Jaune is keikaku

“Will do,” I said, palming a Dust crystal and then slamming it into my chest.

First was water, I thought, a plan taking shape.

Blue light glowed through the flesh of my chest, pulsating in tune with my heart beat as power flowed through me. It filled me in moments, like water filling a vessel, and then seemed to crash out through my skin, pushing its way out from the inside. In a flickering moment, the light of my Aura liquefied—and poured forth. I rushed at Carmine with all the speed I could muster, each step filling empty space with water until tons and tons of the stuff were bearing down on the Huntress.

And yet, even in the face of that oncoming flood, Carmine didn’t back down. Red eyes bore into me for a moment and then pain laced through me as she lashed out, meters of water turning to steam behind me. I stumbled for a moment but didn’t—couldn’t—stop; when my pace slowed, the water behind me simply swept me up, momentum pushing it forward. Even with the amount she vaporized in a single sweep of her arm, there was too much for her to stop completely and she could do nothing but brace herself as it rose up over her.

The ground shattered around us as she stood up to it, the water moving with all the speed I’d had when I’d first created it. She channeled her power through her body mere moments after the first contact, turning everything that touched her into more and more steam, hiding here momentarily from view.

Well, momentarily for me, at least. My clear sight lived up to its name in just a moment, unscrambling the refracted image within the mist, and I shifted, swimming through the very water I’d left in my wake. I’d expected that Carmine would be able to channel her Aura through her whole body, of course—Aura covers the body naturally, after all—but I still needed to be careful about touching her. I swam past her instead of into her, an effort of will causing some of the water around me to change direction just enough to allow it, and then I skid to a halt on the street, digging watery claws into the earth to slow myself for just a moment.

Then I was on Carmine again, closing in without a trace of fear. The brief moment of contact before she’d been able to channel her Semblance towards protecting herself had still amounted to an unspeakable amount of force and she’d been sent skidding back, her feet carving a furrow in the street. Without giving her a moment to recover, I struck out at her with a fist as I shed more and more water, suspended within my manifested Aura. Her pure red eyes met mine without a trace of fear, arms already in motion, but I didn’t back down either. Even as I felt myself get torn in half, I reached out with two fluid hand and liquid fangs—

And then I froze. Literally, my tiger Aura turning to ice in an instant as I balance Water and Air to make Ice. A chunk of ice the size of a person smashed into her, but I was already moving a different direction, stepping back into the flood behind me a moment before my Aura changed and standing my ground as it washed over me, remaining stationary with my will alone. A moment after my Aura froze, a second tiger appeared over the first, water forming over ice as the Water Tiger followed me in stepping back and watched as the flood moved on.

Carmine staggered for a moment—a second too late in using her Aura or briefly struggling with the sheer amount she had to vaporize, I wasn’t sure—and I moved again. My physical body merely stepped forward once, but the Tiger moved closer, lunging toward her legs before stopping just a hair short. It retreated a fraction of a step, bobbing up towards her masked face and then striding a step to the left, moving to slam into her from the side and then dancing back. An arm rose towards her face, a leg swept towards the back of her knees, fangs flashed at her eyes, but each time I stopped just a hairs breadth from contact.

And each time, water solidified into ice, the water trailing behind each motion carrying them into their target. Carmine stumbled a pace back ever other attack and my physical body calmly strolled forth, Aura keeping up the pressure. She braced herself against another series of blows before snarling something wordless, eyes focusing on my through the mist. Arms began to move, scything through waves of water, but I sensed the danger coming and the Tiger returned to my feet. As it leapt upwards, I allowed the resulting column of water to carry me into the air above Carmine.

She lifted her head and I knew before I even sensed it that her other arm was in motion, sending vaporizing steel towards me—but I was moving too, an instant before she was. The Water Tiger moved impossibly, crawling down the very stream of water it had created until it stood parallel to me, facing downwards. Instantly, the same limbs that had tread on the water’s surface as if it were solid pierced through, a clawed hand grabbing me and drawing me from the column before tossing me into the air behind it. I’d traveled barely a meter before the tail curled around my ankle snapped my down towards the ground and then the Tiger was leaping back as well.

It passed over me, the water that composed it flowing over me as I passed through it, back to front. I slipped into its wake barely a moment after it first touched me and without even the slightest hint of force or surface tension. It kept moving behind me, fluid body arcing back as it flipped in midair and I flowed through the resulting stream, body swimming after soul without even the slightest motion. The Tiger on the street and I landed within it, the flood that trail us splashing out in every direction.

The Tiger rose, claws reaching towards Carmine as she turned, but I stayed bowed until both arm and sword passed above me before rising calmly. With each step, the Tiger left behind statues of itself in ice, each lasting but a moment before shattering or vaporizing as they smashed into Carmine and kept her one her toes, pushing her back with each attack. Perhaps her arms were fast, each blow blindingly quick even to me—but the rest of her body was no match for my speed. Though close proximity presented its own risks and gave me less time to react, at this range I also had the chance to stay ahead of her, to do something.

The street around us quickly flooded with water as I produced and cast of hundreds, thousands of times my own volume in water, whatever Carmine didn’t vaporize splashing upon the ground around us. I felt the crystal in my heart weakening as the power continued to flow out of me, but didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop—

Until with a final step, my Tiger shed the water one last time and emerged like a snake that had shed its skin. It threw its head back and Roared, the sound causing the earth to shake and windows to break around us, the sheer sound of it so real it was almost a physical thing. Whatever part of Carmine was still alive, could still feel—it felt hesitation. Just for a moment.

But it was enough to press another crystal against my chest. Yellow glowed within me as if I’d swallowed the sun, burning out through my skin, my eyes, my mouth. Power flowed through me like I was a machine that had just been plugged in—and then it flowed out of me. The Tiger writhed, nearly unraveled as my power took hold and for a brief instant, it was like I’d caught lightning in the shape of a beast.

And the next, like lightning, it was gone, vanishing with nothing but the faint scent of ozone to imply it had ever been there at all. Carmine’s hesitation ended and she focused on me, arm lifting, moving—

The Tiger slammed a fist into her chest hard enough to stop her and bow her over, before vanishing again. She lifted her head, snarling something wordless—and kissed the dirt as the Tiger grabbed her by the hair and slammed her face up to the ears into the ground. She put a hand on the ground, fingers sinking into the mud, and a foot slammed savagely into her side, kicking her away. She hadn’t even touched the ground when a fist slammed hard into her back and smashed her down to the street.

Between each blow, the Tiger disappeared, flashing in and out of existence around her without seeming to pass through any of the space between. Through it all, it strayed far from me, five meters, ten, more, reaching out further and further to strike her.

Finally, Carmine seemed to have enough. With a snarl of frustration she slammed her arms into the ground as she was knocked around by another series of blows, whip-arm sweeping along the ground to one side of her body, vaporizing layers of dirt. Pushing off, she rolled quickly once, twice, and then came to her feet with a bit of effort. I could see the damage I’d caused her even through the layers of mud that now caked her form, small cracks in the armor.

“Puddles,” She spat as she rose, eyes at my feet. “That’s your trick.”

I said nothing, knowing what she saw. A writhing, glowing tail wrapped around my left leg, curling down into a puddle by my feet. From there, trails of sparks hopped around the battlefield, leaping in steady streams from puddle to puddle. My Tiger appeared at the edge of the dry area she’d created and took a pair of deliberately slow steps before flickering and reappearing five meters away. It continued its slow pace, vanishing and reappearing every heartbeat or so until it formed behind me. It paced beside me, claws curling as its eyes remained trained on Carmine.

“No matter,” She said after a moment, edges of a growl in her tone. “I can destroy them as easily as anything else.”

I looked around with my physical eyes and sniffed before cracking my neck.

“Is it getting humid in here or is it just me?” I asked, one finger swirling in the air. As it passed through the mist, water gathered, a thin streamer trailing behind it like a banner. I smiled as her eyes followed it. “With this much moisture in the air, it’s not hard to gather it back into water. You vaporize stuff, but you can’t destroy it; all that water is still here. And someone like me can do all sorts of things with it.”

A sphere of water formed above my fingers and I hurled it like a water balloon into the dry area she had created. It landed just past the edge and my Tiger flickered to the puddle it created, just a step closer—and then vanished as she lashed out at it. Back at my side, it held up its hands, large spheres of water gathering above each as it lowered itself in a crouch.

“I can gather it, control it, use it,” I continued as if nothing had happened. I held up both my hands as fists, looking from one to the other and then back to her. “If needed, I can even…”

I uncurled my fingers slowly to show her what they’d been grasping—a pair of Dust Crystals, one yellow, one blue—and then held the latter close to my chest.

“Make more of it,” I finished.