Chapter 64

For the longest time, the Grand ranked magus that I'd come to admire simply... stared at me. None uttered a word, none dared move. For all intents and purposes, someone should have attacked Maio, but it was only fair that no one wanted to risk having Touko Aozaki turned their way by the Herbalist, no matter how absurd it all sounded.

In the first place, something like a poison or whatever should have been nothing for a person of her standing. It didn't take a genius to glean that. No, she definitely had her own reasons for listening to him. I was curious, but I was shamelessly looking forward to fighting her again too.

My heart drummed in my chest. My fingers trembled as I raised them.

Yes, I felt fear, beyond a doubt. Touko Aozaki was undoubtedly someone far beyond the likes of Inorai, Bazdilot Cordelion or Sancraid Phahn. But, that strange fear of fighting someone decisively beyond me was what I lived for. It was what I loved this life for.

It meant learning all that much more if I came out of it.

"That's a good look. Not something I'd expect from a magus, but good. It makes me look forward to this." Touko smiled thinly. "Sowilo. Manaz. Isa. Naudiz. Jera. Uruz. Ansuz."

I tilted my head. "The runes you used last time. From Elder Futhark, was it?"

Rune Magecraft. A system closest to my own unique spellcrafting and spellcasting, that made spells by stringing together 'characters' known as runes where I saw the whole of magecraft and all its systems as 'characters' from different 'languages'. Apparently, it was a lost art that she re-discovered and propagated throughout the Mage's Association.

She nodded and held up one finger. "You analyzed them already, good. As a reward, one more, of three from an older time. Mine are replications, but I imagine it will be sufficiently entertaining."

Huh.

"Then I guess I'll show you something interesting too."

The 'clash' so far was nothing more than an amiable discussion. That discussion ended when Touko breathed out a small cloud of smoke and began writing in it with the lit tip of her cigarette.

In the blink of an eye, she finished. When she did, the very world around us heeled. The air became numbingly chill and froze as I watched. Haphazard branches of frost burst forth. 

"Fuga."

They never even reached my barriers. With that word, the cold she'd imposed disappeared and a great flash of heat made the entire hall into a furnace. The elements clashed without rhyme or rhythm. Touko smiled gleefully when I shot out of the flames, leaning back just in time to avoid a kick that would have ripped her head off.

She wrote again, this time thunder erupted from the air, from right within the narrow distance left between us. The thunder roared. Then it was gone. When the light cleared, the Grand was gone entirely. The floor imploded under my feet, and Touko was already standing below, a hand on her side.

Her crimson eyes glowed a fierce blue.

"Your defense has a glaring flaw, Hal. It only stops tampers with the space between us. What about something that begins within you?"

Her eyes grew brighter, and for a moment, I blanked. My vision disappeared entirely. For a second, my barrier faltered, more because I was surprised than anything else. I'd never encountered something like this before in my life.

That was enough.

She struck before I ever even touched the ground, delivering a haymaker straight from the very depths of hell itself into my guts from the side. She spun, and kicked the same place in that same motion.

I was thrown against the wall. Then, of course, expectedly, the runes she'd inscribed on my body exploded too. The activation was too fast for me to interfere with and it was all I could do to mold infinity to form within my own body to isolate the damage before I imploded too.

As a result, much of the flesh under my ribs was torn to shreds. But that was where the damage ended. Honestly, it looked a lot nastier than it actually was. I barely even felt it... nah, that shit hurt like a BITCH.

Touko never moved after hitting me. She was holding her cigarette to her lips and even nodded her head in something that felt like a compliment.

"That was smart."

"That was bloody nasty." I clutched my bleeding guts. Feeling the warm blood seep into my hand, I grinned wider. "But damn if it wasn't cool. Mystic Eyes?"

I made sure to avoid her gaze, but that meant I was forced to look at her feet instead. That stung my pride a little.

"Mhm. Mental Compulsion with a bit of my own tinkering... but you already know that, right?"

"Yeah..."

That was the issue with Mystic Eyes of that particular nature. They influenced the world by sight alone. Looking at them, meant getting caught by them, regardless of distance and whatever obstacle came in between.

The solution to that issue was a pretty simple one.

I fished my aviators out of my pockets and pushed them on.

Sight action-based Mystic Eyes stopped working the moment the other person put on a pair of Mystic Eye Killers, no matter how strong. In my case however, that came at a cost. Judging by the manic grin that split her face, she knew that too.

"Now my eyes don't work on you... but you can't analyze or dismantle my spells anymore."

I met her expression with an equally manic one. "It looks like I've been had."

She was just as good as I was at analyzing magecraft, but not better. No one could be better. Except her expertise wasn't a by-product of her eyes. However, just because I couldn't see mana anymore, did not mean I lost my fine control over it, or all the spells in my arsenal.

I rested my head back against the wall, a hand over my knee, and stared right into her eyes.

"What are you going to do now? Run? Surrender?"

"Nah... I'd win."

She clapped her hands twice, nodding. "How exciting. You'll go far in the Clock Tower, I promise. No, I'll be sure to spread news of this myself. It seems amusing enough."

I snorted at that.

"You're not doing this cause of his threat at all, are you?"

Touko tilted her head with an amused smirk. "I've been found out, it seems. No, some death threat from a pathetic runt means nothing to me. Poison. Utterly boring. But, it did let me get the score even so..." 

Hah. What an amazing woman.

She deserved something interesting indeed.

"Oh, let's start again then."

She wrote something in the air, a foreign letter. One I had no hope of understanding with my eyes bound. But, if I took off the binds, she'd pierce through Infinity once again so there was no choice. What I did know however, was that the words she spoke were not related at all to that one rune repeated again and again.

"Agni Jvalana Agni Vaiśvānara."

The world was painted by a great fire.

A great storm of flame. It danced and coiled and prickled shyly. Then, abruptly, that immense red-hot fire leapt for me. It melted away the floor. It melted away the walls and the windows. It burnt the very air and spilled into the forest outside.

There, it tore through the trees and the grass and melted the wet soil. When finally it settled, the serene forest outside the remaining tower burned brightly. A proper hellscape. It was incredible to witness. I was sure that if there was indeed a hell, then it surely looked something like that.

Amidst it all, Touko Aozaki stood easily as ever, smoking her cigarette.

She definitely used fire just to one-up my use of Fuga.

"So, was that supposed to do something to me?"

I grinned. Untouched. My defense had parted the sea of flames easily.

"Not really. But we know this is my victory, Henry."

"It really isn't~ I mean, you can't even touch me anymore even though I know you really want to. I mean, I'm just so fabulous."

I wasn't risking being caught by her eyes again, and I definitely had the firepower to do her in.

"But, for this display, let me show you something interesting."

Touko raised a curious brow. She watched as I brought my hands together. One open as if it were reaching out for something, the other clutching it like a gentle lover.

"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue."

A blue orb formed behind me, shimmering in the night. Shifting and coiling, it pulled and clawed at the world around it.

"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red."

A crimson orb formed behind me, a mere inch away from the blue one. It roared and snapped, driving everything away in a rage.

What I was about to do was impossible, yet as simple as pushing the two together and mixing them into the one. Gently, the distance closed. The orbs began to fizzle and groan with the world. 

Then, the process went haywire. My control slipped and the spells began erratically fizzling in and out of existence. Something bad was about to happen if I didn't stop. Unfortunately, I had no intentions of stopping whatsoever.

That was, at least, until Touko suddenly threw up her hands.

"Wait, alright, I give up. This is your victory too. You're going to kill yourself and everyone else here if you release whatever that is."

With a shrug, I let the individual spells go.

"You're messed up in the head, kid." She sighed, tapping a foot against the floor. "I think this is the first time I've lost with the other person threatening to commit suicide... so, I suppose this is sufficient. Go ahead, gloat."

I pursed my lips and stepped up to her. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a notepad and a pen, holding them both out to her.

"What's this supposed to be?"

"Autograph, please. And your number too."

"...Is this how people hit on each other nowadays?"

"No, I already have someone so I'll have to reject that flirt even if you're a mil-... Er. I just think it'd be cool to have you as a friend."

She stared at me for a good few seconds, possibly awestruck by my handsome face in such close proximity. Then, she sighed again, and rudely pulled my offerings from my hands.

"Here."

I looked between her and what she'd written several times before turning around and unceremoniously tossing the notepad outside, into the burning forest.

"Heh."

"...Why you little-"

She never got to enact her revenge for that stunt, as the rest of the people in the towers-... haha, 'tower'... filtered into the destroyed room the moment she raised her hands to choke me out. 

Inorai inspected the damage with quiet disconcern. She narrowed her eyes at me, but not much else before abruptly turning around leaving.

"I see the issue has resolved itself. I have more pressing matters to attend to now so... toodles."

Lord Byron fell to his knees in despair. The old guy was probably losing it from all the property damage and all the money it would take to fix it. But hey, he deserved every single bit of the suffering headed his way and then some for what he did to his own daughter. The other 'daughter' Estella stood quietly by her father's side, along with a grinning Maio.

Then there was only the Professor and his little posse. He looked like he wanted to run into a wall, headfirst instead of dealing with his sister, or even any of his disciples at the moment.

"I've lost yet again, it would seem." Touko eyed Maio. "And even if you do kill me, I'll take you with me... or you could turn yourself in? Surely, that is the better option for a pathetic idiot like you."

"M-Miss Touko-" Byron started, but she cut him off by raising her hand.

"I'm not upset. This kind of thing is exactly what I've come to expect." She glanced my way. "Besides, it's been a rather interesting experience. I've discovered a new field to study, even."

Hm... What were the chances she was going to fuck me over later?

Reines interrupted them.

"Wait, hold on. If he turns himself in, the Iselma themselves become the ones to decide his punishment. You might as well be letting him off scot free..."

-

Though, she said that. There really was nothing else to do. When Maio inevitably surrendered, he was 'arrested' by the Iselma family servants since the damages were restrained to their 'property'. Personally, it was a distasteful conclusion to the incident, but, beyond a doubt, the El-Melloi gained much politically and possibly even the Princess of Silver as a 'hostage'. However, that information was never made 'available' to me. I just bothered the Professor about it till he gave up and confessed.

Instead, I left the Iselma Towers with a hefty sum as payment for their offense against me, and a good few runes for me to tinker with just for the love of the game even though I'd cause a terrible amount of damage just for the hell of it.

But, the greatest and worst outcome of that little incident was the sudden reputation that came with clashing with a Grand, not once, but twice, and coming out on top no less. It made things a lot more interesting at the Clock Tower... to say the least.

-

Afterword for this mini-arc:

I wanted to use this arc to show that magi are decently fucked up people and weirdoes but at the upper levels, they can really just do whatever they want and everyone has to conform to it like most fantasy settings. Touko simply does not care about what the Mage's Association might think because she's just that powerful. At the same time, I also wanted to show that they (magi) are decidedly 'reasonable' in the way they do things, to the point where an outcome is annoying to process but ultimately 'makes sense' from their view.

That's basically what happened here. Despite all the gaudy shows, and all the destruction, the 'villains' technically seem to have gotten off scot-free other than a hefty fine and immense property damage, because children are the 'property' of a magus much like a car or something, and they get to decide what they want for anything that happens to them. It's a bit distasteful, as Henry says, but there really was no other way to end without going against the very nature of their world.

Even to me, it's incredibly dissatisfying what happened. But, Henry isn't a justice-warrior, he usually stops 'bad' things from happening right in front of him but he's not the type of person to get that worked up for other people he doesn't even know. So in the end, satisfied with his encounter with Touko instead, he invested nothing at all into the case other than finding new magecraft.

Now, it would've been different, if say, he'd come earlier and the Princess of Gold asked him for help. He'd probably have done something then because that's just how he is. He's not fucked up like magi are, but he's also decently detached because he's died twice.

-

I hope I conveyed what I meant through the story and I hope you enjoyed. Please, do share your thoughts on this as they help me grow as a writer and serve to motivate me to write more at the same time.