High-Value Target

I'm not going to lie and say I fought even remotely fairly. In fact, it probably went without saying, but the moment I attacked, I stacked the deck as far as physically possible in my favor. Yeah, part of it was because of the level difference, but I admit it—even if we'd been on equal footing or if she'd been weaker than me, I wouldn't have pulled any punches. I felt kind of bad about that on one level, but not enough to actually, you know, not do it. I had advantages and I exploited them ruthlessly.

The biggest one, of course, was Crocea Mors. Out in the woods, there were a lot of limits to what he could do as a Metal Elemental. Restricted to what he had available, I mainly used him to strengthen my own weapons, making even the fragile looking blade on my fingers diamond hard. If we'd been fighting human opponents instead of Grimm, he might have been able to sense them by their weaponry and help guide my blows—perhaps even affect their weapons directly—but he was still severely limited compared to, say, Levant.

But inside a ship that was mostly metal…well, that gave us a few more options. I mean, we didn't want to risk causing damage to the ship itself so we both had to restrain ourselves somewhat, but we still had loads of options, including ones that were arguably more effective than more overt uses, especially combined with my other assets.

For example, a relative simple act killed the lights. Like pretty much all modern windows, the viewing deck could be turned opaque pretty simply. The switch was in the control room to prevent people from abusing it, but it was still there. There were similar controls for the internal lighting in much the same place. It took barely a twitch of effort to plunge the entire airship into darkness.

Or, in my case, 'darkness.' With Lenore, there was barely a flicker as the world got, if anything, brighter. More than that, I could see Weiss, bright white light glowing within her chest, beneath her skin. As I crouched and time seemed to slow, my focus sharpened upon her. I saw muscles twitch beneath her skin, hair shift as she began to react—but unlike her, I wasn't reacting. I was already moving as the lights cut out, clawed gauntlets reaching, grabbing, crushing.

To her credit, the only delay between me taking ahold of her and her reacting was a single jerk. She didn't waste time, didn't say a word, she just drew her blade. I watched as the white light of her soul sheathed the blade, splitting into different colors as it reached the Dust in her guard. She reacted quickly and struck well—but also blindly. I saw the attack coming and shifted slightly out of the way. Had she been able to see me in the darkness, she could have compensated for that easily, but she couldn't and I completed the attack using Rip. I watched her MP bar decrease as her Aura withstood the attack and instead of tearing out a part of her, I dragged her by her right arm and threw her with all the force I could muster.

A skill has been created through a special action! Through the hurling of projectile weapons, the skill 'Throw' has been created!

I saw her twist blindly in the air, settling against the air itself in a crouch, a snowflake symbol appearing beneath her feet and halting her momentum. The symbol sent a flash of dim light through the area, nowhere near enough to illuminate things for her but sending shadows crawling and showing outlines in a way that I could see if I focused, overlaid with the bright world I now stalked. Normally, I wouldn't have bothered, but in this case it was probably worth it to know what she could see.

I saw her eyes focus on me, widening at whatever she saw, but then the symbol turned black and I saw her angle her blade towards me, flying forward an instant later with blinding speed and power. But at the same time, her light faded and I moved. Speed is important, of course, but it's not the only factor. Though Weiss moved with tremendous speed, she had to cover over ten meters to reach me, whereas I had to take a step out of the way to avoid the attack—and she wasn't that fast.

But I didn't stop there. I don't know if I could have done it alone, but I wasn't alone. I had Crocea Mors and Levant beside me and the power within Dreary Midnight and Lenore bolstered my own. I felt my Air Aura surrounding me, granting me the speed of the wind and I moved, lifting hands guided as much by Crocea Mors as my own will—and together, we closed my hands around the guard of Weiss sword and her left arm.

I bore down with crush and tried to tear away at her grip with rip, but her momentum remained and I had to work with it. Bracing my feet, turned with the sudden force, dragging, straining, and then flinging her back up in the opposite direction. She held onto her rapier, but I didn't let up on her, slashing quickly at the air to send a Razor Wind in her direction, throwing her back as she tried to stop in midair again, shattering her Glyph with a flash of light as I smashed her through it.

She let out a cry as her flight continued, but I was already upon her, using the White Tiger's Lunge to close the distance in an instant and smashed her the rest of the way up to the ceiling, closing my right hand around her throat and my left around her wrist as my feet planted on the ceiling and I flung us both back down to the floor. I smashed her straight into the ground as hard as I could, leaving it to Crocea Mors to protect the ship itself, and clapped down as hard as I could.

Weiss didn't let go, probably understanding how this would go if I took both her sight and her only weapon. Her free hand wrapped around my right arm, trying to pull it from her throat as her legs kicked, but through Crocea's protective shell it did nothing. Abruptly, she stopped struggling and another of her Glyphs appeared beneath her, illuminating us both. For a moment, our eyes met and she looked at me—or at my mask. I saw her eyes widen further, a gasp dying at my grip, but then I was bounding away as ice shot towards the ceiling in the dying light.

I paused for a moment, watching her as she quickly forced herself to her feet, looking around rapidly with unseeing eyes. It was strange, watching her move blindly when I could see so well, even if it was the point. This was how the battle of Fort Castle had been won, a single weakness that sealed an entire army's fate. I took a step to the side, air gathering around my feet to silence the footfall as I circled her quietly, waiting.

After a moment, she snarled something unladylike, glaring into the darkness.

"Show yourself, you coward!" She spat, gesturing with her blade and sending a blast of blue light in a random direction. It was a candle flame in the cavernous darkness, but it brought back grasping shadows and vague outlines. I saw Weiss focus on me as the first light faded, attacking again in the same way—but I was already gone, leaping away. I was a shifting shadow against the profiles of high seats as she attacked, a shape that was never in the same place twice. I moved around her, drawing closer with each dodged attack, letting her waste her energy and grow frightened.

"What do you want?" She demanded. "Why are you here? Are you with the White Fang?"

I remained silent. Speaking would just give away my location and, perhaps even more importantly, I knew she was scared. I was glad for it, in fact, and I wanted her to stay that way, to start to panic and continue to strike out in fear. The more frightened she was, the better it was for me—at least, if done right. A part of me felt sick to the stomach at that fact, at the realization of what I was doing, but it was the truth. Fear and anger had their place in battle, but if you let them rule your thoughts, you'd pay for it as she was, MP slowly draining away.

So I said nothing, not giving her anything to attach to me, any knowledge of what she was facing in the dark. I moved quickly, staying close enough for her to see me, to react to my approach. I think…it might have been arrogant, especially given all the unfair advantages I had on my side, but I was pretty sure I had the edge in this fight. Weiss seemed powerful, but I got the impression that she didn't have as much experience as I did when it came to fighting and put in a situation where power alone didn't matter, I had her on the ropes.

It was just a matter of pushing her out of the ring.

I danced back a few rows and crouched down behind one of the chairs. I heard her move and wondered if she would try to escape or attempt to break the reinforced window, but it didn't matter. With a whisper, Levant began to appear, form twisting out of the air. She smiled at me and nudged my mask playfully before I drew away, dashing between cover as Weiss continued to attack futilely. From her perspective, she'd lost track of me in the darkness and now she was attacking wildly to try and find me again.

"How did you turn the lights off!?" She snarled and I could see droplets of sweat forming on her skin. "Where is Hamelin!? What did you do to the pilot!?"

The question gave me pause as a thought struck me. I debated whether or not to answer, to let her hear my voice and actually know what her enemy sounded like. After all, what was more frightening then the unknown, the unseen, something dreaded but approaching?

I thought about it and knew there was something. Part of it maybe have been personal bias, but…I could think of one thing that was more frightening when you knew about it and something made me think she would share the feeling. I managed to find it in myself to hate what I was doing a little bit more, even as I looked over and met Levant's eyes in the darkness, sending a thought her way.

She giggled and it was a sound that didn't come from her mouth, from a direction or source. It was delicate sounding, joyous, and completely unfitting for the situation—and it came from all around us. I saw Weiss jerk, twist around once, twice, three times as if expect an attack from every direction but when she attacked again, nothing appeared.

And then I spoke. But though my mouth moved, the sound did not come from me.

"Have you not realized?" I said, my voice clam and clear and as polite as I could make it—and coming from right behind her. "You are alone."

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