Chapter 598

598 Tea Time, Interrupted(Part Two)

***WARNING: LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, AND DISTURBING CONTENT***

As soon as the assassin had finished speaking, he shot a smaller fireball at Skye while accumulating a massive one with his other hand. His flames grew hotter as the fireball reached the size of a stagecoach, then stopped growing. Skye had lept back and was watching him as she poured magic into the ground through her feet.

The assassin obviously knew as he smirked at her, seemingly unperturbed by the amount she was controlling. Skye figured that an assassin was ready to die at any time, so she approached the situation as such. No prisoners..

Anger welled up as he glanced at Mei and Rukia, and Skye realized what he had planned. In an instant, she was in front of them, screaming; “Get Down NOW!”

Before they’d even hit the ground, a dense dirt wall over a foot thick popped up in front of Skye. She placed her hands against it to further brace it, but the fireball’s impact practically exploded the wall. As dust and debris covered half the courtyard, the assassin ran behind them..

Skye knew his intent and heard his footsteps, so she moved to cover Mei’s back just as he’d tried to come down on her with a dagger. If Hana hadn’t given Skye her sword at the start, then Mei would’ve been murdered right then and there. The thought made Hana’s blood run cold as she held a balling Rukia in her arms.

Protecting Rukia was more important to Mei, who had told Hana to shield her front while she covered her back. It had left her own backside exposed, which both the fighters had noticed. When the assassin moved, Skye had rushed, too..

While she’d deflected the assassin’s blade, Skye had reconnected with her stored magic in the ground, and used a small portion to create a ground spike. The assassin had felt the ground shifting below his feet, so he’d dodged it, but the resulting break was much needed.

When Skye turned her head to ask if everyone was alright, Mei was grateful that Rukia couldn’t see..

.....

Blood trickled down the lining of her jaw as several gashes in her face were simultaneously healing. Her nose had obviously been smashed as well, but she’d already regenerated new cartilage, and fixed it’s shape. Tiny rocks fell to the ground as new tissue forced them out.

Skye wiped the blood-soaked clumps of dirt from her face after seeing the horrified expression on Mei’s. She knew that it probably looked far worse than it felt, but that was due to Skye’s high pain tolerance. If she were anyone else, then she would’ve been cowering on the floor, crying out in agony from her wounds.

As the gashes slowly closed on her face, Mei collected herself as she shakily asked; “Should we run for it?”

“Na, that’s what that bastard’s waitin’ fer,” Skye replied in a hushed tone in between breaths; “Just stay where ya are so I ken, and I’ll handle this arse.”

“Are you sure?” Mei asked with a slight tremor in her voice.

Hana partly turned, and gently gripped her shoulder; “The guards should be here any moment now. Skye just needs to hold him off for a bit longer..”

“Hana’s right. And besides,” Skye smirked cheekily before she added; “This bastard’s nothin’ compared ta another Fire mage I’ve met..”

As Skye stood up, Rukia whimpered as she pressed her face into Hana’s chest. She was literally trembling with fear, which made Skye begin to do the same, but with anger.. ‘Nobody makes my sweet lassie cry..’

As the dust finished settling, the assassin became completely visible. He was standing nonchalantly as he waited for the princess to finish her little strategy pow-wow. As she took her stance and reconnected to the magic she had stored in the ground, the assassin stated; “Are you ready now? Have you bid your final goodbyes?”

Skye didn’t speak, she only glared at the man before her. Waves of murderous intent rolled off of her, instinctively making a light, cold sweat break out all over his body. Trying to maintain his composure, the assassin tried to unnerve Skye by taunting her..

“I promise to make the child’s death as painless as possible. I’ve never liked killing children, but it’s part of my job sometimes. I’ll be gentle with the women, too. Well, I can’t say that if that one holding the child fights back, but I swear to-”

Again, Skye didn’t speak; she just launched herself at him. A fury the likes of which he’d never seen before glimmered in her eyes as she unleashed her full-strength. Her speed more than tripled, and her movements became more erratic. Making it difficult to anticipate where she would attack from.

Skye had decided to encircle him, much like she’d done to Tidas during the Mage Trials. She zipped back and forth in an almost circular shape, and attacked him as she’d passed. He tried to attack back, but she was simply moving too fast for a non-Tank mage to manage alone.

The assassin managed to avoid Skye’s first several attacks, but not her fifth. When her outstretched arm connected with his collarbone, he felt it snap in several places. Agony surged through him, but he kept it together long enough to make a decision..

Skye had felt his bones crack under the force of her arm, and knew that his would now be limited. Fire mages generally controlled their element with their hands, and the man before her had been doing that. Thinking that his magic was now limited, Skye rushed in for the final blow, but was nearly scorched by a wall of flames.

“You’re not the only one who can store up magic in their element.. Didn’t you notice how fresh the air around us seemed? I’ve pulled all of the oxygen towards us.. A snap of my fingers, and this entire area goes up in flames!”

After Skye had jumped back to avoid being burned, she stood rooted in place. The assassin thought that she was panicking, but it was the complete opposite..

A couple minutes went by before Skye simply lifted her head, and smiled. The assassin grinned back for a split second, but it quickly turned into a grimace as he realized that she was actively working her magic into the oxygen. To interrupt his control, therefore his chain reaction to make it flammable.

The assassin’s anger and fear mixed into a volatile outburst; “What the fuck have you Done?! You’re not an Air mage!”

“Neither are you, but here we are,” Skye replied calmly, which only infuriated the assassin further.

“How are you-”

“I’m also a Water mage. That’s actually the trait I was born with. Water and air aren’t that different, once you understand how the individual elements interact and react to both each other, and your magic on a molecular level.”

The assassin’s eyes went wide for a moment before he commented; “It doesn’t matter, I can still make this!”

While crying out in pain, the assassin lifted his arms as high as he could as he pulled all of the still-affected oxygen to himself. A fireball the size of a small house began to form above his head. The heat it was putting out was intense to Hana and Mei, but Skye had barely even shifted where she stood.

“Too hot for you to handle, Princess?!” the assassin yelled in a taunting fashion.

Skye smirked; “Sorry, but you’re not the hottest Fire mage I’ve come across..”

The assassin chuckled lightly, a little sad to see such a beautiful and witty woman about to be killed. As he readied his injured body to incinerate the lot of them, the ground beneath his feet began to tremble..

Right as he looked down, a mucky liquid began to bubble up from the ground. It was completely encircling him, which sent a warning bell of in his head, but his ego got the better of him..

“Water won’t do you much good against me, Princess. My flames are more than hot enough to turn your water into steam..”

He grinned cockily as he shifted his aching body; “I know what you did at your Mage Trials. You won’t be able to trap me like you did your husband.”

As the murky water pooled around him, Skye couldn’t help but say; “Whoever said I was Only using water against you?”

Confusion covered the assassin’s face before a massive wall of thick, slimy mud surrounded him on all sides. He’d instantly tried to use his flames to evaporate the water, which he’d successfully done. But by basically cooking away the water, he’d left himself trapped..

Skye had purposely found as much clay inside of the ground as she could, burst the water pipe underground, and had made a liquidity, putty-like mixture. When she’d surrounded the assassin with it, he thought that the water had just been made murky by the dirt. But he was wrong, and now his assumption had cost him his life..

Screams of agony echoed out as the assassin began to cook to death inside of the ceramic-like dome. Mei had instantly turned and told Hana to get Rukia away, which she did. Right as she’d reached the door to Mei’s quarters, the door swung open on it’s own..

“What happened?! Where is my wife?!” Tidas bellowed as he nearly ran into Hana and Rukia.

Hang and Genie were directly behind him, along with a dozen or so guards. As they entered the courtyard, they were astonished to see the damage. Gashes in the ground, broken statues, scorch marks everywhere, and the massive dome were shocking enough. But the screams coming from the dome had a few of the guards looking pale.

Tidas checked over his wife and heard her story, then immediately went over to the dome. He punched a hole in it, then started to rip it apart enough to pull the assassin out. The man screamed in agony as Tidas yanked him out without a care concerning his physical state.

His clothes were melted and charred to his skin, leaving no way to differentiate the two. His hair and half of his face were scorched so bad that he looked almost nothing like the man who had been sealed inside the kiln-like dome. Skye’d had no intentions of freeing him, but Tidas wanted information..

Seeing that the man was on death’s doorstep, he quickly and firmly asked; “Who sent you?”

The assassin just smiled.

“Do we know him?” Skye asked, already having a relatively clear idea of what was most likely going on.

The assassin smiled with his blood-filled mouth; “Yes, of course you do... Although, it may not be... Who you think...”

The assassin turned his head to look Skye in her eyes; “There’s always someone stronger than us out there.. You’ll find out soon enough...just how much stronger he is..”

With a dark, knowing smile on his lips: the assassin exhaled his final breath..