*
"Fuhah?!" (Ledia)
Her deep blue hair reminiscent of the ocean's deepest depths drapes loosely over her forehead, her body convulsed as she wakes up with an unnaturally high heart rate. She holds her palm close to her heart... At the region where the rapier trusted through. The pain was vivid, the adrenaline was real enough to come crashing the moment right before she woke up. She choked heavily as her throat contracted too much when she rose from her bed, she grabs at her burning throat and her pulsing heart.
She could completely feel her heart beat within her chest, it was beating so loudly she could hear it. How many times does this make it? How many more times could her mind and body take this? No... Her body resets everytime....
This was the exact same moment that she has experienced many times... It was during the time that she normally woke up during the day of the Life Festival. For some reason she retains her memories... And everytime it hits noon, some time after... Kaori would attack, killing everyone in this labyrinth. Her father, her neighbours, her friends... The people she had gotten close to... Everyone dies... For some reason, she would always be the last one that gets killed.... Then she is sent back to this time again...
How many more times will this continue on for...? Everytime, the only thing that awaited her after noon is death... She can't escape time itself.... Ceaselessly, unrelentlessly... The inevitable March of time bears its weight on her soul.
"... No... It's not the time to give up, it's too early. For some reason, she really underestimates me... And for some reason she herself does not remember until it hits... Noon." (Ledia)
It took until the chiming of bells to signify noon for Kaori to regain her memories of past loops... But the question is... Why attack her? And why leave her the last one to be alive? It took many loops to track her down... A few times were spent on the surface of the labyrinth... During the very first time, Kaori revealed herself to be working with the cultists... She also broke through the roof, so the deduction that she wasn't from central was correct. The next few loops happened on the surface, and just for a slight moment... She spotted Kaori coming from the South.
There was not even a slight deviation, she came straight from the south. So... She decided attack the city in the south before noon since she was always attacked after noon. It was a great find to discover that Kaori only attains her memories of other loops after noon... And for some reason she attacks Ledia and kills everyone she cares about right after. Then... Did Ledia make a mistake to offend her in a previous timeline...? How and why did she run into Kaori in the first place?
There were multiple possibilities... But Kaori only gains her memories after noon, while... Ledia returns back to the start of the day around 7am when she wakes up... Someone is manipulating time. It might be Kaori, or even Ledia, or some random complete stranger that she has not met. At this rate... She would die some time after noon again... At the start of the day she starts at C grade... But in the previous loop... She spontaneously evolved to A grade using only her first skill...
That meant... It was possible... That if she somehow unlocked more skills, she might get stronger. Once she's strong enough... She might finally get to the bottom of this... How does one go about unlocking other skills? Is it the same as awakening as a magical girl?
If one thought about it more closely, the awakening of a normal human into a magical girl... Is simultaneous with the unlocking of the first skill.... Maybe if she asks her neighbours....
In a previous loop... They easily saw through her impatience and high heart rate... Then how should she approach this? If she rushed an answer, it would only delay the answering seeing as they would be more concerned about her mental state... Then...
*creakkk*
She swiftly twists her knob and exits her home. There's no other way to it, overthinking about it will only waste more time. So... She had already done this before the very first loops started... To that magical girl working with the police... To Vamaly, she pretended to have heroic ambitions... To prevent more people from turning into victims like her... She pretended to want to be a hero, so she could inquire about stats and magic without being questioned... Vamaly herself... Had her own reasons to pursue heroism. Whether it was coincidental or not, her reasons might have overlapped with Ledia's, allowing her to exploit that gap to inquire even more.
To prevent more people from turning into victims huh? In the first place, Ledia was a city kid. She was blessed with a loving family that dotted her without reserve... She wasn't such a selfless being as to give that up for anything... Even more so because it was all she has known... And so... She had always been pursuing the path of revenge...
Kaori aligning with the cultists made for the perfect excuse.... For the perfect reason... THAT SHE WILL STOP AT NOTHING SHORT OF KILLING HER.
But yet... At times like this, she realise she was literally a couple days old as a magical girl. She was incredibly inexperienced in combat and had absolutely no knowledge of magic. She had never attended the mandatory school that everyone did and was slated to once the Life festival was over... The only knowledge she knew... Was that she currently had one skill and that there was a quantification system of a magical girl's strength in the form of grades.
Grades represent the threshold of magic quantity that a magical girl's respective stat had surpassed. In other words, an A grade meant that the magical girl had surpassed 100 000 units of average human magic quantity of augmentation in that respective stat. This was where her knowledge ended.
Knocking on Marie's door, she had to attempt some restrain in her strength. An indication of her transformation, her black hair transform into deep dark blue... It was almost black, yet became a tiny bit blue once it was scrutinised more prudently, like a puddle of blue ink. The door opens softly, an unprepared and untransformed Marie greets her in her pyjamas, her slovenly state was quite endearing. Ledia wishes to be able to take her time observing her and leisurely spend the day at her place... But she doesn't want to see Marie die.
So she has to quickly unlock her second skill, get stronger and defeat Kaori before noon. Before her memories come by... But... Something was bothering her. Kaori had her 'divine state' unlocked before her memories were returned at noon. It wasn't like a goddess started inhabiting her body at noon, she had SS grade stats way before that... She was a living god similar to the Eye God... So why target Ledia? Why...?
"Sorry, I was so curious I couldn't sleep last night but... I have 1 skill it seems like. Do you think there could be more? How many skills are there?" (Ledia)
"..... Really? You came to my door early in the morning to ask that...?" (Marie)
Ledia only looks at her with expectant puppy eyes. A weapon she honed when she wanted something from her parents.
" Haa~ it's fine. Well, everyone has the potential to unlock 3 skills... But it doesn't mean everyone will. Those of us who are experienced might have unlocked our second... But...
Rarely do people unlock the third, and it seems those who do are usually B or A grade and above... " (Marie)
" That's... How does one go about unlocking them? " (Ledia)
It's unhelpful, but she didn't want to say it out loud. But what if... The subject itself was vague? She awaited with bated breath, wishing her prediction to be false.
".... There's not really any shortcut. It's like muscle training but with magic... So for a lack of better words... Training. People train with their first skill until they one day unlock the second. But the third... It's way more enigmatic and rare, there are too many factors to narrow down from its spontaneity and randomness.
But there's a single rumour that has stayed for a long time within the community... A final skill is the crystallisation of a magical girl's full potential, the peak of their life and ability. " (Marie)
So there were 3 that she could possibly possess... But the final one is supposedly the embodiment of a magical girl's greatest strength and moment... The apex of their life... If she could conveniently reach such a state immediately, it would surely help, but... It also meant that she didn't have much potential to reach and have a low limit to her capabilities. She would rather take a long time to unlock her final skill, and see that it's extremely strong, sufficient to defeat Kaori with.
However, to think that she would have to train.... It sounds incredibly obvious at first glance, but... She was stuck in a time loop... Her training in one loop would easily disappear in the next, and a single loop only had a few hours available which was insufficient for it to really matter. The only constant was the accumulation of her memories, she already has such a short time to live, if she spends it on training won't it drive her insane?
No, maybe that won't be much of an obstacle. Her sanity might not be so whole anyway, it might have already been chipped somewhat after dying the first few times just to look for Kaori's whereabouts. Then it shouldn't be a problem... Mental stability... It should at least stay intact as long as she made progress towards her goal or continue inculcating her drive to kill Kaori... Cultist scum could never be forgiven...
A God magical girl would naturally be at the top of such a hierarchy, there's nothing higher up, at least nothing she knew of. The existence of such beings was common knowledge, they were the rulers of the previously existing continents.
In Asia, The Eye God of the Sanctuary. In Russia, The Dragon God. In Europe, The Immortal King. In North America, The Pope Saintess. South America and Africa didn't have God magical girls, but were governed by powerful warlords as a result. At present, they didn't seem to have much problems anymore after 1.5 years. Well, other than the problems they had before The Great Disaster. Australia.... Vanished. There were many strange reports that people saw it on the moon while stargazing, but it was never taken seriously enough to be investigated.
Okay, so the first step of training... First, it should be something that could be carried over between loops. Memories are carried over, so naturally this pertained to knowledge and techniques about her own magic. Rather than training through brute force to increase her strength, she should be honing skills like accuracy and judgement. Other than that, she could make countermeasures against Kaori and create magic techniques that she could pick up instantly during loops.
... It's 10 am, she should move out of the labyrinth now. She'll continue training on the surface.
First was her primary skill [heat sets the entropic destiny], to simplify it, energy manipulation and conversion. Using magic to create excess heat, then to convert it back into magic. Her passive nullifies any energy erosion, any form of harm to her body by magic and heat energy can be completely ignored. If Kaori used any energy attacks, she could use it to hide and launch a surprise attack.
She conjures flames then converts it back into magic for an excess, a perpetual motion machine of sorts that keeps generating more and more energy. If she converts all of the energy every time, it increases exponentially. That's how she was able to ascend to A grade in an instant, but... Kaori allowed her to ascend. She was toying with her. She was letting her live, which she couldn't comprehend. Almost like...
Dismissing her thoughts, she continues expending her powers. Increase, increase, increase. Go even further... She surpassed S grade quite easily, but that was still nto enough. She had to reach SS grade if she wanted a chance at defeating Kaori. Further and further... Reach her fist deeper into the mystical skies... Her powers grow exponentially, she easily eclipsed some of the ArcMaidens... Only comparable to the older monsters among them.