R. A. T. H

Twenty-Three vol.2

Rose was reminded of Mare. The info-broker of the slums who could change her form into a Shadow Wolf. She blinked her eyes at the image of a wolf flickering back in place before her and grinning.

"What do you think?"

It was odd to hear the voice of her friend come out of the thing. As far as she knew, wolves shouldn't have the vocal cords necessary to speak their language. Yet, well, someone did just turn into a wolf before her.

"I think, I want to ride you." Rose spoke as the mana orb disappeared from her hand.

". . ." Lilias and Elsa glanced at her.

"What?"

"You're awfully innocent."

The wolf nodded twice. "Yup."

Rose ignored the two, reached her hand, and grasped a lock of fur, then tugged, pulling them out.

". . .?" Elsa tilted her large head.

The furs quickly became dots of blue light in the homunculus's grasp.

"So her current body is made of mana. . ." Rose muttered, realizing how Hollows became beasts, and why it didn't matter whether they were creatures and could still talk. If the body became a construction, a representation, of the spirit they had etched on them, then it wasn't impossible for that construction to have been changed in some way to suit intelligent creatures more uniformly.

Lilias glanced at the drifting spots of blue which soon became invisible. "Indeed. But, if she's damaged enough, her body will break into mana, and she'll forcefully revert to being human."

Rose nodded and stared at Elsa's blue eyes. Did all Hollows gain blue eyes when shifted? She supposed it differentiated them from the crimson eyes of actual mana beasts.

"What else can you do?" She asked.

Elsa grinned.

Her figure flickered back.

"This."

Lightning crackled and rumbled around her, frying an area of three meters. It shrunk to 1 meter and their power increased. It ballooned to 5 meters and their power shrunk. Rose imagined that was her minimum and maximum radius.

"And this, the last one," Elsa grinned.

Her jaws opened and the lightning in the surrounding receded before dancing within her throat. Seconds passed. Rose counted to five and the rumble rang.

A flash of white passed in front of her, shooting, but she could track it.

A bolt of lightning blasted through the air.

The rumble of thunder echoed.

Then there was a crash.

Rose turned her head at falling rocks.

A part of the cliff above them was shattered, completely broken through as chunks of earth fell, but that wasn't where the attack ended. No. Further behind the fried mass of brittle black rock, a hole had been bored within a cloud in the sky, as if turning it into a donut.

Evidently, the range and destructiveness of the attack was asinine. Yet, as it had been a bolt of lightning, it was less that the attack had a lengthy reach, and more that it was fast, and it could fly across distances.

"Fuck, I missed," Elsa cursed.

Its accuracy, however, was to be tested.

"Wait, what the hell?!"