Work Text:
Vigintio's scream pierced her ears as he fell to the floor. The mighty blow of thundaga she cast on him was enough to kill him, hopefully.
Emma hoisted herself up and picked up her staff. She scanned around the room and took note of the burnt furniture and shattered, old lab equipment, mostly caused by her. Vigintio preferred darker forms of magic, which seldom caused damage to their surroundings, at least compared to standard black magic. The room they had used for their destructive duel was in an unused, large room of the Institute. She tried to remember what exactly it was used for once, but she couldn’t seem to recall.
She walked over to Vigintio's corpse and studied it for a minute to make sure he was dead. Emma knew of his probable- no, definite obsession with death. She let out a small sigh. Even though he overshot with his ego, saying he was the greatest wizard of all time, he did have potential. He constantly sought to challenge her to prove himself. This wasn’t their first duel, but Emma hoped this one would be their last.
A knock on the door disrupted her thought process. “Hm? Who is it?” Emma called out.
The door creaked open the slightest before Roddy stepped in.
“L- Lady Emma? Was... That you causing the ruckus? I heard it from the entrance, are you alri-” he cut himself off when he noticed Vigintio's dead body laid on the floor. Roddy’s eyes filled with utter shock at the sight. Emma decided to give him an explanation.
“I caught Vigintio experimenting on innocent townsfolk,” she said. “Of course, I couldn’t let that slide, so I had to… Take matters in my own hands.”
Out of all of her duels, Emma had never killed anyone, until now. She could understand his surprise. However, this time it felt more than necessary, but it still irked in her mind that she killed someone, no matter how deserving.
“I- I see…” Roddy responded, face covered with concern. “Still, are you alright, Lady Emma?”
“Of course I am, Roddy,” Emma lied. She could feel the pain in her legs as she walked. Her back ached even worse after the fight. Though no matter how much it hurt, she couldn’t let anyone, not even one of her apprentices, see her like this. It was best to remain calm and collected, at least around others. “If you could do me a favor and clean up the mess I made, that would be deeply appreciated.”
“Aye, of course,” Roddy said and nodded. “Are you heading to your office? It’s rather late.”
“It is, but I’m not too tired yet, and I have other matters to attend to,” she said. That wasn’t a lie, she had work to do, tomes to study, and magic to practice, but she did need a moment for herself as well. Before she left, Roddy had another question.
“Where should I… Put this body?” Roddy asked, a bit clueless.
“Ah, just chuck it in the swamps. Some monster will gobble him up. I’ll make an announcement in the morning about Vigintio's death. However, the room is in your hands,” Emma said. Before Roddy was able to respond, she left the room and closed the door behind her. She had faith in Roddy, and he was one of her sharpest pupils too. A hard worker is what Wiswald needed, especially when… especially when she was unsure how much longer she could keep ticking.
She continued up a flight of stairs that led to her office. She noticed her struggle to walk, but there was nothing much she could do about it. Carefully, she opened the door and made sure nobody was inside. The room looked worn out, with most of the furniture covered in dust. The only part of the room she cared for was her desk and the grand bookshelf at the side of the room. There were journals she had collected, books she adored, and tomes filled with spells. There was one book that caught her eye a long time ago. It's what she considered the jewel of her collection, yet she could barely read a word of it, even with her asterisk.
She sat down on a chair and pulled out the Black Mage asterisk. The one Aileen gave her about 50 years ago, or maybe a little less. She took a closer look at it, admiring its beauty through the orange glow it gave off. In the middle of the jewel, there was a black mark, which resembled one of the marks she had seen in that book.
She desperately wanted to ask Aileen about it, but she hasn’t seen her in a good amount of years. If the Queen of Fairies didn’t know what the book was, then nobody would. Perhaps Sloan would know something about asterisks that she didn’t, but ever since the devastation of Musa, she had no clue about where he could be. She sent letters to Halcyonia and Savalon a few months back but received no word in return. Hopefully, it was just the messenger or letter that got lost. She couldn’t bear the thought of him dead.
“Oh Emma, you nostalgic fool…” she whispered to herself.
And then there was Godric. Poor Godric. Vigintio's death was making her think too much of the past. But unlike him, Godric deserved none of it. Yes, he was destined to sacrifice himself to keep the Night’s Nexus at bay. It was his fate as a scion of the Musan royal line, but after everything they had been through as a group, she only felt grief after his death.
At one time, it felt strange to say she looked up to Godric, but he was everything she desired to be one day: a leader. Now, one of the things Emma wanted most was to bring him back. Not just to save his kingdom from devastation, but to show him what she built from the ground up. A land that can prosper and indulge in the research of magic, everything she wanted to achieve. There was no saving Godric, though. The way it seemed his soul had depleted from his body made Emma believe he was gone for good, using his life to trap what could be the world’s destruction. Not even Vigintio could work magic like that to bring him back.
She took off the fedora that the Black Mage asterisk had granted her and set it on her desk. She turned to the nearby window, out towards the night sky. How many more sacrifices have to be made? Emma wondered. How long will heroes like us have to suffer through so much?
How long will I even have?
A more self-indulgent thought than the others, but the question raced through her mind every day. Thinking about the past didn’t help.
“Oh, Godric,” Emma sighed heavily. She ran a hand across her face to move her hair away from her face, and to wipe away the tears that had started to form. Before long, her breaths had turned into sobs. “Would you be proud of where I am now?”