Wish Upon a Sin

Arc 2 - Chapter 13

"Paralak!"

Darkness swirled around him, gathering towards Luna, coalescing into... absolutely nothing.

The mana dissipated, and Subaru sighed, letting his arm fall to his side.

"Ugh... another failure."

Luna hovered over to the side of his head, whispering consolation and encouragement.

Almost.

"Yeah, I suppose," Subaru replied. That casting had felt different, but whether Luna was right about them getting closer remained to be seen. For all he knew, he was going in a completely wrong direction. Who knew how many more failures it would take before he had a working version?

He had long since stopped keeping track of those failures. He had initially thought it would only take a handful of tries to get the spell working. After all, it should rank at about the same as a normal spell, the same as Shamak. However, it appeared he had underestimated the difficulty of achieving an El-level effect with his limited mana.

"Do not be so concerned. Creating an entirely new spell is not something done easily," a noble-sounding voice replied, accompanied by the faint sounds of footsteps on grass.

Subaru glanced over his shoulder, as Julius strode up to him.

"Do you ever grow tired of that?" Subaru asked, turning back to face the target. "Sneaking up behind me while I'm practicing?"

That drew a light chuckle from the knight. "Sneak up on you? I do no such thing. You simply lack awareness. You tend to block out everything else when you concentrate."

He stopped beside Subaru, causing Luna to blush and retreat behind him. She peeked out from behind him, and offered a quiet, Hello.

Progress.

"So, what are you doing here?" Subaru asked, allowing Luna to fade back into their contract. After a few minutes to compose herself, she'd be fine to come back out. Probably.

"Don't you have things to do for the selection? Or are the negotiations finished?"

"They are not so intensive that they require every hour of my attention," Julius answered. "Things are proceeding smoothly. In fact, the situation favours the Anastasia camp rather greatly. I can't help but feel that the Margrave's play has backfired."

The mere mention stole some of the energy from Subaru. He could hardly bear to think of what kind of pressure Emilia was under.

"To get back on topic," Julius said, "how are you doing so far? You were quite enthusiastic when you asked for my help, and I'm told you've been practicing regularly over the past few days."

Subaru huffed. "It's frustrating. No matter what I try, nothing is working."

Julius nodded sagely. "You are trying to do several things with a single step. Create an El-level effect, condense it into a single point, and launch it as a projectile. I believe you are making good progress though."

"Good progress?" Subaru's eyes lit up. "So that means it'll only take a little bit more to complete it, right?"

"Not necessarily," Julius cautioned, and Subaru's face fell. "Even though I've created a handful of spells, I cannot tell how long it will take to complete my trump card."

"Trump card?" Subaru snorted. "How can you call it that, when you won't even tell anyone what it's supposed to do?"

Julius shrugged. "I am still working though the specifics. It's not complete yet, after all."