And then I fracture the air with them.
Long threads of my solidified blood slice through the air before me. Cutting into the icicles from the water mage and towards the rebels. There’s a hum vibrating through my blood as it cuts. An age old song vibrating I know the mage can hear.
Power.
The devil blocks. A visible shield of transparent gold with runic markings, but my blood does chip the edges. He twists the runes and then shoves his shield towards me. Turning it into a force that hits me like a goddamn tank.
Runic-fucking-magic.
I go flying back into the wall and crash onto the desks below. The students huddled, most in states of shock and panic, don’t even breathe with a movement to help me. It jars my brain because they have magic. They have something to defend themselves, and most of them something to attack with. I mean there are giant shifters in here.
I’d say it’s pathetic because I’ve seen humans – who have no magic at all with no weapons – stand up against threats they know they can’t beat. But I can’t say they’re pathetic. I can’t, because they’re kids. We’re all still basically kids and we shouldn’t have to fight.
People as a whole shouldn’t have to only endure.
But all I’ve ever done my whole life is endure. So I cough up the blood stuck in my throat, grit my teeth, and force my body to stand. Right now I am the only thing between them and the students, and they may hate me but I will not let Jullia become a victim.
That hit was hard. I can feel a lot of my ribs broken and my head throbbing. I bet they thought it would keep me down. I grin bloody teeth at them as I straighten. The mage is fuming as I roll my shoulders out and crack my neck.
Pain.
In a twisted way it feels like home. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt pain from a beating.
Another golden shield comes from the devil but this time I cross my arms up in front of my head. My blood forms an X with them and the shield splits. Shattering against the edge of red.
It feels good. To have those doors within unlocked. To let my blood flow free in my veins without the control.
So much control, so much calculation, all the damn time.
Twisting my blood back around myself, I sharpen them to thin razored edges and pulse with aura from that third door still unlocked but not open. I can feel color from my blood rushing back into my eyes. Another tightly controlled moderation, keeping my aura from my eyes so they appear their rosy pastel pink instead of the bloodred they actually are.
Coiling my blood whips in the air until they’re teeming with barely restrained control. The magic vibrating with a need for release.
“This is impossible,” the mage whispers, and yet it thunders back through the room. “You are nothing.”
Slowly, I curl my fingers into my palms from where they’re raised in front of me. My left hand horizontal before my stomach with my right at an angle before my chest and face. I let my blood flow from my still open wounds on my palms, but instead of falling I wrap my blood around my hands. I let it cover my wrists and stain my shirt.
“How do you smell like that poison?” the devil reverberates. His voice, it’s irritating that I can’t figure out where I’ve heard it from. His death damnation aura thickening in the room and for a moment his effect touches me.
The panic, the terror, freezing.
But I shake it off and curl my blood stronger around myself. He is nothing like the sun devil, and I am not six-years-old anymore. I just need my blood to touch them. Just like my blood touchedthemwhen I was ten.
I let that third door crack open. I let my aura expand. I let that fury I felt two nights ago free.
I can see it in the mage’s eyes. In the posture and body language of the devil. I wonder if they can see it, if it’s visible in my eyes now.
The devil raises up his own death magic around himself in preparation. Picking up on the influence and strength. Within, I twist a fourth key to unlock a fourth door but not open it. It expands my magic further. Past this room and further out. Past the aura of the devil with his death damnation.
The hum in my blood hitches and then I release.
Relaxing my fingers and hands as I let the blood covering them finally fall. Droplets like rain that are about to hit the floor and then it almost feels like nothing. My magic explodes towardsthe intruders and it will kill them. I know that to be truth. This expulsion, this release, it’s not something you can survive.
Too strong, too powerful, tooraw. I’ve kept it locked up for too long.
An exhale and time moves at a pace that shouldn’t be real. My droplets of blood are about to hit the floor and the devil and mage are about to be dead, except time moving at a pace that shouldn’t be real flinches back.
My blood does not hit the floor and when I look down I see it hovering an inch above the hardwood. Something, someone, outside of this fight is controlling my blood. Stopping it from hitting the ground and by extension stopping my force that was supposed to kill the devil and mage.