Missy
Catching a sheathed katana Lily threw at me after I entered the room we were apparently going to train in, I raised an eyebrow at my twin. “What’s this?”
“An asauchi. A sword that can, once I give you reiryoku, gain sentience through constant contact with your spirit and comes with special powers.” My twin explained to me. A moment later, I felt myself suddenly gaining a new supernatural energy that rapidly grew inside me until it stopped at an absurd size.
“I’m guessing this is that reiryoku stuff?” I asked, doing the mental equivalent of poking whatever new power Lily’d just shared with me. “And how’d I just get it?”
“I did some experiments and our souls replicate whatever supernatural energy we come into contact with. Because of that, I just had to give you a tiny fraction of my reiryoku and your soul replicated the qualities required to produce it, thereby also increasing your reserves to the level they should be at for someone whose soul has these traits.” Lily told me. “Now put the sheathe into your inventory. We better get started as quickly as possible.”
“You haven’t told me what to do yet.” I pointed out but still put the sheathe away.
Lily sighed as if it were obvious before replying, “Just channel your aura and reiryoku into your asauchi as we fight. It’s the best way to turn an asauchi into your zanpakuto quickly as far as I can tell.”
“And what’s a zanpakuto?” I pushed, still not really understanding what’s going on here.
“A sword that can cut souls. It also has two better states. The first one, Shikai, usually includes some kind of special ability while the second one, Bankai, is generally a far more powerful ability but usually still somewhat related to the ability of your Shikai.” Lily seemed a bit annoyed now but that’s on her for not explaining all of that before telling me what to do.
Closing my eyes to focus on the new supernatural energy in my body, I shoved both it and my aura at and into my sword that seemed to drink it up eagerly. “Alright so I’m guessing that those abilities are worth the effort?”
“Almost always, yes. There’s some that I’d classify as not worth having but most of them are powerful enough that having a zanpakuto and using it is worth it.” Lily told me.
And all of that sounded good but I was still a bit hesitant. “I’m not like you. I don’t want to try to master everything under the sun. I’m fine with specializing.” I was getting close to getting rid of the Manton limit, too. Using my semblance gave me something to work off of and I just had to translate that into magic.
“Then specialize in two or three things in case something’s immune to one of your specialties. It’s fine if you don’t want to learn every magic out there but, right now, encountering something that’s immune to spatial manipulation and lightsabers means you lose.” Lily insisted, looking worried.
“And this sword is meant to do better than a lightsaber?” I questioned, waving it around a little.
“It can cut souls so, yes. At the very least, it can harm non-physical things and your lightsaber can’t.” She explained.
I didn’t have an argument against it anymore, either, so I just nodded. “Alright. You convinced me.”
“Then come at me whenever you please. You can be on the offensive at the start. Just don’t forget to keep channelling aura and reiryoku into your sword.” Lily instructed me and, following those instructions, I rushed her before swinging my sword. My twin casually batted it aside while poking my forehead with her free hand’s pointer finger. “You lost focus before attacking. Again.”
And so it went over and over. I quickly stopped losing control of my reiryoku and aura when attacking but that didn’t make me capable of hitting Lily, it just meant my twin could start criticizing my swordsmanship rather than just my control over two of my supernatural energies.
After an hour of barely even making her move, I was tired as well as frustrated but, at the very least, she decided to end the sparring there. “Alright, now gather enough aura to use your semblance in your hand together with an equal amount of mana.”
“Why?” I asked, curious but already moving to comply. Lily’d more than proven that she was a good teacher now through how much I’d improved in just an hour of being taught by her.
“It’ll be easier to show you.” She replied, definitely enjoying how annoying her being so vague was for me. Then, she took my hand and pushed some of her aura into mine. “Do me a favour and don’t resist this.” A moment after she said those words, her aura began to somehow push my gathered aura and mana together and the result was a weird mix of the two.
“Use your semblance with it now.” As soon as I registered her words, I pushed the weird mana-aura out of my hand and distorted space a good distance away. And I could tell why Lily had wanted me to see this almost immediately. It gave me a sense for how it’d feel to do that with my mana and my semblance wasn’t Manton limited so, if I managed to do this, there’s a chance I’d be able to do it even against monsters. “Now try to do it again without the aura.”
Slightly nervous as well as excited at the thought of maybe finally succeeding at this, I swallowed before doing as Lily’d told me to and directing my mana into the same space my aura had distorted moments ago and focusing hard on the vivid sensation of how my mana had felt when it’d been inside the distortion.
Then I twisted and space distorted as if I’d used my semblance.
One training session with my sister and I’d achieved what I hadn’t been able to do in over a month. Despite how smug she looked, I couldn’t help but feel grateful and, to show it, I threw my arms around Lily to pull her into a hug. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” She replied, sounding amused but still embracing me. “You still have to do that another couple dozen times so you can’t forget how it feels.”
“Just let me thankful for one moment!” I ordered.
“Sure, sure. Take as long as you need to.” Lily replied, laughing a little.
I let myself enjoy the moment for a little while before reluctantly pulling away from my twin and doing as she’d told me to before I forgot what it felt like to violently distort space with nothing but my mana.
“I got cake!” Lily announced after showing up in my room not even an hour after we’d finished my first training session. True to her words, she waved her hand in some exaggerated motion before making a container with a cake of some kind in it appearing on her palm.
I was honestly just surprised she’d managed to balance the cake without letting it fall. “Why’d you get cake?” I asked while slowly clapping because I decided to play along. Lily hadn’t been in that playful of a mood since before I’d had that vision about Leviathan. She’d just been running around working on countless things at once the entire time.
“Because you’ve been trying to get rid of the Manton limit for a while, haven’t you?” She replied, grinning. “Might as well celebrate, right?”
“You knew?” I was unsure how to feel about that. I’d kept it a secret specifically because I didn’t want Lily to try and go for it. It was definitely immature of me but I just knew that Lily’d have been faster at figuring it out. Maybe not now that I had my semblance to work off of but, then again, she’d been around when I’d awakened it and would’ve gotten a sense for it herself.
When it came to learning, Lily’d always soaked things up like a sponge. She may have had the emotional capacity of a rock for a while and still kind of did in some regards but everything else she learnt faster than I ever could.
With this, I’d wanted to learn it first for once. I hadn’t wanted her help because I’d wanted it to be my achievement and, even if she’d helped me by mixing my aura and mana for a bit, I’d still replicated it on my own.
If I’d only been faster because Lily knew what I was trying to do and decided to leave me to it due to knowing how I felt, I’d hate it. I knew I was slower than her at figuring stuff out but I didn’t want her to treat me like it.
“I mean, it was kind of obvious?” Lily sounded confused by my surprise. “You were definitely working on your magic and you’d already tried to figure out how to affect living creatures. Trying to affect them directly was the obvious next step.”
“Lily,” I decided to just be upfront about this before I started spiralling, “You didn’t decide not to work on spatial magic just because I was doing it already, right?”
“No?” Lily looked bewildered at my question for a moment before composing herself. “I just like stabbing things. And you know I’m not one to specialize. I want to learn all kinds of magic and I can always master stuff later. I’m better at it than anyone else, anyways.”
Her answer probably shouldn’t have been relieving but that part of me that had always looked at my twin and seen someone who could learn what others struggled with in moments and envied her for it was at least satisfied that it hadn’t been pity that’d let me figure this out before her.
I wasn’t under any illusion that Lily couldn’t figure it out from my demonstrations earlier today – her mana senses were insane from what she’d told me – but I’d still achieved what I’d wanted to and it hadn’t been because Lily’d pitied me.
No, my twin was just arrogant and curious enough to poke at all kinds of other magics when we could bend space into pretzels from the start while treating that ability as a supporting one rather than trying to turn it into her offence.
Well, that and, as she’d put it, she liked stabbing things. That statement should’ve been a lot more worrying but I was already kind of used to it. She was a battle junkie and I was fine with that by now.
It’s also kind of funny to think about when I’d noticed some people online trying to get her moniker changed to ‘Archmage’ because of her knowing magic from other worlds and teaching it to others. That title made me think of old men in fancy robes with beards that reached the floor, not someone who laughed as she tore her enemies apart as long as it was just the two of us.
“Alright, now that I’ve confirmed that your ego’s still mountain sized, we can eat that cake you got.” I told her, relaxing now that my insecurities were dealt with for the time being.
“I’ll have you know my ego outshines the sun itself! A mere mountain could never match up to it!” Lily declared pompously, pushing out her chest as she spoke. That also made her lose her hold on the cake for a moment but, while I stretched space, she just nullified its gravity.
“3/10, would’ve been better without the cake nearly falling onto the floor.” I shot her a deadpan look.
“Please, the recovery elevates it to a 7 if not an 8.” She scoffed but there was a smile on her lips. “Besides, I figured out how to enchant the container so the cake’d remain attached to the bottom just in case.”
I raised my hand to my chin as if contemplating this. Then, I nodded very seriously and said, “Alright. A 4 it is.”
“You just can’t recognize my greatness!” She turned up her nose at me while her magic moved the cake to the table that was in my bedroom due to how oversized it was. For a moment, we both were silent before we started laughing.
With the joke done with, she dropped the pretence and her outfit switched to a loose purple t-shirt and black shorts as she threw herself into a beanbag chair I’d gotten for it. “Moving on, want to watch a movie while eating or do you just want to talk? It’s your archievement and your celebration so I’m down for whatever you want. I told Lisa to take care of my meetings for today so we have the entire day, too.”
“Nothing against Lisa, she does great work, but I feel like you might need another assistant.” Lily’d been really busy for weeks now, after all.
Lily blew some air at a strand of her hair hanging over her face before answering, “Believe me, I know. Lisa already has assistants of her own to handle a bunch of stuff but I’m needed for all the binding vows, the PRT generally wants to deal with me over her and so does just about every other group that thinks themselves important enough for it. Then I also have to deal with some internal issues and handle the initial lectures for the people who pay me for them as well as the lectures for the guild. And that’s just this world. I also still need to find some people to teach how to make dust out of mana so that I can start selling the stuff as soon as the PRT’s done testing it.”
“Have you tried teaching people how to make binding vows? I mean, you told me your teaching power lets you teach people stuff they shouldn’t be able to do so…” I trailed off at seeing Lily’s near manic excitement.
“Have I told you that you’re awesome yet? Because you are. Even if this doesn’t work, it’s worth a shot since it’s a way to potentially handle the expansion of the guild as well as the setup of the dust mining company on Remnant without having to do all the binding vows myself.” Lily told me, grinning now. “However, before I get to trying to teach Lisa how to do that, let’s do whatever you want to. As I said, this is a celebration for you so let’s make the most of it.”
…I knew she just didn’t want to talk about work anymore. She knew I knew that. Neither one of us brought it up as I went through the collection of movies and shows I’d stored in my inventory before picking one.
“If you’re already picking a romance movie, can’t you at least pick one that has attractive people in it?” Lily complained the moment she saw my selection.
“Your standard for attractiveness is us. I’m pretty sure you barely count Amelia as meeting your standards.” I argued with a grin on my lips. “Besides, I like looking at the guys in this movie.”
“And someone has to compensate for your low standards.” Lily joked with a smile of her own. “Anyways, I reserve the right to complain both during and after the movie.”
“Sure. I’ll listen to all your terrible opinions.” I retorted, inserting the disk into the dvd player.
“Then listen carefully for I have a lot to say.” My twin told me, nodding to herself while letting herself sink into the beanbag chair.
If nothing else, this day promised to be fun. And I hadn’t even realized how much I’d missed Lily complaining about how boring romance movies were while satisfying her massive sweet tooth with cake.
Really made me feel silly for not taking the time to relax with my twin when she’d been running herself ragged. And it made me feel even worse about having felt conflicted about Lily having known that I was trying to figure out how to get rid of the Manton limit than I already did as if her just noticing the obvious was something bad.
In general, I’d…probably screwed up with everything in regards to Lily since shortly after we’d gotten magic. I’d demanded for her to help me when I didn’t even know how to help her myself, had pushed both of us to fight Leviathan, had doubted her after I’d asked her to teach me and I’d been jealous of her as she grew stronger so quickly. Meanwhile, we’d slowly but surely stopped hanging out as Lily became more and more busy.
But I hadn’t been nearly as busy. I could’ve made time for Lily since I knew she didn’t sleep and all the duties that kept her from making time for me involved people that did need to rest at night. I could’ve just slept a bit during the day and made some time for her at night.
What I got really stuck on, though, was that I hadn’t thought about how to help Lily anywhere near enough. I’d promised I’d help her after we’d triggered. And then I’d failed to keep that promise because I couldn’t think of a single way to help Lily aside from doing raids with her and growing stronger so I could pull my weight in them.
Except, now that I thought about it, there was a way for me to help her that I should’ve realized a lot sooner.
“Hey, Lily?” I asked once I was done thinking things through, not even pretending like the movie was meant to be anything more than background noise and something to criticize when we’re bored.
“Yeah?” She sounded confused and there was some worry in her eyes. After all, Lily could read my body language and the Force worked on me even if it didn’t work on her. She probably knew exactly how I felt already.
And, had I focused more on her lately – had I spent more time with her – I wouldn’t have had to comb through my memories to notice that her body language lately always told me she was tired or stressed. How tired or stressed she was varied but both were a permanent of her life nowadays.
“Think we can do this regularly again? I know you’re busy so we probably can’t pick a day to do stuff together on but just spending time together again like this would be nice.” I felt like this was probably a good start on paying her back for all her help. I knew I didn’t need to because Lily wouldn’t hold it against me but I would. Now that I’d realized the issue, I’d at least try to make up for how much she’d done to indulge me when she really didn’t have to.
I knew I couldn’t help her much when it came to combat stuff. Not in any way she couldn’t do herself, at least. I also couldn’t help with administrative things I didn’t know anything about.
What I could do was give Lily a chance to unwind. ‘She’s been wearing her hunter outfit since she got it,’ I knew she loved the damn thing but, that she switched to something more comfortable so quickly this time probably meant she needed a break from all things work-related.
If nothing else, I was perfectly capable of helping my twin temporarily forget all the stress caused by the countless duties and projects she piled onto her plate because she had no self-restraint.
“That sounds nice.” Lily replied, smiling at me. “I’ll make sure to figure out some way to make it work.”
“We can do it at night.” I offered without hesitation. If I didn’t, I knew Lily’d try to find a time during the day despite all the things she had to do. “Just let me know and I’ll take a nap beforehand so we can spend some time hanging out after you’re done for the day.”
Lily blinked, seemingly not having expected that before smiling brightly at me. “Thank you.” She told me while bending space just so she could hug me without having to get out of the the beanbag chair. “I appreciate it.”
Then, after separating, she cleared her throat before doing her best to look as haughty as possible, “Your taste in movies could still be a lot better, though.”
“Better than being a snob.” I retorted, not acknowledging the warmth I felt even as I basked in the feeling.
“We are rich, Missy. Being snobs is our birthright and duty.” Lily argued with a wave of her hand that she somehow made look pretentious despite being halfway sunken into a beanbag chair.
Laughing a little, I once again swore to myself that I’d do my best to help Lily. And, this time, I wouldn’t break my promise just because I hadn’t put enough thought into it.
Fun fact: A moment like this was meant to be in arc 2. But so was Leviathan and I believe you can tell that he did not, in fact, show up in arc 2. So, to all the people commenting about disliking Missy because she kept demanding stuff, first of all, I don’t blame you but, also, I did throw an entire list of problems and massive life changes her within a fairly short period of time
No, seriously, I have a list
Anyways, she had no idea how to deal with any of that and did what teenagers tend to do – meaning she made a whole lot of poor choices
That said, hope you enjoyed and let me know if you have any feedback