?Her fury matches as she takes her nails and rips apart her shirt revealing a band covering her breasts and more muscles. Dragging a hand across her collarbones, something beneath her skin shifts. That something slices through her skin in gleaming white and she pulls it out. The length almost unbelievable considering that’s her bone she twists into a sword, but they aren’t called bone witches for nothing.
?Her skin immediately closes, though that doesn’t stop the blood that’s already fallen from staining her porcelain skin. I have to forcibly remind myself I’m not meant to kill her. They want to see my skill. Because it would be so very easy to end her life her right now.
?She doesn’t wait for me to draw a weapon and swings at me. Her sword slicing through the air and I purposefully only move so much out of the way.
?Her tip clips my shoulder and I let the blood run as I dodge her next attacks. She doesn’t have the mentality of allowing me to show my skill and instead is continuing with her punishment.
?I pull my blood only enough to solidify a staff and when Nana brings her sword down in an arc, I use to top of my staff to meet her and then use her momentum as I twist and stir my staff to dislodge her grip. Sending her sword flying past the edges of the mat and bringing my staff down on her.
?Another wound is created as she pulls more bones to create twin blades. Using them and incorporating martial art techniques that she thinks she taught me.
?Her aura fights for dominants as she hounds into me. Most of her moves I mimic and I can feel her frustrations as we fight like reflections. I know her next move before she makes it, and because she wishes to punish me I will toy with her.
?Hit for hit, kick for kick, blow for blow. She doesn’t understand. None of them do. Not that I have been forthcoming, but it was never their business either. Yet, at every instance they wish to insert themselves because they believe it is their right.
?She growls at me as she tries to land a kick to my head but I block it with a kick of my own. Our shins collide and I can hear the crack from my bone. Twisting away, I’m given a second of reprieve as Nana sneers at me.
?Pain sings.
?Not the smartest countermove, however it’s worth it as I equally distribute my weight between my legs and ignore the pain. It makes her snarl. Her aura reaching to its limit to try and dominate mine.
?“So much arrogance!” she spits. “I raised you better! I saw your human-like heart andknewyou would not be like her! You were meant to be better!”
?She slashes one of her daggers through the air and I feel the cracks running along my other leg, my ribs, my arms, my hands. I have no choice but to let go of my staff and my blood splatters across the mat.
?“I will not have you end up like her, Mavyllora!”
?“Like who?”
?Fire traces along those cracks and raw power forces everything to hold in place. Preventing me from crumbling. I will not let myself crumble. It doesn’t prevent the pain, though. Pain that’s indescribable, but after a certain limit it all feels the same.
?It becomes nearly a comfort.
?It’s not a true beating, not like Kolasi gave me, but beggars can’t be choosers.
?Nana points one of her daggers at me. “I will make sure you keep your humanity.”
?Time moves oddly as I shut my eyes to bow my head and sigh.
?“I am not Locklyn,” I whisper, knowing that she will hear me. “And you did not raise me.”
?They forget. They always forget.
?I forgot.
?My blood begins to sing as I straighten and rip my nails into my palms. Drawing my blood out, I mold and solidify it into twin daggers that match hers. When I open my eyes she’s already coming after me, but time is still moving too slowly.
?My bones groan as I move and match her attack. Adding strain to my body that is not as expansive as my aura or magic, but it never was.
?Another hum adds to the back of my mind. It creates a pressure that feels like my skull is fracturing. I lose my hold on my blood and the force of the rush makes my heart – it makes my heart. . .
?Nana swipes her dagger up and I’m too slow to properly defend myself so it cuts along my abdomen as I’m choking on my blood.
?When she notices she takes a step back and I slam onto my knees. A hand on the mat as I bow my head and blood falls from my mouth with my other hand clutching the claiming mark over my heart.
?My blood is moving too fast and instead of my heart acting as a chamber opening and closing to allow the blood through, it’s torn so there’s no proper circulation of my blood with my aura.
?I need control.
