But if peace reigned inside the camp, the surroundings were an entirely different story.
...
"Mind telling what exactly you’re trying to do?" Rose said, crossing her arms and looking at Alice with a mocking smile.
"I could ask you the sa thing," Alice replied with hostility.
And twenty ters away, leaning against a tree with her arms crossed, Yuki watched them.
’...So childish,’ Yuki thought as she let out a sigh and walked away, leaving those two to sort out their problems.
The silence between Rose and Alice stretched for several seconds after Yuki walked back to her patrol.
But it wasn’t a comfortable silence, in this case it was the silence that precedes a storm.
Alice was the first to speak.
"How is it possible?"
"How is what possible?" Rose replied.
Alice raised her gaze and fixed her eyes on Rose with an intensity that made the vampire’s smile waver for a fraction of a second before recovering.
"How is it possible that he prefers you?" Alice said finally.
The words ca out of her mouth before she could stop them, as if they had been building up inside her for days.
"You’ve only known him a few days longer than ," Alice continued, her voice rising with every word. "And yet he listens to you... he even lets you stay by his side as if it were the most natural thing in the world."
"Is that what bothers you?" Rose said, tilting her head to one side. "That the Master listens to ?"
"Don’t mock ," Alice said through clenched teeth.
"I’m not mocking you," Rose said, raising her hands in a gesture of false innocence. "I’m just trying to understand, are you angry because he listens to ... or are you angry because you’re not capable of making yourself noticed on your own?"
The blow was direct and Alice felt Rose’s words hit her chest like a punch.
"Because as far as I recall, it was thanks to that you were able to have sex with him," Rose continued, crossing her arms.
"Shut up."
"Why?" Rose said, widening her smile. "Because I’m telling the truth?"
"SHUT UP!"
Alice’s voice rang through the trees with a force that sent the night birds flying from the nearby branches.
And then Alice’s expression shifted to one that Rose imdiately recognized.
It was the expression of soone who was about to do sothing they would probably regret afterward.
’I think... I went too far,’ Rose thought, and for the first ti all night, her smile disappeared completely.
"Alice," Rose said in a calr tone. "Listen, I didn’t—"
"No..."
"Alice, calm down... I went too far with what I said, alright? I didn’t an to—"
"Calm DOWN?!" Alice said, and a bitter laugh ca from her throat. "Now you want to calm down? After provoking all day? After mocking every ti I tried to get close to him?"
"Alice, listen to —"
"Go to hell!" Alice shouted, lunging at Rose with a punch.
The vampire barely managed to dodge it and the blow connected with the ground instead, driving Alice’s fist into it, she pulled it back out and launched herself at the vampire again.
’Fuck...’
"Alice, stop!" Rose shouted as she dodged a second punch that impacted the trunk of a tree behind her.
The blow split the tree in half with a deafening crack that echoed through the entire forest.
Seeing Alice spiraling out of control, Rose opted to call on the only person capable of making her see reason.
"YUKI!" Rose scread at the top of her lungs. "YUKI, GO GET THE MASTER! NOW!"
She was sure the assassin had heard her, or at least that’s what she wanted to believe, so she just had to hold on until she ca back.
So she opted to try to distract Alice with low-level spells to keep her occupied.
"Fireball!"
Rose extended her right hand and fired three fire projectiles that hit Alice directly, but they didn’t even tickle her.
"Ice Burst!"
She said, leaping backward and launching a volley of ice spikes from her left hand, aiming at Alice’s legs to slow her advance.
But the ice spikes shattered on impact against her skin.
’...This isn’t working,’ Rose thought, watching as every single one of her spells was repelled without difficulty by Alice.
Alice closed the distance between them again in an instant and this ti managed to catch Rose’s left shoulder.
The impact was minimal, barely a graze, but Rose felt as if she had been struck with a sledgehamr.
The pain shot through her entire arm and for an instant she lost feeling in her hand.
’That nearly destroyed my shoulder,’ Rose thought, flexing her fingers to recover sensation. ’If this keeps up, the next hit won’t be a graze. It’ll connect fully and when that happens...’
Rose didn’t finish the thought, she knew perfectly well what would happen if it ca to that.
Realizing how quickly the situation had escalated, she straightened up, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, and looked at Alice, preparing herself to dodge the next attack.
"Forgive , Master, but... it’s her or ."
Rose raised both hands above her head, closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, and when she opened them they blazed with an intense red.
"Collapsing Stars."
And above them, between the treetops, an enormous magical circle began to form.
The circle stretched several ters in diater, with runes and symbols rotating slowly inside it, emitting a crimson light that tinted everything red.
Looking up at the sky, Alice felt the enormous magical pressure emanating from the vampire’s spell, and that power was so intense that even she, in the middle of her fury, stopped for an instant.
"So you finally show your true intentions..." Alice said, eyes on the sky, not retreating a single step.
She pressed her hands together in front of her chest and closed her eyes.
"Golden Lightning Fortification."
A golden light began to emanate from her body, soft at first, but intensifying rapidly until it beca almost blinding.
Then Alice’s body began to change. Her muscles tensed beneath her skin and her feet planted themselves on the ground with a firmness that cracked the earth beneath them.
And the pressure emanating from Alice grew until it matched Rose’s.
Two opposing forces pushing against each other in the space between them.
Crimson against gold, darkness against light.
The ground between them cracked under the combined pressure and the nearby trees groaned, their trunks bending outward as if trying to move away from what was about to happen.
Rose began lowering her hands, channeling the energy of the magical circle toward a point in front of her.
Alice flexed her legs and the golden energy began to wrap around her like an armor of light, preparing to launch herself forward with the full force of her miracles amplifying every fiber of her being until—
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU TWO THINK YOU’RE DOING?!"
And without warning a hoarse, raspy, broken voice rang out, freezing both Rose and Alice in their tracks.
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