{Xhez}

So much about what was happening made no sense to the sprite.

Who were all these people? Why did they want to harm Rin and June? Why were they mostly beastborn, and why did their Spirits feel so resentful toward the trio standing at the doors, who hadn't done anything to them?

Oh, and of course...

[Why does Rin's Spirit feel so dark?]

Xhez's bright blue eyes lingered on her friend, as she and Brine walked forward.

"R-Rin, I-"

Before she could get another word out, Brine was in front of her.

Xhez flinched. In the blink of an eye, the man had dashed to her position, raised a fist, and prepared himself to bring it down on her, but was stopped by Maria.

"I'll be honest," he said with a smirk, "I didn't think you'd have the balls to show up after getting beaten so badly."

He stepped back, putting distance between himself and Maria. Cara joined the woman's side, placing her greatsword in front of her.

"You must think you stand a chance just because you took away one of my arms. Mark my words, that won't-"

He was cut off by Cara, who lunged at him, swinging her blade wildly.

The man dodged away from her attacks and was soon flanked by Maria, the two of them taking him on at the same time.

That left Xhez alone with Rin, who was slowly walking up to her.

In the dimly lit space, the sprite couldn't quite see her friend's golden eyes which were usually able to calm her so easily.

"Um, come over here," Xhez told her. "We can help with the fight from afar. If we get too close, we might..."

She stopped talking, however, as Rin raised her fists. Not at Brine, who was currently trading powerful blows with Cara and Maria, but at her.

As she looked up, Xhez saw that there was a hint of red, hidden in the golden irises like a drop of crimson paint in a large pool of amber.

"... Rin?"

The worry Xhez felt was only amplified as Rin's arms were suddenly wrapped in white flames.

Her friend ran at her.

Xhez flinched, closing her eyes out of reflex, but Rin's fist was stopped.

Maria, who saw this happen from afar, ran all the way from where she was to Xhez's position, stopping her student from hurting her and catching her fist in the air. 

She pushed Rin back, staring her down just as shocked.

"Xhez, what's happening?" Maria asked.

"I-I do not know," Xhez replied. "Her Spirit, uhm, Essence, has been darkened somehow. Maybe it is affecting her mind?"

"Some sort of hypnosis then," Maria muttered. 

"Hypnosis? What is that?"

"A type of spell that can put someone under your control. Must be the same thing as the villagers. Of course. If they know the Mages Guild's teleportation spell, why wouldn't they know this one too," she said, quietly. 

"AGH!" A cry caught their attention.

Cara had just been struck, thrown back by a single punch to her abdomen. She slid across the room and was slammed into the wall, but quickly recovered, getting back to her feet and holding her sword out in front of her.

"Hm... I take it that girl's not a fighter, huh?" Brine asked, gesturing at Xhez. "I guess she's different from her sister in that way. Well, Maria, what's it going to be? You think you can protect both of them?"

As soon as he posed that question, he ran forward and he and Cara began fighting once more.

Xhez looked at Maria's face as she watched the skirmish and understood how bad of a position she was being put in.

If she stepped away from Xhez here, the sprite was as good as dead. But, it was unlikely that Cara would be able to hold out on her own against Brine for long.

"What do we do?" Xhez asked.

Maria paused, looking back and forth between Cara and Rin, who was standing in front of her, fists raised with no emotion at all.

"... Xhez," Maria said.

"Y-Yes?"

"Can you cleanse a person's Spirit? Is that something you can do?"

"I..." Xhez looked back and forth between her and Rin. "Maybe. I have never tried. I do not know."

"You're going to have to give it a shot because Cara needs me right now. I'm going to give you a bit of time, okay?"

"How?"

Maria answered that question without saying a word.

Instead, she ran forward.

She and her student began trading blows. Her speed surprised both Xhez and Maria, as Rin threw out multiple combinations in short order, though Maria blocked every attack. Xhez had seen Rin fight before. Right now, she seemed just a little faster than normal. 

Eventually, Rin gave Maria an opening, however, and Maria took it.

She ran forward, punched Rin hard in the head, and the adventurer froze.

The raven-haired girl's eyes closed, and she fell onto the floor, unconscious.

"Good luck. Please, figure something out. Once you're done, cast that spell you talked about!" Maria told Xhez before rejoining Cara's fight.

"Hm, well, as curious as I am to see if you could do such a thing, I'm afraid we can't just let you try," the woman in the white dress said from the stage, her words entering Xhez's ears in between the massive thuds of the powerful punches being thrown by the side. "It would have been more fun to watch Rin kill you, but, unfortunately, I suppose we will have to end you ourselves. Go."

She ordered the people standing next to her to move toward Xhez. A significant portion of the massive group of beastborn jumped down from the stage and raised up some strange, homemade weapons, aiming them at the sprite.

Xhez took an involuntary step back.

They approached her slowly. She guessed it was because her appearance made them hesitant about what she could do.

"Stay back," Xhez warned them. "I do not want to hurt you. But..."

She glanced down at her friend. The woman she loved, laid out on the ground, that they were about to walk past.

"... I will do what I have to."

With that being said, Xhez quickly drew a spellsign in the air.

And, spears of ice shot up from beneath those approaching her, impaling a few of them.

Some of the beastborn fell back. Their faces had gone from being threatening to appearing horrified. Unblinking, with open mouths, quivering lips, and trembling hands, they looked at the people Xhez had just killed.

Xhez glared back at them.

"You will not take my friend from me. I will kill you all before I let that happen!

---

{Maria}

A wall composed of spears made of ice sectioned off Xhez and the beastborn she was fighting from Maria and Cara, who were still trying to deal with Brine.

"Well," Brine said with a grin, looking over at Cara. "You-"

Cara did not let him get another word out. Unlike Maria, who had, perhaps due to the shame festering beneath her skin that she'd never addressed, subjected herself to his taunting, Cara saw it only as an opportunity to land an unexpected attack.

[I need to do better,] Maria thought. [It is that simple.]

She ran forward then, joining the fight once more.

With their combined pressure, and only one hand to try and defend himself with, they managed to push Brine back, but it still wasn't enough to completely overpower him.

Maria went for a roundhouse kick that Brine blocked easily, before turning toward Cara and avoiding a slash from her massive blade and pushing her back with a punch to the chest. Maria stepped forward then on her own, going for a string of kicks, but she was unable to land any.

Backing off, Cara then used one of her abilities, stabbing her sword into the ground and prompting lightning to fall on top of their opponent, but Brine avoided the move, knowing it well.

Brine was breathing somewhat heavily, but Maria and Cara hadn't made any real damage.

[We just... We're just not coordinated enough to make this as easy as it should be.]

"Could use a hand here!" Brine suddenly called out to his remaining allies on the stage.

"O-On it!" One beastborn girl replied as she ran toward their fight. A few of them followed her, and Maria turned toward them.

[Can't let them get in the way!]

Despite being good at fighting people, Maria wasn't someone who enjoyed killing. She wished she could solve this in a different way but, with so many enemies and with one opponent in particular who required all of her attention, Maria couldn't afford to hold back.

With all of her strength, she punched that first girl in the head.

And sent it flying back to the stage.

Some of those beastborn stopped, as dread and fear overtook them.

Maria realized something then, as she held her fists out and watched them tremble.

[... These people aren't fighters,] Maria thought, looking up at the stage, at the woman in the white dress. [What kind of group is this?]

It was strange because, when Rin had been kidnapped, she mentioned it had taken all of the Essence in her body to escape that cave. Even then, she'd barely made it out.

[Are these just recruits?]

Looking back at Brine, Maria moved to join the fight once more. She rejoined just as Brine landed a kick that sent Cara sliding back toward the wall, coughing up some blood.

Using some of her Essence, Cara cast a quick healing spell on herself while Maria stood in front of Brine, trying to act as a barrier.

"... He's not that fast," Cara whispered with a chuckle. "I'm not joking. I think he hasn't had time to recover from your fight earlier. If he was in fresh form, I would be dead right now. I think..." Cara paused. "If you make an opening for me, and I push Essence through my body, I can beat this guy."

The fact that Cara was making this suggestion let Maria know that the difference in power was staggering, though.

It was something she and Cara hadn't discussed with the students yet, since up until now all they needed to fight had been monsters, but generally speaking, it was viewed as being a gamble to use Essence during a fight with a person. The reason was that a person could react to your plan in ways monsters couldn't, and if you ended up suffering from Essence withdrawal the way Maria had after she'd used that earlier technique, well...

You'd essentially be dooming yourself. This was Cara basically saying that they needed to take that risk. Brine was just that powerful.

"I will do my best."

"You better," Cara said with a smile. "I'm the one who'll get fucked if you mess up. Ah, well, I guess it might be a win for you either way, in that case."

Maria nearly took her eyes off Brine when she heard that.

All of the comments she'd made, the insults she'd thrown at Cara over the last four years in hopes of keeping her away, passed through her mind.

"I'm-"

"Save it for later," Cara said, standing up and raising her greatsword. "Mission ain't over yet."

"Ah, you look like you thought of something," Brine taunted Cara. "May-"

Once again, Cara moved to strike.

"You're no fun!"

They traded blows up ahead. Maria briefly considered her options.

"... This should be easier. Take things slowly," she told herself. "Make this simple," Maria muttered.

So, she took the first idea that came to her mind and settled on it. She didn't have enough time to figure out the optimal path.

Launching herself at Brine, Maria leaped up into the air, trying to land a kick from the left side. Even as strong as he was, only having one hand to block attacks with was a weakness anyone could exploit.

Maria attacked from the left, and Cara, seeing this, attacked from the right.

Brine's eyes bounced back and forth between them. Forced to make a choice, naturally, he defended himself against the blade coming from the right, parrying Cara's sword with his hand, allowing Maria to land a kick on his head.

Spit, blood, and a few teeth went flying. He was pushed back and Maria took a step back, moving to do the same again.

Cara and Maria implemented the same strategy, attacking from opposite angles. Cara swung horizontally, from below, while Maria raised her left fist and went for a hook. Again, Brine defended against the sword, and Maria punched him hard in the face. The blow sent Brine back toward the wall next to the stage.

Maria was shocked at that result. Her own strength just now had surprised her.

"Good job," Cara said. "Keep it up!"

Hearing that, Maria briefly checked in on Xhez. The girl had formed a great many spears of ice, putting dozens of corpses on display.

"I will, but-"

At that moment, a ball of flames hit Maria's head.

It wasn't particularly strong, but the sharp pain did stun her.

"Agh," she recoiled, looking in the direction the spell had been cast in. "What...?'

A single, young, beastborn boy was holding his hands in her direction.

"W-We can take them!" He said, and Maria wondered if those around him could sense how nervous he was. "Death to the oppressors!"

"Maria," Cara called out, without taking her eyes off Brine. "Don't lose focus. All that matters here is that this fucker can't be allowed to leave this place alive."

It was easy to understand why. Brine was probably one of the strongest tools this group of psychos had at their disposal.

Realistically, although it would be nice for everyone to get out of this alive and to prevent senseless murder, as long as Brine died, the result would be a decent one.

"Right," Maria replied, turning away from the young beastborn. "We should..."

Cara, at that moment, however, ran in alone.

"Wait, wait!" Maria tried to stop her, but, whether it was due to frustration or anger, Cara kept going, swinging her weapon wildly.

And, Brine turned that against her.

Maria caught the moment just as it happened.

Cara went for an attack that was just a small amount too greedy. A little too ambitious. And, Brine took advantage.

She swung with her blade, missed, and Brine gave her a punch to the back that sent Cara flying.

As she rolled to a stop, she tried to get up, but couldn't. Her eyes popped open with disbelief.

Maria had seen this strategy before. She knew what had just happened the instant she saw it.

"NO!"

At this point, the woman on the stage was saying something but Maria tuned it out.

Maria ran over to her. Cara dropped her sword.

"I'm fine, it's just a scratch," Cara hissed, though the surprise on her face betrayed the emotions passing through her head. "Stay... Stay focused. You've got this."

Up ahead, Brine grinned, aiming the sword at Cara.

"Aw, come on, that didn't do you in, surely, right?" Brine asked with a grin.

"You bastard!" Maria shouted.

"Huh? And here I thought a martial artist like you would appreciate the exploitation of the human body like that. Besides, ain't she retired like you? It's not like she's gonna miss having those legs, right?"

He cackled and Cara squeezed down on Maria's wrist.

"Don't listen to him, I'll be fine. Just keep your head in the fight!"

"You know, I heard you two weren't friends anymore or something but, Maria, you look really, really fucking hurt right now. I'd almost say you two-"

"AAAAAAAAAAGH!"

A piercing cry sent everyone to the ground.

This voice, powerful and potent, made Maria feel like her soul was being ripped out.

Pushing through the pain, she tried to find its source.

"Huh?" She asked herself. "Xhez?"

---

{Xhez}

{Just a few moments ago}

Body after body was lined up before Xhez.

One after another, these people tried to make their way to Xhez, only to have a spear of ice stick itself in their skulls. Some fell back in terror, but that didn't save them.

By now, Xhez was beginning to get desensitized to it.

She could remember every individual monster she'd killed up until this point.

This felt no different.

[... It is not enough to back away,] she thought, gritting her teeth. [The fact that you tried to harm my friend on its own is unforgivable!]

A few more spears of ice popped out of the ground, taking more lives, to emphasize that point. By now, there was so much ice that a cold mist swept through the room, and blood had reached Xhez's feet, as the pool became larger with every new entry into the collection of bodies.

Of course, Xhez still remembered why she was doing this. She needed to help Rin.

But, she needed to make sure none of these... creatures, would get in the way of that.

Xhez's own body felt colder until one face among many began to stand out.

June, who was still on the stage.

As Maria's fight intensified, the amount of beastborn standing between Xhez and June diminished as well.

[I need to save her too!]

"June," Xhez called out. "Get down here!"

"Personally, I think that is a wonderful idea," the woman in the white dress stated. She maintained that arrogant tone, but Xhez could sense some anxiety in her tone, now. "June, how about you go and show just how thankful you are for her having come to save you."

Between all the beastborn, June began walking toward Xhez. Due to the darkness that Xhez felt getting closer, Xhez couldn't say she was too happy to see this, though.

Especially not as June raised a knife in the air.

"June?" Xhez asked, one of her hands remaining in the air as she'd just finished casting a spell. "W-What are you doing?"

The woman did not respond, though. She simply walked toward Xhez and tried to stab her.

Xhez leaned out of the way, but June still managed to cut her left shoulder. Water poured down from the wound she'd just made, and June tried to stab Xhez again.

The sprite pushed her away.

[W... What is she doing? Why?]

Looking around for answers, Xhez tried to think of something. A couple more beastborn approached and Xhez absent-mindedly murdered them, still trying to think of a solution.

[Rin is in the same state. What can I do?]

It was a difficult matter to figure out, but, one idea came to her mind.

She figured it was worth a shot, and she didn't exactly have the time to think of something else.

Xhez calmed herself down and allowed June to get closer.

[If this does not work, she could kill me. But, I have to try something.]

The sprite waited. June raised her knife once more.

Xhez allowed her to attack, ducking and diving in, under the stab June tried.

Then, Xhez raised her head and pressed it against June's.

Holding the woman's hand, she attempted to do something similar to when she'd looked through a person's memories.

However, additionally, Xhez tried to take in June's Spirit.

She wasn't sure it was possible. It wasn't something her mothers had taught her about, and she hadn't seen a human perform anything similar. But, a thought had come to her mind just now.

If a person's Spirit could be corrupted by an outside force, then, could that person's Spirit be manipulated in other ways by outside forces?

She was going to give it her best shot right now.

[Aaaaerrgh...] Xhez flinched. As she tried to pull on June's Spirit, she felt darkness enter her body. The sensation was akin to suddenly diving into a pool of filth. [Do not falter, do not falter,] she told herself, continuing to take June's Spirit in.

Once June's Spirit grew weak enough, Xhez initiated the next part of this plan.

She began pouring her own Spirit inside of her.

The swap was working. As corrupted Spirit poured into Xhez's body, uncorrupted Spirit replaced it.

So much so, that June's body began glowing white and blue, as Xhez's Spirit overwhelmed her own.

[It is working!] Xhez thought. [It is actually working! I can do this, I can-]

But, before Xhez could finish the process, a spike of ice went straight through June's head.

Xhez froze.

The transaction ceased as, suddenly, the Spirit Xhez was pouring out and had nowhere to go.

June collapsed, falling into Xhez's arms.

Blinking, Xhez, wide-eyed and with her mouth open on its own, looked toward the source.

The woman in the white dress frowned back at her. The beastborn woman next to this lady had her hands let out a blue mist just like the one coming from the spears Xhez had created.

"You are a terribly annoying existence, you know that?" The woman asked as she walked up to the edge of the stage. "First, you find your way in our hands and you escape, letting the world know of our existence. Then, you come here and use your own sister as bait to weaken our strongest warrior before coming here and showing that, apparently, you have the means to counter the hypnosis that we worked so hard to acquire. I am sure you understand that, at this point, I simply cannot let any of you leave. Initiates," she turned toward the others. "Even if it means you must die, please, kill her."

None of them managed to take a single step forward, though, as Xhez looked back at June's face, and screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAGH!"

The Spirit she'd been taking in found an outlet through her voice and dispersed throughout the room.

Everyone in the room fell to the ground.

Xhez gently laid June down, then, before turning her attention to those around her.

[... Monsters,] she thought, balling her hands up into fists, so angry she was trembling. [Monsters, all of you. And... you will all die like monsters.]

The spell she'd told Maria and Cara about quickly came back to her mind.

It was a spell she'd seen only once, but, with Xhez's memory, that was enough to memorize it perfectly.

The curse Varyn had suffered before. 

Imitating the hand motions she'd seen the orc mage do back then, she looked around.

Brine was among the people who'd been brought to the ground by her voice.

If she was going to do this, she figured she might as well start the slaughter with him.

She finished the spellsign and aimed her hands at him.

A black bolt of lightning shot out through the air, striking the man's body and sending electric shocks coursing through him. Brine let out no sound, but as he curled up in pain, Maria walked forward.

She took Cara's sword and stabbed it through the man's head, ending their fight.

Naturally, the others in the room reacted.

"Stop her!" The woman in the dress called out.

Xhez's hands continued to flow, however. And, now that she'd cast the spell once, doing so again felt natural.

Black bolts of lightning hit one target after another. None of the others were quite as strong as Brine, so, unlike him, a lot of them died on the spot, allowing Xhez to carve a path made of corpses to the stage.

The woman backed up. The curses Xhez launched began to fill her body with darkness but, unlike what she'd felt just a moment ago, this darkness was sweet and tempting.

It called for her to use this spell more and, as angry as she was, she abided.

A few of the enemies tried to fight back, but their efforts were rewarded with either a spear of ice through the head or corrupting black bolts killing them from the inside.

Xhez's vision grew slightly blurry, and all sounds grew quieter. She was using up far too much of her Spirit. She knew this. But, the fact that she could still see that woman in the white dress so vividly made that irrelevant. 

Soon, there was just one more person standing beside the woman. A beastborn girl who tried to run away, rather than protect her leader.

As if Xhez was going to allow it.

She caught a black bolt to the back just before she would have made it past the curtains and died on the spot.

The corpses Xhez stacked formed a natural set of stairs she took to get on the stage.

The woman raised a hand to draw a spellsign but Xhez was just quicker. She conjured a spear of ice, but this one did not go through her head, but her arm.

"Aaagh," the woman gasped as blood from her arm landed on her face.

"You..." Xhez spoke through her teeth. "You deserve the most painful death possible!"

Without allowing her a chance to retort, Xhez began drawing the spellsign for that curse slowly, so that the woman could literally watch her death take shape.

She started laughing, though.

"Tell me, strange creature, does it make sense to you that one of the leaders of the Scorned would spend all of her time here? So far from the rest of the world?" She asked.

Xhez had no desire to entertain her.

So, if she wasn't going to be scared, then Xhez figured she might as well get on with killing her.

"I am, though, you know why? Because I can be in multiple places at once."

Just as she said that Xhez threw out her curse.

And, as it hit the woman, she disappeared. Her body turned to ashes and her clothes hit the ground.

[What?] Xhez thought, her anger having no outlet all of a sudden. No target in sight. [But...]

At that moment, a pair of hands wrapped around her.

Warm, familiar, calloused hands that Xhez knew well.

She turned around, finding a pair of amber eyes looking back at her.

There was no red in them, though, this time.

"Xhez, are you alright?" Rin asked. "What the hell happened? What's with-"

Xhez just dropped her head on the woman's chest, though, as the anger she felt was then replaced with great sadness.