[h2]Miina Malina[/h2]

Miina waved off returning to the surface immediately – after all, she still had her Exit materia, so it would take almost no time at all. When? Well, they knew it was a few hours, she wasn't going to stay down here [i]that[/i] long. It was fine, she just wanted to take in the atmosphere a bit longer…

Well, the Mystrel hadn't been lying. She did want to just take it in and [i]look[/i] at it, but it wasn't… well, that didn't really encompass it? Even if she put aside the existence of the crystal for just a moment, all the attacks unleashed in such a short span of time, in such a confined space… the [i]taste[/i] of it almost lingered on the air. It was fascinating to look at, all the slight ways the purity of the aether and the elements themselves had been twisted and touched, the almost unnoticeable lingering difference between the haste Izayoi's materia had created and her own…

Even now, the air was still slowly drifting, not yet reduced to its natural underground stillness.

What was particularly strange was the [i]two[/i] flavours of something… unpleasant. One was both thick and almost burned away; that would be the Blight and the corruption on Famfrit and the crystal. There was nothing to be learned there, Miina might be [i]reckless[/i] but she wasn't suicidal. The other… hmm, where had that come from? It didn't fit with the ninja, nor Esben's new penchant for summoning, and Galahad had just thrown his spear.

Ah, that was Rudolf, then? She hadn't really been of a mind to focus on it, the last few times they fought something big – never in a position to stick around after and just examine the battlefield. That explained some of the… stranger things he'd done, she had thought maybe they were sword techniques or materia. Would he answer if she asked? Whatever was going on, it was interesting… not something that she wanted to tangle with directly, but the knowledge would be nice. Conceptually, she knew the most extreme, most violent parts of black magic [i]must[/i] touch on something similar and not pure elemental destruction, but…

She knew her limits. Rudolf might not know what's going on, too, not enough to answer her questions.

The red mage's attention drifted to the crystal. This… [i]this[/i] was interesting, though, now that it was purified. Oh, what could she do if she was able to just [i]manipulate it[/i] directly… but that would be wrong, possibly destroy the world or something, and get her in trouble. The best case scenario she could see was drowning an army in exchange for Brightlam, which…

Hmm, she cared more about killing Valheim than she did the [i]city,[/i] but there were still those other things to think about.

But it was her best opportunity to study and, well, meditate on [i]water alone.[/i] It was honestly a lot more fascinating than she gave it credit for, and now that Miina thought about it… why? Why [i]did[/i] all her offensive and defensive spells revolve around [i]ice?[/i] Defensively, it worked in a pinch, but they had been having water shot directly at them, so countering it with the pure element and not mixing it with a hint of air…

Offensively, ice had its benefits. It was more about [i]piercing[/i] than violently smashing, and it jumped out as a somewhat more enduring way to enforce restraint. It was cleaner, you could get away with smaller amounts… but really, it was just habit. Zeke had encouraged her and taught her ice, because it was what [i]he[/i] knew and it was just nice to have the skill on a hot day and make it a little more bearable.

But did she really have a reason to stick to it? Yes, her most certain way to kill someone was basically to seed ice into their blood and tear them apart from the inside, but she could just as easily use that as a way into their bloodstream and tear [i]everything[/i] out. Or maybe not just as easily, but Miina was pretty confident she could pick it up with practice. The advantages ice gave otherwise… if she wanted penetration, generally, lightning would be more beneficial. She could restrain and impede people in [i]other[/i] ways. Water… well, Famfrit had shown one part of it: water could smash and crush, or it could flow around, or… hmm, if you could get it around their [i]head[/i], that was even better. Everyone needed to breathe.

But, for now, could she pull off [i]anything[/i] adjacent to that? There was no better place to practice, nowhere that would ever come as close to being so effortless that even non-mages could do it. It probably wouldn't impede her fighting ability later, even. So, if she just picked an arbitrary part of distant wall as the target, then it would… [i]probably[/i] be fine.

Even if she was trying to work this one out based entirely on guesswork and an assumption it should [i]vaguely[/i] be like the golem's weird magic jar.

Naturally, there were a lot of failures. At first, that meant nothing. Then it meant that Miina, and everything around her, were unfortunately saturated by the water conjured up out of nothing… it [i]really[/i] was a good thing that wet fur wasn't that annoying, so long as the water wasn't [i]salty.[/i] Then a vaguely directed stream (maybe if she ever needed to put a fire out?), a more concentrated stream, and then…

The smack of water against stone was satisfying. 

So she did it again. And again.

… hmm, she'd probably better get back to everyone, right?