Mana Mirror: Chapter Twenty Nine (Patreon)

My computer is de-broke-ified! Have two chapters of celebratory content!
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The following morning, I had my first meeting with Ikki when he knocked on the door at precisely eight in the morning. I’d finished breakfast by then, and was just aimlessly milling about. I didn’t want to burn my mana on practicing spells, since I had no idea if I’d need any for Ikki’s training. 

I opened the door and glanced Ikki up and down. He was slightly taller than I was, but not by much, with dark hair quaffed upwards, tawny skin, and dark eyes. He wore a suit, much like Orykson, but his was sharper and slimmer, without a tie. I felt a pulse of envy at how he looked in the suit. 

“Hello, Mr. Baker,” Ikki said, holding his hand out for a shake. “I am Ikki.” 

I shook his hand.

“Please, call me Malachi,” I said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

“The pleasure is mine,” Ikki said. “Now, we have little enough time. I shall be here for two hours each Telsday, from eight to ten. Now. Let’s test your coordination.” 

As he spoke, he began to move through the house as if he owned it. I wondered idly if he’d scanned the layout ahead of time. Had Orykson given him blueprints?

When we stepped out back, Ikki turned to face me. 

“Drop into a fighting stance.” 

I did the best I could to mimic one of the stances that I’d seen Ed use, and Ikki shook his head. 

“Terrible. Here, move these.” 

He appeared next to me in a blur, poking, pulling, and adjusting me into a new stance. I shuddered at the touch, not really comfortable with the fact he was poking me around like a slab of meat, and very aware of aspects of myself that I’d rather not face. 

“This… Doesn’t feel very stable,” I said hesitantly. 

“It is not,” Ikki said. “If you want stability, that would be an entirely different stance. Can you shrug off a fireball?” 

“No…?” 

“Then you don’t want solid, you want moveable.”

He blurred so that he was standing in front of me, in a stance similar to my own. 

“Dodge.” 

He kicked at me. He wasn’t using temporal magic to move in a blur, but it was still fast, and I stumbled backwards, falling down and having to pick myself back up. 

“Get back into fighting stance,” he said. 

I did, and once again, Ikki corrected my form. 

“Have you ever been in a fight?” He asked. 

“Not really,” I said, still feeling unsteady in this pose. “I captured a frog once, and it burned my hand. That’s about it.” 

“I see,” he said. “It shows in the way you move. I was hoping Orykson would have picked someone with more experience, but alas. Step back.” 

I tried to step back, and he stopped me, then manipulated my leg to step back in a different way. It was just slightly off, just enough that it felt unnatural. 

“Step back again,” he said. 

I did, and he prodded it until it was correct again. 

We spent almost an entire hour just working on footsteps, stepping forwards and back, to the side. By the end, I was sweating and gasping for breath, and definitely regretting my choice of a binder today, but I felt slightly more balanced in the pose. It wasn’t by much, but it was there. 

“We have ten minutes until the spell training begins,” Ikki said. “Ready stance.”

I dropped into ready stance, and he prodded me to get it perfect again. He was having to do noticeably less prodding than he had when I’d begun, but it was still embarrassing. 

“Dodge,” he commanded as he threw a punch at me. 

I stepped back, doing my best to fall into the steps that Ikki had shown me. I thought I did a decent job, and apparently it was good enough for Ikki. He nodded and kicked. It connected with my side with a loud thump, and I felt a flash of pain. I fell and hit the ground, and the breath was knocked out of me. 

I gasped for breath, but it wouldn’t come in. Ikki blurred next to me, hauled me off my feet, and gave me a sharp blow to my back. I took in a shuddering gasp, and his eyes narrowed. 

“Idiot child,” he said, sounding both irritated and concerned. “You should have told me you were wearing a binder. I would have let you get changed. I am not in such a hurry that I would have someone risk their own health. What if you had cracked a rib?”

I was still having trouble breathing, but I was able to stand up. At least, I tried to. I let out a huff as he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, then the world slowed around me. Ikki moved quickly to the door, then into the house. He dumped me into the bathroom, then time returned to normal and he blurred away, shutting the door behind him.

It was difficult, since my breathing hadn’t really slowed down yet, but I got out of my binder. I spent a while breathing, until it had returned to normal, wiped my face off, then redressed and headed outside. 

I found Ikki in the kitchen, with a glass of water, speaking to Ed while a cat strutted around on the counter. 

We didn’t have a cat, and when I looked a second time, the cat was gone…  I shook my head. I must still be a bit woozy from the experience. 

“Drink,” Ikki said, pointing at a glass left out, presumably for me.

I picked up the water and took a sip. 

“Malachi…?” Ed asked, leaving the actual question unvoiced, and I wilted back. 

“Well, uh. I was already wearing it, and… I didn’t want to interrupt the lesson. Also, you know, it’s… Easy to do. To let myself just wear it and forget the consequences.” 

Ed reached a hand out and gently rubbed my shoulder. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” 

“No, it is not,” Ikki said. “It’s understandable, but it is not okay. We both know that you did not just forget the consequences. You allowed yourself to backslide, self-deluding yourself into thinking that the consequences couldn’t strike you.”

I glared at Ikki. He wasn’t… wrong, exactly. But calling it self-delusion was a bit extreme. 

“And what, exactly, do you know about this?” I demanded. 

“I know the discomfort, the feel of unwanted motion on your chest. I know the shortness of breath that a chest compression can cause. The sharp pain that can come from tape, worn though a fight against a tectonic tiger. The dull ache in your back as you lay awake at night.” 

He waved his hand through the air in a strange motion I didn’t understand, that vaguely reminded me of catching a fly out of the air. 

“Do not make the mistakes I made. I do not wish to devalue your struggle by speaking about the difficulties I had with the magic of transitioning. But know that I do understand. It does not change what I said in the slightest. When it comes to your safety or your comfort, safety must come first.”

He put his hand on my shoulder gently.

“I am not saying to never wear a binder. But use your brain. It exists for a reason.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. And you’re right.” 

“Thank you,” he said, nodding and sitting down at the table. “Now, sit down. Let us use your magic.”

He glanced at Ed. 

“I do not believe this will be useful to you. However, if you wish to join us for the martial training in the future, I will not stop you.”

“Cool,” Ed said, giving Ikki a thumbs-up. “I’m gonna head to Liz’s place, then. See you!”

I waved to Ed as he left, then turned my attention back to Ikki. 

“I do not believe you have ingrained the Internal Pocketwatch yet, correct?” he asked. 

“Right,” I said. 

“That is a shame, but it is far from the end of the world. We shall begin with your next pair of spells. The first is Capture Moment.”

He reached out and picked up a pen from the counter. I felt a brief surge of mana, then he put the pen down.

“The second is Lesser Image Recall.”

There was another flicker, and an illusion of the pen appeared in the air. It wasn’t quite right: I could see through it, and when I ran my finger through it, it was nothing but air. 

“This is a first gate spell, so do not expect it to recall a perfect image. Furthermore, it can only recall things which you have taken an image of. But it is a good foundation for later spells, like Material Echo.”

The image vanished, but the point of mana remained in the air. Another image of the pen appeared. This one was also slightly off, but in a different way. It looked… Almost crystalline. It was clearly made of mana, formed into the shape of the pen. I poked it, and it was solid this time. 

“Material Echo is a second gate spell, and it can only mimic inanimate, nonliving objects. Once you reach second gate, you will learn to use it. For now, let us focus on Capture Moment.” 

He tossed the pen to me, and I fumbled to catch it. He drew the spell out in the air using ungated mana that had a faint glow to it. That seemed like a useful spell… Maybe I should learn it? 

Focus. 

“Cast this on the pen, then on the table.” 

I carefully sketched the spell, then felt my temporal mana slide out of me, and into the pen. It filled the pen, then began to shift. There were parts of the spell I couldn’t understand, and something began to drain the mana very quickly. 

It was… strange. If casting a normal spell was like filling a bucket, this was like the bucket has several taps in it, and they were all turned on, but one was especially big, and draining out the power. 

“For now, hold the power. Just use enough to maintain the spell, don’t let it channel into the next layer.” 

I frowned and did my best to do what he said. It strained my ability to move mana, but I reduced the flow into the taps. I couldn’t stop it, but I was sure I’d be able to eventually. It was just a matter of skill with the spell. 

“Now drop the pen.” 

I did, and I felt the mana hanging in the air, despite the fact I’d moved the pen. 

“Now cast this,” he said as he drew out another spell into the air. 

I did as he said, and felt another drain on my mana garden. But, just like Ikki, I got a translucent image of a pen to appear. 

Just conjuring them had put a huge drain on my temporal mana, though. 

“Good. Now the table.” 

I sketched out the Capture Moment spell, and tried to fill the table. My mana began to spread throughout the wood, then abruptly went dry. 

“A good first lesson,” he said. “Size, mass, magic, and a variety of other factors make it more difficult to capture a moment of time. If you want to capture a weapon in order to recall it, capturing a large, enchanted flail will take both more skill and mana than capturing a small, non-magical dagger.” 

“Are these types of… Anchoring spells… common?” I asked. 

“In spatial and temporal magic, yes. Less so with other types of magic. I would hesitate to speak about spatial magic to you. I am no spatial mage, and your mentor would be a far better source of information than I. But the Capture Moment spell is an essential basis for much of time magic. It is not needed for every spell, but failing to use it will cut off roughly half of all temporal magic. I suggest you ingrain it.”

“I understand,” I said. I opened my mouth to ask another question, but Ikki vanished into thin air. I glanced at the clock. Sure enough, it was exactly ten in the morning. 

“Huh,” I said to empty air.