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[b][u]Phillis Circus: Big Top: Tightrope[/u][/b]

She was a cunning fighter, then. That, or just extraordinarily lucky?

Isabella had to admit that she was impressed. For a reckless nobody to be able to move and swing about on a tightrope like this without having already fallen off to their death was extremely impressive. Granted, she was in no way a pro about it, and was having extreme difficulty maintaining her ability to stay on it, but stay she was. It had taken Isabella months simply to be able to perfect standing up straight on the tightrope without falling off. Months of long, arduous and gruelling work ever since she first joined the Phillis Circus after its leader, the Ringmaster Guinevere had rescued her. Long months of work and stress, pain in which she strove to please and pay her friend back… but months which had paid off. And then the years afterwards, perfecting her ability, her mastery of it and her body, to do that which no other normal human could. 

It was impressive to see Aria still manage to stay alive on the tightrope, alive and fight well enough to avoid Isabella’s many attempts to harm her. 

But also extremely aggravating.

Isabella’s balance had been shaken and almost toppled once a powerful reverberation shuddered its way up through the two poles adjoining the tightrope together, with the rope swinging and swaying madly from it. A quick glance down, and seeing the body of Abram’s panda rest in a daze at the foot of one, made Isabella tighten her brow in greater annoyance and frustration, but she managed to remain stable. And so too, against all belief, did her opponent Aria – now standing back on the rope, precariously at first, before gaining confidence and with fans in hand - ready to fight. 

Isabella couldn’t believe her mind. She had to have been going mad. 

She sprang forwards, spinning her body around and swinging both of her held knives out. The Aria she fought ducked and tilted her head back in time to avoid Isabella’s knives, her feet backstepping up along the length of the rope without even needing to look. She swung one of her fans out, halting Isabella’s advance as the acrobat dodged it, then resuming her attack on her adversary. 

As this battle continued, Aria – the real Aria – still suspended with her feet around the rope behind Isabella, tried her best to maintain both her illusion and cut the rope with her fan… the concentration producing a massive strain on her body. That, coupled with her injured shoulder…

She only needed a little bit more time, and then…

Close to one of the platforms now, Isabella crouched low in her fight against Aria’s doppelganger and swung out her legs, tripping out her foe and making her fall, screaming to the ground below. Everything was silent and still as she did, a unceremonious thud yielding the end to that fight. Looking down, at the still and prone body of her opponent from before, Isabella wasn’t sure what to do, or how to feel. Elation, perhaps, at having won against her troublesome foe. But guilt and pain too. Killing her had never been her actual intent. This… this was a mistake…

…but they had threatened to destroy everything she cared about. Her home, her family. Without the Phillis Circus, she had nothing. She had already lost everything precious to her once before, and she wouldn’t allow it to happen again. 

Was this what Elisa had forewarned her about?

And then, a strange and unusual sensation. A realisation of something not being quite right. This feeling… things weren’t as they were supposed to be. 

The rope beneath her legs, it didn’t feel right. Isabella’s eyes shot open in wild realisation, and she turned, racing to and jumping with a spin to the platform she was closest too, as the rope snapped from where Aria had been cutting through.