"They're not even giving it their all," she murmurs to herself, a hint of boredom in her voice.
"They're waiting for something," Ieri says, his gaze sharp as he studies the two armies.
"Or someone," Meisa adds, her eyes narrowing as she looks towards the horizon.
...
"I sense a squad coming in our direction." crouched down on the ground, Sakurako sighs in her heart. The battle has truly begun.
"We need to brace ourselves." the team leader says, almost to a whisper.
Sakurako nods, her heart racing. "I'll be hit first," she says, stepping back. The air around her crackles with anticipation. The enemy, Bates Basil, known for his lightning-fast strikes, emerges from the fray. His eyes lock onto hers, a challenge. She can almost feel the electricity building up in the atmosphere.
It's her first time being on the battlefield.
Her heart is racing, her palms sweaty. The sound of chirping electricity is almost deafening, yet she focuses solely on Bates Basil's eyes not even noticing that he's flying to her. His eyes gleam with malicious intent as he raises his hand, the very air around it crackling with the promise of a fierce lightning strike.
As his lightning strike closes up on her a gust of wind billows from her side, scattering the electric current. Without any words, McCreedy Job covers her with his body and sticks out his hand, throwing a whirlwind sphere at the approaching Basil, making him evade to the side quickly.
McCreedy's wind is swift, each movement to disrupt and confuse. His eyes are focused, stance is low, reminiscent of a coiled spring about to be released. The wind around him whips into a frenzy as he sends another gust hurtling towards Basil, who snarls in response, his eyes narrowing.
Bates Emilia stomps on the ground, a wall of earth rising in between Basil and the gust of wind, the wind blade hitting it and harmlessly dispersing.
"You're not particularly strong." Vazquez Hermann jumps in and spews a carpet of fire from his mouth, causing the wall of earth to collapse, but by then the Bates siblings have escaped to the side. Nobody is stupid enough to wait for the wall to collapse.
The siblings look at each other and smirk, raising their hands simultaneously. The ground beneath them cracks as two pillars of lightning and earth rise up, swirling together to form an electro-magnetic field as the metal separates from the earth.
The metal shoots towards the enemy like bullets. Sakurako strains as she brings forth a wall of water, removing the speed of the bullets as Job with a gust of wind disperses the bullets making the scattering sound of pellets.
"Good job," she murmurs to Job, feeling a twinge of gratitude.
"Don't 'good job' me Water Elf." Job scowls. Hermann spews a line of fire, forcing the Bates siblings to separate. He then chases after Basil using fire to propel himself forward. Job knows what to do as he follows, imbuing his energy into his wooden staff to glide along a set wind route, a straight line homing on Basil.
The fiery dance of lightning and fire begins. Basil's bolts of electricity cut through the air, aiming straight for Hermann's heart. With a twirl of his sword, he conjures a tornado of fire, spiralling around him, redirecting the lightning bolts into the ground. Each strike sends plumes of wood and moss flying. The air sizzles and crackles with the intense heat and electricity.
The wooden ground starts burning with intense heat, the stale air thinning. Bates Emilia flashes up in the air and with a jab aiming at Job's shoulder, she dislodges him from his staff, forcing him to block her arm and flash to the wooden ground already set ablaze. He releases a fast gust of wind exposing the charred ground five metres around him. Emilia shoots a dozen finger-sized stones at Job, leaving him no choice but to dodge, his element having no advantage in this fight.
"It looks like they forgot about me." from the opposite side of the ridge in front of Sakurako, Kjellborg Otto, the last member of team Bates suddenly rushed in front of her, jabbing his three fingers towards the side of her head. She ducks and sweeps her leg to his feet, attempting to trip him, but he jumps and kicks to her head, forcing her to block his kick with her forearm. The force quickly throws her off the wooden platform, nearly pushing her off one of the three metre gaps.
Otto laughs as he lands gracefully on the wooden platform, his eyes flashing with excitement. "Looks like I'll be the one to take you down, rookie," he says, his Northern accent thick. He raises his hand and water shoots from the wooden floor, spiralling around him in a deadly dance. The water turns to ice, shaping into sharp spikes that shoot towards Sakurako, who is still trying to regain her balance.
Sakura bites her tongue turning her entire body into boiling mist that shoots towards Otto, scalding his skin. She materialises behind him kicking his side, unfortunately Otto quickly blocks with his arm, turning around and jumping across to the opposite platform.
Otto sneers, his hands now coated in ice. He throws a spear of ice at Sakurako, who swiftly raises her palms to form a barrier of water. The spear shatters against it, sending shards flying in every direction.
Sakurako gathers the mist around her into a tight, dense ball, she throws it at Otto, who counters with a blast of freezing water. The two attacks collide mid-air, steam rising from the impact.
Otto's ice spears clink against her water shield, each collision sending a shiver down her spine. She grits her teeth, feeling the strain on her body as she maintains the shield. The air is thick with the smell of ozone and scorched wood.
Her eyes never leave Otto's, reading his every move, every twitch of his muscles. He's fast, she'll give him that, but she's not going to be the one to break first.