The wings sprouting from my back were certainly metallic, but felt entirely organic. The veil in front of my face was black, but the helmet upon my head gold. I was adorned in a purple cloak, though my underclothes were a pure white.
Who was I? I felt like Saki, Sunao, Shin and Amai all at once, and yet none of them.
I looked ahead. The Director was there, clutching his magical arm with his real one, as if it felt actual pain at my touch.
By logic, that should mean I was Saki. But a look around the rest of the arena told me that it was just the Director and I here.
Conflict of identity… mixed features… disappearance of three bodies… was I all four at once?
“You… what power have you awakened?” The Director lashed out at me with a magical whip from the end of the burned magical arm he had previously been strangling me with. I predicted it before it happened, and simply raised my right arm, a barrier appearing at my hand and negating any harm the whip could have caused.
Mai’s power and Nao’s together… not to mention the feeling of power from Saki’s passive buff.
The four of us had combined into one… but how? Had I… had Saki awakened her final power?
Whatever it was, it felt strong. Insanely strong. Magical power was overflowing from my body. I felt in complete control of both my physical abilities and my magical ones.
But I also felt like a time bomb. That overflowing magical power would eventually run out. I had no more time to question it.
In our hand was the katana Saki fought with. At our back were the wings Sunao flew with. In our head was the brain that Amai thought with. And in our heart was the anger that Shin drove himself with. We were unstoppable.
“It doesn’t matter, I’ll just kill all four of you at once. Thank you for reducing the hassle.”
The Director had taken several steps back and surrounded himself with magical spears, which he launched at us in a flurry. With the massive amount of magical power circulating through our body, it was no issue at all to block each and every single one with a barrier. This panicked the Director, causing him to take even more steps back. It was clear what he was thinking: outrange us until we ran out of power. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have that kind of longevity.
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We started at a run before spreading our metal wings and launching ourself forward, gliding towards him at damn near the speed of sound. He attempted to slam us down with a strike from a magical hammer, but foresight warned us in advance and we deftly rolled our body out of the way, slicing his leg with our katana as we passed. Planting our feet into the ground, we slowed to a stop and turned around as fast as physics would allow, following the first attack with a second that he barely blocked with a magical axe, its form shattering on impact.
Time after time, we slung our body forward and backwards, wearing down his defence and chipping away at his body until he was covered in cuts and scars. Eventually his legs were so damaged he could barely stand, unable to dodge our attack as we hounded him with the katana. Judging his stamina to have been sufficiently worn down, we began our finisher, flying high up into the air over his head.
“「Sensory Deprivation!」”
Despite losing his sense of feeling, the Director managed to stay upright and block above his head, likely due to senses demons had that we didn’t yet understand. But without the ability to perceive us, there was no way he could stop us barrelling down on top of him and slamming him into the ground. We slid a few metres before coming to a stop, while the Director was on his knees, dripping in blood.
“Your game is over, Director. Let us pass.”
“You haven’t beaten the trial yet,” he said, coughing up blood. “It’s a fight to the death. As long as I still breathe, you haven’t passed.”
“That’s bullshit. You’ve lost.”
“Have I? The demon healing factor is even greater than that of magical girls. It’ll only be a few minutes before I’m in fighting condition again.”
“Then we’ll beat you down again in a few minutes.”
“You don’t have the stamina to keep this up.”
“And you’re in no condition to make that bet.”
It was a bluff, we knew this power was already nearing its limit, but he was practically on deaths door. There was no way he could call it.
“No condition… yes, I suppose that’s correct. You leave me no other choice. I suppose we’ll call it a draw.” An awful grin stretched onto his face, and the flow of magic in the arena suddenly reversed.
“He’s absorbing it all?!”
The Director’s body began to act like a magnet, sucking in every ounce of magic in his vicinity. His skin began to grow welts and tumours, bubbling until it looked prepared to burst.
“He’s gonna suicide-bomb us?!”
Realising what was happening, we put both of our hands out in front of us and put up as many barriers as we possibly could. We had no idea how strong an explosion of pure magic would be, we just had to hold out hope that we’d survive.
A flash of light left us blind, and the sound of shattering barriers filled our ears.