[curse breaking] worthy opponents || all years

The Tigovra was about to cast a Lumos spell when she heard some strange sound quite low on the ground. She would have just blast it, but she didn't know where her summer classmate was, so it was a possibility she could accidently hit her. She stood silently and listened, while she hoped her eyes would adjust. Yet there was no  adjusting to pitch black, because ‘siktir’ it was pitch black.  Her heart leaped when she heard her partners voice just feet from where she stood.”

She wordlessly casted the light spell while she said “Tsubaki!  Sweet Jinn, are you all right?”  But she was not, she could tell. “It is okay, it will be okay. I'll get you out of here. We are almost out.”

The girl was slowly standing, while cradling her arm. It was obvious that the girl was hurt and likely bad. Esmeray offered to help her walk. Preferring to keep her right side free incase Tsubaki needed help, she switched her wand to her non dominant hand. Although it was not the typical side she casted with, she somehow managed the Lumos spell before explaining, “ I will keep the light on so we could see, you cast  at anything that moves..”

Esmeray made her way down the sloped lower corridor slowly. As they turned the corner a ghoul’s face suddenly appeared inches from them, as if it was lurking there waiting. Esmeray used her fist and punched the ghoul hard in the face with a left hook, which succeeded in knocking it back. She let Tsubaki finish it off with a spell now it would not likely grab them. It was then the girl noticed she could see without her wand lit and the air in the chamber moved towards them.

“Look! See the light? We are almost out!” She said excitedly as she tried to move faster.

@Hanaoka Tsubaki

Tsubaki didn’t think she would feel relief upon seeing Esmeray but that was exactly it. She winced at the light before her eyes adjusted to it. Her arm still hurts but it was now only a dull, throbbing pain as opposed to a sharp one earlier. She was about to give a snappy retort to her question but belatedly realized that Esmeray was asking because she was really concerned. She was glad that she was not the type to say the first thing on her mind and simply gave her classmate a dismissive wave. “A minor setback,” she said as she stood to her right, waving her good arm to make sure it was really undamaged. It wasn’t. Good. Aside from her broken arm and sore body, she was relatively ok to go.

She nodded at Esmeray’s words, sticking close to her and making sure that she didn’t jostle her injured arm too much. The ghoul’s sudden appearance definitely shocked them (and Tsubaki totally did not scream) but Esmeray’s punch and its effectiveness shocked her even more. The ghoul probably planned on physically harming them, hence making its body corporeal only to be punched into oblivion by her summer (or winter?) classmate. But when she realized that Esmeray was not casting a spell to finish the ghoul off, she brought her wand up and confidently cried: “Confringo.” She didn’t stay to see if the ghoul disintegrated or dodged the spell, running straight towards where Esmeray had pointed out. Her legs felt like they could give out any moment but Tsubaki was now operating on pure adrenaline.

“E-Esmeray-san! It leads to the outside!!”

@Esmeray Aysoy

“Minor setback?” Esmeray said dubiously but soon gave a bit of a smirk admiring her partners spunk.

After the punch her hand throbbed a little. Yet she paid less mind to it, for she was too busy criticizing herself for the fact that she could have broken her wand if she did not land the hits squarely on the ghoul. There was no time to examine her hand nor her wand for damage. For after Tsubaki got off the blast they were off.

They ran, for neither wanted to allow anything to ketch up to them. The addition of the fresh air, and light drove them on.  Luckily the other witch did not seemed to be slowed by her injury, nor seemed to require any assistance, so Esmeray took up the rear. As the Koldovstoretz student spared a glance back, she thought she saw shadows stir. Yet nothing took a form she could aim at, so she did not cast. With a final turn the spiraling tunnel exposed a bright opening, which confirmed Tsubaki's claims.

“You are right!” was all that Esmeray could say. She was halfway expecting the temple to give them one last obstacle or dangerous trap. But it seemed the ghouls, the ghost and even the spiders were glad to get rid of them.

Esmeray stumbled out of the opening at full sprint behind Tsubaki. The normally dimly filtered afternoon sun light appeared blinding to the witch whose eyes had gotten used to the dark tunnels. Esmeray blinked and shaded her eyes as she tried to looked up at the temple mound and shouted a call to the class presumably above them, “We made it out!” before repeating it to her partner in more of a whispered exuberance.

@Hanaoka Tsubaki

Unlike Esmeray, Tsubaki didn’t bother to look back and focused on running towards the light. Even though her stamina was not that bad since she exercised regularly, she still almost collapsed as soon as she felt the sunlight hit her face through the dense forest canopy. It may be dim to some but for someone who had been stuck in the temple for a considerable amount of time, it was too bright for her eyes and she had to blink a few times to readjust her vision. “Yes, we did it,” she breathed a sigh of relief before the adrenaline wore off and the pain in her arm returned in full force, causing her to cry out in pain.

“I am sorry, Esmeray-san. I would love to stay and chat more,” a wince caused her to pause as she gritted her teeth to stop another pained cry from escaping her lips. “But I should get this check,” she motioned to the arm that she was cradling. She didn’t feel like climbing the tall steps again to inform Professor Esposito about her injury but at the same time, she had no idea who to ask either. After some deliberation, she decided to head back to Castelobruxo. She should be fine on her own… probably. “Please tell Professor Esposito that I will be heading back to school,” Tsubaki quickly bowed at Esmeray (while being mindful of her arm) before she started to head back to the school on her own. Hopefully nothing troublesome would pop up along the way…

[outtie!]

@Esmeray Aysoy