"Eugh, what the hell are those things?" Shosuko, her soul now safely back in her proper body, points at Amaru and Amanda.
"They're the I-C's true forms." The Batter answers plainly. "I'll explain more after we're out of the frying pan."
"You've got a lot of that to do, big sis." The words don't roll off the tongue in the slightest.
"You don't have to call me that."
"Then what should I call you?"
"Nakasuko is just fine."
"Alright, Nakasuko! Let's do this!" Shosuko pounds her fists together. "I don't exactly know what's happening but those two are the bad guys, right?"
"Essentially. Don't hurt their gems if you don't want to kill them. Apart from that, you can go ham."
"Hell yeah." Shosuko reaches down, rips out a tremendous truck-sized chunk of concrete from the building before throwing it at the I-C's. Amaru doesn't hesitate, lifting up her arms and unloading a volley at the rubble tumbling through the air, turning it into a fine powder. But in raising her ponderous arms, she leaves her sides exposed. Shosuko appears at the edge of her vision.
Shosuko dashes towards Amaru at an angle, fists held up defensively. Amanda tries to intercept by shooting two bolts at Shosuko but the arrows don't slow her down in the slightest. She simply takes the hits to her arms and shrugs them off.
A solid side kick from Shosuko sends Amaru stumbling backwards. She tries to level her weapons at her assailant but she's just too fast. Masterfully manipulating her momentum, she slips underneath Amaru's guns, the avalanche of bullets missing her by mere inches, before getting in close and delivering a flurry of blows directly to Amaru's abdomen. Her arms work like pistons, slamming back and forth, mercilessly grinding Amaru's inner workings into scrap. With a final solid kick, she sends her flying off to the side like a ragdoll.
Though, her relentless offense does not come without cost. She's tired. And while she catches her breath, Amanda is already splitting her bows into sabers. She swings her blades as if they were the jaws of a hungry beast trying to rip out Shosuko's throat. But her laser-focus on her prey leaves her blind to a flanking attack.
"「Taijutsu! - Special Homerun!」" A vertical swing of a bat crushes two of her arms, allowing Shosuko to easily rotate out of her reach with some footwork. Nakasuko doesn't let up on her offense, each of her swings are loaded with the brute force of a dozen speeding trains. Amanda staggers in the direction of her swings, a feeble attempt to roll with the punches. A final out-of-the-park sends her flying backwards.
"Nice save, sis."
"Thanks." Nakasuko wipes the sweat from her nose.
"Darn that hurt." Amanda groggily gets back onto her feet, the damage from Nakasuko's assault already mending. She picks up her arms from the ground and reattaches them back to her body.
"As expected from the Kuze Clan Head and the Umi Alliance Head." Amaru wipes the debris from her porcelain face on her shoulder. "But that's enough playing around." She aims her gun arms backwards and fires, using the massive recoil to propel herself forwards.
"Shit–!" Nakasuko steps in front of Shosuko and tanks the blow with her bat. She manages to stop Amaru for the moment but she loses ground every time she fires, the recoil working in tandem with raw strength. "Kasai! Yuki!"
"Right!" Two girls, one with blue hair and one with red hair, jump down from a nearby building and charge Amaru who raises one of her arms and fires a fusillade at the pair.
"「Iaijutsu! - Hundred Cuts!」" The one with red hair places her hand on her sword handle. A terse web of sword slashes suddenly appears in front of them, deflecting the bullets as they come. Not even a single one makes it past.
"Yuki!"
"Got it!"
The girl with blue hair, Yuki, vaults over her sister before unleashing a flurry of stabs at Amaru. Amanda steps in, four sabers drawn, each one flitting to and fro, blocking the strikes. Even after the girl with red hair starts launching her own slashes alongside her sister, the four-armed I-C is unfazed. Mathematically, four swords are greater than three. Amanda outmaneuvers them, forcing them on the back foot before locking their blades into a clash of strength.
"Good try." There's no trace of an insult in Amanda's tone, it's genuine praise.
"Thanks." Kasai and Yuki both reply at the same time through gritted teeth.
Amanda shoves them both backwards, buying Amaru enough space to level an arm against them. Kasai sheathes her sword and gets ready to use her Iaijutsu again but there's no need.
Nakasuko knocks Amaru's sole remaining arm to the side, buying them enough space to launch a counterattack. About a meter to Amaru's side stands Shosuko with her arm raised, cocked for a haymaker. As Her sister stands behind her, winding up a swing with her bat before driving it into her Shosuko's raised elbow. It creates a hammer-and-nail effect resulting in a punch potentially measured in the megatons going straight through Amaru's head. She's knocked off-balance and her shots go wild.
Amanda tries to counterattack while Shosuko's open but Yuki manages to quickly interpose herself in between them. With two quick swipes of her rapiers, she deflects all four strikes perfectly, as if she already knew Amanda's moves in advance. Taking a leaf from Amanda's book, Yuki raises her leg and kicks her opponent in the chest, buying space for Kasai to enter the fray. Within half of a second, she draws her blade, bisects Amanda into a torso and a pair of legs, cuts off her left arms, cuts off her right arms, severs her head, and then sheathes her blade.
All the while, Amaru desperately tries to recover but her ponderous artillery-like weapons means that she's completely defenseless as she's beset on both sides by Shosuko and her sister. A swing from a bat stuns her while a pair of hands rip her left arm from her shoulder. Before she can retaliate, another swing from a bat sends her stumbling backwards while again, a pair of hands rip her right arm from her shoulder with sheer overwhelming brute strength. Shosuko keeps going, ripping and tearing until she's a pile of writhing scrap metal. But not once does she hurt the gem on Amaru's hand.
"Well…" Shosuko rips out the two magic arrows lodged in her body and lets them fall to the ground. "That was a lot easier than you made it sound."
"It was a lot harder before we knew we could just tear them apart." Nakasuko rolls her shoulder. "Though, leave it to you to just blitz through them like they're made of paper."
"It's one of my strong points." Shosuko taps her toned bicep.
Kasai and Yuki walk over to where they're standing.
"Did we do it? Is it over?" Yuki says, maybe a little too optimistically.
"It… seems like it." Kasai shrugs.
"Let's not jinx it just yet." Nakasuko looks up at the sky. "...–!"
"What is it?" Kasai already has her hand on the hilt of her sword.
"Up there." Nakasuko points at a cloud in the sky. It's not moving.
"What the–" Shosuko only manages to get out those two words before a black finger-shaped shadow emerges from that cloud and rapidly expands.
"GET DOWN!" Nakasuko and Kasai tackle their little sisters onto the ground right as the spirit takes a bite out of the spot where they were half an instant earlier.
"What is that thing?!" Yuki draws her rapiers as she scrambles back to her feet.
"I don't know!" Nakasuko takes a swing at the spirit's eel-like body, causing it to fold in on itself. It doesn't even flinch as its body squishes in on itself.
"Eeb! Return!" A voice comes from further along the street. The spirit freezes in place, its ever-smiling face suddenly turning dour, but it complies with its master's order. It slithers through the air back to Tami's side. "You may leave now, Eeb. Mama wants to handle this herself."
With a whimper, the thing– Eeb, slithers away into the clouds. Tami stands imposingly in the middle of a small nest made entirely out of silver muskets. "I see that my subordinates have failed me in every single way. But no matter, the second stage incubation is complete. I've already won."
「Tami Momoe 」- False Third-Stage Magical Girl
She waves her hand and the muskets float off the ground. They spread themselves pointing outwards, forming a protective shell around Tami. "I'll give you all one last chance. Surrender and you'll be sealed in hell. If you don't, I will kill you. Make your choice. "
Wordlessly, the four magical girls lower themselves into battle stances.
"Then I shall deliver you to your deaths!" Tami raises her hand before bringing it down. "Fire!"