Scene 16

Catching up

Sky was blue, color represented as a peace. white blank clouds filled the sky and birds were chirping as they flew by the alley. However, these sounds of chirping were not heard. They were unfortunately blocked by Mages' voices. Tension rose higher as the surrounded crowds went wild. At this point on, most of the Mages were making a bet on who was going to win or lose. Even Jest, who wasn't interested in the fight walked out of his bar to see if the fight was still going on. When he noticed the fight was still at it , he gave out a slight smile as he wiped his glass with his handkerchief.He seemed to be getting more interested in the fight. The sixteenth scene covers the conversation between Jest and Shikihime.

Right when he was about to get closer, one female voice was heard from behind. It was no other than Shikihime. She had finally woken up. She looked really confused. Why she was here, what happened to her, and where is dje now, there were lots of questions to be unsolved. She opened up her shivering lips to ask.

"Wha, where am I?"

She surely did not know who Jest was, but she didn't care about that or rather, she forgot about it. Jest didn't see her face to face since he knew she was going to wake up soon enough and he knew because he could sense her presence, smell, life force, and unique aura of her. He raised his voice as his eyes turn red to bright red.

"Hmm, in all my experience, I met dozens of species. Outkasts, Swordsmen, Mages, humans, and many and even maybe the strongest Mage who once lived in Erlias. However, you are new to me. I see you have rather strange yet, extraordinary aura. You clearly have some human aura left in you, but gradually fading away from you, and this other aura is filling in."

Shikihime tilted her head showing the gesture that she had no idea what he was talking about. Before she could go on and ask to get some answer that she wouldn't understand again, this time he threw out some knowledge as he snapped his finger. It looked like he was giving her a lecture. When he snapped his finger, ball of flame appeared right in front of him.

"Sorry if I startled with this magic, but with this, I can maybe explain it easier. Mages have magical energy streaming through their body. So just like what I did earlier, If I were to snap my finger, I use my bit of magical energy within me to summon certain amount of magic. exchange of small energy like right now, small portion of magic."

The information were too many to swallow. Then she heard Maxias's voice little far from here. She observed the place when she did. She saw the crowds, swarming of Mages chanting at someone. She followed the sound of Mages' breathing, talking, and footsteps, and before she knew it, she just passed Jest. However, it was no use, there were too many of them to fit through.

"Young girl, you do not need to worry, I think that comrade of yours will come through."

"How do you know so much about it? And about my comrade too?"

She became more curious about Maxias as they shared conversation. So what about comrade of mine, is he different than others?"

Jest rubbed his chin to summarize how to say it. He pondered for awhile into blank sky then he explained it in gentle demeanor.

"Hmm, let me see. Swordsman has Swordsman will that is somewhat similar to aura Mages posses it, but instead of magic energy flowing in their body, vital stream. They use it to make more pressure into their attack or increase their movements when released. Is this enough, little girl?"

She got the gist of how magic worked and how Swordsman fought, but still she wanted to know more.about them. She was new to all this after all. However, before she could ask anymore, Jest continued talking with different subject in mind this.

"Why don't you cheer for your comrade, you are not that late for the battle to end."

When he snapped his finger, big flame arm that was a size of small house came out of the fire ball reaching out to Shikihime. All the crowds turned back to see big arm coated with flame and gasped along with Maxias and the duo.

"Well, hop in, little girl. It's flame, but it's not hot at all."

At first she hesitated to believe him, she tried to slightly touch te flame if it was really hot or not. And like he said it wasn't hot at all, she felt solid and smooth rock. It felt like a statue of a hand, When she hopped into the hand, the arm extended just to get higher just enough to see the clear fight from above.

Right when he saw her hopping in the hand, he saw glimpse of a mark on her right upper arm. It was squared birthmark dyed with color of ink black. He wanted to take a good look at her birth mark. It looked like a letter of some language rather than just a birth mark, but if it was, he didn't know any letter that were any squared related so he just moved on seeing off Shikihime going up in the air.

One last time, Jest looked up while she was going up and raised his voice trying to be supportive to her.

"Remember, don't worry about him, I know he can take two of those Mages. You should always have faith on somebody you care about. He is a strong Swordsman and quite a gentleman himself."

Shikihime was quite surprised about him as though he knew Maxias from somewhere else although they surely just met today. Then again, there was no time for her to think about that, she wanted to see how Maxias was doing.

However, the situation wasn't so good. She saw Julin and Duliah trying to ganging up Maxias. Shikihime yelled out without knowing herself doing so.

"Hey!"

When Maxias looked up seeing Shikihime doing fine, he made a battle stance standing up again as he smiled at her back.