Hagintha Woods

The sun was setting. That had to be long enough, right?

Hunched painfully inside a trash can, Melita repressed the urge to sense where Teresa was. Her pursuers were probably looking for traces of magic being sent out into the surroundings. She had to trust the other.

Her body was slick with blood and sweat, and the smell she was surrounded by wasn’t exactly pleasant. Not that she was particularly bothered. Boars were fine with filth, as long as it served their purpose. They were suited to sitting amongst disease and disarray alike, of sifting through the dregs till they found the gold.

Furthermore, outcasted amongst even the Boars for her apathy and callousness, cloaking herself with the stench of the unwanted was a normal for her.

No passerby would let her anywhere near them once she got out, however, which would make blending in a little difficult. Perhaps she could make her way to the sea for a dip before finding a new home.

The warehouse had been decrepit, but it had been her base for the past few weeks, and Melita would miss the owner’s gruff nod when she came in, just as she would miss her rug.

Lifting a blood soaked hand, Melita gently probed the groove on her shoulder. She’d dug out the bullet once she’d had a bit of respite, and had been focusing her magic on healing the shoulder. Luckily enough, magic boosting one’s own body was a lot harder to sense than illusions, so she was able to use her magic to speed up her recovery.

The blood was no longer flowing, only occasionally seeping out the wound when she moved. With this amount of time, it would have been healed, but her side had been grazed by yet another bullet whilst escaping, and she’d had to focus most of her energy there.

Whilst most of her pursuers were novices, she had to admit their sniper was a deadly one, managing to hit her twice even though they couldn’t have seen her. Their skills had forced her into hiding sooner than she would have liked, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.

Ah, really. Melita sighed as she leaned back, trying to even her breathing. I’m a terrible guide even to the end.

If she’d been better, if she’d given Teresa the kind of guidance that she had gotten… Would this situation have turned out a little better?

Given that the Academy had long ceased to exist when she’d turned Teresa, a move that had been both reactionary and yet pre-emptive, Melita could only teach the other what she knew. This resulted in a cobbled together amalgamation of skills and lessons of both what she still remembered and what she’d had to learn when finding her own way to survive.

But that also meant there was no record of Teresa for them to trace. Melita was a little concerned about the young man that had seen her, but with Teresa’s terrible magic ability, she didn’t have any real presence distinguishing herself as Liviae.

Hopefully they would think that Melita was both beleagured and rash, and that she’d simply tried to place her powers and responsibility on some random person or friend that caught her fancy. As such, Teresa would be beneath their notice, especially if Melita had been interrupted before she’d even handed over the insignia.

She really was the prized hog, in more ways than one.

Truly, if Melita was smart, she should have bonded to the insignia the moment she’d received it. It would have allowed her to manifest the form of the Boar, as well as boost her own physicality, the exact area she’d never been particularly good at, amongst other benefits.

Keeping it on her as she had… The only use it served like that was as an ugly paperweight.

So she had tried. But whenever she did, Melita couldn’t help but see the dark shadows of blood on it no matter how much she washed it, couldn’t help the image of Leon pushing it into her grasp… She just had to grit her teeth and bond with the horrid thing, but each time, it slipped out her fingers.

It wasn’t like Leon didn’t know the risks when he accepted to be the Holder of the insignia. He took it with pride, and if anything, the insignia gave him more of a fighting chance when the battle happened. It would be a silly thing to blame the emblem for a situation.

She knew this.

And so she’d still kept it like an errant hope, lying low for a whole year. When she still couldn’t put bond with it after all that time, she’d accepted it. She’d probably never be able to use it, despite it being everything the Liviae in the Academy trained for, the highest honour for their respective branches.

She really was the odd one in every way.

She hated it. Was the insignia really so important that others’ could lay their lives down for it, so important that the Underworld would search so hard?

She’d considered tossing it into the ocean to end it all, but Leon’s face had stilled her movements every time. Whether she thought it was worth it or not, he had, and she didn’t want his effort to have been for nothing.

All the same, that didn’t mean she had to protect it. She’d done what she was expected to do, and the insignia was as safe as it could be with Teresa, an unofficial Liviae of the boar branch that could actually utilise it. She was done.

There was more than enough time in eternity for self-pity. Certainly, she’d spent a hundred or so years doing that already. Cracking open the lid of the trash can, she scoped out the surrounding area cautiously.

It seemed clear.

Taking a few more breaths to stabilize the wound and her own emotional state, Melita stood shakily and clambered out the trash can, trying her best not to make any noise. With the accuracy of the shots, there was a high chance there was a magic sensor, so using an illusion probably would draw their attention more than anything else.

The evening sun was working in her favour, the rays stretching long swathes of shadow across the alleyways. Ducking in the cover of darkness, Melita waited.

The smooth click of a gun’s safety slid through the air, slipping through her ribs to wrap coldly round Melita’s heart.

“Get up and turn around.” A voice stated, the implicit threat hanging clearly in the air. Had they been waiting for her all that time? The voice was one Melita was implicitly familiar with and one certainly capable of something like this, but had the situation really derailed so far? She didn’t want to turn around to look, but even without sight, she was astute enough that she wouldn’t distrust her own senses.

Meino the Contemplative, Tracking arrow. Current holder of the horse insignia. By the sound of it, traitor to the Liviae.

This was very possibly the end.

Frustration beating against the walls of her chest, Melita stood up to her full height. This wasn’t what she meant when she was thinking that she’d no longer have to care about the affair. If this was the end, she would never forgive herself such a lackluster one.

Suddenly throwing her magic behind her, she made an image of her running toward Meino as she fled, dashing quickly toward the street beyond.

Meino was best in an open plain. If she could turn the corner and go somewhere with more obstacles, she could even the playing field just a little.

Meino’s face flitted at the edge of her eyes, before she darted right before Melita. Cursing, Melita tried to stop, but Meino was already turning, spinning and sending her heel right into Melita’s solar plexus.

Impeccable aim, as always. Not fair, Melita found herself thinking as she flew back with the blow, slamming her arms into the wall as her back made contact to try and lessen the impact, she got faster. Unable to completely dissipate the force, her head whipped back, hitting the wall and causing the world to whirl.

“Won’t you give up?” Meino asked, her eyebrows furrowed as she approached.

“How did you know where to find me?” Melita asked instead.

Another blur of movement. A crushing pressure at her side, before Melita hit the floor. She coughed, and the pain lanced through her, sharp and piercing. There went her ribs.

Then again, she would have died if she were a normal person, taking multiple kicks from a horse.

“It was the first chase that was really unexpected, but I knew that as soon as you could, you would find somewhere to hide. All the same, you weren’t one for staying in one place for too long. It was just a matter of scoping out the possible hiding spots.”

A toe, worming painfully under her shoulder and rubbing the still-healing wound raw, before a deft movement flipped Melita unto her back.

Then, a foot on her neck, applying just enough force for her to wheeze as Meino continued. “You always were impatient and lazy. You never grew out of that, did you?”

“Nope.” With a cough, Melita grinned, casting the image of a dagger in her injured hand as she dug it into Meino’s ankle, picturing the sharp pain, the grinding of blade against bone.

As Meino gritted her teeth, trying to fight through the illusion, Melita’s other hand grabbed her actual dagger, piercing Meino’s other foot through as if she could somehow stake it to the floor below.

Ignoring the screams, Melita pulled out the dagger whilst keeping her illusion active. No sense in giving a weapon to the enemy.

Rolling to the side, Melita barely dodged a punch that cracked the ground, before stumbling to her feet with a smile. Meino should have expected this, if she had chosen to help the Underworld to go up against the Liviae, or at the very least, the Boars.

She could understand the Underground’s thinking. The organization was probably targeting herbivores that lived within the city first, but Meino should have told them that the reason that Boars were low in status amongst the Liviae was not due to a lack of fighting prowess.

Boars were bad-tempered, greedy and aggressive. However, what made them so fearsome was their stubbornness. Once a Boar had decided you were an enemy, they would always charge straight ahead without fear, negotiation or thought for consequences. Even if she was dying, she would use every fading breath to gore her opponent through.

Letting her magic flow with her determination, Melita drew it from where it raced through her, trying to heal the numerous wounds she’d sustained. Pulling her magic back and redirecting it toward Meino instead, Melita shut off all the other’s senses, leaving Meino with nothing but pain and blackness as she moved toward the other woman.

Horses were known for their speed, reflexes and power. Healing wasn’t really on their checklist.

With a grunt, she sank the dagger’s blade deep into Meino’s stomach, her other hand clamping on the other’s mouth to muffle the scream. Reacting quickly despite the pain, Meino’s hand gripped her own around the hilt of her dagger, before her other hand grabbed Melita’s collar, pulling down as her knee swung up.

Pain.

It bloomed across her stomach, and Melita felt her consciousness stutter for a beat, her magic wavering. Then, Meino’s hand was a tight vise round her neck, wringing out whatever rags of life was still left within her body. The dagger… Where was it?

“Damn.” Meino cursed, the pain she wore a beautiful balm to Melita’s anger. “You really tried to kill me.”

“I thought you knew me well?” Melita spat with a frenzied grin, digging her nails deep into the other woman’s forearm, kicking her feet at the other’s chest, face, anything she could try to hit in the precious few moments she had left.

Her vision was starting to blank at the edges, and she tried to gasp for air, but the grip only tightened. Still, she couldn’t help herself. “Come now, what’s the evaluation, Tracking Arrow?”

Meino pursed her lips, and for a second, there was a deep sadness in the other woman’s features. But then it was gone, and Meino let out a bitter sound, the both of them knowing that the battle was won. “It was a good attempt, but that’s Mrs Arias to you, Melita.”

Melita could no longer see anything in front of her, colours that were steadily darkening shifting and swimming before her, making her thoughts come slowly. Still, Meino’s words reached her, gaining meaning in her head.

No, she thought viciously, Leon’s face flickering in her thoughts. Meino wasn’t their teacher. Not anymore.

“Pardon… me.” She tried to sputter smartly, but then she was falling, no matter how much her mind railed against the defeat.