Admonishing Shadows [Akeya]

God-Kissed… that was what ancient Desiertians called the first ones who awoke powers of Magic in their land. If you were up to date on the country’s history, then you’d know that these so-called God-Kissed felt like anything but ‘kissed by God’ – especially since they were said to have been hunted down by the growing forces from who would then become the Three Desert Sultans. In a way, they were treated a lot like one would expect mages in a country such as Pergrande to be treated. Desierto and Pergrande were also only one country apart – separated by Bellum of all countries, creating quite the ironic sandwich of two magic-hating countries squishing a state that was all about that arcana. Bellum had withstood the test of time and hadn’t become an anti-mage fanatic despite this geographical threat… but unlike Pergrande, Desierto also held secrets in its very building blocks that drew energy from the arcane arts. This was speculated upon by a handful of scholars, written down in notes and historical books ending up with dust on their covers if not glanced upon.

…

It wasn’t the typical marauder issue. Desierto was notorious for having some very battle-hardened outlaws dashing around in the large sands stretching as far as the eye could see, taking many caravans and travelers by surprise. However, an old friend of his – the medic who patched him back up after old events in the same country – had sent him a message from Alwarda about a worry rising… a group of marauders had been reported by Mujahids to utilize a type of Magic that coated them in black shadows. They had been numerous and efficient in raiding caravans completely naked of supplies thanks to this Magic, but where on earth they even developed such arcana from was unknown.

It would only intensify people’s hatred of Magic in the region. Mura’s medic wished to let the problem caused by Magic be dealt with by other forces of Magic, in an attempt to even the scales of tolerance a bit. Mura found it understandable and an opportunity to tag along someone quite suited for eating shadows… like, the mission would be such a piece of cake, right?

Although… the source was a tricky puzzle. He had a hunch that the Magic suddenly showing up on marauders could have been the cause of a Lacrima or object, a staff or orb to draw energy from… but would there have been any records of it? Any clues of locations – a temple or hidden cave shrine? That could have proven to become a lead, and that was why Mura was actually found in the Guild Archives – the library – of all places right now, conveniently using the wheeled ladder to search through the columns of stored, leathered books of Ishgar’s geographical knowledge.

Case was, however… he was having a little trouble finding anything worthy of note. He had rarely been in the Archives, too… unbefitting of the Guildmaster, yes, he knew. It was shown as a small, subtle drop of sweat running down his temple as he turned to gain an update from Kyuken: “Did you find anything over there? I swear, this library is way larger than I remember… and yet, I haven’t brought any new books to this place. What’s up with that…?”

“Quite weird, indeed… I did find this journal from a ‘maledictionist’ who put curses on some Lacrima in that faraway desert land-“

“C-Curses? Listen, Kyuken, the message only specified that physical shadows were seen and used, not curse-like properties…”

“B-But if that medic calls it Shadow Magic-“

“And?”

“J-Just saying, most ‘shadow’ mages we’ve faced up until now weren’t exactly on spot-free tracks… ought to be careful with who you deal with and all.”

“Are you saying that all that Shadow Magic is… is curses and bad omens, and that kind of stuff? Hae you forgotten what a shadow is? You do know that I use a sort of Shadow Magic myself, right?”

“… I-I think I’ve been badly poisoned by our experience to draw any more conclusions.”

“Definitely.”

“Listen here… I won’t say that Shadow or Dark Magic is something that only comes from bandits. Magic is just an extension of who you already are – call it a tool of sorts. I-I mean, Akemi uses Shadow Magic too.”

“… A-And is she, precisely, a sunflower?”

“… Are you, Kyuken?”

“…”

“…”

“Think what you want – but remember that she’s still a member of my guild. It’s bothersome to suspect people purely based on what kind of Magic they use – also, speaking of, have any of you two seen her?”

WC: 772
TWC: 772

Akemi furrowed her brow as she poured over a large book detailing the history of Pergrande. The raven-haired assassin was  hidden away in a corner of the grand library, where nobody should notice or bother her. Not that she needed to worry too much about that: Fairy Tail's library may be quite big, but it was more a place to store information than a place of learning. Most of the members of the guild weren't the type to spend hours reading and researching. They would either train in a more physical manner or go out and try things out in the wilds. Both methods worked, but Akemi also liked to collect as much knowledge as possible to grow beyond the limitations of her own intelligence and imagination.

The reason why she was reading about Pergrande, specifically, was because the situation between the northern nation and its arcane-loving neighbour hadn't been completely resolved yet. And given the scale of this brewing conflict it would be difficult to not get involved in it, especially since if Pergrande won it could spell bad news for all magical creatures on the continent. As Akemi was one of those creatures, that meant it was her problem whether she liked it or not.

The bigger problem was that the military of Pergrande had gotten their hands on some strange kind of material that could interfere with magic, but at the same time there were also rumours of the strongest Pergrande soldiers using abilities which were very similar to magic, but weren't hindered by this material. Superhuman physical feats, but also the ability to levitate and control objects from a distance. If these elite could not only disable the magic of their enemies but still use such powers themselves that would make dealing with them very dangerous.

So Akemi needed information. Unfortunately, the rulers of Pergrande weren't stupid: they knew how much of an edge these factors gave them, and they wouldn't make devising countermeasures easy. As such, information on both the material and the rumours of strange powers was deliberately made scarce, at least in any detail that a keen mind might pick up important hints on how these things worked and how to counter them.

Maybe it was because of the fruitlessness of her own search that she quickly got distracted when she noticed someone else entering the library. The guild master wasn't trying to hide his presence, so even from a distance he was quickly spotted and identified. Akemi herself, sitting in a corner far out of sight, always kept her presence hidden out of habit: an assassin for whom hiding wasn't as natural as breathing would find themselves in trouble one day.

But what was Mura doing down here? He wasn't a bookworm either: most likely he was part of the reason why the guild seemed more happy to recruit the kind of person who prioritized practical lessons. Akemi frowned, then lifted a hand and casted a small spell, carefully regulating her magic so as to not give away her presence immediately.

One aspect of shadow magic was the relation between shadow and object. Shadows were natural mimics, they imitated whatever object created them. But this mimicry could also be used between shadows with some deftly woven magic. Linking the shadows close to Mura with ones close to herself allowed Akemi to listen in on what the guild master was talking about with his spirits, as the shadows were hit by the vibrations of their vocalized thoughts and reproduced them for Akemi.

The dark claw mage didn't move at first, only listening in, but once she had a good idea of what Mura was looking for she silently stood up and made her way between the book shelves to where Mura was searching for information on Desierto. The library had indeed become bigger since last Mura had visited it, and that was partially because Akemi had been adding books and scrolls to it. This wasn't the first guild she'd been part of, and whenever her guild closed down she'd take as many of their scrolls and tomes with her. Some would go into her private storage, those which contained knowledge she'd rather keep for herself, but the rest would be added to the libraries of whichever guild she'd join next.

Despite her hard boots Akemi managed to walk with silent footsteps. Rather than magic this was the result of training, to hit the ground with minimal weight and impact, toes first, and only shift your weight once your entire foot was solidly on the ground. It was a trick anyone could learn, but its sheer mundanity belied its effectiveness and usefulness. In a world where magic was abundant, sometimes not using magic could give you a major advantage in subterfuge.

It was like this that she kept walking until she was standing at the foot of the rolling ladder that Mura was using to search the stacks even as he argued with that samurai ghost that always accompanied him. She'd been listening in on the conversation the entire time, so when Mura asked if his two spectral companions had seen her she answered herself. "Down here."

It seemed like the samurai held some archaic views of shadow magic. Not surprising, given that there was some major confusion regarding different types of magic. What it boiled down to was that humans, being naturally diurnal, had an instinctive dislike of the dark, and as such started to call dangerous things dark... until they began to believe that dark things truly were innately dangerous and unpleasant.

"I wouldn't call myself a sunflower either, but it's rather shallow to judge either flower or person purely by the brightness of their appearance."

Current Appearance:

WC: 954
PWC: 954
TWC: 1,726

@Mura Kensho

Kyuken’s blood froze once he heard aforementioned’s voice reach their ears from down the ladder. That was what he’d get for talking behind her back, that rascal. Mura looked down the ladder in mild surprise, yet still realizing that expecting a silent, unnoticed arrival of the guild’s over-the-top most silent killer was more than likely required in the case of Akemi, the raven-haired Dragon… ‘Slayer’, as some of the other Fairy Tail members would refer to her as. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, in the end.

It sounded, at first, that Akemi agreed with Kyuken’s words, in a different fashion however. Yeah, she wasn’t a ‘goody-two-shoes’ or a paragon of idealistic pleasantry, but for the shaman and Guildmaster of hers, it sounded a bit like she needed a pep phrase. “… Maybe more like a thorned rose,” he replied to her, casual and unbeknownst of however his phrase was going to be interpreted by her. Thorned roses looked pleasant, too.

“… U-Uh, hmmh, w-well…”

“Remember Ghost, Kyuken…?”

“… ! M-My, you’re right! N-No, wait, why did you even mention that name – I’m still trying to get over that disaster…!” Kyuken moaned in disdain, his lively spirit crumbling down as shown by the dwindling of his hitodama form. Mura decided to not pay too much mind to his blabber and would continue with the reason why he asked out for Akemi. It was still a faint lighting in the room, but someone with Akemi’s sense of sight would clearly be able to spot that the sides of Mura’s hair had grown… dimly silver. Almost as silvery as a certain other samurai’s hair… and once you put two and two together, knowing how Mura’s Magic worked, then it’d be clear to see what was happening to him.

“A group of marauders in Desierto have gotten their hands on some kind of Shadow Magic, and they must’ve really gotten far more tenacious than usual… since people are asking for outside help at this point. I was thinking… neeh, maybe I don’t need to figure that out. If they use Shadow Magic, then wouldn’t you be most suited to eliminating them?” Hmh, while it sounded just the easiest thing in the world to just send Akemi to Desierto and have her do her thing – especially with the track record that she held in the guild, despite being one of its relatively newer members compared to most – Mura had a gut feeling that there was more at play. From experience alone, he could somewhat tell that obtaining sudden, powerful Magic from a state of nothing almost always came at the hands of some kind of physical conduit that got discovered or even rediscovered by said users.

Then again, Akemi would probably be more than efficient enough to confirm that hunch for him…

…

Screw that, he couldn’t stay in the guild hall all week! He needed some fresh air, too – he even spent so many hours in the Dojo with Vandrad to invent a couple new spells of his that rivaled even his ace-in-the-hole Hōōen.

He didn’t want his searches for intel go to waste, so he continued to ask: “Any chance you read about Desierto and, perhaps, know a place or two over there that could explain the rise in Shadow Mages popping out of everywhere? I’ve… I’ll be blunt, I haven’t really kept a good record of using this archive as much as I should, b-but it’s not like I can find the tim- oh wait, I could just use- n-nevermind that…”

WC: 591
TWC: 2317

Akemi blinked when Mura called her a thorned rose, her gaze growing distant for a moment as it seemed to catch her off guard. Inside she was wondering what Leila would think of that description: the edenchild seemed to have quite a thing for roses, after all. She'd have to ask her the next time they met. She gave a small shake of her head before looking back up at Mura. "I was thinking of a nightshade myself, but I'll consider that an acceptable answer." Her gaze then shifted to Kyuken, the spirit who never seemed to be capable of saying something without putting his foot in his mouth. "And to answer your misconceptions, because humans are diurnal and are vulnerable during the night we have an instinctive fear and distrust of the dark, which has caused many cultures to treat dark as synonymous with dangerous and evil. Many types of magic which are called dark have little to do with the element itself. The connection between dark and evil is a construct of human nature." Of course, that wasn't to say that you couldn't do horrible things with dark and shadows, but saying that out loud would just muddle the message she was trying to get across.

Noticing that something was unusual about Mura's hair she studied the guild master a bit more closely, holding onto the ladder he was standing on top of to keep it in place. Silver hair... Well, that certainly wasn't natural: Mura wasn't nearly old enough for that to happen, and it wasn't like he was under so much stress that it would cause premature graying. A supernatural phenomenon then.

But more important was Mura's explanation why he was talking about her. Her brow furrowed as he talked about the marauders causing trouble in Desierto with access to some kind of shadow magic which apparently was a bit more troublesome than just turning invisible when standing in dark places. "Given that I can consume their magic I would have a strong advantage against them, yes." She agreed with his reasoning. Slayers were strong with magic in general, but they were at their strongest when their opponent used the same element.

That said, she also agreed that this would probably be a little bit more complicated than a bunch of humans suddenly figuring out how to use shadow magic. If that was it then it wouldn't have developed into a sizeable issue this quickly and without warning.

Letting go of the ladder Akemi folded her arms and tilted her head, considering the question about Desierto. She'd been there before, so she did know a little bit about it, but it was one of those countries which liked to keep secrets. But some things couldn't really be kept hidden, so she might have some ideas about what caused the recent problems... "I know a little bit about Desierto, yes. If these marauders obtained this power abruptly most likely they're relying either on the assistance of a powerful mage who's keeping themselves hidden or they stumbled upon an artifact." An artifact that would allow multiple people to utilize a dangerous form of shadow magic... it would definitely be a good idea to do something about that.

Now where was that book... Reaching out with one hand Akemi made a grasping motion, warping the shadows to grasp one of the books in the shelf that Mura was searching through. Pulling the book out and towards herself she opened it and quickly leafed through it. "Desierto developed civilization relatively early, but magic arrived later. The first humans blessed with magic affinity were called the God-Kissed, and were considerably stronger than the average human mages of today. There's several theories as to why the first magic users would all be so powerful, one of the most popular being that, being rarer, each individual mage had less competition in nurturing their innate abilities with the magic of the world around them. This is contested, however, by the fact that in the present day most of the nations with a strong presence of magic affinity in the population also produce some of the strongest magic users."

"Regardless of what mechanism allowed them to be so strong, their strength is well documented and treated as fact. As such, while the government of Desierto still suppresses magic users, there are quite a few powerful artifacts buried beneath the sands, leftovers from the age of the God-Kissed." Closing the book she looked back up at Mura. "While definitely not the only possibility, it would be a good idea to look up stories about the God-Kissed and see if there were any named individuals who were known for their usage of shadow magic or anything related to it."

It could also be that some powerful magic user had deigned to help these marouders, but if that was the case tracking them down would be a lot harder.

Current Appearance:

WC: 821
PWC: 1,775
TWC: 3,138

@Mura Kensho

Huuuuuuuh… her earlier words were food for Kyuken’s thought. It was a perspective that the samurai had never found himself taking before, shockingly given the time he’s had floating around as a dead ghost. It left Mura wondering, too… yeah, sounded like it. Human construct. He lived a human life, though, so being able to step outside of his own, human perspective on things – a perspective having had years to take root in him – wasn’t as easy as one would think.

Concerning the incidents in Desierto, Akemi possessed little knowledge… but she did come to the conclusion that it might’ve been 1) the cause of a powerful mage from somewhere else, or 2) the works of having found an ancient artifact hidden somewhere. To be honest, it sounded more likely to have been the first cause; if some powerful sorcerer from, say, Bellum found themselves bored out of gaining power in their own land, then travelling to a mage-thin country such as Desierto and assert one’s arcane dominance sounded like a walk in the park. It, uh… wouldn’t have been the first time someone made use of that method to gain a following or cause havoc.

Then there were the God-Kissed… according to her, they were like ancient magic progenitors in Desierto, and it was possible that their remnants in form of objects or even body parts could spawn the unpredictable rise of shadow mages… if one of these God-Kissed ever dwelled in Shadow Magic themselves. This led Mura to recall a page he had read earlier, leading his hands to scuffle through the earlier columns of books he had checked through earlier. “I did find something on a God-Kissed, but…” he revealed to her with a slight dismissive sigh as he flipped through a relatively small journal’s pages, finding a page with a drawn illustration of a mage clothed quite similarly to Akemi herself –except showing even more skin, if putting it mildly – holding their hands over other people who all walked to the left on the paper. “… Bikiblatalla… oh, there’s a translation too; yeah, this is apparently one of those God-Kissed, but… I don’t see any Shadow Magic in play,” he explained, simply sending the journal her way for Akemi to read. Some of the notes were supplied with Fiorian translations, but whoever found the old journal and translated some of the texts didn’t have time to translate all of the text. However, the term ‘Bikiblatalla’ was translated as the Desiertan word for the ‘God-Kissed’, but the text explaining the forces behind the Magic shown was not. However, there was another paragraph underneath which was translated; it looked like a quote from a witness of the God-Kissed’s work:

‘The lord who held my brother’s life changed the day he met the sorcerer. We all saw how his arms and legs moved against his own will. He screamed and cursed the sorcerer from parts unknown, and overtime, his screams were silenced… from that time on, we couldn’t recognize the old tyrant. He wasn’t just held in snares by a puppeteer, but his mind and soul looked chained up, forced to go in only the direction that the new sorcerer decreed. From that day on, we grew to fear the one kissed by God, as if one tyrant was exchanged by another. We feared to fall into the same snares one day, and it led to bloodshed.’

Yeah, it sounded like a bloody event, but Mura found it challenging to draw a connection to that God-Kissed’s accomplishment to the use of Shadow Magic. Maybe it was just a waste of time, which probably wouldn’t amuse Akemi one bit… kind of worrying, actually. He looked like a student delivering their assignment a few minutes after the deadline, praying to pass.

WC: 630
TWC: 3768

It seemed like Kyuken at least was considering her words, which was good. Akemi did truly dislike it when people went around thinking dark and evil were synonymous: aside from it being problematic for herself it was also just flat out inaccurate, and while she didn't mind deceiving people to achieve her own objectives she'd rather not have people spread false knowledge and beliefs if it could be avoided. It went against her nature as one who collected knowledge almost pathologically.

Leaving the samurai spirit to his thoughts Akemi focused on Mura instead, who apparently remembered a book which might be relevant to the scenario, now that he had the ravenhaired woman to supply him additional information on the task. "There should be quite a few stories about the God-Kissed: they were shunned and persecuted, but their impact on Desierto is impossible to hide, and the people of the time must have written many things about them." Even if the God-Kissed had been monsters that brought disaster to the desert nation, one couldn't just ignore such developments such as the arrival of the first magic users, especially ones which turned out to be exceedingly powerful.

Once Mura tossed the journal her way Akemi reached out with a dark claw and grabbed it, then pulled it in so she could hold it with her own hands and read it. She quirked an eyebrow at the scantily clad woman, but otherwise paid it no mind as she instead went through the text. In the desert there were two ways to deal with the heat, either by exposing yourself as much as possible to radiate it outward or cover yourself up in isolating clothes to keep the heat from reaching you. While it was safer for outsiders to resort to the latter practice, as their bodies wouldn't be able to withstand constant exposure, natives would regularly default to the former, as it granted greater freedom of movement once you learned to tolerate it.

"There are many different types of magic that can be utilized to control the actions of others. But I have to say that it'd be difficult to use shadow magic to control not only a man's body but his mind and soul as well. While it could be that the writer of this segment misunderstood what was going on we can't rely on this to determine whether this woman was using shadow magic or not." She rested a finger on her chin as she closed the book for a moment. "I could get this entire book translated, but it could take a while given that it's written in ancient Desiertan. You're the one who learned about the issue first: do we have time to investigate this more thoroughly?"

Personally she'd much rather spend some time researching the topic rather than rushing in blind, but one had to acknowledge when their time to act was limited. Those thugs with their newly discovered shadow magic weren't going to topple the nation of Desierto overnight, but if their powers truly were as abnormal as Mura had indicated leaving them alone for too long could make taking care of them a lot more difficult down the line.

"As long as their magic is still shadow magic I should have the advantage, so knowing the exact source may not be necessary to at least hinder their activities. And if we capture them we can question them about where their powers came from... I'm just worried about the possibility of unknown factors catching us off-guard." Her being able to consume shadows didn't mean she was completely immune: ambushes could still be effective against her, even if her innate resistance meant that it would have to involve a lot of raw force. But if they were channeling the power of a God-Kissed...

"Since you're the guild master and the one who knows more about the situation you'll have to decide what to do."

Current Appearance:

WC: 656
PWC: 2,431
TWC: 4,424

@Mura Kensho

These God-Kissed people sounded like quite devastating entities in history. All things considered, Mura hoped that they wouldn’t have to outright face one in Desierto – common knowledge was that all the God-Kissed had perished centuries ago, but even finding the secret entrances to their Magic could potentially birth an equal force of nature against them. If the marauders began transforming themselves into monsters akin to the original God-Kissed, then surely they’d have to not waste any more time…

… It’d also mean that they’d have to ready themselves for a blind jump. Now, Mura was used to that – he found it to be expected of a Wizard Saint to answer any trouble that arose, regardless of origin. And those marauders weren’t going to sit on their asses and wait for them… it was typical of him to think this way, but that was just how Mura was. He had made his decision.

“We should get one to talk as quickly as possible. If they all use the same kind of Shadow Magic, then tracking down a pattern of some sorts won’t be difficult. Besides…” he replied to her, taking a glance over his prosthetic left arm, “I have my own, special defenses against living shadows.” It was partly that event which his arm reminded him of that convinced him to charge to the Desiertan people’s aid, so screw the obstacles that he and Akemi would have to overcome. It wasn’t like he worried about a single thing, anyway… Akemi was an extraordinary Fairy Tail Member. She’d likely be able to complete this client’s plead in no time, all by herself.

But there was a couple spells that Mura wanted to test out, still.

He quickly made his way outside, picking up his katana and his red dagger up on the way. Opening the front gate at this time of the year invited a cold shiver into the guild hall, but it was quickly closed behind him again. Then, finally outside of the guild hall, he clapped his hands together… and Azure-chan came soaring down from the heavens. A living embodiment of the photonic energy from a certain star constellation in the sky had flown down to be mounted by the Onmyōji.

…

“Oh, a-actually, Azure-chan here isn’t a real Dragon… but I guess you can already tell. Anyway, unless you want a ride, I’ll see you in Desierto,” he informed her, figuring that someone like her did have a pretty convenient, reliable source of transportation. She could fly… but then again, Akemi would likely prevent people from reporting about a flying, draconian humanoid in the sky. Then again, could she fly without the use of her wings, like Mura? Who knew… he still knew so little about her.

But his lack of further expositing and blabbering was an apparent testament to his trust in her. She’d definitely follow suit and catch up with the speedy Azure Dragon.

…

They don’t really put much effort into hiding their mana…, he thought to himself, glaring down from Azure-chan’s neck onto the sandy dunes below him. At this point in time, it was sunset, and the glowing star’s position lengthened the shadows of standing rocks, small sand corns and whatever poked up from the desert bed. But what Mura had been paying attention to was what was hidden underneath the bed… swimming through like antlions.

So, dismissing Azure-chan’s duties, Mura let himself fall straight down to the dunes below… and then cause a large portion of the desert area to densify, smoothen and harden upon impact. A huge surge of magic power erupted from him upon casting Onmyōdō on such an abundant source of rocks and stones, and he figured at first that the Shadow Mages sensed below were dealt with. They weren’t hiding their sickening auras in any way, and that was a fatal mistake…

If not for the fact that their completely black figures jumped up from the sand sea, contorting into masses of black chromos that attempted to strike down Mura from all directions. However, despite their sheer numbers, a hurricane of bright slashes pushed them all away, dismantling the shadows into mere clouds dots of black that quickly gathered together. Were they all living human beings transforming themselves into pure shadows? It was a popular use of Shadow Magic to transform yourself like that, but they showed such finesse and devastating aggression with it.

“Oi, oi, oi! You’re a Wizard Saint, you are! The one from Fairy Tail, their Master…!”

After their little fangasming, the giant clump of Shadow Mages – which had taken the form of a giant humanoid in the blink of an eye – charged down at the swordsman with little regard. It was too late for them; upon closer inspection, phantom images of Mura appeared all over the giant’s black body, slashing deep into its skin suit of darkness in a still image.

Kyuken-Style, and a new one at that! How will you lowlifes handle me and Mura’s new Art, Photographic Annihilation?!

Kyuken’s soul merged with Mura’s made a triumphant stance in the battlefield, watching the shadowy figure crumble away- *SWOOSH*

… He was laying down face first. Before he could think of why he was laying on the warm sand, he suddenly felt cut marks gush blood out from his own skin! It was shocking, autonomously casting Hades’ Magic as a violet hue that closed his wounds slowly. While forcing himself up on his feet, Mura’s eyes looked distraught – there were no signs of a spell being cast from them, and he could’ve sworn that he had cut the giant down in good time. What the fuck just happened?

The answer lied in the distant, robed marauders – two of them, one watching guard and another holding his hands together. They possessed two pieces of paper, and one of those were laid on the sandy ground in front of the ‘praying’ one, casting a spell that could not be traced by mere Magical Sensory. The caster grinned, finding the result satisfying – this kind of Shadow Magic really could alter the moost metaphysical limits of darkness.

He had used it to change the ‘shadow of war’… the aftermath of Mura’s attack which ended the battle. It had been redirected to himself in a literal instant, leaving the aftermath changed as the Wizard Saint being struck down, while the giant of shadows was left untouched. And while Mura quickly got up on his feet thanks to his yet huge reserves of mana, it was a little terrifying…

“D-D-D-Did we just...?“
“Keep your focus, Kyuken! Two mages further away are using a piece of paper to do whatever just happened to you – charge at them, instead! Leave the giant pile of losers to Akemi's maw…!”

WC: 1125
TWC: 5549

It didn't take Mura very long to declare that they'd meet the shadow-abusing marauders head-on. Akemi herself would have preferred to spend more time doing research, both to satiate her curiosity and to make sure she knew what they were dealing with, but as she was the one to lay the decision at the guild master's feet she wasn't about to object to his choice. "Understood." Her eyes flickered to the prosthetic arm that Mura himself was also staring at for a short moment. "I'm interested in seeing what you pull out then. I do hope you've tried it out before." She commented the last part dryly, just in case Mura had thought it a good idea to try out something completely new and untested while dealing with what might be remnants of the God-Kissed.

She followed Mura out of the building, the cold of the outside seeming to leave her unbothered as she didn't even shiver to acknowledge the weather. Instead she just stood there with a hand on her hip, her long black hair swaying in the light breeze that sought to crawl underneath one's clothes to ensure everyone experienced the light chill of early winter.

When Mura summoned... something... from high above, Akemi's gaze quickly snapped upwards, placing one hand above her eyes as if to keep the sunlight out as she watched the celestial dragon descend from the heavens, golden eyes at first widening in surprise before narrowing in curiosity. Rather than a dragon, it was some kind of animated essence of starlight, containing boundless cosmic energies despite behaving like a perfectly docile creature in front of Mura, letting him mount her without any complaint.

"I'll meet you there." Was the only response Mura got when he asked the assassin whether she wanted a ride or not. With an upwards swipe of her hand she called forth her own shadow, which seemed to envelop and swallow her before disappearing into nothingness.

She'd long ago rendered any kind of transportation which required external assistance unnecessary.

---

Desierto was the same as she'd remembered it: lots of sand, little vegetation, baked during day and freezing at night. It was beautiful, in a way, but also very barren, with little for the people to lived here to sustain themselves on. It had resulted in the people of Desierto being quite hardy, even if they still lived under the tyranny of their betters. Ironically it was magic that might have made living in this hostile terrain more bearable, but the people of Desierto had rejected that option as their rulers had feared its power.

Mure was flying high above, easily noticed on that glowing star dragon of his, apparently unworried about being seen by those he was searching for. Akemi herself was hidden inside the dark underground, her presence completely concealed as she let her guild master draw out their prey. As normal armies were unlikely to put up a fight against the marauders a potent magic user like Mura would be someone they'd want to get out of the way quickly.

Sure enough, she didn't have to wait long for the shaman to engage the marauders, who had hidden themselves underground just like Akemi had. It was interesting to observe them fight: their shadow magic was rather crude and simplistic, but contained a lot of raw power. Enough so that she became more inclined to believe that they were relying on some kind of power source to channel their magics rather than having suddenly become this strong without prior warning on their own. Of course, the latter was still possible, but some interrogation of the defeated should be sufficient for finding out.

She would have preferred to take care of the two thugs in the distance who managed to reflect Mura's attack back on him, but it looked like the guild master wished to deal with those himself, given the way his attention had been redirected towards them. Their usage of shadow magic was a lot more advanced than what the others were using: seize control of the conceptual nature of shadow to make Mura endure his own attack. In comparison to that this shadow giant was child's play, and rather boring to deal with besides. Still, if Mura had decided to take care of the two stronger targets, she'd have to play her part and deal with the rest.

The shadow giant... well, it was effective. Most types of damage would merely scatter it, leaving it free to reform until the casters ran out of energy to sustain it. Which meant that it could take a while to deal with it, during which it might be able to deal a devastating blow.

Fortunately Akemi wouldn't have to take that long. It wasn't like shadow magic could just cancel out shadow magic, but her claw was hungry.

From the ground below the dark giant the sand ruptured as a black claw shot upwards, talons digging into the giant and beginning to pull it underground. The giant, and the marauders which made up its body, quickly panicked and split up, escaping the claw's grasp to reform into a group of human-sized living shadows instead. However, the claw had already devoured some of the dark before the thugs had managed to escape, stealing away quite a bit of their energy in the process.

Akemi didn't give them time to react. Jumping out of the whirling cloud of sand her claw had thrown into the air she slammed her claw against the ground. A wave of dark swept forth, blinding all around her. The marauders, while having become used to their own shadow magic, were not prepared for this sudden, overwhelming, almost primeval dark. It also kept the other two mages from interfering with their magic.

Within the impenetrable dark Akemi struck. Her claw grabbed her first prey, eating through his shadows and forcing him to take on his corporeal form. Once exposed like this she slammed him against the ground. Wisps of shadow wrapped around his limbs and bound him to the ground. If he tried to turn into living shadow to escape he'd find that his entire body was now part of the binding, leaving him with even less freedom than before.

The dark-haired assassin jumped from one prey to the next within the aphotic area she'd created, striking them from their blind spots and draining their shadow magic until she could render them helpless. While their magic was strong they were both outclassed and countered by the dark dragon, for whom their shadows were little more than a feast even as she showed to them what an experienced dark mage could do.

If Mura didn't hurry up Akemi might end up finishing up her side of the fight before he did.

Current Appearance:

WC: 1,131
PWC: 3,562
TWC: 6,680

@Mura Kensho

There were only two men further away. Why they had separated themselves from the rest of the group was chalked down to wanting as little attention from the two Fairy Tail wizards as possible, which was honestly a viable and praiseworthy option – they were up against these two, especially powerful members… not that Mura would give them the chance to cast another one of that strange spell. Strangely, when using illusion spells, there’d be a presence of mana all around the affected, but that wasn’t the case here, so it really did… it really did change the spatial positions and states of him and themselves.

That shit was dangerous. And here, Mura hoped for it to turn out an easy trip through falling bandit bodies practically ‘donating’ their Shadow Magic to Akemi’s belly.

And damn, they were far away… wait, no, they had already casted their next spell! Somehow, through the same foundation as Shadow Magic, the distance between Mura and the two arrogant pricks seemed to never close up, leaving the shaman to run a little indefinitely. Hmh… maybe now would be a good time to cast his new spell – problem was, Mura had a strong hunch that even stronger bastards were hiding somewhere while they were thinning out their lines. And Mura didn’t possess an ability to replenish wastefully spent mana… not unlike Akemi, who likely ended her battle with a bit more mana than when she arrived. Seriously, they were all like a well-spread buffet for her.

Oh well… saving his ace for later, the two shitheads quickly leapt away from their previous position once they anticipated sand tendrils emerge from the desert ground to try and wrap around them. That meant that, for a brief moment, they were still acclimating from the leap and couldn’t stop Mura’s swift, fast approach whose impact alone decapitated one of them before they even landed. The other one immediately sought to retreat, finding himself powerless at close range, but the spell he used to leak into the ground in a circle of shadows ended up crumbling away right when Mura stepped his foot on it. That was when a certain, ancient magic released itself from his leg – a magic that didn’t belong to Mura, albeit it emitted from his own body, eating away at the darkness and leaving nothing but a guy half-buried in sand behind.

With an exposed and confused marauder with most of his lower body submerged under the desert, Mura saw it a prime opportunity to ask some questions. Still, just top put icing on the top, the sand coating the marauder’s lower body instantly turned to solid granite rock, rendering him efficiently immobilized. Ahhh, bless the Onmyōdō… almost every terrain would become his weapon. “…”

“…”

This is awkward…, he thought to himself before approaching the trapped individual whose face looked much less ambitious than a moment ago. Strange… it looked like he subsided his opposition-

Aaaaaaaaand apparently, being completely immobilized in granite wasn’t enough – the runt somehow disappeared from view before Mura could even grab his head. “Urgh, this is annoying… did he run away-“ he mumbled to himself, but thanks to years of training and such, the view of a lurking killer right at the furthest corner of his eye triggered the shaman to swing his katana 270 degrees around himself to slice the lurker in two.

It was expected that a lot of blood would come out, but holy hell, there was nothing there! Right when Mura had turned around, the lurker just… well, wasn’t there? The stranger part was that right when Mura began to focus his vision again, he could see the marauder right behind him, only visible through the corner of his eye, in which he swung once more to try and hit him as fast as possible. The force from his swings pushed away clumps of loose sand from the ground, but he still didn’t connect, and the lurking marauder kept clinging to the corner of the shaman’s eyes as if… as if he actually did such a thing in a literal sense.

“Gahahaaaaaah!!! Have you gone soft, huh?! Or are you just overrated?!” Accompanying those words of humiliation were a few, swift stabs with steel blades protruding out of the right side of Mura’s chest, “Hahaaaaaah, look at that! Look at that, my dead pile of flesh of a brother! The Wizard Saint of Fortitude can’t even hit me, how livid is that…?!?!” It was more preferable to jump into lava at this point, and Mura’s patience was being challenged.

And yet, everything was under the Guildmaster’s control. The blades looked like they jagged right through him in lethal fashion, but they were made of steel – a metallic alloy that was susceptible to Onmyōdō as one of the five worlds of Onmyō just happened to be that of Metal. And whatever fell in those worlds, Mura had the ability to mend, bend and manipulate to his heart’s desire – even if he wanted to orchestrate a fake scenario by erasing the front part of the steel blade just when it looked like it was digging into him, then replicating the exact same part of the blade on the other side to enact this practical illusion. It was pretty devious.

“D-Damn it, you can take a lo- URR-RH?!”

There, the weakness behind this tricky spell was found by Mura; since the enemy disappeared right when Mura turned his gaze towards what the corner of his eye was covering, all he had to do was stab right through himself using the same method as earlier. That way, he managed to puncture the marauder’s heart – although, the motion of thrusting his katana into himself might’ve been unnecessary. Still, with the marauder right at death’s doorbell, Mura found no opportunity to truly interrogate him… the man was choking in his own blood, and Mura decided to shorten his already short but painful demise by decapitating him.

That would leave him with the leftover scroll laying further away. Drawn by curiosity, the shaman waddled over to the scroll and picked it up, noticing that it looked rather common and standard for modern scrolls. Moreso, it looked more like one used in place of a notebook, but when he opened the scroll, it revealed to him… uh… stuff. It was written in ancient Desiertan, the same language as the journal back at the archives, but it wasn’t translated by the previous owner, so Mura was left ambiguous.

“Uhh…” he hummed, only making a little sense of the drawings of lines and what looked like snakes choking both a mage and a knight, “Akemi… if you’re done, maybe you’d wanna try and look at this. There could be a note somewhere in this scroll about their hideout…”

WC: 1,131
TWC: 7,811

Scroll Content:

To their credit, the marauders didn't give up easily. Even as they were being picked off one by one, unable to aid each other due to being unable to see anything, they still remained on guard for themselves, forcing Akemi to move into their blind spots and evade their counterattacks. Even without the shadow magic, they were already quite knowledgeable about fighting and ambushes, so it wasn't like this situation was entirely foreign to them.

Unfortunately for them, the matchup was just too poor. Within the aphotic zone Akemi had created she could move anywhere she wanted without limit while also having a flawless awareness of the position of all her enemies. She could tell how they were guarding themselves and when they would try to strike at her, making evading their attacks a simple matter before her malevolent claw grabbed them and drained them dry. As she had suspected, their magic was strong and inexperienced: when met with an ability that could render the raw power of their spells pointless they had no option but to keep desperately trying, knowing that it was futile anyway.

As such, it didn't take long before the final of the combatants was forced to eat the sand, his body bound to the desert as Akemi dispelled the aphotic zone to reveal the aftermath of the fight. While it might look like an impressive piece of work, the truth was that these people were small fry: their magic may have raw power behind it, but that was the only thing it had, and even as physical combatants they just didn't match up to the kind of enemies Akemi had faced before. Low-rank thugs, unfortunate enough to be sent out for guard duty while their betters were busy with more important matters.

No, what was more pressing were the two enemies that Mura had chosen to deal with... Unlike these punks those two seemed to hold some actual skill, utilizing esoteric spells which went beyond the mundane tricks these thugs had been using. Looking over towards Mura's fight Akemi saw that the guild master had already swiftly dealt with one of the attackers, and was also about to finish off the last one. Dismissing her claw she ignored her own prisoners for the moment as she walked over to where the shaman was wrapping things up, clacking her tongue when she saw him kill the other one as well. "Gathering intel would have been easier if you didn't kill them." She pointed out. However, she didn't sound very agitated: merely making an observation.

"I kept the others alive, but I don't think we'll be getting much out of them. They would've been relying on these two for instructions." She motioned towards the two lifeless bodies whose blood was now painting the desert sand red. Useless to anyone now. She glanced back over her shoulder to keep an eye on her prisoners before Mura called her attention again while showing her the scroll.

Closing the distance she took the scroll from Mura and held it in front of her, frowning as she did her best to comprehend what was written there. She wasn't exactly an expert on Ancient Desiertan: she knew a little bit about it, but as she had told Mura back in the library she'd need some time to translate an entire book. This one scroll wouldn't take as long, but she couldn't say she would get everything correct either.

"The first part is a spell of some sort." That part was easy, at least: even if she didn't translate every word she could tell by the cadence and rhythm. "It mentions freshwater, so they'll either have to be at one of the oases or the big river that runs through this land." The word freshwater was easily identified: throughout the ages all inhabitants of Desierto knew that freshwater was worth more than gold, so the word had barely changed over the years, and was one of the first you'd learn.

Rolling up the scroll she handed it back to Mura. "Doesn't say much more, I'm afraid. Well, it's already good that we know they've got a reliable source of freshwater and aren't hiding out in the middle of nowhere." Of course, depending on how well they utilized their shadow magic they could still be quite far away from the actual source... and she shouldn't ignore the possibility that they had other tricks up their sleeve as well. It wasn't like she was only walking around with her dark claw, after all. "Better to first question our surviving prey."

However, instead of immediately turning to them she instead reached out with her shadows and pulled the two decapitated bodies towards her along with their heads. She lifted them off of the ground by grabbing them by the collar, then walked back towards their prisoners, specifically the one closest to her. The two heads dangled from the grip of her other hand, blood dripping onto the sand with every step. "Hey." She called for the man's attention, who turned his head with some difficulty to look up at her. The sight of his leaders' head seemed to have an effect on him, however, as his face turned completely pale. "Tell us the location of your base." A verbal threat was unnecessary under these circumstances: nothing she said wouldn't do what the dangling heads weren't already doing.

"W-w-well." The man stambled, his voice high as he quickly broke out into a sweat. He was as dark as they came, a native to these lands without question. However, the heat of the sun didn't compare to the fear that had him in a cold sweat. "I-I-I don't kn-know, r-really." He swallowed and hesitated, but quickly began talking again when Akemi tilted her head. "Y-y-you s-s-see, w-we were o-only supposed  t-to a-a-ambush t-travellers a-and t-take their s-supplies. L-Lahab s-said that w-we'd get a b-bigger j-job once we w-were m-more u-u-used to our p-powers, but-"

"None of that tells me where your base is." Akemi unceremoniously dropped on of the heads onto the marauder's bound body, who let out a startled shriek and tried to squirm away with little success. "Th-th-th-they w-w-wouldn't l-let u-u-u-us kn-know! W-w-w-w-we... we..." The man looked like he was about to pass our. Or maybe vomit. "W-w-we w-w-were b-b-blinded w-when we l-l-l-left! L-Lahab s-said th-th-that i-it was s-s-safer th-this way! Please don't k-k-kill meeee!" At the end the man broke down, sobbing and closing his eyes as if unable to see his own end.

Akemi rolled her eyes. She'd been intentionally terrifying him, but this was a bit much. As a marauder, wasn't he supposed to be more familiar with death? He didn't look too young either: she wasn't familiar enough with the people of this land to be certain, but he looked middle-aged. The others didn't look much better: they'd heard their compatriot get interrogated, and those who were in the right position saw what happened to their superiors as well. Any of them looked like they might just start babbling if she turned towards them.

No point wasting time on that. Retrieving the head she'd dropped she walked back towards Mura. "Those aren't going to be useful. Your call on whether we leave them to die, hand them over to the authorities, or cut their throats." It was all the same to her, although death through exposure was, admittedly, a bit cruel. She was ruthless and apathetic, not intentionally sadistic. "More importantly..." She lifted the severed heads. "Since you're the spirit walker, think you could use these to figure out where their base might be?" Truthfully she might be able to do it herself, given that she held the powers of yin and yang, but those were supposed to be a secret. On top of that she hadn't had much practice with that aspect of her magic yet: if Mura knew how to do it he was most certainly more skilled at it than her.

And it was never a bad idea to get a better picture of what other powerful entities were capable of.

Current Appearance:

WC: 1,352
PWC: 4,914
TWC: 9,163

@Mura Kensho

… Urrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, why did he kill them? He just made the mission an even bigger bother without realizing it! He might as well just have begun burying himself in the desert too… but as sharp as that awkward pain felt, it disappeared quickly and they were back on track when Akemi began deciphering the text written on the scroll from one of those loudmouthed kills. They got a hint; given by what she read, their base was located near a body of freshwater, so Akemi narrowed it down to Desierto’s large river or one of the two oases in the land. What was left to do was to deduce what place was the right one, and maybe the surviving bandits that Akemi fought earlier could help…

Still, seeing the decapitated corpses made the shaman regret his action a little more – then again, he was being pushed by a type of Magic he had never experienced before, so he just couldn’t have afforded to subdue them if they were able to just rewrite reality or whatever they were doing… was it… was it even Shadow Magic? Maybe Akemi had a better grip at what they were doing than he did. Either way, the use of the survivors was scarce as they just began losing themselves at the sight of their dead superiors – smearing in even more how useful it would’ve been if those two ‘leaders’ were still breathing for their life right now… throughout the whole ordeal, Mura had a generating wave of sweat escape his face which he didn’t want to address out of embarrassment.

Then, Akemi simply asked him what to do with them now. They looked defeated, physically and mentally, and Mura felt heavy deep inside from his little mistake. “…” Desierto’s authorities, huh… wonder what they would do to criminals who possessed magic? Probably something irredeemable but extravagant to assert themselves as the functioning body of the country to the civilians or something… and given their history…

“I’ll give it a shot. Hand me the heads,” he asked first, allowing himself to attempt to correct his mistake by summoning the two, dead spirits back to his location before they entered the Hereafter. There was still time, since their deaths were just a conversation ago. And concerning the survivors… he told Akemi to execute them immediately. He couldn’t read them, understand them and their frustrations and fear despite having been criminals for a long time, and they would only go through worse under the custody of the authorities here in Desierto if their history with the God-Kissed was anything to go by.

With the two heads in front of him, Mura sat down and began to draw them in… wherever their souls might’ve been at the moment, Mura’s immense pool of mana spread out and managed to catch hold of both before too much time had passed. How was he able to distinguish them that precisely? The heads helped him out with identifying core characteristics of those souls – it was difficult to explain, but the brain was still intact in both of them. The brain functioned as a sort of bank or gate for the soul where its character poured through and became alive through the brain’s signals to the body, and that was how a human being came to be. Therefore, if the brain was still intact, Mura could easily pinpoint its inhabitant from thousands that floated around the desert.

“… So taking our lives wasn’t enough for you, hm? Now you have to bring us back, what, so you can kill us again?! Ever heard of ‘don’t vandalize the dead’, cun-*FWOOSH*”

Yeah, that one guy who died last was a bother. Mura knew that he would get nothing out of him… but the one who died first remained silent. It really looked like he had admitted defeat, and both Fairy Tail Mages could see his retreating face. “Where’s your base of operations?” the shaman asked shortly and simply, to which the ghost nudged back slightly with timidness in its face until it finally answered: “A-At… at Alijana. In the bottom of the oasis…” Good thing was that they finally got a specific location on the map to go to, but the last part… intrigued him. In the bottom of the oasis? Were their base submerged underwater, huh?

“Alijana…” he reminded himself one more time before sending a quick nod towards Akemi. It was time to move.
---

Alijana was the capital to one of Desierto’s three states. The rest of this insurgence had done a great job at not making people know that they were underneath the lake touching the outskirts of the city as we spoke… but Mura’s seismic sense picked up that there was a series of unstable, claustrophobia-inducing tunnels underneath the lake’s bed. “… Crazy huge crypt, if you ask me,” he commented out loud before swiftly sinking himself underwater, his form darting down the depths of the lake until he dug through the lake bed and finally leaked through one of the ceilings belonging to the tunnel network. Understandably, it was pitch-black dark down there, so Mura conjured up a flame in his palm for light-

“This is a bit more unsettling than the norm- oh, w-why, the place is falling apart!”

Underneath the network was some kind of limestone cavern, and Mura carefully watched the rubble fall down onto the granite floor while faint reflections on the bright sandstone gave some light off. Unfortunately, Mura had not gotten his fill of annoyance today, so when he sensed somebody approaching him from behind, he thought that a wave of fire from his back would do the trick- oh nope, against all odds, the fires clung onto his back and wouldn’t let go while he felt a heavy kick to the spine that launched him into the cavern’s wall ahead.

“M-Mura! Mura! Don’t panic, b-but you-“

“W-What, I’m fine… felt like this prick was hol… h-holding back…”

What the fuck was going on? It wasn’t enough dealing with bandits, now he had to deal with some clone of himself too? It mind-boggled him at first, for it was very uncalled for… but despite the faint light in the cavern, it was clear to see that Mura’s body didn’t emit any shadow at the moment…

WC: 1,051
TWC: 10,214

Akemi handed over the heads once Mura said that he was willing to try and call their souls back to answer some questions, then turned to her own task of eliminating the ones who were still bound in the sounds, terrified but unable to do much other than feebly struggle and wallow in terror and despair. Although some of them looked more furious instead. Guess not all of them were easily cowed. Not that it mattered: they would all die the same anyway. As she turned towards them Akemi was struck by an idea, however: she could try out a new trick that she hadn't really practised before, but she didn't often have a bunch of targets to try it out on.

The thing about magic was that it was complex and multi-faceted: it was as much part of the world as gravity, and in many ways allowed for the world to function the way it did. However, when it was willfully channeled by those who had the capacity for it the results could become increasingly varying and complicated. To a certain extent to channel the magical energies from within and without meant enforcing one's thoughts, desires and will upon reality, reshaping it either directly or crafting tools to alter reality with. Which also meant that how one's magic worked was largely dependent on the individual, or the one who developed the techniques.

Take fire, for example. Many people would agree that one of fire's greatest properties was its capacity for destruction. To reduce entire forests to ashes and mercilessly devour all in its path. Nymara was an example of this, as her fire magic manifested in rough and barely controlled destruction (although Akemi was working hard on the control part). But another mage could instead find warmth and comfort in fire and develop techniques that healed and bolstered instead. Both were fire magic, both were dependent on the mind that directed it. This was why two individuals rarely had identical magic even if they were taught by the same master.

Dark and light were no different. Dark was often seen as malevolent, but for Akemi it represented many different things. Subtlety, thoughtfulness, ruthlessness. It was calm and collected compared to the more energetic and passionate nature of light. And one of its qualities was that it obscured that which wished to be hidden. This could be a predator trying to ambush its prey unseen, but it could also be the prey trying to remain unfound as it rested.

Recently Akemi's abilities had begun to interfere with the spiritual. This was still new territory for her which was why she'd suggested that Mura be the one to recall those souls. But if she tried to use her dark magic in a different manner to take care of these poor sods...

Raising her bandaged arm shadows burst forth from underneath the wrappings, swirling around her hand and forming a jagged claw. Walking up to the first of her bound victims she slashed down, the talons digging into the man's chest. Although he did let out a startled cry the man was remarkably calm otherwise, seeming to simply lose consciousness and his life without any resistance. Pulling out her talons Akemi noted that no physical wounds were on the man's body, and no trace left behind of her magic either.

Satisfied with the results she repeated the process on the other captives, one by one bringing them into an eternal sleep. By applying the dark's concept of obscurity together with her ability to interfere with souls she more or less had their minds peacefully sink into nothingness as their souls were disconnected from their bodies, rendering them dead. It certainly was a lot less messy than cutting their throats, especially since with some more practice she would be able to assassinate people without them giving any sign of there being anything wrong.

From the other end it looked like Mura was done with his investigation. Now that they had a name they would be able to home in on the hideout of these marauders and take care of their leaders. Which, as long as they captured enough of their subordinates as well, should be sufficient to break up the entire ring. Although they should also find out where they were getting these shadow techniques from and how to prevent that happening in the future.

---

Given that she didn't want to get involved in Desiertan anti-magic politics Akemi hid herself in Mura's shadow, although when he decided to abruptly submerge himself and head for the labyrinth under the lake she detached herself from him and instead flowed through the shadows that were formed by the water fracturing the light of the sun. Passing through the layer of earth that separated the water from the tunnels beneath Akemi found herself another shadow to hide in some distance away from Mura. This place didn't look like it was being well-kept, but that just meant there were lots of nooks and crannies for shadows to form in. Although she was somewhat worried that the roof might collapse and the place would get flooded.

But more than that, there was something strange here... she could tell there were several lifeforms down here, but not all of them seemed human. This ability to sense souls and emotions was definitely useful, but it could be confusing as well. The other lifeforms... they seemed complex enough to have intelligence comparable to humans. That didn't narrow it down much, as there were many sapient creatures in this world. In Desierto, though... possibly djinni?

Her thoughts were distracted as she noticed that Mura's shadow was grasped by some kind of magic trap that must have been triggered by his entrance. That same trap also tried to grab Akemi's shadow, but as she was already a shadow herself currently the trap misfired. Which meant that at least Akemi didn't have to fight her own copy, but she didn't think she could help Mura either. Well, she could, but it might be more complicated than just crushing his copy. "They animated your shadow but it's still linked to you. If I as an outsider destroy it the link might cause you to be taken out as well." A dangerous trap: even if you assaulted this base with a large group of powerful individuals, if everyone was forced to fight their own copy both numbers and power were negated.

"I'll see if I can disable the trap, but for the moment you'll have to fight it yourself." While the trap could utilize Mura's own energy to keep the copy alive it would still require an external element. There wasn't anyone around them, so possibly some kind of ward. Akemi considered just leaving Mura to duke it out with his shadow while she went ahead with the job, but it would probably reflect badly on her if she left the guild master to be incapacitated by his own shadow.

Current Appearance:

WC: 1,163
PWC: 6,047
TWC: 11,377

@Mura Kensho

His shadow? His shadow had sprung to life by a spell? If the world of magic would just take a break from advancing…

Thankfully, Mura read the last kick as part of its limits… that was a half-hearted kick. It might’ve copied his strength – maybe even his magic – but that half-assed, careless take on excessive works of effort… it was way too relatable! For a moment, Mura almost cackled at the sight with a hand covering his mouth as he commented the realization: “Yo, d-don’t tell me my own shadow has my bad habits, too?” What a sad fate for such a prominent spel- what was that stance?!

“Shi-!”

A steel-formed, one-edge katana had grown out of the shadow’s hands as it was held up in the air, illustrating a recognizable stance that Kyuken was keen on taking. That was why Mura leapt out of the way to watch the disappearance of the shadow’s form. That was undoubtedly Kyuken’s stance… the Niten Ichiken-ryū[1], just like the one Mura always used. However, the disappearance of the shadow’s form had to be explained – there was no output of mana in that attack… then again, how could one explain the silk threads in the air-

“That’s Temari!” Mura’s mouth exclaimed with Kyuken’s deeper voice, swiftly readying Harukami in his own Niten Ichiken-ryū stance. What Akemi informed him meant that she couldn’t interfere against the shadow, for it was still linked to his life and very being... openly rebelling against its caster. The threads in the air were auric in nature, and Mura made quick work of them with Harukami’s sharp edge flickering in the air. Kyuken called that Temari[2], the name of a technique that Mura had never seen before... wait-

“You never showed me that move before, Kyuken.”
“Oh, well, we never really needed it before, did we? Also, I have favorites – a book full of moves, and I’m bound to forget a few...”
“Still, the shadow’s able to use them even without a Danketsu[3] with you-“

There it was again, approaching the Wizard Saint at full force. Its steel blade was spun in a circle in front of him, opening a portal to gusts of wind circling in a cylinder straight at the shaman’s position. That was a move that he recognized clearly as daylight – Kyuken’s favorite technique, Gokōjin[4]! A condensed gust of cutting wind in a cylinder-shaped form shot straight at the target from long-range, requiring otherworldly strength to perform without the use of Magic. And just like that, Mura countered it before it even crossed half the distance towards him with his and Kyuken’s own, authentic Halo Blade.

He had enough of standing in awe at the sight of his shadow’s finesse with the blade- he did notice a change in its form after he countered it... it looked a little transparent. Huh? Losing strength, already? he mused himself in his simple mind shared by Kyuken for the moment. Is it because of our counter-attack Gokōjin? Their thoughts weren’t left in peace, however, for the shadow began stepping towards him in photo-inducing confusion. Its body split up into multiple after-images that rang a terrible buzz in the dark air, pushing the shaman’s perceptive skills to the fullest. Before his next move, however, the real Mura channeled a spell through Harukami and made it ring a deep, crimson contour that amplified its strength. A Forbidden Weapon Enchantment.

His eyesight was failing him with the after-images, but his Magical Sensory was not... in good spirits, he caught up to the shadow’s approach with after-image steps himself. Ohhhhh! I haven’t seen us perform Zanzōdan[5] in a while! Let’s keep on mirroring it – I can see that it’s working…! And Kyuken’s hunch was bullseye; the shadow’s dark tone resembling Mura’s getup began fading bit by bit… so they didn’t even have to completely defeat it? Quite a fun weakness for a spell…

Once the two faced each other in the middle, a surge of rage ran through the shadow’s face. Mura recognized that facial expression and began straining his biceps violently, until they shook in confusion. Veins popped up on his forehead, and three, ferocious slashes met each other and pushed wind, debris and foothold away. What a violent Tatari no Mai[6], it made the shaman smile a little. Although, it was such a violent rush of three slashes that he had to step back, and so he did… breaking the mirror dance that he was having with his own shadow. The more he mirrored it, the more it returned to become his actual shadow… and bits were beginning to form behind him, where his shadow’s real form really should’ve stayed.

The shadow had no intentions of helping its owner out with the mirror dance, so it began charging once more. It looked like it was readying up for an Oshikiri[7], but right when Mura stepped to the side at blinding speed, he was met with a wall of wind that stopped him in his tracks. No, that was a new technique… and his inner ghost warned him: “Jump! Let me do the same!”

Mura just barely jumped in time for his shadow to close him in on a dome of cutting wind. How it was able to manifest that without the use of Magic was mysterious… was Kyuken always that strong? Was that him in his prime or something? To think that it can even use Karura[8] in that form is breathtaking! But half of its body’s faded away – feeling any better, Mura? The shaman simply nodded to respond to what sounded like himself, noticing the shadow that began to reappear behind him… where it belonged. While in the air, the shaman felt like it was second nature to spin his blade and form a dome of clouded wind around the shadow’s position to mimic its last move, processing the mechanics of Kyuken’s move Karura.

…

Akemi didn’t fall for the Rebelling Shadow spell. Whoever had cast this spell was frankly astonished by the development of the fight and attempted to finish things faster, especially now that the Wizard Saint had figured out how to counter the Rebelling Shadow. Obviously, they’d attempt to rid her from the equation first… and they’d decide to do so with another Shadow Spell. Akemi would soon notice with her enhanced senses a very simple yet solid, dense dagger fly towards the back of her head – an obvious blind spot for most bipedal entities, surely. A sneak attack of that sort wouldn’t be enough to hurt someone like her, but it was a trickster move… the dagger itself was but a flying shadow, and the caster expected her to dodge the fake dagger in one way or another, allowing its shadow – which was the real dagger – to fly up towards the joint of her throat and chin and quickly finish her of-

No, the caster could not hold back anymore. Yearning for a bloodbath, the hiding entity spawned various piercing weapons all around Akemi, but what was a real weapon and what was a shadow? What could she block, and what were feints? Even if they were easy enough to simply parry or deflect, every weapon held a shadow underneath, above, to the sides and behind her that qualified just as much as a weapon as the shadow-casting weapons themselves. It was, honestly, a spell of mass confusion, meant to catch her off guard at one point for another, finishing spell to take place…

Some kind of grid was forming around her. It was black, too, so with ordinary eyes, one wouldn’t be able to spot it, but Akemi was certainly surrounded by a grid. If she didn’t hurry, then her body would be mapped out in the palm of the human shadow lurking near the exit of the cavern… and with the spell that he had cast, Tracing Roots, Akemi’s vital, organic weaknesses could be exploited from afar…

WC: 1,322
TWC: 12,699

[1] Niten Ichiken-ryū = Two Heavens, One Sword Style
[2] Temari = Garn Ball
[3] Danketsu = Union
[4] Gokōjin = Halo Blade
[5] Zanzōdan = Phantom Step
[6] Tatari no Mai = Dance of Wrath
[7] Oshikiri = Weighted Slash
[8] Karura = Dragon Eater

Akemi raised an eyebrow as Mura was seemingly rather surprised by the idea that his shadow would mimic not only his shape and abilities but also his habits. "Of course it does. Your shadow is manifested by you and your influence upon the world around you. If it didn't share your behaviour it wouldn't be a proper shadow." Well, it wasn't like Mura did a lot with shadow or dark magic so far as she knew, so it wasn't surprising that he hadn't considered it before. One's shadow was bonded with them, more so than anything else: it was always by your side, it would always act in accordance with your own actions. Your shadow was, in a certain sense, you. So if someone pulled out your shadow and manifested it as its own entity it would be like an identical copy of the original.

Of course, that also had some interesting side effects if someone actually tried to perfectly manifest your shadow. If it was a true manifestation and not some corrupted imitation your shadow would not, for instance, do anything that went against your very being. In Mura's case, for instance, she doubted the shadow would actually kill any members from Fairy Tail. Except possibly himself.

It also meant that shadows could be rather predictable. If you knew the owner of the shadow very well you could also tell what the shadow would do, and if it was your own shadow staying calm would allow you to read your shadow like an open book... unless you didn't know yourself as well as you thought.

Akemi had once faced her own shadow, and it had been... an interesting experience. It was supposed to be a fight, but instead, it developed into a much more peaceful direction. Possibly just a side effect of Akemi aiming for logical and effective actions rather than just swinging weapons wildly.

That aside, even as she sought for the anchor of the trap so she could disrupt it she didn't miss the opportunity to watch Mura fight his shadow. She could learn a lot about his techniques and habits from this, which was always useful. Of course, it quickly became apparent that the shadow was limiting itself to the sword techniques that Mura used in combination with that samurai spirit of his, which limited the scope of learning somewhat. It was also interesting to see how Mura himself reacted to it: he didn't seem to be aware of everything that the samurai spirit could pull off and didn't realize that the shadow could use his techniques without using magic as long as the magic that kept the shadow manifested was still in effect.

At least he was quick on the uptake when it came to dealing with the shadow. If someone had disrupted the bond between himself and his shadow and manifested it, he could re-establish the bond by having their actions match as they would when they were connected. As long as the shadow didn't catch him off-guard and nobody interfered he should be able to make his way through this without much difficulty. Which might make it sound like the trap wasn't very effective, but most people wouldn't fare so well when facing their own shadow, if only because the idea disturbed and confused them, which affected their performance.

She didn't have endless time to observe the fight, however. As her golden eyes were observing the guild master and his shadow dance together a dagger suddenly flew at her from behind. Without giving much sign of having noticed it she smoothly stepped to the side to let it whistle past her face without touching her, only for the shadow to shoot upwards and try to pierce her throat. With a frown she raised her bandaged hand and knocked the dagger away, only to find that she was now surrounded by more flying weapons, all heading straight towards her. And she could sense that there was a great amount of shadow magic involved, creating copies and fakes and mixing the real deal with its shadow mimics.

Ducking low Akemi would dodge the first barrage, after which she'd start weaving about without really changing her location, deftly spinning and bending and evading the endless barrage of sharp projectiles. It could almost be described as a dance, the way she smoothly shifted from one stance to another to let all the weapons pass by harmlessly, but the speed at which she moved would mean that most people would not have the luxury to admire the precision and grace with which she moved, her raven hair swirling around her, somehow never disturbed by the weapons either.

That was, until she jumped up, curled up and spun in mid-air, and dove into her own shadow, disappearing without a trace.

The individual who'd been forming the grid around her would be alarmed by this, quickly scanning their surroundings for magic activity, only to hear an emotionless voice behind them. "Found you." The next thing the caster knew, their throat was slit open and blood was pouring out, a sanguine foam bubbling up as they tried to speak but could only let out a soft gurgle before collapsing on the spot. The grid, and the cocoon of projectiles, both faded away with no trace left behind other than the real weapons which clattered onto the ground.

Akemi was a specialist in special operations. That involved stealth, infiltration, information gathering, assassinations, and ambushes, but it also meant countering similar activities from her enemies. Someone who so recklessly used their magic to try and suppress her, confident in her inability to react, was easy to sniff out and eliminate. Their dedication to trying to catch her made them less careful, and then they died.

Meanwhile, it looked like Mura was almost done reclaiming his shadow. It might have gone faster if Akemi hadn't been interrupted in her source for the anchor, but they'd have to make do with what they had. Instead, her powers might be best suited for a different task...

Bringing her hands together Akemi focused. Her consciousness spread out, touching all the shadows and dark in the area. Shapes and curves and planes expanded inside her mind, as keenly grasped as if she was feeling them with her own fingers. Pulling her hands apart black wisps seeped out from the bandages around her left hand, gathering and coalescing between her palms before expanding, the amorphous mass taking on a distinct shape.

As she completed the spell, Akemi got a complete map of the area around them, formed from the data provided by the ever-present dark. As she waited for Mura to join her she studied it, memorizing the layout and getting a grasp of how many enemies they were facing down here and how strong they might be.

Of course, the moment Mura joined her the first reaction he'd get would be a look along with a question.

"Karura... something you want to tell me?"

Current Appearance:

WC: 1,166
PWC: 7,213
TWC: 13,865

@Mura Kensho

It was glad news to know that his shadow was just like him – a traditionalist of some sorts who leaned towards using the esoteric arts of swordsmanship despite commanding otherworldly magic. His shadow was relatively easier to deal with than the human mages from earlier, so in the midst of awaiting its next actions, he threw a glance towards Akemi and her predicaments… and it confirmed that someone was actually hiding around here. How annoying, the fact that he couldn’t pick up on their presence with his Magical Sensory alone…

Once Akemi dove into a shadow again, he smiled. His shadow, however, wasn’t smiling and attempted to dash forward once more in a linear track. It was getting rather impatient… and Mura didn’t want to see himself as impatient! He wanted to have a good image of himself, even if shown by a shadowy manifestation that tried to kill him. “Now you’re just insulting me…” he sighed before lifting his blade up in an arc. With both hands on the handle, he slammed Harukami straight down like a sledgehammer, meeting his shadow’s equal attempt at rising its darker version of Harukami straight up like pulling weed from the earth.

Mura’s Weighted Slash and the shadow’s Mole, two enantiomers of an arcing slash, met each other on the middle between them, but Mura’s blade didn’t meet anything in the way and saw his blade continuing to slash down the shadow’s face. That wasn’t… a mirror image. How come it just braked its advance like that? Did the caster just give up on trying to kill Mura, or was the shadow distracted by something? When his blade met its face and dug down its torso, the shadow dispelled into black particles that leaked away into nothingness, granting the fight a rather anticlimactic ending. Then again, he couldn’t complain… it was weird fighting one’s own shadow.

Speaking of, he did check behind his back to see if the shadow had returned, and hallelujah, it had! Although, the experience would definitely make him check a few times each day, just to be on the safe side…

“Well, that was an experience! I say we’ve heavily downplayed ourselves, lately!”
“Good for us, it didn’t use any of my spells… yeah, if it used my new spell, I doubt that we could’ve held our own for that long…”
“… O-Oh, yeah, I forgot that for a second… urrghhh, what a terror that could’ve been. Maybe it wasn’t able to?”

With that in the back of his head for now, he moved over to Akemi and noticed the formation of blocks and figures between her hands. It suddenly dawned on him what that was – a map of sorts, even revealing an empty cell with ridged walls much like the cavern that they found themselves in at this very moment. If he were a betting person, which he seldom was, then he’d guess that she mapped the areas marked by shadows around them between her hands to locate other, lurking shits hiding… but after what Mura had witnessed from the marauders turned arch-mages earlier, the potential of Shadow Magic just grew indefinitely. Infinitely, in fact… it wasn’t unlikely that Akemi could achieve everything with her Magic.

Henceforth, due to his deep thoughts, he was caught lacking once she suddenly glared at him with a jab at Kyuken’s technique Karura. “Wha’? Oh, you mean-“

“Forget about it, I’m not changing the name!” Kyuken protested in an uncharacteristically brave manner, throwing dagger-like glances back at Akemi, “It’s cool, creative, and I used it to slay plenty of beasts back in my days! And so what if I’ve never killed a Dragon with it?! Names don’t always convey the purpose!”

So Karura was a move that Kyuken used to slay beasts instead of humans… and he had decided to name it after the divine beasts from Midijin faith – specifically the red-skinned, golden-winged ones who were just surprisingly referred to as warmongers above the norms of humans and other races on Earthland, and who just happened to feast on one, single species – dragons.

“… Meeeeeeeh,” the shaman let out in a tired sigh, shrugging and stretching his hands in indifference, “It’s just a fangasm from a senile rōnin with a wild fantasy-“

“You liked the name, too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“-And it’s not like Kyuken hates dragons… say, Midi is buzzing with rōnin down south, and they mostly wear long haori or robes with dragons drawn all over them. Trust me, he’s a huge fan-“

“O-Of course, I am! What creature of legend is cooler than majestic Dragons!?”

Suddenly drawing a one eighty, Kyuken’s eyes were sparkling in joy, and the tension arisen in him had completely died out. Good job, Mura. “A-Anyway, got any-“

“Those two… are they- no, no, no, they look more foreign…”

“-leads? I can’t sense anyone around right now, but if I were into Shadow Magic that much, then I’d probably set a base even lower than here.”

Another voice talked over Mura’s for a brief moment, but Mura had continued with his sentence as if he didn’t just hear that clear, raspy voice. “… They cannot hear me? Curse this realm, and curse my impotence… for falling into my own trap this easily! What an embarrassment, so shameful, so, so shameful… Laa hawla wa laa ghuuwata illa billahil-Adheem.”


Only then did a figure pass by the two, a grey-skinned individual with a slightly de-humanoid composition… albeit still bipedal and recognizable as somewhat humanoid, the entity’s torso was twisted into unique patterns save for the center of its chest, which was flat and solid as granite. The creature looked malnourished, but that wasn’t the problem… and despite its relatively not-so-good-looking-in-terms-of-human-standards appearance, it did wear a few accessories that other human beings had been seen wearing here in Desierto; round, thin earrings of gold and, weirdest of all, a golden ornament in the shape of a crescent moon clawed into the skin of the creature’s forehead. A few rings of gold were also embedded into its lips, nose and cheeks, and its eyes were jade-green and lacking of any pupils.

The creature slowly turned its face towards them, unbeknownst that while Mura paid no mind to its existence any one bit, the one next to him – the sorceress who was equally as bestowed with the gift of darkness as these ‘hidden ones’, ‘veiled ones’, also known as Djinn in the Desiertan tongue, were. It was thought that Djinn were hidden from the eyes of every mortal being in Earthland due to their genetic and arcane nature, but… Akemi could definitely see the individual glaring at her.

“I do not know if you can hear me, at the very least… but you two must get out of here now. These are sacred grounds, and they have been desecrated enough already…”

…

There really was a huge, delicately mapped base further below the group. These Shadow Mages were still human, so they preferred some comfort and luxury in their new base, which was so deep under the lake that they thought themselves hidden from all eyes… just like these Djinns whose home they had invaded. How they had been able to defeat the Djinns at all, and how they had been able to obtain these Black Scrolls themselves, was yet but a mystery waiting to be unfurled… but one thing was certain, however.

They noticed that their friend hadn’t returned from patrolling the ancient ruins yet… and that brought them bad omens. They were alert of someone having infiltrated their base and awaited their intrusion into the lower floors decorated in the smoothest sandstone that you could ever find in all of Desierto. Gold and silver hung all over the walls and floors, with red carpets to keep your feet warm, long tunnel systems to rid of smokes from the fireplaces, the strong smell of musk, chili and other spices and the cracking sound of cooking the skin of ox legs. It was a party down there…

WC: 1,334
TWC: 15,199

It seemed like Mura was successful in defeating his own shadow. That was good: since it was a manifestation of his own self, being able to defeat it meant that Mura had a proper understanding of himself, or at least his abilities and weaknesses. A manifested shadow, while effective at mimicking one's skills, did not necessarily share the intelligence of the original: after all, a shadow matched your external self, not your internal self. While the actions you took were in themselves an indication of what happened inside of your head, that was only a rudimentary assessment which could be surpassed by the original.

Well, it wasn't like Akemi had much doubt that Mura would be able to pull it off. While she might consider him a bit reckless and not necessarily thorough, she didn't have any reason to question his overall competence. Even that time when she had to save his life he was up against a dangerous opponent, where many others would certainly have been slain as well. The only question then was how he had managed to get stabbed with his own weapon, which either had to be the most incredible stroke of misfortune or his opponent had been looking for an opportunity to humiliate him.

But that wasn't important. What was important was the data that Akemi was receiving and adding to her three-dimensional map of the world around them. Their direct surroundings appeared to be clear: the spellcaster she'd eliminated just now must have been the only guard. Given that this was a secret hideout and the guard would have been able to easily take care of most intruders in combination with the trap Mura had triggered, that wasn't entirely surprising, although it did speak of some amount of overconfidence on the side of the marauders. That only worked in favour of Fairy Tail, even if Akemi was too cautious to just assume everything would go smoothly.

Aside from mapping all the shadows and dark in the area she was also sensing all magic and manifesting that. Her innate talent for magic sensory allowed her to fairly accurately figure out which magic sources were traps, which were objects, and which were people, and represent them as such. The ruins the two of them were currently in were more of a guard post than a part of the true base, which was deeper inside. That base appeared to be built around a central room with side passages and dormitories, more of an underground communal house than a military fort. That meant that all their targets were gathered relatively close together, but also that it would be difficult to take them out one by one.

Her expression came with a raised eyebrow when Kyuken defended the name of his technique so fiercely. She had no clue why he insisted on calling his technique after a bunch of entities known for eating dragons, but it was interesting to see the ghosts be so invested in it. "I'd consider it more creative if the name had a stronger connection to the technique. Whether symbolic or literal, a cool name which fails to describe the technique accurately is just grandstanding." Well, she didn't mind that much, all things considered: she just had been curious what kind of defence Mura would bring forth upon being questioned about it. Apparently, it was Kyuken who was responsible for the name, and as she might have suspected he didn't have much on his mind other than a desire to sound cool.

She was about to reply to Mura when she heard the other voice, faint in some way but still clear in another. It went straight through Mura as if it didn't care about him talking, and the way that Mura kept talking also made it look like he didn't care much either. The voice had an impression of age behind it, devoid of youthfulness. It also kept talking, and then said something which could only be the ancient Desiertan tongue. She made a swift, cutting motion to indicate that Mura should stop talking as she concentrated on the presence that was now coalescing in the room. She shifted her weight, balancing on the balls of her feet as the three-dimensional map dispersed between her hands.

The figure was strange, and she imagined that many would describe it as disturbing. It looked vaguely like a human, but with very blatantly twisted features, too blatant for it to merely be a lack of understanding of what a human looked like. Alien, in a sense, but also malformed. While Akemi was ready to strike she didn't immediately do so: shadows swirled around her bandaged arm, but the figure didn't seem to be acting in a hostile manner, and she couldn't sense any overt magical activity either. The slightest suspicious act could have her moving in for the kill, but she wanted to first learn what had just showed its face.

Her ears twitched as she listened to the entity, then glanced towards Mura, who might be reacting to Akemi's behaviour but in no way directly acknowledged the entity. Strange... Something that was hidden away here, unseen by most? Akemi wasn't well-versed enough in Desiertan mythology to be certain of what she was facing here. A guardian spirit? But those wouldn't be hidden unless they wanted to be. A lost soul, bound to this place? Possibly, but the entity didn't just not look human, it didn't look like any normal person. If it was a bound spirit it had to belong to an unusual being. Regardless...

"We'll leave once we've cleared out the infestation." She said curtly before turning her attention back to Mura. "It looks like the other marauders are aware that we're here, or at least that something is happening. If we want to retain some of the element of surprise we'll have to strike quickly. Most of them are gathered close to each other, either in the main hall of their base or in adjacent rooms. I can bring us to any location within that room." These marauders were relying on their mystical shadow magic, after all, which meant that even inside their base there were plenty of shadows present. And all shadows belonged to Akemi.

"I suggest that we enter together, and that you use the opportunity to launch a powerful assault while making yourself a visible target. The weaker ones shall quickly be taken out, and the stronger ones will be forced onto the defensive and focus their attention on you. I shall use the opportunity to locate their leader, or leaders, and eliminate them." Akemi would at all times prefer to be the specialist who did the behind the scenes work while others dedicated themselves to the task of frontal confrontations. Although she doubted that the leaders of this band would be easily eliminated: while they were at a massive disadvantage against her, they couldn't be weak either. Even if they might be very foolish to dabble in arts they didn't understand.

Current Appearance:

WC: 1,171
PWC: 8,384
TWC: 16,370

@Mura Kensho

Mura’s mouth zipped immediately. That look on Akemi’s face was too damn sharp to be just an attempt to signal him a feeling of annoyance… something had just happened. Mura, despite his refined senses, hadn’t noticed what exactly occurred in the middle of his words, but Akemi caught onto it – due to that, he held his breath for a moment, wondering just what Akemi was looking at… she wasn’t looking at a nearby, suddenly arriving guardian or glutton who heard their commotion and would’ve come to check up on the slain dog from before. No, that hadn’t happened…

When she returned her gaze back to him, he didn’t know what to say. A brow was raised a bit, but that was all that came out of the shaman after that sudden interruption. “…”

“We’ll leave once we’ve cleared out the infestation.”

“Oh…” No way was she talking to him, not when that just came out of nowhere after telling him to be silent – yes, he could’ve told from that glance earlier, facial expressions said a lot – but what on earth was happening? Who was she talking to? Akemi was… no, wait a second, maybe the shaman could knit up an explanation. It was likely, yes, more than likely that she had talked to someone else other than him, and at this point in time, Mura shouldn’t trust his own senses as much… not when dealing with ridiculous Shadow Magic of this caliber. Someone else with extraordinary veiling skills had talked with her for a brief moment, hence why she promised to leave this place once their mission was over. Fucking strange, but you know what, it made sense…

With their window of opportunity for a proper ambush closing in, they had to strike now. If Akemi were to take a closer look at Mura’s face, she’d notice veins beginning to press through his skin… and a certainly high pressure of mana was generated with particles of Ethernano flying into him from all sides. For a brief second, the likelihood that he was about to explode made itself painfully present as an aura, but the aura dissipated just as quickly… and the high concentration of mana too along with it.

In his still organic right hand was a dark-greyish orb, a perfect sphere holding no scrapes or marks of the world around it. It was vibrating at first, but its form began to shrink more and more, and with that the vibrations faltered away until the orb was a perfectly still sphere. The concentration of mana was almost asinine, and the orb appeared to possess all kinds of elements flickering through the eyes of its witnesses at lightning speed. In the end, it was but a single orb of highly condensed mana, untethered by elemental strengths and weaknesses – and at the same time strengthened by all of these at the same time.

“… Only one Truthseeker, huh? Hmpf,” the shaman scoffed at his less than expected result before gazing into Akemi’s ever observant eyes, “I’m ready now. Take us to the outer rooms - we’ll take out all those rooms surrounding the main hall first, making sure that the remaining enemies gather in roughly the same place. Will make my job a little easier…”

WC: 543
TWC: 16,913

It was clear that Mura wasn't privy to the appearance or the words of the strange figure that had just shown up. That was curious in itself, since even if the figure relied on shadow magic to persist in this world they should still have some kind of spiritual presence that the shaman should be able to detect. However, Akemi didn't think Mura was faking his ignorance. Did this strange figure know how to hide not just their physical presence but their very self? Akemi knew how to do it, but it was a very rare and specialized skill even for someone with access to potent shadow magic. It required a deep understanding of the nature of shadows and the skills to enforce that nature upon reality to get the desired effect. Compared to that, something as simple as binding someone by trapping their shadow was child's play.

But all that really told her was that this figure either was talented with shadow magic, or was the target of someone else's advanced magic. This lost spirit might have some opinions on everything that was going on inside this ancient and almost forgotten place, but they didn't seem to have any capacity to actually interfere, which also made their opinion less important. What knowledge Akemi might be able to extract from the figure could wait until later, when there were no hostile entities left for them to contend with.

Mura's next move was rather curious to watch, as at first, it seemed like he was about to blow himself up with sheer magic overload before he forced it all into a small sphere. "Try not to bring the roof down on our heads." Was all she said. She didn't know what a Truthseeker was, but she could tell that if Mura wasn't careful with that thing it'd result in an explosion. It seemed to follow a similar theory as the Etherion: a composite of countless different elements to create the closest approximation to pure, destructive, magical force. Of course, compared to Etherion this thing was tiny, but one couldn't expect any individual to be capable of replicating that amount of force by themselves without some serious preparation.

"Bringing us both down to clear out the side chambers would quickly alert them. You'll have to act quickly." She understood Mura's desire to take care of all of them in one fell swoop, but they'd have to make do with what was realistically possible. She could pull all the weaker ones forcibly into the main chamber, but the stronger ones could resist the attempt if they were skilled enough and use the opportunity to strike back.

However, she was following Mura's orders on this one. She'd just have to do her best to eliminate all of them as quickly as possible. "It seems like these side chambers also connect to each other, so you can make your way from one to the other without having to break the walls down. I'll drop you off in the northernmost chamber and you can make your way around the main chamber clockwise. I'll do the same starting from the south." None of the presences down below seemed individually powerful enough to be a serious threat to either herself or Mura: as long as they didn't get reckless it was safe to split up and speed up the process of clearing up the side chambers.

If Mura had no other comments Akemi would step close enough to have her shadow swallow the both of them, disappearing from this guard post and shifting to a location down below. The northernmost chamber had a screen behind which she could drop Mura off, giving the guild master a small moment to orient himself before he launched his assault without immediately being attacked by the marauders in the room. However, they could definitely sense his presence, so he'd still have to act fast.

As for herself, she shifted towards the southernmost chamber. From the looks of it, it was some kind of kitchen area: it was larger than most side chambers, and there were pipelines leading all the way to the lake upstairs. There were three people inside, the only ones that remained in the kitchens after the alarm had been sounded. One of them looked to be busy trying to clean up, but the other two were arguing with each other, one holding a large sword and the other trying to unroll a scroll.

Akemi prided herself on only killing those that were targeted for elimination for the job. She was professional, cold-blooded, and logical. Those that enjoyed the act of killing were adrenaline junkies she looked down upon. However, so far the message had been clear: all of these marauders had been signed up for death. If the government of Desierto caught them they would most likely be summarily executed, with or without a trial. Mura also hadn't shown any inclination towards sparing their lives, so either the guild master was more bloodthirsty than Akemi had pictured him to be, or he knew that there was no point in trying to take them down alive.

She could possibly incapacitate them all without killing them just to keep refining her control... but honestly, she felt like just clearing out this infestation would be more beneficial for everyone in the long run. They'd just have to make sure they don't kill anyone who might hold valuable information, at least not immediately.

Her first target was the man with the scroll. He had managed to unfurl it and was already beginning to chant something. Most likely some kind of trap for herself and Mura. Shooting out of the man's shadow Akemi's arm quickly became enveloped in malevolent shadows even as she grabbed her victim by the face and slammed him to the ground, a sharp crack resounding through the room as the sudden impact broke the man's skull. The woman with the large sword let out a startled sound as she lifted the weapon and charged in. Akemi grabbed the scroll the man had dropped as he himself was dropped and flung it towards the woman, then lashed out with her claw from behind the scroll.

The woman managed to block the strike, swinging the sword with a surprising amount of force that actually knocked Akemi's claw aside. She then lifted the weapon again and shouted something in Desiertan as she swung it overhead while closing the gap. Akemi's first response was to dodge backward, but she then noticed the shadow magic that flowed around and extended from the sword. While invisible to the eyes of someone else, to Akemi it was quite clear that the actual reach of the sword was significantly larger than its shape might imply. However, the answer to this was quite simple: the raven-haired assassin stepped to the side and then shot forward at blurring speed, the talons of her claw burying themselves in the woman's stomach and sticking out from her back even as the weapon fell to the ground.

Pushing the corpse to the side Akemi immediately moved onto the third, the one who'd been cleaning up. They'd been trying to hide, but their attempts were fruitless as Akemi shot out of their shadow and cleanly slit their throat.

No time to inspect the place. After making sure each of her targets had their throats cut open to minimize the possibility of any of them surviving, Akemi moved onto the next chamber. From the shadows she struck again and again, releasing waves of black smoke and moving at blinding speed as her claw ripped through weapons, armour, and bodies, consuming any shadows or dark the marauders threw at her. She wanted to be done with her half of the work before Mura was, so she had time to get out of the way in case he actually decided to detonate that Truthseeker of his.

Current Appearance:

WC: 1,319
PWC: 9,703
TWC: 17,232

@Mura Kensho

Mura nodded quickly, accepting his task of hurrying up with the takedowns as the two Fairy Tail Wizards wouldn’t exactly have that much time to attack before the upper echelons of the gang underneath would be alerted and begin to enact any would-be countermeasures. Without any further comments from him, Akemi’s shadow swallowed the both of them, allowing the Guildmaster to experience being inside a shadow for the first time in his life… s-second time, maybe? Akemi did something similar back in Tenrou Island. He remembered that. Felt like his limbs had no mass at all, blending in with the surface that the shadow was travelling on and through. It was a strange feeling, but… an interesting source of inspiration.

Suddenly, his limbs gained mass, and he was spat out behind a veil at the northernmost chamber. Akemi had continued further down towards the southern chamber, so Mura took a moment to await her arrival at the desired position. Once he went on the offensive, the others would likely be alerted quickly – given that most of the enemies that they had fought up until now possessed esoteric Shadow Magic, Mura couldn’t take any chances. There was no time for laying back.

The Truthseeker was floating right next to his face, its form spherical without flaw. It quickly dove down to his unsheathed Harukami and melted onto the metal blade, coating it in a dark hue and elongating the katana into an ōdachi, long enough to reach a few more enemies per swing. The blue samurai ghost knew what to do as well, merging into Mura’s back and performing another Danketsu before the shaman stepped out in one, swift motion…

There were five bandits in this room, two of them holding a smaller, black scroll. With one, horizontal slash, Mura sliced through their necks and was even fast enough to surprise the scroll-holders before they could cast any spells. The scrolls fell to the ground, unfurling their contents and scriptures – Mura picked them up and safeguarded them behind his hip for later.

The sound of splattering blood alerted a few on the other side of the opening from which Mura stormed through, coming face to face with a black veil of magic. They expected to portal him away with that Shadow Spell, but they didn’t expect him to be able to cut right through the veil and make it dissipate in the air, revealing a vertical divide through the caster’s body. Within the blink of an eye, the three other members in the room where beheaded as well, barely even getting the chance to recognize any pain.

Some of the members carried scrolls of different sizes, but they were all black and held strange carvings and ornaments. Mura didn’t have time to inspect them, though, and simply picked up how many he could carry on his hips. He did spot another entrance leading to a much bigger room, thus realizing that he was about to finish up his half of the rooms already, but a sudden beam of black energy intercepted his path and began to travel towards him at high speed, beckoning the shaman to dive underground for a moment.

The beam had stretched out much further than that, also reaching the other side of the complex where Akemi was wrapping up her half, trying to slam her down too. The beam was chaotic and would surely burn or explode on impact, as shown by the erasure of the stone walls that kept the complex up. With the walls getting crushed down like that, it looked like the perpetrator attempted to bury them all alive, but new, smaller pillars were raised from the ground to keep the walls standing. A quick response from Mura’s Earth Magic.

Still, the black beam stopped not at circling around the rooms from the middle of the large hall. An almost naked individual wearing only a crotch veil and golden piercings was manifesting the beam from between his clenched fists, while it suddenly felt like… time was slowing down? No, no, Mura could suddenly see after-images of himself, but they lingered on and on and on… indefinitely. It braked him in his tracks, thinking that he fell under yet another Shadow Spell, for not only he but the other remaining enemies left after-images with every single step. At first, it was revealed that they were always at the front, so Mura found no issue in cutting them down at last, but the after-images didn’t disappear! If they moved around too much, then at one point, they wouldn’t be able to see anything…

The pierced Archmage in the middle of the hall condensed the beam into a dual-handed club and slammed it down into the ground, casting a barrier that froze his own shadow down completely – it wouldn’t mimic his actions afterwards. If anyone tried to melt into his shadow, then they too would not be able to move…

WC: 823
TWC: 18,055

The majority of the enemies within this hideout weren't much more of a challenge than the ones they'd encountered out in the desert. Only a few of them offered more resistance, relying on stranger and more creative instances of shadow magic combined with more power and talent than the mooks, who she could easily get rid of with a single swipe from her claws. The stronger ones... Well, Akemi was still too strong for them, and beyond that they faced the issue that any attack directed at her that she couldn't just evade was instead swallowed, turned into more energy for the dark claw assassin.

However, she could also tell that the strongest marauders would be found within the great hall, which she and Mura were leaving for last. While that gave these strongest adversaries time to react, it was necessary to clean up the side chambers to ensure that the two Fairy Tail members would not be caught from behind while they were dealing with the more significant threats. None of the enemies they'd encountered so far could stand up to them one on one, so numbers were a greater threat than individual ability.

It was easy for powerful individuals to forget that power came in many ways, and often it came in the form of many weaker individuals banding together to perform feats that were difficult even for the strongest.

That said, she was correct in assuming that the stronger individuals in the central chamber would not be sitting still while all their subordinates got eliminated. As she was clearing up the last of the chambers that were under her responsibility, raising dark spikes from the shadows of her victims to pierce their torsos and bleed them out, a massive burst of dark magic began to sweap through the place, first aiming for Mura but then sweeping around towards Akemi's position. A beam, black as obsidian, swept through everything without slowing down or thinning, demolishing everything in its path. A rather crude application of dark magic, but effective nonetheless.

On the other hand, it was also very vulnerable to being countered.

When the beam reached her Akemi reached up her dark claw, the talons swelling up and wrapping around it. Upon contact the beam shuddered and distorted, falling apart into thick streams of dark energy that were drawn into the claw and absorbed. Whatever properties the beam might have had, its core element was still dark. And with such a massive amount of it concentrated to cause such a destructive effect, there was no reason for Akemi to not devour it. If she was a more emotional person she might have felt elated at the amount of energy that was flowing into her, not only negating any stamina she might have lost ripping her way through the chambers but pushing her significantly beyond her usual limits. While it might not be as powerful as the strongest magics that she or Mura could conjure, it definitely spoke of a powerful foe she couldn't just blitz.

It seemed that the man responsible for the beam had realized that he was just feeding Akemi his magic, because he retracted the beam and reformed it into the shape of a club. Most likely it would retain most of its destructive properties, in which case it would be unwise to come into direct contact with the weapon unless Akemi was prepared to consume that as well. Wrapping herself in shadows Akemi turned invisible as she considered her next more. That man was already fully aware of their presence, and strong enough that a surprise attack was unlikely to work until he was already distracted.

While that man was preparing himself for a frontal fight another shadow spell was spread out over the hideout, one with a curious effect: anything that moved was leaving behind afterimages that simply didn't dissipate, quickly cluttering the place with many images. Mura's rock pillars kept the complex from collapsing, but there was still a lot of debris flying around as a consequence of the beam, not to mention those marauders who had been gathered in the main hall and who hadn't been taken out yet. Akemi's invisibility meant that she wasn't leaving any afterimages behind herself, but that only made a small difference. More importantly, Akemi couldn't ignore this like usual: it wasn't magical dark or an illusion, so she couldn't see right through it.

Thankfully, she could still rely on her other senses. Akemi closed her eyes as she dashed about invisibly, taking the opportunity to slit the throat of another target who had been reading out from a scroll which had caused her shadow to start shimmering. From the looks of it this spell had been meant to summon an endless stream of minions, to overwhelm the invaders while the many afterimages hindered their ability to react or defend themselves.

The afterimages, together with the other spells they'd encountered so far, spoke of a rather creative mindset for whoever had written these scrolls. Akemi was very literal-minded, so her own dark magic was mostly in the form of invisibility, quick movement, and materializing shadows in useful shapes. But now they'd already encountered those who'd turn themselves into dark entities so as to become immune to most types of harm, a spell which would change cause and effect so the target would receive all wounds they inflicted on others, and now one which materialized one's "shadows of the past" as three-dimensional images. That definitely supported the theory that these people had gotten their hands on scrolls belonging to one of those God-Kissed: it was unlikely that these marauders, or even most modern mages, would develop such complex techniques.

From a tactical perspective, disabling the caster who was responsible for the after-images was the first priority. Mura would be able to help deal with what appeared to be the boss of the marauders, the one who was currently charging the shaman with his club raised, clearly intending to use that stygian mace to destroy Fairy Tail's guild master. Shooting forward like an invisible arrow Akemi grabbed Mura's shoulder and moved the both of them to a shadow on the other side of the room before teleporting herself to another shadow. So far as she was aware Mura couldn't rely on his other senses like she could: humans had excellent eyesight, but their other senses were... less excellent.

The person responsible for the afterimages... Akemi could sense all the magic signatures in the hideout, and the club-wielding man wasn't the only impressive presence. The other one had spread themselves to cover the entire area, but as she focused she could track down the point of origin. A small person, hands interwoven and hidden underneath a shadow veil as they kept the spell going that caused the afterimages to keep spawning. While the boss was already charging Mura once more Akemi turned herself into a shadow and slid up the wall and onto the ceiling.

Positioning herself above the spellcaster she left the ceiling behind and shot down, the claw around her arm turning into a black spike that pierced the floor and the person who was sitting there. However, instead of undoing the spell and revealing a corpse, the person she thought she'd sensed simply disappeared, reappearing several meters to her left. The same way that they were causing afterimages to spawn, they were also hiding their position by creating fakes.

Akemi was fast. Her actions took less than a second to execute. However, the boss was also fast, and he was quickly closing in on Mura. The shaman could defend himself, but she'd rather make things easier by getting rid of all the afterimages first so he could use his eyes to see. Even if he could sense the soul of the boss, that weapon had no spiritual presence, and was not something he could just block with his weapon. With no time left for precision attacks the assassin decided to use her first powerful spell.

Summoning a second claw on her other arm Akemi lashed out in a circle around her, dark talons carving deep lines in the floor. From the scars poured forth stygian flames, quickly increasing in volume as they covered her surroundings and ripped into anything and everything. This black blaze contained no heat: it simply disassembled everything it touched on a molecular level, consuming all matter and magic to fuel itself and continue burning. Afterimages were pointless before this attack, as everything was quickly obscured by lightless flames.

The spellcaster responsible for the afterimages tried to throw up a barrier to defend themselves against this sudden brutal attack, but the flames tore their way through the hastily conjured shield and consumed the person as readily as everything else they encountered. With the spellcaster's death the afterimages disappeared, allowing Mura to clearly see the boss who was charging him at high speed, club raised to reduce Mura to nothingness while the rest of the hall was being devoured by Akemi's black flames. The dark claw assassin herself was nowhere to be seen, but most of the marauders that remained were now more busy trying to escape or put out the dark fire.

Akemi didn't like relying on brute force, but being fooled by the decoy had left her with not enough time to kill the spellcaster carefully. A truly irritating thing to admit, but what's done was done. For now she'd use the fact that her prey was distracted to hunt them down from the shadows, dancing about invisibly as she ripped them apart while leaving Mura to deal with the boss for now. She trusted her guild master to be capable of dealing with the man by himself, but even if he couldn't he'd last enough that she could help him take the boss down afterwards.

Although she might have to delay that to get rid of her black flames before they brought the roof down upon them. A dark dragon's stygian flames weren't as destructive and energetic as those of a true fire dragon, but they'd eat away at stone the same way they ate away at everything else.

Current Appearance:

WC: 1,697
PWC: 11,400
TWC: 19,752

@Mura Kensho

The room was quickly filling up with the most unnecessary of images, paying homage to the remaining marauders that hadn’t fallen yet. Whatever type of Shadow Magic this was, just like the previous spells encountered earlier, Mura was really getting tired of the creativity that they showcased. And while a couple debris – or rather, the after-images of rocks that had flown by Mura’s line of sight – covered the front view, Mura did notice an entity charge towards him with a black staff-looking object. Still, it would’ve been far easier to avoid such a melee attack if he could actually see the foe approaching – relying on other factors such as vibrations in the air, the echoing sounds of footsteps reaching him and the odor of his enemy et cetera were miniscule under these chaotic conditions where there were events happening all around him.

Still, he had handled a little worse in the past. Raising his katana up in a ko gasumi stance, Mura braced for any impact but was taken aback by Akemi pulling him back into another shadow before the club-wielder could land a hit on him. Now he was behind the club-wielder, on the other side of the hall, where not as much movement had happened to cause annoying after-images in abundance. And yet, when gazing over at the marauder’s position, his form was just everywhere – long, cocoa-brown paint lines like those on a newly used canvas striped everywhere, confusing the Guildmaster for a brief moment. The magical presence of the club-wielder appeared like a huge cloud that choked the entire room, much unlike the inner, concentrated magic found within the Fairy Tail Wizards. Was this also a counter against their Sensory?

The best course of actions would be to wait for the after-images to dissipate, and with Akemi focusing on that, Mura would sigh in relief very soo- oh, way sooner than he expected, actually. Despite the club-wielder being so close to him, spelling instant doom for the Guildmaster with the black club inches away from his shoulder, the moment Mura got an undisturbed view of his opponent, spinning his body to the side in evasion was child’s play. This was a good occasion to perform another new spell of his…

“I would hold my ears if I were you…”

Kyuken noticed Mura’s change of plans and escaped the shaman’s body, floating out as a blue hitodama once more. With an even stronger grip on his coated blade, Mura looked like he was readying a thrust attack, but his mana was rising explosively once more. This spell did demand a high payment in mana, and once that was required, Mura dashed forward and… disappeared.

An instant after, a beam of explosive energy carved a wide tunnel straight through the hall, so dense but so precise that it looked more like the wall was erased by Crash Magic than just blown through. The sound was unbearably high too, even causing the fleeing marauders hunted down by Akemi to flinch and shiver as they grabbed their ears in pain. This flinch would only lead them to their swift deaths even faster, but that was nothing compared to the complete erasure of the club-wielder from moments prior.

It was absurd how wide the tunnel carved was. All in the blink of an eye, a tube of several meters in width had expanded the hall to the side without shaking the infrastructure or causing the pillars to break. A spell of this caliber in destruction would definitely have erased the entire place, and it sure had the power to do so internally, but this wasn’t an ordinary mana blast.

What had caused Mura to disappear when he dashed forward was him performing an absurd feat; remember the black substance coating his katana? That black substance was very similar to the properties of Etherion, a complex of many types of magic to mimic ethernano in its purest, strongest form. Mura had taken another route to achieving this, which was rooted in his status as an Onmyōji; using the five elements that he mastered from the training years ago to create this black object that aimed to mimic balance.

Balance, Yin-Yang, the union of two opposites gave rise to cause and effect. While opposites, they were often thought inseparable… so Mura decided to sever Yin-Yang right in front of him. That was what caused his body to disappear, for the rift between the two would only last for the briefest of instances before the two forces decided to cling together again… and the world on the other side of this rift was very much akin to the properties of a magic that one of Mura’s old guildmates used to possess.

It was like a world where powers and forces were constant but distant from the previous world of his, with every particle here never having interacted with a particle on the other side. While in this world of black and white, Mura made contact with the unaware club-wielder, for everything was mirrored in this place. If the previous world was Yin, then this world was Yang… or the opposite… but at the same time, both worlds were Yin-Yang. It got complicated after that point.

Anyway, Mura’s contact merged the particles that made up him and his blade – which were now found in the other world – with the particles of the original world where the club-wielder was located. This caused the explosion, a release of pure energy that didn’t originate from ethernano at all. This energy had disintegrated the club-wielder, carved a hole through the hall and left the building standing… a strange feat indeed.

Mura leapt back out into his world again, watching the black club’s remains – mere clouds of dark in the air – fade away with the absence of mana. He looked… distraught. As if he needed a moment to recover.

WC: 978
TWC: 20,730

As Akemi had suspected, once Mura had regained his ability to see his opponent clearly it didn't take him very long to take care of the leader of the marauders. Even as Akemi herself was still hunting down the remaining enemies she heard the warning from Mura that everyone should cover their ears. She wasn't going to, but having been warned in advance that she would need to be prepared for a loud sound was enough that as long as he didn't pull some kind of trick to throw her off she'd be able to handle it.

Instead, she'd continue her part of the job, even as she felt Mura's power spiking. It seemed like the shaman had a habit of relying on powerful moves like that when he got serious, where all his magic power was gathered and condensed to perform some technique with far-reaching consequences. That... Truth-Seeking Orb he'd mentioned earlier was a good example of that, an attempt at reproducing the power of pure magic through the combination of numerous different magic types into one form. And this seemed to be similar in a sense, but at the same time different: Akemi would have liked to study it more closely, but she realized that if she stayed where she currently was Mura's attack would most likely hit her as well.

The moment Mura disappeared Akemi did as well, already invisible but now also removing her presence from the hall. She'd returned to the outpost she and Mura had been at before, where the guild master had been forced to fight his own copy and Akemi had to deal with one of the marauders and their rather intricate web of shadow weapons. She remained here for but a moment, long enough to sense that Mura's attack had landed and that she was no longer in danger of getting hit by it, before swapping back towards the great hall and seeing the damage that her companion had wrought.

The effects of Mura's attack reminded her of some of her own techniques, where one relied on the concepts of opposition, duality, and balance to have two parts who were direct opposites of each other annihilate one another and in the process release a lot of energy. It was an extremely effective approach if you wanted to make absolutely sure that something was destroyed, although it also cost a lot of energy unless you had some kind of source available to carry that burden for you. Of the boss there was little more left than traces, his entire being having been wiped out by Mura's yin-yang strike. As for the other marauders...

Releasing so much energy in an instant had forced a shockwave, a thundering roar that pierced through everything. All those marauders, unprepared for so much sound, had been momentarily paralyzed, their only actions being a desperate attempt to protect their eardrums. It was only for a moment, but it was long enough for Akemi as she slammed her dark claw onto the floor in the middle of the hall.

In an expanding wave around Akemi all the shadows turned pitch black, manifesting into dark spikes that detached from the surface they had been painted on. Every marauder got pierced by lightless spikes, both those that belonged to their own shadow and those that originated from nearby objects. As they reflexively tried to react to the absurdly loud noise that Mura had produced they had left themselves open, and for an assassin like Akemi there was no more tempting opportunity than that.

Within moments, only Akemi and Mura were left alive within this hideout. All the marauders had either been killed or erased, leaving the two Fairy Tail members and the black flames which were still merrily eating their way through everything. As she dropped her invisibility Akemi held up her dark claw, asserting control over the flames and drawing them towards her claw. As the flames reached her they were drawn into the claw, disappearing as if they had never existed and leaving behind a ravaged marauder base. As the black flames had no heat to them they didn't leave things charred or burned: instead, the surfaces they had been clinging to simply looked heavily corroded as if splashed with some kind of intense acid. It had been wasteful, and Akemi was certain that the shade she'd encountered before wouldn't be happy, but it wasn't like the place hadn't already been busted up by some of the other combatants, and it had been necessary to catch the afterimage spawner before Mura got hit by that club.

"I believe that was all of them." She turned towards Mura, noting that the guild master looked tired. Unsurprising, given the kind of advanced techniques he was using while she was mostly just hunting things with dark claws while remaining unseen. "Although I suggest that we wait around for a while longer in case there were other marauders out there who'll still be returning to this base. Beyond that, we also have to collect all the scrolls they were using.' She wanted to find out if they truly had been relying on artifacts from one of the God-Kissed. If so, it would be better for Fairy Tail to claim them. Some might argue it was better to leave them buried here, but clearly that plan hadn't worked so well or the marauders wouldn't have been able to get their hands on the scrolls.

Current Appearance:

WC: 911
PWC: 12,311
TWC: 21,641

@Mura Kensho