Web of Chaos - Chapter 33: Mastery Part 2

Power rushed through Akari’s soul, spreading through her channels until it slammed against the cuffs and collar. Trask’s mana cleared from her brain like morning mist before the sun. Every cell in her body sang with purpose. Every channel blazed with light.

This was nothing like the violent pain of her last two advancements. This was completion, like finding a piece of herself she hadn't known was missing. It felt like coming home.

But her captors weren’t idle. Nightfang stretched out her hand and hurled a technique across the van. Chaos slammed into her body and channels, woven with killing intent. Nightfang had held back in the clinic; she’d been willing to capture an Artisan, but she wouldn’t hesitate to kill an enemy Master.

The mana hit Akari like a flashbang, but worse. Pure white light exploded over her vision, searing through her eyelids. Sound hit next—a thunderclap that ruptured her eardrums in an instant. Hot blades twisted through both sides of her skull. Blood trickled down her neck, warm red streams against the cold metal of the collar.

A third wave hit her muscles and channels. Akari couldn’t feel the van, her body, or her mana.  For one terrifying moment, she seemed to float in place with no sense of up or down. Not dead, but close enough.

Still, she fell back to her training and forced her soul to cycle. Her spacetime mana flowed through the cuffs like liquid starlight, finding the microscopic gaps. These cuffs were built to contain Masters, but Akari didn’t need to break them. She just had to convince reality that she existed somewhere else.

Her spacetime Cloak surrounded her like a second skin. Her body warped free from her restraints, then the van itself. She landed on the cold asphalt of the highway. Cars honked and swerved around her, and she saw their ghostly images in her mind’s eye. Her body flickered again, letting a truck pass straight through her. 

Relia’s life mana flowed from the embracers on her legs, making its way up to heal the damage around her head. Best Midwinter present ever.

Her vision started to clear, but everything came back wrong. Double images. Triple. Colors that shouldn't exist. The road shook as more cars soared past her. Crashes followed, but they all sounded far away.

Then a wave of ice formed around her body, spreading in small crystals over her skin, pinning her to the road. It was the perfect counter to her spacetime Cloak; she couldn’t dodge techniques she couldn’t sense. Especially when the mana came from everywhere at once. She couldn’t even move her body to make a portal.

‘Hang on,’ Kalden said through her bond. ‘Elend’s two minutes away.’

Two minutes was too long. Nightfang’s aspect struck her nerves. If she attacked again, then Akari might forget how to breathe. Her heart could stop beating, or she could fall unconscious. Already, her mind seemed to sink into a deep pit, unable to claw itself free.

Besides, she didn’t reach the Master realm just to lose this fight. 

Akari reached for her Aeon soul. While the rest of the world blurred around her, the Angelic mana felt clear in her mental senses. Clearer than it had ever felt before. Her senses spread to her enemy’s mana. As an Artisan, this mana had seemed wild and untamable—like trying to grab a storm with her bare hands. 

Now, she saw the truth of things. It was all just energy. Just another source of power. She’d always known that, but knowing wasn’t the same as feeling.

Akari drank in her opponents’ techniques, just like Sozen had done with Dansin Roth’s mana after the qualifying rounds. Ice broke down into pale mist, and Nightfang’s mana did the same. It swirled around Akari like a whirlpool, spinning into her open soul.

Her mind crawled back out of the pit, and the world snapped back into sudden focus. She felt the cold rough asphalt of the road beneath her cheek. The night wind cut through her torn clothes, carrying the smell of burning rubber and mana crystals. Sirens and car horns struck her eardrums. Her eyes blinked away a blur of melted snow, and she saw her enemies ten paces away. 

The van had stopped diagonally across two lanes, its tires still smoking. The backdoors sat wide open, and Nightfang and Trask stood there with outstretched arms.

Akari climbed to her feet, still drinking in their techniques with her Aeon soul. Each wave filled her with Angelic mana that demanded to be used. Her opponents grew more desperate, attacking her with cruder techniques than before. Bonebreaking Missiles that screamed through the air, and blades of ice sharp enough to cut steel. 

Before her advancement, those techniques would have hit her with impossible speed. Now, their shadows seemed to creep toward her in slow motion. The mana flowed around her Cloak like raindrops, and she didn’t bother to block or dodge. 

Spacetime Missiles flew out from Akari’s hands, surrounding Nightfang and Trask like a storm of silver insects. Two dozen portals opened around them, while two more formed around Akari’s hands. She unleashed the Angelic mana in two blades, sharp enough to slice through their Cloaks and armor.  These weren’t the random strikes she’d used against Dain; these were calculated cuts designed to cripple rather than kill.

That was another perk of Mastery. She didn’t have to kill her enemies in some wild fit of desperation. They were far more useful to her alive. 

Nightfang's left arm dropped uselessly to her side, blood soaking through her dark jacket. The woman's face went pale, her breathing shallow and rapid. Her right hand jerked back mid-technique, and the mana dissolved into harmless sparks.

Trask tried to raise an ice shield, but Akari's portals were already behind him. Her Missiles carved through his shoulders, finding the gaps between bone and sinew. His techniques died half-formed as his arms went limp.

Nightfang's aspect lashed out—not through her hands, but from her entire body. The technique tried to scramble Akari's nervous system, to make her forget how her own body worked.

Too slow. The mana broke down in midair, flowing into Akari’s open soul. She slashed again, targeting her opponents’ calves and hamstrings. Trask fell first, his legs buckling as crimson spread across his uniform. Nightfang fell an instant later. Her knees struck the cold asphalt, but she kept herself upright through sheer force of will.

The night sky split in half as Elend descended. He rode a glider of pure mana that shimmered like captured starlight, its wings stretching thirty feet across. Thousands of  feathers made up the wings. They shifted and flowed with each movement, catching the highway lights and throwing them back like tiny crystals.

The glider dissolved into clouds of pale blue mist as he landed. His eyes swept over the scene—the stopped traffic, the blood on the asphalt, Nightfang and Trask on their knees. His eyes were hard, with just a hint of his usual dry humor. 

Then he saw Akari’s soul, and his eyes crinkled at the edges. “Guess you didn’t need me after all.”

Akari let out a long breath, then gestured to her former captors. “I got you something,” she said with a humorless smile. “Happy Midwinter.” 

Understanding dawned on Elend’s face as he stepped forward. This had always been part of their plan, but no one had expected it to start like this. Not with Nightfang.

Even now, guilt threatened to hold Akari back, and excuses bubbled to the surface of her mind. What if this was just some training exercise? What if it was a misunderstanding? This wasn’t like the fight at the Solidor’s safe house. No one was threatening her friends. She could still walk away if she wanted to. 

Her revelation smothered that guilt with sudden clarity. Nightfang chose to be her enemy. Akari didn’t want this, but it was necessary 

She loomed over the kneeling woman, ignoring the puddles of blood around her, and the terrified expression on her face. Nightfang’s lips tried to move, but the words never made it past her throat.

Glim leapt from Elend in the same moment, and both her captives’ expressions went suddenly blank as the dream mana took over. That was one small mercy, at least. Akari didn’t want her victims to suffer—even the ones who deserved it. She just wanted to save Relia.

Nightfang’s eyelids grew heavy, and her head slumped forward, somewhere between sleeping and waking. Trask did the same beside her.

Akari reached out with her right hand, hovering it a few inches over Nightfang’s soul. It resisted at first, far stronger than the mana beasts and Artisans she'd captured. This was a Master who’d spent years perfecting her craft, anchoring her soul with millions of repetitions. The resistance felt personal, as if her very identity were fighting back.

Then the soul began to crack, hairline fractures spreading across its surface like breaking ice. Akari pulled harder, and the soul crumbled in her mind’s eye. Nightfang’s body shook as years of training dissolved in mere seconds.

The power filled her with a pressure that demanded to be used, threatening to burst from her channels if she held it too long.  

Finally, she turned back to Elend. His soul opened willingly, and the power passed between them in a steam of pale blue light.