*
"Alright, I'll go back to my post. You guys enjoy your vacation" (Border guard, Claire)
Leaving behind dust, her figure vanished off into the far off distance at speeds unthinkable for her dainty appearance. Even if our bodies had transfigured into such forms to channel magical particles easier, it's still weird after all to see a girl with such thin limbs do superhuman tasks.
"Let's start by staking out at night. Though I just have a feeling, that they're already aware of us. We should be cautious at all times."
"Un." (Myuu)
***(Next night)
"Should we use the same method of luring them out?" (Myuu)
"... No, it seems they've already found us."
Reflected under the moon light was an unfamiliar silhouette that was shorter than us by a head. She wore a multilayered coat with the outer most being pink while the rest were the colours of the rainbow. She also wore a black pleated skirt while her limbs held snow white metallic greaves. Her hair was shoulder length and curved inwards with a pink hue. Her irises glowed red, making her position very easy to make out.
It was hard to deduce if she was making her eyes glow with magic, out of confidence or folly. If she had the strength to back it up, intimidation would be a reasonable strategy. But if it was just a front, it would be pointless as it made finding their position far easier. A voice resounded matching that of a child's pitch, it was high and uncanny coming from such a fearsome being. As a magical girl who hasn't revealed her skills, it was like staring at a small monster of untold violence. We don't know her capabilities, as such we fear the worst by human nature.
"You... Are not my friends, right? Naughty girls like you deserve a punishment! Right? " (Paridia)
Summoning vines through the concrete ground, they rose to impale Paridia from the left, right and back. But they get repelled as if hitting an invisible wall.
" First skill [Bountiful treasure trove]. "(Paridia)
".... There's no wall there... Not even one made of magic. The attacks just aren't connecting, it's more like the vines are actually held in place than blocked."
"..... Seems like it, I can't guess its mechanics, but it's better to fire at King range for now. In the worst case, your body freezes when you get near. " (Myuu)
" Alright. "
As per her instructions, I kept myself at a safe distance to shoot wind blades, they would usually crash onto something to cause more violent wind but they only vanished without a trace. It further proved that she was not using a barrier skill or technique, and was instead using a skill that affected her enemy's attacks.
Usually such a thing is bypassed through physical means, since a skill that absorbs magic attacks are usually weak to physical ones. But that was only for the common low class skills that see not enough practice. Barriers are hard to practice with, since they require an attack to hit it.
As she moves closer to us, the frozen attacks also move along with her. They stayed in their positions relative to her, so the vines and wind blades that she stopped are still pointed at her. But what was her goal in coming closer? Don't tell me...
She unleashes a gruesome smile unfit for a little girl, her grey aura leaked out of her body and began to dance to the wind. Each breeze that passes by fondles her neck, her hair merely gets blown back by even the strongest storm I whipped up. It worked like a filter. When I shot my wind attacks, most of it is stopped and a small amount gets through. This is so she can still receive oxygen and continue fighting at a comfortable position.
She gets tired of walking towards us, her chest slightly heaved up and down as she tried her best to conceal it. She was unexpectedly tired from only walking towards us for 5 minutes.
"Second skill, [Noble vapor beam]." (Paridia)
A large dark purple beam shot forth from her extended index finger pointed at us. We split into the left and right to evade the massive energy attack, leaving ourselves unscathed. A red light covers the surrounding buildings and myself in an instant, and for Myuu it was a blue light. It was only coloured light, but it was likely a signal for a stronger attack from her skill. The problem was guessing which one she would fire her attack at.
"KAORI, DODGE!" (Myuu)
Her first skill was put into effect and vines wrapped around to form protective walls between us and the little magical girl. I leaped forward out of the range of the red light, to see 2 massive beams of energy wrought destruction onto the surroundings. Thankfully, Myuu had dodged as well and made a sound judgement. Under the stress of the red light, I was forced to wonder which one would fire an attack, the red light or the blue light. Myuu must have healed her own mind to resist the fed suggestion from the blue light.
Thinking about it, the red and blue lights were redundant. What would be the point of having them when they warn your opponent's of attacks in advance? It worked similarly to her first skill, it gave us a suggestion and tricked us into staying still in front of her beam attack. It was quite terrifying when you think about it, anyone would need a healer or to deal with her. Even if they did have a healer, the healer must recognise the psychological attack.
Myuu was simply densely coated in her first skill's healing energy. She was about to use it to manifest her alpha armour technique, and coincidentally cured herself when she was going to make a helmet. The enemy's first skill likely acted on the same principal, manifesting automatic attack recognition and giving suggestions to the magical particles so the attack stop in place.
They only stop attacks moving towards her, they don't stop the opposite flow of magical particles. Attacks coming from her, or her beam attacks would stop working. It was a mere experiment to see if her skill could recognise my own attack. I used my first skill to reverse the gradient of the wind, pulling oxygen out of her protective little bubble. It was a success that she failed to recognise it, therefore couldn't defend against it. She even start breathing heavier, so her body subconsciously felt uncomfortable and urged her to walk around.
Unfortunately walking around completely negates my attack. My attack was coordinate based, it didn't home in on the enemy automatically. It worked on fixed boundaries that I set up, if not I may cause a destructive typhoon one day or affect the monsoon too much. So it had a limited boundary to prevent such things, where it goes back to normal after the battle is over and the magical particles stop being excited.
Since she got more oxygen by walking around, she recovered quickly. It was imperative to continue silently pressuring her, using my attacks more roughly to suck out as much oxygen as possible. Even as she moved. It costed a lot of magical particles, but she got so tired she couldn't walk anymore. Making things easier for me again.
More beams of light emerged to preemptively stun us before unleashing those destructive energy attacks, we would have to run and dodge those lights as the fight continued. We were in the middle of an urban area where those attacks were indiscriminately wreaking destruction all around. Holes formed in wall and roads are gouged out as we kept evading her attacks. At this moment I had successfully removed all the oxygen in the area around her.
Typically, stronger magical girls tend to be able to substitute the need for oxygen with magical particles. That meant that as long as her well wasn't empty, she would still be able to function. Myuu after testing her attacks over and over on the opponent magical girl had roughly deduced the range of her defensive barrier, before surrounding it with vines and trees from barely outside the barrier. As the vines were packed with magical particles, it also distorted her sense of them for a bit.
It was the perfect moment for me to close the distance. "First skill standard technique, reigning drill cross punch." With sheer force, she had caused the vines to burst open from within, right before I connected my fist to her-... Barrier. Or rather, it was a set territory rather than a protective barrier, as such it merely stops attacks by freezing them mid air. But that didn't mean attacks couldn't be launched from here. At the absolute edge of her set defensive boundary, the drilling wind surrounding my fist was launched into her collar bone, shattering her left shoulder blade.
Her small body was launched flying a metre into the air before tumbling down like a bouncy ball from the recoil. Before we were aware of it, her body had vanished.
"Tch, she's gone."
"Looks like she wasn't alone. They were likely testing our strength instead of coming at us seriously." (Myuu)
"She was in our sight too... Careful, it could be her third skill."
A soft whistling sound whipped past our vicinity as blood rushes up my throat. My vision began to shake, I quickly substitute my oxygen deficiency with magical particles. I would say only the top of C-grade and above could pull something like this off. As with getting our magical girl effectiveness grade to go up, if our well or will grade goes up as well our magical partial manipulation improves.
I was faintly able to manipulate magical particles consciously at C-grade with my first skill. You could say that now that my skills have grown, I could recognise the gradient of magical particles and execute precise manipulation with my first skill. Similar to my passive radar, its utility may be above that of those magical girls in the same effectiveness grade as me.
I look down with a migraine beginning to act up, a thin and sharp edge had pierced through my kidney. It was pitch black like the night and it reflected not a shred of light. It was like looking at a drawing instead of reality, a child had simple drawn black over all existing colour giving it an opaque and unfitting look. It looked to be outside reality, giving both my body and wound discomfort. It was not a natural element of the world.
"Solidified darkness huh. Looks like it caught you by surprise." (Myuu)
"... That's natural. No matter what, magic or non-magic the surrounding magical particles would usually get disturbed. That sets off our instincts to defend. This one... Managed to avoid that. I can not comprehend it. If it was simply moving faster than my perception, it would have disturbed the surrounding magical particles after I notice I was wounded. But no change. "
When a magical girl uses magic, she takes in magical particles from the surrounding and into her well. The well was like a tank for magical particles, the well is what fuels magic and skills. Magic uses magical particles inside the well rather than outside, because the ones inside have been integrated into the magical girl's magic signature.
The magic signature is a microscopic pattern of movement for magical particles, set in a pattern unique for each magical girl for immediate use. It was like how food had to be digested to be used by the body. And when in use, they enter the 'excited state' which is brimming with energy and erratic movement, causing a disturbance in the surrounding magical particles in the air. Even in this erratic movement, when inspected closer the magic signature still persists until it is no longer in the 'excited state', which is when all the energy has been used.
Controlling these particles require refined technique and skill in magical particle manipulation. It is around the higher end of C-grade and above where magical girls begin to have enough skill to find new uses of magical particles outside fueling their skills. I had practically been forcing myself to manipulate them since the start, since my body kept getting injured it saw a lot of use.
Now, you're telling me someone has more skill than me. Beyond the level of talent. Beyond the level of prodigy. This is the level of being transcendent, it escaped the realms of common sense. Of course this would all hold up unless it was caused by a skill. A highly specific and rare skill that was specialised for this function. Like the numerous impossible magic phenomena that reside in human imagination, an equal amount of skills that match these things exist. Skills preside over common sense.
"This kind of super specialised technique... It must be a skill."
"Yeah... I just blocked some. They seem to be in the shape of spears." (Myuu)
"Hahah... You're equally monstrous..."
They were able to bypass my magical particle perception simply by not disturbing the magical particles in the environment. But Myuu was able to block them? It became obvious how when one saw the ground. It was covered with vines, grass and various other plants.