*
Throwing in some plane energy attacks, beams of white shot at Zedicia mercilessly. Ledia jumps away and flies back, shooting more bullets than anyone could count, and... Inverting their values herself before impact.
Inversion. Zedicia inverted their trajectories right back, pulling the bullets into her own body. She stopped right after the first bullet... So only one hit. But that was enough. Abandoning the body, she created a new soul and body for herself in a different location. One of her had died, this might be a clone or the original, it didn't matter. Things happened too quickly, she didn't know if she was the clone or the original Zedicia, but she couldn't really care less with the older one perished.
Zedicia split into many, prompting the next attack to split into just as many. Ledia wouldn't fall behind, no matter what Zedicia threw she would match up. All this while, since the very start, she felt like a fraud. Imposter syndrome, a being made of lies and deception. She deceived others with the facade of strength, yet all this while all of her achievements weren't real power, they were a patchwork of smaller abilities and techniques. Everything she learned coalesce together to form a scarecrow of formidability, it looks scary but at its base it was completely made up of weaker techniques and powers.
This feeling never left her, she gripped it tightly in her heart without ever letting go. She forged her way up here, built herself upon corpse after corpse of forgery, of her own deaths. Time loop after time loop, failure after failure. Even these godly powers that she throws at her enemies were like a mere cardboard cutout of flashiness supported by her old learnings. Her patheticness never left her.
However, she won't let go of it either. It was who she was, simple as is. Her identity, her worth, her being. It was not something she could easily abandon. It was also her strength, her wishes. An illusion of indomitability, an image she wished to portray. Right, wasn't someone else like this too. A patchwork of weaker techniques, of hard work grafting together weakness and vulnerability, of flaws and meagre strengths. All to form what looked like a powerful enemy, but was really just a scarecrow.
Kaori, she manipulated wind and light to form a rapier of void. A deep black vacuum that could penetrate anything it came across, but had the mere roots of speeding air up and using it to cut. In the end, wasn't magic just that? Flashiness with its origin in mediocrity... An illusion, an artificial product meant to charm with its elusiveness.
A fragile facade that would easily fall apart at the seams with a little explanation, yet the flashiness was the main attraction. For magical girls, magic wasn't about the journey or method to get there, but the final results it produced, the effects it imitated and brought into reality. As long as a smidgen of possibility was there, such an effect could always be strengthened via brute force by pouring in more magical particles.
That's why final skills were so powerful. It ignored the process at the start and only brought about results. [Idealism of a magical maiden's transient heroism: panta rhei] ignored whether or not there was a gradient to move its target with and just moved it, whether by creating a gradient for it or using the existing gradient given by the universe.
The Zedicias fused back at once, at the same time she made a slamming motion with her palm driving itself downwards, tracing a vertical line through the air with all of her might. The air flashed and the distance between the two closed promptly, the hand motion connected with Ledia's head, causing her head to implode like a tomato. Blood and mushy guts with fragments of her skull floating through the air.
The gauntlet of blinding white raised itself, and before Zedicia noticed it had already been trained onto her neck. Her fingers clasp around her skin away from her field of vision, and it snapped. Zedicia's head feel off from her body. Ledia immediately followed up with swinging her fist with her entire body weight, colliding her knuckles head on with Zedicia who had reacted in the same instant.
"How...? Even though I've climbed so far! How are you not keeling!?" (Ledia)
"Fuh~ there's no sense talking about climbing to another God. Whatever you experienced, it happened within an instant of an instant, it might as well have not have happened.
Anything that happens at the edge of the world like now... Basically couldn't be verified by reality, unless one of us dies. But that's your plan isn't it?" (Zedicia)
Zedicia exuded no arrogance, her thoughts were laid bare. Rather, it was Ledia who was attempting to hide her feelings. Attempting and failing. In the face of such failure... She could only smile wryly. Her eyebrows knit gently as her soft grin caresses her cheeks. Her plan has not failed, in fact it involves being found. It ensures that Zedicia is aware of what's happening, securing her resolve.
"... It's still not too late to back out. Please." (Zedicia)
She tries. She wants to convince Ledia, but she knew it was too late once the battle started. Since the beginning, Ledia's aim wasn't to kill Zedicia, that was obvious. Her gaze was beyond the present, glued shut to the greater goal that the battle was a mere stepping stone for. And this realisation of her plan was a part of it.
"An attack you cannot ignore, [Heat sets the entropic destiny] - God shattering star. [Human ingenuity surpasses the secret of the stars] - Squash the limits and reach for the infinite truth. Final skill - [Endlessly, a blooming shattering guiding light] - Victory Parade...
If you don't want to die, you know what to do. " (Ledia Vis Navia)
Zedicia swallowed her spit, she had long forgotten to breath as her saliva pooled at the bottom of her jaw. She tried to utter one last plea, but the magic had now been cast. There was no going back. She knew she couldn't stop the attack before it fires and lands on her, she could only make it in time to intercept it.
"... Sorry. [Otherworldly disassociation, decay spreads to all] , inverse this attack..." (Zedicia)
A universal attack that would endanger all of existence in this world, one that might shatter the edge of the world and ultimately cause the universe to pop out of existence like a fragile bubble. Condition fulfilled. The heroes are once again summoned to deal with the final threat. Once Hikari was defeated, Ledia took her titles and isolated them in another world she created. A generic technique as natural as breathing that any magical girl could use, Oblivion Magia. So to release it-
"Oblivion Magia, I shall end mine tale, hope blooms for all." (Ledia)
The titles constituted the threat, everyone was brought to life by Zedicia's side. But unlike last time with the Destroyers, morale was low. Everyone instantly received understanding of the situation, the same skill that summons them provides them with the relevant information. This time, Ledia meant to have this summon be permanent. No more dying, no more enemies. Surely they would be able to do more than she could, contribute more to society than she would.
Luscious white hair covers the features of the single individual in front of her. She had reached in front of Ledia before anyone noticed.
Kaori, Himei, HuoLi, Barius, Geravinne, Amelia, these 6 were brought back. The relevant titles that they previously fought were brought back to summon them, selecting the appropriate heroes to revive. Corruption of hope, she decides a new salvation for humanity and the rest of the universe. Ledia Vis Navia of Perishment, she now constitutes the greatest threat to the universe. Anti-world, anti-God magical girl. A fine tuned destroyer meant solely for victory, rather than a destroyer born by chance.
Her hair clears up under her own aura, a pair of beautiful jewels stared intently at Ledia, nearly causing her to blush if not for her composure. Pain, regret, remorse. Nothing could fill those features more, as if looking at a dead pet that she could have saved. Kaori was within breathing distance of Ledia, her rapier plunged into her heart. Naturally this attack wouldn't kill any God magical girl at all, in fact she might not even feel it.
Ledia... Untransformed with the rapier still in her... Kaori immediately controls the flow and shields her from the edge of the world and draws the rapier out of Ledia, while controlling the circulation of her blood. It was too late, her heart had stopped with the rapier lodged inside her, she didn't even have time to feel it. She died instantly by releasing her magical girl transformation. Her body dropped to the ground created by Kaori, laying in a puddle of blood that Kaori couldn't save. It wouldn't be good to to send contaminated blood back into her body, then again microbes could not survive in this environment or on a magical girl's body, so her worries might have been meaningless.
The grey realm recedes into the background, a saturated dark blue penetrates the skies and fills it like a bowl of soup. It had become evening by the time they returned. In actuality, less than a second had passed since the battle started, but they needed to return at a later point in the timeline to match the time they experienced. No... That was just a lie. It was all an excuse, she wished to run away. Kaori wanted to give up and bury herself somewhere for the rest of time...
There was no one who would berate her for it, but then she wouldn't be able to accept herself. Her own actions, her wishes. How could she face anything ever again? Now that they were at a safe location...
"[Idealism of a magical maiden's transient heroism: panta rhei] ." (Kaori)
Full power, maximised usage of magical particles, optimal channeling and conversion. No, these concepts are not enough. There must be more to it, there will always be more. Beyond 100% utilisation of the magical particle model, create new model with magical energy flow...
Endless utilisation sealed into a single instant, compressing space and time further into another world. A single universe in a bubble, a multiversal model, a never ending model. Creation complete, pinnacle of existence that spirals into the unknown, ascendant hyperstructure of destiny mapping and the parent of magic, divine particle. The place where it all began, where all possibilities collided into the chaotic mess that is the present. The universe might have once existed without the presence of magical particles, but the fact that magical particles ignore space and time might contradict this, their very presence denies any possibility of their absence.
That is, when a world without magic created the divine particle in a search for the divine. This lead to the universe restarting into what we have now. With this... Kaori might even be able to erase all of magic in existence... She could return back the world to how it was supposed to be and stop any of the disasters arising from magic from having happened at all. However her thoughts were clear.
She revived Ledia and overcame her final skill, [Endlessly, a blooming shattering guiding light]. It wasn't a wild conclusion at all, but a decisive one. After all-
"I have to save every magical girl!" (Kaori)
Her priorities never shifted. The chance of taking a detour like removing magic from the world... Never existed to begin with. She reaches out her hand, as if to grab onto something that never existed. To overturn hope, to surpass and decimate a power that had saved the world and many others... The strength to overcome countless worlds and even more than that... Kaori had to exert an equivalent amount of effort...
"Apex technique - divine particle interpretation." (Kaori)
Rewriting fate and hope, to bring someone from the brink of despair and the designation as the enemy of worlds... Titles, final skill, Oblivion Magia, magic from God magical girls...
" I'll paint over them with my own heart. Magic is just a window into the soul, skills detailing the person's past, present and future.
The final skill represents the future, that's why it ignores cause and effect and brings about the desired effect directly no matter what.
Everything in existence, I will dye it in the pleasant soothing warmth that is my wish! " (Kaori)
She grabs forward with her palm and clasps her fingers into a fist tightly. White lines of reflection spread across the air with her fist as the nexus, as if reality was a glass to be shattered by her knuckles. She pushes. She pushes onward further. She had driven someone like Ledia into taking such extreme measures, formulating a plan with Zedicia's Inversion in mind to make herself the world's enemy...
Rend the titles, paint over reality with your wishes, have a magical amount of faith in your own earnest desires. After all, aren't magical girls there to make miracles come true?