Rock...?

Arata pushed his palm into the air, "hey... is this really working?"

Naomi stared at Arata as the pebble fell back to the ship. "Your skill is worse than I imagined."

"I work as a fisherman, or at least I used to. I didn't need to use magic a whole lot."

"At least you can create pebbles, I guess that's better than nothing."

Naomi heard the slight sound of a footstep behind her, 'oh... I forgot.' She turned around, the little girl she was with was at the doorstep behind her. "It's raining, what are you doing?" She appeared to not be able to see Arata.

Naomi formed a circle around her mouth and yelled, "I'm helping this man to train his magic so that he can join the rebels!"

"Ok, I'll go back then!"

'What man is she talking about?' She shrieked when a skeleton popped out from a door beside her, "h-hello mister, who're you...?"

The skeleton spoke quickly, "my name's not important child give me the soup and I'll spare your life so get your little legs running to the kitchen and fetch me that soup."

"Yes!" She tightly gripped the bowl in her hands and ran off squeaking.

"So, I'll need you to focus your muscles towards the edge of your fingers, especially the middle finger. From what I was told, stone magic requires an intense concentration of the hand you're using it from, in order to create a dense and strong rock. The better your focus, the denser and faster the rock is."

"I see, I was just facing my arm towards the sky, I'll try what yo-" the recoil from him firing a powerful stone shot, propelled his arm backwards, and he landed on his butt. "What was that?!" The rock he fired seemed to be well gone into the sky and further.

"Your concentration is good, must be because you're a fisherman. You sit there for hours on end, just waiting for a fish to be hooked onto your pole."

"That sounds insulting, but you're not wrong..."

"Here it comes."

'-?'

The rock whisked the wind and crashed into the sea, "t-that was way too close to the ship..." Arata held onto his right arm.

"The ship already has several holes in it, what's one more?"

"What do you mean?! That rock just came flying back down, and it splashed into the water so hard, that it nearly flew up to the top of the ship! If that were to hit the center of our ship, uuu... it's already a miracle that we aren't shipwrecked like the others."

He looked down at his arm, "I-it's still there..."

"?, I already patched the holes in the ship, I was just saying that if a another hole were to appear, I could easily fix it."

Arata's face grew confused, 'what is this woman talking about?? The holes are still ther-?'

To his surprise, there was sturdy ice which filled the each of the holes, "when did you do this?"

"Just now."

"W-why didn't you do this earlier?"

"I forgot."

"Ice magic is convenient..."

"It's why I was sent on this mission in the first place."

"That's right! Why are you even here?"

"I was sent here on a mission to retrieve a scapegoat weapon, something that's very powerful when used by the right person."

"I've never heard of a scapegoat weapon before."

"It's general knowledge among the rebels, so I guess it wouldn't warrant a scolding from my teacher."

Scapegoat weapons are animals who hold unnatural power, given to them by previous gods who had their power casted down below, onto the earth. This power started manifesting into several beings, including humans. These beings have power that previously belonged to a god, it could be lightning, fire, air, or stone.

There are branch off's from each magic, for stone is would be the category of 'Rock' the ability to manifest a rock in your palm, usually also the size of a palm. The user would then be able to fire the rock at a high velocity, or simply hit people over the head with it, since it would not move unless fired.

Magic requires focus, with this focus, follows a static feeling. For the hand, it starts from the center of the palm, then quickly spreads to the tip of the fingers...

"... mm hmm, is that it?."

"You wish."

"So these weapons can enhance your magic?"

"Not only enhance, but even make you a wielder of 2 magics if you have 1 of them, though the effect is greatly dependent on your skill as a mage." Naomi pulled a finger up to her chin.

"If you were to perhaps angle yourself differently when using magic, perhaps the effect could be different, I wanted to try this out, but I still feel that it's not actually something that can happen."

"So there is stone, a physical magic, there is also magic, magic...?"

"Yes." Naomi quickly noticed a fault in Arata's stance, "you need to hold your arm up like this." She grabbed his right arm, and slightly twisted it to the right, before firmly holding his wrist to stabilize his arm in the air. "Now shoot."

He fired another shot, and it went even further. At least from how much he could see, "oh! Did you see that?!"

"I saw that, but by the way, where are we heading towards?"

"I don't know! But at least I know how to use magic now!"

"Eh? You set out on a ship, but didn't know where you were going?" Naomi's face grew concerned. "I just wanted to get out of that place!" She sighed.

"No wonder why we still came across that creature, we should only be going slightly off the route that I had planned, I wanted to avoid all potential contact with hostile creatures, luckily we didn't encounter tha-"

"Wait... why is there a swishing sound in the water?" Arata pointed towards the front of the ship.

"What?" Naomi walked up to the tip of the ship, a large vortex violently swirled in a circle, roaring water in every direction, a magic creature sprung from beneath the ocean, and leapt at their ship. Naomi swiftly drew her sword, jumping back from the deck of the ship as the creature heavily landed onto the deck, destroying it entirely.

"Arata!"

He screamed as the he fell into the water, Naomi ran as fast as she could to the edge of the now destroyed deck, and concentrated on the water below him. She quickly formed a solid platform for him to land on, and blocked the creature's second attack at the same time. But the ice beneath Arata began to crack, the creature repeatedly smashing it's head into it.

She launched several spikes from the bottom of the platform Arata stood upon, seemingly impaling one of the creature's eyes, distracting it for a moment. Naomi used this moment, and boosted Arata back up onto the ship, using a pillar of ice she created from the rain that dripped from above.

The ship quickly started tilting downwards, and Naomi's breath hastened, her fingers twitching. She held out her hand towards the direction which the ship was tilting towards, and focused her entire arm into the center of her palm. A massive explosion of ice came from all around the ship, and stopped it from dropping further.

The creature soon recovered from it's injury, and tried to destroy the ice again. But Naomi felt her head spinning, uncontrollable bursts of fatigue at every second, wearing her down even further, from all the magic she'd used in such a short span of time.

Arata rushed to where the creature kept up it's attacks, and extended his arm, with an immense amount of focus, he formed a rock the size of his hand, and launched it such a speed, it would blow a small hole through any mountain.

The rock swam through the creature, right through the center and into the water below. The creature's body dispersed. "Good job..." Naomi held onto the side of her waist, hurting from a shard of wood that cut her. "Are you ok?!" Arata frantically searched for a cloth.

"The wound isn't deep, I'll manage, but that was a good shot." Arata fidgeted around Naomi, unsure of what to do.

The ice started cracking, and the vortex swirled faster, causing the waves to crash and pick away at the ice.

A thundering bolt struck near the top of the sail, a little girl stood atop it, and several bolts of lightning started striking around the boat, a yellow fog rose from beneath where thunder struck.

The fog scrambled around, and a yellow aura formed around her, it was all seemingly absorbed into the palm of her hand, a single sound, loud enough to cancel out every other noise, the rain, the vortex, the ice cracking, none of it could be heard for 10 seconds, even after she was gone. A roar came from the middle of the vortex, a ginormous monster rose from it, "that's-!"

Naomi's jaw paused, when the monster was instantly hit by a stroke of bright yellow, the monster violently exploded, and the vortex instantly started to dissipate.

The little girl shot back to the ship, but her trail was lower than when she first charged towards the monster, she would land in the ocean. Naomi rushed to save the little girl, but her eyesight wobbled, and when a single drop of rain landed in her eye.

'I have no choice!' She reached out her palm, and blindly created a patch of ice, she used up what remaining strength she had, but just barely managed to save the little girl, who landed near the edge of the platform.

"You caught her!"

"It's my mission to bring her back safely." Naomi's voice was unwavering, she somehow managed to remain conscious despite her injuries and fatigue. "You shouldn't move! Your injuries could become fatal!"

"It's my mission to bring her back at any cost!" Naomi tightly held onto the side of her stomach, the blood spurting out even more than before. Her head tilted down at the ground, "you shouldn't worry about me, this is nothing." She knelt before the calm waves and clear skies.

"But-!"

"Go get her, I can't move. Don't make me say it again."

A path made of ice led to the girl by the platform. "Alright then..." Arata jumped off the ship, and down onto the surface of the ocean.

He quickly ran to the little girl, and carried her back onto the ship, where Naomi still remained motionless.

A nauseating crimson swirled in her half-open mouth, a line of blood leading down her neck, her body fully relaxed, her head tilted towards the sky. Closed eyes, and a circle of dark red seeping into her clothes around the left side of her waist. "Hey! Are you alive?!"