*
Urgh.... I can't break free from the chains... I struggled and shook so vigorously but nothing came out of it... I was frozen still. It was like my mind no longer had influence over my body... But I don't think she had mind manipulations skills paired with her water skills... This was something else...
A second effect? Her second skill, that's why she called it a compound technique. She combined the uses of both skills to pull this off. I also had compound techniques, super hollow propulsion and Magia retainment were compound techniques of my 2 existing skills.
In the propulsion, it required precise control beyond the manipulation of gradients, after the magical explosion caused by the first skill's gradient change, the second skill redirects that force into the desired direction. This was so I could control the direction of where I'm boosting myself towards.
The retainment technique was a large maintenance effort of keeping my activated magical particles inside my body with my first skill while my second skill acts as a emergency barrier that keeps them in.
Was this power the same as earlier? In any case I realised I was over thinking it. The point of the chains was to pierce our magic barrier so it would be easier to influence us with her magic. Just think about it, with so much magic power inside of ourselves and outside, we magical girls can easily cast our magic at a distance.
So why not use our skills inside our opponent's bodies? It sure would be far more efficient. This was when I don't know if the law of magical girls step in, but a magic barrier shows up and prevents our magic from getting into the bodies of other magical girls. This barrier was a natural barrier every single magical girl possessed. It was the will stat. In other words, the chains only brought her true attack inside our magical barriers. Similarly to in Oblivion Magia, there was only one answer. Time stop.
If time has stopped, why was I able to continue thinking? Well, Magia retainment. I activated it, to keep circulating magical particles in my body forming something like a second magical barrier against external interference. But it was something like a wall of sand bags, the magical particles was the sand and the technique the bag. It meant that it will hold up but if a strong force struck it may collapse.
This will cost a lot, but that's what Magia retainment is for. Full body second skill, [The gap of impermanence is a cage]. Frankly speaking, my body was still frozen in time. But with this, I can artificially move my body through frozen time with magic. My second skill was based on movement manipulation, so I just had to apply it on my body and the air around it to go around her time stop.
"Technique, spacial acceleration." (Neli)
Looks like she also had something up her sleeve. With the both of us bypassing her time stop, her second skill had become useless. Though we've slowed down a whole lot. If it was a battle of attrition, she would be on the advantageous side. She could evade our attacks with her higher speed and wait out for our Wells to dry up. Regardless, we had one more person than her. This time, the both of us rushed at her front. I noticed that when I got close to Neli, my speed had increased by a lot and my fist struck Barius square on her blocking left forearm. Her right arm was holding Neli's fist in her palm.
While my movement magic was localised to my body and the air around me... She was doing the opposite of her gravity magic and reducing it. With less gravity acting on the space around her, the particles were able to act more freely and move about. Despite it being limited, she was able to speed up herself and the space around her to overcome the timestop.
"Neli, our techniques can amplify each other. You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"... Yeah. Let's do it." (Neli)
With a slight smirk on her face, it seemed that she was entertained by the thought she read from my face. I couldn't help but feel excited too as my heart began to beat faster. After all, from the fight earlier it seems that despite the stat and combat ability difference, we were quite evenly matched. It was akin to fighting against an enemy with 2 of ourselves. Maybe others would think it was lame, but it sounds pretty cool to me.
"FULL POWER! Magia retainment! 90%."
In this stat, I could use 90% of my magical particles enhancing my body and wouldn't lose them. A deep purple aura sticks to my skin as it waft off my pores and drifts around. Even if it looked like the excess magical particles were leaking out this was a deceptive measure. The magical particles outside my body, their purple hue given by how the movement of my magic signature bends light, is still very much under my control.
"Absolute technique, localised spacial acceleration squared. Compound technique with absolute technique and normal technique, self-propelling differential movement." (Neli)
... A type of gradient manipulation, but this was her own method through special external means. She's not directly changing the gradient but doing something that changes it so drastically, in my own vision she had simply vanished but I can sense her with my passive. After all such an absurd change in gradients in my near vicinity is like a blaring siren in my skull with how crazy she's sending the values up and down.
Even in this full power state of Magia retainment, it would take all I have to keep up with her location... But doing this, she wouldn't be able to see her own surroundings. It also burns her well at a pace not different from a final skill or a full activity Oblivion Magia. One could say it was a last ditch effort. As much as it was hard to control... She was getting closer to Barius. Occasionally she would slow down to observe her surroundings, but these intervals were extremely small and beyond her normal movement speed.
Stop losing focus. I crouch down, lowering my center of gravity before using my legs like a spring. After the first step, I enter the state of my maximum speed, Neli was now more visible but still showed up as a blurry flash in my vision. I need to guide the enemy to her, with all the acceleration that she is gathering her simple punch would deal a lot of damage. Without another moment to lose, a drilling sound screeched out as a dark green figure began to take form.
Barius froze the time of the space around her which stopped Neli in her tracks, while Neli used her high speed to form a drill with her fingers. She was currently trying to drill through frozen space.
"Leave this to me! You attack her!"
Reaching the frozen air in another step, I smashed through it with my right fist. While her ability was to indeed stop time, mine was to directly move things. In such a case, quality was more preferable than quantity as my first skill may be too weak to move things. It was rather indirect in this application, so my second skill was more suitable. Like smashing through the fragile glass of a car window, my right fist made contact for an instant before her magical particles combusted everywhere and dispersed.
Neli proceeded to reach through and grabbed her face with her arms before I froze the both of them with my movement skill.
"What did you think? Of my own version of time stop. At first I could only cover a thin layer of my body with it since my body was trained to do that. But then I decided to practice with more and more volume and now its enough for 2 whole people.
The only catch is that I have to fulfill certain requirements. Compound technique, Pseudo freeze.
You see I have some suspicions. I'm not so naive to believe everything you tell me. If you wanted to fight me, why go through all the trouble when you can just attack me? "
"..."(Both)
Nodding to myself after observing their deeply gazing eyes, I continued.
" I think I'm beginning to get the gist of it. First things first, you didn't want to get your hands dirty but things didn't go out the way you wanted huh. I don't know what you're attempting Barius, but I'll need you to abolish the tax. Or I can kill you and do it myself. Can you feel it? "
".....?!?!!! " (Barius)
I slap a knee in hearty laughter, it stirred my stomach somewhat and drove tears to the edges of my eyes. I haven't felt something so satisfying in a long while. Somehow I had seized control over the entire situation in an instant by imitating my opponent, while adding my very own twist. It's nothing different from what I've done before, but from another angle it was this detrimental huh?
"HAHAHA HAHA, HAHAHA HAHAH!"
Wiping away the drops of tears, I squatted down and rested my arms on my knees. Neli is looking at me in confusion, her eyes swim around calmly but not in panic. Meanwhile, Barius was the complete opposite, her iris was spinning like a top.
"Listen, my power is over movement. It's not something as simple as gravity or time stop. When I say stop, it stops you understand? The broader the skill effect, the higher authority it has over others. Even if the phenomena created is similar, the one most directly affecting will win out of having more control. In other words, I have a high concentration of control with my second skill, and the steeper gradient created as a result is stopped by my first skill like a giant plug.
Barius, no matter how much you struggle your magical particles can't escape your body. It's like my Magia retainment, but not only your magic but even your body cannot move. Neli, you may seem like an ally but something so convenient is unlikely to exist. You could be sent to get under my skin. So I will restrain the both of you in the meantime.
Partial release. "
" Puhah! "(Both)
They desperate gasp for air despite being high ranking magical girls. I suppose their attachment to being able to breath is still present based on them previously being ordinary humans. I on the other hand... Had lost my senses early on. If I were to say, the isolation being this disabled is more suffocating than losing oxygen.
"Kugh! Kgh! I... I've been fighting for a month. Barius had become like this since a month, the tax was a real ploy from her. A way to exploit the citizens with fear. You just happen to come here she recognised you. So I thought you were her ally until we talked. You blamed the tax on me just like how I said she would use me as a scapegoat. You are an unexpected factor that came out of nowhere, so she tried to coddle up to you and make you an ally. " (Neli)
She spat out as she spoke in desperate fervour, her face getting more flushed and irritated as time passed by. She didn't seem to be lying or at least I couldn't tell if she did. But what gave most of it away was Barius' facial expression. It was a simple frustrated frown, like a kid who got caught doing mischief.
"Do you have anything to say?"
"..." (Barius)
"For me, I'm just disappointed. Myuu told me you weren't this type of person. If you changed this much, I wonder how the others did."
"..." (Barius)
"HUH?! HOW MUCH DID THEY CHANGE? HUH?"
I kicked her face hard, causing her body to crash on the ground in a rough tumble. Did I get this angry before? Or was I not angry enough? Even I didn't understand. I thought I knew myself the most, that if I was that pissed off I would keep silence while glaring at my enemy. When did I have the tendency to shout? Even as I looked at her crestfallen face right now, I was still feeling irritated. Because she was looking confused. Because she didn't have an answer herself.
What the hell, if you don't know what to do you could at least tell me your problems... So I could help solve them. Isn't that what rivals... Friends are for? Maybe that was why I was so frustrated. Despite saying she she trusted me at the very start, now she wasn't willing to ask for help. There was clearly something wrong. Perhaps something she couldn't say. Maybe that was bothering me. To the point of getting frustrated and unable to control my own fit.
I lifted all the restrains. As I did so, Neli pounced on her feet and launched a strike at my face.
' BANG!!! '
"!?!"
I didn't dodge since I didn't feel much change in the gradients. It was a weak hit without any use of magic... To think something this normal would catch me offguard. Not that it mattered. As it was a normal punch, there was no damage. It was normal for others to feel anger too, so I took the full brunt if it for her to feel better. I technically restrained and choked her with my magic. The asphyxiation most likely didn't feel pleasant.
On the other hand, Barius sat there with her head facing the ground and a craned down neck. She didn't try to fight or anything. Maybe she knew I could freeze her in an instant, or more things were simply flowing through her mind now that she failed. Looks like people really have their own reasons.