Forty

A sword came down as flames followed its fall. Rose moved in tandem with the swing, a leg quickly shifting forward and following the strike with a parallel cut that trailed an orange blaze.

Her blade twirled and she came to a standstill, holding it with both hands as she closed her eyes.

It had been a month now since she began wielding the blade and, as she controlled it much finer now, and came to terms with it, she knew exactly what her weapon was.

'It has to follow my passion.'

As far as she thought, <Igris> was a weapon that fueled itself on the passion she had, burning it to create flames. So, she thought rightly, the more consuming those emotions were, the more wild, furious, and downright dangerous her flames could become.

It was a hunch, but the fight where her blade had been stopped by the power of a spirit brought it to the surface of her mind. She remembered the blazing desire of wanting to burn through that aura, and her weapon had responded with an intense heat that brought steam to the air. At that time, she had been absolutely sure she could do as she wished.

Her eyes flipped open as she glared at the yard.

'I want to absolutely burn this place to the ground.'

A blaze of orange lit up her blade, but it was nothing special from the usual.

'Of course not,' Rose thought, removing the weapon from her hand as it disappeared with a spark of heat, 'I don't really want to burn Elsa's yard. That would not be funny.'

Her experiment failed, but her hypothesis came closer to the truth. If false passion could not sway her weapon, then it only added a point to her thoughts.

She remembered back to the time Lux had advanced towards her with a pistol in hand. At that point, her flustered mind had only thought about stopping him from further continuing the tension, and that was the first time <Igris> came to life.

'I'm not wrong, am I?'

Even as she fell from the sky, the thought of breaking her fall brought about the release of flames from her weapon like small explosions. The thought of surviving Shana's flaming bird brought about a counter to flame attacks she never knew she had, consuming them and sending them right back, spirit or not.

'It listens to my desires.'

As her core hummed, Rose concluded as such. It still relied and functioned on the power of flames, but <Igris> was a Gear that burned her passion to create a blaze. It could not answer her desire to know why she had a soul, nor did she think it could give her her wish to meet her creator, but its flames definitely listened to her wants.

'As long as my wants are defined and concrete in the moment.'

She ended on that notion and turned back into the house.

— — —

"Holy shit, that's a good map, where the hell did you get that?"

The screen blinked, updating in real time as Elsa gawked at the image. Rose smiled.

"From a friend."

"That's some pretty amazing friend you've got there," Elsa said, eyes wandering over the view of the slums. Of course, it wasn't as picturesque as reality, but it looked solid and tangible, then there was the sheer amount of data it had along with hidden places, locations she herself didn't even know existed in the slums.

"I looked it over yesterday night," Rose spoke up, a finger reaching forward and tracing the map, "This path is likely best."

"Oh?"

It was a path that went through mostly the fourth rim of the slums to reach Rose's house at the center of the fifth rim. Along the way, the line she had traced went around symbols of walls and swords that stood for barricades and fighting respectfully. Still, however. . .

"It really is caught in the middle," Elsa muttered as she stared at the girl's house.

. . .her house seemed right smack in the zone of one of those red swords. Close to and almost bordering the red district, there were barricades at both sides of that street with the image of two clashing swords in the middle and a red circle around.

"Right." Rose nodded. "You still have your scouter with you, I presume?"

"Ya mean my robot? Course I do, what ya want to use it?"

"Mhmm, we will use it to find an opening when both sides quiet down, then hop in and out through this route."

The route she pointed out traced behind one of the barricades. The one on the territory of Paul Walker. There could certainly still be militants there willing to engage them, but she wondered how that would fair. . .

"If things get complicated, I'll cut off the area with fire."

. . .if she made a barrier of flames that surrounded where she needed it to.

". . .you can do that?" Elsa spoke speechlessly.

"Probably."

"Probably?"

With <Igris> at her side, and with the desire to simply get in, grab her things, and get out without too much of a commotion, she thought that much would be possible.

"Definitely."

". . ."

"What?"

"You—ugh, fine, I'll believe you. If it doesn't work, I'll just laugh. I won't let it go ya know? I'll really laugh at you till ya can't live that shit down, ya got that?"

"What a good friend you are."

"Ha ha, I know right? Thanks."

The plan was set.

Currently, her charge was at 40%. 2 days worth. Adding the mana orb attached to her back-hip brought her lifespan to 4 and a half days. Although her desire to acquire her 6 orbs was not urgent, it was vital.

'This wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't been swindled,' Rose thought, remembering a time when she once thought she could make Cores and sell them, 'If only I hadn't rushed to sell it.'

She had found that the cost of getting a new Constructor was at least 120 to 500k depending on the grade. Yet, the shop attendant had told her with a straight face that a broken, low-grade, one was only worth one thousand lixels. That made no sense, the information on the Mana Web gauged the price of that junk at at-least 30k, but she had bought the lie.

'And I hadn't been willing to bargain, ridiculous. That's what I get for believing someone simply because they were a homunculus.'

It was true that an homunculus couldn't lie to a human. However, not only was she not human, that notion rang right in so being that the orders they had been given by their master did not go against them telling the truth. Yet, she hadn't wanted to make trouble for the man but, essentially, she had definitely been swindled. He had seen through her flustered state at being called a mage and knew she had little real knowledge in the business dealing of one.

'What a respectful swindler.' Being so generous as to give her a thousand lixels with a smile. She looked over to Elsa and thought it better she buried that past with her—it was embarrassing—even she had her own pride.