*
Most of the wall facing the hallway had been destroyed, the transformed magical girls broke holes into the walls that were now extremely fragile against their attacks. They had a miniscule quantity of magic defense enchanted on it, but the magical girl's gathered here had enough power to bring them down anyway. Destroying the walls allowed more magical particles to flow in, allowing more people to transform. Soon, a third of the people here had already done so.
It was odd, it made their skin crawl. The air felt cold, though it wasn't physically cold. Something threatening was coming closer. Smooth taps like piano keys grew slightly louder, more perceivable for the rest. 'click-clack click-clack', if anything, the sound of only one pair of shoes heading their way indicated their opponent's strength. Anyone of them could hear it from a hundred metres away, and as it got closer they realised the sound was coming from the top.
'BOOOOM!!', the shockwaves shrieked as they reverberated into the ground. In the centre of the room was more thick fog, though it was dust instead of smoke this time. As the dirty brown particles drifted away, it revealed forest green cloth. It was shaped like a military uniform, boasting a rank with many coils and a single star on top of it between her shoulders and neck. Medals that shone in every colour adorned her chest, leaving no room for pockets that usually accompany a normal uniform.
A jet black hat that had solid rods embedded from the inside, giving the cap a fixed pentagonal shape, while a flat and tough handle stuck off to the side to decorate her head. An ominous jet black fog wrapped itself around her body, granting her clothing a malicious black highlight that stood out to the eye. Even through the dust cloud, her outlines could already be seen from outside. Black belts coil around her wrist, ankles and below her torso. Her dark forest green top barely reached her hips and were secured by the belt at the same time, her leggings bearing the same tone of green were baggy.
Her black hair swayed in the black aura that spread in a radius of 3 metres, her fringe and locks were all swept to the back and tied into a pony tail, additional white ribbons adorned her hair to secure up the strands not tied into the ponytail. Her iris was as pitch dark as her hair and aura, her arms folded over themselves as she spoke.
The tension became palpable during her speech as most of the kidnapped magical girls came to realise the situation.
"... You were left alive on purpose. Surrender yourself now, or consider yourself disposed. Your country has abandoned you. Help will not alive, and you will not win against me. If you cease this foolery now and you may still live... Semi-normal lives. " (?)
"... You need soldiers huh. Is that why you kidnap us? "(Myuu)
" Kidnap is a strong word. More like collected. "(?)
'BAAAAAANGGGG!! '
A harsh wind creeps over the room after a destructive clashing noise rang out. It was loud enough to rival the earlier explosions in the hallway, a trivial difference being that it didn't cause secondary explosions. Before anyone had noticed, at a speed beyond most of the magical girls in the room, one of them, Kaorin, had thrown a punch. It pushed against the black aura with all its might, causing a surreal scene of a person pushing against nothing, since the aura was completely transparent it looked like air.
Jumping back a few metres, the ground where Kaorin was standing became a small crater, as if it had been cleanly gouged out. The surface of the crater was rather smooth, so much so that it reflected some of the bright ceiling lights to cause a gleaming effect.
"Good instincts. I could use someone like you. I'm Richovik Urstl Frena, one of the 8 great generals of the Ilnoia administration. You know what's an S-grade magical girl, right?" (Frena)
".... I've fought S-grades before. I'm not scared of you. "(Kaorin)
A tinge of exasperation scanned across her face, a split second later her composure had returned with not a single trace of the former. Her mind worked like an engine to find the optimal step, this was an odd occurrence. Usually any normal magical girl, even those that were grade-A would immediately cower when she revealed her grade. There was no exception until now, it practically felt like a law. Perhaps she was overthinking it, her compliment made the one standing before her get in and over her own head.
"Do you really want to test it out? I can slaughter everyone in this room. The only reason I forgave the killing of my guards was because if you were able to kill them, you'd made much more promising soldiers. Fine, you'll be the demonstration." (Frena)
Immediately kneeling, Kaorin took a defensive position as she crossed her arms and held them at a 45 degree angle, all the while adding layers of her own magic to form a shield. '1st skill activate [Hollow calamity], grant a shield that would hold. 2nd skill unlocked [The gap of impermanence is a cage].'
As if waiting for all of Kaorin's preparations to finish, without a delay, a giant mass of darkness materialised over Kaorin's head. They unleashed a pressure like no other, even those that weren't participating in the battle could feel it from afar, a few magical girls have started to kneel under it alone. It felt like a large mountain was pressing down on her, the black mass though pushing against her barrier was burning up like fire and moving in a convection cycle like magma in the earth's mantle. Blocky chunks of it would float up at the sides and collapse into the middle, never to be seen again. Then ne wblocky chunks formed at the bottom.
The pressure was completely from Frena's magical strength alone, it already contained an extremely dense quantity of magical particles and power, yet it was being controlled by frena to continuously push downwards upon Kaorin. It was slowly crossing over the barrier as Kaorin slipped onto the floor and laid down, it inched ever closer like a viscous substance such as slime. It continued to wriggle and reach closer to Kaorin's face and arms, all while the user of the magic, Frena casually stood by not moving an inch.
The only S-rank that Kaorin and actually fought was an anti-magic physical type called Ray, Ray was essentially too confident of her own abilities and didn't believe a half-dead magical girl's attack could finish her off. It was a half-dead magical girl's attack boosted by another half-dead magical girl's magic to always hit its mark.
Since it would hit at the best spot possible and dealt additional damage, there was technically a slight increase in power granted to the attack as well. Normally such perfect hits would not occur in an actual battle, only when a magic like the one used in the battle with Ray or an unnatural talent for hitting weak spots could cause it to happen.
'BOOOM!', an explosion smaller in scale caused smoke to flood the area as tendrils of dark green rained into the centre of the smoke, where Frena was standing. The dark green tendril like things pulsate like living things as they continuously grew and flew into the smoke, as if it would never end.
"Alright, that's enough. We'll surrender and talk to our friend here. She was just on edge since she needed to be transformed due to a medical condition, and you perpetrators took that away from her. Let go of her or you will find that 2 promising forces will be gone. "(Myuu)
"..., I see. I suppose she earns some applause for surviving my attack for quite a few seconds. I think she may even go on longer than some of my soldiers. That is the nature of her skill huh....
Okay, I'll retract the attack. Stay in this room obediently for a day, food will come in a couple hours. If you stay good until next morning, you'll be rewarded with a proper lodging and a new job. "(Frena)
Flicking her index finger, the mass of darkness vanished in an instant. After her job was done, Frena jumped back out through the hole in the ceiling where she came from.
Lifting her body from the ground, Kaorin gagged out the air stuck in her throat due to that ordeal. 'KUGH KUGH Ugh,...'. It dawned on her from such a simple yet groundbreaking experience. Not everyone would be like Ray, Ray was most likely one who awakened some time after The Great Disaster. She didn't have the experience, insight and battle knowledge that Frena had. Frena might have been someone who had been a magical girl for years, possibly decades longer than the rest of them.
In that world where 'disasters' and 'accidents' were common place, just surviving for a long time would prove Frena's undeniable strength. It was suffocating, far worse than the abnormal weight pressed on her jsut now. To know that there were existences so far ahead of her in terms of strength. It blocked out the light like a blanket, and it was doused with cold water to extinguish her motivation. 'What kind of monster was that?.... '
It hurt. It hurt even more to know that she was weak. To know that like back in middle school, there would be those who were stronger and would trample those under them. Living in that labyrinth had soften her, even if she encountered dangerous beings or other magical girls, there would always be those she could reliably call her friends to save her. For even that sliver of friendship to be crushed. Was it not far too cruel? Because now, she would have nothing.
In that tiny window of duress, Kaorin discovered her second skill. It was one especially useful for her defense, unlike the first skill. The first skill was meant more for offense, to form a shield with that, plenty of holes would open up and allow the enemy's attack in. The magical particle cost was also significantly cheaper for the second skill, it costed 1 second worth of casting the first skill but it lasted for the whole duration.
"... I'm sorry I decided that on my own, everyone! " (Myuu)
Before she had noticed, Myuu walked in front of Kaorin to face the crowd from the centre of the room. Objectively speaking, no one would blame her after seeing how close she was to Kaorin. Even in the tiny pocket of time before Frena's arrival, they enjoyed each other's company in this horrible situation. It cheered up most of them a little. Raising their spirits and giving them courage to face the future. Their bright smiles accomplished that much.
Without knowing any of that, Myuu was now bowing her head in front of everyone. Without any awareness, she had garnered their admiration. Disregarding her earnest request, everyone wouldn't be able to object anyway. Arguably, her and Frena were stronger than everyone in the room, since Kaorin was down and exhausted. Even Barius would have a hard time considering Myuu's arsenal of attacks, her first skill had quite a variety of applications.
".... You can stop bowing your head... I should be thanking you. I'm not so dense, I would have died without you intervening." (Kaorin)
".... Kaori~!!!" (Myuu)
Abruptly, Myuu lept in for a hug without warning. Kaorin's body was currently weak from all that just transpired, but she accepted the hug while holding in her pain with a tearful face. She wrapped her left arm around Myuu's back to comfort her and patted her head with her right hand.
".. Yoshi~yosh~... You did good didn't you? You're a good girl~ Was it scary? Sorry I was so weak that we entered that kind of situation. It was probably my fault for just jumping in..." (Kaorin)
Myuu wasn't exactly at the age to cry, it wasn't that she didn't want to. She couldn't cry, it felt like her tear ducts were completely dry after a certain age. Regardless of that, she still held incredible tension and felt fear like a normal person, so she still released all of that as she indulged in Kaorin's warmth. As she did so, she couldn't let Kaorin's words by without reacting to it. She took some offensive to her words.
"... It wasn't your fault! I'm sure some of us wanted to jump her too! It was just that I was too scared, and you braved that danger for me and survived... I'm thankful but don't do something so dumb again." (Myuu)
Her magical girl title was 'Playful Myuu', but the situation took the most energy out of her, and a large toll on her mentally. Right now, she was like a small animal. Things seemed awful and hopeless, but she somehow inspired the motivation to do their best.