“Your body, asleep, will be claimed by a [Mana Rampage].”
[17th birthday], [Mana Rampage]… The [Curse] spun its threads tight, stitch by stitch. Alicia’s heart dropped like a stone into cold water as the picture finally clicked. Dying of a [Mana Rampage]—it wasn’t some vague threat. It was the brutal end to what she saw now in front of her: Elfe’s mana surging backward like a river breaking its banks, spilling outward like a sandstorm.
So that’s how it is… She had thought [Mana Rampage] was born of a [Curse]. It was born of [Fate], like a storm written in the stars. No wonder Amelia and the others had found no remedy; you can’t stop the wind from being wind.
Guilt pricked her like thorns, but no darker emotions took root. She was ignorant too; she wouldn’t spiral like a certain little girl who always chased her own tail. But guilt didn’t mean inaction. The cause wasn’t only [Fate]; part of it clung to her like shadow. To dump it all on [Fate] would be the real cowardice.
She slipped the two paper slips into her pocket. The mana wind around her clawed and shoved like a blind beast; one careless gust would shred paper like dead leaves.
Her hand flipped outward. Flame budded in her palm and bloomed. She gripped the long blade wreathed in fire; she angled the blade’s spine toward Elfe, ready to knock her out, not cut her down.
Elfe’s berserking mana felt Alicia’s pressure like a hawk feeling thunder. It hurled itself at Alicia by instinct, like waves smashing a cliff.
Raw mana flooded at her, its shape rough, like Ling’s Magic Cannon but scattered, a storm of sparks instead of a single sunbeam.
“Spellbreaker Slash!”
She did it by the book. Mana gathered along the edge like dew beading on steel. Red mana coated the blade, a rush of color like dragon scales settling over it. A savage heat pulsed through the unassuming sword.
The red light bit cleanly into the piled mana, slicing it like foam. Alicia’s mana seemed to check Elfe’s, predator to prey. Elfe’s mana orb couldn’t withstand Alicia’s wild surge. A clear opening split open in front of Alicia like a seam in ice.
—Perfect opening! Alicia! Use Rising Dragon, now!
“Finisher—Rising Dra—”
“Air: Turbulent Garrote!”
The urgent chant cut her words like a knife through silk. Danger pricked her skin like cold rain. She canceled the finisher and slid half a step back, breath held like a coiled spring.
Invisible blades skated through the air ahead, faint outlines like heat ripples. Her retreat saved her; the air blades missed flesh, but not entirely. Two strands of fire-red hair drifted down like embers, proof enough of how close it was.
“Why are you trying to hurt Elfe!”
A sharp female voice rang from ahead, bright as a bell and hard as iron. Amelia had moved unseen and now stood between Alicia and Elfe like a wall, her back to the only person here wild enough to lash out.
Whoosh…
Wind brushed Alicia’s ear like a cold feather. Her Yokai senses, keen as a fox in snowfall, felt Elfe’s rampage still in an instant. The scattered mana withdrew like tide going out, leaving wind’s sigh as the only sound.
“Ah… sorry. Elfe went into a [Mana Rampage] just now. I moved to stop it. I never used the edge. I was going to knock her out with the spine.”
“[Mana Rampage]?”
Amelia glanced back at her daughter. No storm raged there now; Elfe only lay fainted, a picture that looked too much like someone passing out from Alicia’s attack and fear. The idea rolled in like fog.
The Queen had no intention of buying Alicia’s explanation.
“Nonsense! If you’re going to make excuses, at least make decent ones! Today is her [17th birthday]. Say she’s in [Mana Rampage], and you’re saying she’s dead!”
Ah… great. Misread, and the blade turned toward me.
When someone hurts your own—your daughter—mothers don’t sit and sip tea while they listen. And if you babble the wrong words, suspicion grows like vines, tightening with every heartbeat.
She sighed, a soft fall of ash, and sheathed her weapon. From here, it felt like throwing herself to the current. Heaven wouldn’t lift a finger for her; it had chosen the worst time to still Elfe’s rampage, just to make her look like the villain.
“Oh? So you’re admitting you meant to hurt Elfe?”
Just as Alicia expected, Amelia set her as the suspect… no, the “culprit.”
“I’m not wasting time on explanations. You won’t believe me anyway. More words are just dry mouth and dead air.”
Her refusal to spin more excuses struck like a pebble in still water. In Amelia’s heart, the certainty wavered, a tiny ripple. But a ripple doesn’t clear a lake. Not yet.
