*
"Eyyy!!!" "Hyahh!!" "Nnnn!!" " Nhahh!"
High pitched groans resounded in the air as a distinct slamming noise also squirmed out into the underground city. It sounded like a hard slap but the peculiar tone it emitted gave away that actually 2 different materials were colliding against each other.
"ORaHhh!! Khaaa!!! Hngggg... Nice save!!"
The screams got a bit weird there but in the end, we had gone with volleyball since it looked to be a good form of exercise. Most notably was the opportunity to constantly jump, the number of magical girls with abilities that let them fly is worrying. So we had to get used to jumping to high altitudes to match them. It was also due to the fact we could invite more people as well, other than Myuu and I were 10 others, Kenzi , Barius, MiYi, Izumi, Vibell, Akiko, Usamin, Shentoff, Garion and Rumi. Along with 2 backup members, Fiel and Xin.
We had went around asking randomly in the classroom on the day right after our promise, unexpectedly, everyone wanted to come. We were originally planning to play a game of 3 vs 3 at most, but now there was enough for a 6v6 and 2 backup players. The indoor sports hall which held these courts was mostly Devoid of people anyway. Renting the place was swift and simple, no need to book or anything too complex. The court had in fact started collecting dust since a few months ago, thankfully Barius could manipulate water, Garion could create ice out of thin air and ask someone else to melt it, following which was Rumi and Xin that could isolate the water after wiping the walls with it.
Next was the positioning of the teams, by the team the court was fully cleaned, an hour had passed by and it was 3pm. The teams were as follows with the 7th member as the backup, team 1; Me, Rumi, Vibell, MiYi, Usaimin,Barius, Fiel
Team 2; Myuu, Shentoff,Kenzi,Garion, Akiko,Izumi, Xin
The rules were as follows, set up by yours truly, Kaorin.
1. No using magical girl augmented strength to hit the ball unless scenario in rule 3 happens,
2.hit the ball into the opponent's court for a point, hitting your own court loses a point.
3. If the ball gets out of court or through the ceiling, you can use your magical physical abilities to hit it back in
4. This one should be a given, but no injuring or killing other players, even by accident. Failure to comply results in an immediate replacement.
It was only natural to lower the playing field to suit one's advantage, we learned this in class. There may be a skill that limits the movements of both the caster and target, we have to adapt and work with what we have to attain victory in battle. I guess that was the second point of this exercise. Ultimately, it was for my own safety, since my magical girl augmentation were suppressed. Unlike others who acquire superhuman abilities like 300 times the punching force and running speed of a normal human, I remain at 1 times. In other words, I'm stuck as a fragile toothpick in this battle.
In the one week before this, I had actually recovered a sliver of my original strength. It may delay a day or 2 of my recovery, but if the worse case comes, I can tank a weak hit. Due to the previous weeks of recovering from the anti-magic, I've built up some resistance to it, which shows up as the 'Will' stat when my parameters are appraised. It probably increased along with the 'Well' stat, though I wouldn't know how much it increased until I checked.
The game starts off normally with a serve as the girls on the other team scrambled to receive the ball, a few passes here and there due to us being clumsy in our very first game, overall a very typical game. That is until Garion on the other team accidentally knocks the bar too hard, sending it flying through the roof of the small court and busting through the ceiling light of the labyrinth. With some debris falling, a few other of the magical girl's followed suit to turn it into aerial warfare.
Reaching the coarse yellow and black striped ball, Garion's jett black hair fluttered violently under the acceleration as it made an elegant arc..... She had put all her body strength into the smash, Barius countered and smashed the ball as hard as she could with her fist.
"Nee~ Make sure you don't destroy the ball!!" (Myuu) Myuu who was worried anxious about the repair fees of the ceiling lights had also jumped through the hole that Garion made only to spot another nightmare. What awaited her was a scene of carnage, of 2 magical girls smashing a volleyball with all their might. One would usually be worried about these teen girls being at such high altitudes that could cause one to fall to their own death, however all Myuu could think of was whether the ball broke or not. It had surprising endurance and survived under the assault of the 2 magical girls.
The smile of the glass wearing, bun wearing black haired receptionist surfaced at the back of Myuu's mind while holding her thumbs up.
---Back to Barius, her gray hair looked like a tail from afar as her sharp eyes trained on the ball, never missing a beat, allowed her to predict its landing after smashed it back. Forming ice in mid-air and jumping off of it, Garion shot forward like a missile before letting her left foot to skid into the barren land, kicking up large amounts of dust but catching up to the ball before it hit the ground.
By sending magical particles into her clothes, her magical combat dress could be manifested for an instant, wherein she activated its passive skill. [Moonlight under mist], usually a passive that allows her to see through the icy mist that she creates, but in this case it was used on the sand. Her vision was enhanced to the point magic particles coated her eye balls and formed black glasses, letting her spot the ball before turning all the abilities off and receiving the ball back into the air.
As if predicting her movements, Barius waited for the ball to shoot out of the sand cloud Garion formed and slammed the ball through the hole from where it came from. Unlike the usual smashes people see from volleyball that come at an arc before reaching the spiker, this one came down straight from the top and through the roof of the court.
Unlike myself, none of the others were really terrified of the ball's velocity, but at this rate it'll hit like a truck. From my team, MiYi had brown hair and large eyes that portrayed an innocent look, they were shoulder length and waved laterally as she moves around. Some people could swear they've seen her face on some Chinese movies before due to how she looked, though she claims that her normal face and her magical girl face were completely different.
Some of the girls refuted that claim saying that they were very similar to their original faces, but hey, if I could change sex then she could become a celebrity. In any case, betraying her cute and elegant look of an actress, she pulled out a pistol from thin air and shot at the ball like a movie protagonist. The momentum of the bullet struck the ball to push it to the other side, but Izumi from the other team and also had brown hair but tied into a ponytail, pulled out a katana to slash against the ball.
Miraculously, the ball survived the onslaught of both magical girls before Izumi loss her strength in her grip. Thankfully, the ball had finally used up all of its momentum and harmlessly floated into the air before a striker from the second team, a blonde named Shentoff smashed the ball into the other court, this time with only a human amount of strength. The game had finally returned to normalcy as I dived with cold sweat from watching that intense battle, to intercept the ball from reaching the ground.
***
Wiping my sweat off with a towel I brought from the apartment, I looked around to see everyone else doing the same. This sight... This sight of everyone wiping off their sweat...
"Hey! You're thinking of something dirty aren't you!" (Myuu)
"No... ~"
Her brown pigtails trembled in anger, though her expression betrayed her motive of teasing me. Her lips shivered under the pressure of the urge to laugh, creasing and curving up at the ends like an awkward smile. By the way, we were all wearing casual clothing that was sold in the city of this underground labyrinth.
Since there was a very small population of magical girls here, most of the shops accept custom orders as well to fit our sizes. This added touch of casual wear made the scenery much better, I could feel my cheeks get sore from all the creepy smiling as I gawk at the others. Fortunately, they were all focused on wiping off their sweat and only Myuu and 2 others noticed.
The 2 didn't care much about the staring as genderbent magical girls were incredibly rare anyway. With being only 10% of the population, they assumed everyone in class was a girl or forgot. Well I don't know, but they didn't seem to mind much and continued with their own things. Despite that, one of them walked up to me with a strange smile on her face. It was rumi, her black was tied up into a bun at the back with strands poking out of it in all directions like spikes. Her bangs at the front were cut at a certain angle but retained a smooth cut that showed the amount of effort she put into her hair. They were also glossy and sometimes reflected light into the eyes of a magical girl from the other team, blinding them for a free spike.
Technically it was cheating, but the rules weren't thought with this much depth to counter that, so we just played with it. The other teams tarted activating their magic combat dresses to aid their game, which also isn't against the rules. Since these were casual clothes and not the original combat dresses, turning them into magical combat dresses with magical particles actually made weakened versions of the originals. As such, there wasn't much risk to activating their dresses, though wearing a dress while playing volleyball can also be inconvenient.
A distant blast of intense pressure could be heard as smoke flooded into the underground labyrinth like a tsunami. A sea of flames spread across the main buildings holding research in the middle of the city as subsequent blasts resounded throughout the city. It was the same attacker, a manipulator of flames. Usually a fire using magical girl wouldn't be able to output this much destruction, our classmates that wielded elemental powers were proof of that. This was something beyond a basic skill, it's a powerful foe.
Unlike last time, we were fortunately prepared. The top of some buildings were reinforced with ruin magic by the architectural magical girls to guard against elemental magic. Guards were doing more disproportionate shifts, with some time periods making the city vulnerable on purpose to lure the enemy, other times to guard it so tightly that it's enough to deter them and guide them into attacking at the desired time. Defensive turrets were also set up with hundreds of warrior type magical girls looking out for the perpetrators.
The previous attack taught just that, the weakness of peace. Peace was never an option, staying vigilant at all times and preparing ambushes were. They stole food supplies last time, I can't imagine what else they need with that extensive power. But I won't let them go back so easily. I haven't perfected this technique with my limited magic so it may be a bit noisy, but with the chaos of magical warfare, it should be able to assassinate some.
At the next moment, bright light converges at one spot in the middle of the base. Standing on the rooftop was the enemy. She had smooth black hair that reached her back, while on the inside was a fiery pinkish tint that shone like the blazing sun under that bright light. That bright light... Was coming from a miniature sun above that strange figures head. She had pauldron, gauntlets and waist armour asking to samurai armour, though the rest of her body was in a black body suit that fit closely to her figure, along with metallic boots that clang with every step.
Using a skill of some sort, she echoed her voice like a megaphone to announce her intent.
"Cower under the warrior of the sun. You despicable subjects of the Eye God, will experience salvation upon contact with the sun's merciful heat. I won't be as merciful though, die." (Celistane Frey, Rising sun Knight order, Zenith Commander)
The sun continued to grow brighter and brighter, until there was nothing but a sea of white.