*
She sent all the balls at once. Sending herself into the air, the black ping pong sized bombs shot into Barius' vicinity. While Barius had immediately conjured up multiple layers of reinforced water barriers, the first bomb caused their structure to collapse and the second blew them away. Anything that was in the vicinity ahd their sense of hearing obliterated, even Kaede could hear some ringing in her ears as the impacts chained into a loud successions of ear splitting thunders.
After the explosions were over, standing in the centre at the bottom of an immense crater was a lone white haired girl, her black jacket, white shirt and office skirt didn't have a single speck of dust. She stared straight at Kaede who was floating in the air at a slight distance away from her, flashing a brilliant smile that seemed to betray the scenery of her vicinity. It was as if she lit up the world with her looks alone, contained in it was her fiery passion for battle.
'Ah, she's finally going to start becoming serious.' (Kaede)
Her heart sank for a moment thinking of the consequences, Barius was far superior in stats, potentially Kaede wouldn't even be able to react to her. In actuality, Barius was close to the border of S grades, her well and endurance was S grade and the rest were approaching it. Meanwhile, Kaede only had A grade in strength and the rest was B.
Perhaps, it was time to push herself beyond her own limits. Wasn't that the entire point of this training? If she wanted to achieve her goal of solving the mystery with her ego... Finding her original identity... Reviving Myuu, Paridia and Gerald... None of that was possible at all in her current state. She was weak, disgustingly so when compared to the S grades. If she couldn't compete with those standing at the top in the world... Which was honestly normal... Then what could she ever protect? Right now, the one that poses the biggest threat... The Demon King's main body is S grade.
This was her desperation pushing her, they were running out of time as the frontlines of the war between the demons and humans may collapse at any time. Meaning that now was the prime period of time to take the Demon King's head, but even now as they were next to the border between the two worlds... The goal still seemed to be ever so far away.
She stared at Barius from high in the sky while Barius gazed back with a calm smile. Her beauty shone through, marinating with her calmness to form a composite atmosphere of cold composure that seemed to intimidate it's surroundings. It was as if her eyes and lips were saying 'Can you even beat me if I go all out?', a provocation of the highest order. That was what it meant to Kaede, at least...
There was no way to turn that offer, if she couldn't surpass her limits here and now then she felt like she would drop into an ocean of despair. Truthfully, she wanted Barius to go easy on her and let her win, that was how much this battle meant to her, it represented her determination to change and grow. But... That would also make the whole thing pointless.
"Fuuh~~" (Kaede)
She took a deep breath, slowly recovering her composure from the overwhelming fear.
"Magia Retainment... ONE HUNDRED PERCENTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!! FULLY RETAINED MAGIA(F.R.M)" (Kaede)
She could feel it, the pressure of her own technique bring an unendurable strain onto her entire body. All of her skin, flesh and bones rattle and cry out in pain, especially her mind that has to consciously calculate and shape the trajectory of her magical particles. Magia Retainment retains the activates magical particles that are usually spent when activating magic, further wringing energy out of these particles. It turned out that they could keep supplying energy, they just get so unstable that they leave the body through a movement gradient, supplying the body with fresh magical particles that defuse in.
Her combat dress glowed under her overflowing aura which painted the world under her own colours, her own tone of dark purple flared up like a violent flame expressing its combustive strength. Her magic stretched into sky as a faint purple pillar that was nearly transparent, the pillar pulsates and trembled as if unable to bear its own weight. Even her facial expression got dense, stiff. All of her energy went into her eyes, drawing a blank stare that onyl gazed at her target. Everything else in the world had become mere backdrop.
She drew her trusty void rapier. She could feel it now, her body had forcibly crushed the threshold for A grade. Her stats couldn't match up to someone who was at the top of A grade, but now... There was a chance! A slight chance to contend and express her will. Those who give up at the start will not protect anything! There is a point, a meaning to resuming this fight and journey. She whispered softly into the air.
"... Kaori... Lend me your strength. " (Kaede)
"..." (Barius)
Leaving a blazing trail behind, the air burns with suffocating heat as she rushes towards her opponent. With minimal waste, she strikes with her rapier in a straight forward thrust that chases after her opponent's silhouette. If the blade of her rapier changed trajectory, it would weaken the thrust by a bit... But this time... Despite dodging to the side, the blade continued to follow after Barius so she changed her approach and decided to take it head on. She formed a water blade and similarly used all of her strength to strike right through the rapier.
Grail had given only a few advice. Use new weapons, use deflection tactics. Why limit herself to using them one by one?
"GOT YOU. VOID!!!! PILE DRIVERRR!!!!!!" (Kaede)
The ridiculously thin blade begun to spin, creating a new gyrating force. The air dimmed down as if light was sucked out of their surroundings. The blade... No, drill started to radiate a glowing black light akin to an energy beam. Even under the super high pressure water blade that formed the highest wall of formidability was torn through gradually as if resisting with its death throes.
"...!?" (Barius)
I can feel it. The strength of Kaori. The strength of that magical girl that they all admired...! The expectations that I could never meet, with my own hands I'm slowly inching closer to it!
Blasting through the water blade, her spinning rapier struck into Barius' chest with a whirling noise. Just as it pierced her skin, it stopped completely. Now that the magical density of her aura was far higher than before, it was difficult for the time stop to affect Kaede as well. Nevertheless, it still managed to break through her will stat and froze her for a moment before her own skill took effect to move her body for her.
Kaede posed a unique threat in that she's able to move during time stop due to her own skill's effect, this was usually extremely rare for someone to have the perfect skill to counter restraining skills. Regardless, her rapier didn't share that same fate, causing it dissipate back into magical particles. Unlike physical matter, magical particles transcended time and thus wasnt affected by time stop, so people could still use magic even when such laws like time stop is in effect.
Barius moved with her maximum speed which was far faster than what Kaede could perceive while being slowed down by time stop. They had entered a close range fight where it was finally useful after all. Forming barriers of matter to protect herself, Barius water blade transformed into a water scythe to carve out a much larger surface area, and effectively sliced all of it apart after a few swings. It's blade sunk into her hard flesh which was augmented by her own skill to become tougher, leaving deep cleaves in her skin but nothing particularly lethal.
The only rule was that they couldn't kill each other, after all this was training not a death match. There were some close calls, but a simple way to avoid killing each other was to abstain from beheading the other person. Kaede moved sludgishly, barraging her enemy with a rain of void spears to block her vision, before she jumped backwards to some distance away. Void spears shot out of the ground, but these attacks were easily repelled by Barius' far superior water barriers that were even more dense with magic.
In an instant, Barius had closed the distance with her arm close to Kaede's face. With a simple flick of her fingers, a large impact blew a hole into the ground the size of a bus. While Kaede's enhanced body simply got pushed a little, the ground she stood on caved into the pressure and became indented to a lower depth.
"HydroSynchrony, resonate!" (Barius)
Abandoning her water weapons, she switched to hand to hand combat. Any void constructs that Kaede conjured up became obliterated in an instant. Without any other choice, she also switched to disarmed combat. She had always been relying on her rapier all of this time, but she felt that her body was used to it. The muscle memory and experience from the body's time as Kaori coursed through her instincts and were brought out as a reaction to her opponent's fist.
Barius threw a punch which was quickly deflected as Kaede pushed it away from its side with a single arm, Kaede proceeded to move closer and launched a higher punch that picked up momentum. Barius barely blocked it, but its force still traveled through their legs and into ground, forming a deep crater. Pushing her right leg into the ground, she stuck it with great force that propelled her backwards a few centimetres before resuming her attack.
She threw her fist which as similarly deflected from the side, followed by Barius then her. It became an exchange of quick reflexes and deep intuition. Finally, Barius broke through into her defences and blew her left arm away. Without any hesitation....
"Reigning!!! drill cross punch!!!" (Kaede)
Her fist tore through the air and smashed into Barius' right shoulder with an old technique. Kaori's very first attack technique, she entrusted all of her strength and magic into it. Her deep purple aura engulfed her right arm in an instant and her fist shone with a brilliant black that spun like a drill with lashes that surrounded the rest of her right arm like a helix. Upon collision, a large black beam swallowed her arm like a cone that ravaged everything behind Barius.
With how she out in everything that she had left into that last attack, she had no way to counter the subsequent high kick into her head, which sent Kaede straight into the ground and knocked her out. After a few seconds, she picked herself up and they both had their arms back after some quick regeneration.
"... That was a good fight. I wanted to see your strength, so I didn't dodge that last attack. If a basic attack like that could deal so much damage to me... Perhaps even kill me, then you shouldn't have a problem fighting the Demon King." (Barius)
She gave her honest thoughts and even reassured Kaede a little of her own strength. She felt a little victorious from that, but she couldn't lie to herself. If that last hit was a charity hit... Then...
"... Of course, who do you think I am? I'm Kaori, it's a given that I'll defeat that damn Demon King.
But this... Is a complete loss. If It was the me from before this little spar, she wouldn't have stood a chance. But now... I'll have strength as Kaori. I'll do my best to protect humanity. " (Kaede)
"..." (Barius)
Today was a quick day, the next day they would have a briefing with someone who was more familiar with the war situation. After all, other than the fight between the Demon King and the Warlord, there was an ongoing war between the other demons and the magical girls.
"Let's go back and rest." (Kaede)
"Mhmm." (Barius)
When they arrived back at their lodging, they were greeted with the sight of Karell standing out sight looking a little suspicious...
"You guys came back all sweaty... It can't be...!?" (Karell)
Her eyes widened as she brought her right palm over her gaping mouth.
"Yeah, we had a rough spar just now." (Kaede)
Barius' shoulder shook a little as she heard that. She looked over in concern about the conversation, but Kaede failed to catch that. Her obliviousness was scary in this one instance... Barius thought she would surely be perceptive as a guy.
"... A rough spar?!" (Karell)
"Ah... Mhmm. It was practice, you know~ for when we claim the Demon King's head!" (Kaede)
She was impressive in more ways than one... Was what Barius thought. Karell seemed to have caught on as she stopped inquiring further. She seemed to have been resting all this time while their spar didn't actually take much time as they were moving and perceiving at high speeds.
"... Then I'll join you guys into the baths!" (Karell)
"Ah..." (Kaede)
"Ah..." (Barius)