91 Freeze

{SKULD POV}

"Show yourself, coward! Come and fight me like a real warrior should!"

Skuld was practically frothing at the mouth as he turned his attention to the seemingly empty deck of his viking ship. To think that someone dared to intrude upon the might vessel of Odin without him knowing was an affront to all that was good and holy. How dare this man attack him in the back like a coward in the presence of Odin's Chosen!?

Growling, the viking raised his axe up high, his storm of ice momentarily stopping as he aimed it on the entirety of the deck of his ship. If the coward refused to show himself to him, then he would just have to make him!

"Fight back!"

Swinging his axe down, Skuld grinned with both fury and anticipation as his ice began raining down on the entire ship. Icicles shattered upon contact with the wooden vessel, frost covering the entire deck as the chill of his attack reminded him of his wonderful homeland.

"There is no escaping the wrath of Odin, coward!" he taunted once more as he walked across the frozen deck, his attacks avoiding him as he slowly approached each and every piece of cover that the coward could be using to hide. "Fight me like a true warrior so that we can both have a chance to reach Valhalla!"

***

{SHIZU POV}

Shizu held her cards close to her chest as she slowly made her way to the back of the ship, slowly inching away from the viking that kept calling her a coward. Not that it affected her, but she couldn't help but small spark of anger that kept building up within her the more the man called her that. Which shouldn't even be the case since she was just making sure that she lived to fight another day.

'Calm down...' she mentally told herself. 'You got this... Just take your time and find the right opportunity...'

Feeling herself over, the fortune teller still felt the draw of her powers still affecting her. [The Chariot] and [The Magician] should give her just enough mobility to keep away from this man once she finally made her move. He was probably going to charge straight at her the moment he saw her, so she could probably use that to her advantage.

"Come out, craven! Let us fight as the gods willed us!"

The viking's shouts rang in her ears just as she moved further away from his approaching visage. She was thankful that the ice fell in such a way that she was able to dodge most of them, and what few icicles that were unavoidable quickly got destroyed by a single card from her endless deck of tarots. Though she was pretty sure she needed more power if she wanted to beat this man.

'Think... I need a card for this...'

Pulling from her knowledge of the arcana, the innate knowledge of her power rushed through her as she mentally went through all the cards on her possession. Some of them like the [The Chariot] and [The Sun] were common enough, while some like the [The Hanged Man] or the [Strength] were rarer than most of her usual cards. There were also some that she hadn't even seen yet like [The World], and then there was one card that she didn't even know if it existed.

'Death...'

The last of the Major Arcana... [Death]... She had a feeling that drawing such a card was next to impossible to the point that it might as well not exist, but she still knew what it would do the moment she gained access to it. It was the strongest of her arsenal, assuming she could ever draw it.

'There's no use fishing for the impossible right now, and I don't want to repeat what I just did earlier,' Shizu told herself just as she moved to another piece of cover. 'There's got to be something better I can use...'

Looking at the cards on her hand, the constant duplicates of [The Sun], [The Chariot], and one [Strength] was all she had at her disposal at the moment. It wasn't much, but it was workable.

"[Fate's Edict, The Sun: Upright Position]..."

With a whisper, she lit her cards alight. However, she kept the one copy of [Strength] she had just in case she needed it later. For now, she had to get rid of these junk cards.

"Face me, coward!"

Hearing the man scream, Shizu peeked out of the wooden box she was hiding behind and threw her flaming cards at him. Four of them hit icicles on the way to their target, while two of them hit their mark.

"ARGGH!! Flames?!"

Ducking back down, the fortune teller's eyes widened in both relief and fear just as a massive pillar of ice rushed right past her head. It would've killed her outright if it hit, and she was quick to move to a different position as she drew a new set of cards for her to use.

"So far so good," she breathed out to herself as she looked at her new cards. "[Strength]... another [The Chariot]... Oh, I haven't drawn this before..."

Her mind whirred with possibilities at the newest card she drew. It wasn't much, but it might just be enough to end the fight right here and now if she timed it right. That, and she seemed to need more power to call upon this particular card's effect for some reason. Or at least, that was how it felt like when she held it in her hand.

"Ahh! I've had enough of this!"

Shizu braced herself as she heard the viking scream once more. Banging his axe on his shield, the sound of cracking ice almost seemed like it came from everywhere as the very air around them felt like it was going to turn solid.

"All will freeze!"

The fortune teller made to move, but to her surprise and horror, she felt like limbs start to freeze. Even her thought process... her heart...

Time itself had frozen, and all she could was watch as the viking slowly looked through every nook and cranny, eventually finding her still halfway about to move away.

"I finally found you, craven."