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[I]He dodged it?[/I] the woman wondered as she quietly muttered the arcane words that would re-seal the magic into her runesword, immediately ending the spell after barely letting it manifest rather than trying to follow her enemy's movements with it. [I]No, the ray touched him for an instant, on the shoulder. He reacted extremely quickly to avoid being hit in the chest; the delay from extinguishing the blinding light to shooting out the beam was less than half a second. Just what one could expect from Grim. But why dodge? Had he teleported instead, with that timing, he could have escaped completely unscathed. Is his teleportation not as instantaneous as it appears? And why retreat behind cover? Surely he must have realized how exposed that attack left me; if he had appeared behind me just then he could have targeted my back. Of course if this is Grim, he would know that I anticipated that vulnerability and was prepared to counteract an exploitation of it...[/I]
Straightening back up, sword lowered by her side, the blue-clad ducal agent stared at the wooden containers the presumed Fixer had dived into cover behind. Though she did not actually have visual contact with her target hiding back there she had once more locked on to the signature of his magical energy, and could tell that he had not teleported away yet. [I]What is he doing? A trap? I could easily attack him through those containers, and there is no way I would not know that he was there. Must be a trap. I won't fall for it. Wait.[/I]
There was noise above and behind her; not the loud noise of something hitting a wall, but a relatively muffled noise of something just shuffling against it. Climbing. She could hear approximately where it was coming from, but for some reason she could not sense the source of the sound even when she focused her magical senses on the location and scanned it thoroughly. It was probably the second character, she figured, trying to sneak up on her or at least descend onto the battlefield. Why could she not sense this person? She was the best at sensing magical energy among the twelve, a specialist magical tracker capable of identifying even scraps of residual energy left behind by the caster of a spell and sensing most necromancers, so who was this person whose soul was so thoroughly hidden that she could not detect its energy even when concentrating on it?

Her opponent stood, not only revealing himself to her eyes once more but also exposing himself completely. Once more this man's actions were perplexing to her; why would he do this when he could have teleported away from behind cover, which would have tricked anyone incapable of actually sensing the teleportation itself? Another piece of evidence that this man must truly be the Fixer, for why else would he do this but if he knew that she would sense him teleporting? This must be another trap; he wanted her to try to attack him and expose herself so that he could teleport close to her and deliver a strike from a vulnerable angle. Mercy? Threats? What point was there to try to confuse and distract her anymore at that point? She had already concluded that this was an ambush, and that this man was the Fixer, and though his words had done nothing but attempted to sow a mix of doubt and suspicion in her mind, his every action had proven his identity as her target.
Finishing his last word the servant of the Grand Master vanished in a burst of magical energy, and the woman immediately spun around herself, her sword raised and ready to parry and counterattack the instant she located her adversary, who she figured was certain to try to use his instant movement to attack her from an angle. She did not spot him, but only a heartbeat after the first teleportation she sensed the energy of another, this one directly above her. Raising her sword even higher to guard against an aerial assault, she was met by the sight of the man practically hanging in the air some ways above, and barely even had time to realize what was happening before it had already occurred.
Her guard was too high, the other's attack was too quick; she could not block or evade. All she could manage to do was to start moving away from the trajectory of the curious bladed weapon while simultaneously turning so that it would hit as little of her as possible and carry as little risk of killing or crippling her as possible. The result of her desperate maneuver was that rather than being immediately incapacitated, as the attack doubtlessly would have accomplished, the blade of his weapon only caught her by her right side, slicing just below her shoulder, across the side of her ribcage and some ways onto her right breast before she slammed the pummel of her sword into the chain connecting the weapon to its wielder, disrupting its movement and saving her from even deeper lacerations. Flinging the chain and weapon away from herself with a quick flick of her wrist the woman retreated backwards and away from her airborne enemy, first in a long backwards leap and then several quick running steps before she became motionless again.

She grit her teeth but kept her posture straight despite the pain, even as she felt blood soak her clothes on her right side, turning her blue garments red. She did not think that any muscles had been severed, though; it felt as though she could move normally, painful though it might be. Her ribcage had also prevented the blade from cutting too deeply; she suspected that several of her ribs had been notched, but her vital organs were intact. For the moment she would continue to function, and it was the purpose of a tool to continue functioning until it broke.
There would be reprimands for this wound, however... The master would be compassionate, as seemed to be his habit when she was injured, but some of the other nobles would be less merciful, as they always complained when she got a new scar, particularly one that extended onto her breast. They found the sight disturbing, and punished her in addition to demanding intercourse with her as they often did. She suspected that the master did not know that she was being made serve in this way, but his advisor and second-in-command knew and had confirmed to her that she was supposed to comply with requests for such and do whatever the nobles asked of her. She... did not like that. It was an irrational and emotional response that she could not logically justify, but though she ordinarily felt nothing, that in particular unsettled her. She would have to go to the Church of Reina and see how well they could heal the wound later; if the scar was not too visible, maybe she would not be punished as harshly.
That was for another time, though. Right now she was wounded and still engaged in a battle against an opponent capable of instantaneous movement and another that she could not sense. From this angle she actually saw this second character for the first time, although this did not reveal much to her, as the person's outfit completely concealed the person's body, leaving not even a single patch of skin visible to try to analyze its nature.
[I]I need to be careful,[/I] she thought, raising her sword in a defensive stance once again, ignoring the searing agony in her right side. [I]That attack just before was dangerous; had his second teleportation not revealed his location to me, I would definitely have been incapacitated or killed by that. Why does he stay at a distance, though? Grim always preferred melee combat, but this man has only attacked from range, despite that Grim would know that I have the advantage at medium-range.[/I]
"Would you say," she suddenly shouted, though without losing focus of what she was doing or dropping her guard, "that these are 'desperate circumstances' for me?"