Twenty-Six vol.2

It was a hot meal of chicken and fried rice. The soft piece of meat placed, as if a dressing, atop the food almost glowing red and orange. Rose stared at the steam rising off of the three plates. Though she was a homunculus, and did not need to eat, she thought her tongue would water. It was simply the result of having gotten used to eating Elsa's meals.

"This looks great. . ." Lilias muttered. Particularly, her crimson eyes were focused on the fried chicken as her tail quivered in an eagerness her expressionless face hid.

Elsa grinned.

"Dig in," She said as she sat down.

The two girls nodded and immediately began eating. Rose chewed and gulped.

"Delicious," She said.

She stared at the plate of food before turning to Elsa with furrowed brows.

"How much did this cost?" She asked.

"Huh. . .thankfully, Lilias had already ordered the pots and pans so. . ." Elsa said, "About a thousand for the rice, 1.2 for the chicken, and 500 for the rest of the ingredients, including the spices, and oil."

Rose's eyes widened as she gulped a spoonful down. "3.7k lixels for a meal?"

Elsa laughed.

"No no, that's for all the ingredients. There's still left-overs to cook more with. I could probably whip out the exact same thing for all three of us two more times. Then I'd need more chicken."

"Oh."

Rose nodded. She didn't know anything about cooking. It was a costly meal, she thought, but its price-tag was probably not too out of the realm of possibility.

Lilias, on the other hand, had different questions. Her tail flapped back and forth as she gingerly ate the fried chicken. Her eyes closed in contentment as she turned to the slum-born girl.

"How did you learn to cook so well?" Lilias asked.

Elsa stopped a spoonful before her lips. "My sister taught me. Then she dumped all the cooking on me."

The dragonian's interest was piqued. "You have a sister?"

"Yes." Elsa nodded. "She was great."

Lilias's tail dropped at the word 'was.'

"I'm sorry for your loss," She said.

Elsa shook her head.

"It's fine. I've made peace with her, and life. She saved me so I could continue living with a smile." She grinned. "If she were here to see you saying all that instead of eating, she'd knock you in the head. A happy stomach is a happy life~"

Lilias smiled lightly. "Then I shall continue."

They ate in the silence of each other's company, the only sound the ticking clock on the wall, and the clinking of their spoons on plates as the afternoon slowly passed.

"I'll wash the plates," Lilias stood up when it was all over, taking the three plates in hand as she headed for the open kitchen, just right of the couch's back.

Elsa stood and stretched her arms into the air.

"And amma go practice my guitar for a bit," She said, before beginning her trek down the corridor of the apartment. A left would see her in the room she shared with Lilias, opposite the bathroom.

Rose wondered if the guitar was given to Elsa by her sister, the same as the bike she owned. Now that she thought about it, she really didn't know much about that mysterious person. Save for seeing a stone upon a small mountain in her honor.

There was a soft flutter, then the strum of the instrument echoed through the small apartment, accompanied by the rushing water of the kitchen sink. Both sounds grounded Rose in a concrete reality. She took a breath and extended her hands forward until the palms faced each other.

Fire sparked into a blaze, glowing orange like the soft warmth of a campfire. Rose focused, latching onto the humming in the air, focusing amidst the wave of sounds in the apartment, and willing mana.

It burned and she continued, controlling the energy until it reached a distinct shape around the flames..

Then.

What floated before her was a sword of fire, hazy blue around its form. As it burned mana, she replaced and concentrated them.

Though her flames had always listened to her will, she couldn't naturally shape them. All they did was rush to and explode wherever she willed. The most she had been able to accomplish was flickering it, burning the air in a thin line before exploding forward at an end. And the phoenix she could summon had been a result of her Gear stealing an ability of a spirit made of fire.

Now, as she had been practicing for a while, she was trying to learn how to shape her flames through continuously providing a concentration of mana at various points, choking it to a desired form.

The sword, though flickering, was stable. More stable than it had ever been. After all, though this was only her second time actually trying this, she had already experienced the first countless times.

Perfect, photographic, and sensory, memory allowed such a thing. Through remembering her spars with Samuel, her previous battles, and simulating new ones based on those memories, Rose was always training with her sword. When she stood. When she sat. When she walked. When she talked. As long as nothing else was capturing her attention or focus, she could always train in whatever she wished, as long as she had once seen it, felt it, and experienced it.

And, now, she was using the same principles to learn something new. Using all collected sensory data from past experiences to fortify future endeavors.

'I suppose that's another reason homunculi soldiers exist in this world,' She thought, 'When you can learn this fast, and continue to do so, there's little choice but to choose a homunculus over a human to fight your battles for you.'

Her learning wasn't instantaneous, of course, and it couldn't directly replace real application, only supplement it, but it was leagues above a normal human. She thought, if she was to be compared in those terms, she would be a genius through brain power.

Her golden irises stared at the floating, burning, sword as it flickered. Orange dyed her eyes. She herself couldn't feel the heat at this stage, but she imagined it to be lukewarm. She tried to go a step beyond. For now, mana was only around its edges, but she tried a step further, concentrating.

Her core hummed.

Time slowed as the energy compressed around the weapon. It burned. But she simply sent more.

Rose narrowed her eyes.

The blade shattered, breaking apart into flakes of flame. As she moved her attention to quickly make those spurts of fire disappear, latching onto them, lightning sparked in mid-air, a single strip of a hot flash sputtering between her hands, before the small rumble rang.

". . ."

She stared, and she noticed the residual burn of lightning at her palms. Scorching skin soon to heal.

'Odd,' She thought.

It was the second time she had summoned lightning in the midst of trying to control her Gear more finely. Lilias had called it true magic and Rose didn't doubt her, thanks to the small bits of memories of her past she owned. She knew, she once wielded the flames of her Gear, and the lightning and wind element afforded to her by magic.

Right now, however, she didn't know how to consciously summon wind or lightning, and nor did she know how to control them. Unlike the innateness of her Gear, whence it burned mana at the edging of her emotions, and raged at her anger, true magic was something currently out of her grasp.

And not only that, she stared at her palms, back to normal, it seemed, unlike her flames, it could cause her harm. As if she was merely borrowing the powers of Mother Nature, not making it hers.

"How interesting," Lilias's voice came behind her, "That's the second time."

Rose turned her head and followed the girl's movement until the dragonian stood before her, behind the table.

"Indeed, it is," Rose replied.

The girl's crimson eyes looked her over, tail floating just above the floor.

"I'm no master by any means but. . .perhaps you'd like me to teach you how to appropriately wield true magic?"

Rose raised a brow. "Could you?"

"Not now, not here. It's far too dangerous to learn to control in this sort of environment, especially when it comes to the element of lightning." Lilias shook her head. "I will teach you as we climb the dungeon."

Rose nodded. "And do you want anything in return?"

The dragonian smiled. A smile Rose was all too familiar with. Something she still thought was misplaced on the girl's face.

"Become my sparring partner," Lilias said. "If I was to face my father again with a sword in hand, I can't fall back on magic once more."

Rose stared at the girl. Though she didn't really understand the point of refusing to use one's full strength in something that seemed so important, she nodded.

"Alright."

The strum of a guitar gently fluttered through the air as they came to an agreement.