"How does it hurt? I believe you have already suffered injuries like this, you should be able to endure it. That inter-dimensional tours must have taught you that, to be able to struggle and take revenge." Nada said while holding the pocket knife in front of Aefia's eyes. "I am surprised, you aren't overthinking like you would always do. And one other thing, aren't you going to try and fight me off?"
"I seriously would have done so if you were someone else in somebody else's body." Aefia said while gritting her teeth and pushing Nada back by grabbing both of her shoulders. She stumbled as Puppet held her down by tranforming into a bigger size and holding down the hair around the scalp.
"Puppet let her go. I don't care if she escapes or something, she isn't worth something so important to exactly lose. I hate her, and this was the thing she was looking for here." Aefia said while crouching down to look into Nada's eyes.
"I also don't know who the heck you are and what was your reason of invading someone else's soul, but then I will take out the soul so you won't have to be trapped in between two places." She spoke as she slammed a fist into her wrist and covered her mouth.
Helio seemed surprised with the sudden change in her personality, but he couldn't judge how it was expected after Nada had gotten to the last of her nerves and being the first one to speak like that. He silently spoke to Puppet as it changed back into its small form, "is she going to kill her?"
Puppet slammed a small fist into his nose and spoke into his ears. "Do you think my owner is that psychotic? She is willing to kill anyone for any harm planted on someone she is a family to or vowed to protect, but she would never hurt someone who is her family. Nada is her blood related cousin, but she doesn't know that because she had never given a mind like that to it even when Aefia tried to tell her numerous time."
Aefia strangled Nada by her throat and kept her down as she grabbed the knife out of her hand and threatened to punch it through. Somehow, her hands were shaking insanely as Nada continued speaking with her last breathes. "I wonder how you are going to survive this world after killing me, you know you won't be able to live without despair for the rest of your life."
"I don't need that." Aefia replied as she brought the knife closer to her throat. The chimera dragon looked back and forth from the two person fighting. It flew towards the one holding the knife and hugged the fingers around the hilt as it tried to pull them free.
"Would you look at that? Your little pets don't want me dead, but you do. What animal even is that? A chimera from the novels you had read?" Nada asked while grinning as Aefia let go of her throat. "Finally! You are all weak, do you know that?" She laughed.
"I just let go of your throat because I knew you would continue trying to anger me. I will let you go for now." Aefia replied while holding out the knife. "By the way, take your filthy knife and walk away. This time, be silent, I don't want to hear your voice." She turned around to head back.
Nada was still determined, for some reasons, she still grabbed Aefia's shoulder and didn't let go even when she look back at her. She didn't speak and waited until words left her mouth, even when around two minutes had passed and she stood still in the same position. Eventually, patience was lost and anger surged, "Not everyone has the luxury of time you have."
"Aefia, you are forgetting something." Nada pointed at the book and dried blood stains on the ground. "Are you going to leave with those injuries too? If you are going to leave like this, I will leave it like this too. I am not a servant."
"Neither am I. You are the one who stabbed me, not the other way around." Aefia replied while slapping off Nada's hand. "And keep five hundred feet away from me, you have exceeded my expectations...demon spawn."
"Did you just call me a...Demon...Spawn!" Nada said with a shocked grin. "I mean I should have expected that, your description of your family members were always demons and demon spawns. And I am your family member, I am a demon spawn, you are a demon spawn, everyone is."
"And what are you going to do about that? I am not a toy you can break and still expect an apology from." Aefia stared with faint maroon eyes.
"...I am completely speechless. I just enjoy seeing this savage side of you." Nada replied while still ignoring how Aefia had told her to stay away. "I believe you are worthy of something more your type, a revenge right? Let's see, who should go first?"
Nada, you are not in there. How may I help you return? And this beast is going to kill me any second, it is stalling time to drain all my blood from me. And I can't ask for help, or this beast is going to have the others killed too.
"What is it that you are trying to do next, to me?" Aefia asked finally while closing her eyes. I need to know what the beast really wants, maybe it has something to do with...the ice power and the destruction.
"Would you mind if I told you? That your sense of trust is just, amazing... But it doesn't mean you should trust everyone. Family...are enemies." Nada spoke while grabbing Aefia's wrist and pulled her back. "Like how you don't care about my injuries and pains, I don't care about yours too!"
A punch was sent into her sternum, right where the wound was, and blood was spilled more onto the pages of the book. It was strong enough to knock out all breathe out of her lungs and left her seeing blackness for a split second. She fell, backwards and landed on her knees.
"Oh, so I see how it is!" Aefia wiped her mouth and stood up. "How about this? I will steal all of her powers and then, you will be left wondering around, looking for a new ice user's soul to invade. Don't think that just by stealing my memories during the final fight back at the world we killed you, there are still a lot of shared memories that only Nada knew."
"Wait! So the Iced Mage has invaded her soul?" Helio finally came to the realization after Aefia had mentioned it. He brought up his gun and pointed it directly at Nada's head. "And how was that supposed to happen? Wasn't he dead?"
"Not when a dead soul was rejected by death themselves. I don't understand, the orb was floating above your dead body." Aefia replied as she too took out her pistol from its casing. "Nevermind, I forgot a very important factor. This mage isn't a regular one and he wasn't from that world to began with."
Nada, who was possessed by Albert, laughed like the maniac did the last time. "You are right, I am a dimensional shifter like the rest of you. So feel free to kill your friend and release me so I can roam around in another world."
"Nah, I am taking another approach." Aefia spoke out as she bent down to pick the book up. "In my perceptions, this page consists of a ritualistic quote that by saying so and having a certain number of things done, the soul which he wants to invade will be able to pass through."
"Shut up!" Nada slammed the book down from Aefia's hand as she was about to ripe out the page from it. "I only came here to get my revenge on you for removing me from that world! You knew it, I have been rejected by death!"
"Death isn't something that says rejected or accepted. Everyone dies, its not a clause or a law." Aefia spoke as Nada strangled her throat and held her up. "And...the Guardian of Death has been missing for...over eighteen thousand years now. So you weren't rejected, you didn't make it to either hell or heaven. That means you are a wandering soul."
Nada's face turned slightly red and she held out the knife to stab her again. "Hey! Stop that!" Helio pulled his trigger and Aefia slammed Nada's head to the ground. "Did I or did she say to shoot?" She spoke with fierce eyes. "Put that down! If you hurt Nada, she is the one who is going to die!"
Hearing this, Albert laughed and dropped the knife while realizing that it had tore off the page that was supposed to be covered in blood. This time, Aefia smiled and the others did too. "Wow, that feels slightly cannibalistic."
"You aren't going to ask how I did that?" She asked as she fixed her expression. "But I will explain anyway. When Helio fired, he had his gun slightly elevated when I signed him to shoot, and then, I slammed you down." She took the knife.
"I want to kill you, again of course. But...I don't want to hurt my best friend like that. Do me a favor, can you return my memories back? Or I will force you to forget." Aefia said while standing up.
"I am doing neither. And what are you going to do? You are violent, so you will commit a murder in a public library and you will be arrested, how do you like it now?"
Aefia slowly smiled a wicked one, "I never said I was going to kill anyone. I am sending you away to your destined location, so you should say what you want to say and I will be off with you." She lifted the knife above her head and rapidly brought it down.
"If you were truly Nada, you would have tried to stop me or snatch the blade away from me. But you didn't do anything, your tour in this world was to kill me right? Because I killed you, so you wanted to take a revenge on me. There, two birds in one stone." Aefia spoke as she brought it back out from a newly formed wound.
While putting it back on her hand, Aefia grabbed onto Nada's hands. "Good luck on your next search." She told as blood fell from her mouth and nose. Puppet raced at them with a panicked face, which was the first time that it broke free of the matrix.
It tried to stop her from what she was about to do. But it was a little too late, and realized that if it were to stop her in between the task, it would result in the death of both of them. "What are you doing!" Helio's asked, "what is she doing?"
"Don't speak. If she absorbs the element in the wrong way, she might kill both of them." Puppet replied with calm. "She knew what she was doing when she stabbed herself again. She needed bleeding wounds to be able to be alive during the process."
I will leave just enough magic for her to still use it. Aefia thought as she continued absorbing all of the Polar Bear's element as her screen blinked with warnings. But she closed every of the distracting ones and kept a single screen opened.
[Magic Energy remaining of Opponent: 50/150
Absorption Pace: 1 unit per second.]
She suffered the pain coming from her head and her sternum, while holding Nada's hands tightly. Red screens with yellow banners flashed with the warnings, until alerts started to appear. All of the alerts had the same messages and this caused a little bit more of the headache to return.
[Alert!
Excessively absorbing magic energy might cause your organs to stop working.]
[Alert!
Excessive bleeding is causing your limbs to start going numb. Seek medical attention immediately.]
[Alert!
Multiple nerves are about to die out if you don't attend to them with proper care.]
And then, a message almost made her lose focus. She was almost there as this message popped out and she knew this meant she was going to die if she continues this state. And this was also the time she had to stop.
[Warning!
Ignoring health related messages will result in a penalty (unnamed).]
She instinctively let go of Nada's hand and held her up into a standing position. It was only a few seconds upon standing did Nada's eyes return to their usual hazel colours and she knew that the Iced Mage had left. Behind Nada, she noticed a very black, smokey, figure standing with bright blue eyes that were shielded by the hood of their cloak. Albert was looking directly at Aefia before vanishing into the air.
Before it fully went away, it spoke something that Aefia completely understood. "You might be successful in both fights, both times. But have you realized that this time I had you at my fingertips and almost killed you if your teammate hadn't intervened? I will return once again, but this time to really finish you off. We will meet, at an uncertain time like this."
I hope we do, so that I can finally kill you off and you will be forced to live in despair, powerless and severely harmed. And, I hope you enjoy the remaining of your life in the entire multiverse.
Aefia looked down on her hands as she noticed her fingertips turning pale and then purplish. The vines and small flowers were fading away as she quickly reinserted all of Nada's magic back into her body. Just as she had absorbed, she could also give the elements off to someone else if she wanted.
"Aefia?" Nada asked as she lifted her face to look at her. By taking a look at her and Aefia's last energy roared as she was almost about to punch her face. "I wanted you dead. But you are unluckily alive." Aefia spoke at last.
And as if her limps had really gone limb, she slammed onto Nada's shoulders and was grabbed before she fell any further. Concerned, Nada took a look around and found another person. "What are you doing! Don't just stand there and watch like nothing is happening!" She shouted at Helio's face.