The shrieks of whips filled the arena. The surrounding air sizzled with tension.
Asher's eyes couldn't follow the movement of the whip. He could only see the air darkening around Mirinae, like a storm cloud.
They approached each other slowly, the droning whistle of rubber quickly disorienting Asher's senses.
He couldn't rely on strength for this, so he had to find some way to use his other stats to his advantage.
The only real advantage he had was his pain tolerance. But considering Mirinae was using a whip... this fight would hurt.
Before he could formulate a plan, Mirinae twitched her fingers, causing her whip to shoot toward him like a bullet.
He tried to block it, but it turned out deflecting a projectile of that speed was still too hard for him. As the whip flicked away from him, he could already feel blood running down his sleeve.
Then the pain struck.
"Ack-!" He doubled over as Mirinae's whip wrapped back around her body.
She specifically aimed for the veins on his wrist, severing most of them in a single strike. Though, out of respect for their spar, she did not touch Asher's median or ulnar nerves. If not for the boundaries of the test, those would have been her first targets.
And by the end of a real fight, her enemy would be begging for death, crippled past the point of movement, each breath causing agonizing pain. She was Section 12's torture specialist. The physical test, Mirinae believed, was not only that but also a test on the mind.
"Should I weaken myself? Mind, the difference between us will be more than double, simply from experience. You're quite weak, too."
Asher shook his head, covering his wrist with his other hand.
They both stared at Wingbeat as the egg on top of it opened, revealing a blonde fairy. The little thing bared its canine teeth before dashing toward Mirinae.
"I see." She closed her eyes, readjusting her glasses as she did. So this was what the Overseer meant when he told her that Asher would be a 'blast' to test. So far, she was not impressed.
The whip moved automatically, wrapping around the fairy as it reached her.
As Asher expected, it phased through with no issues, landing on Mirinae's body with its mouth open to feast.
Mirinae stared at the fairy chewing on her skin. It couldn't get far, considering her skin could survive thousands of pounds of force without a single bruise, courtesy of a combination of gene manipulation, augments, and training.
They stared in silence, waiting for the process to finish.
By the time it disappeared, Mirinae's skin was untouched, perhaps slightly pinkish near the bite area, but Asher's veins had just barely healed. His wrist was still blood red, chafed raw by the whip, but at least he wasn't bleeding too much anymore.
Asher could see the problem with his original assumption that the fairies would make up for the difference in power now.
'Hey System? Will these fairies get better any time soon? I mean, even with the Carnival they seemed kind of useless.'
The System replied, as punctual as always.
[Yes, they will. The fairies' damage scales with Fortitude, so perhaps that is why the results you see are subpar. Though, being a generally weak reward from your second mission, they will never have much use in higher levels like hers.]
'So basically, Sophie is more useful than Asher right now? And probably in the future?'
[Yes.]
'Damn...'
It made sense. Sophie's one offensive skill, [Fourth Match Flame], scaled off of both Insight and Fortitude. On the other hand, his E.G.O had no real offensive skills, and it scaled on the one thing he was weak on.
"Hey, uh, Mirinae? Yeah, can you weaken yourself a bit? Forget two times, just make it one."
"Okay."
"And I'm ready when you are."
Asher had a general grasp on what Mirinae was targeting. This time, he might be able to avoid excessive blood loss if he focused hard enough.
Mirinae tried to create a whip shield once again, but seemed to find it unnecessary after a few attempts, letting it trail on the ground.
Then she stopped, holding out her palm.
"Wait. This whip is ineffective at this speed."
Asher quietly sighed in relief. The familiarity Mirinae used her whip with unnerved him.
She scanned the rack of weapons, considering bows, knives, and spears before eventually settling on a pair of unassuming gloves, the same type that Harold used last time.
"If you mind me asking, what do those gloves do?" Asher wondered why both Harold and Mirinae ended up using those gloves.
Pulling them on with a snap, she regarded him with a neutral gaze, wondering whether to answer him or not.
"It's what the examiners are supposed to use in the physical tests."
Mirinae shrugged, ignoring Asher's face as he sputtered with the realization that she had just whipped him for no reason. She leaned down, staring at him as she put her hands on her knees.
"Eh? Am I supposed to..."
She lifted her arm, flicking her index finger at him in a wordless taunt.
Asher knew Mirinae was a Grade 2 Fixer, but he found her expressionless gesture particularly vexing.
The wings on his suit fluttered furiously. Asher dashed closer and closer to Mirinae until he could almost reach out to touch her. As he approached, Mirinae relaxed, letting her arms hang loose beside her.
Without warning, her fist shot toward his face.
He sidestepped, attempting to sneak a jab under her arm.
Instead of hitting her ribs, his weapon was blocked by her arm as she pulled it back to defend.
As he was focused on Mirinae's right arm, her left hand slid behind her back, waiting for a perfect opportunity to strike.
*Cough*
Asher doubled over as Mirinae's fist buried into his side. The sweet taste of blood filled his mouth.
"Grade 9. Inexperienced fighter." She whispered in his ear as she stepped back.
Even with their strength matching in magnitude, Asher still couldn't follow Mirinae's technique. It seemed that his physical test was harder than Sophie's. When he was Sophie, all he had to do was hit Harold once, which instantly gave him a 7 physical score.
He swallowed the blood in his mouth, rushing forward without sparing a glance at the fairy twirling in front of him.
As Asher swung again, Mirinae ignored the fairy on her skin. She caught the egg on Wingbeat, twisting it out of his grip.
Grabbing the back of his head with one hand while Asher was off balance, she pulled his face straight into her knee with a sickening crack.
The sheer difference in their combat experience was too much to even fathom.
Asher wobbled on his feet, blood gushing from his broken nose. Three fairies whirled around Mirinae, just barely able to set the bones in his nose before disappearing.
"Fail. Incapable fighter."
Somehow, his rank in her eyes turned even worse. Before he could go for round 3, a sharp popping noise snapped behind him.
The rattling noise from behind informed him of the Overseer's presence.
"Now, now, Asher here isn't that bad. This is the seventh time I had to interrupt your exams, Mirinae. I might have to take you off of examiner duty next time, okay?"
The woman lowered her head to apologize, but before she did, she couldn't help but speak what was on her mind.
"This candidate clearly has never faced a challenging opponent in his life. His fighting style is rudimentary and unrefined. It is his own arrogance to attempt the Fixer examinations."
The Overseer denied her with a wag of his bony finger.
"You'd be surprised. Just like the quiet boy from yesterday, not everyone can be judged on the same standards as you were, Mirinae. How much have conditions improved over the years of Hana's efforts?" The Overseer's tone became oddly mellow, like a father comforting his daughter.
"Er... not to interrupt, but my neighbor was killed by a Prescript yesterday. Is that what you call improve-"
Before he could finish his sentence, Mirinae let out a growl from her throat, slamming him to the ground in the blink of an eye.
"Don't you dare mock how lucky you have it, brat! In my days, you wouldn't have survived a second!" Her face twisted with fury and sorrow.
The Overseer snapped his fingers.
Mirinae fell to the ground, unconscious.
Asher gasped, pushing her off of him as he caught his breath. Another fairy popped out of his weapon, chewing on Mirinae's body as he stared into the empty holes of the Overseer's skull.
They ignored the body on the floor.
"That armor of yours, did you inherit it? I can't imagine that you actually explored the Ruins."
"I got it from... somewhere. Is what Mirinae said true? What was her life like?"
The Overseer twirled his finger in the air. A lighting rimmed portal stretched open, sucking in Mirinae's body from below.
"W Corp sure is convenient. Anyway, yes. Mirinae is only a decade older than you are, but her childhood was magnitudes more wretched than yours. I can tell from the liveliness in your eyes."
The Overseer's skull rattled as Asher opened his mouth to argue.
"You must have a few 'lights' in your life, hm? Her life was only filled with... what's the antonym of a light? Krkrkr... I don't feel like asking Him about that. Though I must say, thank the Wings for Harold. She's a bit more stable now because of him."
Before he could respond, the Overseer shushed him, motioning him to stand.
"I will replace Mirinae as your examiner for now. I won't move. Just hit these old bones as much as you see fit."
In the case of the Overseer, his words were quite literal. He was a skeleton, after all.
...
A few hours passed.
Asher panted, lying on the ground as his muscles screamed in pain. Every time he wanted to stop, the Overseer commanded him to continue on the threat of painful death. He didn't want to sound cowardly, but the Grade 1 didn't sound like he was kidding.
Maybe if Asher didn't do as he said, the Overseer would kill him and suck him through that portal that Mirinae disappeared into.
The Overseer grinned at him from above. At least, that's what the skeleton's skull looked like.
"Asher. Try to lift your arm."
He tried. He really did. But not a single muscle fibre would listen to his brain's commands, not a single twitch came from his exhausted body.
"You worked yourself to true exhaustion. Congratulations, not many people have the grit to push themselves that far. You fit the 'endurance' category quite nicely. Physical score, Grade 7."
Temperance paid off in the end.
Asher cackled as he lay on the floor, immobilized.
"I knew it! I... knew... it..." His eye's glazed over as he fainted, too exhausted to keep his consciousness.
The Overseer twirled his finger, causing Mirinae to shoot from another portal on the ground. As she landed on her feet, he pointed at Asher.
"How do you feel about him now? Not everyone can achieve such a feat."
She bowed deeply, once toward the Overseer and once toward Asher.
"He is qualified. Don't you... have anything to-?"
"Oh, caring for him now that you see the truth? The light in his eyes merely obscures the pain; his suffering has only increased his determination. It is not our job to judge the extent of others' sorrow, despite their... Insignificance." He handed her a hypodermic needle filled with greyish liquid.
She crouched next to Asher silently, injecting him with the needle and pushing down on its plastic pump.
Color returned to Asher's waxy, pale face. Mirinae propped him up as his eyes fluttered open.
"Sorry for my unprofessional behavior earlier. Are you alright?"
Asher glanced at her with confusion; she seemed to have mellowed out quite a bit. But he smiled, willing to accept her apology.
The Overseer clapped slowly, the crisp sound of bone on bone disrupting the atmosphere.
"Mirinae, I'll hand Asher back to you. Finish his mental exam for me, alright?" The Overseer snapped his fingers, teleporting away once again.
The woman adjusted her glasses, looking at Asher with newfound respect.
"Let us head to Interrogation Room 102 for the second part of your examination. Follow me."
And off they went.