ENF Academy: For Some Reason, She Can Only Save the World if She’s Naked

The woman, Myriala, stood pointing, waiting. Elaina raised her arm, knowing the lull wouldn’t be for long; her opponent had signaled the start to the fight after all. She launched her crystal chain towards the woman, wrapping it around her right arm and leg, tying them together and then conjuring another chain to shackle her left arm to the pedestal in the center of the room. Carline charged, spear thrusting forward.

“Hmmm, so this must be what you did to that Waine you were talking about,” the woman mused, more interested in the the chains around her than she was her actual opponents. “It probably worked fine, on a mortal.” She yanked her arm forward, snapping the chain from the pedestal behind her and slashing at Carline, who had to dive to the ground to avoid getting sliced in two. Carline slid along the metal floor, sneaking a quick jab into the woman’s ankle with her spear as she went under the woman’s blade. 

No blood was drawn.

“A glancing blow from a wooden weapon? Tsk tsk, little pets. It’ll take more than that to wound me.” She hopped away on her free leg before Elaina could try and restrict her again, still with an uncanny grace. “The crystal chains though are somewhat bothersome, I must admit. But how long can you hold them in place like this?”

The woman started to pull at the chains, rapidly draining Elaina’s mana. She’d bonded them together the same way she had bonded them to the wall against the starhounds, and that at least was making the mana use more efficient than holding them together by sheer force, but it still wasn’t sustainable.

Elaina froze herself with [Personal Restraint], halving the effort she’d have to expend, at the same time Carline had managed to get up and start a second charge. Myriala again went to slash at Carline with her elbow blade, but Carline stopped just outside of the slash’s range, letting go of the front of her spear and thrusting it forward with her back hand, feet planted in the ground.

The speartip connected this time, actually connected, and thick blue blood fell out of the hole it left when Carline jumped back, out of a wound far too small to matter. “Actual blood drawn?” the woman said, smiling. “Impressive; I can see you’ve actually practiced with weaponry before. But, pray tell, isn’t your little group a bit unequipped for this? Your healer is the one doing the attacking, after all. I thought you mortals kept more balanced parties.”

She jumped back into the wall, and launched off of it with a kick, free arm’s blade headed straight towards Elaina. Elaina had to drop [Personal Restraint] and run to the center of the room, but she still got cut on her uninjured side. She looked down at her torso—less severe than before, but still not good—gaping at it as a foot crashed into her chest, launching her to the carved out entrance of the cold metal room, her back landing on the jagged metal. She looked up at Myriala from the floor, realizing the woman had broken free of the crystal chains in the time Elaina had dropped her skill and been injured.

“Such a shame.” The woman was speaking as she engaged with Carline, the white-robed Vitalist jabbing into her reach with her staff. “You were interesting, but I should have known an environmental-targeting mortal wouldn't be up to par. Guess your System had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for an Administrator.”

Carline was a force of nature: light on her feet, keeping her opponent at bay with her weapon, and, for some reason, keeping her party member alive. Elaina couldn't believe it, that her stomach was healing yet again as Carline danced around the room, utilizing the System itself as a barrier to keep distance. Carline was also woefully outmatched.

Elaina closed her eyes, partly to fight back the tears, and partly to let Carline activate [Unseen Watcher]. Gods I'm useless. She had one job, to hold back one set of limbs with what should have been an unbreakable chain, and she'd failed even that. Carline was over there fighting her heart out while keeping Elaina alive, even dulling Elaina’s pain. 

She opened her eyes, looking down at her side. The outside of the wound was already healing over, having not been a terribly wide cut, but her dress was a disaster, both sides now cut and stained with blood. But it wasn't only her dress; she was a disaster. 

[Humiliation Factor] started to well up, and she laughed at how pathetic she was. How cruel of the gods, to give her a skill that made her stronger if she was already ashamed of how inconsequentially weak she was. 

She looked back up at the fight. Myriala was clearly playing with Carline, because as deft as the spearwoman was, the crystal-adorned invader was that much many times over, skipping around on tiptoes, flipping over Carline's spear and making quick slices with her fingernails, not even attempting to go for a killing blow with the giant crystal blades extending from her arms, leaving the poor girl stabbing away, always just a hair away from meeting her mark and crystal claws ripped away at her, robes and skin littered with red. But in watching her moves, Elaina saw an opening.

“Carline, her wound, forget me!” Carline must have trusted Elaina, because the pain flooded back to her side without any acknowledgement, both Elaina and Myriala screaming out as Carline shifted from restoring one wound to worsening the other.

“Interesting aspect,” Myriala said, jumping backwards as she clutched her side, azure blood seeping out of her hand. “[Wound], is it?”

“You talk too much!” Elaina shouted, raising her hand and conjuring a new set of chains. She'd realized something, thanks to Carline. It was only once, early on, that she'd landed a hit on Myriala. A small blow, even as Carline amplified it with her aspect, but it proved one thing, that Myriala wasn't invincible, that she could bleed.

The chain she made wasn't the type you'd see holding a chandelier at Endrin, not the lustrous metal meant to adorn the world's greatest institution. No, this chain was what Elaina was used to seeing hold things together back home, a deteriorated, jagged, misshapen mess of links with equally poorly kept shackles on each end of the length, clamping  on both of Myriala’s wrists. 

That wouldn't be enough though; the rusty chain didn't extend straight between each wrist. It instead wrapped around its captive’s neck first, sharp links cutting into her throat. She'd still have the raw strength to break these chains apart, if she wanted to try, but before that the tension would pull on the links themselves, all force directed straight into her own neck. To make sure of it, Elaina dumped all the mana she could, including from reactivating [Personal Restraint] and the lesser boost from [Humiliation Factor], into fortifying the chains. They would hold long enough, and Myriala was finally, actually, trapped.

“Hah, now that's clever!” the woman said, a beastly snarl growing on her face. 

Carline was already on the move, rushing in with reckless abandon; this could be their only chance at a killing blow. 

“But not clever enough, I'm afraid.” Instead of pulling away to try and break the chains, she pulled them in, bringing her hands together. A horrific

The empty shackle hit Carline directly in the head before Elaina could dismiss it, and Carline crumpled to the ground.

“Carline!” Elaina shouted, running towards her friend.

“It really was a good move though,” the woman said as the chain around her faded, scratching away at the abrasions on her neck with her good hand. “A lesser member of the Red Order might have succumbed, one not willing to make the sacrifice to escape.” 

Carline was breathing, alive, but spilling blood from her forehead. 

“She needs help!” Elaina shouted, for some reason trying to plead with the monster in front of her.

“Tsk tsk, little one. Too sentimental for your own good. I won't let her die—she's clearly worth keeping—it's you I'm undecided about.” She walked forward, pulling Elaina’s teary face upward again. “On the one hand, you're quite a clever little bitch, but you're just so temperamental! Freezing up in the corner while your poor, dear friend was fighting all alone, and now sitting here crying?” 

Elaina jerked her head away, struggling not to explode. The woman was right, though. If Elaina had acted earlier, been smarter from the beginning, then maybe things would have turned out differently.

“No, as a warrior, you're no good, just a girl who happened upon a cave where she really had no business being. As a pet, though?” The woman pressed her bloodied, mangled hand to Elaina’s face, pushing her back into eye contact, smiling at her with cruelty in her eyes. “You're cute enough, even cuter than the useful one. I think we could make this work. What do you say, little puppy?”

“Fuck you!” Elaina said, grabbing Carline's spear from the ground and shoving it upward. Myriala looked shocked, almost in disbelief as the weapon struck her in the center of the chest, staggering backwards as the haft slipped from Elaina's fingers and clattered to the ground.

“You, insolent—” Myriala stammered, looking down at the wound, a wound sure to kill, as blood poured out of it, right from the heart. Thank the gods…

But then the blood slowed. Elaina watched in horror as the stream of blood crawled to a trickle, then again as it stilled entirely, the wound closing completely. The woman's crushed hand cracked and popped, reforming itself as she glared down at Elaina, eyes brimming with rage.

“Even my starhounds never made me discipline them the way I'm about to do to you, little pet.”