The alchemist walked slowly through the smoke, coughing slightly. She was getting seriously tired of that same trick and the situation in general! With a frustrated huff she stepped into the eighth floor, still followed by her swarm of butterflies. The mage knew that she only needed one of them to reach its target, and this whole conflict would be over with a violent explosion! So she scanned around, eventually finding the little trail of blood Tav had left on her retreat back to the apartment.

To her surprise, she also saw Tav walking out the door while brandishing a long, wooden stick. Was that a bamboo sword of sorts!? Mustafá was caught by surprise for a moment, blinking slowly.

“...Are you taking this seriously at all?”

“Why don’t you come over here and find out, huh!?” The bastard challenged, pointing that thing at the alchemist. “I challenge you!”

“You challenge me?”

“I challenge you!”

“Very well.”

With a raised finger, Mustafá sent a single butterfly fluttering straight for Tav. She saw the bastard whisper something, getting ready and then swinging violently, hitting the luminous insect. This is where the alchemist expected a loud explosion and a body on the floor, but all she heard was the sound of a flame being extinguished, and the butterfly was no more.

They both stood for a moment in silence. The old mage could see excitement in Tav’s eyes, she probably couldn’t believe it worked either.

“What did you do…?” The alchemist narrowed her eyes.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, huh!?”

This bastard was getting all puffy and Mustafá… kind of digged that defiant attitude. Besides, this was fascinating, for Tav shouldn’t know how to counterspell yet. Determined to see this as an experiment, she sent two butterflies onwards. Then three. Then four. But it all ended the same way: The bastard swung her sword, hitting the spells head on and somehow snuffing them out.

And that’s when she could see it, branded on the bamboo:

image [https://i.ibb.co/m9RS02X/Screenshot-1.png]

Again, Mustafá narrowed her eyes.

“Not-ignite… snuff? Are you snuffing my spells?”

“Turning them off!” Tav answered, still swinging like a madwoman. “I can turn ANYTHING off with this!”

The logic was a stretch. But if ‘snuff’ can really be also translated to ‘turn off’, and you can interpret the spells as something that is ‘on’ by default…

“I have to admit, I am perplexed. But this has gone for long enough.” Mustafá sighed. It was ingenious, but ingenuity alone wasn’t enough to survive in the world of the mage. Clapping her hands once, she sent all the remaining butterflies in a swarming cloud towards Tav.

The bastard gulped, her eyes opening as she started spinning the sword right in front of her, managing to snuff several spells coming her way, but not all of them. Being butterflies, they flew around her, trying to avoid the touch of her sword and then attacking from the sides. Tav was not specially athletic, and she was already at the very limit of her ability, so when the butterflies began to swarm her, there were simply too many for her.

A chain of explosions unleashed all around her, loud booms that battered Tav’s body from one side of the hallway to the other, shaking her like a ragdoll until she fell motionless on the floor.

Mustafá sighed, walking slowly to the unconscious bastard and simply looking down at her, kicking her body once just for good measure. No reaction. Nodding slowly, she walked inside the apartment and stretched. Now she just needed to find the book, for her prey probably hid it in a last ditch effort to make things unnecessarily hard.

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“Come on you bastard, get up! You can’t die like this!”

“Tav! Wake up, please!”

My head. It hurts.

My body, it doesn’t respond.

Everything feels blurry and distant as I manage to open my eyes… is this what dying is like? Just confusion? Noise in the brain?

It sucks. I hate it.

My eyes manage to focus, just a bit, as I look up and see Mustafá entering my house. She doesn’t notice me… she’s probably leaving me for dead here.

Spite begins to build up, it’s like a second wind is pushing me back on my feet as my hands squeeze the handle of my bamboo blade.

She’s still looking away.

“Make her pay.”

I only have one shot.

I better make it count.

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Mustafá was getting ready to cast her seeking spell, it would be a matter of saying the order and furniture would start moving on its own around her. Such was the power of runes and true names…

But then, she heard something moving right behind her.

She changed words midspell, once again summoning the gun to her hand and quickly turning around to aim. She had given this bastard all the chances she could to give up, but now, she was going to erase this problem right from the root.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

But she didn’t get time to shoot. Tav’s wooden blade was faster.

And as soon as the stick hit her head, everything went immediately black. Just like that. All functions in her brain ceased.

Her body dropped to the ground like a sack of hammers.

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I stand there for a moment, staring at the motionless body of Mustafá right on my floor. The blue hue that had infected the entire world slowly disappears, regular colours return to everything. My head hurts again, I wince, but it goes away soon enough…

“...Did I kill her?”

“You turned off her brain. That kills people.”

“Oh my saints.”

“Well done, asshole! You survived and you’re a murderer now! Whatever will we do!?!?!”

“I didn’t mean to! She was pulling a gun on me, it was self defense! Look, she still has the gun on her– she doesn’t have the gun.”

“Of course not! Magic, duh! She dies, the magic is gone! No more gun, no more fun!”

“What are we gonna do?!”

“I don’t know, let me think! Maybe I can get rid of this!? I can get rid of it before anyone realizes! Maybe there’s an evidence removal spell or something! I—”

My phone suddenly starts vibrating loudly on my pocket. Checking it out, it looks like an unknown number. ‘Private’.

Knowing my luck, this is probably the magic police… I sigh and pick up, ready to yell if this turns out to be unrelated.

“Y-Yes?”

“What in the hells happened there!?” A young, male voice yells from the other side.

“W– You’re asking me!? This bitch came out of nowhere and started attacking me!”

“Right, sorry. Urgh. Are you okay?”

I have no idea who this person is, but it’s a good change of pace for someone to actually care for my input in the last hour.

“I think!? I am– “ I check myself for a moment. “... I was bleeding. Not anymore though, for some reason.”

“Most wounds sustained in the Second Layer of Reality don’t translate to the other layers. We’re still trying to figure out why.”

“Oh wow, fascinating.” I say, not fascinated at all. “What do you mean Second Layer? Why was I attacked!? Who is this person? Who are you!?”

“Sorry, again. Argh. Uh. You may call me Giovanni. And—”

“Wait. Giovanni. And Mustafá, like the ones from Gato’s book?”

“Huh! You got one of our annotated tomes? That’s funny!”

“Yeah I guess so. I–”

I suddenly feel a cold hand on my shoulder. My eyes open widely, I do not even dare to look back because I know what’s standing right there, probably furious.

“I–. She’s not dead, is she?”

“Mustafá? Ah no, she can’t die.”

“What dO YOU MEAN SHE CAN’T D–”

“Is that the old man?” Mustafá’s voice speaks, emotionless as before, before snatching the phone from me. “Gimme.”

“Wh-what!? HEY!”

“Hello, old man.” She starts speaking. I can’t hear the other side of the conversation anymore, but that voice didn’t sound old in the slightest. “Yes, I did. No, she’s not. Yes, I am aware, but their laws are conceited and useless anyways.”

I take a few steps back, picking the bamboo blade back up and getting ready to smack this woman into the pits of Hell once more. But she just looks at me coldly, holding the phone to her ear.

“I wouldn’t if I were you. Magic is known to corrode the objects it is forced upon.”

Without listening, I swing for the head once again… but the damn thing breaks down to pieces the second I even try. In the end I just have the leather handle in my hands, everything else turned to dust and splinters.

“Ahhhh noooo!!” I whine. “My shinai!”

“Weeb.” Mustafá says without even flinching, turning around to keep talking over my phone. “I have this all under control. I will erase her memories and that will be it.”

Fear starts to overtake me. That was my final gambit and it was over, it was not enough to defeat this, this… whatever the hell this woman was!

“You still have one spell you know.”

“Yes, remember!? The one you cast that night? It summoned a butterfly, just like the ones she uses!”

Didn’t I fall unconscious when casting it?

“Do you have any other ideas?”

I do not… so I take a deep breath.

Let’s try this, one last time.

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“You really don’t have to do this, you know?” Giovanni continued pleading “We could just, get her out of the way and—”

“I’ve seen enough of this whole ordeal. I need the book, the bastard needs to go.” Mustafá, however, was having none of it. “If you feel so defensive of this little one, you can come and defend her yourself.”

“You know I can’t abandon my post! Urgh, why must you be like th–!?”

“Wait a moment.”

Mustafá's eyes went from the phone and back to the bastard mage. She looked without real interest at first, noticing how the poor uninitiated was trying to gather their measly energies to cast something. The alchemist was ready to tell her to give it up and abandon hope already… but then, she noticed the amount of mana flowing out of the fool’s body.

“...I’ll call you back later.”

“Wait. Mustafá!”

Click.

The ancient mage stood there, in front of Tav. The young mage was struggling to stand, her posture was way too wide and her whole body was trembling from pain and exertion. Whatever she was going to try, it was both big, and her last hurrah. At this point, Mustafá could counterspell it with ease, putting an end to this stupidity… but something stopped her. No, she wanted to watch.

Why? Pity perhaps?

No. Curiosity.

She simply remained silent, observing with the same intensity of a teacher during an important exam, as Tav raised a hand and pointed a finger at her.

“Asu tlo’ikovithiio!”

The casting was slow and sloppy, there was no attempt to brand or conceal the words and no visible glyph to make the spell easier to manifest, but there was no doubt about it:

This was one of her own spells.

As the wings of the Butterfly spread from the bastard’s finger, the magical construct flew free from Tav’s hand… Mustafá could see how the kid was about to faint, but with her last strength she caught the butterfly and squeezed it.

And she made a wish.

Then, Tav dropped right down on the floor, her strengths depleted and her world turning black. She was also holding something big in her hand: the result of her wishes.

“I wonder, what did you conjure to kill me…?”

Mustafá knew the effect would be short lived, there was no way this bastard knew how to make permanent changes in the world, so she kneeled by Tav’s unconscious body and checked what she was holding.

A small black mechanism, rectangular in shape, showing a series of numbers on a red numeric pad.

A Lefebvre Compass.

233.C.400.XXX

The numbers didn’t lie. This whole altercation had set their timeline a bit closer to the point of safety.

Mustafá rubbed her hair under her turban for a moment, taking a deep breath in and out. Clearly, she couldn’t just get rid of this bastard. Even mustering the intent to do so changed the numbers negatively.

The conclusion was clear: She was stuck with her.

“Humiko… you planned this all, didn’t you…?”

For the first time in a while, the Alchemist smiled.