Those moments felt to Tomoe like an eternity. Flying in the air, with the body of her target pushing against her, she could feel her heart about to blow up right off of her chest. Droplets of cold sweat formed on her forehead. All sound, like if it were muffled, making her unable to make out anything from her surroundings. She only knew one thing, a burning thought in her mind: Since she jumped against him before what was planned, the land where she is going to land wasn’t prepared. The moment she lands, she might die.

Feeling the sticks from the branches of the Starlight Trees, and the heat of the fire and electrical taming around her, Tomoe crosses between two Starlight Trees, landing further away from the path taken by Lady Aquamarine. Between blades of grass, the crash makes an electrical feeling run through Tomoe’s back, stiffening her entire body. The push from the crash makes it so that she is separated from her target, making her go over him, and ending with her back against the ground.

Her stomach tightens, and she fights the urge to vomit right back in.

Turning, she sees that her target is standing up. Getting faster back on her feet, she eats the last two jellies she had a hand and throws a fast spear against him. Engaging in his Aura, revealing it to be blue, her target creates a barrier, deflecting the spear to the side, at the same time that electrical arcs shoot from his left arm, up into the air, and back down, in the split of a second, back down, forcing Tomoe to create a barrier too and step backward.

In that little time, her target takes three big steps, getting right in front of the barrier, and shoots another arc into the air. This time hitting Tomoe, her barrier disappears, which her target takes advantage of, stepping forward again, sword in hand. Making a forward motion, her target aims towards her stomach, at which Tomoe engages again her barrier, a little one at that in order to meet the point of the sword. Twisting back to her left, the sword hits the barrier and keeps going forward, together with her target’s entire body. Taking this chance, Tomoe calls back the water from before and fires multiple water spears towards her target’s back, at which he vaults over to his right, making the spears miss in the process. Her target stands up again, and both stand there, facing each other.

They stand there, looking at each other, at about five arms distance, circling each other. Tomoe watches him move: In each step, the form is conserved. The body never loses composure. A steady hand, sword hardly sways at the body’s pulse. Helmet looking straight, through the open space she meets the eyes of her target, albeit between shadows.

Through her mind and her body she knew it: One wrong move, and her target will be the one leaving here alive, but she couldn’t continue like this, another threat was lurking, and she couldn’t afford to make a wrong move.

Taking her eyes down to the sides, she instantly found the point of the enemy’s sword right between her eyes. Dodging right, the point pierces through the flesh of her left cheek, while she rises a water spear from below her, hitting the sword and sending it flying to the side. Landing on her knees, she rolls along the ground, evading the electrical arcs that her target is now firing at her. Surrounding her target with a ring of water while rolling, she fires more water spears, smaller than before, towards him. Hitting him in the arm, it stops the relentless electrical attack, making her target stop on his tracks. Raising a barrier, all the other spears manage to demolish it, making him get on his knees now.

She has him. Tomoe knows it, but he clearly is better versed in close combat than she is, so, Tomoe reunites all the infused water that is around her right now, creating a large water spear in order to end him from distance. While the spear is almost ready, she sees something that upsets her victory: Her target is smiling. In a hand, he is holding a white spice. Seeing this, Tomoe throws the spear, but to no avail, since he eats the spice, and engaging his Aura, a burst of electricity comes forward, meeting the spear in midair and evaporating it, completely.

Once again, he raises his arm, and a burst of electricity comes forward, stronger and faster than before, hitting Tomoe with all of his might. Feeling the uncontrollable movements that the electricity is making her body do, and the burnt smell, Tomoe falls down to the ground, surrounded by the burnt blades of grass, and the ones that started to burn in that moment.

Forcing herself to face upward, she sees her target get close. He stands right in front of her, chuckling. His mouth is moving, but she can’t make what he is saying. Right at the moment, he raises his arm to finish her, a light comes out of Tomoe’s field of vision. A white light, that catches her target’s attention for the span of a moment, makes him lower his arm. In this very moment, Tomoe reinforces her body with her Aura, and pushing with her whole body, she raises from the ground and tackles her target with all of her strength. She falls again to the ground, but raises her sight in time to use water taming and push her target all the way into falling inside one of the dust circles of a Starlight Forest, about two meters in front of her…

Her target is ripped apart by a deafening blast, sending his torso flying through the air.

It’s… it’s done…

As Tomoe lays down over the grass, she feels how her body, all tense up, starts to release the tension. Against Tomoe’s expectations, she starts to shake, as her body fights to keep said tension going. As the release reaches her feet and hands, the quivering becomes stronger while Tomoe grabs her right hand and curls up, trying to contain the involuntary movement of her body. Starting to tearing up, she bites her lower lip and closes her eyes strongly.

As the ghostly rain continues to fall over her heart, the pressure inside her reaches a critical point and comes bursting out. All the feelings of these last two days, everything that this cursed battle did to her and her city, everything came back in a sudden instant. Incorporating into her knees, she lets a scream roar out of her with all of the strength she has left, as finally multiple droplets come out and start falling off her face.

She let out a long scream that no one would be able to hear, the Starlight Forest is quite thick after all, yet she herself wasn’t able to hear it either, as she was under the stormy rain, for the first time the rain droplets drenching her clothes.

In the distance, a sudden strong sound reached her ears, while the leaves of the trees were shaken.

Breaking Tomoe from her trance-like state, she remembers that the fight isn’t still over.

Gotta go… I gotta go… They are waiting for me…

Trembling while incorporating herself, Tomoe raises her sight to the source of light, only to see that it is the Grand Castle, now having an Ivory color to its walls and towers, throwing light in all directions. She then comes closer to the torso, seeing it still twitching.

At the sight, she thought that she would be happy, to eliminate the last man, one of the two, that was the cause of all the chaos and death in these last two days. Seeing him there now, she couldn’t feel anything besides a feeling of relief going through her entire body. Her shoulders lowered, tears started to pour, and taking deep breaths, she sobbed.

Defying expectations, a chuckle reaches Tomoe’s ears. Wiping her tears, she can see the man still moving, chuckling. Blood pouring from everywhere, forming a lake at her feet. She can see a smile, teeth, from where she is.

A sense like fire started to build up inside her, the smell of burnt flesh reaching her nose. Eyes glaring into his, she reaches to where his body is, to his helmet, and takes it away, and in the process, her heart sunk, while her eyes and mouth opened wide.

This man ears, like many other Aquamarines’ they were. At the sight, a bigger smile grew up in the man’s face, before finally stopping moving. Her breathing turned erratic, a sensation like fire ran through the skin of her body. She stopped hearing sounds, as the anxiety that she was losing suddenly gained strength again, her body gaining tension all the way up once more.

“What… what is happening?” Tomoe whispers.