*
Similar to how the ArcMaidens were all garbed in a sort of black coat with gold engravings in a shrine maiden, the divine knights typically wore armour of pure white accompanied by a single highlight. Some had red highlights, others blue, green, yellow. It was something for the citizens to remember by.
On the other hand, the warlords of the Grundo alliance didn't really have much of a uniform. Instead they were easily identifiable by the dull colours that they donned and the practicality of their costumes that shelter their skin from the sun. They combat dresses consist of multiple layers of thin cloth, scarfs and cloaks were common.
In all of this... The Haradell union, a space roughly floating over the land of the collapsed Gangrea monarchy, had already been made public since communications were established after The Great Disaster. A nation consisting solely of magical girls, they were the first to send their magical girls out to aid every nation during The Great Disaster, though this stranded most of them in the process.
Thoughout the single year after The Great Disaster, there had been numerous events anyway, further scrambling the distribution of magical girls across the world. A lot of kidnappings, escaping, resisting, rebelling. Karell's situation where she lived in an oppressive village was not uncommon. Either primitive societies from before the disaster worsened their quality of lives or even modern citizens reverting to an era of savagery.
Kaori who had been living in the labyrinth under the jurisdiction of the Sanctuary actually lived a much better life than many other magical girls.
Miwa fired blue rays of light continuously, releasing dense energy attacks as if they were nothing. One of her passives might be an extremely effective upgrade to her consumption efficiency, allowing her to lob as much of these energy attacks as she wanted. However, none of them were hitting their mark. Rather, the divine knight keeps absorbing the energy attacks and firing them in return, only for Miwa to shoot for in return to counter them.
This continuous back and forth went on. Sufia fought the tengu instead. Unlike typical air magic users, the divine tengu, a humanoid demon with bird like wings with a beak plastered on a human face and a disastrous wrinkled balding head, could casually leave destructive and invisible constructs of air in the middle of the battle field. If not for Miwa's constant barrage of high energy attacks, physically filling the entire place with light to reveal the air constructs at where the light cuts off, it would have been extremely dangerous to fight this battle.
Well... "[Ultramalignant occular malefaction of equilibrium]." (Sufia)
ArcMaiden of clairvoyance, an ostentatious disciple to the Eye God, she actually had the least contact with the Eye God compared to the other ArcMaidens. Naturally, she couldn't be compared to the average citizen in status and exposure time to the Eye God that they all so revere, but she was still the lowest for the ArcMaidens. Does she not acknowledge Sufia? At least say something? Whenever they meet, it is all only about work.
Perhaps it was simply out of embarrassment. They gain their skills which were only similar out of sheer coincidence, taking her in as a disciple just for that would be unfair to everyone else in the world, it would also be ridiculous just because she was lucky enough to get eye related skills. Ultimately, both sides might have just been too embarrassed to acknowledged such a connection.
She activated her first skill, the purplish pink hue of her hair was draped over her shoulder in the manner of a ponytail. Her hair glossed over the back of her head, twisting like an intricately decorated vine that wrapped around her neck. Its end peaks out over her collar bone, the rest of her hair was shoulder length, freely flowing behind her neck, parting near the centra for her ponytail to get through.
She wore a robe like outfit that was seperated into multiple layers, a short tope layer akin to a black raincoat with gold engravings that fluttered right above her chest, a smooth velvety dress that wrapped a greyish lavender around her torso without the use of a corset, it also had gold patterns lining the edges and formed a pattern of various flowers randomly dotting its surface. While it was like a dress top, it led to her waist and sat above her hips like a miniskirt above her hips.
It tapered off into 4 points, 2 in front and 2 behind, like 4 upside down triangles tracing her waist. Below it was the actual skirt that wore an additional robe above like black layer right above it that covered the back of her legs to the sides, exposing her thighs in the front, barely hidden under her lavender greyish shirt. Dark navy patterns trace the edges of her skirt with light blue rune like symbols lining the bottom of the lower robe.
With her skill, her bluish lavender iris turned into a deep shade of purple with red highlights, unleashing a large torrent of purplish black energy at the tengu. The divine knight intercepts and absorbs the energy, before shooting it back at Sufia at an unimaginable speed. It was all done in a single swift movement, akin to how sports athletes could impressively turn over an entire game in a single crucial moment.
Sufia feels a familiar warmth wrap her and push her to the side. Miwa had pushed her away with a hug, facing Sufia while turning her back to the enemy's returned fire. Sufia's evil eye skill worked on the basis of overturning the and disrupting laws. Out of nothing, she created something and it was a torrent of violent magic energy. It was different to the destruction energy shot by Miwa and light energy shot by Paridia, it had a sort of 'evil' force to it that propelled it forward through the disruption of physical laws.
In other words, Sufia was a glass cannon. Her first skill, her evil eye skill could disrupt any law, it allowed her to see far away by erasing the concept of distance and obstruction, it still took an exorbitant amount of magical particles but she could briefly view the future or search for anything she wanted. Under the all encompassing category of 'obstruction', as long as she erases this congregation of physical laws that make up reality, she could temporarily see anything she wanted.
But because of that she was also a glass cannon. Her skills do not enhance any of her stats, her augmentations were naturally trained to this level. And Miwa... Miwa shielded her body. Though Sufia wasn't concerned at all. The slightly citrus scent of Miwa's short and vibrant navy blue hair waft into her nose, a portion of it blocked her vision despite only going down slightly below her chin. Miwa kept her hair short and had a jubilant disposition. Perhaps Sufia kept a short distance with her all this time because she enjoyed her company more than she thought.
Miwa's passive: [ubilord aerenia] alters reality so her energy outputs would always be higher than the enemy's while her energy inputs would always be lower. In other words, the enemy can input 1 000 000 units of magical particles to shoot an attack worth 1 000 000 in lethality. While Miwa can shoot an input of 1 for an output 1 000 001. It was absurd, but a welcomed absurdity. Sufia had a reliable senior here, and another reliable senior over a short distance away.
Sufia was one of the individuals who had becomed orphaned by The Great Disaster, but through sheer, thorough and rigorous training she went from a B grade at awakening to an S grade. She was still the youngest here, only joining about 6 months after The Great Disaster. The vibrant light behind Miwa died down, giving way to the familiar dark clouds that waded off in the sky.
Miwa turned around with the most malicious smile she could muster, showing off that spectacle was in fact to boast her powers. She shot a smaller but far denser laser with the width of a pencil from her back when she hugged Sufia, it was enough to completely overpower the enemy's counterattack. The small pencil expanded in an instant, swallowing the large energy beam that came from the divine knight by dyeing it in its own colours.
As if the colour itself was alive, its ravenous encroachment rushed towards the divine knight, ignoring its surroundings. Her energy beams were extremely efficient, every bit of energy is sent to damage the enemy, therefore it wouldn't spread to its surroundings. One could dip their hand into the energy beam and lose their hand forever, unless they were a magical girl or someone who could regenerate lost limbs. But surprisingly enough, even the air that was barely 1cm away from the beam retained its original temperature.
The energy did not spread out in the form of heat, it merely focused completely into its beam shape. Death. That was the word on everyone's mind, not a single one was spared from it. Miwa was unanimously considered a weapon of mass destruction. Her magic scaled to be just right above her enemy's in strength, but that is absolutely nothing compared to the sheer quantity she was capable off.
The enemy might use 100% of their magic to output an attack at 100%. Miwa would use 1 arbitrary unit, miniscule by the order of several decimals to output 101%. Just like how the divine knight was born specially to one day become a S grade, a protector of the kingdom of blumford that could swallow any energy attack with physical prowess that could go toe to toe with even physically specialised magical girls like Kanou, Miwa was born an incarnation of destruction.
Naturally it was a sheer coincidence, the skills that one was born with were as random germline mutation, in other words it had the same probability as say... Having black hair or green eyes or being born a certain race.
***(?)
Her short navy hair bobbed up and down in rhythm with her steps. Likewise, her steps echoed through the corridor with a soft click clack above the floor. It was made of an unknown material similar to quartz, with a texture as smooth as glass but as hard as the hardest material in the universe. You would need a material on the level of the constructs created by HuoLi's skill to even remotely scratch it.
Of course, this was due to it being imaginary. It was inexplicable, if anyone told you that the floor you stood on wasn't real, of course you would laugh it off and call them delusional, or perhaps you would attempt to get them some help. Fact was that it was all too common... For magic to make the impossible possible. It sounded an excuse a child would give, but if anything was inexplicable by current science it would easily classify under magic.
Things like souls or karm, if they were real then magic would utilise them. If they weren't, then the magic was creating these concepts from scratch from their user's imagination. That was how magic has always rolled, not even magical girls could distinguish these semantics, but the point was that the magic will properly serve its function whether it was real or not.
The ground she stood on could be explained as 'what you see behind your head.' A magic belonging to the eyes and perception category, obviously this wa sunder the domain of The Eye God. She had her subjects build a large shrine inside, despite how ostentatious and luxurious the shrine was, it was merely a gate to her personal domain. One can simply enter the gate, arriving at a reception hall and book an appointment after queueing.
Miwa was an exceptional ArcMaiden, naturally they could skip the line though the Eye God advises them to let others finish their appointment first. She wasn't in too much of a hurry to rush someone else's appointment, often it was a prayer or a cry for help. What kind of situation would make someone try to visit god? Usually it was a dire situation such as an incurable illness or maybe some kind of debt.
Often no matter how dire, they would be turned away. 'Tell that to the police! That's their job, not mine.' The capricious Eye God would eye them down with barely concealed disdain. Why waste her precious time?
Well, unlike all of those mundane cases. Today was a special case, Miwa.
"... What brings you here today? You're not for much faith, are you?" (The Eye God, Mameshin no Himei)
"..." (Miwa)
She hesitates a little, the combination of her downcast gaze and below average stature made for a cute combo, but she was no child.
"... Are you here for my head? Certainly, your passive would be able to overpower me." (Himei)
She spoke with a sarcastic smile, her pure locks of white hair were tainted with gold wherever the light touched. Her perky fox ears twitched jubilantly, Miwa had no idea how she could tell her ears were taking delight, but that's what it seemed like.
"... I would never... My... Family..." (Miwa)
"... Hmpf, rest assured, as long as they are sanctuarians and lead an honest life, I wouldn't lay a finger on the." (Himei)
"... No... I meant that unlike a lot of magical girls I know, I still have a family. So I'm actually quite satisfied with my life, I wouldn't care about your throne. " (Miwa)
" I see. I'm glad. " (Himei)