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Opening Requiem
Stage Act 13: False Framing, VI

Stage Act 13: False Framing, VI

"Slow down will ya!" She gave no attention to my pleas until we were out of the doors that was when she let go of my hand.

'She's freakishly strong!'

I put on my robe, "Pandres, what's gotten into you?" She just smiles back at me.

"If we stayed inside then you wouldn't be here."

"Obviously? Why are you even doing this?" She throws her hands up.

"I just think it's a pity, you just arrived here and now are being chased out. You haven't been able to see the beauty of the place." I cross my arms.

"Really now?" Hard to believe she's probably just-

"And also staying cooped up in a room for a while just isn't my style." There it is.

'There's not a soul around due to the heavy snow…'

"Fine, an hour or two is the limit." She grabs my hand and starts to lead me down the street.

"That's more than enough to show you around."

We continued to walk around while she talked about the places she was showing me. First, it was a tavern where she got drunk for the first time. Then an abandoned building, that reminded me of a dojo from one of the kingdoms east of here, it was the place where she used to practice her swordplay.

"It's a pity, I was the only one who came here and cleaned it now it's all dusty." She picked up one of the old, dusty wooden swords off the ground and pointed it at me.

"No, don't even think about it." She then threw it to me, but it just bounced off of me.

"I don't want to dual, I want to see your swordsmanship." I did get the feeling I was a bit rusty but still, the answer was no.

"Come on, compared to your sword, a wooden sword must feel like a feather I just want to see how fast you could go…" she trailed off because she seemed to have said something she shouldn't have.

"You picked up my sword?"

"Um I just wanted to examine it, I'm sorry I should've asked first." She bowed her head towards me, honestly, I was impressed she could even lift it, but now that I think about how she dragged me out of the inn, I'm not surprised.

"It's fine, the thing is as good as yours anyways, remember I'm your sword." I bend down and picked up the wooden sword and held it with one hand.

"Guess it wouldn't hurt to show off why I'm worth five gold coins." She looks at the sword with anticipation.

I assume my usual stance, legs slightly apart and shoulders relaxed, steady my breathing, make sure I have a good grip on it, and close my eyes.

'Just like usual.' With one last exhale I bring the sword down through the air, it effortlessly cuts through the air causing the air to partway creating a sharp sound.

"And that was my strongest swing." The air had blown her hair back and she stood there in awe.

"What was that stance?" She tried to recreate it but wasn't doing it right, her legs were too close together and her shoulders weren't relaxed.

"It's an unpopular style, due to my master's reputation and unconventional style, but with a little tinkering of my own, I made it work."

"What's your master called?"

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"I personally call her a dunce."

"I mean what people call her and the name of her style."

"Ah well she wants to go by [Don of the Night] but nobody calls her that, Fool of the Night is her most known moniker, and the style is called Daybreak." She looks up as if she's trying to recall if she knew that name, which she probably doesn't.

"Yeah, never heard of either." Expected.

"Yeah, she's been around for a while but is relatively unknown, despite her talent."

"How talented is she?"

"She may be a dunce, but when it comes to swordsmanship, she's unmatched. If she wasn't, I wouldn't be calling her my master."

"Are you her only student?"

"Last time I checked she's got two other students younger than me, but they've probably dropped out by now." They were naturally talented but that's not enough to get recognized by that idiot.

"Could you keep up with a Twilight swordsman?" Ah, the most popular sword style in this region.

"Me? Yes. The average Daybreak swordsman? They'd get decimated."

"The Daybreak style focuses too much on heavily damaging an opponent and causing as much pain, a Twilight style user would most likely be able to strike first, due to their focus on speed."

"But speed is not a problem for me." I cut the air six times in two seconds.

"Oh wow." She didn't seem that surprised by the speed…

"Six times? That's nice and all but I expected more from you." She managed to follow that?

"I'm not saying it's not impressive but twenty is what I was expecting."

"You're being unreasonable, but sure, I'll do twenty cuts in two seconds sometime in the future."

"Really now? Then I'll be looking forward to seeing that."

I look at the sword's blade and there's a P on it.

"My sword has a P on it, was this your sword?"

"Hm? Yeah." She was busy inspecting a broken window.

"I think we're done here, let's go." We continue to roam the streets but this time in silence.

As we walked I noticed she wasn't wearing her hood, "Snows piling up on your head, wear your hood." I brush off some of the snow off her hair.

"You know, you strike me as someone who's very aware of everything but somehow not themselves." She laughs.

"Close, it's more like I don't care about things like snow or rain." After some 'nagging like a mother.' from me she finally put on her hood.

"And now we've arrived." We arrived at a clearing where there was a lone tree adorned with leaves that matched her hair, in the middle of it.

"Another place you have some fond memories of?" This felt more like her going down memory lane than her showing me around.

"Yeah, wanna hear the story behind this tree?" I simply just shrugged, it's not like I had a choice.

"You see, when I was a kid, me and some neighborhood kids would gather here, one day, one of us came up with the idea to plant a tree sapling here, and eventually it would grow into a big tree and we would build something like a treehouse on top of the tree."

"But we ended up watering it too much and it drowned and eventually we gave up on it." She touched the trunk.

"And after some years passed by, all of them grew older and began to leave, leaving me here alone and so I decided to restart the project and planted another tree sapling."

"Then I began learning how to properly take care of a tree, and after a couple of years it finally grew and matured into a true beauty."

"And nowadays, kids gather together and play around the tree, and to be honest, that brings me joy." She had a serene look on her face.

"Hm did you choose this specific type of tree because its color matched your hair?"

"Yeah…" I wanted to laugh but I was too enamored with the sight of her smile…

"Ahm we should probably get going…" she looks up at the moon.

"If we hurry then there's time for one last place." She brushes the snow off her robe.

"…Fine." She starts to lead the way.

After making our way through the many alleyways that felt as if we were traversing a labyrinth, we arrived at a door.

"I'm not getting kidnapped, am I?" She laughs and pulls out a key and unlocks the doors.

"No, if I was going to kidnap anyone it definitely wouldn't be you." The door opened to reveal a spiral staircase going up, I couldn't even see the end of the staircase.

"I'll have you know, I'm a very highly valued man."

"Yeah sure, I believe that."

"I'm telling the truth."

"Sure whatever you say."

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm." This back in forth continued as we climbed the stairs and ended when we arrived at the top.

I was speechless, I could see everything from up here.

"Welcome to the world's tallest bell tower." I doubt it was the tallest but at that moment I believed it.

"How do you even have access to this?" She threw the keys up and caught them.

"Doing favors here and there surprisingly gets you a lot of stuff." She leaned over the guardrail.

"Now, would you agree that this is a beautiful view?" I simply hummed an agreement.

We stayed there in silence watching the snowfall.

'How nice it would be to watch the sunrise from here but unfortunately we can't stay here for long.' As I stared at the horizon then I noticed quite footsteps coming up the stairs and she had also noticed.

"Crap, we can't let them see us, what do we do?"

"We jump."

"No way, are you crazy?"

"Magic comes in handy during times like these." I climb over the guardrail and stand on the edge.

"Still, is wind magic strong enough to hold us both up..?" I take one last breath and take one step off the ledge.

"Sebastian?!" And with the other foot off the ledge and I was now standing on nothing.

"You just have to gather all the air under your feet." I offer her my hand.

"…If I fall, will you jump after me?"

"Yes, that's my job." She climbs over the guardrail and stands on the edge, the footsteps were now getting louder with every passing moment.

She takes one last breath and takes my hand.

"Alright, I'll trust you." She takes one foot off the ledge and then the other and now she was also standing on nothing.

"Let's go, stay focused." We started to descend, she almost tripped over once but thankfully managed to regain her balance.

Then we landed on a roof.

"Let's not do that again." I agreed and then we both looked up.

There was a hooded figure looking down on us. It just looked at us, unmoving.

"Is that the bell keeper?"

"No, the bell keeper doesn't come around here at this hour…"

'It's creepy as hell, why are they just staring?'

"Can you run across some roofs?" She nods and so I lead the way and we leaped across the roofs until we were out of sight of the tower.

I was breathing heavily, to be honest, my stamina has always been dreadful but this was just embarrassing "Yeah, I've had enough of outings, can we go back now?" She was just fine, she barely broke a sweat.

"Yeah, let's go." We jumped down the roof.

"That's all the places I wanted to go to… I'll miss this place." She leaned on my shoulder as we walked, I guess continuous use of wind magic does use up a lot of mana for a beginner.

"So this whole thing was just for you?"

"Nope, I really did want to show you around." I looked up at the moon and two hours had already passed.

When we arrived at the inn we found a very angry brat who had been waiting for us.

"I asked of you one thing and that was to be competent adults!" We got an earful that night.