Gwendith couldn’t believe her eyes. Where did that greatsword come from? One moment, Yuriko was barehanded, the next, a ridiculously huge weapon appeared in her hands. The width of the blade must have been at least ten inches or so.

How is she even carrying that thing?

Gwendith knew Yuriko was strong from inlaying Strengthen Physique but the way she flung that thing about looked like it weighed next to nothing. Logically, the weight of the blade would unbalance her with every swing. Even if Gwendith had the same amount of strength, the fact that the blade was likely heavier than her meant that the inertia and momentum would throw her off balance even if she swung from top to bottom, much less side to side.

From how Yuriko used the thing, it was clear that her centre of balance was still firmly within her core rather than the weapon.

Unreal.

Still, even with that advantage, Yuriko was still pressed back. After the initial rush, Gwendith could see it. How the creature knew how to use her weapon to create openings. She prodded and pushed, using feints and sharp blows, to manipulate how Yuriko moved and positioned herself.

The girl’s defences were impeccable and she intercepted any attack that was aimed at her. But of the attacks that weren’t blocked, they made the snow fly in her face or made her position her weapon in such a way that she blocked her own field of view. To that end, Yuriko was woefully deficient.

Gwendith’s mind raced to remember the girl’s files. If she remembered correctly, Yuriko had trained mostly as a marksman. It hadn’t been that apparent during the Elite trials but now that Gwendith knew what to look for, it was obvious.

Yuriko fought in melee only to fend off her opponent to give her room to retreat and shoot. Even if she didn’t have a ranged weapon ready, she still mostly focused on defence and retreat. Gwendith could even see that when the Seeker left holes in her defence that Yuriko did not take advantage of them.

No, it was more like the Seeker knew that her opponent wouldn’t take a risky gamble.

Yuriko fought too defensively in melee when she should be taking every advantage she could to defeat her opponent.

That was actually a good tactic when facing a swarm of opponents but not a good one when facing a single powerful fighter.

“Oh no,” Gwendith muttered.

She remembered that Yuriko’s most recent action was against a Wyldling swarm. Even during the storm, most of the opponents were weaker than her. It made sense at the time to fight conservatively: she should avoid getting wounded otherwise she would gradually be overwhelmed by numbers.

It was the opposite she needed to do now. She wouldn’t be able to defeat an equally skilled opponent by being conservative.

Even as Gwendith watched Yuriko try an offensive, it was still conservative. She attacked on the premise that she could abort it at any time and revert to defence. It clearly wasn’t working against the Chaos Lord and Yuriko would eventually tire.

Gwendith almost screamed when she saw the enemy resort to Sword Kinesis. It was a common sight in the Kinnock House, though the way the Chaos Lord used it was cruder. However…

Yuriko flailed about. The Chaos Lord went one way while the flying greatsword went the other. She defended against the sword as it came to strike but was almost hit on the back by a brutal claw.

She staggered back, rushed past the blade and put her back to a tree to limit her exposure. Unfortunately, a tree trunk was nowhere near strong enough to protect her from a Chaos Lord’s attack.

While Yuriko was occupied by the floating greatsword, the Chaos Lord appeared behind the trunk and struck it with her fist. It was only because of the noise and the delay from going through the trunk that the girl was able to avoid getting stabbed in the lungs.

Gwendith bit her fingers in an effort to calm down. The fight was riveting but she couldn’t just stay there and watch. And she wasn’t going to just run, either, no matter what Yuriko said.

No, when they return back to Rumiga City, she’d need to train Yuriko out of her bad habits. Gwendith’s Facet made her a melee specialist, at least until her ability to control her Heritage and Facet progressed to the point that she could manipulate temperature beyond her hand’s reach.

‘Think, Gwendith, think!’ What could she do to allow Yuriko to win over the Chaos Lord?

Her eyes darted about the branch then to the ground. The snow-covered the ground. So much snow.

Gwendith scrambled down the tree, scooping a handful of loose snow. Her pink coloured Animus covered her hands and she squished the snow between her fingers. When she opened her hands, a razor-sharp icicle the length of her palm danced on her fingers.

She grabbed more snow, compacting them into darts until she had a dozen or so hanging from her belt.

‘Faster, faster!’

She ran towards where she last saw them but when she arrived, she only saw a trail of fallen trees, wood shards embedded into stones, and melted ice.

“Come on, run!” Gwendith said to herself as she followed.

A loud voice came from behind her and when she looked back, she saw the barbarians, walking towards her. Some pointed at her, faces clearly distraught and angry. The youngest one, who was their leader for some odd reason, was gesticulating fiercely.

“Fodder,” Gwendith muttered and increased her speed. She and Yuriko would have to hide from the barbarians on their way back, too.

Green and golden light pressed against each other at the clearing ahead. Gwendith circled around so that the two were between her and the barbarians. From what she saw, those cretins were keeping a respectful distance from the duel. They didn’t seem wary of the Chaos Lord.

“Don’t tell me they really worship those Chaos borne vermin?” Gwendith muttered.

Ah, she should have looked up their information before she left the City. She’d been blinded by the number of merits offered by the mission.

Yuriko was glowing with golden flames even as she fought back. As before, she was mostly preoccupied with the Seeker’s flying blade, but every time the Chaos Lord’s green fire clad hand touched her golden flames, she reacted and protected herself. Then she would twist and strike at the monster, though the other usually avoided the desperate attacks.

“Ahahaha, come on! You can do better than that! Entertain me! Make it worth the time I spent in the crucible for this!”

Gwendith frowned but shoved the words the Chaos Lord spewed to the back of her mind. She had to strike when an opening presented itself. She only had one chance.

It came sooner than she expected. Right when the Chaos Lord attempted another two-pronged attack, Yuriko managed to twist her body such that the sword and claw were lined up for a single cut. She spun her weapon, the blade sporting a fiercely jagged halo of flame. It knocked away the enemy’s greatsword and continued onwards.

The Chaos Lord clicked her tongue and started to jump out of reach.

“Now!”

Gwendith threw half a dozen icicle darts, each one invested with enough pink Animus to cut through the green flames. The Chaos Lord’s head twisted with a glare, eyes widening and lips set into a fierce grimace.

The pink-clad icicles impacted against the protective green light. Gwendith’s Animus melted away but the icicle and its momentum remained. The Chaos Lord swiped with her hands and shattered each icicle but at great cost.

Yuriko’s golden alloyed greatsword slammed into the enemy’s back, and the Chaos Lord howled.

“Yes!” Gwendith yelled triumphantly, but it was premature, of course.

Even as Yuriko drew back her weapon, the Chaos Lord leapt away. Gwendith could see her wounded back knitting together even as blood tainted the snow around them blue.

She turned to glare at Gwendith, “You dare break the sanctity of a duel? Thaer! Vigos sentralli!”

“Watch out!” Yuriko yelled even as she drew her greatsword back and slashed at the Chaos Lord.

The floating greatsword parried Yuriko’s blow, deflecting it enough that her weapon missed the other by an inch.

“Vigos sentralli!”

“Strike together!” Yuriko yelled.

Gwendith threw the remaining icicle darts, draining the rest of her Animus into the weapons even as Yuriko’s greatsword flared with torrential flames. The Chaos Lord howled as she took hold of her dancing greatsword and parried the downward blow. Even though the weapons met edge to edge, the flames on Yuriko’s overwhelmed the green. Tongues of it cascaded against the creature’s arm, ignited her robes, and sent a sizzling stench in the air.

Gwendith’s darts melted through the Chaos Lord’s Protective Field, keeping some of the Animus since the majority of the Field had been focused towards Yuriko. Three stabbed at her back, a couple on either thigh, and the last one on an arm. The icicles sizzled as they melted, but blue blood dribbled down from the wounds.

Yuriko’s and the Chaos Lord’s swords were caught in a bind.

The Chaos Lord would have looked identical to Yuriko, except her form was younger than the original’s by a few months. Yuriko was thirteen, in the midst of puberty. She shot up a couple of inches since the start of the first term and was a bit bustier too. With her height and her weapon on top, Yuriko pressed down.

The Chaos Lord’s face paled and her arms and legs trembled. The earth she stood over slowly caved in from Yuriko’s force and perhaps the true weight of her weapon. It looked like she would overpower the creature soon.

But Gwendith had other troubles. The barbarians rushed after her, any hesitation at interrupting the battle gone when she interfered. Howling and roaring, those filthy men scrambled against each other to take hold of her.

Yuriko spared her a glance, then mouthed, “Run!”

Gwendith shook her head. She couldn’t. All of her Animus had poured into her blow and it was all she could do not to faint. As it were, the edges of her vision were tinged with black. A moment later, she felt gruff hands grab her shoulder, her waist, and her legs. Grubby paws touched her where they shouldn’t and she could barely muster the energy to kick or scream. Still, she kept her eyes on the ongoing battle. One barbarian approached the locked duelists, but the clashing of the gold and green fires charred his hands making him screech in pain and fear.

Gwendith was dragged back as they positioned themselves dozens of paces away. Gwendith still had a good view though. She could hear worried murmurs from the crowd. A few of the men mimed an attack but the leader boy shook his head and waved them down.

Yuriko’s greatsword slowly inched its way towards the Chaos Lord’s neck, even as the other grunted and pushed. Gwendith knew that she couldn’t spare any thought of using her feet or her other hand to hit Yuriko. The moment she moved her focus from pushing the blade away was when it would plunge down and crush her.

Yuriko’s gorgeous blue eyes had long turned to burnished gold, a sign that she had overdrawn her Animus reserves. Usually, their Animus shone around their eyes and whatever limb they used to project a technique. But how much had the girl used to have her irises turn completely gold? Her hair whipped about a phantom wind, too, and it shed embers of golden flame.

“You…still…aren’t using…that properly!” Gwendith heard the Chaos Lord scoff. “Even if you…strike me down…I will…come back…stronger than before!”

Yuriko just grimaced, pushing down on the weapon even harder.

“Ha…ha…ha…next…time…I’ll…be…sure…to take…the…rest of your…family…as I did…that girl!”

“What?!” Yuriko yelled. “What did you do?”

“Hahaha! I came first to that little dinky town you called home! You weren’t there. Ahahaha!”

“No!”

Yuriko’s Field technique grew wilder with her emotions, flaring out to over a pace away from her body. Even her greatsword reacted to her emotions. The alloy it was made was almost the same shade as Yuriko’s Animus but lines along the blade suddenly lit up green. Yuriko was too enraged to notice and Gwendith could barely muster more than a croak. Whatever the Chaos Lord saw, she didn’t like it.

“What…what’s this? No, stop!”

“What did you do in Faron’s Crossing?” Yuriko said through gritted teeth. “Did you touch my brothers?”

“Wha-ahahaha! Fool girl! You’ll doom yourself!”

“No! Answer me!”

The flames around Yuriko suddenly contracted and condensed around the blade. Sparks that were a deep black bordered by bright blue started jumping around them. Yuriko barely noticed it at first, but as the sparks continued to dance around, a fell wind whipped the snow and mud around them away.

“Wha---?”

It was a pinprick, Gwendith later realised, a hole in the fabric of Rumiga.

One moment, it was tiny, no larger than a wheat grain, but the next, it yawned open wider than she was tall. The Chaos streams, churned to froth from the burgeoning Chaos Storm, howled into the plane, melting, warping, and vaporizing the snow, the earth, the trees, and even the very air around them.

One moment, Yuriko and the Chaos Lord were surrounded by a corona of darkness, and the next, they vanished from sight as the Streams melted everything around.

The barbarians screamed in terror as they ran. Thankfully, the brutes had her captive, otherwise she would have died then and there. Gwendith barely had the strength to twitch a finger, and the last thing she felt before she blacked out was regret and sadness.