“Urgh, c’mon, what’s wrong with you? Wake up!”

Dasnor hooked Niji hard with his right—so painful that Niji thought he might have broken her shoulder. The mage girl backed up but didn’t surrender.

They had been practicing melee combat without any weapons or magic. Compared to this session, the previous ones felt like a stroll in a blooming garden. Niji had tried to parry a dozen fruitless times, and all her counterattacks failed.

Dasnor tempered his passion a bit and remarked, “Well? What is that about? Are you unfocused because of yesterday's encounter?”

“Go on, it’s fine.”

She drank the entire flask of healing potion as both healers were absent; Dammit was still sleeping after a night hunt, and Mirabelle had her duty at the pub. The drug acted quickly, so the pain in her shoulder and other numerous spots subsided a little.

“You are not looking well. Are you sure we should con—”

“C’mon, don’t be daft!”

This time, Dasnor tried to lock the girl’s hands behind her back. Niji evaded that, pulled the lighter from her pocket and fenced off a wall of fire. It was a dishonest maneuver, but the Elementalist was guided more by reflexes than by common sense. There was no respite: the Amber burst through the flame and knocked the girl down with a blow in her abs. She sank to the ground hopelessly, believing she wouldn’t be able to stand up again in her entire life.

“‘A’ for effort,” Dasnor said. “But that was against the rules.”

“Haven’t you told me… that there will be no rules… in this world,” Niji croaked in reply.

The fire behind him disappeared. The pain was dragging Niji to her personal hell and made the girl hate her mentor with all her heart. Almost every M.A.G.E. member was telling her Dasnor was not as bad as he seemed. But she just couldn’t buy it. No way such merciless cruelty meant anything good. Niji remembered how Rem had nicknamed Dasnor a killer machine. Well, she should have listened to him.

It was indeed nothing like the Academy. During the studies, the flow of the battle was monitored by specially trained Lacklusters or the teachers themselves, who were always ready to intervene if, in the heat of the moment, the combat practice threatened to turn into manslaughter. Yes, sometimes Niji might have got beaten harshly too, but it just couldn’t match the torture she was experiencing in this very courtyard, day by day, week by week. She had become an enforcer a few months ago, and she didn’t benefit from it at all, but had instead lost her friends’ trust and the last hopes for a better future.

Each workout was a torment. The search for Shell’s murderers had come to a standstill. She didn’t have the slightest idea about how to remove her amplifier. What the hell was she doing in M.A.G.E. anyway?!

The Elementalist was stupefied when Dasnor squatted down beside her. His face changed his sullen expression to—Niji couldn’t believe her eyes—rather anxious.

“Sorry, I went too far. What happened to you?”

Still offended, Niji didn’t say anything in reply. Having met her gaze, Dasnor got up and, bending down, reached out his hand to the girl. She grabbed it reluctantly, allowing the Amber to tug her to her feet. He accompanied Niji to the mansion and sat her down on the porch.

“Here.” Dasnor handed her a strange vessel. If it was supposed to be a healing potion, then it would be of red color, but this one was suspiciously brown. However, the girl was ready for anything to make the pain go away. She swallowed the thick liquid which smelled like some kind of liquor. It was effective in the same way as her own potions, maybe even more. Niji returned the bottle and asked, “What’s this?”

“Energy potion. A very strong one. Don’t abuse it.”

“Coffee?”

“Haydee’s craft. Never abuse anything she crafts.”

Niji smiled, appreciating the joke. Or probably she just finally came to her senses and relaxed a little. “It’s my fault. I should have told you I can’t handle it.”

“So, what’s the matter?”

“I saw yesterday what Violets tend to be like when they… well…”

Niji stuttered. She’d prefer a couple of punches to her face to bringing up this topic.

“Ah. Well, that’s... understandable.”

Dasnor sat next to Niji. There was an absolute silence, and only the autumn wind was rustling within the trees growing in the yard. Both mages looked somewhere in front of them, their gazes wandering. The weather was so perfect that Niji had difficulty believing that someday her world would be painted with bloody purple colors.

Suddenly she confessed. She spilled out to Dasnor all the thoughts that had been torturing her. How afraid she was of her inner monster. How she was scared sick of her inevitable demise. How she was fleeing from herself. How she didn’t want to die. The Amber listened to her patiently, without interrupting.

“It’s better to take me to PRISM,” she concluded, biting her lower lip. “I can mutate any day and this… this…”

“No one left behind.”

The mage looked at the girl, and Niji saw the confidence in his eyes. Her heart was beating furiously, as at the time she’d discovered the underground temple. After spending some time with Dasnor, the Elementalist had learned to distinguish different shades of his default bad mood, so that moment she clearly caught the glimpse of concern betraying itself through a mask of indifference: slight changes in his gaze, the curve of his lips and eyebrows. Niji wasn’t truly empathetic towards other people, but she made up for it with her accurate perception, and some peculiar joy overtook her, as if a treasure chest had been finally swung open after numerous attempts to crack it.

Some kind of pain was dwelling inside Dasnor, and that pain was preventing him from showing his true self. Even though his voice tended to sound flat, as if he was discussing the morning news at breakfast; some notes of sympathy, support... and even a sincere desire to help were slipping in the slightest changes in his tone. This secrecy; this eternal constraint to lie and hide had made them both too much alike.

“You are my teammate, and that means we’ve accepted you. You might be dangerous, but who isn’t? Even if you believe you are left alone with your problems, that is not so. We are in this together. My men want to help you deal with the curse, which is why we bother looking for Ed’s artifact. You can count on me, as well as Dammit, Beckz—anyone here. Because you are in M.A.G.E., and we are more than a bunch of mages who stick together because of some ideology.”

“Oh…” was the only thing Niji could say.

“So… you’ll get through it,” Dasnor tightly squeezed her healthy shoulder.

This was such a simple, cliché phrase, but… what was there in his speech that actually encouraged Niji to stand up and fight? Was that the thing everyone was talking about—his perseverance, loyalty, hidden passion… fear? A desire to atone for something? She was mesmerized about how many emotions she was able to register while he’d opened up just a little.

Dasnor became slightly embarrassed, from either a too lengthy pause or a glimpse of gratitude in Niji’s eyes. He removed his palm and looked at the training ground. “Fine. That’s all for today.”

“I… I will go home, if you don’t mind.”

“As you wish. Please tell me next time if you feel demotivated. I don’t like beating up a lady.”

He got up from the porch and left to have a smoke.