Lucid and Ayame walked through tangible silence in the burning archives of what had once been a pristine white library. He kept walking, his footsteps echoing against cracked marble. Everything seemed like it was coming to an end. This was the deciding factor. Right now, he would have to end this. His plan had gone to ruin, and now he had to save some godforsaken princess of all people.
He walked, jaw clenched.
She would have probably said something motivational.
He brushed the thought aside, bitter as ash.
As they walked deeper into the ruined archives, a large tremor shook the ground. It sounded like something had exploded and burst through several shelves while simultaneously hitting the ground with tremendous force. The impact sent dust and debris cascading from above.
"The hell was that?" Lucid said, his voice sharp with shock.
Yet it felt like it was miles away, distant thunder in a foreign storm.
Ayame inched closer unconsciously, her hand moving to steady him. Her fingers found his shoulder.
Lucid looked down at her hand, then brushed it aside without ceremony.
A flash of worry crossed her deep black eyes.
Who was she to come to his aid?
"Probably that B-rank shadow you mentioned," Lucid muttered, his tone flat and dismissive.
"Hmm."
A voice crooned behind them like a witch savoring her own words. Lucid turned around, muscles tensing.
'Shit.'
It was a woman in her early thirties. Not the homeroom teacher of Lucid, Anya, the pink-haired women, but another one he knew. She specialized in fate conjuring, where Mary had attempted classes before everything fell apart.
Mary. He thought the name bitterly, a look of disdain briefly crossing his eyes.
The woman before him wore a wide-brimmed hat, purple hair falling in waves from beneath it. Her purple eyes were deep, calculating, predatory. She wore robes that tightened at her waist before flowing down toward her legs in elegant drapes. A staff rested in her hand, and precious gemstones were attached to various points on her robes, glinting in the firelight. Beside her stood the guy he had just encountered earlier, the one who had left his companion behind for Lucid to kill.
Their eyes immediately met. One frightened. The other fogged with anger.
"Are you scared?" the professor lowered her tone to just above his ear, leaning close to the black badge leader. "I did not place you as leader of the upper district badges for no reason."
The words seemed to terrify him. His hands shook at his sides.
"Come on. Prove your worth. Is this the boy you came crying to me about?"
The witch-like professor shot him a look of pure scorn.
Lucid paid her no mind. He walked forward, step by deliberate step, boots crunching on broken glass and burnt paper.
The black badge leader seemed to retreat instinctively. The professor noticed and smiled sadistically, revealing teeth too white in the dim light.
"Oh, come now. Are you truly that afraid?"
Ayame stood behind, watching. Not interfering like earlier. She was learning.
The professor raised her hand and manifested an ice cleave that shot through the air, sharp enough to slice anyone apart. That would have been the case if it was anyone other than Lucid.
As the ice cleave connected to Lucid's chest, a bright glow of white and gold traced a thin line where it should have cut. The ice shattered into bits and pieces, dissolving into mist.
Lucid looked down at his chest.
It surprised him. Perhaps it even surprised the mage.
'It didn't cut me?'
He thought it almost sadly, as if that was what he had wanted. To feel something. To bleed.
He grinned and took a step forward.
The woman looked more pleased now, intrigued.
"Aren't you a resilient one," she said, her voice carrying false sweetness. "Tell me, what class do you belong to? You remind me of someone. An orange-haired girl. She holds so much promise."
He continued to walk toward them slowly, purposefully.
"Sorry," he said, voice cold and edged. "I'm dropping out."
The line immediately blurred. Lucid shot forward, his fist clenched, and punched into the woman's side with brutal force. His hands glowed gold and white, then flickered down and cracked. The impact slipped them apart into a grey mess of bone fragments and blood spattering everywhere.
Lucid jumped back slightly, looking down at his mangled hands like it was a minor hiccup. He willed it. White glow immediately enveloped them, restoring them to their previous state in seconds.
"Ah, I see now," he muttered. "Can't heal from self-inflicted damage, it would seem."
"Tch."
'She has a protective barrier...'
He appeared in front of her again. She fired a quick spell, ice shards flying toward his face.
Lucid ducked and shot past her.
The black badge boy fell on his back, scrambling away.
"Wait, please!" He put his hands up, eyes shut fearfully, voice cracking.
Lucid stopped. Something stopped him.
An ice barrier erupted from below his feet, similar to the one from that time in the courtyard where he had been almost suspended when he fought that blonde-haired boy.
"Shit," he muttered.
An earth spike launched from the fallen shelves, aiming for his head. It pierced toward him, then shattered on impact against the white glow surrounding him.
"What the hell is this?" he yelled internally, frustration building.
"Ohohoho!"
Another professor arrived, this one bald with a scarred face and robes of deep green. His hands already glowed with earth magic.
Lucid crushed ice with his hands and stomped down hard. Craters formed in lines that could split the floor apart. A cleave of ice shot toward him, breaking on impact, leaving a white shimmering glow.
He thought, The Chain of Heart.
'My healing is so rapid it regenerates fast enough to cancel the damage on impact.'
He grinned wider, almost manic.
He thought about using the chains now to test his newfound power.
Ayame looked at him, staring half in shock at what he had become.
He turned and walked toward the professors. A missile barrage of spells came at him. Rock, ice, projectiles sharp enough to cut through bone flew through the air. They landed on him, dissolving, breaking, being met with the white impact as if being evaporated before they could do harm.
He breathed in deeply.
He remembered. He had other traits now.
He stepped aside as a fireball shot past his shoulder.
A red aura enveloped his fists. He remembered this one. Or at least knew what it was. It swirled around them like something waiting to be unleashed, waiting, swirling, biding its time with patient malice.
He could feel every hit he took, every damage feeding this little thing inside him. Storing it. Building it.
"How nice," he smiled as he was being buried by projectiles, standing in the center of a storm of magic.
The scared black badge leader appeared behind Lucid with a knife and aimed toward his neck. Lucid grinned and stepped through it. The blade shattered on impact, evaporating as the white light took it.
Lucid stood over him, towering as the boy dropped to his knees, terrified.
"How is this possible?" the bald professor yelled.
"We are highly experienced Awakened!"
"Did you read the reports? It stated he was not illuminated or gifted by any specter!" the purple-haired witch yelled back, frustration bleeding into her voice.
"I did!" the bald one shouted.
Ayame appeared behind the bald man and materialized a crimson blood blade that she stabbed through his waist. But the professor was quick enough to twist out of it as a bulge of earth summoned beneath her, knocking the air out of her lungs, sending her flying upwards.
Yet as the agile person she was, she twisted in the air and landed across from him, back to back with Lucid.
"One side each?" He asked, voice clipped.
Silence. Then a nod.
They swiftly departed. Lucid immediately shot toward the purple-haired witch. She materialized an ice prison around him. It was futile, but she did something incredibly cunning. As Lucid got close enough to punch, she let the barrier drop for a second and drove her hand into his chest in the split moment he was inside her vicinity, freezing him from the inside.
Ayame looked back. Lucid was being frozen from head to toe, ice spreading across his skin like a disease.
The witch purred, "Hush now."
She moved past him her hands supporting itself of his frozen shoulders, toward Ayame. Ayame looked incredibly shaken. "No." She whispered.
"Problem solved," the witch said.
"Trai—" As the word threatened to fall from her mouth, a sound like glass shattering cut through the air.
It was not enough time to look back. As she glanced backward, a hand shot out to grab her face. She materialized the barrier that had stopped Lucid. His arm immediately shattered upon impact. Blood ran down in thick streams.
He did not care.
He drove his other arm into useless pulp against the barrier again, bones breaking, flesh tearing.
It shocked her. Her face twisted and contorted in frustration and fear.
"Why do you refuse to die?" she screamed.
He smiled through the pain, through the blood.
He exhaled and grinned.
'Checkmate,' He thought coldly.
"Maximum output."
As his hands healed, preparing for the final punch, a deadly red aura enveloped his fist. The pressure was so intense it tremored the ground below his feet, cracking the marble. The air itself felt dangerous, oppressive. It made goosebumps rise on everyone's skin. The bald professor immediately fell to the ground, gasping for air under the weight of it.
Lucid managed a faint breath, a faint exhale.
"Divine."
The woman immediately tried to brace herself, reinforcing the shield with everything she had.
Ayame quickly dashed to Lucid's side, eyes wide.
"Wrath," he exhaled like breath itself.
The fist came down with a red glow so hot it radiated immense pressure. It shattered through her barrier. His arms withstood the retaliation, and the punch met her gut, making her spill blood out her back. The impact was but a quick moment, but enough to make a shockwave so big they stood suspended in a single moment, as if frozen in time.
Then she was launched meters away, her body flying at impossible angles, crushing into burning shelves with a sickening crunch.
The man who was on his knees braced himself, trying to stand. Ayame stood behind him and pierced his back with a swift motion, her blade finding the space between his ribs.
The whole ordeal was quick and terrifying.
Lucid nodded, to Ayame.
They stood among the ruins, breathing hard, surrounded by burning paper and broken bodies.
"Let's keep moving," Lucid said, his voice flat and edged.
Ayame nodded, wiping blood from her blade.
"Wait..." Ayame interrupted.
He looked back to Ayame confused then his eyes found, the black badged boy who sat on the ground, just past her.
He was visibly shaking.
Lucid smiled.
A terrifying grin more than any smile.