Chapter 11: A magical encounter

The magician began to speak again. "Now, Sir, please prepare the swords. I will be getting inside the metal box." Hibiki approached the box with a splendid wave of his cape and opened the doors to it with a creek. He entered the box in a gracious way and looked back at the audience one more time. With that last look, the assistant came in front of the box and closed the doors.

After making sure the door was shut, the assistant went back to the table and picked two shiny swords up. He got back to the metal box and pushed one sword through it, his face emotionless.

The audience was gasping in silence, like fish choking with air. Not a word was heard from that direction. But after a few seconds of silence, someone started talking, breakingthe invisible barrier. "Hey! What's wrong? Why is everyone so silent? I really thought you all wanted to see something special. Well, I guess I was wrong." It sounded distorted and it was coming from the box. Sir Hibiki was really fine.

The moment he stopped talking everyone changed their traumatized faces to happy ones, while letting out a huge breath of air. All the people watching him started clapping aggressively while yelling out of relief, even though they were all polite. Freya was relieved as well. It seemed like no one was going to die today and her heart was in its normal place, once again. The magician said one more muffled thing. " Why don't you all help my assistant here count the swords? Come on everyone, I know you can do it!"

The assistant then pushed another sword through. Then another and another, until the last one. Then, it was time for the grand reveal. How was Hibiki going to get out and how was he going to look was still a mystery. No one could wait any longer. They all had to know, they were waiting for him trembling with curiosity and nobody could hold still anymore.

Sir Hibiki's assistant then started talking. With a huge grin, wich he simply couldn't hold back. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the grand reveal! Sir Hibiki, the spotlight is yours!" But there was only silence. Every person there looked at each other with looks of fear. " What happened?", "Why isn't he coming out?" , "Is this another one of his tricks?" Whispers were mixing with the slight nightly breeze and Freya felt something, for just a moment, not fear, just that something had gone wrong. Dread was creeping its way, tingling the tips of her fingers.

The assistant yelled again. "Mr. Hibiki, the greatest magician, all swords have now been pushed inside the box. It is time to get out!" Trying hopelessly to make it seem as if it were normal. Once again there was no response.

The people weren't just filled with curiosity, they were slowly starting to panic, the whispers seemed to get stronger and stronger. Freya couldn't wait any longer. She got up and walked hurriedly to the stage. But before she could finish all the stairs leading to the stage, a knife flew in front of her, she felt its sting on her cheek, like a whip. The knife almost hit her, but luckily, it only cut her face a little right next to the eye. Any closer and that knife would have been in her eye. After her initial surprise, she was woken from her dizziness by the cold drip of blood. Just a drop.

The direction that the knife came from was the audience. When she looked in that direction, someone was standing up, no movement. All the people sitting there got up and ran in different directions just to get away from that person, in a storm of feet, people started screaming, one by one and spread around like ants running from fire.

She couldn't see the face and she didn't recognize the clothes. All she knew was that it was a man's figure. He was dressed in a suit and was wearing a mask that was only covering his eyes and nose. Freya could see the smirk on his face as he started walking towards the stage. It made her blood boil.

"Stop right there or this isn't going to end well for you Mr. 'This Seems Funny'. I don't think you know what you're doing." Freya really wanted to punch someone, whether it was that man with the most annoying smirk ever or the poor assistant that was definitely closer to her. It was the perfect night, until this happened, and now she was furious.

"I'm sorry miss 'Beauty Comes First', but what's happening on stage right now has nothing to do with you. In fact, you're really lucky that you're still alive. If I wasn't careful enough, your story would've ended quite quickly. Don't you agree?" He talked mockingly, as he was slowly making his way to the stairs where Freya was standing, stepping elegantly, one foot, straight in front of the other.

Freya was about to start a big fight right there and she wasn't about to care who died in the fight as long as the unknown man was going to be one of the victims. Everything that got out of his mouth a moment ago were pure insults to Freya. And this was all she could take, all night she had only bad luck, but she stuffed it down deep inside of her and kept her calm, but it was enough. She would take no more.

"Do you really want to start a fight? Because I will NOT stop until you get your a*s a beating and either leave or die here. Do you understand?" Freya was thankful to her boss for forcing her into therapy for her anger issues, it turned out she really did need it. Because if she didn't go, all people that attended the party and were still there, would be in the hospital in about five minutes or less.

"You're not someone that even has a chance of beating me, lady. I don't even know why you're still trying to oppose me. Get back to the sits or even with the other guests if you want and let me handle this." The man had no trace left of the sneaky smirk on his face. He was getting annoyed with each word she was saying as well, and that could clearly be seen on his face, even underneath the mask, his eyes were daring her to try.

"Fine then. If you want to end this already dumb conversation with a little cherry on top, then so be it!" Even if she wanted to have a nice evening, she was always prepared, no matter what. Maybe fighting would relieve her stress. She picked a hunting knife from her shoe and jumped from the stairs to the man, pushing with all the power in her legs, as she prepared for a rough landing.

The covered person saw he was being attacked, so he took his hand and clenched it as tight as possible in a fist. Because of that movement, the gloves he had on his hand pushed out five blades, right in between his knuckles. With that he blocked the knife charging to his head, with a great clash, as metal screeched.

Freya wasn't expecting his gloves to be so interesting. For a second she was even jealous while hitting the blades. But to not fall on him, she had to jump over him, landing on a chair, with great care and balance. She managed to keep the chair up and have a serious face. But deep down, she was very impressed of her move and was totally going to tell her coworkers how cool she could be.

The man was now beyond furious. She couldn't lose focus over such small matters. This fight wasn't going to be an easy one, and freya knew it from the moment the knife had been thrown. That wasn't all, she still had to know what happened to the magician. He might be dead, but if he was fine for the start of his trick, what went wrong?