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While Kiki continued exploring the cave, my Servant’s concerned eyes remained fixed upon her.
It had begun as a cave, but someone had improved it with square-cut stones forming a drystone wall across the entrance, and cut niches of various sizes into the natural rock.
The front wall had partially crumbled where the door once stood, but the stones on one side of the gap ended in a straight line that showed the onetime existence of a door jamb. Nothing remained of the door or the jambs of course. Perhaps they had been wood, but in any case, they were long gone.
The place puzzled me badly. It was a ruin, but how could a ruin from the ancient fairy age survive in this location? The mountainside into which they had built this wall should have eroded away long ago. This wasn’t the right landscape to preserve such an ancient building.
<Big mistake, Big Sis! Not old old!>
(“It’s barely two centuries old,”) Mireia’s voice came to me. I was still hearing her through my real ears, even though my senses were otherwise entirely coming from Kiki. (“This was once a hill ogre’s lair. The stones were probably robbed from the ruins below. Don’t let yourself get distracted.”)
It was clearly Rhea speaking through her priestess. And she was right. I needed to concentrate on a way for Kiki to calm the nervous hellspawn girl.
But the pixie took up the task on her own before I could think of anything. She flew up close to Shindzha, easily within grabbing distance, and very innocently asked, “Pretty demon girl no eat Kiki?”
Shindzha rolled her eyes. Keeping her voice low, she chided, “You don’t have much meat on you, and I know perfectly well you’re just messing with me. You could stop me easily if I tried, couldn’t you?”
Kiki let out a delighted giggle, circled Shindzha’s head twice, then plopped right into her cleavage, snuggling in just like she has done to me before.
“Hey!” the unfortunate hellspawn protested, then huffed. Continuing her muted voice, she said, “Look, I don’t know if you understand me, but there’s something really dangerous out there chasing me, and you’re gonna mess up my cover if you keep this up!”
“Mm! Kiki know! Kiki smart smart!”
She put her forehead into her palm and muttered, “Mistress, what do I do with this idiot?”
Shindzha speaking to me like that shocked me, until I realized she was just making a sort of plea to the heavens, but using me as the only ‘goddess’ she had left, the only entity she could still pray to. She didn’t know I could really hear her.
The isolation she must be feeling made me feel awful.
“Okay!” Kiki popped up, then proclaimed brightly, “Kiki help! Pretty demon girl safe safe!”
“The only way you can make me safe safe is by leaving me alone! You’re going to give my position away!”
“Mmmmm,” Kiki looked around. “Hide Dark, right? Why hide Dark?”
Non-comprehension filled Shindzha’s eyes. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Kiki’s mind whirled for a moment, trying to think of how to make herself understood.
“Use Dark, but hide in Dark? What for?”
“Oh, that,” the hellspawn sighed, then rolled her eyes. “I’m blocking all Dark senses in order to hide from a dangerous creature. It has really powerful Darkness skills, but I’m safer doing this than staying out of shadows ’cause it’s the strongest mana I can still use. But it means I’m stuck here. You understand?”
“Mmmmmm,” Kiki contemplated her, staring at her chest. The exact location, I realized, was about where my blood core resides in my body. Perhaps it was a meaningful spot in the demonic physique as well.
“Demon mana no good?” the pixie finally wondered with a confused tone.
“I can’t use it anymore,” she stated, glumly. “I never wanted it in the first place, but now I can’t even use it to run away. This is awful.”
“Mm,” Kiki nodded, then said, with her little chest puffed up, “No problem! Kiki help!”
Shindzha stared down at her with doubt-filled eyes. “Why?”
“Big Sis pretty demon girl Mistress! Kiki help pretty demon girl for Big Sis!”
I could feel Kiki working even harder to slow down and speak clearly. She was actually almost forming almost grammatically correct sentences. Her little mind normally whirls too fast for mortal language, causing her to leave most of the words out.
“Big Sis?” Shindzha echoed, baffled.
“Yup yup! Kiki help cause Big Sis pretty demon girl Mistress!”
She studied the pixie for several seconds, then finally asked, “Are you claiming you know my Mistress?”
“Yup yup! Mistress Big Sis! Kiki help! Kiki save! Big Sis happy!”
(“All right, My Lady. This is where you come in. First you have to trust that distance doesn’t actually matter with mana spell-casting. Then, you have to believe you can extend your [Vampire Cloak] onto Shindzha. Don’t worry about Kiki. She has stealth you can never match.”)
<Can’t she hide Shindzha then?>
(“If she did, she would have to stay glued to her, and she couldn’t do as much otherwise. Your cloak is able to hide your Servants at a distance as capably as hiding yourself, so you should handle that part.”)
<I’ve never heard that!>
(“That’s because only vampires more than a thousand years old can match the flexibility of an Elder’s [Vampire Cloak]. Frankly, you deeply shocked your Aunt Elianora the first time you demonstrated the ability to fully cloak at all. A vampire your age can normally only use the skill very lightly, to enhance other efforts to hide.”)
Elianora never told me that. And I never had another juvenile vampire to compare notes with, so I never knew.
(“What you need is confidence that you can do it, My Lady.”)
“Kiki help now!” she declared and put her hands on Shindzha’s breastbone.
<Okay, Big Sis!>
So she had been listening to and following my conversation with the goddess? I concentrated on covering Shindzha with [Vampire Cloak].
Kiki’s powerful senses could see through it, but only just barely. Shindzha had become almost fully transparent. Kiki could only see her faint outlines.
<It’s sufficient. You aren’t strong enough to hide from Kiki, but she’s abnormally sensitive.>
“What did you do?” the hellspawn girl demanded. She had demonstrated extremely strong mana senses before, too. It seemed she had felt my skill coating her body.
“Big Sis hide pretty demon girl! Now go out! Both!”
Kiki flew and grabbed one of Shindzha’s hands, tugging on her.
My Servant’s eyes filled with distrust. “That thing can see through stealth. I’m only safe here in the dark.”
“Strong strong stealth! No see!”
“How can you be so sure?” she demanded.
“Big Sis magic! Big Sis help! Big Sis help right now! Demon girl safe safe!”
Shindzha’s face transformed to a puzzled frown.
Kiki’s head tilted. “Pretty demon girl can’t tell? Big Sis magic! Look! Look!”
Flying backwards, the pixie dragged Shindzha’s hand by the fingers with both her little hands, to pull it up before her eyes.
“Look look! Feel! Big Sis magic! Mistress magic!”
She stared at her mostly invisible hand, her frown deepening.
“Feel Big Sis?”
Finally, she whispered, “Mistress?”
A superstitious awe filled Shindzha’s face as she recognized my aura within the [Vampire Cloak] enveloping her. She couldn’t see me in Kiki, but she could feel me in my magic.
“See? Big Sis keep pretty demon girl safe safe!”
As Shindzha let Kiki pull her to her feet, Mireia’s voice spoke Rhea’s words again.
(“My Lady, be ready to channel mana for Kiki as well. You have no high level magic, but your mana flow is exceedingly strong, and you can channel all of it into Kiki’s spells thanks to your compatibility with her.”)
<What? How would that work?>
(“Be as in sync with her as you can be. To the point that you can feel the spells she’s going to cast and channel extra mana into them, pulling it straight from your core so that you don’t compete with Kiki for the free mana in the area.”)
I wrestled with the idea that she was trying to impress upon me. I would be tapping the reserve of mana I had tucked away back in the past, before I lost my memories. It had been there, waiting inside my blood core. But it was in my body far to the west of this place, and I would be channeling it into Kiki’s spells?
(“Before the spell form manipulates the mana as it manifests, the distance doesn’t matter, My Lady. Prior to manifestation, it is only substantiated. It can still appear anywhere in the universe.”)
I struggled with that, too. Didn’t it come from the matter around us?
(“The characteristic of the substance around you is the port through which the mana flows to enter the mortal realm. You need the characteristic in order to channel the particular affinity of mana. Except for ‘Healing’ mana, which seems to come out of nowhere because it is pure mana without an affinity.”)
<But if I’m pulling the mana that’s already in my blood core…>
(“It is still substantiated mana only, so it can still flow anywhere in the universe. You have already drawn it, so now you only need choose where it should go.”)
My mind was still boggling, but I sort of understood. Magic requires that the spell form manipulates the mana as it passes through it. One can’t make a spell literally happen at a distance from where one casts it. The mana manifests at the point of the spell casting. But before that, it was simply a supernatural presence within one’s pathways.
But could I actually do it? Draw it from my core in Narses into Kiki’s pathways here so she could manifest it?
(“Even if you don’t succeed, the pixie can manage quite a lot on her own. She’s quite strong.”)
<Kiki strong strong!> she declared as she pulled Shindzha toward the door.
(“Hold Shindzha’s position in your mind. She’s your Servant, so you can hide her even after Kiki lets go of her.”)
<Fine,> I conceded, and just concentrated on keeping the stealth on Shindzha.
(“Feel Kiki’s mana pathways so you can draw mana directly into them from your blood core.”)
The more I did, the more I became aware of how insanely much mana this creature was already circulating. Her little body was nearly overflowing with every element!
(“You only need to replace what she uses,”) the goddess assured me.
I immersed myself in Kiki’s senses, and Kiki’s mind, focused solely on her mana pathways and my stealth skill as we advanced to the opening through which we entered. Shindzha gingerly peered out.
<No stealth Kiki! Pretty demon girl only!> Kiki warned me as she let go of Shindzha’s hand and hovered.
Realizing that I was doing both, I let go of the stealth on ‘my’ body while keeping it on Shindzha’s. As long as I felt her in Kiki’s spiritual senses, I could keep hiding her.
My Servant reluctantly stepped into the sunlight streaming into the opening, then looked at her hand, reassuring herself that my magic still coated her.
A sudden presence emerged inside the shadows behind her. She whirled, staring into the inky blackness like a prey animal caught in the sight of a predator. Kiki moved toward the newcomer without a hint of fear.
The hellspawn girl, paralyzed with fear, probably didn’t notice that the patch of sunlight on the cave wall and floor did not include her silhouette. I’m guessing this because she remained frozen in place, confirming for me that this was indeed the enemy she’d hidden herself from.
Rather than immediately attacking her, though, the black something in the dark clearly kept its gaze on Kiki as she flew up to it and circled it. In fact, it showed no sign of noticing Shindzha at all.
“Oooh!” Kiki giggled. “Mister Pooka! Why scare Kiki? Bad boy sneak sneak bad bad!”
My terrified Servant finally realized that the creature couldn’t see her and slowly backed out of the cave opening, slipping out of sight.
“You!” the creature yelled.”Tuck no want Pixie! Tuck want demon! Pixie see! Where go?!”
“Huh?” she asked, giving the pooka a sassy tone that implied he was crazy. “Only Kiki here! Kiki no demon!”
I had a feeling this was going to be a somewhat difficult conversation to follow.
“Then die!” he declared, and tried to grab Kiki.
I zipped to one side, evading the grab. No, Kiki dodged it, but I was so deep in sync with her, it felt like I had done it.
He turned into a blur of terrifyingly rapid lunges and swipes, seeking to conquer me. “Tuck eat! Stay still!”
“Pooka funny!” I declared, a giggle bubbling from deep within that turned into a bright, sparkling laugh as I continued dodging. Then I remembered it was Kiki doing it, and kept my concentration on Shindzha’s stealth as she scampered down the mountainside.
