*
First, she would try everything she had thought up. Even the risky ones. In the event that the Demon King hijacks her magic pathways, an opening unguarded by the will stat, she would gamble on the possibility that she could abort this connection and survive. She gathered enough magic to use Last Pace consecutively.
Ruby won't be as fast as Hikari, but she could still fill in the gaps of vulnerability created when she finishes using Last Pace. She was far more durable and stronger than Kaede at least.
She stepped out of the cloak, gritting her teeth. Her heart beat faster and faster, almost like it wanted to pounce out of her chest with each consecutive beat intensifying. Her ears rang under the stress her body was putting her through, but the ringing slowly subsides in the way of her interpidity, like a dawning sun peaking through the clouds like a laser shower of gold, painting the world in its aura.
"RUBY!!!" (Kaede)
"YES, MY LIEGE!!!" (Ruby)
Kaede smiled inwardly, not wanting to betray the atmosphere that she painstakingly set up. But she really appreciated Ruby for understanding in less than an instant. Did Ruby have a better grasp of her personality than she thought? After all, Kaede would never get angry in this kind of situation, her mind has always fixated on one thing and will continue to do so from now on. It was solely captivated by a single goal, 'kill the Demon King'. Thus! Everything she does here will be for the sake of such!!
Basking in the high stress high pressure environment, a wave of calm flooded her conscious like a warm blanket, her goal was now in sight!
"ASSIST ME! THEN I'LL BRING YOU HIS HEAD!!" (Kaede)
"AYE AYE!!" (Ruby)
Brandishing her rapier, Kaede initiated the attack with Last Pace, crashing her rapier into his metallic body. Her vision vanished into a blur, but she could trust her monodirectional momentum to carry her forward to her destination. The rapier collides and explodes, almost as if it was thrown to put some distance between them. The amount of propulsion she puts into the leap dictates the amount of distance travelled, so that always needs to be calculated.
She stops right outside Hikari's range, Ruby enters it to block his retaliation with her luminescent cherry red blade. It was shaped simply, like a blooming crystal flower at the hilt, a single diamond shaped shard extends beautifully to form the blade. The handle has a small ribbon covering its surface, flailing 2 lashes under her wrist. The guard had 2 layers of thin crystals poking upwards like petals, but there were only 4 petals with 2 on each side instead of a encirclement of petals around the handle.
This was her Stick, blade of charity, Letea. It channeled Ruby's sense of justice into raw power, augmenting the blade to absurd extents. The catch was that there was a limit, even if her sense of justice was somehow quantifiable to be unquantified(infinite), the blade only augments as much as her magical particles could augment. Essentially she was still limited by her well stat... It works in tandem with her passive [Ruby Hero's duty] which increases her well stat as she faces a stronger demon. Unless...
She holds her ground despite being weak. There was no holds barred, she was an A grade. The hero party was. They declared themselves heroes, and if not for their skills to survive this far, their declaration would have been proven false. It was a given that many citizens would be unsatisfied that the Demon King would be felled by an A grade hero rather than an S grade ArcMaiden. Strictly speaking, the ArcMaidens are 99% stronger.
But so what?! She was The Ruby Hero! Despite all of these factors, circumstances have proven that the authorities still see value in A grades and in the heroes. Even if this value that the ArcMaidens impart onto them is miniscule, she wouldn't betray that expectation and would fulfill her role. She slams her blade high, knocking Hikari's gauntlet into the air, its overwhelming force became deflected into the ceiling, causing a mass of clouds to explode under the ceiling.
"Haa!!!" (Ruby)
She swings it back down, slamming the brunt of her strength onto the next claw attack. Kaede promptly crouches behind her, using her body as a shield while the force of Hikari's attack is diverted around Ruby. The violent resultant brushes past her body, grazing a deep cut into her cheek. Without noticing it, she had held her breath as she hid behind Ruby.
After the attack, Ruby side steps, opening the pathway for Kaede to use Last Pace, delivering another blow to Hikari. His armour expands and forms a shield in front of him, shattering the rapier as it crashed onto the shield's surface. The armour was made of an unknown material, likely of a complex structure between magical particle and matter.
Time slows to a crawl and the temperature drops to a chilling cold. It felt like she was a pristine figurine held in place by a collector, no matter how much she cried at her body to move, it wouldn't. Her eyes could adjust to the speed due to continuously moving fast, and it was easier to augment her speed of perception, but not her body. There was always factors of uncertainty in battle, it was a given that things would never go her way if they were truly fighting for their lives.
The Demon King carries the last hope of demon kind and the advent of a new age on his back, his legs are bent and his core muscle were in full use as he swung hi shield to the left. The shield missed Kaede... No, it wasn't meant to hit her. Faster than the shield and everything else in the world, faster than she can even react even with her augmented perception... Hikari's right claw phases out of her sight as she could no longer track it.
Ah... Is this the end? There was no indication that any of her party could save her at the moment. For an instance, she thought she saw a bright verdant spear of moist green plant material emerge in the air in front of her to collide with the tip of Hikari's claw which briefly slowed down enough for her to see it. Hikari's claw shredded it in an instant, it was too fast that none of the others might have even caught sight of it. Not to mention the angle, Kaede was right in front of Hikari while the rest were behind.
The tip of his claw just stopped short of her forehead, a large amount of magical particles was migrating towards Kaede's back. Towards the source of the phenomena behind her... Karell. Her second skill was activated, the one used to restrict Kaede in their fight. It was Hikari's first time dealing with it, so he didn't understand at first. But after a few moments of observance, he concluded that it was spatial magic.
*ping*
It fractured like glass, but it was enough for Kaede to take a back step with Last Pace so Ruby and the others could protect her once more.
"Tch! Enough fooling around, you insects!" (Hikari)
A flash of hot pink light phases through the entire room, as a non-physical force, it passes through everything in the room. It also dissolves any barrier maintained by magical particles by disrupting the barrier's structure and severing its connection to its source of power, the magical girl.
Karell couldn't participate in the battle earlier due to the antimagic destroying her well and incapacitating her. But when she finally recovered enough magical particles, she figure it was better to save it to defend Kaede, she predicted with 100% certainty that Kaede would require surviving. She hated how correct she was, but she rightfully took some pride in it.
'I'm not a fool like that rabid idiot. It's always been like this, whenever there's an enemy, a plan has to be formulated and executed properly. Just like last time when I had to gather everyone in the village. ' (Karell)
She stood at the back, observing the battle to figure out how she could contribute while dealing with the antimagic. She had been planning at the back for a while, treating herself as its core component while utilising Kaede as a distraction. What if Kaede fails? Was her main concern. She's a king candidate anyway, her role was strategy. Only an idiot strategist like Kaede would actually run in to fight in person.
*ping!*
"He stopped! Now!!!" (Karell)
"[Lost arcane ultima]" (Wizard)
Her body glowed like a bright giant golden orb as she conjured her magic, streaks of gold flowed out from her body and rushed at the Demon King, traversing around the air of the throne room as it tried to identify their target. With their homing capabilities, even if Kaede was right in front of Hikari, the attack would fly around Kaede and crash into him.
It struck multiple points of collision at once, exploding violently at point blank range. When the light and smoke subsided from the explosion, the Demon King's armour was distorted severely. This time, there was a gap that was far larger than what was previously seen, and...
The armour wasn't hollow. They could clearly see charred and bruised purplish black skin at the site of the explosion. A chunk of the torso was missing, rather it looks like the explosion ripped them in a manner akin to paper being shredded, with coils of metal bunching up into rolls and shredded edges sharpened hazardously. His waist became somewhat like a porcupine but there was an undeniable loss in volume of his waist.
Its surface may seem charred and abused, but there was a large and visible indent that alluded to how real Hikari's flesh was.
'One more... Just one more attack...' (Kaede)
"Don't forget about me." (Ruby)
Using [Ruby hero's obligation] to protect Kaede, it sent her body in front of Kaede as fast as possible. It didn't really increase her speed, what it did was to cancel out the hesitation and limitation of Ruby's reaction speed. So while it gave better results than normal, it still quickly hit a limit on its utilisation.
While it was a skill meant for protection, Ruby used it to close up the distance between her and Hikari. Kaede always happened to be the nearest to Hikari. She put her magic into her blade and swung towards his wound..
*Clang!!!*
Sease had arrived as well, parrying her kunai against his claws. It was a short dagger with a stout and sharp centre, oddly enough it was white and it flowed under the dim conditions of the throne room. Sease had used the kunai to jam them between Hikari's fingers, they weren't enough to deal any noticeable damage, but they were durable enough to serve as a nuisance. Separating the fingers would hopefully reduce the power of his claw attacks.
With a single swift kick, the 2 close ranged heroes were knocked far away while abstaining serious injuries. Their flesh crumpled under their combat dresses against their bones, points of fracture spread across their bones like cobwebs, with some fully serrating and immobilising them. Magical girls could substitute any bodily function with magic or regenerate quickly, but it was still inconvenient to waste magical particles by distributing them to these avenues.
Another barrage of magic flies forward and strikes Hikari, devastating gold hued lightning decorated the throne room as the energy was channeled destructively into the armour. The ground was inert and indestructible, but Hikari's flesh wasn't the noise of his flesh getting charred and sizzling was vivid. However he was quick to recover, arriving in front of Wizard to punch her out.
The 3 heroes were incapacitated in an instant, the 2 king candidates were low on magic. There was no escaping this predicament, it wasn't as if the antimagic didn't affect the heroes as well, their mettle were being steadily shed down as well. It was safe to say everyone was low on magic. If Hikari decides to switch to pure energy attacks, then there was no way anyone there would survive. Ruby's sword might withstand it, but her body would be evaporated by the torrent of energy that will swim around it and reach her.
Nevertheless, if this was enough to deter them, then clearly they weren't understood enough. Wizard jolted herself away, Ruby and Sease endured the pain. Kaede and Karell overcame the fatigue that came with repeated well draining.
Kaede stood on her feet, even if they were a little wobbly. Just as she expected... The most efficient way to dispose of them was an area attack magic. Since everyone was low on augmentations and protection at the moment, an A grade let alone an S grade quantity was sufficient to do the job.
Ruby, with the last 10% of her magic channeled it into her sword of charity, Letia.
She wasn't delusional, she wouldn't think that this could do the job. If not, the mission would have been completed earlier. But...
'I have to do the job, I have to assist the king... Even if she isn't the real king, she was the first to exhibit her courage and fight in person.' (Ruby)
Let alone the heroes, the king candidates were an even more ordinary existence. Without no strings attached, they are in it solely for the achievement. That was the general impression everyone had of the kings, that was why support was so hard to win over. But... Ruby found herself confuddled, that she would pledge to a human king candidate here.
She wanted to believe, she killed demons for the sake of humanity, to validate her own existence as a hero. It is all she has. Truthfully she wants to kill the Demon King in person, but she understands that she is not cut out for it. It was a conflicted wish, to attempt to take Hikari's head in vain or assist the king that called out to her for a possible miracle.
But she was called out to. She was believed in. Nothing can replace that. So to return that trust, she'll stake the last dregs of her life, even if it only buys a few more seconds, it is seconds worth saving humanity with.