Chapter 44: Firo's change

"Come on, just a little bit more…"

Kaisha's duel took a tool on her body. While she didn't end up injured by any means, with how she exerted all of her strength at once back then, carrying lifeless Fen still posed a challenge for her.

Yet, it wasn't as if the young man didn't realise what was going on around him. It wasn't even as if he was unable to move. Would he wish for that, his limbs would move freely, even despite the extreme exhaustion.

It was just that… Back when he combined several different things he saw or heard about, something happened. By keeping his fire flowing directly through his body, the young man made sure to keep it from igniting. Only once it reached the point of complete stale like it happened in Kaisha's case, he ignited it all at once but didn't allow it to surface.

Instead, one could say that Fen set his body alight… from its inside!

Yet, rather than burning his fragile internal organs, it seemed as if everything… slowed down?

Even in this accelerated state of mind, Fen could feel how his entire body was rapidly becoming slower, tougher… heavier to move around. In what seemed like a second in his current state, he would lose half of the initial speed that burning his own body seemed to give him.

And it was at that moment when something kicked in.

His hands, legs, the rest of his body… Every muscle in the young arcanist apprentice's flesh suddenly started a complicated dance, elevating the grace behind the martial arts that he learned from his master to some astonishing degree.

At this point, Fen finally understood the meaning behind certain moves, transitions, blocks and attacks. It wasn't that he couldn't execute them previously, it was that he was simply too weak to do it properly!

Not willing to waste even a second of this improved state of his, Fen forced his way forward, feeling as if the air around him turned so thick that instead of moving he had to float.

Then he just appeared under the soldier.

In a perfect position, prepared to execute the finishing attack, Fen was about to end the bout, where his teacher kicked the young man out of focus with his scream.

As if there weren't enough surprises today, in this single moment, when the reality came rushing back at Fen's mind, this deeper something that caused him to act without a single thought on the spot, seemed to awaken.

In one moment, his head erupted with the lights, composing into a plethora of situations that never could have happened. From Fen standing in the front row of a huge unit of people, all dressed in tight, white clothes. The next moment, this image was replaced by the sight of the same group, now all cloaked by something that could only be described as armour made out of the fire.

But as quickly as this moment appeared, it vanished from Fen's mind just as suddenly. Left in the state of a person who was about to wake up, the young man could make the push for the reality, returning to his usual self…

But he knew that doing so would make him lose all his chances at ever comprehending what just happened in his mind!

It was just a set of images. In theory, there should be only so much information and emotion passed through them, yet… Fen was perfectly sure that those… memories? They might've held the key to understanding the greater picture of what was happening!

The possibility of losing the touch with those memories once he would allow himself to return back to reality was the cost too great for the young man to pay. Because as dramatic as the situation was, nothing really that bad happened!

"I guess this is the place…"

Given how Kaisha already visited Fen's archarity before, she didn't have any real problems bringing him back there. Yet, as soon as the doors opened, the worst possible person appeared from within.

"What did you do to him, you church whore?"

Blocking the entry to the building with her own body, Firo crossed her arms over her chest and looked down on the two.

"Is this really the time for that? I just brough him here, that's all."

Surprised and instantly repulsed by the unwelcoming attitude of the maid, Kaisha quickly pushed Fen into her arms, before disappearing with her red face into the closest of the alleys.

"Whore…"

Spitting those words as the girl distanced herself, Firo finally paid any attention to the young man.

Twitch.

Her stare was quite… strange. Instead of taking him somewhere and at least laying him down, the girl just continued to stare at Fen's face. Her eyes gradually opened up wide, as her hands started to tremble.

"That won't do, I need to take you somewhere."

Out of nowhere, Firo's eyes lost their momentary shine, as she started to pull on Fen's body. What was surprising, was that instead of just placing him down on the couch in the main room of the archarity, this girl actually pulled him all the way to some other room!

Closing the doors after she managed to hide Fen's lifeless body inside, Firo approached him and stood above his chest. Moving her hands down, she grabbed the sides of the young man's shirt, pulling it up and forcing Fen's head along with those lifeless eyes of him up to the level of her own gaze.

"Who taught you?"

So far, the situation didn't deteriorate badly enough for Fen to decide to abandon his efforts of recovering those strange memories. Given how she was only a maid in the archarity, Firo surely wouldn't try anything strange towards apparently unconscious arcanist apprentice, would she?

Instead of answering Fen's question, the girl this time pulled not only on the young man's shirt but did so with so much strength that she raised his entire body into the air, for as high as her short hands allowed!

"I know that you can hear me, and I can help you out. But you really need to tell me what was the name of the man or a woman that taught you this martial art!"