***(Present)
"You're unexpectedly dark, your heart is dark, your thinking is dark. From the very start, you account for the worst and don't even try to change the course.
Other than your skill condensing the ambient light, nothing about you suggests that you are a light user... Well, not that mismatching appearances and skills is uncommon.
A magical combat dress is an embodiment of one of the magical girl's aspects. That's why they often reveal if they are short or long range fighters, not that it works 100% of the time. But after living for this long, I think I could at least read a bit of your personality from it. "(Triney)
She flashes a complicated expression, a beautiful mix of pity and distress. But despite that, her movements show absolutely no hesitance. She was just like me in that regard... Having been in the business for this long, even if our emotions are distraught, we would still be able to carry out our jobs with our eyes closed. Killing others, it came with us as we were born in this world, as if it was an implicit rule given by God. Kill or be killed, no matter how you feel you can reflect on it later.
" What the hell do you know?! You!! You get to be stronger than your opponent and live long! You get to eliminate me and live with a sense of safety in your own strength!
Even if you can read how I feel, how would it ever be useful if you can't understand it!! "
I lashed out, powered up by my bottled up fear of death. I might as well insult her while I was it, incite her to get it over with. An uncharacteristic smirk Wells up on Triney's face, her shrine maiden like coat flutters over the pressure created by her aura. Red and white colour her background, revealing her normal combat dress. A coat of pure white, a black button shirt and a belted pair of black suit pants. Her Cyan locks was tied into a ponytail and 2 long and thin curls hung on the left and right sides of her face.
"This will make my job easier. I'll make it quick. [Extremity of the materialistic End]. I'll just say it quick, granting divine enchantments onto my weapons are the least of its effects. There are way more." (triney)
A small out of the ordinary pistol materialised into her palm, she grasps her fingers together, securing her grip and positioning the gun. Her experience and plenty of training allowed her to adjust her aim in an instant, placing its sight dead on my forehead. Staring into the deep abyss of its muzzle, it felt like I forgot to breath for a second as time came to halt.
I... I don't want to die. I know I can't do anything anyway... Yet... I don't want to die... Tears inevitably streamed down my cheeks, bathing my vision in a blurry transient warmth. It looked like the skies grew slightly brighter, the heavens beckoning my arrival. I had used everything in my disposal, my experience, my arsenal and my willpower. Nothing was going to get me out of this...
The fact that I am powerless will remain... But I cannot heed it...
"... Die. Anchor of existence, dawn of one's spirit, uprooted beginning, trace less destiny. Erase it all, [Extremity of the materialistic End]. " (Triney)
Just when I found the will to continue fighting... She decided to finish me off...
I will no longer be Gerald's light, I will no longer be bound by my own wish. I'm sorry Gerald, but perhaps it's time I moved on.
"I am the light that encapsulates all, when there is no light, there is no hope. As such, I am the harbinger of disappointment. Final skill, [interweaving world of the one that confines]."
"..." (Triney)
Originating from inbetween my feet, an orb of white light began to grow and engulf everything within reach. In an instant it covered the realm in a blinding light. Nothing was out of reach, an infinite realm had been dyed pure like snow.
***(Barius)
I had worked in the intelligence department for quite some time before returning back to the defense force. Doing some solo investigations under everyone's nose, I found that the cult had planned to slowly take over every single region. They had already planted their roots deep into central and they planned to bring it to the side regions as well.
Seeing in front of my eyes, an Arcmaiden siding with the cult... It's unforgivable. What the hell... Did they think people are just dispensable? They're willing to sacrifice thousands more for a few magical girls. Ruining the lives of innocents just to bolster their military force...
It didn't matter if a magical girl wanted to fight or not, they would be ruthlessly conscripted. They had worded it so nicely as 'training' or 'learning' that I didn't realised it. If I had said 'no', they would have forced me to join.
Was it really better this way? To weaponise magical girls for a nation's interest... Let's say we stop them and stop all of this, we annihilate the cult and prevent all the illegal activities in this faction... The looming threat of the other factions will continue to exist, and they'll continue to grow stronger. No matter how much I thought, I couldn't arrive at an answer...
That was, until Kaori freed me from that mind control... So I followed her out of a sense of debt. My feelings of rivalry, to be honest most of it has been extinguished. It was simply due to the flow of time. My competitiveness and motivation continued to diminish, I moved on to working on what was present in my life rather than having to constantly think about Kaori out of some cheap hot headedness.
I followed her to mask my guilt, pretend I was the crazy rival from back in the day. Boasted about my own power, told her I could be relied on. I am but a shell who got defeated by her all over again.
***
"With all that power, why didn't you just defeat me? Why... Didn't you dodge..."
I punched her cheek out of anger, causing an ugly black bruise to swell up. She... She was always able to see an attack like that coming... So I assumed she would block it. But she took it without complain...
"... Weren't you dissatisfied with me? I did absolutely horrible in planning after all. If I only have strength but don't know how to use it, I'm pretty much useless compared to you... Hahah... "(Kaori)
In the 3 months of working on our escape from the Illnoia administration, we had gotten used to working with the Illnoians that worked at the same station as us. Though they are most likely spies, so we tried to avoid telling them our plans. We had planned to steal some needed supplies for our escape at night, but we were caught by security
"... But you... You got injured because of me! "
I clenched my fist, my anger evident in my scrunched up forehead. The glint in my glare showed how little restrain I had, yet she stood there calm as a sea breeze. I had injured her once before put of mere tantrum, how can she just stand there all relaxed. It made me feel like I was feeling all this tension for no reason.
"Barius... You're... Crying... It makes me happy you care so much about me but also sad that I made you cry..." (Kaori)
"Huh?"
She gave her usual stupid smile that she always shows to Myuu, a weird sense of freshness permeated my heart. Nonetheless, it felt like her words were very odd.
"I love magical girls after all!" (Kaori)
***
Despite constantly chiding that magical girl maniac's low intelligence, I keep finding myself asking 'What would she do in this situation?' these days...
Despite being her self-proclaimed rival, I find myself being so pathetic. Ahhh!! All this thinking hurts. I'll defeat that ArcMaiden first then think about it later. That's simply how I feel, that if I followed Kaori it will go okay somehow. It's irrational and something my past self will berate me for. But hesitating this late in the game would be foolish.
The opponent this time was De Lan, ArcMaiden of chaos. She had two high jet black twintails that curled like car wheels that were a metre in diametre. Her outfit was mainly crimson red with light sky blue high lights lining its silhouette. The shrine maiden outfit was wormed like a coat but it's sleeve only reached from her wrist to her elbow, before wrapping around her waist in an inverted scheme of mostly black followed by small red highlights. Below her waist was the black bottom half of her shrine maiden dress.
Title: De Lan, ArcMaiden of Chaos, untethered chain calamity
Magical girl effectiveness level: S
Perimeters:
- Physical: S
- endurance: S
- speed: S
- will: S
- well: SS
I signaled to her that I was ready with my eyes, she seemed to be politeful allowing me to sort my thoughts first. Sorry, this may be cheating.
[Second step to completion]
The sky goes dark as time stops, all light ceases to move. There is no longer any energy except for the magic in my body. Since there are no more bonds holding matter together, it becomes easy to scatter the particles and disrupt their arrangement. In other words, if I resumed timed, from their perspective I would had gone infinitely fast and destroyed whatever defense they had. That's why, I'll end this quick. Wrapping my fists in materialised and magically enhanced water with [first step to perfection].
I manipulate the water in my body, so that I could physically move properly with the absence of gravity. Leaping forward as I defy air resistance, I raised my arm before launching it at her head.
...?! De Lan ducked with ease at the very last moment, her face retaining a small smile as she bent her back over. Despite the lack of gravity, her legs were kept rooted to the ground as she struck her hand into the ground before swinging her legs into the air to counterattack. I froze on the spot, unable to comprehend it.
I cross my arms, blocking the kicks, but the impact is harder than I could take. Without sound travelling in this stopped time, it was harder to discern the extent of my injuries. Within all the pain that surges from my arm, I could only feel intuitively if any of my bones broke. I can't hear them crack after all.
She took advantage of my surprise and dealt a few heavy kicks that did a number on my arms. They were practically already limping before I jumped back to create some distance between us.
"KUGHHHHH!!"
I puked out a cup of blood and other fluids, scratch that, she didn't just broke my arms she also broke some ribs and punctured my lungs. My entire body was in pain so it was hard to locate the injury. Many magical girls, including myself rely on our heighten sense of hearing to tell where we had been injured.
Our eyes may deceive us or end up being too sluggish to catch up to the movements of an opponent, and unless we had some special skill we couldn't exactly smell or taste and injury. So we end up using our ears to estimate where or what had broken.
That became useless in this stopped time, I became at a disadvantage as she could pile on damage on my body that I wouldn't notice. I would lose before I realised it. It was the most dangerous situation possible if one had weaker reflexes or less agility than their opponent.
Fortunately, if there was one thing I could count on it was the base of my powers. The essence of water. I could even manipulate my own body to become tougher than any other magical girl when paired up with the magical girl augmentations.
Title: Barius, star of perfection
Magical girl effectiveness level: A
Perimeters:
- Physical: A
- endurance: A(S)
- speed: A
- will: S
- well: A
With this I could survive attacks 10 times the power of my endurance. The only problem is my speed. Much less dodging them, if I can't damage them I won't be able to defeat them. I have to analyse her and formulate a plan...?!
Right after seperating from her, she follows up with another attack. In an instant her stature reappeared before my eyes, but her foot was larger and approaching my face. I form a transparent wall out of water at that point to block her high kick. It later for a tiny moment before cracking under its pressure. To the point that I had no time to process the information of what had happened. All that I can conclude was what she was blatantly showing...
De Lan can move in stopped time. This time I'll initiate the fight, I rush in right after dodging her high kick. The water shield I conjured gave away to her power way too quickly, but it was enough time to leave me off with only a graze mark. Her kick horizontally grazed my face, leaving a deep cut with plenty of blood flowing out. The blood flowed out of the cut as I swung another attack.