Fire and Water (6)

Buldongi had no part to play in this fight.

When he had hidden Aroshu behind the rocks, Harad had given the bird sentry duty instead. It had been the right decision, he found himself reaffirming.

Without warning, a burst of sprayed water veiled Harad's and Ellen's vision — and it was an attack in the same breath, countless droplets shot out faster than arrows.

Harad caught that speed not with his eyes but with instinct, and a seething heat vaporized the droplets mid-flight.

The steam, too, was magic.

Inside its thick billows, Harad felt his breath tightening.

Water ran beneath ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their feet — running, impossibly, from above to below. They stood at the very top, and yet when they tilted their heads back, a river was falling out of the sky. A river in shape; a waterfall in direction.

"Let's move."

"Shall I carry you?"

"Much obliged."

Ellen scooped Harad into her arms and sprang. The pouring river bent its course, streaming after the arc of her leap.

Cradled against her, Harad turned only his head to eye the river on their heels. Its tip resembled a serpent's head; its body was not especially thick.

The magic is just the same.

The Avery Aquins of his past life had been a snake of a man. His tongue flicked without rest — so relentlessly one might wonder whether his Origin was the river at all, and not his tongue. A bastard who had known exactly how to flay people with words.

But the young Avery Aquins of today was not that man. Only his magic was serpentine; his tongue was not. He answered provocation not with his tongue but with his magic.

So Aroshu plays the water, and Avery plays the fire.

Of course, underneath it would be exactly the reverse. Avery expected nothing from that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠magic — it was a spell of sheer force, nothing more.

Letting themselves be chased was the point. It was how they moved the battlefield; Buldongi and Aroshu needed to be kept out of harm's way.

"Where did you leave the couple?"

"The opposite way from where we're headed."

"Just so."

Harad smiled, satisfied. Ellen was thinking even as she moved.

"How is it?"

"It didn't look serious."

Which meant there was time to spare.

"Good."

"Hm?"

"Set me down, would you? We've come far enough — this should do."

It was a stretch of ground bristling on every side with rock spires sharp as awls, and Harad leapt down from Ellen's arms.

Almost in the same breath, fire surged up like a wall. The serpent-like river rammed its head into that wall and wrenched out a roar like a scream; steam bloomed like fog.

"Just an ordinary spell. It buys time."

It was threatening only to the eye.

Ellen noticed that the fire holding the magic back was not even his crimson flame.

Far away, the real river was advancing. Ellen's brow creased at the sight of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it.

"You're leaving him time to Manifest on purpose?"

"You're smiling, you know."

Ellen's mouth was twitching at the corners. Her brow, though, stayed creased. A comical expression.

"You're going to get hurt again — you know that?"

She liked the fighting well enough. It was Harad coming to harm that she couldn't stand. That was what she was saying.

Does the Prophecy of the Moon weigh on her that much? Surely it isn't to that degree.

The Harad of his past life had lived fourteen more years in this place. If he set his mind to it, he was confident he could live even longer this time around.

"I still have beads."

"And who knows when we'll run into Hungry Ghosts again?"

She meant: use them sparingly.

"I intend to use only a little."

"You think it'll go as you please?"

"It will — you're here, after all."

The corners of her mouth twitched a little wider.

"I caught Psina. This time it's your turn."

Now Ellen grinned outright. A fitting arrogance. The edge of death was what she had been mad for, ever since her past life.

"You don't have to help at all, you know."

"That would be difficult."

That arrogance of hers was welcome — but public and private had to be kept apart.

"You... it won't come to that. Not for you."

"..."

Crack.

Harad heard Ellen leap across to him.

Easy. Then as now.

Not every Sword Master was strong.

Impressive powerhouses like Grand Duke Aratus, Toremote, or the Gulen of the future certainly existed — but they were the exceptions. The average Sword Master was not particularly strong. At least, that was how it seemed to Harad: a single 5th-tier magician with a respectable Origin was worth several times more than one ordinary Sword Master.

It wasn't that those superhumans were weak. It was that the Elaine of his past life had been too absurd for any other yardstick. Back then, without even knowing her own essence, she had been the match of any Sword Master.

At least in raw power.

Heavenly Might was that kind of power.

KWAAANG!

A sword swung, and the sound of something bursting rang out. What the eye saw matched it: the river did not get cut — it exploded.

...Brutal, though.

The Elaine of his past life had never once struck Harad in earnest. What would happen to him if she did was self-evident — even leaving aura out of it.

The river went on bursting apart, again and again. Not that it meant much: she was simply turning the magic away. That thing was not the Origin. It dealt Avery no harm.

Harad was simply marveling at Ellen's power.

The aura of Serzila resembled jet black, and Ellen's was drawing near to it — remarkable growth, set against half a year ago. It was proof that she was embodying Heavenly Might. Which meant she was approaching Sword Master as well, for Heavenly Might ran kindred to Elaine's essence.

Even so, this is easier than I expected.

And Harad realized the reason was himself. For Ellen there was only one Avery — but from Avery's side, there were two to face. That Harad had no intention of stepping in, the man had no way of knowing.

Harad had taken refuge atop the jagged spires, clear of the river. Avery stood aloof upon the water.

Their eyes met. Part of the river writhed like a serpent and split into branches, and something round and vast as a whale surged up at Harad.

Before he knew it, the projected sun was bearing down on the whale of water. Scarlet crimson flame blossomed across its whole body. Steam erupted savagely; the whale shrank in scale, but it did not die. Hung with clusters of crimson flame, it compressed itself smaller and lunged.

"I see."

So a 5th-tier is only ever a 5th-tier.

A trickle of blood ran from Harad's eye and the corner of his mouth.

The black sun steeped darker still, the light along its surface flaring brighter. Wind rose — a solar wind that drove off the mana binding the water into its whale's shape. The crimson flame finished devouring the weakened whale, and the haze of steam left behind vanished without a trace in the light of the projected sun.

"That shape!"

Avery's eyes bulged at the projection floating in the sky. To Harad, it was a familiar reaction — hadn't Psina done exactly the same, and in this life alone? At around the 5th tier, one could deduce an Origin from its Projection alone. And the Sun was an Origin whose form was uniquely unmistakable — for projected, it rose into the sky.

"That's right. A king — that's what I am."

Harad smirked down at Avery as he said it, and, as though it were nothing, wiped the blood streaming down his face.

Can I hold out?

The blood flowing was less than he had expected. His condition was better than it had been against Psina — he had risen to the 4th tier since, and the distance between him and Avery was considerable. Of course, what helped most of all was that Ellen was getting under Avery's skin.

I see. So at this point in time, knights are a mystery to him.

So that was why the man had only been sending river water from far away earlier. Avery dismissed knights as insects, but that, it seemed, was learned behavior; he had the air of one who had never once faced a knight. And a knight before you is the one thing you never take your eyes off.

Avery's gaze had been stolen — by Harad, and by the projected sun.

Into that gap, the river split in two without warning. The cross-sections standing like walls to either side were savage — less a cut than a rending. At the end of that slash stood Avery. No — a hair's breadth past him. His right ear was ripped away, rough and ragged.

"Aagh!"

Avery clutched at his ear.

Ellen sprang up from the rock spires and shouted.

"It's no good!"

"You did cut it, though."

Severing 5th-tier magic, drawing blood from the magician himself — and yet Ellen showed no trace of joy.

"Not that bastard. The Origin."

Her aim lay higher still.

"You were aiming for the Origin?"

"You're the one who told me to."

Harad gave a hollow laugh. Truly — the regression should have been Elaine's to make. He had thought himself special, but she was more special still.

"What you cut was a river — the magic, that is."

"The Origin is a river, you know. Manifestation is magic too."

"You just haven't cut the real river yet."

Ellen looked like she didn't follow.

"My Origin is that. Not the light or the flame it gives off."

Harad said it, pointing a finger at the projected sun.

In those terms, what Ellen had just cut was the flame.

"Water is usually an insidious thing. He'll have hidden the river inside the river."

Ellen had cut a fake. And the fakes were only multiplying.

The air turned damp.

"How dare—!"

The river, answering its earless master, flooded.

The ragged magic beast had been 5th-tier. Wounded, it had been strong even so.

It was Ellen's first defeat. Even so, she had felt she could hold her own — and by the end of it, she had. Given another meeting, she was confident she could kill it.

...The rabbit.

Her second defeat. From it she had gained nothing. Meet it again, and she had no confidence of killing it — but she was confident she could fight it.

The giant.

The giant she had met on the deep sea road. 6th tier, Harad had said — and Ellen had intuited that the giant was not so different from the rabbit.

A 5th-tier, once. A rabbit that was 6th-tier or a notch short of it, once. And a 6th-tier, once. Things a person might live a whole lifetime without facing even once, Ellen had faced three times in a mere half year.

Perhaps that was why. She had gained the confidence to kill the ragged beast, and her eye had grown lofty from twice facing the 6th tier. And so, perhaps, she had come to look down on the 5th tier without ever meaning to.

...Her mind went white. A calamity was rising to its feet. A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠river, Harad had called it — but what stood before her eyes was a tidal wave. A wave so vast the Great Wall itself could have floated upon it came surging in.

Had Harad not been beside her, she might have been swallowed whole — like the humans who had once witnessed that calamity.

He had told her, after all: water is insidious.

At those words, her mind snapped sharp.

Grandeur, nothing more. A river was a river. Its transformation into a tidal wave was for intimidation — in truth, it would hardly be threatening at all.

"He should have compressed it."

True enough. There were magicians strong against many, and the river was that kind of Origin. A knight was mighty as a single combatant — and so a magician strong against many could not beat a knight of the same tier in single combat.

"He's underestimating you — even after you took his ear."

Knowing they were not of the same tier, Avery had swelled its size. To frighten her. A notion possible only for a man looking down.

"...He's underestimating you too, isn't he?"

"He is. I'm only a Projection, after all."

Avery was underestimating Harad along with her.

"What do you want to do?"

The chances kept coming. If Ellen had truly been aiming for Avery earlier, it would have been his head and not his ear that came away. She felt she could manage it even now. She would take quite a beating — but she healed fast anyway.

"I want to cut the Origin."

Yes — she healed fast anyway.

Ellen wanted to be hurt properly, and to cut properly.

You're the exception.

Harad's words lingered in her mind. She did not want to betray that expectation. She wanted to pull it off showily, and then brag. Only then would she draw closer to his secret, too.

"It will be hard alone."

"Could you get hurt a little for me?"

It was greed. But Ellen asked without a moment's hesitation. Perhaps what she wanted was to confirm something.

"Frightening words."

"If you end up crippled, I'll take responsibility."

"Then I can't lose."

"...Why would you go that far for me?"

"That's a secret."

Harad was smiling again. Suspiciously so.

"...You know you're a truly awful man?"

"Worse than you? Perhaps."

Harad pushed at her back. It meant: go.

To find the river, one must first fall into it.

Ellen let herself be pushed, unresisting.

...In truth, she still had no idea how to cut an Origin.

A fake, he says?

Find the real one? How was she supposed to find it?

How am I supposed to cut it?

Even as she thought it, Ellen threw herself into the tidal wave without a moment's hesitation.

She could not disappoint Harad. Here, somehow, she had to see it through — even if she had to batter the answer out with her own body.

A dream had been laid over reality.