Chapter 57: Fifty-Seven

"Run."

Their fight began amidst a sea of pulses and men, and Elsa listened to Rose's word.

Mana rolled through Rose's body as the two came upon one another.

A sword blazing in flames clashed against two crimson blades and exploded upon impact.

Elsa leapt from the flames, dodging a sword her way, and a fist slamming against the head of a soldier—disorienting him. She sidestepped, nailed one with a right hook of her leg, looked back once, then fired the pulse pistol as she moved. It was a chaotic situation, but she eyed her mecha amidst the battlefield.

'Left, right, slash, back, slash.'

Rose moved, remembering her lessons with Samuel as she executed one of his moves perfectly. Her weapon blurred along with her mana enhanced body, and she assaulted her foe with a burning sword that spewed flames with every motion. Her strikes were clean, her movements were practiced, and her eyes took in the data of her opponent's actions.

Yet, even when she broke through the swordsmanship of the girl before her, her strikes left little more than dents or gashes upon the girl's armor before it returned to shape. Even her flames merely burned a sliver off and died out.

'What is that thing. . .?' She grumbled within her mind as her feet shifted, moving back with her head dodging twin blades.

They momentarily separated as neither found advantage over the other.

'An homunculus with a gear really is frightening,' Lilias thought, her armor of mana reforming above her body as she slashed out with her right sword, 'He told me not to engage her, but, how can I not when someone that can match me stands so readily there?'

The spiral of blades came and Rose found herself surrounded in a spinning cyclone narrowing upon her. Still, she wielded <Igris> and slashed.

Her flames burst out, extending forward, and exploding upon the attack.

The segmented blades of the girl spiraled and Rose used this chance to pierce her blade forward.

Fire surged and shot through the short distance they stood.

Every man in her way lunged to escape the attack and it reached its target, devouring the girl in flames.

The dragonian smirked, taking the brunt of the attack as she walked forward.

"What. . .?"

Rose watched as the flames merely burned atop the girl's armor. Mana shed, but the thing reformed, over and over until the flames died out by virtue of burning off the layer they blazed upon.

Her flames were, essentially, useless.

"My spirit uses the mana in the world to reform armor around me, over and over," Lilias said, reaching her front and slashed, "Fighting against my defense is merely fooling yourself."

Her legs moved but the speed of the weapon exceeded her expectations. As if the girl had merely been playing previously, the spiral encircled her and her body ripped as blades dug into her skin, slicing with their rotating movement aided by the blue of mana between their shards.

Rose staggered.

Lilias lips placed itself by the side of her ears, "A shame fighting against me in sword skill fools yourself as well."

A crunch rang as a sword impaled forward, the tip of the sword spinning with a drill of flames and piercing through an armor of ghostly blue.

Rose merely whispered one word.

"Explode."

Fire raged and the area lit aflame.

The combustion of the conflagration exploded and Lilias shot back, taking her weapons with her and slamming through soldiers.

Rose stood, hand gripping her weapon as blood spewed from her body.

She had twisted and dislocated her arm for that attack. It was painful. It was brutal, but mana rolled around her body and she forced her yelp of pain back down with her teeth gnashed. She gripped her right arm with her left and twisted it back in place as she dodged blue pulses amidst the war, listening through <Igris>'s cling to the mana within the air.

A laugh reached Rose's ears and her eyes danced as the barrel of twin guns fired at her body.

She dodged both shots but, before she could move, two drilled into the bones of her legs and she staggered.

Still, she caught wind of the man and her blade slashed down.

There was a clank and her weapon refused to move, stopped by two crossed guns.

". . .?" She found herself momentarily surprised.

"Humph," The man scoffed, "This gun is made of orium, girl, orium that has been Magecrafted to increase its durability. Sorry, lass, but I'm taking the reward for that head of yours."

'An exceptional marksman within this war. . .' She thought, not surprised that there could be a remarkable person amidst the chaos.

She and Lilias practically carved a hole in the middle of the battlefield. Many fought around them while trying their best to stay from their way. There was the constant clash of swords and the sounds of pulses ringing through the air. There was even the vroom of turrets followed by blasts that left screams in the world, and mangled bodies upon the streets.

In the middle of the chaos, she supposed some people were hopeful enough to step inside of their zone and this man in black was one such person.

"How ridiculous. . ." She sighed, finding it a bit humorous.

"Heh, thanks." He grinned.

Even if he was simply after a reward placed upon her head, she had to hand it to him.

Still, she stepped back and spun her body.

Her leg shot out, striking the side of his head as his eyes bulged in surprise and he slammed to the side—dead or alive, he was gone, through the air and into a danger zone of pulses. She had heard a crank and crunch of bones, but her eyes did not deter.

She breathed in, eyes flickering to look at the rubble the area of the slums had become. The street was uprooted and asphalt littered the ground as sand showed between holes. Shacks that once surrounded the location had become trash heaps. The once pale-blue sky had become clouded in white and two distanced structures stood at either side of her. One of Alos and another a castle of iron.

She gripped her blade and looked forward, emerald eyes blinking.

He had only momentarily caught her by surprise but there was no way he could keep up with her when her mana channeling was in full swing, boosting no area of her attributes to tremendous means, but improving everything mildly.

There was no way a person as weak as that could stop her from her goal. Much like he wanted her head, she had a reason to move her body and sword in tandem. She didn't care for the war, she didn't care for the slums nor the lords. They used her to maneuver themselves, but she was using them as well to reach Alos.

There was no way she would be stopped.

Rose felt the blood upon her skin, and felt her arms and legs a tinge of pain. Of course, when her body was using mana as a multi-purpose tool to heal and improve her attributes, neither came out on top, and both suffered for it.

She took a step forward, her legs staggered but her eyes kept calm at an individual merely a few meters ahead.

"I suppose, even if you are an homunculus, you can still feel pain just like any other living being?" The whispers of the girl came.

Rose watched with narrowed eyes as a tail came down to reveal a listless face. Lilia's extra limb had blocked the attack even under her armor of mist, but the scales of the thing were brutalized until some manner of flesh underneath showed through. The girl breathed roughly and parts of her clothing were scorched. Just like herself, however, the dragonian maintained a calm gaze as her tail healed at a remarkable rate, just like the mystifying armor upon her body.

Think, think, Rose told herself as their swords clashed once more and she found herself becoming lost to battle.

As it stood, she had no advantage against the girl. Better yet, she was in a weaker state. The girl matched her attacks, but she could not match the girl's defense.

She dodged a blade, narrowly escaping a slice through her neck, and parried another before flames spewed from her weapon to shatter an onslaught encircling her.

'I can't copy her armor, it's not an attack of flames directed at me and it's not only an application of something I already have.'

She had been able to copy Shana's hhoenix, but that was merely because it was something made out of flames specifically directed at her, and her blade had absorbed its power and made it her own. She had been able to copy Chase's application of the waves his weapon made, the cut that traveled through the air, but that was merely copying an application by modifying it to fit her.

Yet, Lilias's armor was something else. Much less copying it, she could not understand how it worked in the least. It seemed made of mana, but she sensed that energy mixed with something else. It was most definitely a spirit manipulating mana in its own way, just as Shana's colorful bird had been able to pierce forward with countless pulses. Being unable to understand how it worked, however, <Igris> had no will to listen to recreate it from flames.

Still.

'I'm not without options.' Rose was not a person that gave up so easily when at a disadvantage.

Fire sparked in her left hand and she grasped an item to the shock of the girl to block a crimson blade.

It was the sheath of her weapon. The pure defensive item of <Igris> she rarely used. She wielded it, blocking Lilia's slash, and struck her blade with her right hand as the girl deflected the fire branded thing.

She did not have a perfect defense like her opponent. Yet, an unbreakable sheath to act as a defense was good enough in her hands.

Their battle raged further when they found each other on equal footing.

Men died wherever the two passed, sucked into the collateral damage of their clash as their swords resonated with flames and mana. Blood soaked the ground red.

Rose did not hate the girl, and the girl did not hate her. As their swords clashed, they both understood that they merely fought for their own respective goals. Rose slashed with her burning desire to enter Alos and eventually meet her creator, her core humming with the intent to question the world, and Lilias parried her attacks.

Blood flowed from the body of the homunculus but she merely spun her mana channeling even faster, the density of mana spewing into her body reaching greater heights as she leaped to keep up with the dragonian that seemed indestructible.

When she attacked, the mana shell of the girl reformed. When she broke it apart with a burst of her flames, and slashed, the girl healed just the same as her—even better, given the fact her ability was innate to her species.

"It's a bad match-up," Rose muttered, narrowly dodging a slash to return her own.

A chuckle came into her ears.

"We're too similar." The dragonian released a blue beam from her weapon as she jumped back.

The attack pierced forward, taking the lives of those unlucky enough to stand in its wake.

Rose's blade burned a crimson red and she swung.

As her flames flew forward, precisely only consuming the lives of those men cloaked in black, and clashing with the girl's laser, she agreed. They were similar.

The two radiance clashed.

'Burn, burn, burn,' Rose willed <Igris>, her emotions overflowing as her emerald eyes reflected blue and red.

She looked past that and saw only the person standing in the way of her goals. She did not care about the person. Maybe it was her status as an homunculus, or maybe she was simply that way, she only cared about the person in so far as she stood in her way. And that, was ridiculous.

For the first time since she first began to wield her weapon, her hand quaked to merely hold it and she found the quickly darkening flames upon it blaring, sizzling, and deforming before forming, and blazing, and sparking. The hue turned from crimson to the dark red of dried blood.

She found it hard to control and, to her surprise, the skin of her right hand began to burn off.

Still.

She slashed.

The flames devoured everything in its wake.

Soldiers of both parties rushed to escape its path, but few succeeded as their screams rang.

Lilias stood her ground, in defiance of the fire, she aimed her left sword as it rolled with more blue light than it ever had. Then she slashed.

A dragon's head combined with the attack, morphing into the image of the king of beasts and expanding its maws to consume the flames.

However.

"I am someone whose wrath turns all to ash."

Rose's flames burned the attack away into nothing.

She watched as fire struck the girl, the heat of it causing smoke in the air as it spun around the standing figure.

"My flames devour all," She said, understanding the words Mare had spoken.

She realized, her weapon's flames did not come from nothing, but instead burned her desires and combusted the mana that resided through the world. And, in that world, the flames devoured even the mana in the atmosphere as it spun like a tornado, small, but blazing hot.

The spirit armor of the dragonian refused to reform. It simply had no mana in that small cave of heat to steal from. Rose's flames burned all traces of the energy in that area, melting the asphalt ground, and keeping all men out of its wake.

"I'm amazed," Lilias spoke, both hands gripping her two weapons as fire crumbled her defenses.

As her armor dispersed into nothing, so too did the flames. Under that shell she had worn, her clothing was all but gone and large parts of her skin leaked blood under their burns.

Still, she maintained her stance, bloody and tired hands gripping her blade. Crimson eyes meeting the emeralds of a girl whose injuries matched hers.

Rose walked forward.

She unsummoned the sheath of her weapon, moving her sword to her left hand as her right, burned to the point it showed bones, became unusable in the short term. Her Mana Channeling rushed to heal it, but her charge of 13% was quickly dwindling with the expedition she had incurred within this fight.

It was safe to say, Rose had fought with all she had. The flames of her weapon died down as she approached the girl and entered into the zone lacking mana. She felt exhausted, even as an homunculus should not feel such a thing. Yet, within her, she also felt something else that made her frown.

"I find it odd that my core is telling me this was what I was meant to do," She took a step forward as she spoke, "I find it odd that my mind is filled with the realization that an all-out battle feels good."

She stopped before the dragonian and they both looked at each other's eyes. Burns abounded across the skin of one girl, and the other was layered with scars, gashes, and blood.

"Why do you think that is?" She asked.

"I would presume your creator made you that way," Lilias replied, ignoring the burn marks upon her body and her charred tail that rested lazily behind her. Pain engulfed her body and she knew her healing would take some time.

"I think so too." Rose nodded. "Another mystery I require answered by her. Another mystery I must meet her for."

She felt a sensation she had only felt when her mind was first cleared of orders, and when she had drunk Rose Tea. Except, this feeling of ecstasy within her seemed dangerous to her. It was a high, almost. Her core hummed and she was told a battle like this was her home.

But it was a fact she did not want. She wasn't someone that fought only to fight.

"It's fake, isn't it?" She questioned no one in particular.

Yet, the dragonian answered her with a thin raise of her lips.

"All the actions and words of a doll are fake. All calculated by code. You are certainly advanced beyond belief, and I'm sure your creator broke many regulations and laws to make you, but you are still an homunculus. Yet. . .you have a Gear."

Rose nodded, bringing her blade up as she gave voice to an idea she always had.

"I realize I am a mixture of real and fake," She said, now wondering if her original role as a body double had merely been a lie, "I was created for a purpose, yet that purpose eludes me. Until I know. Until I receive answers, I am yet free."

She spoke the ugly truth she came to realize but she did not fluctuate in her desires. There was only to walk through the door of uncertainty and reach her goal. Her first step was Alos and it would likely not be the end. Before her stood a gatekeeper blocking her path, but in her hand she grasped a weapon able to burn away her demons.

"And until I slay the crimson dragon, I am chained to my family," Lilias's eyes softened for a moment, ever so slightly.

She did not feel the need to tell the doll her own thoughts, but she did. Of course, neither cared about the other's wishes. Still, as someone who valued strength. As someone who came from a family where your skill with your sword mattered most. As a 'princess' of such a household, there was a soft spot within her for a being who could best her in a full clash.

They both moved their blades at the same time.

"I thought I said not to fight her," A figure spoke, two blades blocking the advance of each of the girl's to their necks, "Even if Walker spoke otherwise."

Samuel frowned, displeasure filling his voice while he stood between the two girls.

Rose tilted her head and the dragonian frowned.

"There you are!" A cheeky voice came overhead even before the homunculus could make heads or tails of the situation.

A wolf morphed out of shadows and a dagger vibrated with mana around its edges as it came down upon the sword master's head.

"How are you so hard to catch. . ." Another voice murmured with indignation.

A wave of water, shaped as if a blade, swung towards Mare's falling body.

"Get away from her!" A yell came, grabbing everyone's attention.

In the midst of the battlefield, a mecha aimed its hands at the group, sliding a plate as two barrels came out. Elsa rode inside the thing, her eyes under the hood of the metal helmet reflecting the enemies surrounding a badly injured Rose. She gritted her teeth, bit her lips with anger, and the machine moved with her will.

"Didn't I tell you not to fucking die!?"

The turrets of the mecha blared and the roar of blue pulses filled the air.

"Found you. . ." Somewhere else, a girl prepped a sniper rifle, eyeing a man atop a crumbling building. She tapped thrice on the orb at its side, her crimson eyes twinkling. "Let's end this, shall we?"

Past the battlefield before her where men in black seemed to be gaining upon the field and narrowing upon her location, past the two beasts hidden under human skin that rampaged with lightning and explosions with a crazed expression upon their faces, a man turned his head, the three rings upon his finger twinkling as he placed commanding the field behind him and faced her direction.

"Hmm?"

Lucy pulled the trigger.