*
Her body was battered and full of wounds, her blood drapes around most of her skin in an unsightly hellish manner. Her bloodied combat dress and wounded skin made her seem like a ghoul from hell. But she survives by the teeth of her skin. She dissects and analyses her enemy. First skill, rapid fantasy mode assimilation. Second skill, bring one's journey to an end through forceful phenomena, numbing enemy's body and awareness with adrenaline.
His Prava phantasia, a land of fantasy, a recreation of myths that make up his existence. Lastly, his third skill. It hasn't been drawn out. Karell is dead on the ground not too far away from her. She would like to bury her properly later, but snow's not the time. She buries her own grief inside her heart, she was gradually weakening from the constant attacks.
That was it. She was planning to save this up for the final battle, but of course... Things wouldn't be so easy. The enemy has yet to draw out their final skill, all she has done was gather information but not put it into use.
"Magia Retainment: Perpetual. This is the end to my fantasy, my journey has certainly ended here due to your skill.
But I carry someone else's journey now that I have finished catching up." (Kaede)
"...? What the hell are you talking about? " (Yiren)
A purple aura bursts forth from every pore in her body that was uncut by Yiren's sword. It wraps her up and fires off into the sky like a brilliant dark lavender pillar aimed at penetrating the sky. Naturally, Yiren slashed at the pillar, unwilling to let his enemy finish her transformation sequence.
But it wasn't a transformation sequence. Setting up the mood? For the sake of it? Style? It was deception. It obscured his vision so she easily dodged it with her newfound level of agility, then she bend her body to the sight and struck through the wall of light. Her rapier materialised, a thin line of black wrapped in an ethereal translucent purple light. It ran through his body like a quick flash just as he struck with his blade, challenging him just as he attacked.
This time the blade had much more magic contained in it, unlike her worn out opponent. Magia Retainment:Perpetual was the last technique devised by Kaori, the conceptual attack that she used on the progenitor wouldn't work on someone like Yiren as she had learned from its impact on the progenitor.
The tip of her rapier whistled as it tore through the air and broke past the sound barrier, crushing everything in its path. She was weak, there's no other way to go about it. All these fancy techniques and tactics that she can employ merely bridges the gap between her and her opponents. There will come a day when these techniques are no longer able to catch up with the growth of her opponents. Barius was a prime example that she can never see herself surpass.
But for now, she can surrender herself to battle. Nothing else passes through her thoughts any longer. A single slash, a large lasseration forms over his torso. A second, her blade digs into his heart and carves itself out of his shoulder. She jumps back in time just as he swings back, she was too slow as he had carved the same injury into her chest. Oddly enough, she no longer felt as weak as before. Her body may be riddled with injuries, maybe her mind had gone mad...maybe this was the work of his skill once again.
If he doesn't use his final skill, then she'll simply have to kill him before he does. Combining her propulsion technique and her new speed, her body bents around mid air as she changes directions. She swings her rapier horizontally as she escaped from his line of sight. It didn't matter if he could pinpoint her location with his senses, what mattered was how she forced his limbs to rotate and parry his back. She forced her blade to swim through the air, as if it was living snake. It coiled to the side of his neck as pulled on it, slashing at him from a distance away
A gash opens on his neck as the deformed rapier dematerialized. Kaede conjures a new one between her palms. She watched as he vanished into thin air, blending fantasy and reality... He can not only conceal himself, he might be able to make what was imaginary into reality and likewise the opposite. She summoned void spears that rose out of the ground in 1 metre intervals, ready to launch should he reappear.
"Hmpf." (Kaede)
Affirming her own plan, she conjured more spears. Every single one of their tips was aimed at herself. The moment he reappeared, they launched off without pause. The spear's flew through the air with a vicious momentum, ready to rush anything in its way. With Magia Retainment: Perpetual, they all had enough energy to invoke the enchantment of 'move', piercing through nay possible defence by physically moving it away, a conceptual phenomena that aids attacks.
Nevertheless, his sword was a distortion in space time, likely the only physical component that retains its shape as a blade is kept somewhere else. Perhaps there was a magic core inside his palms which form the blade's existence. Facing such a formless entity, the void spears fail to pierce through it, though the force carrying the spear's were significant enough to explode upon collision and push his body back.
He had placed too much faith on his blade, if the attack launched by her spears affected a large enough area, the shock waves would be enough to damage him. This temporary shock and lapse in his defence wasn't missed. She promptly turned around to pierce her rapier high, her entire body carried her strength and transferred it into her rapier for that single moment.
*BOOM*
The strength carried in her wrist collides with the void spears, scattering her barrage of raining spears away with an explosive shock wave. Yiren had vanished once more, looks like it even allows him to dodge attacks in this way. How troublesome. But she can keep going. Even if only just for a little, she estimates that she has a minute more to maintain this technique. Anymore, and the rampant energy in her body would overcome her passive and breakdown her body.
At the current moment, the energy was being used to regenerate her body. She calmed her heart down, her wounds continued to stung as space time distortions physically impede her regeneration. It was as if some sort of shaver constantly sliced off her flesh as soon as a single layer of cells was regenerated. The bleeding didn't stop but her condition was stabilising due to the surplus of magical particles.
It was only due to these miraculous circumstances that she could maintain Magia Retainment: Perpetual for a little while longer. She took a deep breath as she formulated the next plan to kill Yiren. As long as he hid away with his skills, this was also a momentary respite for her to strategize. The 2nd skill was the battle high that he induced, causing one to feel like they were entering the climax of their final battle, blinding their nerves to the more subtle aspects of battle such as enemy location and pace. The target essentially goes into a drunken state.
The first skill was a conversion of myth and reality, mostly used to hide himself and ambush from another plane. She needed something more concrete than simply locating and attacking him the moment he reappears. There had to be a way to work around it... This present situation was an attestation to that. It was respite for both parties. But he had more information everytime this happens, he can rematwrialise anywhere he wanted, but she wouldn't know where he would choose.
One option was to indiscriminately bombard the area like just now, but that would lessen the damage of her attacks and encourage him to deflect with his blade or run away once more. Another... Yeah, this sounded far better.
Now, to deal with the second skill... There was no way around it. It was most likely a timer like abstract skill that kills the opponent with circumstances once the time limit is reached. The end of the journey merely entails that the voyager stops venturing further. It didn't necessarily mean death. A mutual defeat was possible, it would at least help the heroes out if no outside forces interfered with their fight...
But that was definitely not the way to go. She could instinctively feel it. Her end was coming... It would arrive when the duration of her technique runs out. The enemy knows that the technique has a time limit, but must also confine her in battle, or she will attack the Demon King. She needed to beat him before her duration runs out.
"Fuu~ time to end this." (Kaede)
A provocation. It might work, or not. She knew that he had to attack regardless, this was a duel to the death. She loosened her muscles, entering a state similar to how she was before Karell died. His second skill was fate manipulation, so if her death was decides at a later time... Then her death shouldn't come any earlier.
Just as she had predicted, her arrives right in front of her mid swing. His blade aimed at her head, killing a magical girl requires the elimination of at least the brain. Decapitation might not work on higher rank magical girls. So the brain is a must to destroy. She uses her propulsion technique and her second skill to move her head to the side, dodging to the right as the spontaneous explosion of the propulsion technique rips apart her ear drums.
She could no longer hear sound, but a smile formed on her face. He moved as predicted and swung down after missing her head. His blade cleaves through her flesh roughly like a blunt knife carving apart tough bread, her body seperate like torn paper. She doesn't dodge nor does she run away. His blade, stuck inside her torso and having missed her head, she had jsut enough time to pierce her rapier through his skull from the back.
Her blade curved even harder than a crescent moon, turning around 180 degrees from under his armpit to the back of his skull. It slipped through his flesh and blond hair, piercing his tough skull and finally rending apart his brain matter.
"... I'm a semi spiritual being, a monster... I have less reliance on a brain than you do, call it a backup, is what I might have- " (Yiren)
As he finished his sentence, the blade splits apart into countless small tendrils, spreading across his body like veins. His stomach, limbs and head swelled like a balloon before exploding into a rain of falling flesh lumps. His final skill was of this nature, that was why he hadn't use it until now. A revival type skill, it was better to kill him before he uttered its name. The final skill was the crystallisation of one's entire life's efforts and meaning.
He was a mythical unicorn, his meaning was likely dreams and the surreality of it. To reverse life and death, invert his own reality of demise into a fantasy of life. The opposite of his second skill, he grants himself the fate of living. She was ready to cut his body up over and over until he stopped. Without the brain, his speed will slow down over time until he couldn't keep up any longer. That was the plan, to crush all of his capabilities in one go.
As their source of magic was gone, the space time distortions vanished and her body rapidled healed off the remnants of her injuries, the space around her collapsed. The Prava Phantasia split off into fragments before disintegrating all at once, vanishing in an instant as if it wasn't there in the first place.
***(?)
This is not the end, of course it wouldn't be. Her wish, it was the one that stood out the most... She was in a ragged state, fresh wounds all over her body as she dragged it along the ground. It was hard to call her alive as her flesh was infected and her complexion a pukish green. She was rotting from all the curses placed on her, the pain must have been immense. Above all... She lamented. She lamented her weakness at never being able to achieve what she wanted.
In her final hours, she went unconscious. So I entered her dreams. I wondered if she recognised me.. But the landscape of her mind was tranquil like no other. She embraced death readily, as if it was salvation. It was natural for one to reject death and struggle in an ugly manner as it approached. But instead-
"... Are you the grim reaper?" (Gerald)
"... I-" (Yiren)
"Save it. I don't need to know. She promised, so I'll wait for her. I just... Want to help her a little more..." (Gerald)
A maiden that dedicated their all to another, even in the face of definite demise. It stood out the most because the girl didn't let greed get the better of her, she didn't even really mean it when she uttered that trivial wish. She was just passing the time, and so she ignored the unicorn.
***
A bright yellow pillar fired into the ceiling of the corridor as Kaede walked away. She turned back to see a torrent of magic wrapping up his body.