My comrades and I hid in the shadows of the snow dusted aspen trees, looking upon Mesmer's outpost. Sturdy wooden fortifications divided us, and several towers overlooked the premises. Our scouts with tools and enhanced vision kept us notified of the guard rotations.
I met with my field commanders one last time.
"Carry out the plan to deal with their foot soldiers. Namikawa and I will kill their commander."
They all nodded. "We're counting on you, Future Eyes."
I nodded back. "Likewise."
.
Two teams bore the brunt of the attention. Three others sniped guards and began to take the towers. Namikawa and I slipped in under the cover of chaos.
I directed. A scout had mapped the entire outpost. Namikawa and I spent an afternoon copying it with heated ink whilst training my heat detection. Now I could read the entire thing without even undoing the twine.
We made it to the command building. Namikawa effortlessly solved the lock. We moved quietly. I sharpened the part of me tracking air patterns, feeling for disturbances down the hallways. There was some interference. A courtyard, open roof, stood in the center of the building. Someone negligent left a door open.
I felt the air twist and wind around a group of armored guards. Two to three dozen, in box formation, protecting two people in the middle. Mesmer was probably one of them.
Namikawa held up her hand.
I spoke through our mental link. 'You feel them too?'
'Mn. Get to higher ground.'
I followed her lead. She pulled me onto the roof. The snow gently crunched under my feet.
I ran my elemental senses again. More, I needed more detail.
They were much closer this time, I felt their metal boots harshly through the earth.
'They'll pass through the courtyard.' I said. 'We'll intercept them.'
She nodded and scattered salt down with the falling snow. She waited out of sight until they were about two-thirds in. I summoned a furious wave of heat, melting all the snow on the roof and below us in an instant. Before the guards reacted, Namikawa channeled electricity down into the courtyard. Static cracks mixed with cries of pain and I heard metal clatter against the ground.
The guards were down, but the two in the middle were left standing. A makeshift shield of ice protected them. Of course.
"My, look who's back." Mesmer's lilting voice filled the courtyard. Her companion moved between us and her, brandishing a halberd.
I stepped forward but Namikawa curtly barred my way.
She commanded the earth under their feet to hold them down. It obliged, reaching up, grabbing their feet. Namikawa rained lightning on the two as the earth hardened.
Mesmer's insincere smile never wavered. She moved the water in the mud towards their feet, freezing it at the opportune moment and cracking their binds. They easily dodged Namikawa's offensive spells. Mesmer's companion picked her up and leapt onto the roof.
The tension in her muscles and the crater left in the ground were beyond anything an average fighter would be capable of. She cultivated body magic.
"And you brought my beloved protege. I've always wondered how you decoded the crest so easily. Once we subdue you, you'll tell me right?"
Namikawa wordlessly continued the assault. Lighting struck at them, but Mesmer deflected each attack. I charged forward at her, blades drawn. Mesmer's companion gently set her down and engaged with me. We clashed as Namikawa's thunder rumbled above.
"Not very chatty today are we?" Mesmer tilted her head at me. "Darling, you can handle our little viceroy."
Her companion nodded. "Mn." She kicked me back and knocked me off the roof. I landed on my feet, and she soon joined me. The two mages continued their fight above us.
"Your name?" Her voice was level and frank.
"Kazunari."
"Chanterelle."
She charged at me, pointed end first, and drew blood on my side. I winced, in a straight fight, she would beat me.
The next time she moved, I focused on the echoes of pressure she exerted against the ground. I stepped to the side. The axe blade embedded itself into the earth. I felt vibrations as she pulled it out.
She attacked again, putting pressure on her back foot before running forward and lunging. I felt the halberd cut through air as I stepped back and ducked under her strikes.
I could feel her momentum through the earth. It leaned in whatever direction she aimed in. I dodged a few more times to get a sense for the rhythm then raised my knives.
She heaved her halberd down. It'd cut diagonal from right to left, so I stepped rightwards, under the swing, and brought my knife up towards her neck. She reacted quickly and blocked with the bracer on her wrist. I left a deep gash in the leather.
Chanterelle hopped backwards. "You're blind." She said, matter of factly.
"That's right."
She studied me. "You're more perceptive than most with sight."
"Thank you."
.
I quickly picked up all her tells. The whistling air warned me before she swung her halberd. The way she positioned her feet, leaned in one way or the other, and her movement through the air told me how she'd move. Even her feints were blatantly transparent to my elemental senses. It was like seeing the future for real.
She attacked more desperately as more of her blood soaked into the ground. Wilder, rapid swings and aggressive forward steps. I could foresee them all.
She breathed hard. I vaguely knew that she used body magic to heal wounds, but I made them faster than she could close them.
I heard a different whistling and abruptly turned my head. Mesmer shot ice at me. Namikawa evaporated them.
"Your opponent is me." She said, even voiced but damning.
Chanterelle lifted her halberd again and brought it down at me. I stepped to the left and cut upwards with my right knife.
Eight fingers hit the ground.
The halberd clanked against the frozen earth, a deep and bloody gash on its wooden hilt, and Chanterelle fell to her knees.
Mesmer screamed her name.
Crackling electricity, shattering ice, and explosions echoed above as I walked to Chanterelle.
"Why do you fight for a slaver?"
"For our future." She said quietly. "After it was all over."
"And you make countless suffer for it?"
She sounded sorry it had to be that way, but resolute in her and Mesmer's actions.
"Yes."
I severed her jugular in one strike. Blood covered me as she fell over dead. I heard the grass crunch behind me, then an anguished cry. Mesmer collapsed, sobbing.
I turned to her pitiful form, throwing the blood off my knife.
"Prepare yourself, Mesmer."
...
Wordlessly, with tears still trickling down her cheeks and her bottom lip trembling, Mesmer got to her feet. Ice collected at her hands, materializing into swords. She pointed one at me.
I heated my knives and our blades met with a hiss of steam. Earth braced my stance when I blocked and it let go when I retaliated. Her strikes were jagged and weak, and she stumbled frequently. I didn't need to read her movements to win, given her mental state and with Namikawa's flawless support.
I cut one of her blades in half and stabbed towards her chest. She tried to block. I cut clean through her ice coated hand, searing the wound initially, then breaking the skin again when I pulled it out. The scent of burning flesh made me recoil. When she cried out and staggered back, I knocked her down and pointed my knife at her throat.
She murmured to herself. "The Monarch said we'd win. This can't be happening. She can't be…"
I should've been exhilarated. Her haughty arrogance was gone. She was at my mercy. But knowing that killing Chanterelle is what broke her, the idea of reveling in her suffering left a bad taste in my mouth.
I'll put her out of her misery.
"I don't accept this reality..." Her voice raised. "So I'll make my own!"
Suddenly, her tears vanished, dried up completely. She laughed, and I stopped reflexively. At first it sounded mad, but then I realized she was laughing with real joy.
Then the guards around me began to rise.
The laughter died down. Mesmer spoke sweetly.
"That's right my darling, you'll be okay."
I backed away cautiously. What happened?
'Kazunari, jump!'
I did. Namikawa dealt an earth rooting spell, but the guards move onwards.
"I'll defeat them swiftly." Mesmer continued, standing straight and summoning ice in her hands again. "So you can get home and rest!"
'Did she revive them? Is that even possible?'
'It shouldn't be.'
She attacked me with an ornate ice lance, stabbing rapidly, piercing flesh often and getting a good gash in on the opposite end of my torso as Chanterelle did. When she pulled back her lance, the blood loss made me dizzy.
She cackled. "See that? It's for daring to strike your fair skin."
'She's insane.'
Namikawa, 'No shit. Doesn't explain why she's fine again.'
I got just below the roof's edge and saw the guards approach in my periphery.
I thought to Namikawa. 'On your mark.'
The earth below me launched upwards, and I landed safely on the roof. Namikawa fluidly repeated her trick with the water and lightning, but the guards didn't flinch. They piled onto each other, reaching for the rooftop. She cursed out loud.
"It's not a corporeal spell. Can't be elemental. A gift then?"
"I'll stall them. You figure this out."
"Mmn."
I jumped back onto the earthen platform. Couldn't pull a spear from any of the guards, so I hit the ground and engaged them there. There were too many, but at least they were all after me. I began accumulating wounds.
"Of course I'll win this for you." Mesmer laughed gently. "It's like how we met."
It was unsettling. I hadn't felt this level of... sheer guilt since the missions she sent me on.
"As long as I can walk with you through the forest every day, it'll all be worth it. I can deliver on anything my master orders."
A chill ran through me. Her master? The Monarch, no doubt. In my hesitance, one of the guards ran my heart through.
I felt it stop, but the rewind never came. I crumpled, the pain of death wracking my body. The onslaught continued.
'Namikawa.'
'Mn?'
'I was killed, but I didn't die.'
'Illusions then?'
'Maybe. Could it affect the link?'
'No. Illusions target the interpretation of physical reality. This connects our brains directly.' She thought. 'The solution is obvious then, do you get it?'
'Yeah.'
'Then I'll leave the rest to you.'
.
I "died" a few more times, and it occurred to me that this was an excellent way to torture someone, whether or not they had my ability. But finally, I really did die.
Time stopped, and it was almost refreshing. At the very least, the numbed pain was welcome.
Even knowing the guards were fake didn't change how real they felt. Namikawa perceived them too, what kind of all encompassing illusion was capable of this? Consistent across corporeal and elemental senses alike. Regardless, the way out of an illusion is to kill the mesmer.
I ran a hand along the cold lance buried in my chest. The intricacy was admirable. A set of sharp thorns that would've pricked my hand, sparse heart-shaped leaves curling inwards, blooming flowers with three pointed petals.
I reached the end of the lance, and I smiled to myself.
I pulled the lance out in one fluid motion, stepped to the right, and brought my knife down where I knew Mesmer would be. I felt warm blood cover my hand, but I didn't stop until every standing guard disappeared, returning to their position on the ground. The wounds they inflicted vanished also. Mesmer's were real though, and soon after she hit the ground I couldn't find the strength to stand either.
I was suddenly aware of how cold it was, bleeding out in the winter air. I tried to remember what Nishimori taught me about body magic, how to hasten recovery the way Chanterelle did. Command my blood to still? Will the flesh to knit? Forget it. I couldn't untangle her vague instructions now.
I watched the heat in Chanterelle's and Mesmer's bodies slowly dissipate. Her tears were back. My "vision" darkened with my consciousness.
I heard quick footsteps in the snow. Namikawa returned with a medic. He healed me while Namikawa applied warmth.
"How do you feel?" She asked.
"...I'm glad it's over."