While Margarette was still rushing towards her daughter's injured body, Riley turned into a cloud of mist and was swept into the wind. To her surprise and that of the rest of the bystanders, the person Haruki had stabbed accidentally happened to be a swiftwind spy clone.
"Distracted again?" Riley mumbled as she appeared behind Haruki through a shadow.
"Wha-" Before Haruki could turn around, Riley slashed his shoulder with her poisoned sabers. "Ughh!"
Wincing at the blunt strike to the ice scales, Haruki teleported away from Riley, but Moriyana had some other plans than to let him escape.
"Ballerina, leap through!" Leaping forward to her command, the marionette leaped through a bright pink portal and disappeared from sight.
Confused by the disappearance, Haruki put up magic shields around him as caution, however as the same pink portal appeared all around him, he knew his preparations were about to fall short. Jumping out from each portal the marionette surrounded Haruki as smaller versions of itself, and their strings still attached to Moriyana's fingers was the most confusing aspect of it all.
'Pass through!' Dashing out of the encirclement, Haruki took to the sky and jumped right at Moriyana's body. Yet again, catching him off guard was the lance from one of the small marionettes that had someone attached itself to him before he had activated the ability to pass through objects.
"Down!" It cried in a mechanical voice as the other marionettes turned into light and fused into it. In the smallest fraction of a second, the ballerina turned back into its original form and swung around in the air to give itself enough momentum to throw Haruki to the ground.
Redirected by the marionette, Haruki felt himself about to hit the concrete. Making use of multi-thought procession he tried to somehow quickly get on his feet. When he opened his eyes back, he found himself inches from the ground, but that didn't matter as a gust of cold coming from his mouth, pillowed the fall with aerated ice.
"Goddamit," picking himself up after being thrown around for a while, Haruki peered up into the sky and roared out loud like a dragon. His grumble alone turned the clouds gray and the once gentle wind turned to a storm of ice.
Sensing Riley's presence over his shoulder all of a sudden, he shot her with an icicle floating around in the blizzardic storm around him. Hitting her dead, it threw it to the side of the training ground where the rest of the bystanders were watching it all unfold.
"Ahhh! That actually hurt!" Complained Riley, clutching her sides tight. Although the ice hadn't torn into her flesh, it had definitely left a bruise that would be darkened by the end of the day.
"Aunt Riley, are you okay?!" Escaping from Fay's grasp Stella jumped for her aunt's rescue with Margarette on her side.
Getting to her feet with a deep look of concern, Margarette began to heal her daughter's wounds while Stella had no clue what to do. Turning her attention back to the storm confining Moriyana and her father in a small space, she kept glaring at the two as they fought inside the blizzard.
"Stop!" Her eyes glowing a rainbow, she yelled out loud, and all of a sudden their powers were all but stripped away.
The storm settled completely, and the gray clouds quickly retreated. Even the strength of Moriyana's wings and Haruki's transformation into a frost dragon were both stripped to a null, and the sparring duo were brought crashing down to their feet.
"Ekk!" Although caught by the ballerina's painted thin arms, Moriyana felt threatened by the sudden loss of strength. "Oh…Thank you!"
Thanking the ballerina, she quickly got on her feet and watched as the marionette disappeared after giving her a gentle bow. Drained out of his strength as well, Haruki peered up at Moriyana as the marionette disappeared before shifting his attention to the source of the scream.
"Did she…Do that?" Looking right at Stella's angry expression, Haruki wasn't sure what to make of the situation.
'That blessing Rose gave her, how could it become so powerful?' He wondered before picking himself back up on his feet. Slowly making his way towards Stella, he noticed her face tense up as if she was afraid of having messed up the battle.
"Da-Daddy, I'm so-"
"No need, we were going a little overboard, I don't know what overtook me," patting her head, he gave her a comforting smile.
Her head still hung low, Stella was visibly drowning in guilt even though she was just trying to end the conflict. However, the moment she felt Riley's arm on her shoulder, her eyes lit up again, and she turned around to face her aunt.
"Are you okay?!" She asked, her little hands pressed together in worry.
Nodding at her, Riley lifted a bit of her jacket, just enough to show that the wound had been healed by Margarette's magic. Squatting down to the teen, the spy pinched her cheeks lightly and playfully moved her head around.
"We were just testing our skills, no need to worry yourself like that little girl," ruffling her hand through Stella's hair, she pulled herself back up. "Getting hurt is part of getting stronger, remember that, okay?"
This time it was Stella who nodded back as a beaming smile took over her face. With the little girl's worries all but washed away, Haruki turned to look at Fay who was supposedly trying to figure out Stella's affinity as well as the abilities that she had.
'Keep this a secret from everyone.' Although he was looking right at Fay, he warned everyone not to speak about Stella's abilities. 'As for the benevolent actor title, Rose must know something about it. Next time she's in the castle, let me know without fail.'
The moment he was done giving out orders, a deep red portal opened in front of them all and painted their face in a deep crimson glow. Stepping out from it was Asmodia who didn't seem to be in a particularly gentle mood.
"Now, what are you all doing gathered here?" Although she spoke in a mean tone so far, the moment her eyes laid on Stella, a weirdly gentle smile crept up her lips. "Did the little one do something naughty?"
Without saying a word, Fay grabbed Stella by the hand and glanced over at Haruki. Knowing exactly what she had in mind, he opened up a dungeon portal beneath them and sent the two to the replica dungeon.
"What the hell was that?!" Insulted by the act, Asmodia turned to Haruki with a pure look of rage. "I'm not going to eat your adoptive child you bastar-"
Before she could finish, Moriyana stepped forward as if to make a statement or even remind her of the past she'd tormented the illusionist with. Clutching her teeth shut, she growled out in anger before shifting her gaze to Haruki once more.
"You better be ready for that fight because I have nothing to fucking help you with anymore!" Yelling out loud, she stepped back into the gilded frame of a mirror that had appeared out of nowhere. Walking back until only her head was visible, she kept staring at Haruki as if he'd wronged her in some way. "You're just as much a monster as me, why do you think you deserve to be her father when you've turned countless children into orphans."
Stepping further back, Asmodia disappeared into the darkness inside the glass, and soon enough the mirror sunk into the ground to vanish as well.
"Haruki don't take her seriously," turning to her master, Moriyana tried to assure him of his worth.
"I've worked through my doubts already, her words don't affect me anymore," speaking out truthfully, he put up a gentle smile. "Anyways, let's end today's training here, for now, we can continue with this later."
Clapping his hands against each other, Haruki decided to attend to his duties beyond the mortal plane. Sending everyone back to their posts in the war against the emperor's army, Haruki opened up a dungeon portal to talk to the goblin queen about something he'd found out about in recent times.
'Thankfully, the emperor hasn't been pushing his armies too much on our borders, but even then, why do I have to deal with something so stupid right now?' Dropping right into the log cabin, Haruki looked around to see if Fay and Stella were still in the house. Not being able to find them in there, he assumed the two went out to test out Stella's powers like always.
Storming out of the cabin himself, he marched towards the goblin queen's lab hoping to catch her in action there with Medusa. Getting there didn't take all that much time, and sneaking in as a shadow, he noticed both queens working on glass tubes filled with a cloudy solidified liquid.
"These are the last samples from the stock we had, right?" The goblin queen asked as she placed the tube on a holding rack above a magic circle.
"Yeah, I might have to offer my daughters to gather more samples from master," Medusa replied.
"Samples of what?" Making them jump, Haruki climbed out from the shadows and stood right before the frozen queens. "I told you no experiments without my permission, didn't I? Maybe I need to punish you both to drill it in those thick monster skulls."
With a devious plan already on his mind, Haruki put collars made from darkness on their necks with a leash clasped between his hands.
"What punishment?!" Yelped Medusa.
Pulled out of her initial shock, the queen of goblins tried to hide the vials with her body.
"W-we were just testing the apparatus, that's all!" She exclaimed, obviously lying.
Knowing full well what was happening, Haruki held his hand before him to have the demonic spy he'd left behind come and sit down on it. Flying out from the corner, the little eyeball creature broke the two queen's hope for getting out of the situation by lying.
"Punishment it is," Haruki informed despite the look of fear on the two.
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