As the woman succumbed to his incantation and her body went limp, Akihato carefully scooped her into his arms. She weighed very little, thin and slight as she was, but what he had sensed within her... That was a far different burden, a heavier one he feared would press upon many were it not carefully managed.
But it was a concern for another time. Right now, he needed to focus on escape. To those within the mist, it would appear as though he simply vanished in the blink of an eye, though it was more likely they would assume he snuck off using the fog as cover. Either way, there would be enough confusion to prevent them from being pursued further.
Closing his eyes for a brief moment, Akihato reached for the ebb of magic that always hummed gently in the back of his consciousness. It responded instantly, quivering in excitement as it flowed and swirled in his mind’s eye. Bright blue with a myriad of silvery-white flecks, the essence was the embodiment of water and spring, the two foci Akihato was attuned with. He could shape and mold that power with merely a thought, guiding it to perform supernatural tasks most beings could only imagine and even more feared. For him, it was as simple and easy as breathing, though coming to this point had taken years of dedicated training. There was much he was still learning, even after a decade of practice, but what he needed to accomplish now would take little effort.
His eyes opened slowly, the magic having sufficiently coalesced as a result of his concentration and guidance. Speaking softly, he wove a careful, practiced web within his mind. He imagined each aspect of the spell, imagined the ripple in reality as time slowed almost to a complete stop. If he had taken a moment to pause and observe his surroundings, he would be able to see the slightest movement in the mist, in the soldiers frantically trying to find their bearings. It would have been like watching clouds move in the sky, but Akihato did not waste a second of his borrowed time to watch the effect of his spell.
Gently adjusting his grip on the unconscious woman cradled against his chest, the Zosara turned and began to casually stride right through the heavy fog as though his vision was not impaired at all. Anyone else would have fumbled blindly and been lost until the mist evaporated, but Akihato, and by association, his new ward, stepped through unimpeded.
He had to stifle a grin when he glanced at the soldier who was standing just beside him. The goofy expression half-formed on his face was quite amusing. It was one of blind terror as he stumbled backward into an ally and was startled by the unexpected contact. Akihato imagined in the next moments, a girlish shriek would escape the man’s throat, and he would quickly flail around only to see an equally scared face staring back at him. The mental image did him in, and a wide, almost boyish grin spread across his face.
Knowing full well he couldn’t linger to see the moment play out, Akihato kept moving, heading for the tree line. Once he got some distance from the soldiers, he could open a portal back to his tower, but that was not something he was prepared to do if there was any risk of being followed through it.
When he disappeared into the scraggly, rotted forest Akihato let out a small sigh of relief. Glancing back over his shoulder, he could tell the spell had worn off. The soldiers were clamoring about, and sure enough, that womanly screech split the air, causing Akihato’s grin to return wider than before.
Called it!
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He didn’t stick around to listen further. Instead, he turned and quickly headed deeper into the woods. The dogs were starting to howl somewhere behind him. He hoped it was because they were equally disoriented, but in all likelihood, they had picked up the trail again.
“Blast...” he muttered. This spot would have to do, though he would have preferred to put more distance between them and their pursuers.
He paused in a stand of decaying conifers and carefully laid the woman upon the barren earth at his feet. The preparation required he have his hands free. Calling on the magic once again, he began to draw a circle with the toe of his shoe around himself and the still unconscious Taiku maiden. The line he’d drawn glowed a strange mix of red and blue laced with violet where the colors collided.
Taking position in the center, standing above his charge, he resisted the urge to rush the process as he weaved a new, much more complex spell. This incantation was one of the first he’d learned about but had taken the longest to master due to all of its intricacies. Portal magic was incredibly difficult and, if done incorrectly, highly unpredictable. The most reliable, and honestly the only way the vast majority of Zosara could harness such spells, was by using a bonded trinket as a focus.
Like many others, Akihato had chosen a place of safety and familiarity, and collected a piece of that location to carry with him. Dirt, pebbles, blades of grass, and other similar elements were quite popular as foci. For Akihato, his haven was an old abandoned tower he had taken over after completing his apprenticeship. The amulet that rested underneath his shirt, pressed gently against his skin, held the fragments of stone taken from the rubble before the tower was reconstructed. This would guide him back home.
His hands swayed, forming a visual component of the incantation as ancient words fell softly from his thin lips. The patterns his fingers wove in the air caused shimmering lines to materialize in their wake so that the pattern hung suspended for a few moments before dissipating and giving way to the next.
While one hand traced, the other seemed to collect something, as if holding a dozen imaginary threads taut between his thumb and index finger. Trace, collect, trace, collect. Over and over until finally, all of the complex pieces were neatly gathered. The spell was primed, ready, and waiting for him to cast it forth. This was a critical moment, requiring a great deal of concentration and precision. The energy that coursed invisible at his fingertips could backfire if he were interrupted or made a mistake.
Spells going awry had many disastrous consequences; in this case, he would be lucky if he simply opened a portal to the wrong location. At worst, however, he could end up flinging himself and the woman both into another dimension, or they could even just be ripped into pieces. Neither of which he fancied in the slightest. Graphic stories passed down from his masters were more than enough. His curiosity did not require firsthand experience.
He focused intently, drowning out the sound of the woods and the slowed spattering of rain that signaled the storm had spent its rage. Closing his eyes again, he imagined his destination. The tower, small and quaint, but perfect for a solitary Zosara, nestled amongst a quiet stand of oaks, maples, and magnolia trees. When that image was perfectly fixed in his mind, Akihato cast the spell.
It was a simple motion. He released the invisible threads and softly blew them away. In his mind’s eye, he saw them spinning and twisting as they merged into a crystalline sheet of pure energy. Then, at the apex of their outward path, a shimmer of that magic became visible to the naked eye. Seconds later, so fast it would be missed in the mere span of a blink, the portal opened.
Akihato smiled faintly, then knelt down to retrieve the woman before stepping out of the grounding circle and strolling casually forward. He passed from one location to the next as though he were stepping through a doorway. One moment he was in the Rotted Wood, and the next, he was striding with confidence toward the front door of his tower.
Behind him, the portal vanished, the magic dissipating so the only sign of its presence was an icy ring in the mud.