"You go for the goat head," you whisper to her. "I'll handle with the lion one. We'll deal with the snake later."
Your partner is about to nod, before she freezes. Her eyes glance down to
Carnwennan, and then she looks at you skeptically. "You sure you can do it?" There's an easy smile on her face, tinged with a bit of nervousness.
You raise
Carnwennan up to your eyes, humming silently. There's a certain dissonance of being calm and placid when you're some feet away from a Grimm undoubtedly stronger than you even if it is heavily wounded. Or asleep. After a moment of admiring
Carnwennan's sharp edge, you turn back to Eli. "Trust me. I have my own way," you answer cryptically, tapping the flat of your knife onto your temple.
She stares at you for a long moment, eyes twitching from your knife, before back to your eyes. She huffs, but then gives you a grin. The nervousness is still there, but it seems to have decreased as her tail slowed its twitching. "I trust you. Being partner and all."
You nod, grinning as you flip
Carnwennan around your fingers. In truth, you don't really mind telling her your Semblance. You are going to be working with her for the foreseeable future, after all. Nevertheless, you think it would be just better to show her than spend a few minutes explaining what you could do, ill-timed situation notwithstanding. "Thanks." You tilt your head inside. "You ready?"
Her red tail, tipped with white, stilled for a moment.Then it begins to move, an excited swishing gesture that you vaguely remember from the first time you met her. "As ready as I could be."
You share another look, and then the two of you crawl back into the cavernous room. The Chimera is as still as you found it, and the heat is unbearable as ever. You could even feel it slowly eating through your Aura as you get closer.
Midway through, you split to a different path than Eli. Death Perception tracks every possible Line as you silently work your way to the lion head. Admittedly, there are not many on the lion's face-plate—a few diagonal cuts through its upper head and eyes and more verticals and horizontals along its faceplate and chin,but you're not here to focus on that. Carefully, you slide into the tight space between the thing's gigantic paw and head, your eyes settling on the neck.
At the first time you had gotten your Semblance, it took you a few weeks sulking in dust and grime before you realized what Death Perception truly did. It didn't actually let you perceive death spots, but more of flaws. Flaws in people. Flaws in animals. Flaws in objects. Flaws in yourself. Nothing in this world is flawless, and because everything in the world is flawed, they could die.
Aura acted like an armor of sorts to those flaws. It hides their flaws in a much more intimate fashion, but that doesn't mean Aura itself is flawless. All you need to do is just cut the Aura until it's depleted or removed enough to reveal the flaw of the user. It makes things harder, but also more fun.
Grimm, however, don't have the pleasure of Aura to protect them from your eyes.
Leaning back, you catch Eli's eyes. Her right arm has changed into its wolf form, raised up to crush the goat's head. She shoots you a cheeky grin, and you smirk.
You turn back to your prey. Then, as if by an unspoken signal, you spring into action.
Carnwennan digs into the Line like a heated knife through butter. There's a flinch coming from the Chimera, and the Lion's eyes shoot open—but before it could do more than that, you are already in the air, twirling gracefully atop the lion with your head down.
Carnwennan carves alongside the Line effortlessly.
The Lion head doesn't so much as react as it topples off it's body, leaving the part under its neck that you haven't cut connected to it. A quick application of your knife fixes that well, and the head is decapitated proper before it dissolves into tiny black motes to the air.
A particularly loud crash alongside a halted bleat resounds in your ears. The earth shakes and a quick look tells you that Eli had just slammed the goat's head to the ground, and she proceeds to hack and butcher it, while at the same time maul it mercilessly like an eldritch mix of a lumberjack and a butcher with her wolf-arm.
The Chimera's legs strain to stand. You hear a horrible mix of hissing roar coming from the back of the Chimera. The Snake. Not to be undone, you act immediately.
Carnwennan lashes out, and the Grimm tilts to the right as you cut its left front-leg, and it promptly lurches forward to the ground as the other leg is easily dealt with.
"Fuck—whoa!"
Before your mind could register the action, you instinctively turn towards Eli. Hanging from her feet and head pointed to the ground, the snake has coiled its considerable length and girth around her torso. She struggles futilely, her face set into a snarl as the snake opens its sizable maws before her.
You grit your teeth, and push as much energy you could to rush towards your partner. For a moment, it almost seems that you're late as the snake rears its head and lunges for your partner's head. Almost. At the last second, her head transforms into that of a wolf, and before she could be swallowed, she twists her head and bites the snake's neck down.
It squeals and hisses in pain.
Right before
Carnwennan slices it's head into pieces. The coils go slack, letting Eli go to fall on the ground. As she falls, she shrinks her head, twirls, and lands on her feet.
The two of you don't let your guards down, though. You never know. It's until the Grimm's corpse dissolves into black ashes that you finally relax.
"Phew," Eli exaggeratedly swipes her sweaty forehead. On second thought, it seems that the heat is decreasing even if it is still hot. "That was a close one. Thanks, partner." At that, she gently bumps your shoulder.
You hum, gritting your teeth at the sudden migraine from long use of Death Perception. Not wanting to make it worse, you quickly shut it off and massage your head. It still leaves you with an unbearable constant pain that only your years of experience with it had managed to make you endure through. A constant hammering of combustions behind your eyes, carpet bombing mercilessly—punched, kicked, stomped repeatedly like the most abusable orphan in the orphanage, and chewed up like gums by the most wretched of giants.
"Same here," you manage to say.
She gives you a look. "You alright?"
You grunt, nodding your head towards the cave's exit. "I'll manage."
Eli looks at you a bit longer, before shrugging, and the both of you soon step towards the exit. "So that's your Semblance?" your partner asks curiously, making a slicing motion on the air. "That cutting thing, and with your eyes?"
"Something like that." you answer, feeling a slight relief as the migraine lessens. Death Perception doesn't pull its punches when it catches up, but at least it's kind enough not to make the headache long-lasting. At her unimpressed look, you decide to elaborate, "My Semblance allows me to perceive the flaws of everything around me, so I know where to cut them."
"Flaws like…" she trails off meaningfully, a confused but slightly understanding expression on her face.
You try to search for a better word. "Weakness," you provide.
"Ah… That's neat."
You crack a grin. "Yeah, if you ignore the headache."
The conversation seems to die after that, settling into a comfortable silence accompanied by the sound of footsteps crunching against the earth as the both of you make your way out. It's a nice feeling, once the migraine has receded, Ciane decides.
It is only a few minutes later that you finally exited the cave proper. The cold wind feels pleasant in comparison of the volcano inside. You feel a bit fatigued from having your Aura being burned away through sheer heat, but it's nothing you haven't handled before.
"So…" Eli starts slowly, watching you lean against a tree, "what now?"
You blink. You almost forgot about the Initiation. "We should probably get to that temple." you advise. "Can you smell the place again?"
Eli seems to agree with your plan as her head transforms into that of a wolf. She looks like she grimaces a bit as she sniffs in the air. Residues of the sulphuric scent left by the Grimm if you have to guess. She sniffs again—longer—but before long, her eyes pop wide and her head shifts back to normal supporting a grin.
She points out to the North. "I don't think we're far from the Temple. I'm smelling a few guys I saw back in Beacon over there." She pauses, an odd look passing her face. "Have I ever told you that Penny smelled strange? Like, metallic and such?"
"No." You shake your head softly. "It's probably her Semblance or something."
Eli doesn't seem convinced. "Probably."
Pushing yourself off the tree, you stretch your legs a bit. "Let's go North, then. Better to get this thing done."
"Yeah," Eli agrees, walking to the edge of the small clearing. Presumably North. You move to stand beside her. "It would probably suck if we fail the Initiation because we didn't grab any Relic. Trees?"
You nod in agreement as the both of you jump onto the tree branches, and before long, you're making your way to presumably the Temple via tree-hopping. Though this is the first time you're in a forest, the experience reminds you of people-hopping, though not as crunchy. Or perhaps building-hopping would be more apt? Ploughing a different kind of forest through the sky line.
The journey is disappointingly uneventful. The lack of Grimm attacks make the whole thing boring, and idly, you wonder if it has something to do with the fact that you've killed a much stronger Grimm. By Eli's frown, she's probably thinking about the same thing. That, or you're misreading it completely. You're not sure.
It doesn't take long before the two of you finally reach the temple. Though ruin would be much more appropriate. Chunks of stones lay scattered around it, broken pillars, fallen stoneworks, and cracked walls. As you step into it, it's pretty evident that you're not the first to have arrived. Impressive, considering you don't think that you had spent a long time in that cave.
"So these are the Relics, huh?" Eli comments, taking a look at the Chess Pieces on the eighteen stone tables, embroidered with thick golden circle around each one. Two of the chess pieces are missing, and only sixteen are left. "Neat."
You nod in agreement, sidling up by her side.
Without your word, Eli seems to take it as her duty to choose the pieces. Not that you mind, really. It's not like what you choose will be crucial for the future or anything…
After a moment's deliberation, Eli's hand shoots out and takes the…
[] Black Rook
[] Black Knight
()_()_()
Elizabeth's Aura: 55%
Ciane's Aura: 65%
