Chapter 43: Tired little family.
Belle stood a few meters away, stretching her shoulders with lazy precision. The faint light above glinted off her cyan blade long, narrow, and alive with an icy shimmer that mirrored her aura. She rolled her wrist once, and the sword sang, cutting the air with a low hum.
"Alright," she said, blindfolded face angled toward me. "Now we use blades."
I nodded, then looked toward the corner.
"Sacha," I called.
The white tiger lifted her head instantly, blue eyes glowing faintly in the monochrome light. She padded toward me with unhurried grace, tail flicking side to side like a metronome of arrogance.
"Let’s go," I murmured.
Her form began to dissolve fur unraveling into tendrils of soft, glowing mist. The blue vapor curled around my arm, then condensed, reshaping itself until the weight of a blade settled in my palm.
The glass sword gleamed transparent, radiant, alive. Veins of frost shimmered through the blade like flowing rivers, pulsing with her quiet heartbeat.
’Ready, Papa,’ her voice chimed softly in my mind, cheerful and bright.
"Always," I whispered.
Belle didn’t flinch. She’d already seen it before, already analyzed every possible weakness the transformation might have.
"Every spirit manifests differently," she had said. "Sacha’s is unique. Use it well."
Her tone shifted, serious now, sharp as the edge of her weapon.
"Use everything you have, Sebastian. Every trick, every ounce of power. Don’t hold back."
I took a breath.
"Don’t regret saying that."
Then I moved.
The ground cracked beneath my feet as I lunged forward. Mana surged through me Life, Death, Soulflames swirling together like oil and fire. Sacha’s edge pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat, channeling a layer of frost along the blade’s surface.
Our blades met.
The sound was like thunder. Blue sparks and spectral embers scattered into the air, hissing as they fell. Belle pushed forward, one hand steady, movements impossibly smooth. I twisted away, sending a horizontal slash that trailed frost through the air.
She ducked it effortlessly.
Her counter came in a flash, her cyan blade cutting a crescent arc that sliced across my chest. My breath caught as pain exploded through me.
{Papa!}
"I’m fine!" I hissed, the wound already closing. I blocked the next strike with both hands. The force still sent me skidding backward. My shoes left black streaks on the floor.
I steadied my breathing, letting death mana course through my veins, dulling the pain. "Nyxian Dirge Fourth Form."
Black flames roared to life along Sacha’s edge, twining with the cold blue glow. The combination of death and ice and fire burned paradoxically beautiful and wrong. I swung again, channeling the hybrid energy in a downward slash.
The floor froze beneath the arc of my strike, shards of glass-like frost blooming in all directions.
Belle barely moved; she parried the attack with a flick of her wrist, her mana pressure alone cracking the ice apart.
"Better," she said, voice calm. "But predictable."
Before I could move again, her blade shot forward once, twice, three times, each strike so fast I couldn’t see where one ended and the next began.
I blocked one. The other two drew blood.
Sacha screamed inside my head, her mana flaring instinctively, covering me in a layer of icy mist as defense.
Belle cut straight through it.
Her sword sang, and suddenly I was on the ground again, my body carved with shallow cuts that burned with both pain and humiliation. My breath came in ragged gasps.
She stood over me, relaxed, almost disappointed. "You’re using all your affinities, all your techniques, and yet..." She tilted her head. "You’re still too weak."
I grit my teeth, forcing myself back up, blood dripping down my arms. "Or maybe," I panted, "you’re just built wrong."
Belle snorted softly, a faint laugh. "That’s the spirit."
She blurred forward again.
The rest became chaos. A storm of blue and black mana, fire and ice colliding with death. I swung until my muscles screamed, until my breath ran dry, until the frost coating the floor shattered from the sheer heat of my mana output.
But she was untouchable, graceful, unstoppable.
By the time I hit the ground for the last time, my body was a map of cuts and bruises. Sacha’s blade form dissolved, reforming beside me as a small tiger again, her fur puffed up and worried.
’Papa hurt,’ she whimpered, nudging my arm with her nose.
I winced, managing a weak smile. "Yeah... but I managed to harmonize with your nice. That’s progress, right?"
Belle rested her blade on her shoulder, tilting her head at me. "It is."
My body ached like it had been fed through a blender and then set on fire for good measure. I groaned, forcing myself to roll onto my back. My lungs burned, my arms trembled, and every breath came out like I was inhaling shards of glass.
Belle sighed, somewhere above me.
I cracked an eye open. She was standing over me again, hands on her hips, head tilted in mild exasperation.
"I’m tired," I muttered.
Without warning, she grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet with strength that made my shoulders pop. Before I could say anything, she reached into thin air and flicked something toward me.
My hand shot up instinctively, and I caught it midair without even looking.
A small glass vial. Green liquid. Mana recovery potion.
I blinked, lips twitching. "You know, one day you could just hand these to me."
"Where’s the fun in that?" she said, smirking.
I popped the cork and downed it in one go. The familiar warmth hit instantly, a surge of energy flooding my veins, my mana pool snapping back to full in an instant. My life affinity kicked in next, mending the shallow cuts across my skin with faint golden light.
I exhaled, feeling strength return. "Gods, that’s better."
Belle dropped down beside me, stretching her legs out. The movement was casual, like we hadn’t just spent the last half hour trying to kill each other.
"Come here, little one," she said softly.
Sacha, who had been watching from a few steps away, tilted her head at Belle’s voice. Then she padded forward and, to my surprise, climbed right into Belle’s lap. The tiger’s tail curled neatly around herself before she plopped down, purring as Belle’s hand began to move through her fur.
"You’ve got a good one," Belle said quietly.
"She knows it," I muttered.
Sacha’s eyes closed halfway as she purred louder, leaning into Belle’s touch like she’d been doing it her whole life.
Belle’s expression softened, not that she’d ever admit it. "She’s warm. Strong. And... a bit spoiled."
"She takes after her teacher," I said dryly.
That earned me a flick on the forehead.
For a moment, we sat in silence. The world outside the training ground’s endless black-and-white tiles faded away. Just the three of us, me sitting there half-dead, Belle petting a baby tiger that purred like a small storm, and the faint hum of mana still hanging in the air.
If anyone walked in right now, they wouldn’t see a teacher and her handsome student, or a spirit beast born from a soul.
They’d just see... a strange, tired little family.