Chaos was afoot.
Liam charged at the spirit directly in front of him. He reinforced his legs excellently, crossing three meters with a single step before kicking upward. His foot sliced through the first spirit cleanly. The boy flipped upside down and landed just in time to avoid a swipe from the next spirit.
While normally physical objects, or creatures for that matter, wouldn't be able to interact with spirits at all, reinforced materials could touch it as if it were real.
Two Gandr shots pierced through the ghost in front of him, leaving it's remnants to disintegrate in mere seconds. Without missing a beat, Liam stepped forward again a swung his leg behind him. It sliced through the final spirit horizontally with his heel, leaving two writhing pieces on the floor. He stomped both out with an enhanced foot before looking back up.
Most of the ship crew were actually regular humans, it turned out. It seemed as though the magi among them had trained for a scenario just like this, as two ushered down the civilians into the living quarters, while two more fought on the deck alongside Rin and Liam.
One of the climbing spirits finally reached the top of the ship directly behind Liam. It reached out with an ever growing arm before wrapping around his neck.
"Kite!" He cried out upon feeling the pressure build up around his windpipe.
A small blue cloud of energy materialized from nothing. It quickly soared to the enemy and wrapped itself around it like smoke, crushing it slowly until it fell to pieces back into the ocean.
Liam had decided to name the djinn Kite. It was mostly because it had an Air affinity, and it wasn't sentient enough to name itself. He gasped for precious air, his circuits turning once again before looking back up at the deck.
He watched the other mages as they defended the ship from the intruders. Rin sprinted across the deck as she fired curses like a gatling gun, her fingers always outstretched towards her enemies. Occasionally her body would burst forward before she obliterated a ghost with a linear punch.
'Now she's a magus.' Liam thought to himself. He quickly slapped his own face, bringing himself back to reality.
He ran to the edge of the boat and gazed downwards. Three more ghosts were climbing up. The boy looked up at his contracted spirit and issued it his instructions mentally.
The djinn carried them out swiftly, generating a gust of wind. It carried the spirits sideways off the boat before swinging them back up onto the deck. It persisted, blowing the wind harder as it sped the ghosts directly towards Liam.
He sprinted forward as well, focusing his enhancement in his arms before he drove his fist through two in a row, leaving their remnants to return to the atmosphere. His hand remained stuck in the third, however, leaving him defenseless as it opened its flexible mouth wide to-
Its head exploded into phantasmal bits as the final Gandr shot collided with it.
Liam grunted as he removed his arm from the dissipating spirit, turning to Rin, who was about ten meters away in the center of the ship. She spoke to the other two mages in japanese-although he understood her gesture towards the inside of the ship. It was safe for the civilians to come out.
"That was good work. For an amateur." She said plainly as he approached. Liam could have sworn he saw some resemblance of surprise within the woman, but she worked hard to hide it. He returned the half-compliment with a shrug,
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"First attack was a bit of a disaster."
"We'll have to work on that one." Rin this time gave a grin before looking to the returning workers. Their eyes looked blank and dead, with the color of life ever so slowly returning to them. They had obviously had their memories altered.
"What were those? They didn't seem like regular wraiths." Liam spoke in a whisper. She stood there for a moment, frowning while her mind worked.
Typically, what people considered human "ghosts" came in two different types: wraiths and apparitions.
Wraiths were the stereotypical depiction of a ghost, simply the soul of a dead human which remains after death, either because of a grudge or any sort of unfinished business they left here.
Apparitions were slightly different. While Wraiths were the actual leftover souls of dead humans, apparitions are only pieces-fragments left behind by those who passed. As such, they typical embody previous events in their lives, replaying them over and over again. Empty aside from the simple need to exist.
"My best guess is some overseas experiment went wrong." She replied at the same volume, watching the workers continue on with their lives. "Probably lead to some of the peoples' wraiths combining with water elementals. Magecraft can be very irregular at sea or in the air, since there's no direct connection to land."
He nodded along before his eyes met the sky in front of the ship. Dark grey clouds were approaching the boat, prepared to swallow them back up into a maelstrom of winds and waves.
'Just another week.' Liam reminded himself.
- -
The days went by without incident. One of the magi aboard had apparently created a set of familiars to keep surveillance over the ship to avoid any more unwanted boardings. Another tried to perform regular divinations, but it turned out the ocean combined with the many artifacts housed on the boat simply made it malfunction. They got a very bad omen one day, and spent over half the day preparing for an army of water spirits.
Suffice to say that magus received many glares after that day.
Eventually the boat pulled into a dock off of a small neighboring city to Fuyuki, which Liam struggled to pronounce.
He had heard what he could best describe as "ghost stories" about the city of Fuyuki. Supposedly gigantic rituals took place there, where magi summoned figures of legends to fight one another in order to win the "Holy Grail". While Liam initially chalked it up to foreigners taking something vastly out of proportion, he soon learned from the other magi aboard the ship that Rin herself was a contender in that war.
Which, in truth, made absolute sense to Liam. If anyone would fight in a war with six other master magi and warriors, and come out alive, it would be Rin Tohsaka.
He finished unloading the last of the crates, stretching his back which had been arched for far too long due to the labor. His black coat swung idly in the wind, tied around his waist by the sleeves. His work was complete.
In just three days, he would confront his pursuers.
The very thought inspired that fear which laid dormant in Liam's mind. Before it could fester into a bulbous mass, he instead focused on his current whereabouts. Specifically, his plan for living in the new country.
"Well, guess I'll have to scrounge up some cheap hotel..." Liam spoke idly to himself with his hands on his hips. He observed the bright, blue sky which shown above him, allowing the sun to share its illuminate gaze with the tall buildings around them. Despite being colored a drab and modern white, the sunlight managed to make the buildings seem radiant, inspiring a feeling of power within those who bothered to observe.
A sudden shove against his shoulder shook Liam out of his trance, leading him to turn towards the attacker.
"Let's go, assistant. Unless you want me to leave you behind." Rin hummed as she started off towards the main street across from the dock. The boy still stood there confused, eventually deciding to speak up.
"You want me to go with you?" He questioned. "Where?"
She spun on her heel, looking equally as confused as him.
"Well where else are you going to stay?"
"No. No, no, no," Liam protested immediately, shaking his head so much his vision begun to blur together. "There's no way I can impose myself-" she stopped his words in their tracks with her own,
"What kind of a magus would I be if I let my assistant wander the streets of a foreign land, looking for a place to sleep?" She shook her own head, firmly crushing any hopes of denial. "Don't make this difficult. Just come along," she ordered. Liam battled with himself for almost a full minute before his cheapness won. He jogged up to the girl who already begun to walk away.
"Besides, there's plenty of room in my house."