It’s incredibly lucky that I’ve fine-tuned my reaction time so much with starter pistol practice. Had I reacted a hundredth of a second later, the most important person in my world would have been killed before my eyes.

I didn’t even have time to think, but I instinctively knew what I had to do: I injected myself with that formula I’d been so adamant about avoiding.

“You seek the power to protect the weak and innocent. A noble cause. I hereby lend you the power of 「The Fearless Leader」. Do not disappoint me.”

Time seemed to stop completely for a moment, and an ethereal voice spoke directly to my mind. It was indescribable, but somehow filled with warmth.

The injection caused me no pain. In fact, I felt good.

Really good.

Better than I ever had.

Every muscle in my body, already honed with thousands of hours of training and conditioning, felt stronger and faster than they ever had before.

I felt light. Incredibly light. So light that I wondered if I’d ever come back down to Earth if I jumped with all my might.

This… I could use this. I could protect Nao with this. And Mai, and Sora, and everyone too weak to protect themselves.

But right now, I had a job to do.

“Argh, you massive bitch!” The magical girl, who had been perfectly composed until now, put her hand to the cheek that I had struck in desperation. Then she looked back at me and saw the needle in my arm, which only served to enrage her further. “You shouldn’t have done that, Sakichan. One loose magical girl is something we might have been able to overlook, but two of you… looks like you’ll have to be dealt with.”

The assassin raised her hands and positioned her body into a square stance, the signature guard of a Muay Thai artist. What’s more, she retained the kunai in her right hand, and what little of her eyes I could see contained a killing intent that wasn’t there before.

I had trained in MMA before, but it was far from my specialty. I’d be screwed against a decent level practitioner at the best of times, let alone one that’s armed.

Wracking my brains for what to do, I raised my arms into my own guard and quickly scanned the room.

Sora was still clutching her leg on the ground near the door. That low kick must have been crushing.

Nao was too close. If I could buy time until Sora gets up we have a chance to win, but as long as Nao’s in the danger zone it doesn’t matter.

As for Mai… where the hell did Mai go?

“Saki! Catch!” As if answering the question in my internal monologue, Mai’s voice hollered from the giant walk-in cupboard at the back of the room. As she spoke, a long shiny object flew towards me, and was easy to catch with my newly improved dexterity.

Right, the sword! When Nao came her earlier to ask permission to use the lab after hours, she snuck Sora’s invisible katana in the cupboard. With the sword now visible again and in my hand, the odds were no longer squarely against me.

Now both armed and driven by a single minded goal, the magical girl and I stared each other down. Neither of us dare make the first move, because a blunder in this position could mean instant death.

I’m not sure how long we stand at an impasse. It felt like an eternity. It was likely no longer than a few seconds.

I was the first to break the stalemate.

“Mai! Catch!” Imitating her own words from hair seconds ago, I threw something precious at Mai for safekeeping. Specifically, I picked Nao up with my non-dominant hand and haphazardly threw her in Mai’s direction, judging it to be the only way to remove her from the danger zone.

Luckily Mai caught her perfectly and the two retreated to the cupboard, closing the door behind them. The magical girl attempted to throw her kunai at them to prevent their escape, but I cut it out of midair with my katana.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

There’s no doubt that the assassin could break through that door within seconds, but that still gave me precious time to turn the situation to our favour.

The assassin took two more kunai from somewhere within her uniform and reassumed her stance. This time, we didn’t waste a single second staring each other down.

The assailant attacked first, and she was fast. Incredibly fast. Everytime I blocked or dodged a swipe from one knife, the other was already attacking me. I was forced on the defensive, trying to maintain distance between us but ultimately being unable to box her out.

After enduring her relentless onslaught for as long as I could, I looked for an option to escape the situation and reset the momentum.

I took a desperate chance, swinging the sword diagonally upwards and just knicking the bridge of her nose. She used my failed attack as another chance to put pressure on me and stabbed right towards my face, an attack I barely dodged in time, an incision being cut across my cheek. I kneed her in the side as I dodged and succeeded in regaining some of the tempo, but it was obvious from that single exchange which of us had the upper hand.

We may have both been bleeding from the face, but the deep cut along my cheek was far more serious than the shallow slice across her nose. Another mistake like that would cost me my life.

The momentum of the fight reset, we both retook our stances and engaged once again. I knew letting myself get pushed to the back foot was a death sentence, so I took the initiative to attack first.

The more aggressive style was a good choice, allowing me to control the range the fight happened at. This prevented the assassin from getting close enough to harass me with her short knives and forced her to fight at my pace.

Dodge after dodge, she continued to weave around every slice I threw out, but I could tell by the way her eyes narrowed that she was running out of options.

In a risky play, I targeted the kunai in her left hand and launched a heavy slice at it. As I had expected, she was caught off guard by my choice to aim for her weapon and was unable to dodge. Blocking with the kunai prevented her from being hurt directly, but the blade was violently smacked out of her hand, sliding too far away for her to reasonably retrieve it.

The success of that attack was a major win that put me in a complete advantage position. I continued to press the front foot, my attacks fast and precise as I slowly backed my opponent into a corner.

What I failed to remember, however, was that a cornered animal with fight with every gun in its arsenal to survive.

“Argh! Fuck!” I screamed in pain as the kunai the magical girl threw pierced my shoulder. It was an incredibly reckless attack; had it failed, she’d have been left practically defenceless. But I got too content, and now I was paying for that mistake with searing pain.

“Tch. You actually almost had me, but you’re still an amateur if you fall for tricks like that. It would have been cool to see you grow if you had won this fight, but that was never really on the cards either way, was it?”

The assassin taunted as she slowly approached. I knew exactly what she intended to do: she meant to take the kunai from my shoulder and finish me off with it. But the pain of the stabbing was overwhelming, preventing me from fighting back.

As I desperately tried to think of a way out, I felt something I had never felt before. A presence? Something approaching slowly from the assassin’s blind spot.

Even though I had never felt such a feeling before, somehow I immediately recognised it: that presence had to be Sora.

As if on cue, the assassin let out a muted yelp of pain as the punch winded her, causing her to stagger past me and turn around.

Just as I had thought, Sora was back on her feet. It didn’t look like she’d been hurt at all.

I grabbed the kunai lodged in my shoulder and took it out. Somehow my own wound had also drastically lessened in pain.

In a way, it felt like my strength was flowing into Sora, and hers into me. Sora was somehow alleviating my pain, and I was somehow alleviating hers.

She reached a hand out to me, which I took and rose to my feet. I dropped both the katana and kunai to the ground and stood side by side with my comrade.

“I’ll follow your lead.” Sora said to me.

“Just make sure you keep up.”

Our enemy, now unarmed, put her guard up once more as the two of us moved up to attack.

Individually, it was clear that she was far more skilled than either of us. But with both of us working in tandem, she was unable to keep up with the number of precisely placed strikes battering her body.

Sora and I moved like a well oiled machine, as if both of us knew exactly what the other was thinking.

When I went for a risky high turning kick, Sora ducked under it without me ever needing to call it.

When she wanted to throw another powerful gut punch, I kept the assassin’s guard occupied with a lightning fast sucker punch.

Without ever communicating with one another, we consistently picked the exact right action to compliment what the other was doing. It was as if we were reading each other’s minds.

Sensing herself to be in grave danger, the assassin threw a desperate punch at Sora, which she narrowly dodged. The punch opened up a tiny window of opportunity for me, which I took with a throat punch that I put all of my weight behind.

“Gh-Ack-Ch-Time Dilation!”

As a last ditch effort to escape, our adversary triggered her signature magic once more and booked it from the classroom faster than we could possibly chase, hacking her throat as if she was gurgling blood.

We were forced to watch our attacker escape, but were able to take solace in the knowledge that we had survived yet another attack.

Sora and I collapsed to the ground in exhaustion, the last of our energy for the day spent.