*
Her flesh materialises and wraps itself around what remains of her spiritual body, then she resists the rapier and slowly regenerates back to her full body. This all took place in the instant the rapier struck her.
'I'm back.' (Zedicia)
She whispers to herself.
Did she think Hitomi was still alive? Was she so afraid of the truth? Or was she just being sentimental? It's all a blur. The her of the present can acknowledge that Hitomi is dead, because this fact is what burns the fury of her soul. She resolved to live as selfishly as she can. Because this was her right as The Progenitor, as an official librarian of Akasha, known to all who sought its wisdom. There might have been others, but she would be the only one who everyone will instantly know about.
If the world didn't want to leave her alone, she wouldn't leave the world alone too. So she shall live as selfishly and cruelly as possible, even if she cannot personally muster that cruelty, she will leave it to her subordinates, her cult followers. Gradually, she expanded her forces into the modern world and built it into the behemoth that it was today... Well at least until Kaori raided roughly 60% of their facilities and destroyed everything in her rampage.
Her flesh rapidly converges and her entire spiritual body recovers with a bright navy shine, wrapping her body now was the familiar wedding dress combat dress with gold collars on her neck and limbs, loose chain bits hung onto some of the collars, they look heavy but they must feel weightless, as if they were a part of her body.
"That day... You were supposed to have died. You could have used this chance to live properly... Leave the world of magical girls. Why did you come back? As a god magical girl no less." (Zedicia)
A sense of trepidation seizes Kaede's heart, but she regains composure and looks straight into Zedicia's eyes. Her opponent's gaze were firm and solemn, they yearn for what could not have been. There was a miscommunication somewhere along the line and now they have been in conflict, of course Himei wouldn't start a conflict over nothing. She must have offended Himei somehow for a while now, brewing up this tension.
Was she looking for companionship in Himei while disguising it as a business relationship? Did she yearn to have something similar to her relationship with Hitomi? Hitomi was killed because she was the accomplice of the witch... So she must be a witch too... No matter how she thought about it, it was unforgivable. For her own sake and the world's, she hid in seclusion not allowing herself to end up like that cruel king that mistreated his subjects.
These chained on her combat dress are broken, her theme is fate which was why it was a wedding dress, to seal one's fate to one's partner. But her fate is broken, she is no longer restricted to any particular destiny, allowing fate to flow to her and bring with it its miracles and good luck. At the same time, she has no particular destination.
Her natural disposition was to eternally wander in the sea of her own mind and repeatedly encounter her regrets. If only she was a little faster that day, if only she was careful and actually used her magic to set up an alarm system. Needless to say, there wasn't a concept of a sophisticated alarm system at the time, just simple tripwires and traps, but nothing that really alerted the owner of the house.
Before she got the power of the king, she was already a potential magical girl. Gaining the key to akasha's library,[Destiny that reaches akasha], her first skill, was just the catalyst to awakening as a magical girl and allowing her to unlock the rest of her powers. Her 2nd skill was inversion of fate, [Otherworldly disassociation, decay spreads to all], Her 3rd skill, [fate trickles down the mud], was the inversion of charisma. This charisma did not refer to one's command over people, but over battle and destiny.
Yeah. No matter how much she thinks it through, she might just be stubborn, but she still cannot concede. No regrets, no cowering, the only she would ever regret was to let Hitomi die. Everything else? Fat chance.
At the same time, she faces Kaede. Kaede also wore a wedding dress themed combat dress. Her usual bracelets and hair ornaments reminiscent of her demon horn Stick floated gently behind her head. 2 black orbs float next to her head, facing a short stump protruding from the side of her head behind her ears. 3 small and sharp conical spikes floated away from the orbs, with one up and down each, followed by one pointing outwards and were especially large. A transparent veil adorns her forehead and wraps around the top of her hair as well as the stump.
Her aura glows a faint purple, painting the space around her and the edges of her dress's silhouette in a purplish hue. She dismisses her rapier and crosses her arms in a dignified manner, facing Zedicia's gaze head on with all her spirit.
"Of course I came back. Why did you think I fought you in the first place?" (Kaede)
"... To purge me for my sins, the human experimentations, the greedy resource hogging and use of government funds, as well as dabbling and controlling some black market industries... " (Zedicia)
A puzzled expression flashed past Kaede's face for a moment before she recovered her serious stare, her cheeks twitched at the corners as though to shake off the tension churning her facial muscles.
" Fuh~ Wrong! I fight you because I am a magical girl!! That is enough reason for me to stand before you once more!" (Kaede)
Her aura flares up, just because of a little costume change, she won't back down just like that. Perhaps it was like an initiation? A superstitious ritual that makes one feel like they are getting serious as opposed to being lenient before. Kaede can understand this and Kaori would do too, so she would never mock the enemy for doing such a thing. After all, what is the most important aspect of a magical girl? People will argue a lot of things, but what consists of these answers usually includes the transformation.
In other words, there is a romance in changing combat dresses which is basically a mini transformation. The second most important thing in Kaede's opinion would then have to be the skill and attack names. The element of romance in these actions that might seem entirely pointless, it cannot be denied. She would never let anyone deny them. In 3rd and last place is the vibrant and diverse combat dresses that they wear. Appearances matter a lot, making some magical girls more likable than others.
Well they weren't so diverse here when they're both wearing wedding dresses, it must indicate being a God magical girl. I don't get how the others became God magical girls or if it was a power that could somehow be passed down, but... I have a deep feeling that Zedicia was similar to me. She must have ascended from the bottom to get to where she is now. That's why... I have nothing but respect and animosity for her valiance.
"You've gotten serious? No way I could defeat you so easily when Himei couldn't. You must have been a powered down version just now." (Kaede)
"... Mhmm enough stalling. One of us will die soon, no point telling anything to the dead." (Zedicia)
I arrive behind her, with a quick swipe, my rapier bends its rigid structure mid swing due to my strength, slamming into her weapon with a loud sparking sound like grinding metal. In place was a large grey orb that blended in with the colour of this realm. There is no light in this dimension, yet it somehow looks completely greyed with out magic perception.
In a way, this colouration was due to the dimension's nature itself, being a static of reality. Televisions surface some static when random radio waves artificial and natural impact the screen and form that random chaos, this dimension is when everything in reality collapses into one point then spreads out infinitely, like a homogenised blended universe juice.
As expected of someone experienced, she was using the environment to gain even a slight edge. But I spent that previous battle adapting to this environment and sanity depletion, then I spent this subsequent battle sifting through the magic of this environment. It's like learning the skill to pick out a single pixel on a canvas, the pixel is only of a slightly different colour to everything else, but it's something I've picked up now.
But not only were there orbs, other shapes materialised. They were all rotating rapidly, she must be combining multiple skills to do these. Magic is a result of evolution, we experience gradients, time and prophesised the end of the world multiple times over. In other words anything humans think of can become a magic skill one day. But this realm is not something that a normal human could comprehend or even know it exists.
What Zedicia was doing was crossing the boundary of her own limits, forging completely new skills out of those that she picked out from the library. A rotating rectangle and star fly at my sides with rapid rotation like shuriken, multiple more rapiers materialise. I don't need arms to wield them, I imitate my own arm strength and swung them against the incoming projectiles like telekinesis. Though I was just using my first skill. My control over gradients have also come a long way.
It'd be hard for people to differentiate my first and second skill now. My first skill makes things moved out of their own will, but is easily repelled by magic defence. My second skill forcefully moves things, costing more magical particles, but can 'move' magic defences away. I use my first skill to create the rapiers and the second to swing them. I cannot let up.
Lines of black expand with me at the centre, shooting straight into the air and spreading into a giant 3 dimensional web. They intercept and branch at random locations, soon my magic cover a large portion of the grey. The lines begin to move on their own with my first skill, forming random attack patterns that sever everything they past through. A chaos of severing threads swim across the realm with no end in sight, chasing Zedicia from all directions. Of course, I wouldn't leave it all to my magic.
Materialising a rapier in my hand. She doesn't have a finishing move, but she could make one. I don't have one either except for my endless inundation of attacks. There is no defining factor that could exceed 'infinity', but I can reflect damage with my Oblivion Magia and keep dishing more with my magic.
Zedicia dodges numerous threads in one motion before parrying my rapier. More threads zone in on her body, some striking with their tips. A white sphere expands from her body and pops after travelling some distance, when the sphere vanishes the threads were disconnected and those that get caught up in the white light vanished.
"... You were flinging pure energy huh... This... " (Zedicia)
Yeah I knew it too. It was inadequate. It might solidify into tangible attacks because of my ability to shape the energy, so anything that goes into the boundary of the energy I made disintegrates from the energy. But if I used that energy to strengthen the boundary instead of the inside, I can make solid objects like the rapier. But generally the projectiles and threads I make are the more primitive ones where the boundary are not reinforced. They're practically incendiary bombs, but the enemy is resistant to it. That's a way tod escribe the current state of the battle.
Zedicia used her environment to her advantage, making constructs out of these homogenised universe material... In this regard, she was a better magical girl then I was. Let's put away this farce. Bombardment clearly doesn't work.
All the threads get absorbed into my body in an instant.
"Oh ho? Have you given up?" (Zedicia)
"I just think... I've been too naive." (Kaede)
She gathers all her magic and creates a single rapier. But this rapier was different. It assimilated the texture of this realm. Space doesn't exist, they were standing right above the ground yet infinitely far away. It was easier to simply fly the entire time then look for a floor to fight on. But she finally made contact with the material, learned about it and used it. It was thanks to the constructs that Zedicia made, they brought her closer to thinking and deducing the nature of it.
With a single step, she slams her rapier against Zedicia's floating orbs. Now it's physical, it's nearly impossible for Zedicia to destroy now. All she needed to do before was to disrupt the boundary holding the energy, like popping a bubble.
But now that bubble was a solid metal sphere.
"Sorry I've kept you waiting. Have you waited long?" (Kaede)
I spoke in the middle of the parry, carrying all of my will and determination in a solemn tone that would never budge.
"No~ I just got here." (Zedicia)
Her carefree voice and cheeky grin was not anything anyone would expect here in this battlefield. It scared me how she could fight so seriously while putting on a drastically different front. After all that happend so far... I'm finding it hard to keep myself contained.