Magic is the essence of one’s soul. It is the purest representation of who you are. A person’s birthright and blood determines their elemental aptitude, then their talent and training determines the rest.

But sometimes you just get unlucky. Life deals you a bad hand, and I just had to deal with it.

I didn’t inherit those Flames of Justice my family was infamous for. That alone was enough to start rumors that I was a bastard child, but it wouldn’t have been so bad if I had enough magical capacity. But I was out of luck there, too.

Imagine a person as a container for mana. More capacity means they could cast powerful magic more easily, and for longer. If the average person was a pond full of mana, and my brothers were a lake, then I was a tiny puddle. I could only cast the most basic of spells without suffering mana exhaustion. Training only helped to an extent. Sure, I could increase my capacity slightly with enough effort, but that’s never going to close the gap I was born with.

Still, I had to try. If life saddled me with all of these obstacles then I just had to face them all head on. Starting right now.

I reached into my bag and pulled out my trusty dagger. It was a long, unadorned blade carved from my own rib. There was no need to dress it up with any decoration. It served as my reminder as to what I had sacrificed to be here. It never left my side.

There was only one other person here with us. The air felt thick with their mana pouring out of them. They weren’t even trying to hide it.

I aimed the tip of the blade towards them “Wait until I give the signal, then stick close behind me.”

“You sure you’re good? Your hands are shaking, y’know.” She was right.

“I… I’m sure. You can always depend on me.” I grabbed my wrist tightly, until my hands stayed still. This wasn’t time for hesitation.

Flame begets light, but light was anathema to my soul. If fire was my birthright, then my own essence rejected it all. So…

“Shadow Bolt.” From the tip of my dagger, a ball of pure, distilled blackness fired forth. It hit a nearby tree and expanded rapidly into a cloud of pitch black smoke.

“Alright, let’s get out of here.” I grabbed Haine’s hand. On the off chance that wasn’t someone dangerous, I went with a mostly harmless spell. The bolt didn’t hurt anyone physically, but it disoriented a person’s five senses by assaulting them with illusory smoke. Enough to buy time to run away, hopefully. The perfect spell for someone who disliked confrontation.

We hopped the fence and jumped down to the alleyways below. It was like a maze back here, full of uneven gravel paths that twisted and branched off all over. But we would be fine as long as we reached the main street.

Footsteps echoed behind us. That distraction didn’t last long. I ran towards the direction of the street lights. There had to be some guards still patrolling.

“Stop!” Haine shouted at me. I listened, but it was too late. I felt a cold pressure bite into my neck.

“Ah.” I stumbled over backwards. Where I was standing, there now was a thin line of blood, that seemed to be floating in midair. No, that wasn’t right. I caught a glint of it in the moonlight. A razor thin wire was stretched in front of me. I touched my neck, and felt the warm, sticky sensation of blood. There was a long but shallow cut, just barely piercing the skin. If I had kept running just a moment longer, then…

“Aw, I was hoping to see your head go flying.” A voice echoed from behind us as the footsteps got closer.

From the shadows of the alley, a woman clad in an elaborate white mask appeared. The mask had the appearance of a grinning, horned demon, the kind I’d see in picture books when I was a kid.

“I knew it was you guys,” Haine said. “Shouldn’t you know when a woman’s not interested?”

The woman yawned. “Ugh. Of course they’d leave me to clean up their messes. Just come quietly, okay? I wanna go home to sleep.” Even though her face was obscured, I could tell she wasn’t paying any attention to me.

“W-who are you?” I raised my voice as I spoke. That confirmed my suspicions. My voice didn’t carry as far as it should’ve. It felt almost… muffled. It was much too quiet around here. Even in these alleys, the air should’ve been filled with the clamor of people walking down the main streets. But it was dead silent.

I caught a glimpse of something above us. It was a barrier. A dome of magical energy surrounded us, wrapping us in its coils. From the composition, it looked to be a dampening field. A high level spell designed to prevent mana and sound from leaking out. This went way beyond what your average thug was capable of.

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The woman sighed through her mask. “I’m not gonna bother wasting my introduction for a nobody. Just roll over and die already, please.”

With a flick of her finger, something whipped through the air with an ear piercing crack. It was another one of those wires.There was a distinctive glint to them, reflecting light from the moon. Once I could recognize that, it wasn’t difficult to react, and I quickly put up a mana barrier to deflect the blow.

“Oh? You managed to react to that.” She was toying with me. “Then let’s see if you can handle this.”

She motioned her hands as if conducting a symphony, and with each swing of her arms another one of her wires lashed out at me. From above. Across my body. Aimed at my neck. To my legs and arms. A barrage of wires poised to rip me apart, limb from limb.

Barrier. It’s the first spell anybody ever learns. A crystallization of your mana outside your own body. Most people learn to subconsciously leave one around themselves at all times. But one of the upsides of only being able to use low level magic is that you learn to get really, really good at them. Speed, durability, and efficiency; I’d say I was top of my class when it came to all that.

All that being said, it was barely enough to block her attacks. A few managed to go through my defenses, glancing off my flesh with a stinging lash. It hurt like hell, but the adrenaline was enough to keep me going.

Then, they stopped. Just as I was nearing my limit, the wires retracted, sliding back into who knows where they came from.

The woman applauded. “I suppose you’re worth my attention now.” She was still mocking me. Even I could tell she was going easy on me. But that arrogance was what was keeping me alive for now.

“I was hoping to save my introduction for someplace more public but… eh, whatever. It’ll be good practice.” The woman bowed, and the mask on her face smiled. “I am the Apostle of Flesh, of the White Veil. The Fourth of Goetia. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

It was best to play along with those types. “I-I am Monika, of house Edelweiss.”

“I don’t care.” She interrupted my introduction with another yawn. “I’ve wasted too much time here already. Let’s see if you can block this, now.”

The unmistakable sound of metal scraping against the walls reverberated throughout the alley. More of those wires. I wouldn’t last if I kept blocking. I had to cut off her attacks at the source. She wouldn’t stand out in the open like that if she didn’t have a way to defend herself, so…

I would have to deal with the wires themselves. If I infused my dagger with mana, then they should be able to cut through something like that. I just had to predict where the next attack was coming from. Despite their sounds filling the air, I couldn’t catch a glimpse of any of the wires. But there was no place to hide in this narrow alleyway. So the only place left would have to be–

“Above!” I parried the wire swinging at my head, slicing it clean in half. No longer attached to anything, the wire fell loose to the floor. Right. I just had to keep this up until she ran out.

“Looks like you guessed wrong.”

A quartet of wires emerged from underneath, hiding under the gravel. In an instant, they trapped me in its net. The wires wrapped tightly along each of my limbs, tangling my body in its biting coils. Each time I struggled against its grip, the wires just bit deeper into me. If I moved too much, they’d chop me into pieces. Blood pooled around the wires, raining down drop by agonizing drop. It was all I could do to stay perfectly still and avoid getting cut even further.

I was completely restrained by those steel wires, and strung up high in the air.

She rubbed her hand along my leg, and I instinctively shuddered, which only made it hurt more. “Ahh… You look so much better like this. Now then, Miss Otherworlder, if you decide to resist at all, I’ll be forced to hurt your little friend here!” Her words were dripping with sadistic glee. “Let’s see… maybe I’ll start by cutting off an arm. Ooh, but that might just kill her outright… Maybe just some fingers, then.” I felt a wire wrap around my fingers, tightening until it cut off all blood flow. “Oh, I really hope you resist.”

“Sorry for getting you into this mess.” Haine looked up at me as she whispered those words, a sad expression on her face. That was the first time I saw her without a smile. I didn’t want to see that. I couldn’t just accept this. Let her be taken away for who knows what, while I was stuck up here because of my own incompetence. There had to be something I could do. Anything.

No, I wasn’t out of options. This was a gamble that could cost my life. But I didn’t care. If I didn’t succeed here then I would rather be dead.

I took a deep breath, then formed a ball of shadow in my mouth. I had to do it in a split second, before she could react. I bit down on the smoky darkness, as blackness enveloped us.

“Tch. I wanted to toy with you a little longer, but I guess this is goodbye.” The woman cursed, and the metal wires snapped tight on her prey like a beast’s maw.

But I was already gone.

Mana was a person’s very essence. So blood was the most powerful catalyst of them all. Even with my poor capacity, all my blood that I’d spilt, staining those wires red, served to amplify my power. Allowed me to use magic normally beyond my capabilities. In theory, at least.

So I had to risk it all and put that theory to the test.

“Shadow Meld.” Within the depths of my darkness, my body merged within those inky black shadows. For an instant, I disappeared from the world.

Then, I was free. Melding through the wires that held me. But my shadows couldn’t last forever. I reemerged at a point right next to Haine, grabbed her hand and ran. Back into the alleys and back into the night, hoping for some sort of miracle to rescue us.

The sound of scraping metal followed us through the night.