Raineh Daze

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

&

Ranbu no Izayoi

Once Rudolf had taken his leave, Izayoi took the opportunity to kneel in the pews and pray while Cid and Miina conversed. For his part, Cid didn’t push Miina too much farther, simply taking Miina’s answer at face value with a knowing glint in his eye.

”Well, you have free reign to line your clothes up and dry them, though you’ll likely have to find an inn for the night. I would offer shelter, but this chapel is rather small, lest you find the idea of sleeping on hard stone appealing. But I’ll leave you for now, child. A good bit of the exterior still requires a touchup.”

He strode off, whistling a cheerful tune while Izayoi finished her brief prayers, rising.

Miina dithered for a little bit, uncertain about approaching Izayoi given how she had just run away from the ship like that. Maybe it would all be fine, since they had met up now… or maybe the older Mystrel would demand an explanation on the spot, and she hadn't come up with anything yet except the truth. That still felt like a very bad thing to lead with.

But… this was an opportunity. Something that Izayoi had pulled off during the battle on the ship seemed frankly unbelievable; how could a single woman split the sea？Miina had almost convinced herself that she'd simply dreamt that part.

Having taken Cid's advice and laid out her damp clothing, Miina finally slunk over as quietly as she could. “Umm… d-did you r-really cut open the sea?”

Izayoi glanced behind her, an eyebrow raised. Of course. She sighed. The one time the spell she’d invented as a youth had been actually useful for a change, and she finds herself held at arm’s length over a fool girl’s joke of a technique.

”It truly is not quite as impressive as the results make it appear to be. My master rightfully derided the technique as borderline useless when first I demonstrated it to him. Any fool with a working knowledge of materia theory and thirty seconds to spare in the midst of battle could achieve the same result. What happened at sea was one of the only situations where it had any sort of use, and I still required far too long to prepare the technique.”

She shut her eyes for a moment, lost in memories of nearly two decades past.

”That’s all?” Her master raised his thumb and forefinger to pinch his brow in irritation upon seeing the fifteen-year old Mystrel complete her attack. ”And tell me, where would you find the time to complete the counter-rotations in the heat of battle? You cannot shorten the materia channeling any further without shattering it, and focusing on invoking two magics at once unavoidably taxes your body. Useless, unless your foe is either blind and deaf or half a mile away. Cease wasting your time in the middle of the night and actually sleep, girl.”

Izayoi opened her eyes once more, turning to Miina. ”Simply put, even with absolute mastery of materia, there is no way to eke out additional power to shorten the process of creating a localized hurricane with both Aero and Haste. I suspect that Eve could do the same with wind alone through sheer magical power-” She cut herself off, considering Miina and staring intently at the girl. Well. That was a possibility, wasn’t it?

“Oh… s-so it’s not a sword t-technique?” Miina questioned, head tilting. She thought that Izayoi had maybe just cut through the sea entirely… but, really, using materia made far more sense, although it wasn’t something that she would have ever thought to do. Combining two contradictory magics, using magic meant for enhancement on an offensive spell? Most combinations would be quite pointless… but it was quite an impressive way to make a localised hurricane. A shame that she didn’t have two materia like that to play around with, if it came to it.

“W-Wouldn’t something like t-t-that be useful when airships are involved? Even w-with thirty seconds…” That was her second thought, that Izayoi was really understating the utility of localised weather phenomena when they’d already shown issues with running into Valheimr opposition that strained what a small group could reasonably damage. At least, without Eve maybe pulling something like this out.

Izayoi let out an amused huff as she regarded Miina, shrugging.

”Against a lone airship that’s not deployed any sort of support, perhaps. The magic does not hold together long, however. By the time it would impact an airship, much of its force would have dissipated already. This all said,”

Her expression turned somewhat serious once more as she folded her arms, glancing down at the shorter woman.

”You could cast both of the requisite spells naturally, yes? Perhaps you can take this technique and actually make something of it. I would not be averse to teaching you its mechanics if you wish.”

“Um… y-yeah, but I’ve never c-c-cast two things at once,” Miina said, nodding along. She knew the individual components, yes, but the idea of trying to focus on holding two spells together at once… she’d say it was completely impossible, but if they were such diametrically different processes as white and black magic, she could imagine it would be easier to make an attempt? Catastrophic interference was still a risk, and the backlash for failure would be unavoidably focused entirely within her body… but the effort of will would be much lower than trying to cast two distinct spells of the same approach at once.

“I d-don’t think I should s-start with a hurricane, eheh… b-but I’d be happy to learn!” Oh, she’d rather it have been swordsmanship, that required a lot more closeness… but their swords were very different. And she’d probably be less distracted this way, which was… definitely a good idea if internal damage was a risk. Hm, if only there was some way to make it easier… “D-Do you think I c-could borrow one of th-those materia…?”

Only one, because she still needed to learn how to cast the second spell while channelling the mana for its opposite number, but it would be much less to focus on at once… and she didn’t want to get too distracted, she was already having ideas about what you could maybe do to someone else’s magic this way, Slow in particular.

Izayoi nodded, reaching up to her left gauntlet and popping her Time materia out of its socket. With both Ciradyl and Neve around to throw around enhancement magics, it wasn’t as if she needed her own, worse Haste for herself at the moment, lest she wind up separated from the others. The only other one of her techniques she actually required the materia for was her masterstroke, and considering what happened a week ago, Izayoi wasn’t exactly eager to utilize the arte again for now.

”As it stands, leaving the city will be more trouble than it's worth, and it would be foolish to practice this in a populated area. We can begin with theory, if you require time to become used to the spellwork.” She placed the green orb into Miina’s palm.

“Wh-Why would leaving be t-trouble…?” Miina asked. That… hmm, she could see why people might not want her to leave, but… it wasn’t like they would do much if she vanished properly, and it wasn’t like getting out of Costa del Sol would be too hard, and Izayoi could definitely follow her even through the more obscure paths…

That aside, the younger Mystrel couldn’t help but find her attention drawn to the materia. These things… they were still so odd to her. Obviously, her brother had managed to find a couple before he had to leave home for good, so she’d had plenty of time to get used to them, but… it felt so strange that magic could be compacted like this. Normally, she’d only make use of them if she couldn’t think of any other way to leave a sticky situation, and she was pretty sure the other one was just a confidence boost more than anything useful. But this? This was something that she’d had to spend so much time learning and practising.

And it was a tiny little orb anybody could mess with. Miina wasn’t sure whether to be offended or not.

”You missed the excitement when you were…really, what were you doing?” Izayoi sighed slightly, just barely managing to keep the exasperation from her voice..

”It isn’t anything that has you endangered, is it? Keep your secrets otherwise. But the local guard had an eye out for Neve. Apparently, her teachers are none too happy about slipping the leash from them. And given that they lead this country, we would have had to speak to them at some point regardless. So we negotiated a deal: the guards will arrange transport to the capital for us tomorrow, so long as we stay within city limits.”

Miina blinked, then said the first thing that came to mind, “Oh, th-they weren’t there f-for me?”

…

Why did she say that?

This time, Izayoi's much louder sigh was punctuated by her pinching the bridge of her nose.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Fujiwara no Mokou

"Ah… I lost exact count, it was about the same time the capital was moved there," Mokou answered, shrugging. Over a thousand sounded right, there had obviously been all those centuries in the middle where forone reason or another… time didn't have much meaning. It still didn't, really; why count the exact passing of the seasons and years when you had an endless number to wait for? It would be like counting how many times she'd killed Kaguya, or eaten mushrooms because there was nothing much else to go by in the forest.

"The name's Fujiwara no Mokou."

Was there really a reason to expect they'd all ended up in the graveyard? The Jiang Shi was normally found in one, so she probably just wandered until she was somewhere familiar, and aside from Suguru, they'd just been running from the streets. It was a nearby open area, after all.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

The mystrel's face immediately went as red as her hair, and she began avoiding eye contact… well, more than normal, at least. And… Izayoi and Rudolf were here, which would make explaining so much more awkward. At least, explaining to Izayoi? She thought that Rudolf might have a better idea of the sort of people she had associated with before… although he probably hadn't guessed tha tshe'd done all that much wrong, probably? Possibly. She wasn't the best at estimating what anyone else might know, and who might react worse…

Obviously, Robin would be the most upset at her, there was no getting around that. And that was a shame, because now she knew… maybe boyish girls weren't that unappealing after all? Or at least ones that could pull off such a noble aura so well. It was a shame she wasn't taller.

"Um… y-yeah, th-that was it, j-just slipped in, ahahahahah..."

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

"Eh?" Miina looked… well, flummoxed. Hm, that really was a helpful ability… if it wasn't for the restrictions that no doubt came with it. Still, she had no reason to turn him down, and it wasn't like anybody was going to go looking for her in erligious ground if they even knew that she was in the area… it hadn't exactly been something she'd goo looking for. Was it possible that Cid had been here before? She didn't really know.

"Th-Thanks." With that, she followed inside and… well, she could dry herself easily enough, but standing around in her clothes… yeah, that would attract more attention, and she ought to get them cleaned up. It was also warm enough for her more normal attire!

Not that she waited for Cid to look away. If he did, that was up to him, why should she care? It was just changing clothes.

Fabula Ultima: JRPG Adventures

"Caria!" she proudly announced, sprawling out on the ground in a way that at least diminished the threat of the highly muscular, armoured girl walking around with a massive axe a little. Getting to actually use her name was pretty novel, it hadn't been something she'd gotten tired with yet. "I… um, I guess I'm a traveller too? I used to stick to the same sorts of places, but I've had to start exploring more recently."

You couldn't just come out and say you didn't like the empire, not among strangers. She'd learned that before. It had been quite painful for everyone involved.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Fujiwara no Mokou

Mokou gave a shrug. It wasn't like she was that familiar with most people in Gensokyo; she had no idea if feeding people to the jiang-shi would be approved of or not. Maybe as long as it wasn't anyone from the Human Village then they would be okay? But being eaten alive was messy enough when you had large mouths; being eaten alive by just a human one… or maybe she could take huge bites.

Not that she was about to let anyone be fed to youkai, she hadn't been dealing with those in the bamboo forest for generations for no reason.

"Yeah, this," she said, lifting up the nearly-regenerated hand, "Has nothing to do with curses. It's just immortality."

Well, there was obviously slightly more to it… but it was immortality at its most basic. "And the fire is magic."

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Tyaethe

Renar's information was… interesting. Although, perhaps it was to be expected? The fey could rarely do something this extreme on someone without their assent in one form or another, even if this was merely by entering into their domains… but since they'd got the duke back, it was unlikely to be simple rambling. Fionn's assumption that it was word games seemed likely, although that raised the possibility that it was only agreement from the perspective of the fairy in question. Still, at least one thing was clear—

"I doubt it would be a Niyar, or Nithyr, even if the fairy behind this once was. They could make you forget a thing or two pretty easily, or cause some confusion… whatever drove the Duke to this lasting madness is quite stronger than that. Perhaps we'll be dealing with local nobility twice-over."

She hopped to her feet, giving a shrug, "I'm sure they'll be fine, they're good boys. Let's go see what your wife has to say."

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

"One among you matches a description for a person of interest. You will submit yourselves for inspection immediately."

Nope, nope, nope, she had to get out of here immediately before she got any attention. Fortunately, Miina was of course well away from the guards inspecting her first... that bought her some time. She would have thought her relatively good standing with those other groups that had been a little more up front with what they were after would have kept her from any attention but... not important now, maybe she'd have to pay a visit later? After meeting up with people again.

Of course, that meant that the redhead hadn't stuck around for long enough to realise that she wasn't the person of interest in this case. Or at least not one that had been identified coming in. Instead, one quick near-invisibility to hide her form later, Miina had gone for the straightforward (if somewhat tricky, one couldn't easily climb down the wet sides of a ship) approach of climbing overboard aft and starboard of the ship and heading for shore a bit further up where she'd be able to get into Costa del Sol without attracting any attention... if she was careful.

Stay below the waves where possible... and worry about getting the salt out of her things later; it wasn't like she'd not practised this before.

Hmm, hopefully nobody would give away that she should be on board.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Mokou

"You should listen to her," Mokou suggested, shrugging as the jiang shi… ate the attack? Not the weirdest ability in Gensokyo by far, although it was a little disappointing to not get to see what it did to the human body, "Getting your head cut off is more painful than you'd think, the brain doesn't shut down immediately. Though… it's not in my top… ten… twenty… thirty most painful ways to die?"

She stopped to think, inspecting her regrowing hand curiously, before adding, "Especially not with a sharp sword like that. She's cut me in half before, it wasn't too bad."

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

… maybe she was still dreaming? The sea being split in two was… hm, no, it definitely wasn't one of her dreams, too violent and with far too many people she wouldn't usually dream about. Which meant Eve and Esben had been underwater and were now… well, Robin had the heavy one, so maybe they were fine? It was a shame Eliane hadn't been with them too, that would have made for some nice poetry.

Unfortunately, that probably meant she should do something and stop crouching behind a magical barrier to protect herself against bullets. Sure, they would probably be fine, but swinging like that meant going fast, and she was pretty sure Robin wasn't practised at jumping from high places because she'd gone climbing and gotten stuck again… or maybe Esben would just go through the boat.

So, what to do? The only things really in abundance were water or air, and while she could probably do something more reliable by thinking about the wind, she was tired and grumpy and they just needed to slow down. And she knew how to do that, too, even if it wasn't something she'd really had any confidence in because the only enemy they'd fought since meeting she wanted to slow down would probably have just shrugged it off.

But it seemed pretty unlikely Robin would. Or maybe she'd just recognise it was Miina casting and not resist? Either way, one Slow coming up.

Hopefully they wouldn't go splat, then she could go back to sleep.