genessia | 10th Healing | I'm a Black Belt, I have no fatigue

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10th Healing | I'm a Black Belt, I have no fatigue

Locked to Setsuna/Eva | Genessia

The day started normally, with Konoka being a relatively early riser but still not nearly as quick as Setsuna was. But this time, the healer woke up and found herself grabbing a mask instead of turning off her alarm clock. A little confused, Konoka lifted the mask and set it aside so she could actually turn off her alarm. Blinking blearily at the mask, Konoka brought it close to her face to examine it when suddenly, it grew a mind of its own and attached to her face, ignoring her panic until it sealed itself on and she lost consciousness.

--

Not much time passes before Konoka shoots awake again, this time startled that she overslept. "Agh! I'm late, I'm late!" She might not be on the clock so to speak, but the brunette felt ever restless, with less time for morning training she was sure that Eva was going to kill her and Setsuna was going to either blame her or blame her*self*, neither which seemed all that appetizing to Konoka.

She leaps off the bed with greater physical prowess than she'd ever displayed before, using her pactio card to switch out of her pajamas and into her onmyodo outfit for training, following that, she immediately stormed to where Setsuna was... and was a bit surprised that she hadn't left the apartment already.

"Secchan?! I thought you would have left already! We need to train!"

[Video] Everglade

[ The video flicks on to Konoka looking somewhat confused. A portal lined with charms closes right behind her. ]

Why is my store still here in Everglade? I thought I moved it to Fayren? Geez, is Genessia starting to mess with people's minds again? I've been hearing about a few things over the comms this morning but seeing it in person...

[ It makes her sigh, and her face contorts to the briefest of grimaces when several negative memories flicker in her mind. Dracula, Pidonus, her drama with Mariko...

She shakes it away. ]

No. I can handle this. This place has its good times and its bad times.

Action | Fayren

Ah, now this is more like it. Konoka has surrounded a wide field with several charms, mostly so she can cast freely cast magic without it messing up nature. She had a faint memory of cutting loose in Fayren once and causing the wildlife to panic... she wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

She grinned as she let loose a circle of ofuda around her hand.

"Evil Destroying Tornado Blast!"

What came out was a powerful, tornado like burst tearing through the air and hammering the edge of her barrier.

Though mostly satisfied, Konoka looked around. "I still got it, but that wasn't the same power that let me fight the Lifemaker..."

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Not the easiest teleportation ever attempted, but hey, it wasn't like Eva was expecting her to be able to do that at all.

...of course, that just left her back where she started. Trying to wake Eva without getting a stickier banishment.

Konoka huffed, that had clearly been tricky and took more magic than strictly necessary, but as far as the brunette was concerned this was a just a minor setback. How could she wake up Eva without getting her angry?

Tempting her with blood was right out since who knew when Eva last fed, she could get seriously drunk on blood as powerful as hers. But Konoka, for all of her power was still Konoka, so she did the next thing and decided the best way to a vampire's desire was through her sense of smell.

So she left and began brewing a strong brand of tea. It wasn't the first time it worked, but it had been a while since she needed to use it, so hopefully Eva would be more cooperative after a morning tea?

There was no way to say whether it had gotten her out of bed any sooner, but the smell of brewing tea did indeed lure Eva to the kitchen after a while, where she grabbed a cup in obvious expectation of being served.

Only after she'd had her first drink did she open up the previous conversation.

"Not bad. Now what were you on about?"

Konoka, once she saw that her more indirect method worked smiled. Without skipping a beat, she poured Eva her own cup first.

Only after the tea was poured did Konoka speak again. "Now that both you and Secchan are here, I want to train again. I feel like I went out of shape, relatively speaking. If I couldn't even beat Dracula, there's no way I could have beaten the Lifemaker."

For some reason, she totally expected Eva to laugh at her.

More like spit tea all over her. That particular comment blew clear through the layers of defensive calm she'd built up over her years living as Yukihime to the quick-to-anger Eva Konoka might have remembered.

"Beaten WHO? Are you damaged?" Evangeline slapped her cup down and pushed herself up from the table, doubtless the first step in a chain that was going to end in some onesided wrestling. "You don't measure a grain of sand with an astrolabe! A lowly apprentice like you should be worrying about whether you can get all the way through the orthodox chants, not daydreaming about punching up to some false god."

"B-but I did!" Konoka protested, not even reacting to the tea soaking her face like a true shounen protagonist. "Me and Secchan beat her up and helped Negi-kun get his father back! I figured out how to summon Amaterasu and Shenshou Jing at the same time, and then I had Koyomi's help to prevent the possession and finish her off! But ever since I got to Genessia I haven't been able to summon them again. I know you're from a different timeline, but you have to believe me!"

She was probably going to get wrestled to death, wasn't she?

Edited 2017-12-14 13:27 (UTC)

To death.

"I have to believe you? Why, because you believe yourself? You sound like it, but I've watched you fumble around with your half-learned spells for months now. Not exactly the skills of a godslayer."

...Eva always got meaner when she was surprised.

"Though if you want tougher training... well, it doesn't exactly matter whether you're deluded or not, does it?" She laughed with very little mirth. "You'll get to find your level all the same."

Ah, now THAT was what she was looking for. It was going to be humbling, but perhaps she could reclaim the heights she had lost before, and be strong enough to protect others just as others protect her.

Her fists clenched tightly and face determined, Konoka steeled herself for the worst. Asuna went through things like this back at home, why couldn't she?

"I'll do it!" Konoka said, putting in all the conviction her voice could muster. She just had to ignore that impending sense of horror she felt... like she always had to, right? Surely the mark of someone of talent and not an idiot shounen protagonist (yuri edition (tm)), right?

"In that case...

Let's start with 100,000 push-ups. You have two hours, and I want a different summon sitting on your back ever 1000. Nothing less than half a ton. Also, put up some barriers or the vibrations will wreck the apartment.

After that... hmm... spend the night camping in Everglade. I'll buy some raw meat for you to wear."

Evangeline rattled off her ridiculous tests like they were nothing. Sure, as a teacher she probably should have started with something a little more open-ended to take Konoka's measure... but when she saw that determined look, so unsuited to the Konoka she knew, she just had to be a jerk about it.

That boisterous confidence faltered. But... only for a little bit.

She seriously hoped that Evangeline would forget about making her wear meat, if only because it would be such a waste of good meat (that, and Setsuna would go into conniptions), but the push-ups sounded daunting, even from the Eva she knew.

But nothing said she can't use her powers on herself, so Konoka first cast a barrier over the apartment to prevent the power from shaking up the entire foundation. Then she stripped off the top half of her outfit, with just a sleeveless t-shirt beneath, and used a few of her charms on her body.

She focused. She wasn't sure if she even had any summons that weighed half a ton... that she could summon on land anyway. But she might as well try because she doubted Eva would listen to excuses. Eventually, an idea came to her.

"Great dragon of the earth. Rise!" The power swelled. While the barrier did in fact, hold, the emergence of a large dragon in a tiny space did in fact, make the apartment feel pretty cramped.

"Ah, Eva-chan. Maybe I should do this outside?"

She eyed the dragon. Yeah, she didn't really want the apartment smelling like that thing for the rest of the day.

"I'll allow that. You still have to put up a barrier though. You're not working out to impress the neighbor girls."

Konoka breathed a sigh of relief. She dismissed the dragon, with a note that she'd be drawing him back out in less cramped space.

"I don't think the neighboring girls see me as their type?" Konoka supplied, as she bounded outside from the window. When your physical prowess was this good, why take any ordinary exit?

She settled down on what was a side lawn, erecting a barrier before going back to what she had done before... summoning an earth dragon and preparing herself to do push-ups with it on her back.

...and then Konoka struggled to actually lift herself off the ground. "...one...!" she groaned.

Well, the fact that she was making any progress at all spoke volumes of how different this Konoka was compared to the one Eva (normally) knew.

...it was only going to get harder, since Eva, for all her harsh talk, was telekinetically lightening the load. She might find Konoka's suddenly industrious attitude and claims of incredibly power bewildering and thus annoying and thus ripe for punishment, but it wasn't like she wanted the girl to squash herself in a fit of delusion.

"You sound like you're having some trouble." Considering she needed to be doing about 30 of these a second to hit Eva's ridiculous deadline she looked like it too. "Haven't been keeping in shape here?"

She fished to see how Konoka recalled things. She certainly knew she'd never seen or sensed that Konoka did anything to strengthen her body or her ability to enhance it.

"Ah..." Konoka looks dismayed. She could detect that Eva was helping her the moment she felt the weight lift. Which was disgraceful, given that she was capable of this before.

But naturally, Konoka moved aside from the dragon and then sat up. "But I have! I was always making sure to jog and practice my seals before going to work, and then I practice my charms at work since that's largely what I do for it. But for some reason this morning I feel a lot weaker!"

The regular Konoka did no such activity in the morning; much of her practice was focused on healing arts first, general magic second. Working out was usually something the normal Konoka approached like a regular human.

"I've never seen you do much beyond your charms and healing. And you've certainly never told me anything about fighting the Lifemaker in the boy's place."

Though it wasn't like she'd asked about that. She was happy for Konoka to never know that she was from the other time.

"I don't know what's going on right now, but looking at how you're doing right now it's obvious my perception is the correct one, at least as far as your body is concerned. Whether those memories can be called real or not, you're stuck with the physical and magical development of Konoe Konoka who never took the fore in battle."

"Eh?"

At once, Konoka seemed to deflate, as if Eva had popped her like a balloon. Her strength was different because... she wasn't in her own body. "I'm in a different Konoka's body? Then..."

It was hard to take. She sank down. "What happened? How am I going to be able to protect people?"

But realizing something, she shook her head. She stood up again. "I guess all I can do is start from the beginning. I don't even know why I'm stuck in a different body, but if I got this strong from being a damsel in distress, then maybe with the right training I can help this body too."

Yep. Stubborn. But she's also clearly talking as if trying to motivate herself.

"It's not like you need to do it yourself." Eva stepped closer, as though to give some words that might have almost qualified as consolation, only to be stopped cold when Konoka shot back up.

...she could only shake her head. "You want to go through everything it takes to reach the top again? For what? The dangers here don't require that kind of power. And even if they did, I'm here."

She stared into Konoka's eyes. That all-powerful stare that beckoned to phantasmagoria. "Weakness is nothing if you don't feel it. It's climbing back that will make you weak..."

Konoka’s eyes stare right back. Compared to a brunette who might have quaked at that, this Konoka seemed unperturbed.

“I swore that day that Secchan shouldn’t have to shoulder the burdens of protecting me. That I could fight alongside her.” Her fists clenched. “I realize I didn’t go that path alone. It was thanks to Negi-kun’s, and everyone’s support. But it’s just me and her and you now. You might be able to face down Lord Dracula, but I have my doubts he’s the only powerful being with ill will that will appear. If there’s more than one, what will you do? What will we do?”

But Eva’s also right in that well, aside from that, there hasn’t been anything all that dangerous, or at least dangerous in the way that would require power. She stared for a bit longer before at least adding with a shake of her head. “I’m getting paranoid again. That isn’t like me…”

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10th Healing | I'm a Black Belt, I have no fatigue

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