-Ensaru-
Ari had a feeling Oroske wouldn’t answer any more questions she asked, and so the two walked through the halls of the office building in silence. It was eerie seeing the place be practically abandoned. Not a single worker in sight. It was wise, she supposed, to evacuate all innocents so that they don’t get caught in the crossfire.
She hadn’t previously taken a proper look around, and she was surprised that she found she quite liked the place. It wasn’t nearly as grand as Grand Stone’s HQ, but it was a comfortable office space. The walls and lights were a nice, warm color, as opposed to the Guild’s cold white lights, on an even colder black and white color scheme. There was also significantly less wasted space. If you weren’t in a walkway, you were in either a cubicle, an office, or a meeting room.
She didn’t know if she’d like there, but it had a certain charm to it that she appreciated. It felt more homely than corporate.
She was distracting herself, she realized as they rounded the stairs to the third floor, which seemed a copy of the two floors below it. Ari had no idea what to expect for her encounter with Ensaru, and she was beginning to suspect she and Xeron had miscalculated by sending her.
Her employer, Yenva, likely wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight if Kuro got past Xeron. If she knows any magic whatsoever, odds are it was utilitarian in nature: spells to assist in her work, rather than fight. Even if she were highly proficient with a weapon, that’s not enough in the modern world where every combat encounter, both sides use at least a little magic. She’d be as defenseless as a child.
She and Xeron would have expected the same for Ensaru, especially with how old he was. It was common knowledge that Aetheric strength weakened as you got to about fifty or sixty years old, and that weakening could be quite drastic.
Yet here was Oroske, confidently and calmly, the person that would kill his employer without a second thought, directly to their office.
Something was up, and she had no idea what to expect.
After a few minutes of thinking and walking, Ari still had no idea what Oroske’s game was, and they arrived at a large door on the top floor, near the back of the building. Oroske knocked in a familiar rhythm - Xeron often knocked the same way - and the door swung open inwards. There, the director himself sat on a desk, lit from behind by the vestiges of light travelling in through the window. His two assistants were on standby next to him. Something was here. All four people had this unnerving calmness to them.
“I thought you might let yourself lose, Oroske,” the older looking of the two assistants said in a flat voice.
He just shrugged, “She got a good hit on me, I was impressed.” His bleeding had stopped a while ago, which confirmed her suspicions that her attack didn’t cut very deeply. “Come on you two, let’s leave them to their fight.” He gestured for the assistants to follow him. He pulled the door behind him, and just before shutting it fully he paused. “Oh, and Ensaru. try not to kill her, okay? She shows promise, and I’d hate to have her blood on my hands.”
“I will do my best,” Ensaru said, waving his hand to gesture to him to leave. The door shut with a click behind Ari.
She immediately summoned a sword from her Demon Sheath, and Ensaru stood up. He reached behind him and grabbed a sword of his own, already out of its sheath. It was an elegant weapon, a silver-colored rapier with an impressively ornate handguard. He stuck the tip in the ground and met her eyes.
“Shall we get started?” He asked, his voice smooth for one so old.
She prepared herself to launch at him. It had been a while since she fought in such a small and cluttered space, but she found she was good at these kinds of scenarios. Just in case, she planned to end the fight quickly, and would go all-out from the get-go.
Just as she pushed off, however, Ensaru suddenly appeared much further away from her, the space in the room extending and distorting. The colors shifted, starting from the space between them, from the browns and reds of the room, to a sky-blue expanse that surrounded them completely. It truly felt like she was in the sky, complete with clouds. But there was no ground below her, just more blue skies. Yet, she found she’d never left the ground. Taking a cautious step backwards, she found it more firm than the wooden flooring of the office, more like stone.
“What… What is this?” she asked out loud, looking around, trying to stop herself from panicking. She was failing. “Where are we?!” She shouted, pointing her sword at Ensaru who now stood roughly forty feet away.
He gave a sly smile as he explained, “We are in a Reality Bubble. It’s… Well it’s a very complex subject, and I imagine the Guardians would be more upset that I explained it than they already would be that I used it.” Stone pillars started to appear, rising from the emptiness below and stopping at varying heights above them. One picked Ari up and boosted her up to be slightly above most of them. “Think of it as set dressing, something I’m doing to make our fight a little more interesting,” He said as he came back into view, riding on his own pillar, the tip of his sword pressed into the stone..
There were several pillars, each several feet from each other, and they’d have to jump to travel between them. Each one was roughly three feet wide, meaning they’d be able to stand on the same pillar, but it wouldn’t be a comfortable fit.
The Director bowed, one hand on the pommel of his sword, the other on his chest, “Let us begin.”
Ari didn’t hesitate, moving at the same time as him, hopping from platform to platform, doing her best not to think too hard about how high they were - and what would happen if she fell. She would stick to her plan and go all out, rather than ramping up to her peak. Once they were only a couple pillars apart, she burst into her Acceleration, at the fastest she could manage consistently, and began preparing the same onslaught of spells she’d used against Oroske, minus the fyrun attribute. She’d want to test the waters at least a little bit before deciding which element, or elements, to use.
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She launched at him, her speed the same to herself, but drastically faster to Ensaru. His speed was much slower to her, as well, which made reading his movements much easier. With her delayed ari spells at the ready and in position around him, she felt she had him pinned. She would swing horizontally at his neck, aiming to decapitate, meanwhile she had four separate instances of her Delayed Slashes positioned in a circle around him, aimed in different orientations to account for how he might respond, if by some miracle he was able to.
She slashed while still mid-air. He was still slower than her, but he locked eyes with her and leaned backwards to dodge the attack, his neck barely clearing the blade. She’d timed her Delayed Slashes to hit just after her main attack would have, so if that was all he’d do to dodge she should-
He vanished.
The Delayed Slashes passed straight through where he stood, and one that she’d aimed upwards behind him grazed her cheek.
She landed, but didn’t undo her Acceleration, and quickly looked around for her opponent. He was behind her, two platforms behind where she’d jumped at him from.
“Impressive,” he said, the same smile still on his face. “You’re still so young, and yet you can Accelerate to this speed already. Not to mention that application of ari magic! Oroske wasn’t lying when he said you have potential.”
He had a strange, red-gold glow around him. He was Accelerating. Ari thought to herself, She’d heard rumors of Humans who had somehow learned how to use Demon Sheath, another Energy Manipulation ability, but she’d never those rumors. is
She swung her sword in a vertical swing, a sort of kinetic focus for three slashes of magic she’d sent out at the same time, infused with fyrun. Ensaru dodged the three easily, jumping to another platform. He landed as the three slashes collided and exploded. Chunks of the stone pillar were missing. They hadn’t broken off the pillar and fallen, however. It seemed more like the explosion had completely erased them. That confirmed for Ari that the pillars are formed of aether, which meant they must be getting sustained by Ensaru. Just how powerful could this man be, she wondered.
Ari couldn’t afford to stand around and think, so she launched herself once more at her opponent. She coated her sword in fyrun, and prepared several more Delayed Slashes, including a few that would swing out from her actual sword, and a couple pointed in such a way to attempt to catch him if he moved again. She was aiming a thrust for his chest this time, but still looked at the neck as though that were her target.
After she’d jumped, she was still a few feet away when suddenly another stone pillar slammed into her from her left side. It hit her hard, and it hit her fast, and it sent her flying through the air, away from Ensaru. Another pillar rose, forming a wall that she was thrown against. The momentum from her flight kept her pinned there for a short second, and after she fell she landed with a on another platform of stone. She groaned in pain, dropping her sword on the ground and grabbing at her left arm. She was almost positive it had broken between the shoulder and elbow, if her forearm wasn’t also broken. The wall slam probably cracked a rib or two, as well.
Her Acceleration was fluctuating as she grabbed her sword again and stood. She wouldn’t go down that easily. This battle was to the death, as far as she was concerned.
Ensaru was walking towards her with a casual stride. This revealed just how unstable her Acceleration was, as he’d occasionally fastforward for a few steps. Her mind felt cloudy, it was difficult to even maintain the manipulation of energy to fuel it. She took a deep breath, and stabilized the speed. Slower than she’d started, and that meant she was at a severe disadvantage for the rest of combat.
Ensaru still had his small smile, as he got closer. It was at this point Ari realized he’d formed solid ground between the pillars, allowing him to walk easily to her. He seemed to realize she’d slowed down her Acceleration, and he modulated his own to match.
“You’re still standing,” he said, his expression never changing, “I am truly impressed. Unfortunately, I think this is where I must end it.”
Ari went to swing at him again, and fired off a few instances of ari at him. Something stopped her at her wrist, and he blocked all three slashes with a wall of stone he’d brought up quickly. She looked at her arm, and saw the wall behind her had grown an arm, and was holding onto her tightly. The ground grew in a similar way, holding her by her ankles, leaving only her most likely broken left arm free.
The stone wall lowered as quickly as it was raised, and Ensaru stepped up to her. “This may hurt a little bit,” He said, his voice cold, “But I fear any other approach to stopping you will end up with you sustaining a long term injury, or perhaps even dying.”
He pointed a finger at her chest, close but not quite touching. He whispered something she didn’t catch, and a small blue spark travelled from his finger to her body. She felt a sudden jolt underneath her skin. No, underneath her whole self, as though her soul itself was delivered an immense electric shock. Her Acceleration dropped completely, and she couldn’t even sense the aether around her anymore. Her body went limp, though she was still vaguely conscious. She fought to keep her eyes open, but after a few short moments, she passed out.
Ari awoke some time later, laying down on a wooden desk. Her jacket had been taken off, and was hanging on a wall. She sat up, her body screaming out in pain. She simply bore it. She recognized the room as the office she’d found Ensaru in.
“Hey,” Oroske said with a small wave, “Good morning. Ensaru will be back shortly. He said you put up a good fight. That’s high praise, coming from him. Trust me.”
“Just… Who is he?” Ari said between labored breaths.
“That’s not my secret to tell,” Oroske said with a shrug, “To be honest, I’m not sure I know the truth myself.”
So many questions raced in her head, she couldn’t decide what to ask first.
Thankfully, the door opened moments later, and Ensaru walked in.
“Oh good, you’re alive.” He said dryly. “I was a little worried I went too far. Oroske was right, though, you are much tougher than you seem.”
“Why did you spare me?”
Ensaru looked confused, “Why wouldn’t I? Oroske specifically asked me not to, and I agree wholeheartedly with his analysis that you have potential. It pains me to see such potential wasted.
“That, and, I wanted to speak of my side of this conflict with Yenva,” He said, pausing to take a seat. Ari slowly moved so she was sitting on the desk, facing him. He sighed, “It really is such a foolish feud. As I’ve explained to Oroske and Kuro, I don’t necessarily want Yenva dead. But when my spies told me she’d submitted a request to the Hunters for me to be assassinated, I decided I must at least play along. After all, there are incredibly few people left on Spire who could possibly defeat me at this point. One of whom is a close friend.” He gestured to Oroske, who smiled and waved. “So I figured I would be safe. I’ve gone along with this feud for so long because I saw it helping her achieve her goals. While it was never made formal, I often thought of her as my pupil. But this has gone on long enough, perhaps too long. So, I sent for Oroske to help me. Either she would perish at his hands, or she would get intimidated and allow for us to reconcile our differences.
“My J’alyr is not performing as well as it once had, and I’ve had hopes of forming an alliance of sorts with Grand Stone. Yenva has made that difficult, as I’m sure you can imagine. I know not how Kuro has fared with his battles, but I have hopes that this incident will resolve in my favor.”
Ari nodded, considering. It made enough sense. Still, there was much in his words to worry her. Oroske was strong enough to defeat this monster? She wondered how strong he was, really.
“How long was I out for, by the way?” She asked, the realization that she had no idea what time it was.
“Only an hour or so,” Oroske said, standing up. “We bound up your left arm, do you feel like you can walk?” She nodded. “Great, I’d like to see how things are going at Grand Stone. Care to come along, either of you?”
Both agreed, and Oroske helped Ari stand, supporting her until she settled on her weight and was confident she could walk on her own. Ensaru apologized for her injuries as they walked out of the room.
