water was adorning Kurai's icy form. Steam rose off of all the spittle that Irene had discharged. It clearly had been boiling painfully.

"...Your... your inexperience... was once again... your failing..." Irene coughed out, for the first time being the one whose endurance was truly tested. "Did you really think that magic could only be used from your hands?" She wiped the sweat-coated hair from her face, glowering at the novae. "That was your naïveté once again. No... It's most convenient, but I can still draw my water magic from anywhere on my body. I never thought I'd have to bring it from my own throat."

"Don't tell me... you actually..." Kurai could finally understand the exasperation Irene must have felt. There was an incomparable humbling that one could only feel when realizing just how much they underestimated the tenacity of an enemy.

"Ha... You're just seeing it, aren't you? I drew the very moisture from my flesh to provide a barrier between your magic and my body. You didn't create a vacuum effect at all... only a bubble, boiling in my throat. Painful, but not what you were aiming for, was it? Still, it hurt like you wouldn't..." She shook her head, gazing upon the miserable remnants of the novae. "...No, you would know quite well by now. I suppose if nothing else you got some payback for all I put you through, at the very end."

Kurai only stared back. She could barely lift an arm anymore. She could try to recover, grow her flesh... but what could she really do at this point? The plan failed.

"I had hoped the freezing would be a peaceful way to go out, but I gave you too much leeway there. I have no choice but to shatter what frozen shards I can from you, and then when you're in unmoving pieces, I'll have the time to cremate. I'll burn away every last trace of you..."

Irene grabbed the hatchet one final time, staying on her knees as she brought it down once more on Kurai. The novae didn't raise an arm, nor did she scream. Her eyes only kept a strange focus on Irene. Not at her eyes, but oddly at her neck...

Irene only understood the significance of it when it was too late. Kurai hadn't given up even at this point. Her wish to have a third arm to fight back with wasn't a mere whim. While full recovery was impossible in such a short timespan, since that moment she was able to grow. It was the smallest, thinnest of tendrils, one that Irene had been overlooking this entire time with how useless it seemed. But now that it had finally grown long enough, with them both this close together at the end of it all...

It was just long enough to reach the other woman's nape. Once it was there, it took next to no time to dissolve through the thin skin, reaching right into the spinal cord. This was when Irene understood what was going on, at the same time she understood what the constables felt before they ended up in her clinic. It was a single, violent shock right as paralysis set in. As it turned out, the constables never truly lost consciousness. She understood it now as her body refused to move, collapsing against the ground. She couldn't even move her eyes. Even then, from her peripherals there was no mistaking it.

Now she was the one helpless on the ground, and Kurai was above her.