Familiar Faces in New Places

Mana twirled her hair around her finger. Being locked up in a room all day was incredibly boring, and to top things off, Kuria kept poking around in her head. It wasn’t hard to reason why she was only the fourth-ranked, though. Mana had successfully walled her mind off from the devil. Unfortunately, that came with an indeterminate departure from such a god-forsaken place. She wondered who’s twisted fantasy involved turning an entire medieval castle into a devil’s hangout.

On the bright side, her room was sizable and full of expensive-looking furniture: a plush, faux leather couch here, large oaken desk there, and a bed suitable only for royalty that took up an entire fourth of the room… In times of great boredom, she’d hang her head over the side, allowing the ends of her hair to graze the floor. At other times, she’d stretch out until she could touch the ends of a red-cushion sofa with her fingers and toes, occasionally pretending the floor was lava as she jumped from the sofa to the bed and then the desk.

She wasn’t worried in the slightest. In fact, thanks to Kuria’s ‘reset’, her magic was strong enough to ward the door off, reinforcing her perceived dominance over the devil. Mana snickered each time Kuria would struggle to remove the warding, resulting in painful lashes after she’d knock it down, but the entertainment was well worth it. Watching Kuria storm off was her favorite part, though she had more important things she needed to get done. She realized that teasing the half-brained devil might not have been the best course of action, but being locked up at some strange halfway point between Earth, Omnis, and Chiipha wasn't exactly getting her very far.

“Oh. She’s already back. And just after I redid the door too,” Mana grumbled.

“For fuck’s sake,” Kuria said, jiggling the knob from the outside. “Either you’re a glutton for punishment or you’re really getting a kick out of making me mad.”

“I’ll admit your lashes are painful, but seeing as I’m currently sitting on this bed, twirling my hair around my fingers… I think your struggling is a great reprieve to my boredom,” she retorted wittily. “You can’t break me, and I’m clearly getting under your skin.”

In a rage, Kuria blasted the door off its hinges. Before it could collide with the bed frame or worse yet, her, Mana shattered the willow-made door with a fireball, effectively turning it to ash.

“That makes what now? Eleven?” Mana’s face was plastered with a mixture of frustrated boredom. She raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Is that the best you can do?”

“You’re such an annoying girl. Why Ahzef assigned me to you makes no sense.” Kuria gasped, realizing her mistake moments after the words left her lips. She smiled wickedly. “That’s probably news to you, isn’t it? Since the cat’s out of the bag now, I might as well explain.”

“Yes, I think that’d be wise,” Mana said, threatening. This could be her chance to get some information on the devils on Lacia’s possible whereabouts. It was a tiny morsel, but it was the largest scrap she’d had in over two years. “Explain.”

“Watch your tone with me, girl. Anyways, as you’ve likely surmised, Ahzef is alive. As for your friends—” Kuria dropped to her knees as a sickening crunch came from her arm. Mana had twisted it behind her back in a surprise move to quickly establish dominance.

“Where is Ahzef and where,” she twisted Kuria’s arm further, “are Lacia and, I suppose, Aria?”

“You should’ve let me finish,” the devil said through gritted teeth, “because if you had, you’d still be sitting on that bed.”

She paid Kuria little mind. “Would you like to put that to the te—”

Something large crashed into her back, knocking the wind out of her as she collided with the back wall. She gasped for air, but her lungs refused oxygen. Her arms were pinned to her sides as a sickening cold crawled over her.

“What was that?” Kuria said, returning to her feet. “You wanted to put my word to the test, right?”

An angry, hot wind caused Kuria’s dress to billow out in translucent sheets of white silk. Her ears popped as the air pressure bottomed out; gravity seemed to pin her to her spot. Mana’s magic flared, exciting the tiny star-shaped mark on her cheek with ferocious fury. Erratic mana chased Kuria’s dreadful cold away as the room temperature soared.

Having, mostly, regained her breath and composure, Mana slid back down the wall—finally realizing what had happened. Holding a limp arm, she approached Kuria. Anger welled up inside her as she considered blasting the devil right then and there, but she feared her anger could weaken her control; her magic still needed some fine-tuning. She walked through the now-open doorway before recrafting it, sealing Kuria inside as she reinforced the warding.

“I should’ve just blasted you, regardless. Lucky for you though, I have places to be, so I will be on my way now. Thank you.” Mana spun a ring of golden keys around her tiny wrist. “You should’ve hidden these better, by the way. Why would you hang them on the bedpost? I’ve learned my mana can trace things I can’t see, so I would’ve found them eventually anyways, but you already… knew… that.” The realization struck her like a slap in the face. She flung the keys as far from her as she could, but it was too late. What she had taken for normal keys were anything but. Kuria had managed to trick her. “Dammit! I was careless!”

“I put them there because I knew you’d think they were the keys you needed to escape,” Kuria’s voice rose from behind the door, “but they weren’t. Those keys unlock anything of my choosing and I chose to unlock— Can you guess?”

Blood spattered from Mana’s lips before she could cover her mouth. “When she reversed my post-mana-contraction, she must’ve just locked it away in another part of my body. She was baiting me the entire time!” Her eyelids drooped at the onslaught of nausea.

“You’re only half-right,” Kuria snickered as she blasted the door off its hinges again. “I did lock away that awful little condition of yours, but I also imbued it with a little dark energy as a fail-safe. The keys were, indeed, bait, and you fell for it.” She dangled the keyring in front of her. “Notice how there’s a key missing?”

“I will kill you,” Mana warned.

Shadows darted across the stone floor, caressing every flaw in the uneven surface. Mana leapt into the air, attempting to avoid them, only to be caught mid-leap and slammed down with tremendous force. The same dark ribbons from earlier slithered across her body, exacerbating her plight.

“Nuh-uh. You’re not leaving, and you will not lay a finger on me,” Kuria said, twisting her arm back around with another gut-wrenching crunch.

From Lacia and Aria’s recount of their fight with Lucifero, she had assumed that the devils’ shadows were confined to the ground only, that they couldn’t reach an airborne target. The pain that erupted across her body told a much different story. Kuria’s shadows vanished, replaced by the ribbons that held her ankles in an icy vice-grip as she attempted to crawl away. Waves of pain rocked her body—not even the smallest muscle-twitch would spare her from the pain. Kuria had her right where she wanted her.

She couldn’t believe it. How could she legitimately have thought that, a devil of all things, was interested in helping her? There was no reason for Kuria to help her, to restore her body to a time before the MCS had taken hold of every fiber of her being—every skin cell, fingernail tip, every nerve impulse. She wasn’t even sure if her thoughts were her own, having fallen for such a simple trick and subsequently believing it was some gesture of good will.

“Let’s make sure you don’t try anything funny again, shall we?” Kuria said, prancing around the center of the room. The ribbons slowly tightened their grip around her ankles. “We’ll make this nice and clean. If I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“No— Don’t twist—!” Mana groaned. “I’m not apologizing—I shouldn’t have to. Just don’t twist the ri—” A blood-curdling scream spilled from her throat, drowned out by the sickening crunch and fracturing of bone.

“Ooo… That even sounded like it hurt,” Kuria said. “That snap was just so clean. You should be thankful I made it quick. I could have chosen to slowly twist your foot around and around until it finally broke from the bone.”

Deep purple bruising spread around Mana’s foot, quickly discoloring the skin. Kuria had said not to hold her breath, but it wouldn’t have mattered; the pain was so excruciating, so disorienting, she’d forgotten how to breathe. She didn’t have the strength to fight—not while afflicted with the aftereffects of MCS. Terror paralyzed her muscles, and her face resembled that of a drunkard, stained with tears. Salty splashes careened to the ground, fading onto the dark stone floor as her fingers clawed at the surface, their knuckles shooting into the air faster than a bullet. The sound of Kuria’s silken gown and click of her heels almost made her sick.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to listen when spoken to? Now look at you. You reap what you sow I guess.” Her gown fluttered to the floor as she stooped down, examining her catch like a dog with a bone. “I’m not like the other three, you see. I like to play.”

Mana’s vision swam as Kuria walked her fingers up and down her legs; she could feel her dagger-like fingernails press into her skin, prepared to draw blood if given the word. Inaudible whispers embedded themselves in her mind like hallucinogenic fever dreams. She recalled the broken foot she had when she was little, but the pain she felt now was so mind-numbingly incomparable; the pain turned her stomach into a violent sea, radiating past her shoulder blades, and into the base of her skull.

An idea sprang into Kuria’s mind. She stood up, watching as Mana attempted to crawl away to some non-existent safety. It was pure, unfiltered entertainment, but not entertaining enough. She wanted to lavish in Mana’s suffering, taste the mouth-watering extravagance of sadistic revenge. She tapped Mana’s broken foot with the tip of her shoe, garnering a small whimper.

“Then how about this?” She gave her foot a firm kick.

“STOP!! Enough already,” Mana pleaded. She drew a sharp breath, the first actual breath she’d taken in over a minute. “Why is it so much worse…”

“I quite like this desperation and the begging you’re giving me, but I can’t say I’m satisfied just yet. Hmm…” The ribbons returned, caressing Mana’s other foot. “I wonder what would happen if we broke this one… slowly.”

Mana’s fingers left trails of blood in their wake, grinding against the floor in protest as the ribbons continued to drape themselves across her legs, dragging her back into the impact crater she’d made earlier. The closer she got, the tighter the ribbons became—twisting and twirling. She screamed, unsure of what was happening; the lines between consciousness and unconsciousness were beginning to blur. The pain was sending her body into shock.

“Uggh. Enough of the wailing already, Mana. Hush.” The devil raised a finger to her lips. “We could’ve easily avoided all of this if you’d just listened. Did you really think that you could face me down in your condition?”

The lights on the chandeliers above began to flicker. Kuria halted the harrowing twisting of Mana’s foot and turned her attention to the erratic behavior of the crystalline fixtures, windows also rumbling with a phantom vibration before abruptly ceasing. An indescribable silence filled the air, only broken by an occasional, quiescent sob. Kuria’s shadows wriggled erratically as they retreated behind her.

Sensing the abrupt shift in the castle’s strange spacetime, she crawled out of the room, seeking refuge behind a large, marble statue. It seemed to resemble Ahzef, but the body proportions were different: he seemed more muscular, fitter, than his lanky appearance two years ago.

Kuria hadn’t noticed Mana’s escape, despite the crimson trail and bloodied handprints on the statue that were anything but reassuring; she was rapidly losing blood, exacerbated by the rapidity of her beating heart, but her emotions were high, and she was in desperate need of something to relieve her pain.

“Interesting. I wonder what this feeling is,” Kuria pondered. “A dimensional shift? Some kind of teleportation, perhaps? The spacetime has… changed.”

Dust particles floated nonchalantly in the glimmering, artificial light. Unless the pain was distorting her vision, Mana could have sworn the dust had been frozen where it floated, yet the chandeliers overhead still swayed back and forth. She could still feel the air circulating through the maze of hallways and doors, but it wasn’t enough to make the chandeliers move. Moreover, if the air was moving, why had the dust stopped?

“Time magic? No. This is different,” she wondered. “What’s going on? The dust, the chandeliers… This influence is so specific…”

A steady clock-like ticking drummed through the castle. Kuria made a full three-sixty, cross-examining every inch of the open aisle as she walked out of the bedroom. She seemed far more interested in the sudden spacetime shift than she did in locating Mana’s new hiding spot.

“So… you can freeze time, but you can’t accelerate or rewind it. Now this is interesting.” Kuria paused for a moment. “There is someone here, hidden. Find them,” she commanded as her shadows plunged into the walls and floor, scouring every inch of the corridor. Devilish tentacles slithered around, seeking out their uninvited company with deadly precision. “If you’re here, I will find you,” she laughed.

“That’s kind of the point,” a female voice taunted. “If I didn’t want you to find me, I wouldn’t have made my presence so obvious.”

“Are you going to make me guess who you are, or will you come out so we can have a chat?” Kuria replied in a harrowing tone.

“I know that voice, I think,” Mana said aloud. She peered out from behind the statue, hoping for a better view of the conversation between Kuria and whoever else had mysteriously arrived.

“Oh, that’s right! We still have unfinished business!” Kuria said excitedly, catching Mana by surprise. A shadow tentacle raced across the floor as it quickly wrapped itself around her unbroken foot. “I think for this one, I’ll just crush the bone into tiny pieces instead. A clean break like your other foot just isn’t as much fun.” Now using Mana as a hostage, Kuria repeated her earlier threat. “Her legs are next unless you’d like to come—”

A ferocious crack resounded through the corridor as the air sizzled with an illustrious heat. Moments later, a radiant whip of light struck Kuria across the cheek, searing a charred line across her face. Before it could strike for a second time, she side-stepped the attack, allowing the whip to strike the ground with another thunderous round of thunderous applause. Kuria’s shadows rushed to devour the new source of rich magical energy, snuffing out the remaining light as if it were a midnight snack.

“You were warned. Now she will suffer for your mistakes,” Kuria sneered.

Mana inhaled sharply as Kuria’s shadows climbed up her legs like vines, creeping higher and higher. The sound of breaking bones filled her with unimaginable terror as she struggled to free herself to no avail. She could feel the tentacles squeezing tighter and tighter, the subtle pinch growing into an ache that blossomed across her lower body.

The girl’s voice came again. “See, your first mistake was failing to realize I was right behind you the whole time.”

A girl, around Mana’s age, emerged from what looked like a gate of light, donning an almost-ethereal pair of white pantyhose, gold trim crisscrossing the fabric in intricate patterns. Golden threads wound themselves around each other—above the ankles, below the knees, and again around the thighs. The straps of a pair of golden stilettos ran past her ankles as a sheer pastel-pink and white dress danced behind her, brushing the backs of her knees with each step. Silky white gloves ran from her forearms to a ringed point at her middle fingers.

Mana immediately recognized the caramel hair, nicely curled and full of volume, despite the blinding entrance. There was only one person who commanded such flair—even in the short time she’d known her—and it wasn’t Hika.

“How—?” Kuria flung Mana through the air before she could get her question out, pinning her to the floor as she landed on her back.

“I don’t care who walks through that gateway. It doesn’t change the fact that my mission was to return you to Ahzef alive. You won’t be leaving my side, as much as I’d rather just fling you into oblivion,” she said, addressing Mana. “You really do annoy me.”

A loud snap arose from one of Mana’s legs as Kuria’s shadows tightened their relentless grip on her. She cried out in fits of torturous pain, clenching her teeth, struggling to regain enough composure to form even a semblance of coherent thought. Another audible snap came from her other leg. Spots formed in her eyes as her body went limp, still caught in the clutches of Kuria’s shadowy tentacles.

“I’ve reached my limit,” she thought as her eyelids fell over her eyes. “In the end, I guess I was just as useless as I’ve felt for the last two years.”

“Not yet, Mana,” the girl shouted. “I made a promise I would get us all out of this, and find a way to make up for how I treated Lacia. Nothing about that promise has changed, and I do not break my promises.”

Mana opened her eyes a crack, fighting against her body’s icy plunge into shock. “Then hurry… Aria.”

“You wanna know something funny? I found Lacia in a very similar situation as you are now when I came to save her,” Aria said. “It’s already been two years. Can you believe it? Now… How I’m going to juggle you and Kuria, I have no idea,” she admitted, assessing the situation.

Kuria was intrigued. “Aria… Surely, she doesn’t mean—”

“Miruna? If that’s what you were about to say, then you would be correct.” Aria placed a hand above her breasts. “My name is Aria Miruna, and I guess you could say I’m the great, great, great, great granddaughter of the infamous Saint Miruna Lucifero had the unfortunate luck of running into.”

“How are you even here? You should’ve been annihilated by the hihoyou!”

“As should have Ahzef, but judging by your knowledge of that spell… Am I to assume you allowed Ahzef to escape? We know the spell failed, and that should have cost us our lives, but it didn’t. Why? How does all of this correlate?”

“Us devils are crafty things,” Kuria said, extending an arm defiantly. She gave Aria a wide grin. “But I did not play a part in our king’s escape or the prevention of your death.”

“I think annoying is a more fitting… term. Either way,” Aria said, “something is seriously wrong if even life and death are imbalanced.” She closed her eyes for a moment before heaving a sigh. “Lucifero liked to play dirty, too. It’s too bad he’s not around to tell you how much trouble you’re in. I presume he was a dream-eater which explains how he wormed his way into Lacia’s head,” Aria opened her eyes, “but you… What are you?”

“Care to find out?” Numerous needle-like shadows pointed themselves at Aria. “I may have slipped up with this one here,” she said, gesturing towards Mana, “but I’m not so clumsy that I’d give away what kind of devil I am. I’ll serve you both up for our king and watch as he returns your bodies to the dirt beneath our feet!” She launched the needle-like shadows at Aria who easily deflected the assault.

“At least make this fun for me, devil.”

“It’s that very same cocky attitude that got your friend into trouble,” Kuria whispered in Aria’s ear.

She hadn’t taken her eyes off the devil for even a second. “How did she manage to get behind me? Even with my eyes closed, I could still sense she hadn’t moved. So how?”

“I hate to ruin such a pretty dress, but I think it would look even better if it were stained red.”

Kuria thrust her hand through Aria’s back, piercing her stomach. Copious amounts of blood painted her lips red as lipstick as she doubled over, heaving yet more onto the floor. Sneak attacks were the one thing she could do without—even more so the abdominal wounds.

She grabbed Kuria’s hand as she choked out a short incantation: “Reviarna.”

Kuria leapt to the side, slipping through Aria’s blood-soaked hands, as a blast of wind hollowed out a hole in the wall behind her. Clattering stones and broken boards crumbled into a pile, revealing another of the castle’s many rooms, this one a small office-like space.

“You’d tear yourself apart just to defeat me? You won’t last long like that, little girl,” the devil snickered. A small trickle of black blood seeped from her cheek before promptly healing.

“It’s a little uncomfortable, I’ll admit,” Aria said, promptly healing the hole in her stomach, “but just because you worked your way behind me once doesn’t mean you’ll have the chance to do it twice.” She stood up, still a little woozy. “Shall we continue, or would you like to join Lucifero as a pile of ash?”

“Big talk coming from someone who ran away and hid for two years. Are you sure you want to continue, Miss Miruna?” Kuria mocked.

“Mmm. ‘Miss Miruna’ has a nice ring to it. Gives me princess vibes, being in this castle and all.”

Shadows grew from the lengths of Kuria’s fingers into hazy, purple claws. She lurched forward with astounding speed, a blur of inky black as she forced Aria into a dodging dance, the click of her heels reverberating off the walls with each intricate step.

“She knows I can track her like this, though,” Aria noted, “which means… It’s not a frontal assault! Her main shadow—where is it?!” Deep gashes raked across Aria’s back, inflicting a series of stinging wounds that stained the back of her dress. She cursed. “Behind me again?!”

“I was right. Red is a good look for that dress,” Kuria teased, “but I’m not through carving you up yet.” The devil’s form dissolved into shadow, seeping through the cracks in the floor, swiping at Aria from below.

Mana called out, taking Aria by surprise. “Send a pulse of mana through the floor, and I’ll amplify it!” She was breathing heavily, still wrapped up in Kuria’s shadowy tentacles. “The second you get a chance—don’t hesitate.”

“But you’re in no shape to—”

“Just do it!”

Aria hesitated for a moment before leaping back, adding distance between her and the devil, before dropping to the ground. She pressed her palms against the cold stone, sending a short, but stout, pulse of mana through the floor. She wasn’t sure what to expect—then it hit her.

“I get it now. That’s ingenious!”

Mana took a deep breath. The hair on her head stood on-end as if the air was filled with electricity. Was magical static even a thing? Pressing her palms against the floor, she released her own amplified mana pulse, combining it with Aria’s. Thankfully, their mana was compatible with each other’s, successfully amplifying Aria’s original pulse.

“Magical sonar. Pretty cool, right?” she smiled weakly.

“It would be if this stupid devil would come out. She’s still under the floor somewhere…” A cold wind whipped Aria’s dress into a flurry before she promptly forced it back down. “Oh? If you wanted a panty-shot that badly, you could have just asked,” Aria shouted, teasing. “Still, you won’t see anything underneath these tights. I chose a higher denier specifically for this reason.” Using the magical sonar, she quickly pinpointed Kuria’s location, but she felt sluggish, as if she was wading through waist-deep water combined with the fogginess of a fever. “Are you serious? She’s still after Mana?”

“Such crude language from the heir of the Miruna family,” the devil said, unphased by Aria’s jokes. Kuria’s shadow briefly bobbed above the surface of the floor like the dorsal fin of a shark. “I’m not here to play dress-up with you.”

“Aww, too bad,” Aria pouted, showing her lower lip. “I thought maybe you were into seeing how much more elegant my body is compared to your bag of bones. I actually quite like playing dress-up, since we’re being honest here.”

“Kuria might think she has me bound— Actually, she does,” Mana thought, “but I still have one little trick left.” Dark splotches burned themselves into Mana’s skin. A blistering heat forced Kuria’s shadows to relinquish their hold. “With MCS, once I completely run out of mana, any magic I use thereafter is borrowed. I have to give something in return for that power…”

“You’re something else, I swear,” Aria said, shaking off her sluggishness. “Enough, Mana. You don’t need to put your life in any more danger than it already is! Right now, you need to find a new hiding place.”

Eyeing the red carpet, Mana had a thought. “Kuria has repeatedly avoided that carpet. This better work or I’m super dead.” Shakily, she used her arms to lift her upper body off the floor. “Aria, I’m going to reinforce my legs with mana. I just need you to—”

A potent wave of nausea struck her, turning the corridor into a wobbly playhouse. Kuria was mere feet from her now, quickly closing the gap between them, but the nausea was unrelenting, forcing her back onto the floor in a dissociative heap. She tried again to lift herself off the floor, but her vision swam. She placed her hand over her mouth, ready to vomit, before subsequently pointing to the carpet then back at herself.

Aria nodded. With a rush of wind, she lifted Mana from the floor, seconds before a shadowy spike emerged from the spot she’d been laying just moments ago. Gently placing her on the carpet, Aria wondered why it was so special.

“It’s the only advantage we have,” Mana said with a swallow. “Kuria can only surface in an open area that’s unobstructed by other objects. This carpet acts as a barrier. See?” She pointed to the lights on the ceiling. “She uses those lights to create other shadows that she can manipulate because her own shadow can’t penetrate this carpet—as stupid as that sounds.”

“I should have snapped your neck instead of your foot,” Kuria said as she reemerged from an inky pit in the floor, dissatisfied. “You figured out my secret, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re both at the whim of my mercy,” she jeered. “Any shadow under my control, I can mold into anything I want and those can penetrate.”

“Aria, your back,” Mana cried out. The gashes she’d received from the earlier clawing had begun to bleed profusely. Her face had grown pale, even under the warm, crystalline lights; she’d lost a lot of blood—blood she couldn’t stop the flow of. “It’s like the gashes are… corroding.” A needly shadow grazed Mana’s cheek, leaving a thin cut.

“Pay me no mind, Mana. Keep your focus,” Aria said, breathing heavily.

Kuria lunged forward as Aria’s eyes danced, tracing her every move. Without hesitation, she thrust her arm forward, palm connecting with the devil’s chest. It was cold, and there was no heartbeat—just an empty husk of hatred and evil.

“Got you,” she whispered.

A blinding eruption of heat and light engulfed Kuria as she leapt back, her own clothes singed at the ends, but the attack had reflected off the chandeliers above. Spots formed in Aria’s eyes, not realizing what she’d done: The chandeliers were made of crystal. As their prisms refracted the light from her attack, they had created a rainbow luminescence that amplified the attack’s blinding rays.

Aria moved her fingers apart, trying not to blind herself. The corridor had been transformed into a rainbow-like stage; crystalline reflections danced across the walls and along the floor as a black blob leapt into a nearby statue, knocking it to the floor—not even Kuria could escape the gleaming brilliance. Slowly, the shadowy mass reformed as the light dimmed.

“That was a nasty spell,” Kuria barked. “Where did you learn something as troublesome as that?” Smoke rose from her body like morning fog.

“You’re persistent,” Aria said, disappointed. “I suppose I can give you the backstory on what I’ve been up to, though…” Her face had turned serious. “I didn’t run away. I don’t know what happened. After Lacia and I became separated, after the hihoyou failed, I looked everywhere for her.” Beads of sweat dripped from her forehead; she was growing tired. “In that time, I stumbled upon my old home. As you may well know, the Miruna family was one of the great mage families. My family in particular was responsible for some of the most powerful, yet devastating, spells in the history of magecraft.”

“What’s your point?” Kuria said with a half-formed mouth.

Aria continued. “As a little girl, I was told to stay away from books my mother had written.” She opened the palm of her hand as a bound leather book appeared in the center. “Do you know what this is, Kuria?”

“I’m not startled by a small book of spells. Besides, your ragged appearance tells me you’re reaching your limit… or the poison from my claws is causing your body to decay from the inside out.”

Aria gave a weak smile. “This is the Grimnoire of Segasom—one of the greatest mages to ever live.” She gave Kuria a cold stare.

“You’re bluffing. That grimoire was destroyed when Lucifero defeated Saint Miruna centuries ago. I personally ensured nothing of it remained after I burned it to cinders.” Disbelief flooded the devil’s face. “How is it that you have it?!”

The pages of the grimnoire began to turn on their own, casting Aria in a soft, purple glow. Her hair flurried behind her as mana poured into her body from all angles. Amazingly, even the gashes across her back began to shrink as color returned to her face.

“It’s not a ‘grimoire’—it’s, like I said, a grimnoire. You see, the difference between a normal grimoire and a grimnoire is that a grimnoire was designed to manipulate dreams, transforming the power they hold into magical energy—or mana.” Aria closed her eyes and smiled. “You may have destroyed a grimoire,” she emphasized, “but you most certainly did not destroy this thing.”

“Even so! The poison did its work. It will take more time for your body to fully recover,” Kuria remarked. “You don’t have the strength left to continue this fight.”

“She’s right,” Aria telepathized to Mana, “and I can see your post-MCS is getting worse. So, I propose an idea.”

“Does your idea start with ‘running’ and end in ‘away’ or something similar? Mana whispered. “Neither of us can beat her right now. I really can’t even move, so I hope you want to get out of here as bad I do.”

“Interesting conversation you’re having over there, but I’m afraid neither of you will be leaving.” Arrows rained from the ceiling, strategically pinning Mana and Aria’s clothes to the floor, immobile. An ominous storm cloud formed overhead, expanding across the entire length of the corridor. “Have you ever seen icicles rain from a storm cloud? Just imagine the sound of skewering flesh and the agonizing screams you’ll make!”

Aria threw up a wall of light to shield from the oncoming volley. “We’re not running. Hear me out,” she explained. The grimnoire floated over to Mana. “Take a look at this spell. It’s small, but if we condense a large enough amount of mana into it, it should grow unstable. Basically, this spell requires the caster, or casters in this case, to harness the power of a star.” Mana skimmed the page as Aria rambled on. “As it grows unstable, its power is amplified, but if we lose control, one of two things could happen: either we create a blackhole, or we die.”

Cracks began to emerge in the barrier. “I have to be in perfect condition for this, Aria. I’m struggling just to fight the nausea back right now.” Just the mention of nausea made her stomach turn. “Why can’t we just lea—”

“Let’s fix that, then. I learned a lot these last two years, and this,” she said, pressing her hands against Mana’s stomach, “is one of those things.”

She gave a firm shove as a dark cloud was forced from Mana’s body. It was mist-like and radiated a foul stench of decay. Aria quickly dispelled the cloud with a small burst of wind. Had Kuria’s arrows not anchored them to the floor, she might have blown Mana through another wall by accident.

“Well. How do you feel?” Aria asked.

“Way better—if I wasn’t in agonizing p—”

Her eyes grew wide before drooping to a close. The sound of tearing flesh filled Aria’s ears as blood streamed from the sides of Mana’s mouth like a waterfall, splattering onto the floor. Time seemed to hang like a breath on a cold day, slowing to a crawl as Aria tried to make sense of what was happening.

“You couldn’t have…” Aria was horrified. Pools of blood spread out beneath her feet, combining to form a singular large puddle.

“Oh, but I did, Aria,” Kuria sang. “I recall telling you not to underestimate me like Miss Lhumin there. You girls just refuse to listen.” A large, black heap shot out from behind Kuria, absorbing all remaining light like a vacuum. Everything fell into darkness—not even the tiniest morsel of light could escape. “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” the devil gloated from somewhere in the dark. “Unlike Ahzef or Lucifero, I can freely change my form into whatever I please, wherever I please. You should have realized that.”

“You talk… Too much.” Aria’s voice was bitter.

Kuria smiled. “It’s unfortunate you’re so dumb, Aria. Now you stand there, hands dripping with blood, trapped inside of a darkness with no light.”

A biting chill worked its way into the air, causing even Kuria to shudder. It was intense, unabating and merciless. Frost crept its way around Aria, a rage-filled luminescence simultaneously knocking Kuria’s darkness back with ease. An eruption of icy white promptly overtook the corridor, reflecting off the encroaching frost; the floor was the first to freeze as the frost transformed the stone into a skating rink. It crept up the cloth banners, entrenched in the fabric, forming crystalline patterns on the surface. A wildfire of ice tore through the entirety of the castle, consumed by an chilling rage fueled by hatred and despair—even the tips of her fingers stung, red from the cold.

“I live in the cold, girl. This is nothing to me,” Kuria sneered, teeth chattering. “Maybe you should be more focused on the enemy in front of you. Once we finish our playdate, you’ll wish I had killed you instead!”

“This is nothing yet,” Aria said in a quiescent temper. A white cloud of breath erupted from her lips. “Your playdates are over,” she said through numb lips.

The cold continued its permeation as frost climb into the ceiling, out of sight. It was beautiful, yet deadly. Still, she’d chosen the less destructive medium to express her fury; she could have turned everything to ash in an uncontrolled inferno. Fire or ice, she ran the risk of losing control, of careless self-mutilation, while putting Mana in harm’s way as well. She’d scoured the depths of her mind, searching for other alternatives, but there were none.

“Look at you shiver,” Kuria taunted. “Your lips are ice-blue. How long do you think you can maintain such reckless magic?” Kuria started towards Aria, but the frost froze her shadow in place. “I see… So your plan is to freeze me here instead of finishing me? You might very well pull it off—at the expense of your life,” she exclaimed.

“Enjoy your icy prison for a while.” Aria’s words were colder than the frost that crept across Kuria. “I have business to attend to.” A final volley of shadowy tentacles rushed forward only to drop to the floor like deadweights, immobilized by the intense cold. “You’re going to be here for a hot minute. Anything you’d like to say?” Aria shivered.

“You’re crafty! I can’t wait to dissect you later, but I’m patient. How long can you maintain the spell, though?” Kuria hissed as she was frozen solid.

“Long enough to put an end to this madness.” With Kuria temporarily out of action, Aria turned to Mana. “I don’t know if you can hear me right now, but,” she gulped, “I’m going to put your body into a cryogenic sleep. It’s the only thing I can do to save your life right now. I’m so sorry…” The cold continued to expand. “Kuria did a lot more damage than I can heal right now…”

Mana lightly grasped Aria’s cold hands; they were surprisingly soft. “It’s my fault—”

Aria shushed her. “Save it. You’re losing more blood than your body can afford to lose. I need you to conserve as much energy as you can, ok?”

She wrapped her fingers around one of several metal poles that had been embedded in Mana’s flesh. What she’d thought was an uncoordinated series of attacks were really meant as a Hail Mary—something was bound to connect eventually, but by the time she’d realized it, it was already too late.