*
She was completely unharmed, my daggers didn't leave a single scratch on her pristine clothing, the fabric of her clothes flutter calmly as if to mock my efforts by not giving off to much sound. Her movements light and nearly undetectable, she had gotten closed before I could be aware of it, it didn't take a moment for her to fist to slowly close in to my face.
She had moved so quickly that I assumed that I blinked my eyes and missed the moment of acceleration, but my eyes were too arid and dry for that to be the case. Even with my eyes kept open, she had moved at a speed too fast for me to keep up with. I raised my right arm which was closer to her fist to cushion the attack, but she had disappeared in that instant. A fight defining blow was struck from the back of my neck where my nerves were concentrated, it felt like electricity ran through my body to compensate for the amount of force she released in my body.
I fell forward as if my body had become as light as a leaf but had the trajectory of a baseball, it crashed into the ground. The floor's rough texture pierced through my skin as bruises began appearing on my body, it wasn't a fiery pain that would cause me to faint like the impalement, but it was still quite distracting to feel in the middle of battle. I rolled over at the last second, narrowly avoiding a hand thrust that would have taken my head. The floor created by The Eye God was pierced cleanly through, drawing a straight lined crack across the ground that spanned as far as the eye could see.
It looks like I must go back to the basics. My second passive embedded into my combat dress, it allows me to move freely as if nothing is obstructing me. This includes the water that I create, but it also works on quicksand, sand, wet concrete, as long as something was liquid. It was also the secret behind my second skill [second step to completion]. While it looked to be like time stop, it's true nature is to simulate the viscosity of moving in water and to impose that onto the world. The world itself feels like it's stuck under the sea and stops moving on its own accord.
So I conjure a world of water, if imposing the feeling of being stuck under water doesn't work, then physically trapping enemies in water should. This is magically enhanced water created by me, I can also increase the viscosity to make it impossible even for magical girls to move through. The light reflection is also a little different water, making it hard for the untrained to see through. By manipulating the water surrounding us... I can also handle refraction at will.
"You ***** **** *****er a- ****** **** **** already... I* doe**** work, **** **** ***** ** ** to submerge ** both in water?" (De Lan)
Her face unchanging and stoic, yet a hint of disappointment had slipped through her lips. As she said or tried to say, her barrier continued to hold up, her clothes and skin continued to remain completely dry. She moved... Undisturbed and smoothly. I couldn't drown her or immobilise her even if I tried... That barrier simply did everything she needed, it even generated the oxygen needed for her to stay comfortable. However, since she was in a normal environment with air, it was hard for her words to travel to my side that was filled with water.
Nevertheless, even if it did nothing to her, the water is doing me wonders. It heals my wounds and allows me to move faster. On land, there is air resistance, gravity and such and slowing me down. However with the help of my passive, when underwater I am unaffected by everything. This presents a new method of attack, 3 dimensional assault. Jumping high, I zoom past the speed of sound in an instant, indicating that I had no more intent to talk.
Leaving everything behind into a blur, I bent at sharp angles as I varied my movements to make it harder to predict my trajectory. Of course it may have been futile as she could react faster than me and follow my movements with her eyes... But here's the thing. Whether it would be visual or magical, I control everything under this water. I can manipulate the water to shift the refraction by a large margin, making me look further than I actually am. I can also use my second skill to stop magical particles in place and prevent any of the particles from reaching De Lan to pass information onto her.
I have to get past her barrier, as it stands I only see one way to do it, and it has to be done in an instant or when she's not paying attention. It hinges on the fact that her barrier is maintained consciously and cannot operate when she's caught off guard, this is so that when I break past her barrier she can't just reapply it. As I fly past the water at an unnatural speed, I could feel my wounds slowly closing up and my blood flow slowly improving.
Here, this should be the right ti-!? Bending my back and rolling to my right, her fist stops short of my previous position, the force of her punch striking that exact spot threw all the water in front of her into the atmosphere, nowhere to be seen again. I don't know if it was the water enhancing my speed or if she was moving slower than usual... But I was able to witness her preliminary movements and dodge her attack successfully for once. She doesn't seem to be obstructed by the water, but for some reason she's moving slower than usual. It was still faster than me if we tried to do a foot race, but it was just enough for me to react to her attacks.
With my usual fighting style, usually I would retreat in caution after an attack, followed by a flurry of her attacks. But that was because I couldn't handle her attacks just now, now... Perhaps I have a chance. So I rushed in under her with a water dagger in hand, hid the water dagger with altered refraction and made it so appeared further than I was suppose to be.
By seperating 2 chunks of water with a thin layer of air, I could manipulate the refraction of images as much as I want. It was a significant part of my training after all, to master the technique and to deploy it quick. Even if she blew away the water above her so she only needed to guard from one side, there's no point to guarding if you don't know where the attack is coming from.
When I reached close enough... Here, I'll stop the time of your barrier, so that it crumbles like sand under the raging current of the water. I increased the current of the water in the vicinity, forcing the water into her fragmenting barrier... Before it disappeared. Automatic replacement... It was the worse case possible as it was near impossible to breach it... The water that entered had vanished in an instant... It was a small amount to, meant to be discrete and unnoticeable...
Why? If I kept making her barrier leak, it would eventually flood. Maybe it's being replaced by air? Can she convert water to oxygen with her magic? Was that why she could keep fighting in that barrier without any difficulty? I knew she was somehow getting air, as we were previously human, every magical girl has a penchant for oxygen... Robbing it is like purposefully abstaining from a habit like a sweet tooth. It is certainly possible to substitute oxygen with magical particles, but that would drive up the magical particle usage exponentially.
It was safe to conclude that rather than having a barrier that keeps out water, she was replacing the water in her vicinity with air. Perhaps at a speed fast enough to keep the water out... But that wouldn't explain why I can't breach her barrier. If it was just air, I could pass through it just fine... Unless she had 2 barriers. One for attacks and one for oxygen... Conventionally, that would involve the use of 2 skills, but I can't be sure. I can't let my guard down as I wouldn't have room to regret my actions after, I would be dead after all.
But it was a valuable exchange, at least for me. I could conclude that stopping time and dealing damage can make her barrier crumble temporarily. I conjure up more water to replace what she punched off. If she decided to go into a brawling spree to shave off all the water, I could use it as an opening to defeat her. She likely knows that, that's why she didn't react to me replenishing the water.
She rushes in, this time it was her turn to launch an active offensive. She arrives behind me, aiming to kick my back. I twist my waist in an instant to block with my arm and compressed the surrounding water, by pulling the water away from her barrier and reinforcing into a dense state, it becomes a shield that she has to punch through rather than travel through.
The wall of water manages to completely ward off her attack, creating that vacuum outside of her barrier was the perfect way to make sure she didn't breach the new wall I made with her barrier. After all she could just replace the water with air and punch through it without resistance. I pulled the water out of her reach and she entered the air outside her barrier, since it's no longer the same medium... Not water, she couldn't go inside the water shield I made and replace it.
Though I noticed something crucial. Although her movements still seem smooth and unhindered, I could see that she had slowed down to some extent. It must have something to do with her barrier. If she stands still she can actively activate her skill in the same spot to replace the air with more oxygenated air, but if she tries to move through the water she needs to actively activate her skill in the new area that her body covers. Say she moves 2 metre forward, she now has to activate her barrier skill to cover the area 2 metres ahead of her previous position, this is in order to cover her new position and supply the oxygen she needs.
If she tried to actively attack, this will hinder her concentration and speed. Since she isn't obstructed her movements still seem fine and she isn't trapped by the water at all, but since she needs to keep using her skill over a new area to place her barrier, she's moving slower than before. In other words... This was the greatest news of all. She had simply revealed too much, if she had stayed defensive I wouldn't notice at all. But now I know...
Her barrier activation is conscious and manual. It's not an automatic magic, she has to think about it to use it. That's why she can still be hindered by the water despite seeming unhindered. She's turning the water in front of her into air then moving into that pocket of air before it is filled with water. Then she has to block out the water with a barrier. This multi step process is causing a sequential strain on her battle style. By cramming more steps, it forcefully lengthens the time she spends to deal an attack.
I proceeded to condense the surrounding water into a blade and approach closer to her, another disadvantage is the type of movement we employ in this environment. We're actually high up above the ground right now, while I can move 3 dimensionally without a problem, she has to step on the barrier she formed. Just changing the battlefield influence the battle this much... It was odd to say as the one in the advantage right now, but perhaps water itself can be quite unfair too.
Rushing at my maximum speed, I swerve to her back. She reacts by turning around and twisting her feet, ready to dodge. I side step and went behind her once again, since I could make my movements this fluid as if I was the water itself, I could go behind her in a single move. Then I thrust my sword into her back. I prepared a secondary layer of water outside the sword that activates my time stop magic upon contact and destroyed her barrier. So that by sliding in my multilayered sword, it will deal with everything in an instant.
In an instant. The surrounding water vanished, leaving a drenched magical girl and a dry one floating in the sky. The sword was kicked away by a spinning high kick from De Lan, its destructive force ravaging the blade and shattering it into fragments in an instant, exploding into a miniature shower of magically enhanced water. She used a similar method to when I pulled the water away from her barrier to form a shield. This time she turned everything into air, so my blade slowed down.