"Thank you so much, you two... I couldn't have done it without you!" Liadanann laughed out with exhaustion as she slammed her apron down.
"I want my food now!" Vadei demanded from the table we were sat at before her head collapsed against it. And as Liadanann chuckled to herself as she gathered up what was left over. I turned around to glance outside. It really has been a while since our workday started. The sky was now orange and it was blending in rather well with the largely brass city.
But, the food that was soon dumped unceremoniously before us was a far better sight. And, in a fit of mannerless hunger, we all dug in. Liadanann didn't even seem to mind as she had a stuffed mouth before she even got here! However, being so aware of my failure made my appetite go away decently fast.
"Thank you!" I let out before my hunger suddenly came back as if I had not eaten a thing.
"It's the least I can do for my two cute slaves." Liadanann jokes mostly at Vadei before she patronises her a bit with strokes and wiggles.
"You sho-" she started to complain before she bit into a jam-filled doughnut. And while her expression said one thing, her finely-brushed tail said another thing.
"It surprised me, though, I never thought you would've been this busy..." I let out as I put down a small pie with a sturdy but still sweet crust.
"I had a feeling it would've gotten this busy, but, seeing it in person is something else." she breathes out with a mixture of exhaustion and excitement.
"I'm more so surprised that you kept your composure! To think once upon a time you'd be cowering at the sight!" Vadei laughed before I glared at her.
Yet, Liadanann's laugh made it go away, "Yeah, I get it completely. But it's all thanks to you lot, really, you've helped me get over my old phobias."
"Well... When you put it that way." I smugly grin before I treated myself to another sweet delight.
"Are you still serving, by any chance?" someone asked as they stood up from their table with their money out.
"There might still be something..." Liadanann began to say before the doorbell rang in what felt like forever. Which is odd because it had been going off all day to the point of insanity.
"N-Nevermind..." the customer said before he retreated to his table. So I turned around to see who it was...
"N-N-Nin!?" I let out in shock before I nearly jumped out of my seat. Wasn't he supposed to be out on a long job!? He wasn't supposed to be back here today or even tonight!?
"Oh, hi, Nin! I'm sorry, but, I haven't had the time to make you dinner so would you be fine..." Liadanann began to say before he dropped a large sack of money on the table. So ladened with thick bars of precious metal that the table shook even after the initial thud.
"Missing rent." Nin quietly let out before he walked past the vacating customers. He stopped initially at the staircase blocker but he quickly moved it aside.
"So I'll make it as soon as I can?" Liadanann finished as she got up to briefly follow him.
"Don't mind me, just make sure to sleep well." Nin told her before he finished the climb and headed to his room.
"Einervaene?" Vadei asked as she saw my expression sour and my body quake.
"He's going to..." I didn't even finish as I tried my best to keep my anger contained.
"It's fine, Einervaene, he's had a long d-"
"I'M NOT ON ABOUT THAT! I'M ON ABOUT WHAT HE WILL DO WHEN HE STEPS OUT OF THAT DAMNED DOOR!" I scream angrily before I suddenly rush to the bottom of the stairs.
"Einervaene!" Vadei snaps as she tries to interfere.
"Is my staff still upstairs!?" I ask Liadanann as I recall that I had left it here last time.
"Y-Yeah but-" she tried to say before I rushed upstairs. And within moments, my carefully made weapon was in my hands and I was staring down Nin's door. If one could see my hands, they'd probably be able to also see just how white-knuckled they were. And with three loud bangs, one of those hands hit his door.
"NIN!" I snapped loudly to no avail. However, banging the door revealed that it hadn't been closed properly. So I walked into his room uninvited and only found myself becoming angrier. Each wall was plastered with his detective work. His bloody vengeance was the decoration...
"What?" he asked me with an uncaring tone as he rose up from bedside brooding session to stare me down. Yet, he clearly did not grasp the severity of my emotion and he just casually took off his mask and hat.
"You will stay here tonight! You will walk downstairs, and you will join us for cakes and treats!" I growled knowing full well what was going to happen if he didn't listen to me.
"No." he simply said as he moved forward slightly.
"I am not... LETTING YOU LEAVE THIS BUILDING!" I tremble out to him before I scream in his face.
"Einervaene, enough!" someone snaps behind me as I advance upon Nin.
"P-Please..." I then tearfully beg as memory after memory comes rushing into my head. Of his bloody hands and his wound-covered body. Memories of cut open limbs and yellow-stained bandages. Groans of pain and sadistic fervour...
I didn't want to see it again... Not anymore... No...
"Get out of my way." Nin told me before he used his size to push past me before he headed elsewhere.
"Don't you walk away from me... DON'T YOU WALK AWAY!" I demand from him as I slam my staff pommel down furiously. Then, I aggressively snapped it out of the floor before I approached him.
"You are trying to stop me?" he asked back coldly as one of his hands curled up into a fist.
"I... I am!" I answered nervously at first before I filled my spine with courage. The courage to stop my friend's stupidity before it got him killed...
"Step aside." he warned one final time as he exploited the device the government had given him. And, within moments, the bakery flooded with his aura and I had nothing to stop it bearing down on me.
"Outside!" Liadanann snaps once before Nin stops what he was doing. And, with a nod, he grabs me roughly and quickly takes us outside. With his arm roughly throwing me to the ground...
He threw me in anger...
"I ask again. Are you trying to stop me!?" he asks me as he trembled in anger. Clearly one final attempt to diffuse this situation. But I had no intention of listening to him and I just scrambled to my feet. Holding my staff out defensively with a stern gaze.
"I will make sure you do not fight him tonight." I told the man I loved with a shudder in my body. Yet, the moment I finished that sentence, he charged at me and grabbed my neck.
"STAY OUT OF MY WAY!" he roared before he brought us high into the sky. And with a single throw, I found myself soaring over the city until I was above the grass. Yet, to ensure I would not be harmed. I converted my body and crashed down as lightning.
"You idiot..." I mutter as I feel my ability to use magic come back under these circumstances. And before he even crashed down after me, I shot up at him. Filling him with volts before I sent him flying away. Then, with a technique I had been mastering specifically for something like this...
I came down upon him again and again without leaving this spot in the sky. But that just made him roar once more and explode with magic. And my opportunity was lost. The confusion as well saw him close the distance and latch onto me again.
"I WILL NOT LET YOU COME HOME AGAIN A BLOODIED MAN!" I scream at him as I turn into my lightning form and shock him with a mere touch. Punching him again and again with all the fury I could muster. To the backdrop of thunder did each punch land. But he had changed in these past few years...
All that pain... It only allowed him to persevere through it and I was held hostage!
"LET GO!" I boomed as I tried to fill him with all the voltage I could muster.
"No." he said to me quietly as my body started to freeze up at the sight of his cocked back fist.
"N-Ni-" I let out fearfully before I felt the full brunt of his might. And when I finally stopped rolling. I shook my dazed head and spat out blood. Barely registering my reversion to a normal body.
This was not something that stopped him, though. And I was quick to feel more punches and kicks. I could barely muster a defence before I was then chucked overboard and piled into the ground. Yet, with quick action, I escaped the follow up and grasped my staff again.
"Don't think that will be enough to stop me..." I tell him as I show the efforts of my training. The training I undertook for this precise moment. When I finally had enough of this behaviour.
And, with a flash of blue lightning, I spun my staff around to my front. Holding it inline with his running body before I fired off a spell for the first time in anger. And as I did so, I screamed in anger as lightning spectres lashed out at him over and over again. My bodily partially converted into electrical power.
With one final push, I then sent all I had at him to send him flying back. And, some confidence even came back to me. I saw the way he was now limping. And I had never felt stronger.
Even with that overbearing aura from before... It was clear that I was still his superior when it came to magic!
But he was not swayed, and with drawn back arms; he roared. He roared as loud as he could as his power exploded around him furiously. Unlike mine, however, it was blue from its destructive, raw nature. And he launched out of a crater before he redirected himself at me.
"Fool." I simply said as I dashed right under him with a flash before I called down a storm right on top of us. Trapping him in a web of ceaseless lightning as the ground burned. With a wave of fire expanding out from me before something grabbed me.
"GET OUT OF MY WAY!" he roared as he roated through the storm and swung me about. My spell ended the moment I hit the ground at the end of this arcane grip.
"GAH!" I let out before he rushed down with his shin going into my side. He sent me flying elsewhere before he caught up again. And with an overhead slam, he redirected me into a new crater.
"JUST STAY OUT OF MY WAY!" he roared down at me furiously before I brought another storm down on us. Yet, he was quick enough to leap away and I used that moment to stand up again. With lightning launching out of my hands to attract my staff magnetically.
"I won't let you... I won't..." I tearfully tell him as I take ahold of my staff with both my hands...
It was clear that I needed something stronger to handle him. But the only spell that I had with that kind of power I hadn't even mastered. I was still in the phase where I needed to utter it to cast it... It was just so beyond anything I had ever done before.
"JUST GO!" he roared animalistically before he charged me for what had to be the final time. There would be no do overs after this.
I needed to prove my strength so that I could pressure him into complying in future! This government and the people within it be damned! If I had to take my friend out of this country... I would!
"World of Storms!" I chanted as I began to sort of dance with my staff as my aura spread out and solidified. And once he was within its spherical domain. I turned into my lighting form and sent out portions of my power to lash out at him.
Either they directly lashed out at him or they sent bolts at him. His clothes burned away and his roars of pain were drowned out by all this power. To my utter shock, however. He made it to me with a fistful of magic and a determined glare.
And no matter how much urgency filled me, I could not finished the spell and I felt it strike my gut.
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" I screamed as I was suddenly hit by the combined backlash of his spell and my failed one. Eerily familiar spasms filled me as his magic filled the air and mine collapsed upon me.
"For the last time... STAY AWAY!" he snapped angrily as his magic became like fire.
"I... I won't let the man I love do this to himself... I won't..." I struggled to tell him while also struggling to my knees. With a body still full of uncontrollable spasms.
"Love...?" he repeated confused at first before he cackled cruelly. And my heart sank as I heard it.
"Yes... Nin, I love you... Do you hear me!? I LOVE YOU!" I tearfully let out as I tried to appeal to his heart... But I feared that his anger blinded him completely.
"No, you don't... You never loved me earnestly. Only she did... Only my precious Larishazza..." he maddeningly cackled as he approached me slowly.
"DO NOT TELL ME HOW I FEEL!" I screeched at him as I finally started to get the spasms under control.
"You feel nothing!" he snapped as he brought his left arm forward. And with his cape damaged, it was far easier to see it. Not that I needed the help anyway...
"You are wrong... You've been wrong about how I feel for so long..." I spit back at him while also trying to make it clear.
"Stay out of my way." he snorted before he turned around all of a sudden.
"I will leave." I suddenly blurted out as anger filled me once again. Tears streaming down my face as soon as I realised what I had just said.
"Go on, then." he snorted once again.
"I... I mean it! I will leave, you won't ever see me again!" I told him as I slowly got up to my feet once again. And although my legs shook as much as they did, I did not waver.
"Fine by me."
"FINE THEN! I'LL LEAVE! YOU WON'T EVER HAVE TO PUT UP WITH ME AGAIN! I WON'T EVER HELP YOU AGAIN OR ANYTHING!" I screamed at him as he continued to walk away. But, when he threw something at me, I fell to my knees. It was the bracelet he wore... And just like that, all that love I once felt disappeared.
Like a dream that was forgotten as soon as I awoke...
"Please, come back..." I let out tearfully regardless.