"…gun." Ancestra squeaked out from her voice. Her demonic arm reverberated loudly, pulsating a bright red amongst the bloody-hued arena. Now there was the fear she expected. The amount of presence the teacher had exuded almost suffocated her. And with the Rose's brambles as well, it'll be hard, no, almost impossible to survive this without dying at least… She closed her eyes. In the span of that five seconds that she did, her lack of vision was filled with red. Taking the amount of time one millisecond build up to one second per a red flash that blankets her eyes, that was a quite a number. If she didn't calm herself down and exact the meaning of her surname, she might not live. The thought paralyzed her, not because she'll die. Definitely not. She didn't care about her life anymore.
It was the fact that if she fell here, she won't be able to kill Sinsear and exact her revenge that her parents never wanted.
The thought brought her to clarity. It was that simple all along. She kept getting trapped in her emotions, trying to find ways to calm herself down when all she had to do was think of what happens if she wasn't. Undoubtedly, she will die. An irrefutably cold fact that hit her as if her mother had slapped her in the face during that moment. She even saw for a small glimpse, a small fraction of a second of Zanien smiling and acknowledging her epiphany. The girl smiled for the same moment, before feeling her large eyes shrink and halve down to its usual size. She's always been wide-eyed. Realizing her purpose and how simple it was felt like the half of the weight of the world was removed from her shoulder. She couldn't feel fear anymore. She's already simulated death more times than an average being could. She inhaled a long breath and exhaled it.
It was time to shine. It was time to calm down.
As if heavy chains had been severed from her heart and lungs, she could feel them without constrictions now. Power and control rapidly surges into her body, filling her with unbridled strength in mind and body. Ancestra had used to feel like she was always moving in a sea of mud with unbearable weights around her legs. Now, the sea of mud had become blood. She felt like she became a part of it. Swimming in it had become not a detriment, but a foothold. She could also feel every iota of blood in the sea and control it to her will.
'Blood Manipulation.' A gentle voice whispered to her. Whether it was the Rose or Zanien, she could not identify in that moment. She was busy garnering power while observing Harriet walk towards them with each audibly and foreboding footstep.
'Use it as you deem fit.'
"Sure." Ancestra responded to the voice in her head. She swiped her hand down to the ground, ingesting it with blood.
The once-lush green grass becomes dyed with dark red. Harriet fires her guns; they hit a large undulating mass of blood shaped like a wall. The walls lash with tendrils that extend towards the Harriet. Flipping the guns and holding the barrels, she hits all the tendrils with enough strength to dissipate liquid into smaller bits and pieces. Flipping her guns to hold them properly, Ancestra suddenly appears before Harriet, socking her with a punch square on to the face faster than the trained eye. She exceeded the maximum speed of perception that the human eye could discern. Harriet gets sent flying head first into another blood wall that bounces the female back to Ancestra, getting another right hook that send the teacher into the ground.
As if her initial attack wasn't enough, four spikes of the same color rose from the ground and skewered Harriet through her right shoulder, the liver, the right side of her waist, and her left ankle. From the recoil of the force making her body bounce again like a ball, Ancestra turned around and backflipped a kick into the female's stomach and sent her back again in a successful combo of attacks. Harriet tumbled and flipped like a ragdoll after being pummeled consecutively. Her wounds were impossible to miss. Even as they return and get reformed back into shape, shaking it off as if there was no actual damage done to her.
"Whew. You love to see no damage when I made sure to disappear in a blink of an eye." Ancestra whistles, circling her demonic arm. It hurt her a little bit to see that her effortless barrage of attacks did nothing. It was effortless, after all.
"If we're talkin' novelty, your attacks were common." Harriet snorted. She fired her rifles from her hips, directed at Ancestra's eyes.
"I mean, I'm not tryna be original with my fighting. What works works, right?" Ancestra scoffed, catching both bullets with her humane hand.
"You're on a timer. Figure it out." Harriet grinned before disappearing in thin air.
Ancestra raised her right leg slightly to block Harriet's attempt for a surprise gun swing to her side. She kicks it with the same leg and hops with her left to bring it to Harriet's right cheek, blocked by the teacher's right hand. Harriet grabs her by the foot and spins the girl like a top before sending her whisking through the air towards the arena's magical border. Ancestra collides with the wall, coughing air. Without a moment's respite, she gets peppered with more than twenty rifles filling her with holes with an astounding fire rate of 7000 rounds per minute. After two minutes of relentless gunfire, the smoke that was generated from the heat and explosions of the bullets filled a third of the arena.
Julie wasn't just doing anything during this breathtaking minute of intense one-on-one combat with the other two. She was busy trying to support Ancestra by lessening her burden; which was cutting down the guns behind Harriet to make sure she doesn't overwhelm Ancestra with range. It was a pretty useless endeavor in the long run, since slicing with Lightsbane was also repeatedly taking its toll on her, and the current level of regeneration and recovery she has is not enough to put wielding the cursed katana's drainage in a stalemate. However, in the immediate situation Ancestra was able to capitalize Julie's support by overwhelming the teacher with the first bout of attacks she had thrown against the female.
While Harriet pepper sprayed Ancestra with bullets, Julie charged up a drawing slash that might do some lasting damage towards the red haired demon if it hits. When the last second of two minutes clocked in, Julie released Lightsbane from her impromptu hand sheathe and slashed horizontally. For a moment, the entire world seemed to have split into two, before Harriet backflipped nonchalantly and kicked the moving trajectory of the slash upward sending it to hit the barrier instead.
"Nice try Julie, but it takes your entire life force to cut something as big as the world in two." Harriet praised the samurai, but Julie didn't feel honored in the slightest. She felt a spine-tingling fear because of one thing.
Her position was compromised.
Seeing as how Ancestra and Harriet had exchanged blows, Julie parsed that she was not at their level yet. Her best course of action was to slip in undetected as stupid as it had sounded, since Harriet didn't only have two pairs of eyes and a skintight miasma layer of presence detection that was as accurate as separating a single grain of sand from the beach. She thought she could do what she had set out to do and assist Ancestra. It went against their original plan, but Julie had to quickly accept that fact or else they'd die. There was no use being hardheaded in this situation, since Harriet was only playing around. That much she was sure. Because if she wasn't, not even Julie could survive one minute of Harriet being serious. Ancestra had gained an epiphany, and it boosted her strength, speed, and perception by leaps and bounds.
Julie didn't have that. All she had was the ability to improve by surviving something that doesn't kill her.
And Harriet can very well kill her laughably and pathetically easy.