The girl, apparently called Astrid, sighed, turning to face the twins. “Ah, N-3 and N-27. It’s been quite a while.” Wait, that’s weird. When they all stand next to each other they look like triplets. Are Nat and Nadia’s faces really common amongst sandy blonde people with amber eyes?
This time Nadia spoke, “Astrid, if you integrate with that thing you’ll lose any trace of a personality, your body will just be a vessel through which the scriptures act.”
Astrid pursed her lips, holding her hands behind her back, “And what’s wrong with that? You’d better get going before Master gets back or-”
“He’s dead.” Nat’s eyes bore into Astrid, “He’s gone. You don’t need to do anything he tells you.”
A booming silence wrapped the area, Astrid’s mouth remaining half open. “No…”
Nadia took a step towards Astrid, “Think about all he did to Nicole's magical origins overflowing. How Nora never even made it out of the cloning vat.”
Astrid raised her head, her eyes firm but ominously hollow. “N-10 simply didn’t do the procedure correctly, rejecting the mana flow instead of letting it into her. And N-2 was simply a test run, after all she paved to way to the creation of you two.” A dark smile unfolded on her face, “Ah, Master would be so happy to see two of my clones going about having their own free will.”
Nat was shocked to silence while Nadia retracted her step, looking on at Astrid in horror, “What the hell…?”
“I am N-1 of the Misjuven Project, an inituative to reproduce the figurehead of the sacred texts. To make a ideal society with our inherint destructive power. I don’t need to listen to any soiled attempts to recreate me.” Astrid deflected, turning to face the obelisk. “I was a child born amongst the millions, born by the will of the texts and to die by it. So, I’m no longer Astird, am I?” She turned to face the twins, an innocent smile on her visage, “Refer to me as Nahs, the incarnation of misfortune. A walking plague, a cursed reptile. I’ll shed this body for the next~” Her eyes reflected a dangerous light, “There were a total of 30 of us, right? Now there’s only 3, you two and me. How odd…” Astrid, wait, she wanted to be called Nahs, right? Well then, Nahs plunged her arm into the obelisk, the rock sucking her in as if it were some sort of dark liquid.
Nadia whipped around, grabbing the dumbstruck Nat by the hand and dragging her away, “Althea!” She called, her desperate eyes saying everything. She wanted Althea to save the girl, but that was a no can do. You can’t enter battle with half-assed emotions, and to be honest the water mage didn’t give a flying heck over what happened to Nahs.
“If you want to protect someone,” Althea said, her cool blue eyes trained on the twins, “Maybe you should get strong enough to do it yourself.”
A roar resounded in the obelisk, cracks forming as it cracked open to reveal a pure white glowing blob. It varied its shape, flickering from humanoid to snake before growing to an unprecedented size. It was about as big as four school buses when it started forming its silhouette, granting itself limbs and… wings? A familiar scent reached Althea as the light blob flaked off the creature, revealing rows of scales. It was dragon. Nahs had become a full fledged dragon.
“LOOK UPON THE DARKEST NIGHT, THE RUINER OF WORLDS.” Wow, what first words for a newly born dragon.
“Sorry Nahs, but you chose the wrong first opponent!” Althea chriped cracking her knuckles as she watched the dragon inhale, exhaling a haze of mist. But, instead of coating the ground in a disease ridden cloud, it was consumed by Althea. “Yeah, as I thought you became a water dragon. Too bad my magic’s made specially to combat that.” The aura of water that accompanied dragon force surged around the blonde as she launched herself at Nahs.
-♢-
The mist-like body of the dragon began flaking away, letting way to the human body of Nahs to fall uselessly to the ground. It was a tad bit disappointing things ended so quickly, but it was mostly because of how disadvantageous the fight was for Nahs. Althea literally had magic made to combat her, and she wasn’t even able to get accustomed to her dragon body before trying to defeat Althea with it. A bit of a waste if you ask the Fairy Tail mage, but she guessed there was enough property damage for one day.
“Hey. I’m still alive.”
Althea moved into a position as to stand above the barely functioning body of Nahs. “Ah, I guess you are. I’d better get to fixing that, shouldn’t I?”
Nahs sighed, her gaze glued to the blue sky, “I can’t believe that the reincarnation of misfortune got killed so easily. I guess the world will have to wait another thousand years for the obelisk to come back.” Her gaze seemed more contemplative then regretful however, probably because of all that information that can rushing into her head after taking in the obelisk. As she was, she was closer to being a being like Althea rather than human, and such people had no need to revel in the pain of their worthlessness.
“I’m sure by then everyone will be over it by then.” Althea said dismissively, sitting with crossed legs in front of the sprawling body of Nahs.
“It’s just, I thought I could do something. Anything. And in the end I couldn’t even completely give up my human form.”
“I’m sure this isn’t your original body, just a reflection on how you think it is.” Althea assured the sandy blonde, crossing her arms, “What your consciousness inhabits now would’ve become the dragon’s heart and any trace of your humanity erased.”
Nahs sighed, “I guess so…” A brief quiet. “Hey, I noticed something while fighting you.”
“Yeah?”
“You’ve got no heartbeat. Must be sad.”
“Not really.”
“Why do you have a heart that isn’t even functioning inside you? Sentimental about your organs?”
“Nah, this husk sitting inside me isn’t my original one anyways. Actually, I see what you’re alluding to. It could solve lots of problems.”
“Then go ahead. Rip it out.”
Althea let her hand enter Nahs’s abdomen, the other girl making a lot of unnatural gurgling sounds as the blonde swish around her internal organs. And then out came a fresh human heart, although an abnormality could be found with the way it seemed to shine with an unnatural light. However, that was just due to the traces of aether, nothing new to Althea’s body. And so, she took her key and Nahs’s heart and ate them both whole.
“Ah, so this is what you imprinted on your heart…” Althea muttered, eyes closed as she shifted her body to combine Nahs’s heart and her Clarity. “Surviving wasn’t really a priority before, but I guess that now that you gave me your heart I can’t just erode that desire away? Fine, it’s mine now.” She stood up wordlessly and made her way out of the ruined wasteland of the district.