***
Under the constant torrent of stimuli, her ears block everything out in her fury. A blanket of fire drowns out the labyrinth's infrastructure, leaving nothing but rubble and death. Magical girls cannot die of old age of disease... But mortal wounds are still incredibly dangerous.
"UUAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! WHYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO TAKE EVERYTHING I LOVE AWAY!!!!!!!!
ANSWER MEEE!!!!!!!!" (Ledia)
Under the collapsed ceiling, her deep ocean blue shoulder lengthed hair flutters violently. Her white jacket with vibrant sapphire blue highlights sways to the side, behind her rigid arms and clenched fist. Her ash pink dress followed suit, outlining one side of her silhouette. Her teeth were clenched so tightly that her eyes were bloodshot and her gums were bleeding from the pressure.
In her vision was a strange white haired girl, a cold face devoid of humanity, yet so human at the same time. The face of a coward feigning strength, it was such a complex expression that it was hard to attribute to any one trait. It was both weak and resolutely strong. Firm yet fragile. Like an alien, or a transcendent being filled with bountless undeserved beauty. After all, she was a magical girl who has committed wrong, betraying the whole purpose of her powers.
In her clenched fist holds a familiar jett black rapier, under her hair was her fluffy collar that kept her neck warm, a sleeveless one piece dress that oddly separated down the middle to form 2 flaps. Underneath those flaps were like 2 additional skirts, each one only covering left or right. One was loose cloth that swayed to the whims of the wind, and another was pleated.
Her faint purple aura was always wrapped around her body, like a child wearing their parent's coat and imitating an adult... Or a feral animal backed into the corner. It was used to intimidate but the blatant reliance was jarring to observe. Her masterful manipulation over her own aura and its sheer density of magical particles told enough about her strength as a magical girl. No matter what face she makes or how she behaves with her body language... Her power was the real deal.
"TELL MEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! KAORIIIIIII!!!!!!!! WHAT DID YOU GAIN BY SENDING THOSE BASTARDS?!!!?!!!!! WHAT DID YOU GAIN FROM TAKING SO MUCH??!!!!!!" (Ledia)
Kaori wordlessly steps forward, closing the distance with a leisure stroll. But her expression was nothing but leisure, as graceful as an expressionless doll, yet a smidgen of frustration could be seen. Ledia herself was too worked up to tell, but any bystander would be able to tell that she was quite impatient. The only odd question was... Why go out of her way like this?
Why kill everyone Ledia loved, but toy with her alone?
"... That's right. I took everything. If you want revenge, you should have killed me earlier." (Kaori)
Incomprehensible. It was now straight in the middle of noon. Earlier? They hadn't met any earlier... Kaori had just attacked, and her name showed up on the identification chip. The attack... Used the exact same explosives as the terrorist, it blew open a hole in the labyrinth and set off a chain of explosions down stairs. A land of magic fire and corpses, there was no longer anything left but Ledia who could nullify changes in temperature.
"FINE!!! I'LL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU WANT! First skill, [Heat sets the entropic destiny]." (Ledia)
A world of black swallows the 2 in the instant after.
"Oblivion! MAGIA!, Transcendantal transduction of the fleeting boundary" (Ledia)
She had only awakened yesterday as a C grade magical girl, but in an instant... She used her first skill [Heat sets the entropic destiny] to generate a ludicrous amount of energy that she could use for her Oblivion Magia... In other words, she became a perpetual motion machine. Using magical particles to produce energy, then using that energy to produce more energy...
She first used her first skill when she awakened during the terrorist attack. The freezing attack was her magic sapping away all heat from the surroundings, causing a localised target region to instantly arrive at subzero temperatures. The targets she caught were encased in frozen nitrogen since most of the air was composed of nitrogen. The manipulation of heat energy was the nature of the skill, and she could use that heat energy to fuel her magic.
Without much difficulty, she used that energy to augment her body into an A grade magical girl, teaching herself the instinctual ability to use Oblivion Magia. The black space that swallowed the 2... Is almost exactly like the edge of the universe...
Kaori could feel her sanity slipping away... Normally one would not be able to survive when thrown into this environment, Ledia had gained a terrifying move... It uses the principle of her first skill to increase the energy in everything inside the space. An increase in energy meant that the atoms vibrate more and eventually escape any of its bonds... In other words, everything was accelerated to infinite speed, akin to the edge of the universe... But it's only limited to this space...
The only reason Kaori didn't instantly die from the nature of this space, that would otherwise drive people insane through sensory overload, flooding and eroding minds with boundless useless information, was that Kaori had already stepped into the realm of the gods. Even if her base form was only A grade, it was still a spiritual body full made of magical particles instead of a mortal body, it's able to handle such things and survive just fine. Just that the sudden transition to such a state will still cause some dissonance between the mind and body through the inundation of infinite useless information.
At this rate, Kaori could only stand still under the barrage of information. Maybe an S grade could resist it more and wade through it to battle Ledia, but she couldn't. At least not without her divine form.
"... [Hallowed bridal judgement]." (Kaori)
Her body glows a bright white before exploding in a brilliant flash. When the light faded, in place of her usual combat dress was a wedding dress like costume, which looked out of place during battle.
Kaori knew she had committed a great crime. The only thing she could compromise was that... She could reverse all of the damage with time manipulation. In her divine state, she was completely fine in the environment. This was different from the real edge of the universe where the participants eased themselves into the environment physically by entering it the normal way. De Lan was also protected by her skill which superimposed a different world environment over a small space surrounding her body, but the stimuli was still overwhelming for her even with that protection.
"...?!" (Ledia)
Ledia might have spontaneously grown into an A grade in a couple days, but... It's still not enough. Even if her rate of growth was so ridiculous that it was enough to make Kaori cry on the spot... She wouldn't cry... She wouldn't let something like that stope her now. Even more so... It was... Good news.
Closing the distance immediately, she sunk her rapier into Ledia's heart. This might hurt C grades and below, but this would do nothing to those above. Losing a heart was like cutting nails for B grades and above. Kaori understood... That a magical girl's augmentations not only boost one's natural regeneration, that wouldn't be able to heal the body instantly. It also boosted the potency of one's cells, turning them all into stem cells that could differentiate into any cell that's needed.
Well, that was at least when she had a normal body. Now she had a spiritual body, she was merely emulating an A grade earlier, it was akin to a battery saving mode. Now that she was a God magical girl, an SS grade... She would regenerate so fast that it seemed like Ledia wasn't moving at all. Moving at speed so fast, it seemed like time had completely stopped.
"... Try harder next time. ******" (Kaori)
"..." (Ledia)
Just how many times has this happened? How many times must Ledia go through this?
***
The morning of the Life Festival. A great flame larger and more deadlier than any she had ever seen before. Kaori sets her sight upon the sea of flames that had already consumed the Sanctuary. Where was Himei? And Zedicia?
Why do this? Who would do this?
Stepping freely out of the fire was... A girl with a deep ocean blue hair matching the darkest depths, it was shoulder lengthed and it floated above her neck, bouncing as she walked closer. Her pure white jacket with sapphire blue highlights was covered in suit and her ash pink dress was oddly fine. The dress was completely oblivious to the effects of the fire while the jacket suffered a little damage. It was the work of her passive, complete energy nullification.
"Why...? Why did you have to turn everyone... Even Myuu and her mum into ash?" (Kaori)
A strange sense of deja vu hits Ledia, but she trudges on. Her complexion was now full of resolve, no more hesitation or questions, she was an enemy hell bent on making Kaori suffer. It had all happened in an instant. On moment Kaori was looking at Myuu's smile, in the next it had vanished along with everything else she held dear. She can sense with her radar, there was no one left who was alive in the entire continent.
What was going on? How was such a powerful being able to escape everyone's notice and sprink up such an attack out of nowhere... But seeing the fire she could somewhat understand... Since she's been using gradients the entire time, she had a very similar ability. Using gradients, she manipulated magical particles to keep flowing back into her body, Magia Retainment. Manipulation of pure energy... It was one step above her gradients... It includes conversion and generation, while Kaori's magic only includes redirection and amplification...
She assumed that it never truly hit her how tragic the loss of life was... Because of her time manipulation, she could bring anyone back from the dead... Because she promised Myuu and eventually fulfilled her promise... But... The more she thought about it... The more she understood that such a thing couldn't happen. For Kaori who had been a magical girl for such a long while, for an adamant ally of justice like her... Of course she could never forgive it when someone takes the life of someone she cares about...
Her expression shifts, she has no emotion to hide. It had simply all converted into strife.
"[Hallowed bridal judgement]" (Kaori)
No matter how fast Ledia moves, she cannot match the infinity in Kaori's stats. Ledia dives in with great velocity, fracturing the ground into mere powder as she raised her right fist.
Her fist bursts into black flames that never stopped accelerating. She had achieved pushing the limits of her body, and forcing her body to move at infinite speed. For a moment, this would have obliterated Kaori's flesh.
"... HEAT MISSILE FIST!!!!!" (Ledia)
"... REIGNING DRILL CROSS PUNCH!!!!!" (Kaori)
A spiralling black light converge over Kaori's fist, striking their fists head to head. Black flames and black spiralling light continuously fly into the surroundings, annihilating their environment, leaving nothing but a deep crater that kept digging them deeper as the energy of their fists continued to bore into the heart of the earth.
"You... I cannot forgive you... How could you do something like this? Something pushed you didn't it? I could have helped you... But to kill everyone in the continent... CLEARLY THAT'S TOO FAR GONE!!!" (Kaori)
"KKUUUGGGGGH!!!! Y-YOU DID!!!!! YOU SAID TO-!!!!!!!" (Ledia)
A distant rhythmic chime fills her ears, akin to the large bell of a religious site that signals the apex of the sun. Timed magic activation, [Idealism of a magical maiden's transient heroism: panta rhei].
" I... What have I done..." (Kaori)
She looks at her left fist, then her right fist... And finally at Ledia's struggling face full of bitter resentment. What the hell went wrong...? How did it get to this...? I see, it's my fault, it's all my fault. But she shouldn't show it here. She understood the why and how now. It's disgusting of myself, and I'm sure she knew it too when she started this. Even though none of that happened here, I would have made it happened later...
Then... I'm sorry to put all of this burden on you, but you'll have to work harder... I'm selfish, I abandoned my morals to start this... So I must finish it.
Kaori stabs her rapier into Ledia's heart while her right fist clashes with her's.