บท 45: Meeting Aife

"Come now Setanta, we taught you better than this. You are fighting like a mad dog. Did your owner not feed you before you came here?" I say as I dodge another one of his stabs.

Hearing my words, Setanta's fighting becomes more fierce and erratic. He begins telegraphing his moves, and it quickly begins to truly resemble a mad dog fighting. That is one of his drawbacks that I want to correct, his anger issues when someone calls him a mad dog. If it only caused him to be angered then I would have let him be, however with that anger comes an irrational mind that throws most of his skills other than the basics out the window. Like now for example, he is completely ignoring his skills and trying to use his brutality to kill me. While this may work against the average warrior of these times, against the foes that he will face in the future, it could be his downfall.

Dodging under a sweep of his spear, I step forward, grab the shaft of the spear with my left hand and pull. His feet were not planted on the ground, making him come flying towards me where I catch him by the throat and slam him on the ground back first, knocking the breath out of him. With a pained gasp he releases his spear and I take it before launching him at the courtyard wall with a kick before throwing the spear at him. The spear stabs itself through his forearm and impales the wall behind, nailing him to it. A second later Ferdiad himself slams into the wall and is also nailed to it by a spear through his shoulder, just a few inches away from his heart.

"The arm? That's a bit lenient don't you think?" comes the voice of Scathach from behind me as she approaches.

"That is the point. You are the strict teacher, while I am the lenient one. Besides, until one of us heals him, that hand is useless. I cut the tendons there." I reply as she stops next to me.

Before Scathach can answer, Setanta removes the spear from his arm with a pained grunt and stands. In a heartwarming show of camaraderie, he walks over to Ferdiad and helps him remove the spear from his shoulder and stand before they start talking in hushed whispers. I can easily make out their words, but to give them the advantage of surprise I completely ignore whatever it is they are saying in favor of talking to Scathach.

"How are their lessons coming along in terms of magic?" I ask as I turn my head to face her

"Adequate. They are perhaps my most gifted students." she says.

"Really?" I ask with a raised eyebrow.

"You don't count." is her answer to my raised eyebrow.

"Oh? How so? Because last I checked, I was one of your students." I ask.

"I do not consider you a student to be honest. What I did was just help you polish your skills, give you combat experience, and increase your physical strength. It was more akin to a training partner, rather than a teacher." she answers.

Before I can reply, the sound of air being cut reaches me and I instinctively tilt my head to dodge the incoming spear. As the spear passes by my head however, I catch a glimpse of a runic array written on its shaft. With reflexes born from experiencing countless battles, I leap away from the spear and conjure a spartan shield between the spear and I, and manipulate my blood to pass through the pores of my hand to quickly inscribe a runic array on the shield just as the spear explodes. The mystic code activates and shields me as the force of the explosion and the shrapnel from the spear reaches me.

The mystic code itself lies in the runes written with my blood, ᚠ ᚢ ᚦ ᚨ ᚱ ᚲ ᚷ ᚹ ᚺ ᚾ ᛁ ᛃ ᛇ ᛈ ᛉ ᛊ ᛏ ᛒ ᛖ ᛗ ᛚ ᛜ ᛞ ᛟ. It is a mystic code that makes use of the defensive properties of the runic alphabet, the runes are inscribed along the rim of a circular shield with the Fehu rune located at the top. The user then paints the runes with their own blood to anchor the Bounded Field they create when activated to the shield. However to shorten the process I just write the runes with my blood.

Whenever the completed Code is provided with prana it will create a Bounded Field along the surface of the shield that is capable of blocking even great Noble Phantasms. Even a wooden shield will be capable of turning aside the strikes of Heroic Spirits but the high cost of keeping the shield activated combined with the fact that the shield cannot be moved while the Bounded Field is active means that it can only be used in short bursts. To properly use this Mystic Code it is essential to have the proper timing.

When only smoke is left from the explosion, I deactivate the mystic code and dissipate the shield. Seconds later Setanta emerges from the smoke, his arms up ready for hand to hand combat, and a savage grin on his face.

With a raised eyebrow I decide to indulge his fantasies and dissipate the nameless spear that I held in my right hand. His first strike is a punch towards my face, which I easily dodge by tilting my head. Instead of retracting his arm he actually chooses to open his palm and grab my head, pulling my face towards his rising knee. Still keeping calm, I grab his injured forearm and dig my thumb into his wound. In an impressive show of willpower, his only answer to the attack is a pained grunt and nothing else. Seeing how that didn't work, I decide to be more direct and strike his hip, almost chattering it. With a cry of pain he lets go of my head and falls backward to the ground. Not giving him a chance to gather himself, I stomp on his head and knock him out. A second later an unconscious Ferdiad joins Setanta on the ground. He seems to have broken both of his arms and is bleeding from a cut to the head.

"I think I might be becoming lenient." says Scathach as she walks ups to me and looks down at Ferdiad and Setanta.

Hearing her statement I can't help but scoff. Two weeks ago she killed twenty students in one of her all out spars and crippled the rest. The only survivors were Setanta and Ferdiad, and they barely survived. Last week, after the crippled students recovered, she had another one of her all out spars, killing another half. The rest of the students ran away leaving Ferdiad and Setanta as the only students.

"You are not becoming lenient, the change is coming from them. They're adapting and we are starting to see the results of their perseverance." I tell her.

She stares at the two children with fondness, because honestly that is what we have come to see the two as. Children we did not ask for yet somehow we still ended up adopting.

"Come on." I say as I pick the two up. "We need to heal them and prepare dinner. They will be starving as usual once they awake."

"You know Setanta will not be happy about missing the hunt." she says with a small smile on her face.

"Well, like I've told him before, once he can survive our spars without falling unconscious he can join me to hunt for food." I reply with a jokingly mocking tone.

"And then he will call you a shitty teacher because you knock him out on purpose every time." answers Scathach.

"And I will answer by asking him, like usual, if I'm a shitty teacher what does that make you." I reply as I begin to chuckle.

"And like usual, he will say that as a beautiful woman, I get a pass." she finishes with a laugh.

"He is such a charmer honestly. I fear for the lords who have daughters back in Ulster, for he will most likely be partaking of the friendship of the thighs with them." I say

"You mean if he has not already done it." she says with a scoff.

Arriving in the castle's lounge, I set each one of them down on a couch before leaving to go hunting.

The Land of Shadows is a land of the dead, as such it is devoid of life other than Scathach and her students. Therefore I have to venture outside of it to hunt for food. Usually the students have to hunt for their food themselves, however ever since Setanta and Ferdiad have become our only students, I've taken to hunting for their food as well as ours since now every training session ends in their incapacitation.

The passage that leads outside of the Land of Shadows is, like the rest of the realm, rocky and covered in a shadowy mist, making it easy to walk off the path and get lost.

Arriving to the woods outside, I take a deep breath of fresh air. The forest outside is pretty lively for one that borders a land for the dead. One can find plenty of boar to hunt here.

With one knee on the grass, I place my hand on the ground and begin to feel the vibrations on the ground. The first time I came here to hunt, I used my domain to sense everything, and spooked everything in the forest. As it turns out I subconsciously emit a small oppressive aura when I use my domain. I never knew because the only living beings around when I used it before were monsters and other members of the Legion. Naturally the monsters easily shrug it off, and the members of the Legion were elite warriors that were bloodied and probably didn't even notice.

After a few seconds I sense a boar about a hundred feet away to my left laying down by a bush. Standing up I conjure a bow and an arrow, and shoot it through the skull. Making my way to the boar, I pick it up and turn to make my way back to Dun Scaith, only to hear footsteps cautiously approaching me.

"There is no need to hide. I can hear you." I say as I turn to face the footsteps.

A few hundred feet away someone steps out from behind a tree. The person that steps out from the tree is a woman and can only be Aife. She looks like Scathach's twin sister, only she has red hair instead of purple.

"Can I help you?" I ask the woman.

"You can." she says as she approaches me. "You see I have a simple task that you can easily accomplish. Naturally you will be rewarded."

"I am not interested." I answer as I turn to leave.

"Do not be so hasty to decline." she says as she falls in step next to me. "You see, your host and I have something of a disagreement, and I would love it if the next time she and I cross spears that you do not interfere."

One of the students that left must have given her information about me. It would explain why she knows about me and wishes for me not to interfere with her and Scathach's next battle. Unfortunately for her Setanta will defeat her himself. Besides, Scathach is grown and powerful, I have no doubt that she can deal with Aife herself. I turn to face her and answer.

"Whatever disagreement you may have with Scathach is between you and her and none of my business. However, she is still my ally so if I see anything treacherous I will intervene. I also cannot let you kill her." I tell her.

Distaste shows on her face for a second before she quickly schools herself.

"That is acceptable." she says before she turns and leaves.