“Nao, get back in the sky! Mai, Sora, take his left and right!”

Not letting the shock of the situation get to her, Saki immediately jumped to action. There was quite the bit of distance between us and the Director, something we thought would give us some extra breathing room. We couldn’t have been more mistaken.

“Come back to the ground, little bird.” As the three of us on the ground approached at different angles, the Director calmly aimed his hand at Nao in the sky. From his fingertips shot a black mass of what I could only assume to be concentrated magic power, moving at damn near the speed of a bullet.

Nao deftly rolled out of the way of the projectile, her mastery of flight absolutely exceptional for someone who had only gotten their wings recently. Were it just the one magical bullet, she would have been fine, but he continued to hail her with those small black masses until it overwhelmed her.

“I don’t know how much longer I ca- argh!”

Though it missed her body by a mere inch, one of the masses of magic clipped Nao’s right wing, causing her to begin plummeting from the sky. She was able to just about steady herself, landing safely on the ground, but she clutched her wing in pain, a hole burned right through it.

It never occurred to me that she could feel them. That must be agony.

“Bastard!”

The usually calm Saki lost her cool at seeing Nao in pain, rushing headlong at the director with lethal intent. However, as she got within around ten metres, she seemingly lost her guts and hastily jumped to the side. In doing so, she narrowly dodged the black spear that had been launched at her heart.

“Sh-shit! Thanks, Mai.”

“No problem. Just keep your cool.”

It took me a moment to understand what had happened. The Director had materialised a spear of magical energy and launched it at Saki, way faster than any human would usually be able to dodge. Were it not for Mai’s 「Clairvoyant」allowing her to warn Saki in time she almost definitely would have been impaled.

‘His attacks are too fast, we can’t get close enough to fight him with normal means. Reckon you can close the distance with 「Illusionist」？’

‘It’s worth a try at least.’

It was obvious that just fighting with conventional methods would get us nowhere. I was willing to do whatever it took to get us out of this alive.

I bolted towards the Director, making a beeline straight for him. Or, at least, that’s what he saw. The ‘me’ that was approaching him was a clone, the real me had turned invisible the second the clone was created.

Just as he had done with Saki, he lazily allowed the clone to approach, before launching another spear at it.

His guard was down. That was the only opportunity I needed to hit him with a heavy strike in the side.

‘SORA, DODGE!’

Despite the fact that 「Fearless Leader」made no actual sound, somehow Saki’s thoughts were deafening loud in my mind as she gave me that last minute warning. Quickly diving to my right, I was just in time to dodge the black mace that he had swung at my head. One strike would have shattered my skull.

With my sudden dodge leaving me momentarily defenceless, he swung a second time, this time aiming for centre mass. I had to scramble to dodge backwards, just out of it’s range. Even when completely invisible, I was entirely outmatched.

‘This guy is insane! How the hell do we beat him?’

‘I’m sorry but you’ll have to buy me more time to think. I’m trying to figure out how his power works, but he’s so far above anyone else we’ve ever fought.’

Saki’s leadership had never once failed us, so I trusted those words completely. But I also knew that buying time from this guy was gonna be damn near impossible. If he wanted to wipe the four of us out, I doubt we’d be able to resist.

And yet, he didn’t want to. In fact, he hadn’t moved from the spot the entire time. Other than shooting Nao out of the sky, he hadn’t once engaged us. He just waited for us to attack and defended himself… but why?

‘Mai is gonna attack from behind, keep him distracted for a second.’

Back on my feet, I feigned my re-engagement by releasing another clone to ‘attack’ the Director, hoping to buy time for Mai to launch her own assault.

Unsurprisingly, the Director blew my clone to pieces with yet another spear, seemingly unaware of the silently and quickly approaching Mai behind him.

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By the time he had destroyed the clone, she was halfway through a flying kick at the back of his head.

“Ngh- what?!” The very moment Mai’s kick was set to land, a large black sword materialised on the Director’s back, stopping her foot from contacting his head. She jumped away just in time to dodge the blindingly fast slash he released, mere centimetres from having a chunk sliced cleanly out of her.

However, this did give me just enough time to land my own flying kick to his back, using his spine as a launchpad to jump away and arc my body over his second swing in a backflip motion.

The kick connected, and though he did throw out his desperate counter, it was the first time he had been moved from the spot since the fight began.

He wasn’t infallible.

What’s more…

‘All of his weapons keep disappearing after he uses them…’

Saki’s musings were sent to my mind, and I quickly realised she was correct. Every weapon he had summoned thus far, including the sword I had so narrowly avoided moments ago, had faded after just a few seconds.

And they all seemed to made of pure magic too…

‘Wait, Saki, does the cloud of magic around him feel less dense now than before?’

‘I… think you’re right. That’s it! Every weapon he summons costs some of his magical energy. We have to bleed him dry of magic and win the battle of attrition.”

This was it. Our sole win condition. To survive long enough to completely exhaust our opponent’s stamina.

What a gruelling way to fight a battle.

‘Stay where you are, I’ve advised the other two to take up different positions. I’ll coordinate our attacks to eliminate as much risk as possible, so listen for my orders.’

‘Roger that, leader.’

Mai and Nao were given plenty of time to move to their new positions, given that the Director was still refusing to take aggressive action. Not firing off magic willy-nilly when you have a short supply makes sense, but why did he insist on standing still?

As Mai and Nao came to a stop, the Director turned 360 degrees on the spot, observing that we had completely surrounded him.

That damn face of his. I can’t tell if that’s a smirk or a grimace.

There was an agonising moment of tension, in which the four of us waited for our chance to strike, while the Director nonchalantly remained in place.

One false move would get one of us killed. But if anyone could handle making that call, it was Saki.

As if on cue, the moment that thought ran through my head, Saki herself made an incredibly fast dash toward the Director’s back, causing him to turn around at incredible speed and prepare a Lance to skewer her with.

It was a feint.

The moment the Director committed to countering Saki, Nao approached like a flash of lightning and slammed an elbow into his ribcage, retreating the very instant she made contact.

‘Sora, you’re up!’

With the Director still reeling from the strike, Saki mentally called out to me for the follow up, for which I was happy to oblige.

I closed the distance in a fraction of a second, aiming to cripple his left leg with a powerful kick to the backside of the knee.

‘Slide!’

Just metres away from the Director’s back, Saki’s warning made me drop from my feet into a slide, dodging the magical whip aimed at my head by a tenth of a second. He overcommitted to the motion, meaning I had time to recover from the slide and launch a brutal knee into his liver.

The agony was clear to see even on his unemotive face, but he was also physically incredibly capable, allowing him to quickly strike back with a push kick that had more power than any kick from a human should ever have.

Through the pain it caused in my abdomen, I was also able to notice something else.

‘The magic cloud… Saki, did you feel that?’

‘I did. It seems like even moving his body makes him haemorrhage magical energy when he’s in this state.’

‘So all we have to do is keep him moving?’

‘You make it sound easy.’

Certainly it wouldn’t be. We had managed to land two good strikes, but only because he didn’t know what to expect. We shouldn’t expect that luck again.

‘We’re gonna try to overwhelm him with attacks. Once Nao attacks, it’s your turn, then Mai’s. We’ll keep the pressure up as long as we can by chaining attacks together.’

‘Got it. Sound us off when you’re ready.’

She did sound us off, in the most Saki way imaginable. Taking the initiative to attack first, she got within a certain range, then leapt high into the sky, intending to crash down on top of him with a heavy drop kick.

Unsurprisingly, he immediately moved to attack with the magic bullets he had previously shot Nao out of the sky with, but was interrupted when Nao herself blitzed into the mix and slammed her knee into his thigh, allowing Saki’s kick to connect straight after.

As the Director scrambled to attack his two assailants, I got in close as quick as I could and landed a rear hand hook to his abdomen. He immediately lashed out by throwing a back fist at my head, but was stopped when Mai approached and threw a side kick straight at his head. He dodged at the absolute last second, but his guard was completely down.

Another kick from Nao, into a blindly fast one-two by Saki. A low kick from me, an uppercut from Mai, and another straight right from Saki.

Though he seemed to have physical stamina to spare, every slight recoil or dodge lowered the previously overwhelming pressure of his magical energy.

His magical stamina was depleting quickly.

We continued relentlessly, strike after strike, combo after combo, breaking him down in every way we could.

If things kept up at this pace, he would soon be rendered unable to fight.

But he was learning.

“Not this time!”

He completely ignored the aerial kick Nao had aimed at his face, instead turning to attack me. It was my fault. I got cocky, and waited too closely when waiting for my next attack.

Under normal circumstances, I’d have been defenceless. But these were far from normal circumstances.

“Agh- Mai!”

At the very last second, Mai dove in and shoved me out of the way, getting herself grabbed in the process. The Director was holding her up by her throat. It would be easy for him to kill her here and now.

And she knew this. Her 「Clairvoyant」must have told her I would be attacked, and she judged my own life more valuable than my own. That idiot.

The Director, however, didn’t take the opportunity to kill her. His fixation on me caused him to say the sentence that I had been praying to heaven and hell he wouldn’t say.

“Once again, you’re watching me kill your loved one right in front of you. Will you run away again, Sora Goto? Or, would you prefer I called you by your real name, Shin Nomimoto?”