*
The assumption that both Kaoris would have the same set of skills... Was wrong. [Cursed Idealism impales a maidens heart, rot rotation demise Omnia Interit], a foreign skill that Ledia had no prior information on. Ledia shot a cross at Kaori alternative.
As if there was a light switch, the scenery around changes from the greyish edge of the world to pitch darkness... No, there was a slight hint of purplish light filling the realm as far as the eye could see, along with small flat dashes of dark crimson light falling from the sky, like a rain of confetti... Just as sudden as the lights off, the cross she shot also vanished, as if it had never existed.
However, most confusing of all wasn't the surroundings, but the magic caster herself. Kaori wasn't radiating light, yet she seemed almost ethereal as her ghastly chalk pale skin and black combat dress glowed in the vast dimness. Her combat dress was also different from the local Kaori's, in that it didn't expose her shoulders and clavicle like a bunny suit, instead the top of her chest was lavishly decorated with a translucent cloth covering under a layer of intricate embroidery, a fancy dress that suited the visitor of any number of events, from a graduation party to a funeral.
A solemn smile grazes her face, an u expression unlike any that Ledia has seen on Kaori. For the countless times she was uneventfully killed by Kaori, her expression always had a tinge of pain, as if she was gripped by guilt but only slightly. It immensely pissed Ledia off, but there wasn't anything she could do at that time. It was always a complicated soup of emotions, to the point that she got too confused to decipher Kaori's motive. So she hadn't really seen such a blatant expression of despair from Kaori before. As if she was repulsed to even see the effects of her own magic... It was that obvious that Ledia could pick it up at a glance.
Again, it only served to irritate her. What business does the opponent have showing such an expression of suffering... When they are winning in their life or death battle against her...? No matter how much she parsed through these thoughts, she could never understand these vain displays of regret. 'You're sad because you're winning?! Then just let me kill you!'. This was her resolve, she would stop at nothing to grasp at what little semblance of a normal life she has left.
Her instincts warned her... That if she took another step she would similarly stop existing. As if motion was forbidden... It was right to rationalise as such, when fighting an opponent who uses magic and skills, it was almost as if it was a game to identify patterns and rules. Rules that outline a skill's cost and effect, versatility, and then form a countermeasure on top of that. No matter what, there was no point to theorise what the opponent's magic can do... And then not follow your own theory for the sake of your safety. It was always better to follow whatever imaginary rule you could think up off, if it manages to save your life.
Rather than dwell on any inconsistencies to the 'rule' that you observed, it was best to think quickly and move on to a new guess. With her body stronger than ever before due to its unending growing nature, she utilises all of her computation power to analyse the opponent's skill. The first cautionary sign was her attack disappearing, she might suffer the same fate. For its appearance to be gone, concealment or displacement would be ideal... But it was also naive to bet on such a possibility.
If so, she has to avoid the preliminary condition of 'motion' and fight without moving a single muscle. The magic might have already been activated on her, she doesn't have much time nor leeway to simply wait around like a sitting duck.
"I got it. I can't destroy magic like Arasovi can, but..." (Ledia)
"...!?" (Kaori alternative)
" Final skill, [Endlessly, a blooming shattering guiding light]. Summoning allies is one of infinite possibilities, but it's far clearer now what I have to do. " (Ledia)
It was a skill that had the rudimentary effect of guaranteeing tomorrow. In other words...
" Do you get it now? It's the exact opposite of your 'graudation' from existence. " (Kaori)
Anything that has fulfilled conditions, from achieving great feats to just moving... Will have their actions considered as 'finishing their journey' and have them immediately 'graduate' from life. But graduation would never come for Ledia, because of her final skill's effects, the continuation for her journey, as long as she is alive to activate her magic she is able to endlessly postpone her graduation for a later date.
She had mistaken her own final skill for a last ditch magic that only worked to summon her allies, ironically it took Kaori alternative's final skill for her to realise its true effects. It pegged her as a crystallisation of some sort of 'hope', a magic that grants the possibility of tomorrow, as such casting it one time should already guarantee her victory. Kaori alternative's final skill is in effect, a negation of that hope. It wasn't a fleeting certainty like a distant dream of paradise, it was the confirmation and affirmation of an end, a graduation.
Ledia should have know, her very first skill had a broad effect description of 'energy manipulation'. It conjured energy almost out of thin air, it was actually converting magical energy into other usable forms of energy, since the source of magic energy is infinite... It was the solution to entropy. Magical energy is undetectable by science, magical girls and monsters feel it by instinct, like a 6th sense. From the perspective of science, energy was being siphoned from an unknown void.
The magic of every magical girl had a 'theme' of sorts. Kaori's was clearly 'movement', but it isn't limited to one word. It could be a single theme but had multiple overlapping concepts used to describe it, 'gradients', 'natural state', and 'calamity'. Arasovi's was also blatantly 'destruction', 'consequence', 'retribution', and 'sin'. Myuu's was simply 'life', giving life to fauna of times once passed, life to herself, and life from her other selves.
Ledia's them had been an abstract concept since the start, one very familiar yet very repulsive to her, 'hope'. Hope of the universe, the solution to entropy. Hope of her own potential, bypassing and disregarding existing limits. Lastly, hope to the existence of tomorrow, forced manifestation of infinite possibilities. One could regard her theme to also be 'potential', a possible future that is forcefully grasped by her magic. For such immensely powerful magic to exist... The activation cost... Was her death.
The death loops had served to supply her that 'death', accelerating her growth with her second skill [Human ingenuity surpasses the secret of the stars], obliterating the walls of her own limits. In other words today, the time period of the time loops and everything inbetween, her destiny had been seized by brute force. There was never any concept of losing progress, as long as she built on her previous knowledge, she was gradually reaching her potential and breaking it down to go further.
She was truly an ordinary person, she had reached her very limits a long while ago when she unlocked her final skill. But kept breaking those down too. Permanent activation of 2nd and 3rd skill. She walked forward, the activation condition of 'motion' no longer held meaning. Her graduation would never arrive, not until she finishes her job at least. She approaches Kaede, only a few metres away from her. Her crossblade materialised out of thin air, first its outline the its filling of energy. A white diamond shaped cross floated gently under her palm. Kaori's rapier had also been summoned, its edge was as thin as a string as usual.
She swung her cross blade forward, it's spikes extended into all 4 directions and grew sharper, turning into a large X-shape. It was a blade tracing an entire cross with a small handle at the centre of the X. With its vastly longer blade, it also covered more surface area. With a small horizontal rotation, it collided with the rapier and stopped it in its place, funneling the blade to slide into the centre of the cross. Though this time, Ledia didn't hold the blade directly but instead had it float next to her palm, so her fingers were safe.
Their conceptual magic didn't work much on each other, so it still came down to this. It felt like it had all circled back to the start of the battle again.
"You familiar with this?" (Kaori)
Threads of infinite length spread into the void, cutting the abyss into countless subsections of space. It was the same attack that the local Kaori had used on her. Threads that could fly through time and space, severing anything that existed by teleporting through one's being.
Ledia conjured many more cross blades floating into the air, spinning them at high speeds to sever the threads. The threads were black in appearance because they absorb absolutely everything in the set region of space it occupies, from light energy to atomic energy of any matter that happened to be there, and most of all magical energy. In other words, it was also a matter of infinity vs infinity.
Before she launched her cross blades, her body was carved into cubes. From head to toe, it felt like her body had crumbled into blocks and her vision had a square grid blocking it.
"... Oblivion Magia, Heart soars through the endless void." (Ledia)
"Oblivion Magia, Farewell my avarice." (Kaori alternative)
When she saw her cross blade wasn't cutting it, she deployed her Oblivion Magia to ensure she had time to heal herself. Kaori had to react to her Oblivion Magia, that tiny sliver of time taken to react and deploy her own magic was the time that Ledia bought. Her body recovered from the countless cuts that cleaved through it before, rather there was also a weakness to using threads as weapons.
Threads were incredibly thin, infinitely more so for Kaori's threads and her rapier's edge, the purpose of this was to emphasis the massive amount of pressure and energy concentrated into the material. In other words, it was to boost cutting ability. But at a certain point, if the attack is so incredibly fine, only the width of a string's worth of cells are destroyed when the opponent is cut apart. It meant that the volume of the opponent's body, the damage dealt is incredibly minimal. Normally it would work on A grades and below because once their brain is cut they cannot regenerate it and survive.
However, an S and SS grade can simply regenerate it back, and endure the minimal damage caused. This allows Ledia to heal incredibly fast. Their Oblivion Magias clash in the centre, blinding whitish yellow vs dark red. Kaori arrives in an instant, bringing her territory with her like a large cone of dark red light intruding into Ledia's territory. Her rapier smashes against the centre of the cross blade again, but since she jumped in... The cross blade turned slightly and impaled her head.
Normally such an injury would do nothing, but 'resolution spark' activated. The cross blade acquired the necessary amount of energy through sheer measurement and conjured it into existence, then it erupted. The energy released propelled itself and propagated to the rest of her body, systematically dismantling her defences. Her super tough god augmented body was overcame in an instant, her cells separate into their bare elements. It looked like her body was disintegrating into ash quietly rather than a flashy explosion. In an instant, she was just left with the head, and even the head was about to go next. Her renege ration had been accounted for, there was no was out, unless...
She used her own thread to bisect her skull horizontally, cutting off the flow of energy. Then 2 more cross blades stuck into her head, one on the left and one on the right, skewering through both top and bottom half of her severed head. Not a trace of her body was left, her soul and magic had also been broken down through sheer energy bombardment.
She took a life with her own hands. She felt accomplished, but also light and empty. As if there was some weight from her torso missing, some mass had vanished. A gaping maw in her heart. She had taken out her anger on Kaori alternative despite how her grudge resided on Kaori local. It was a trembling discomfort that spread across her body in waves, an unsalted frustration that would never go away, only compounded by the weight of taking a life. As if additional weight had been added to the gaping maw in her heart, stretching the hole further down and making her even emptier.
But she calmed down without much trouble. She held her closed fist, gripped tightly to her chest. As if she located where the hole in her heart was located, she pressed her closed palm against her chest tightly. Her heart rate began to slow down and her awareness of her surroundings returned. There was no need for any answers, she knew that she had to live with it, this weight.