Black Bull Headquarters

[Bloodedge]

"Tingles? Well, that's new too. Never heard that about a fight in my life... outside my own head, anyway..." Leonis found much interest in Hikage's excitement for combat in general, and being in the face of it - in addition to the face of the girl herself - piqued his interest in the battle as well. The more they spoke, the more he wondered what the point of waiting would be. They were basically hyping one another up at this exact moment, and Leonis found his blood pumping more than it had been during his battle mere moments ago. His right hand rose toward the left side of Hikage's face as if he intended to touch it, but it stopped before any contact would be made. "Hikage... your weird ass... excites the hell outta me!" he said as the very same hand he rose produced the basic form of his magic as an explosion right next to the green-haired girl's face.

[Apollymi]

Apparently this pair of people had more in common than their upbringing would lead one to believe. "Sou ka..." Hikage could feel many things within her person and she wasn't sure what she intended to do, but she hadn't quite found the words necessary to express the current level of emotion she felt presently. Instead of focusing on that there was a hand coming towards her face and the gesture was strange, but, the feeling in her body told her that Leonis was just as excited as she was, and that was strange beyond all reason. His next action was to activate magic beside her face and she spun her body around his arm at high speed aiming to kick the blonde boy firmly in his back with her eyes closed into the space of his own magic while her grimoire opened providing her with a blade which she immediately snatched from the sky. As her eyes opened she ran her tongue across the blade. "Exciting is good. And that shit isn't going to work twice... I thought you were bringing your best?" she questioned with a hint of teasing.

[Bloodedge]

Leonis watched his spell explode against nothing while Hikage maneuvered to his rear. The next sensation he felt was a leg in his back, which launched him away from the girl. With his right hand still forward, Leonis aimed his left hand behind him and produced an explosion in each direction. This turned him around quickly, and was followed by two more explosions at his rear to halt his forward movement. "Alright. I'll admit, that was kind of rude," he said while righting himself and landing. Before his next effort, he took pause upon watching the green-haired girl lick a knife so recently grasped. "And that... was something else entirely," he claimed. With that said, Leonis brought out his grimoire once more, choosing from it a spell that he'd yet to use. "Honō Mahō: Rasen Homura!" Tucking his left arm behind his back, Leonis aimed his right palm toward Hikage. A spiral of inferno erupted from his right hand and shredded through the air en route to Hikage, burning up the air itself as it carved its way forward.

[Apollymi]

Hikage was successful in her try at avoiding the damage this lad initially aimed to cause her face. Her kick to his rear was also well received but he didn't take long to recover, much to the green-haired lass' approval. He had something to say about the apparent rudeness of the start of this most recent fight but, she didn't actually mind that at all. "Iie, surprise keeps you sharp..." she said. But with the tongue lashing she'd delivered to her blade, another statement was made which she wasn't really sure she understood. "Was it?" she questioned seeming to find it strange for that action to garner any attention. She did that sort of thing more often than most things she did. She didn't know when she'd developed the habit, but it was definitely one she'd had for quite a while, even before her magic manifested. Now though there was something else she'd never seen before, a spiral of fire magic cutting through the air before her, headed straight to her person. "Sugoi," she was amazed. It was a stunning sight to be held, and a sadistic grin crossed Hikage's face as she aimed to face this head-on as she did everything. Her body moved forward dodging aptly through the flaming spiral, it wasn't perfect, but it didn't deter her from approaching Leonis directly as she aimed to slash directly at the young man's fore. She was practically smoldering, her clothing burned a bit as well as small patches of her skin, but she'd avoided the brunt of the burning. Quick movements of her blade in her right hand aimed a trio of alternating vertical slashes at the lad's torso, while her left hand aimed to keep his right from moving towards her.

[Bloodedge]

"Guess you're right," he replied. If Leonis had one thing going for his offensive approach, it was purpose. If Hikage had managed to take something from his efforts, then only more purpose was added to what he already did... though this did not at all detract from his own intentions. "Yeah. How old are you, exactly?" was his response to her questioning of his previous statement. The fight progressed in spite of this banter, with Hikage charging forward against his flame spiral. Doing so left her scarred by the fires to some extent, but the minimal damage seemed to be paying off for the sake of her progression. Once she was in range, the girl blocked off his right hand while slashing at his torso with her blade. Leonis had a plan which fed into this. Jerking back, he minimized the damage of each cut to himself, though he had to remain close enough to follow through with his plan, so he couldn't move enough to avoid bleeding entirely. While Hikage was cutting him, Leonis was untucking his left arm, raising it to the space between his lower torso and Hikage's, toward her right side. Still, he grinned. "It makes two!" he announced while his left hand produced its own tornado of flames aiming to engulf Hikage directly and send her toward - and potentially through - the ceiling.

[Apollymi]

Of course, Hikage knew herself to be right about things which dealt directly with instinct and response. Beyond this, the age of this girl was directly questioned. She didn't know why this information was important to her understanding, but she supposed she had no problem giving it. "Juugo desu," she said with the same passive tone she always seemed to have. It would be rather surprising to most, to find out exactly how young this woman was, as her age dictated that she'd received her grimoire and become a Magic Knight as a commoner in an extraordinarily short amount of time. Without being a noble and being directly ushered in to the Magic Knights, she'd done it on her own merit, as well as traveling from whatever her home town in the Forsaken Lands was to get to Kikka in the Common Region all on her own.

Irrespective of this there was something more to the attack proffered by Leonis, there always seemed to be, and his other hand soon aimed to send the lass flying through the roof in a swirl of fire, with the apparent warning that it made two, and given their current closeness she couldn't avoid this attack. The secondary flame spiral would send the girl flying, but there was a grin was on the girl's face as she maintained enough of herself as she flew off to try and make the best of the space now forming between them. Her unknown reinforcement spell seemed to increase quite a bit while taking this hit too, mediating the damage. And while she didn't have something new to offer, she did have a new use of a previously seen magic. Using Leonis' ability to attack and defend and even counter-attack, the girl's actions as she fell back towards the ground had purpose. She'd simultaneously cast, two of the spells from her grimoire, as she hit the ground once more, causing the emergence of several of the Steel Hedgehogs from the ground as they began to roll up, and a hailstorm of swords to fall from the sky aiming to maim Leonis and a wide area around himself. While he dodged the strikes from above, the spinning hedgehogs from below aimed to maim him from various angles, the barrage was relentless, much like Hikage herself, but the only thing she could manage in the current situation.

[Bloodedge]

"... What." From Leonis, this single word was a question to the universe at large, though its tone implied more of a direct statement than it likely should have. He found himself looking over Hikage and finding nothing but pure disbelief in what he was hearing, versus what he could see with his own eyes and process with his own mind. "No. No way. You don't look 15 at all!" he said to voice his shock. Physically, as a person who would be considered a starving peasant from the Forsaken Lands, nothing about his added up. He didn't believe Hikage to be dishonest, but this was still very out of the ordinary.

Leonis wasn't given much time at all to mull over this. Hikage made use of a mana technique which could be likened to Mana Skin, and that allowed her to survive his attack with little to show for its impact. Leonis keyed in on this, but her landing resulted in him being put on edge. Steel hedgehogs erupted from the ground while steel blades materialized overhead to attack him on two fronts with virtually zero room for evasive maneuvers. Hikage had made use of his own offensive/defensive mix in this assault, and Leonis was now taking from her as well. He wasn't sure when or how she learned the technique, or why it seemed a little off, but he would also make use of Mana Skin while darting toward the green-haired girl. He did his absolute best to weave around the hedgehogs and blades, even occasionally using his explosions to make his movements more consistent. The sheer number of things attacking him simply didn't lend to him being able to escape numerous cuts and many stabbings. Reduction of intensity was all he could manage in the end. Leonis emerged from the barrage with blood trickling from many points along his body, his clothes torn to shreds in a way that matched - or even surpassed - the appearance Hikage's ensemble already boasted, and there were multiple knives still stuck in his back... but he emerged nonetheless. "Honō Sōsei Mahō: Reo Ruzēnasu!" Once again, Leonis opened his grimoire and called upon his flaming lion. Because they were no longer out in the open, this one was much closer to its standard variant's size, but it was still large enough for Leonis to sit atop it as it spewed a lengthy tongue of raging flames from its mouth toward the girl.

[Apollymi]

Leonis' question to the universe at large seemed to confuse Hikage. She would have figured he hadn't heard her correctly but as she opened her mouth to affirm that response, the young man began talking again. His words let her know he'd heard what she'd said, but was simply in a state of disbelief. "But I am fifteen. I look fifteen to me..." she said earnestly. Much like her earlier weirdness she simply had no context for the idea that she'd been weird, and none for the idea that she apparently didn't look her age. She didn't know if she should take it as a compliment like she did her apparent high tier skill or if there was something more to it.

It seemed her attack coming from her fall, was something which the lad had to work at to dodge. This gave her a bit of a breather, but mostly she still had to work towards an outpouring of mana to keep up the falling blades and the growing hedgehogs. She couldn't do much else besides grip a new blade and get ready for what was to come next. Eventually, Leonis made his way out of her constant barrage and once again used his lion to spray flames at the lass. They were long and instead of trying to dodge back and escape them, her instincts took her forward towards the lion and eventually to Leonis himself as she aimed to lash out at him directly from his perch atop the lion's head. Several quick stabbing motions would come from the girl's right hand aimed at the lad's torso. Because of their quickness they'd be shallow but she aimed simply to prolong her fight until such a time as she was either thoroughly beaten or she was satisfied by the fight itself.

[Bloodedge]

"So... does everyone who's fifteen where you come from look like that?" he asked. Frankly, he wasn't sure at this point if she understood why he claimed she didn't look fifteen at all. There were multiple reasons, but the girl didn't seem quite worldly enough to follow his train of thought. Perhaps this was for the better, but Leonis couldn't let it go for some reason. Moving on, the fire lion's breath attack did not meet its target. Instead, Hikage joined Leonis at his elevated level atop the lion, and aimed to stab him repeatedly. He very well couldn't be having that, though. "Ignis Columna!" he called out, relying on an actual defensive spell from his grimoire. A pillar of flames erupted from beneath him, actually seeming to come from the lion itself as the fires spread and spiraled around Leonis to defend him. Just the same, they were still made of fire, and as such had natural damaging capabilities as well. Leonis didn't care what the pillar accomplished, though. He was much more concerned with the spell he would be using the moment the lion beneath him faded, yet before his barrier fell. "Manazōn: Sol Linea!" Once again, Leonis made use of the spell which created a miniature sun and released a flame laser from itself. This time however, he used his Mana Zone ability to generate multiple copies of the spell in the area surrounding himself and Hikage. They were coincidentally placed in a way that would not overlap Leonis himself, but the total of seven beams would fire from various angles toward Hikage's front, sides and rear, as well as overhead. The only point of natural safety outside of some strange level of contortion was closer yet to Leonis, who stood inside of his own flame pillar. "So how did you end up learning Mana Skin, huh?"

[Apollymi]

Hikage thought about the question that Leonis had asked her. Thinking back to the town of Rayaka, she supposed there weren't many who managed to look like her, but she wasn't quite as starved as most, and was capable of taking care of herself. And before that, there was someone who looked after her. "No, they don't," she said with a nod. "Most of them look normal..." she concluded, but in her own mind most people had more normal emotional states. But she had no way of properly expressing this. Regardless this was still a fight and from her current vantage point, the defensive spell which caused her to initially back away from his person as a flame column shielded him from direct methods of attacking. Soon enough though, there was something more pressing happening as a collection of the solar flare type attacks that the lad was known for surrounded the girl and aimed to maim her in a way she didn't know how to deal with. "Shit!" she rushed forward, pushing into the flame column her trajectory would lead to her knocking into the other young man, tackling him if he did nothing to avoid him, but this was simply a matter of her moving in the manner most efficient to avoid damage. "Mana Skin..." she said thinking about it there was no recognition of the word. "I have no idea what that is," she concluded. This statement was true, her use of Mana Skin was instinctual and she had no idea how it actually worked.