"Oh no, oh no, oh no" Hax complained to himself in front of the pieces of the mirror "Shit, shit, shit!"
Things were going from bad to worse for Hax.
"It was supposed to be an easy mission!"
Seng and Natsume came down the hill, intrigued by the Brat's disappearance.
"What happened to the Brat?" he said looking around.
"Stop calling her that" Natsume scolded him.
Neither of them were aware of Hax's presence, it was impossible that they were thanks to Hax's resonance.
"I call her whatever I want."
The hairs on Hax's arm stood on end at being near that pair as they engaged a deep mutual evil eye brimming with negativity, but perhaps that was a blessing to him, an opportunity to grab the pieces of the mirror and walk away.
"Where is Airys?" Layd asked from the top of the hill. "Don't tell me…"
"Of course not! I would never let this brute do that!" Natsume immediately denied the possibility.
"Who are you calling brute?!" Seng replied holding Natsume by the neck of her shirt.
"Well, you! Brute!" Natsume forcibly removed Seng's hand.
Hax ducked a couple of steps to grab one of the mirrors, however, Layd beat him to it and stepped down the hill, raised his leg, and picked up the glass.
"Hey, Airys fell around here didn't she?" He held the glass and checked it from both sides. "Couldn't this be one of Dingars' mirrors?"
That pair's banal discussion stopped for a second upon hearing those words.
"Of course not!" Seng said. "What would a mirror of the city do here?"
"But I just don't see that it reflects me…" Layd added.
"Let me see" Layd gave the piece to Seng and he placed it at half a dozen different angles to try to reflect on it. It was strange, it looked like a mirror, it reflected light, but not the rest, like a void devoid of color or shape that still remains visible.
"Well sir 'I don't have to prove I'm right' isn't right" Natsume picked up another piece from the ground. "It seems that it is one of those mirrors that do not reflect anything" she clarified after a minimal inspection compared to Seng's.
"It just doesn't make sense to have one of those far from the city!" he pointed to hide that he was wrong.
A few steps across the grass and the sound of metal hitting itself was as clear as the water of a crystalline river. From the top of the hill just ahead, about three men in golden armor pointed their fingers at them.
"By the will of Dingars, you are under arrest for theft of historical and cultural property!" the tallest of the three announced.
Seng, Natsume, and Layd blinked and looked stupid at each other, while Hax, even more harassed, cursed his luck.
———————————————————————————————————
Airys yawned, exhausted and annoyed. The long time that she had been going around that invisible wall was taking away precious time from her life, the questions were accumulating in her head, the happy voices on the other side gavethe impression that it was Dingars, her brother —stepbrother —Maryon told her a little that on the other side of the mirrors the rest of the city existed.
But…
"He didn't tell me it was a desert!" she exclaimed to the four winds.
She clenched her fist and gave a light blow to that wall.
"I don't want to spend the night out here… alone…" she murmured with her forehead against the annoying invisible wall.
"I'm going to be direct!" A male voice, somewhat high-pitched, interrupted her complaint. "Tell me where your accomplices are and I'll let you live!"
Airys turned with joy at first, thinking that at last he would help her enter the city, an emotion that wiped from her face when she heard the death threat.
"Why the heck/" Airys wanted to say something silly to him, about this not being the way to receive tourists, however, she herself was taken aback by the scene next to her. "Is that your resonance?!"
The dark-skin boy was standing sideways, perpendicular to the ground. With folded arms and an attitude of being the embodiment of the law. The strands of his gray hair gave way under the weight of gravity in the same way that the fabric of his pants did, the rest of him remained motionless in midair.
"That's not what I asked you!"
"Can you walk on the walls?!" Airys asked, absorbed in how incredible he looked. "Can you help me enter the city ?!"
"I said I didn't ask you that!"
The boy ran through the air directly towards her, Airys moved away from the wall scared by his unnecessary aggressiveness.
"Why do you attack me?!" she screamed with all the reason in the world.
When the dark boy arrived almost in front of her, he launched himself to cut the height and the distance between them, Airys guessed his intentions when she saw him bend his knees and changed course so that he would not fall on her or another ridiculous thing that she felt was going to happen.
When the boy suddenly took another leap in midair, she had flashbacks about Andra and her sprint without using legs. The dark boy fell beside her and without warning deliberated a backhand with his fist. Airys blocked him squarely with her left arm, not without squeezing her eyes shut in pain.
"What's wrong?!" she squealed with a murderous look, which the dark boy ignored to attempt a quick succession of blows.
Airys frowned and raised her arms to cover herself. The first couple of punches reddened her arms, then the dark boy leaned over to knock her down with a kick to her heels. Airys received the impact in the heels and fell faster than a rock of butt against the ground, the inclination made her roll a couple of meters which took her away from the boy and gave her a chance to get up.
"Final warning!" Airys rubbed her arms with watery eyes, her light blue hair was full of sand as was her skin. "I'm not in the mood."
The dark man inclined his head, puzzled in more ways than one.
" I think you better give up, I'll take you to the others and tell us where the other is."
"What are you talking about?!"
"Don't play the fool."
"I'm not playing the fool!" she protested furiously.
"So is it natural?"
After that malicious reply from the boy Airys blushed. Seng with his obsession to call her Brat... then Echsos reading her mind after a terrible night... then Layd believing himself superior when she fell into a trap impossible to avoid... and now this arrogant guy who takes advantage of how tired she is... what has she done so that everyone humiliates her in such a way? All they've done since she set foot in the adventure world is constantly remind her how weak she is; how inferior she is in hand-to-hand combat. And... they aren't wrong...
Airys gave in to pressure, weariness and pain, she lowered her clenched fists with such force that her fingernails scored on her palms. She lowered her head.
"Really? Cry? Is my solution to another unfair fight crying?" She trembled in frustration, every drop she fell was accompanied by a damp sense of self-loathing.
"Oops" The shirtless boy wondered what he was doing. Maybe make a pretty lady cry wasn't the right thing. "Oh no, nothing of that." He recovered and raised his guard. "I'm not going to pity a criminal like you."
Airys was silent, crying.
"Give up, you can tell that you got into this without knowing anything" he scratched his head and sighed. "Maybe I can convince Reod to release you under surveillance."
"No!" Airys' sobs didn't stop, not even using what she learned about controlling her body with the soul. "No!" She crossed glances with the boy, he saw in the foreground the reddened and delicate soaked nose of her and the faint silver glitter of her irritated eyes. "I am not going to give up." Slow, like the finishing moves of a ball that bounced around, Airys straightened her posture and took several deep breaths. "And I have done nothing wrong!" She asserted willing to beat up that idiot.
"As you like" he agreed and they both resumed the fight.
It was obvious that the dark boy was used to running in the sand, Airys waited patiently, having to overcome exhaustion, it occurred to her that her best chance was to fight back at the right time. The boy jumped about two meters to lunge at her, a flying kick full of confidence.
"I have you!" Airys thought happily, only had to catch his leg to apply a key to knock him down on the floor.
She was about to do it, in her mind.
Inexperience has a price, one that you pay with countless defeats if you avoid paying with the ultimate currency that represents your life. In this world full of people with special abilities, resonances that grant them incredible powers, the meanest bit of information that the adversary reveals should not be wasted.
Which Airys did.
The boy just jumped back into mid-air when Airys reached out to catch him, not something that was out of the ordinary for him. He jumps, the others want to take advantage of that.
He redirected and staying behind Airys's back, did a head somersault to hit Airys's head with his heel, ending the fight by knocking her out.
"Well, it's just a little blood, it's nothing serious" he estimated when he saw blood flow from the nape of Airys.