A day before the Mimic Hunt Exam
"Your moonlight magic is special."
Moaning, Ciel hugged the pillow closer, her round eyes peeking from above to glance at Summer's back, still working at the desk.
"Miss Dragon…?" Her sleepy voice lingered. "I would appreciate it if you let me sleep first before advising…"
"Just shut up and listen. You're welcome to forget if you would like to die to-" The dragon paused. "It's better taught early. Someone other than me will tell you more soon anyway."
Candlelight flickered in Ciel's black, innocent pupils before the dragon flapped aside a paper, tossing it away into another pile of signed documents.
Irritation. Ciel tiredly chuckled: The dragon's emotions were always revealed in small details.
Though she had no idea why Miss Dragon was so hurried, it was only later that she realised maybe, maybe it was jealousy.
—--------
Present
'Pure mana. My Moonlight Magic was more intrusive than any other elements.'
The blue ray smashed through the pile of blue potions. Clink, the glasses shattered, and as the two blues met, a bright glow erupted.
A sound explosion, shamelessly immense, stormed through everyone's ears, a deafening roar echoing in its wake. The cliff was nothing but ashes and dust.
'Mana had 'weights'. The higher the power, the more mana it carries, and the heavier it will be, causing the spell to be slower.'
Ciel took a deep breath.
'My moonlight magic? It was the exception because its very nature is pure and weightless, that my mana would always travel at the highest speed possible.'
Her black eyes pierced through the cloud of smoke that occupied the entire arena. Gasps, surprised and panicked ones, rippled through the tension.
'As a consequence, the volatile power it carried destabilised the very nature of other non-pure mana, which made the young man's potions a death sentence.'
Her knees buckled, readied.
'Well, such a large explosion would've been impossible without my strong staff and the crystal's amplifying power. I knew I was lucky, as always.'
She sprinted left, starting her massacre.
Everyone's attention was still on the large, hollow pit blasted into the cliff's face, oozing an eerie blue glow at its rough edges.
Some held out their lanterns of green lumoni fireflies against the smoke, trying to regain their footing in the new terrain.
"What just happened?! Who fired the shot?"
"Guys calm down! Ah… fuck! I can't see a damn thing here!"
"Help! Reiz, my leg got caught in the damn…ah!"
"Oh shut it will you?! The blast came from our side, so there will be danger-"
Reiz's speech ended in a bloodied groan as a blue ray briefly flickered in the hazy fog. At its departure, it left a hole in his chest.
Ciel's cold eyes darted to his legless partner, lying close to the pit's edge. Rainbow current burst out from Reiz's corpse as she lifted her leg-
Kick. And she didn't spare another glance and ran off, leaving the man to tumble down, his scream dying with the gravity.
She kept her momentum. Two spires erupted behind her, their lights revealing her in the thick smoke.
A few more seconds. Thirty at max. Before the young ones could tell what was happening.
Mana in eighty-seven. Eight more moonblasts, ten left excluding Quia.
More than enough.
Her steps drew closer to the cliff's end. Ciel aimed across the pit at a certain man, his glasses dangling loosely with shock.
The glasses boy barely composed himself to raise his stave, forming a dome-like shield that covered from his face to his chest, not unlike Ciel's Lunar Shield.
Ciel held her breath. Manoeuvring around the pit, she focused her aim downward-
Splash. Another blue ray severed the boy's leg, his shield breaking with his balance. Scream erupted at a distance, but Ciel fired another shot without any pity.
Another head blown off. Another panic silenced. And another spire risen.
Next.
She gulped down her choking breaths, her experience failing to outlast the stamina, as her hurried steps steadied along the pit's edge.
The staff grew heavier as she finally managed to cross over to the pit's other side. She raised the staff, but her target reacted faster with an unsheathed sword.
"You!"
The swordsman swiped. Ciel ducked down as the iron cut through a strand of fluttering hair, before she struck her staff into the man's chin.
He groaned, then forced his grip to bend and swing down, his posture awkward and unstable.
Ciel didn't panic. With a mere shoulder bump, the man's balance easily fell with his sword swing. The staff readjusted before firing a moonblast through his neck.
Skins evaporated as Ciel moved on. Blood refused to circulate to her brain, muddying her vision. Her steps began dangerously tangling one after another.
Five seconds remaining.
There's one more target. One more target she had to kill, no matter what.
From the start, Ciel's goal was never to annihilate the whole group. Just a few here and there, and 'they' will do the rest for her.
"Got you!"
She barely caught it: the sight of a bearded man rushing forth, covering for the blonde man and the freckle-girl from earlier.
An axe and a shield adorned his grip, paired with the ferocious glare to make for a fearsome, barbarian look. It didn't help that his body towered over Ciel, a perfect case of a fierce giant against a cute rabbit.
'Thank you.'
Yet the cute rabbit merely gave a small smile.
'You're the one I need to kill the most.'
Four more seconds. And the rest happened in a blur.
Ciel fired. But the shield blocked the moonblast, scattering the blue ray apart.
She observed how the man's stance was unbudged, an unfortunate reality of her mana's weightlessness.
'Yet there was a catch.'
The small girl rushed further in, mustering up all her strength to grip the staff, and stretched it forth like a battering ram.
'The higher the tier a spell was, the more mana it consumed and thus the heavier it became, but it still travelled the same speed as a lower-tier spell.'
'Why? 'Because a formula was constructed to manoeuvre around that weakness, and the same could be applied to the lunar shield, the formula from the spell converting the moon mana's volatility into physicality.'
A dome, thin and seemingly brittle, formed around Ciel.
'The witches made it, and thus the dome was charged with a spring-like energy.'
And with her charge, a loud pang echoed as the shield bounced off the dome, the man's guard broken slightly.
In that split second, only terror came over the man's eyes, staring down to meet an abyssal, dreadful gaze from Ciel's black eyes.
'And all that's left to trigger it is with a bit of speed.'
A faint blue ray followed, and a dripping red hole adorned the man's chest.
He tried to play strong. Alas, a splurt of blood escaped from his lips, until he fell to become one of Ciel's victims.
Another rainbow spire rose with the bearded man's corpse. Ciel's chest heaved, her shoulders rising and falling in a sporadic rhythm.
This time, warcries spread over the scene. The rest of the survivors gathered around her, arms in hands as they lunged at the tired Ciel.
They all thought her a mimic that dared a surprise attack, and now they were eager to make her pay the price.
Too late. Ciel's eyes and lips unitedly curved into a kind, apologetic smile.
"Sorry, everyone."
She then disappeared into a puff of smoke. Axes and swords descended to meet with a clank, hitting nothing but the air.
"Where the hell was she?!"
"Split up! Find her, she could still be near!"
"Oh damn it! Someone! Get the merchant guy already, I saw him barely hanging onto the pit!"
As the panic soared, Ciel reappeared behind the rock cover from earlier with the elf, her figure enveloped by the shade.
"Huff… huff…"
Sweat fell from her forehead, flowing down like rivers. Each breath came like a broken piano note, strained and overly sharp. Her lungs were like parched parchments set on fire.
Her back leaned against the rough rock and slid down, the stubby edges wedging through her back.
Ciel's eyelids sank alarmingly before a sweet, casual voice called out to her.
"Quite an interesting show you had back there."
The elf's appearance, compared to the raging silhouettes behind her, was almost relieving.
So relieving, that Ciel turned a flat stare at Quia, her staff raised.
Yet Quia's figure blitzed forward. Bang, the floor crumbled as her staff plummeted under a weight.
Ciel blinked, then chuckled defeatedly at the foot stomped on her poor staff. The spirit inside must be grumbling at her clumsiness.
"Oi."
She glanced up, meeting the confused, almost pitying eyes of the elf.
An ache in her chest startled Ciel, but what came after intensified it further.
"Why did you spare me back there?"
A sharpened glint crossed the elf's pupils, her frowns deepening at the small, pitiful figure that deliberately skipped over her in the surprise attack earlier.