*(Kaori)
.... Neli is not here, did she get defeated? The enemy's tone sounds weird, in the best case she was annoyed. It meant that we've impeded her once more. Now that she's here, I don't need to hide any more of my power.
"Magia retainment 90%"
Flying through the air with my highest speed, I swung a horizontal axe kick that she quickly blocked with her elbow by folding her left hand. Folding my left leg that had struck her left hand in that moment, I used my skills to support me against inertia and maneuver my body smoothly through mid air, by folding my left leg I brought my arms closer to strike her. This entire set of movements was continuous and pulled off as fast as humanly possible.... Well, magicalgirly possible? Not being human has its drawbacks huh...
Well, this is where Magia retainment finally evens the playing field. Using 90% of my well to enhance my body using my first skill as a proxy, it would take the enemy to use a substantial amount of their own well to match up even if they are A grade. And I've been training, despite being told I was in a bottleneck by Myuu, I could feel at least a 10% improvement in my well.
It was excruciatingly slow progress, or maybe there wasn't progress and I was simply acclimating to this body. At the very least, I feel better than ever. Perhaps it's because I use Magia retainment when I sleep? I wanted to make sure I wasn't vulnerable when I rested, it was possible it sped up my training exponentially instead.
The hooded figure stood back after being thrown around so roughly. It walked limply, her dark green emerald hair swaying along with her footsteps.
"Wait Kaori! Don't make physical contact with her!" (Barius)
Side stepping to make some distance, I noticed she was right behind where I stood just now... Short range teleportation? She could have teleported and used her skill on me at any time, but the fact that she only used it now during battle, meant that her range was short. However its range changes nothing. I now have to watch out when she escapes my sight.
..... Gone! I leap forward and turned around, shooting wind blades as I do so. She dodges the projectiles with ease, though they managed to distract her attention for a moment before Barius shot water blades from behind her. She teleports once more, leaving the water blades to approach me instead. Jumping over the water blades, I did a backhand slash with a newly materialised vacuum blade.
***(?)
".... Shouldn't we help?" (?1)
"Hey, I've been watching her longer than you have. She's capable of disposing this one, she needs to learn or she'll be in trouble in the future. Furthermore, Barius is there." (?2)
"I guess.... I can't go against you anyway, the information you hold is too valuable. Makes me want to kill you and spoon it out of your brain." (?1)
"... No need to get so hostile, I can make sure you'll regret it for the rest of your life. I've done this countless times already, of course I've prepared something in case you go rogue... "(?2)
" Hmph, sorry for my inexperience then. Since we're no longer needed, let's go to the next one. "(?1)
"... Jokes aside, you need to watch this too. "(?2)
"...? ...I'll try my best. "(?1)
***(Kaori)
"Domain technique, pin lock. I severely reduced the amount of places she could teleport, thought you have to watch out for blocks of time frozen air as well. I'm sure you can do that easily. " (Barius)
"Tch, domain technique, verify tempest."
I place my palms over my waist, stretching my shoulder joints and elbow joints while I was at it. Taking in a deep breath, I calmed my heart down to think about things calmly. I should use my vacuum blade, it has the necessary reach to let me forgo fist fighting. It was also the weapon I am most used to after using my fist, I can extend it when I need to too.
"Damn, making me walk..." (?)
After a while, the hooded figure finally showed up once more. This time she was directly in front of me. I had used my own domain technique to send all the air around me in a frenzy, this way I knew where the areas of time stop are when tracking the gradient values that are abruptly end at exactly 0. I begin my stride towards her as well, my blade ready in hand.
Once we reached a certain distance, I trusted it forward, tearing the surrounding air with it, resulting in a loud bass sound as air filled up the space I tore through. By swing my vacuum sword fast enough, it looks like I can make a vacuum in the surroundings too. Was this a result of my well growing larger?
She dodges it but barely as it grazed her side, forming a tear in her large hoodie. Swinging it towards her from close proximity at her side, she teleports back to where she was at just now. She might not have the capability to detect which places in the air have been stopped in time, so she may have been using her teleport skill only to have it cancel out like an extinguished fire,and Barius freezing time acts as the extinguisher.
... Now that I think about it, I can create a pseudo time stop, so won't I also be able to recreate this? Well, the volume of particles I can freeze or move is quite limited though. I'll get there I guess, if I were to make a hypothesis, the conversion rate from magical particles to phenomena created is horrible for my second skill but highly efficient for Barius' time stop.
The faint purple aura around me flares up as a single step accelerates my body, I twist my muscles to bring all my strength out and pour it onto my extended vacuum blade. She teleports once more, but she arrives at where I had first leaped from right behind me, as a precaution I had turned my body around to throw my vacuum sword as soon as she vanished. With these teleported types, it's always behind their enemy. Thinking about it, being right behind an enemy forces them to turn 180 degrees no matter which way they turn, forcing them to take the most amount of time to turn their head.
This time I turned the rest of my body around. The vacuum blade struck straight through her chest, if anyone saw it they could say it went through her heart, but under that hoodie we may never know. And just as my cruel expectations struck true, she had dodged by lowering her entire body or teleporting lower. This caused the blade to gouge out a part of the flesh above her left collar bone. Summoning a new vacuum blade, the previous one dissipated back into magical particles.
'.... I didn't even need to help that much. Did the gap between us close up in any amount at all? Or was she still stronger than me? No... The last time I checked, it was my complete victory.
She was too weak to deal with that Illnoian invader and her mind even broke. Even as a rival it was too much for my heart to watch, so I offered solace and told her it was okay to run away. Now that I think about it, I can never deduce if what I did was the right thing. The whole situation was too messed up for either choice to be better than the other.
I'm just glad. I'm so damn glad..... That she stood back up once more... If that magical girl obsessed freak had given up on what was essentially his entire being, I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know how to feel, how to move on, how to live... ' (Barius)
Periodically tendrils of water would rise through the cracks in the ground to ambush the hooded figure, prompting her to teleport to safety. It was too odd and vague to describe since teleporters were usually unpredictable, but I think Barius and I were developing new fighting styles as the our battle progressed. We were adapting to the erratic positioning of our enemy bit by bit while gradually cutting them down into pieces.
After a while we eventually killed her, when she sustained too much damage she also became more and more careless. I released the vacuum blade back into my well as I took a deep sigh of relief. Relaxing my body at long last, I released my Magia retainment as well. With this, the enemy should finally stop mind controlling a portion of Barius... I can finally stop being on guard all the time!
"Oblivion Magia, dawn of the universe... FUCK!! T.... There was more than one of them!?! " (Barius)
Just as she activated her ultimate technique, Barius was too late. 3 hooded figures had appeared just as I let my guard down... Each of their palms held physical contact with my body. Their skills have already activated. Usually one could use their skill from a distance and omit physical contact, however a magical girl's magic defense can ward off the skills of others, it was the 'will' stat.
The will stat in the board of stats right above well dictated the efficiency of magic conversion from magical particles to volume or potency of skill phenomena produced, as well as the individual's defense against the skills of others. In other words skills would work on humans effortlessly from a distance, but if one wishes to attack another magical girl it would require physical contact as that was the only way to breach their magic defense other than brute forcing through with magical particle volume.
Well, it was fine. Even if I am empty, no maybe it was because I was exactly devoid of past memories, devoid of a childhood, devoid of normality that I cling so desperately to my own ego. I have faith in my own will. It's fine Barius, you can release your Oblivion Magia. I'll deal with this. You just watch. Watch this magical girl, 'Kaori' win.
Title: Kaori, ruler of ego (Magia Retainment)
Magical girl effectiveness level: B(A)
Perimeters:
- Physical: A(S)
- endurance: B(A)
- speed: A
- will: B(A)
- well: B
As the dark starry sky returned back to evening, time resumed and the air flowed once more.
"Magia retainment, overdrive 90%"
"Tricomposite technique - [Alias that knows no name]" (?)
I could feel it, something foreign creeping into my mind. I think i finally understand the effects of their skill and what has been happening. How atrociously nasty, it looks like the cult... The progenitor has a dreadful and distasteful array of psychological skills, and even some form of clone creation skill to mass produce these A grade hooded figures. Of course, if she had someone that could erase memories it would make sense that someone with an even more cruel skill like the hooded figures would get mass cloned.
It looks like... She grafts a piece of her consciousness onto another person. She wasn't directly mind controlling them, she was fusing herself with them. It was no wonder her memory erasure was much more precise and more discriminate than the magical girl I fought at Central. There was only so much she could erase by replacing their memory with her conscious, so usually it was something incredibly important.
It looks like they use many of them so that they can slowly chip away at their opponent's ego, reducing them into empty husks.... Did Kaori ever see this coming? The lack of memories was just enough space for these 3,but...
'Despair, despair. Kill yourself, kill yourself. You deserve it for killing Amony and everyone else. Your despicable being is untolerable, you should die. The humans would never accept you with how monstrous you are. Myuu would never forgive you, you broke her moral precept. '
They were so noisy, they were so ugly. Why's there 3 overlapping voices? At this point they may as well have spoken over even my thoughts and driven me insane... Why am I still okay then? They fused themselves to me, but... They can't control anything. How weak, how arrogant for them to get inside someone as great as me.
As time resumed after being released from Barius' grasp, 3 heads flew off and the voices quieten. Without the originals there, their tethered consciousnesses on their victims don't disappear, but they become less whole. They lose their connection or their lifeline. Think about, to the attached consciousness, they basically feel like a newborn who just became an orphan. They're still there, they're just dormant now.
"... Kaori, they're still here. We need to find a way to get rid of them, if the enemy puts new ones in, they may get active again and drive us insane." (Barius)
I'm glad to see there was someone so reliable. It looks like Barius wasn't useless after all, for all the talk of being a superior and shit, she wasn't pulling her weight until now. Was it just noisy? Has it been painful for you? If you feel relieved, I'll still make use of you. You wouldn't see rest.
"Let's go to Central and kill the progenitor. Having the exact same skills? Cloning? The progenitor is the only one I could suspect to have such powers."
"... I'll find Neli. The others will be able to take care of this place, so don't worry about it. They've all grown really strong!" (Barius)
My expression loosens for a moment, before a smile blossomed. Really...