Ugh... I should have worn a tighter shirt, damn bouncing breasts, I stop running and decide on ranged attacks, not many more cries of pain, more like war cries, might as well take the opportunity and try out my new skills.
Let's see... What can you do with darkness? Let's try. Drown them by covering their head, seems to be much easier to use the magic darkness coming out of my hand than the one around, cool, but, eh, nothing happens. Pierce their heads, they die instantly, pierce their torsos, they die quickly. Crush them, very hard, but they die after a while. Cut off their heads, they die instantly.
Let's try something more unusual, I concentrate a little more while I see a group of three climbing the tower of a small temple, maybe someone is hiding at the top, let's cut off their claws first, along with the rest of their limbs to make them fall.
After a little effort on my part and some screams of pain on theirs, they fall. Let's continue the experiments! I pull the darkness inside one of them hard into the ground, greatly accelerating their fall, leaving a crater and a lot of their blood behind, 'tis not acid... Why would their blood be acid? More strange thoughts, I should go to a temple to get checked out later.' His body looks relatively intact, though. Now-
'Oh, someone stole my prey... Wait, wait, wait, prey?', That thought leaves me a bit cold, why am I playing with them? I should be using the time to help people, not testing my new skills...
Well, eh, I guess I helped a lot with the large number I killed, but at some point, I stopped paying attention to the whole emergency situation and started having fun... That's not like me, how scary, I definitely need to think about that, I'll ask Nicole later. For now, let's continue with the purge, this time getting closer to where there's more noise.
Back to the present, they're more fragile than I thought, how are the guards doing? I thought after a few minutes of hunting. Let's see, mmm, over there. I followed the sound of the next battle, five minutes later I arrived at a small square to see... Corpses.
So that's why there were fewer cries of pain. I was very focused before, so I ignored what most of my senses were telling me, as I'm used to, but... Now that I'm here, I'm assaulted by the strong metallic stench of blood. Before I can hold my nose, I'm pulled out of my thoughts by the distinctive roar I'm getting accustomed to, on the other side of the square I see several knights fighting one of the creatures, much larger than the others, maybe fifteen feet tall and almost twice as long, instead of an elongated head it has a kind of crown of black antlers, blacker than coal, and several arms and tails.
Just as earlier, I move before I can think of anything, as I see one of the thing's tails shatter a knight's shield, along with its arms, making the distinctive and unpleasant snap and crack of breaking bones. And before the giant claws of one of its arms finish the job, I arrive.
I must have been more mentally tired than I thought I was, because I just used my magic-enhanced shoulder to push the creature a few feet instead of using a real attack, which gave the injured guy time to be dragged away by his companions, but in turn, even though I managed to push the monster a little, it reminded me that it's a bad idea to get within range of huge, multi-limbed monsters with sharp teeth and claws. This one is all four of those things and more, and I'm right next to it.
As soon as I could see two of the tails almost reaching for me, I managed to create a shield of darkness that kept it from stabbing me, but I still shot out into the street.
"AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!" I feel an intense pain in my chest, which only gets worse as I roll down the street. 'THIS IS NO TIME TO TEST BODY TO BODY, IDIOT!' The quick turn of events, the pain in my chest, the strong smells and sounds that I suddenly became painfully aware of, make me act on instinct again, following the movement of my hand, my mind comes back to clarity as I see dozens of spears of darkness shoot out of the ground, impaling the creature all over its body.
But with no time to observe the situation, I have to force my body to move, for although it is dead, the momentum it had when it came at me at full speed without my knowledge still makes its extremely heavy body about to fall on me.
I manage to throw myself aside in time, but... "AAAHH DAMN IT! AAAH-! UGH..." The sudden movement forces me to scream again from the pain, which is not very kind to the fracture in my chest. As I remain on my knees, bearing the pain and trying not to move much while breathing, one of the knights appears beside me.
"Miss, are you alright? Let me take a look," he says as he tries to turn me around by the shoulder, causing me to groan even more in pain.
"Argh... I think that thing broke my sternum, I can heal it, don't touch me!" I yell back.
"Ster- what? Never mind, do you need help?"
The guy says, pulling his hand back, uh... Now I feel bad for yelling at him, his metal armor looks pretty heavy, so maybe he couldn't help being so rough earlier.
'Wait... Can I heal myself? Why did I say that?' Surprised, I open my eyes wide when, just like a while ago, just like when I awakened my darkness, I feel some confidence and clarity enter me. I point my hand at myself, throwing some darkness at my chest, while I re-create in my mind the image of the same magic numbing my nerves, picking up the scattered bone shards, catching the broken and cracked pieces of a slightly sunken breastbone in the middle of my chest, tying it back to the ribs, putting it back in place, repairing muscles, nerves, veins and tissue, and finally connecting it all back together, somehow knowing that I have left it much stronger than it ever could have been.
"'Wow,'" I think, a little shocked, at the same time as the knight from earlier says the same thing, still looking at my chest... Looking at my chest too much, actually, 'hey, I don't know how the hell I did this myself, but stop staring at my breasts.'
"Coff, coff," I cough a little as I slowly stand up, checking for pain, the guy comes out of his daze and quickly looks away from my slightly torn clothes, reminding him where the hell we are. Seeing several bodies strewn about brings him back to duty.
"Miss, please help my wounded comrades, at least enough to get them out of danger, I beg you!"
He says as he lowers his head and puts one knee on the ground. Eh, I never cared much for social ranks, but I'm sure a knight is at least one or two steps above a commoner like me, sometimes they are nobles themselves. But while I would normally be paralyzed by someone like that bowing to me, this time I don't even answer him as I run over to the rest of the group, two knights holding a guy with a severed arm while other one presses hard on the wound, at the same time several others inspect the fallen and the guy with the broken arms just sits on the side and tries to hold back his grunts.
'Mmm... I feel like I could make it grow back, but I shouldn't experiment too much now and I guess there will be a lot of injured people out there, sorry sir, but I'll save my strength and do the minimum.'
"Let me see!"
I ask for space to see properly... A clean cut on the forearm, near the elbow, obviously a lot of blood, good, uh, I mean, not good at all, but not as bad as his screams make it sound. I completely push the knight away who is trying to stop the bleeding as I push the darkness into what's left of his arm, stopping the bleeding, I guess they heard me or were watching me as none of them say anything and just watch me work.
Huh... Just like before, it's as if my body is moving on its own, but at the same time it's not as if I'm possessed, it's just me directing the magic, as if I've done it before but forgot... 'For the thousandth time today, this is no time to be distracted, Seina.'
In this case, for quick treatment and without the rest of the arm in sight, maybe it's best to cut even a little more of the arm, this time from the junction at the elbow, leaving some skin I can use to close the wound, I repeat the same as before, relocating nerves, vessels, tissue, glue, strengthen.
"Phew..." I let out a sigh when I'm done, it's kind of annoying and stressful, but very satisfying at the same time, to see that he's no longer bleeding and screaming, though he still looks very disturbed. I wish I had regular healing magic, they say you just cast a preset spell and it'll heal on its own... something inside me tells me that my method is more accurate, versatile and useful overall.
"Um, sorry," I say.
"Huh?"
"Oh, uh, I think you could have put it back together, but there's no time, I hear Mara's church can regrow limbs, if you can afford it." I say absentmindedly, looking around for any other major injuries.
"That's more than enough, you have my thanks." A voice behind me says, it's the nice gentleman from before, he seems to have finished analyzing the big xeno, I guess the guy I treated isn't in the mood for conversation.
I walk over to the knight with the broken arms to do the same to him as I did to myself, while the others continue the conversation.
"Marcus! Report"
"Captain! Eight survivors relatively unharmed, seventeen casualties, red flare over there"
We look in the direction he is pointing, and indeed there is a trail of red smoke rising into the sky, red being an emergency signal, if I remember correctly. I help the young knight to his feet, this time only healing his broken bones together as they would have done naturally, to save energy, although I don't feel my magic diminishing in the slightest.
"We will honor the fallen when the battle is over, move!"
"YES CAPTAIN!"
He looks at me, "Miss, I shouldn't ask a civilian to fight too, but your skills will be very useful, you will be rewarded if-"
"Lead the way," I reply, interrupting him.
"Right"
As we hurry through the deserted streets, I notice that this time I didn't mind to interrupt someone while they were talking, adrenaline maybe? Even I can tell this is no time to worry about manners. A few blocks later, we find a large group surrounding perhaps a hundred creatures, encircling them in a very large circle of blue fire.
"Ah," I look around, the knights I came with are gone, I guess they joined the many wizards, knights, soldiers and other people whose job I don't understand. Huh... even though they're keeping them at bay, they don't seem to be doing them much harm, I can also make out some of the bigger ones, like the one who beat me up among the black mass of hellish creatures.
"Seina!?" I turn around and see Nicole running towards me as she roughly pushes several people away.
"Nico- OW OW OW OW! STOP!" I reply as she suddenly tugs my ear a little, even though I say it's only a little, fox ears are very sensitive, imagine someone tugging your nipples, well, it's something like that.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!!?"
"Calm down! And let me go! I can kill them, look." I say, showing her a ball of darkness I create in the palm of my hand, while with the other hand I rub my poor battered ear... which she lets go at the sight of my hand, it's been ages since I've heard her scream, I guess she was worried to see me here, which warms my heart, but at the same time makes me a little scared by her very unusually loud voice.
"You woke up another magic!?"
"Yes! I can also use it to heal, somehow." I say, reassured by her expression, which suddenly changed from a frown to an excited one.
That brings her back to her senses.
"You've been hurt," she states, not asks, seeing my disheveled hair and fur and torn, dirty clothes.
"Yes... Sorry, I got careless and one of the big ones hit me. I managed to protect myself, but it still threw me away, but I healed myself! Look!"
I lift up my sweatshirt and shirt, or what's left of them,
My pink bra is a little frayed in the middle, but otherwise my skin is flawless, a little dirty at best.
"We're outside"
"AAAH!" Damn it! I was so relieved to see Nicole that I forgot we were in the middle of the main street, I guess most of the attention is on the creatures trapped in the fire, but there are still people around.
"No! Let me see properly," my cousin says as she lifts my clothes again and looks closely at my skin, 'a... a.. a.. aaaAAAAAAAHHH', by our screams, I can now see several people looking at me!!!!! Many of them go on their way or look away, but some of them are clearly looking at me.
"I'M FINE, THAT'S ENOUGH!" Luckily, she lets me go after a few seconds, but my red face won't return to its normal color anytime soon.
"I have to make sure. My aunt will kill me if something happens to you," she slowly regains her lazy look.
"I told you I'm healed, right!?"
"Well, yes, but you're the type to hide your problems behind a smile"
"... What are you all waiting for here anyway?" I look away and change the subject.
"There are too many of them to kill all at once, but at least we found out that they are afraid of the hottest fire, that's why the blue flames, we managed to corner them, but to keep going like this is very tiring, so to avoid deaths, we mages will take turns to keep the flames going until more help arrives"
We both look at the black mass of death writhing in the circle of fire.
"From the rooftops, I killed everyone I could see, but there might be more out there, I'll help." I tell her.
"Oh? I need to see that." She says, following me closer to get an unobstructed view.
Mmm... That's quite a lot, I feel like I still have quite a bit of magic left, but when I use natural darkness, I don't feel any depletion, I guess I'll save some more.
I reach out my hand towards the mass of xeno-whatever-they-are-called and picture a sharp sword in my mind... I think that should work, but I've never held a sword before, so the magic might not be as sharp and strong as it should be. So, let's focus on something more familiar.
I recreate the image of the sharpest thing I've ever seen, a concertina wire. The cut scars on my dad's and my brother's hands have always been a reminder to me never to go near that devil's razor covered wire, who could have thought of something so evil? Regular barbed wire can do the job just fine.
Remembering that time I helped bandage my brother's blood dripping hand, a very thin blade of dark magic appears, about thirty feet long, only around one and half feet off the ground, when I think it is solid enough, I throw it at the legs of the creatures.
It works like a charm. Ignoring the roar that changes from anger to pain, I concentrate half of my mind on pushing as hard as I can and the other half on keeping the magic within the circle of fire, with such a long blade it would be easy for me to end up cutting some idiot that stands too close to the fire.
After only a few minutes of effort, I managed to cut off the legs of all the monsters, even killing a few unlucky ones who had their huge heads too close to the ground. Well, at least that will make them much more vulnerable, I'll rest for a bit and go help the wounded...
"Haa..." I sigh and decide to sit down on the ground.
"... That was amazing, I saw a steel sword bounce off their skin earlier." Nicole says as we watch everyone start shooting at the monsters... Wait, that really wasn't too hard, should I have cut higher and killed them? Mm, well, never mind.
"It's cool, isn't it?"
"But what did you have in mind when you made the sword? It was very strangely shaped"
"The razor wire from the barnyard at home." I explain.
She doesn't answer me, instead she gives me a look of understanding, turns around a bit, pulls down her clothes and shows me her bare shoulder, where you can see a small old scar, just under an inch long.
"I see what you mean, I got this when I was a kid"
"Wow, at least it's barely visible, so don't worry"
"Wait, we've bathed together countless times, you've never seen it before?" she asks.
"... I-I got distracted every time." I answer, unable to look her in the eye anymore.
"..."
"I mean, um, I almost always turn my back to you in the shower." I try to reply, but-
"If you've already lost, you should stop fighting, you'll only embarrass yourself more"
"Never mind, I'll help, see you later"
I walk away before she can speak.