‘’Memento mori: article 12. Connect,’’ Clous chanted after opening his tome, getting enveloped into a thin light, resembling his shape. ‘’Taking off, then?’’ Rosa briskly asked, preparing her own tome in her hand as she watched him nod seriously, steping backwards and beginning to sink into the wall, shocking Yohiro. ‘’Is that what you meant when you said mobility was Clous’ strong point?!’’ The young boy exclaimed loudly as he watched Clous disappear into the wall. ‘’Yes; he wasn’t too keen on going out there and attacking, so he chose mobility as his magic tome,’’ Rosa explained to him a she raised her book in front of him. ‘’It’s this: a tome. It’s how you use your magic, i’m sure you’ve seen master and Clous use theirs,’’ she added, pulling her hand back as he leaned in without realising, his eyes full of fascination. ‘’Stop messing around, you two, it’s time for us to depart, too.’’ Bernie cracked his knuckles in a loud crack, walking towards the door.

‘’Remember the plan, Bernie, don’t let yourself get caught too soon,’’ Hiona reminded him in a strict tone, with him nodding with his back turned against them, opening the door and finding a dark, short hallway, leaving to a part of a large hallway in the army base, wet at the edges and full spider webs around the walls. ‘’She was right after all, this place is pretty much dead to them, it seems,’’ he mumbled to himself as he closed the door behind himself quietly. ‘’Give him a minute and exit as well, Rosa,’’ Hiona said in a rather soft voice to Rosa, her satisfied grin beginning to show a little.

Rosa took a step forward, reaching for the doorknob. ‘’Before you go,’’ Hiona stopped her frustratingly, making her frown, ‘’Killing should be minimized, so don’t unleash hell on them.’’ Hiona warned her, receiving a smile in return along with a tilt of Rosa’s head, turning towards her and Yohiro. ‘’Don’t feel bad when I remind you that you didn’t specify a body count, master,’’ she laughed happily before opening the door recklessly, leaving the room. ‘’See, Yohiro, those three aren’t as simple as you think. When they’re on a mission, at least,’’ she patted his head gently, standing up and yawning, stretching her hands upwards and lowering them down in a swift motion. ‘’Are we going?’’ he asked her, forcing a serious expression, making her chuckle under her breath on the spot, ‘’Yes, let’s go, little one,’’ she said to him in a lighthearted tone, stepping out as well.

Clous traveled through the wall, noticing the aura around his body was slowly beginning to become more and more transparent, leading him to hurry towards the closest accessible exit he could find, carefully observing the movement of a man through a wall, sharpening his eyes as emerged from the wall, slamming his clenched fist in one of the guards’ neck, leaving an imprint and knocking him to the ground, his eyes wide as an open window as he fell. Clous turned his glance on both sides, noticing the other two guards emerging from the other end of the hallway, pulling out his tome immediately. ‘’D’you hear it, too?!’’ a guard asked another in a worried tone as the two ran into the hallway, finding nothing at all.

‘’Heads up, you two…,’’ Clous whispered, dropping the unconscious body of the guard he had knocked out on top of the other two, gritting his teeth and letting go of the ceiling he was holding onto with his one hand, the body pushing both of them down, leaving them surprised as Clous stomped at the three bodies with full force, leaving them coughing as they drifted off. ‘’Humans and their average muscles can’t even handle that much, can they?’’ Clous spoke to himself, starting to chuckle as he reactivated the spell, engolfing him in the aura as he jumped into the next wall. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t climb on nonexistent stairs inside the wall, he had to find the fastest route towards the staircase leading to the third floor before being able to proceed as per ordered.

‘’As a larger man I can’t do the fancy things Clous does without getting noticed, but…’’ Bernie thought to himself as activated his tome, which was significantly larger than the others’. ‘’If I have no accurate or reliable way of getting to my goal, I have to use something more strategic, or so master said,’’ he recalled Hiona’s advice as he exhaled. ‘’Kuro semi: article 1. Connect, please,’’ he whispered gently, watching as the book began shining. Bernie poked his head out, scanning the part of the floor he had sneaked to so far, pointing the shining book at an unaware soldier, walking around, holding a pistol under his belt. ‘’Done… Do it, then.’’ He said, pulling back inside the corner, the book enveloping him in a strong light, beginning to change the shape of his body quickly.

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As he blinked he realised he had become shorter and thinner, wearing the same outfit as the man, let alone the same face, aside from a thin scar on his cheek, which his magic couldn’t hide, with it being a wound. ‘’It will have to do on its own,’’ he thought as he put the tome away, casually walking out, careful of what eyes could be on him, taking the camera in the corner into account, remaining weart of his movements as he walked forward.

‘’You see that, too?’’ A soldier asked a man sitting in chair in front of a lit up screen. ‘’Yeah, I fear problems might be arising,’’ the man responded, crossing his arms as he remained sat in the chair, looking at the now transformed Bernie closely. ‘’My stealth abilities are worm-like when compared to Clous’, but I should be able to keep this up for a little bit!’’ Bernie reassured himself as he continued making his way to the stairs leading down to the first floor.

‘’One, two, three, four, and five…,’’ Rosa smirked happily as she placed glyphs all around a corridor from one end of it, with an inscription dissimilar to the one on the transporting glyphs, quickly walking out of the camera’s field of vision, not knowing any stealth-based magic whatsoever, unlike her other squad members. As the guards appeared from the corridor she had placed the glyphs on, a slight grin appeared on Rosa’s face as she snapped her fingers, hearing the painfully loud screams of three, four or maybe even five guards walking through it, mixed with the sounds of the scorching fire. She waited, not stopping the glyphs even after the voices had subsided, listening to it as if it was a soothing song, before snapping back into reality, and snapping her fingers again, causing the glyphs to disappear into nothingness. ‘’Marioeteruna: article 6. Connect,’’ she chanted as she heard footsteps through the halls, overlapped by loud voices.

‘’Master, the cover is up, just so you know! I’m no stealth thief, after all!’’ She shouted at the top of her lungs into the tome, laughing happily as the soldiers with guns appeared at the other end of the hall, pointing their guns at her. ‘’Understood, i’ll instruct them to move in agress--’’ her voice cut out suddenly due to Rosa turning the page. ‘’Shoot on sight!’’ the main soldier shouted, causing the others to to begin unloading their guns at her. ‘’Marioeteruna: article 2. Connect!’’ She loudly declared, creating an instantaneous barrier, covering her completely and smashing the bullets as they made contact with it. ‘’The bitch has a tome, what now?!’’ A soldier asked in desperation. ‘’Nothing, dears, you’re doing nothing!’’ She placed her fingers on her lips, giving an air kiss as she ran in the other direction, with them following her until they got stopped by the barrier left behind by her, beginning to bang on it furiously. ‘’What IS this place; their defences are utter shit!’’ Rosa thought, making it to the stairs leading to the third floor safely, beginning to climb them.

‘’A~~nd that’s the third floor done,’’ Hiona smiled happily as she stepped on the arm of a soldier with her boots, causing him to let out a loud moan in pain, surrounded by the bodies of other soldiers all around her, all of them wheezing painfully, a lot of them having their legs broken and some of them, their hands and arms. ‘’Master… Are they going to live?’’ Yohiro asked with concern, carrying Hiona’s grocery bag around for her. ‘’Hah, hell no, they won’t. I broke most of their bones and I don’t half-finish this kind of thing, Yohiro,’’ she explained it to him as she raised her foot, slamming it down before Yohiro could take a break, completely crushing the man’s arm, leaving him twitching in place. Yohiro looked down at the still alive. miserable soldiers. ‘’This… Is this what you, no, what we do?’’ He asked her in a saddenned voice, getting an immediate nod from her, leaving him watching her with disappointment.

‘’If I were a betting girl, and I am, I’d say those are Rosa’s footsteps coming here, wouldn’t you agree?’’ Hiona asked him, curious if he would be able to distinguish people’s footsteps easily. ‘’I don’t know…,’’ he replied as he turned to the side, looking at the wall; the only place where there wasn’t blood or human bodies, causing Hiona to avert her eyes as Rosa climbed the stairs in a few exhausted gasps, noticing Hiona. ‘’Wow master, were you trying to impress the kid?’’ Rosa asked Hiona in an impressed manner as she jogged over to the two of them, all three of them surprised at what they considered to be a late alarm beginning to ring through the halls of the building, alerting Clous on the fourth floor, and Bernie who was already reaching the stairs leading to the first floor, his transformation about to disappear while he was standing around other soldiers. ‘’I guess this is it, you maggots… Contact the bastards and tell them to kill as they please, for fuck’s sake,’’ Hiona ordered Rosa in a deeply annoyed tone, kicking the head of the dead man in her frustration, preparing to depart for the next floor.