*
"Fu~ World deployment." (Ledia Vis Navia)
She stretches her arm forward, her fingers outstretched and her palm facing the ground. In an instant, the office environment had vanished, and in its place was a world of pure white. Emptiness, yet brilliant and blinding. With a skill, the intricacy of this world was far more sophisticated than that of an Oblivion Magia. Any Oblivion Magias deployed here would instantly be squashed without exception.
The only way to produce one's own territory is to create a world of their own with the same level of intricacy and legitimacy. At that point it would no longer be considered as something on the level of an Oblivion Magia, but seen as something more. Just as Gaia was powerful by the sole virtue of existing, the universe created by Ledia was infinitely more powerful for the same feat of merely being.
"What are you doing?" (Zedicia)
What would attacking Zedicia accomplish? She couldn't wrap her head around that. Had Ledia gone insane? Was she so out of her mind that she could no longer hold back? Zedicia looked upon Ledia like she was looking at a child throwing a tantrum, a mix of pity and irritation flashed upon the glimmer of her iris. She still sat atop her chair, not for any particular reason other than that Ledia allowed the chair into her own world.
No titles, no stakes but their lives, no warning nor warmup. No reason, no negotiation, no loophole to prevent a fight. A dark determination was evident in Ledia's meagre frown, her brows furrowed together, slightly giving away her frustration. A frustration that she didn't know how to combat, a problem she didn't know how to defuse. To be clear, this problem was not the fact that Ledia had started a fight with Zedicia, she fully intended for this fight to happen. She couldn't solve the problem, therefore she started the fight.
No changing her mind, no sense to her actions. This was worse than a tantrum, Zedicia was only vaguely aware of what was happening with the Destroyers until Ledia told her about everything she went through. It's been a month since, there was so much going on in Ledia's accounting, that Zedicia had forgotten a crucial question.
"This has nothing to do with the current situation, but could you humour a single question?" (Zedicia)
"...? What is it?" (Ledia)
Even now, Ledia was still speaking politely. The expression of her frustrations had lightly lit up, her mind was no longer plagued by the issue as much. An issue for Zedicia to solve. Instead, a new colour of surprise had dyed Ledia's rosey cheeks.
"How old were you... When all of this started?" (Zedicia)
Ledia was a magical girl who was put through a rough period that no human should experience, and she emerged alive from that disaster. She might have been forced to mature, to accept reality for what it is and to crawl through the cruelty of it to survive. Her deep ocean blue hair swayed gently in the pressure emanating from their auras. As if cleaving the air apart to reveal a beautiful starless sky.
"16. I was 14 when The Great Disaster occurred..." (Ledia Vis Navia)
"... I see. I will not offer my condolences. It wouldn't have anymore meaning either way." (Zedicia)
She was aware of the time loops that Kaori put her through, that was the only reasonable explanation for Ledia having gotten this strong in a single day. Perhaps the experience that the soul goes through carries past time loops, and so her magic and technique can be trained continuously despite the physical reset. Meaning to say, she had experienced more time than her body has lived. She's sure of it now.
Ledia isn't out of her mind. She's planning something, but she didn't know what. Standing here would solve nothing, and Ledia wouldn't accept any negotiations unless it meant everyone would be revived. This might be purposeful suicide, or it might be something else entirely. It was hard to decipher when there's not much to work with.
A fight. It was not a foreign concept. Her life was at stake. What was there to do other than to fight back? Magical girls live embroiled in equal parts combat and tragedy. That goes for God magical girls too, it simply meant that this might be her time to come. No choice, no freedom. A crossroad of colliding fates.
A bow of black light appears in Zedicia's arm, an aura of black emanates from her body, shrouding the surroundings in darkness. An aura of white wraps around Ledia, without hesitation she summons enough energy to wipe out multiple universes. Tempered by her battle with the Destroyers, she might even be able to defeat Kaori now, at this stage.
They attacked at the same time. Their screams resonate and clash, translating all of their willpower into audible information.
"[Heat sets the entropic destiny]!!!" (Ledia Vis Navia)
"[Destiny that reaches akasha]!!!" (Zedicia Ivellium Wiz)
Besides accessing and manipulating the library of Akasha with superior precision... Zedicia was also able to use it all at once. Omni attribute attack that ignores any defence or invulnerability. Her jett black bow nocks no arrow, but regardless an arrow explodes in Ledia's body. Auto targeting, instant effect. Her torso bears a large hole, anything below her chest and above her hips was gone, leaving two thin flaps of skin connecting to form the edge of the hole...
As for the energy blast sent by Ledia... Zedicia tanks it completely. Her flesh and combat dress is burnt, her bones became brittle and visible as her nerves melt away into her flesh while her blood evaporated. There was no skin to be seen below around the front side of her body, her organs were on display... But they were still present unlike Ledia.
"Tch!" (Ledia)
"You honestly can't believe it would be that easy, could you?" (Zedicia)
Her flesh and skin regenerated and her combat grew back and wove itself whole once more. So did Ledia who grew back her organs from scratch. They size each other for the umpteenth time.
What was her plan? Was there a plan? Zedicia was the one who helped and guided Ledia a little while she was stuck in Kaori's time loop. Each and everytime, Himei would send Zedicia over to ensure Ledia doesn't get completely obliterated by Kaori's powers, allowing her to safely cross to the next time loop.
Physically, time could be rewound and heal wounds by causing them to not have happened in the first place. Spiritually... Magical particles ignored time, and why would this case be any different? Even if time was rewound, magical particles would remain in their natural state, there is no concept of space for magical particles either.
Magical particles do not occupy space, they are only 'possessed' or 'not possessed' by a magical girl's will, that's what we call a well. Like drawing water from a well, magical girls channel upon this pool of magical particles under their own possession, as such Ledia's well never rewinded time and only grew larger with each successive time loop. Her magic could be trained while ignoring time, she could become stronger and grow into an A grade with sheer talent. And finally she could ascend into S and SS grade to meet challenges head on.
Ledia created a scythe of energy, with a single swing 3 orbs of energy of untold destruction were sent towards Zedicia at maximum precision. She really grew incomparable stronger than who she was before. But it was clear-
"You're looking down on me." (Zedicia)
No. She wasn't. She was afraid. She was afraid of something more, an undesirable consequence... It wasn't hard to hide it from Zedicia's prying mind. Because it was a foolish choice, you wouldn't expect someone to know what they are doing is moronic, yet persist in such a decision. A single meagre hint and Ledia's objective is under the sun. That's why she remains stoic, a storm of words bubbling under her fatigued breath. It stings, her conscious.
With each inhalation, it felt like there were knives present in her lungs that would dig deeper and tear up her flesh more. A sharp pain drives itself into her lungs, yet she can not pass out. As if her body understood that it wasn't real, yet the sensation was so vivid it turned her blood cold. Frigid, her body couldn't feel any warmth. As if the sensation of death ahd arrived early for her. A blizzard for her to trudge through before reaching the end.
Naturally, she'll counter it by setting herself on fire. Her body bursts into a giant ball of flames, the very air distorted and changed into a thick viscous plasma. A 2 metre square radius around her body was a temperature higher than anything in the universe, that it forced their surroundings into another plane of existence. The edge of the world. As far as they could see, it was all grey and empty. An interpretation done by magical particles, otherwise the human mind wouldn't normally be able to comprehend this place, despite it being of a physical nature.
The fireball grows, ready to consume the grey and dye it in its own indiscriminate white. Using her primary skill, Zedicia extinguishes all energy in this realm. Plunging it into indistinguishable darkness. As if she had turned off the lights in an instant. In the dark, she stepped forward and threw a punch. Regardless of distance, it landed. A large force lands onto Ledia's midriff as multiple energy bombs erupted around Zedicia in retaliation. Small attacks would do basically nothing to a God magical girl. Even if you were a God magical girl yourself, it would be the same outcome.
If you wanted to do even a little damage, you had to give it your all. And to win, even more than that. That's why... All of these small attacks were fully capable of killing the other party, they were simply mitigated with some form of magic. Zedicia wields her bow, a few more shots implode inside Ledia, but they fail to wound her. Energy based attacks were becoming less and less deadly as Ledia got used to them. Naturally, it was because she was using her first skill to control their power and lowering their lethality.
With a single sweep, Ledia's leg slices through both Zedicia and her bow, causing energy to erupt around her leg. The energy she conjured was enough to kill Zedicia over and over, eroding at infinite space time, tearing away at the edge of the world. An infinity beyond infinity, it would have been useful against Hikari, perhaps she could have saved the others.
Alright, that's why she'll try her best now. It's because she failed to save everyone before, that's why she could so confidently stand on her own against Zedicia now. Unlike Kaori, she wouldn't have any difficulty against Zedicia, and she would actually push Zedicia onto the brink of death. Ledia was the closest anyone ever was to killing Zedicia.
The energy erupted and expanded, swallowing the foreseeable universe at once.
"[Otherworldly disassociation, decay spreads to all] ." (Zedicia)
All of the existing light converge into a single point at once like a miniature sphere, and rams into Ledia's body. It was nullified, not a single scratch was left on Ledia's fair skin. She forms gauntlets of light, dense energy enough to kill gods. A quantity so irrational that it broke concepts and shatters worlds like glass.
Ledia arrives behind Zedicia, her legs bent widely as she swung her knuckles closer. The fragments of the broken bow converge on Ledia's fist, blocking the hit.
"How...?" (Ledia)
With a single kick, Zedicia slams her feet into Ledia's skull mid utter, crushing it into pieces. Her body stumbled without a head for two steps before it's neck stared straight at Zedicia. She swung her fist once more, this time it was her left. It stops short on Zedicia's body.
"... Calculation verified... Exact inversion of trajectory detected, so you can inverse the impact of my attacks..." (Ledia)
A large pillar of energy swallows Ledia whole, but just as sudden as it appeared it vanished. Another energy attack, Ledia returned its value to zero. As long as it was energy, it was erasable. That was the law her primary skill operated on, the violation of the conservation of energy. Magical particles had long already violated this law, by allowing conversion of 1:100 rather than 1:1,or perhaps even more absurd ratios. Changing infinite to zero was a natural ability she could hone after some time.
A stalemate, how irritating. It really threw a wrench into Ledia's plan, but that's fine. Find something, something that couldn't be inverted... That's it.