Return of the Runebound Professor-Chapter 681: The Tried and True

“My question is not with regard to the training,” Yoru said. “It is different. This is just the most optimal moment to ask you. Everyone else is unconscious and unable to overhear our conversation.”

A flicker of interest passed through Garina.

Her question was one that she needed everyone else unconscious for? Hm. Either the sheer arrogance of a former Rank 7 demon who thinks she’s better than everyone around her… or potentially something actually worth hearing out. It’s always difficult to tell with the powerful demons. Their personalities tend to be so warped — but Noah’s worked on this lot. She might actually be worth the time.

“I’ll humor you,” Garina said. “For both requests you have. But here’s the catch. We’re doing them at the same time.”

Yoru’s head tilted to the other side. “Both requests? What is my other?”

Garina blurred as shadows swallowed her body. She appeared before Yoru, already spinning as her leg whipped out toward Yoru’s head.

The smaller woman’s glowing arm shot up. A wave of thrumming energy rolled out from her palm as Garina’s foot slammed into it. Yoru skidded several feet back, nearly stumbling over herself before she managed to catch her balance.

“You still need to be tired if you want to connect with your soul and learn how to shape it,” Garina said, letting her leg lower as a smile pulled at her lips. “Now, ask your question while you still have breath to speak. You seem to think you can challenge me — so I won’t go as easy on you as I did the others.”

Yoru’s head straightened. “I see.”

Garina blurred. Her knee slammed into Yoru’s stomach. A ripple of moonlight rolled out from the impact zone and the demon skidded a step back, but Garina could tell that her strike hadn’t connected. Yoru had managed to block it.

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Not half bad. She’s got some very good reaction speed.

“I would suggest putting more effort into your question and less into answering mine,” Garina said. “If it isn’t interesting, I’m going to lose patience very quickly. You’re wasting my time.”

Shadows swallowed Garina once more. She appeared behind Yoru and drove her heel into the demon’s back. Moonlight rippled through the air and Yoru stumbled forward, only to find Garina before her once more, a knee hurtling toward her mask.

Yoru’s back arched and she twisted herself out of the way, vaulting off her hands and landing a foot away —

Garina was beside her. Yoru crossed her arms in front of her face instant before Garina’s fist slammed into them. She skidded back across the ground, barely managing to keep her feet out from under her.

Shadows were already rising to swallow Garina when Yoru finally managed to ask her question.

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“What are Runes?”

Garina paused. The magic she’d gathered slipped away. Then a small smile appeared on her features. “Well. That’s an interesting question. Doesn’t everyone know what runes are? They’re the building blocks of magic. Fragments of the laws of the universe.”

She darted forward, closing the distance between herself and Yoru in an instant. Her foot rose into the air and crashed like a falling axe.

Yoru crossed her arms above her head and Garina’s kick drove into it with a thunderous boom. The dirt beneath Yoru crunched and compacted, forming a small crater beneath her. She staggered. Moonlight twisted around her glowing arms in sputtering streams.

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Yoru said. “I want to know what Runes are. Master Runes, specifically.”

Garina twisted and sent a powerful hook kick slamming into Yoru’s side. This time, the demon couldn’t react fast enough to stop it. Even the ripples of moonlight rising from her body weren’t enough to keep her from tumbling across the ground and slamming to a halt against the broken stump of a tree.

“That’s an odd question,” Garina said. “What makes you want to know? Something happen?”

Yoru clambered to her feet, clutching one hand to her side. Even though Garina couldn’t see her features, it was apparent how badly the pain affected Yoru. That was surprising. Yoru hadn’t been kicked that hard — and her magic should have absorbed a portion of the damage.

Even Noah’s human students had absorbed proportionally similar damage without as much of a reaction. Garina’s lips pulled into a frown. It wasn’t common that someone reached Rank 7 with such a low pain tolerance.

The path to Rank 7 was a brutal one. Constant fights and agony paved it. Rank 7s could generally push through all but the most debilitating injuries. That shouldn’t have faltered just because Yoru had dropped down a rank… but she was almost acting like she’d barely ever been properly hit in a fight.

“Nothing traditionally known about Runes would imply that they’re anything more than what you say they are,” Yoru said, her voice strained. “They should simply be aspects of power. Patterns that hold magic, without any further purpose. But if that were the extent of it… how would a rune gain sapience?”

Garina’s smile grew wider. “Now that… is an interesting question indeed.”

***

“You,” Noah said, pointing at Noah-2.

Coincidentally, Noah-2 did the exact same thing.

“Stop that,” Noah-2 said. “It’s confusing. Don’t copy me.”

“We are not doing this again,” Noah said. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, and much to his annoyance, his clone did the exact same thing.

It was slightly difficult to be too annoyed. He’d have done the same thing if he were in Noah-2’s place. It couldn’t be all that fun being someone else’s clone. One would have to take all the opportunities they had to enjoy themselves.

“You say that, but here you are,” Noah-2 said. “Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be stuck in my head?”

“Not your head. My head,” Noah corrected.

“Same thing.”

“I don’t like the fact that you’re probably right about that,” Noah muttered. He scratched the back of his neck. “I thought you were the representation of my Fragment of Self. Is… it really that bad? Being stuck here?”

Noah-2 pursed his lips. “Honestly? Not really. I don’t think I really exist when you aren’t actively, well, here. Not in the way I exist right now. I’m you. So when you’re not here, I’m not here either. I’m out there, with you.”

“That is confusing,” Noah said. “Very confusing.”

“Couldn’t agree more. Whatever idiot came up with this needs to be taken out to the shed. I mean, seriously. If you were going to pick something to represent your own soul and get stuck together with for an indeterminate amount of time, couldn’t you have picked Moxie? Why me?” Noah-2 shook his head. “Unimaginative.”

“No, that would just be weird. You’re me,” Noah said, scrunching his nose. “I don’t want to be attracted to myself.”

“Huh. That is weird. Why’d you come up with it?”

“I didn’t. You did.”

Noah-2 arched an eyebrow. Noah glared at him.

“Stop that. Let’s just get this dealt with so we can both get out of here, shall we? It seems you’re the key to figuring out how to control the shape of my soul,” Noah said through a sigh. “But… let me guess. You don’t have the faintest idea as to what to do.”

“Not in the slightest,” Noah-2 said with a sheepish grin. “But you knew that already.”

“Unfortunately, yes. Time to start testing things, then?”

Noah-2’s smile turned excited. “I was waiting for that. Let’s see what we can break before we kill ourselves, shall we?”