Some of fear went away, but then I saw her aim it at me. Josten focused all of magic into a single orb shape. Hers was an attack made from barrier magic. The crushed and bent walls around her attack condensed together to form a tight sphere. I had seen how easily she manipulated space to hinder me, but she didn’t try to attack me directly until now.

“This won’t kill you, but you’ll know to stay away.”

It was then I remembered something that Rufus had told me in his garden.

“The moment when one’s focus waivers, that is when the spell fails.”

Then, her barrier orb wouldn’t strike true. I dug my heels into the roof and tried to charge my coldness magic into a new form. If I tried to form into any sort of ice bolt, the attacks would phase through each other and I would lose, but if I kept it as a formless orb, maybe the two would collide.

I trained to keep the cold from hurting myself, but to muster enough magic power, the coldness went through my protective suit and through my clothes. She fired hers, and I fired mine, but only I didn’t mean to hold back.

Hers travelled quicker from her wand to my direction than mine did to hers, so the bolts intercepted right in front of my face. The coldness quickly turned into a scalding heat and Josten’s bolt won the struggle. Mine simply imploded, but luckily, I was strong enough to offset its course, and instead of disabling me, her attack veered off and cut through part of the roof.

That’s okay. I readied another one. I knew that I lost in power, and probably she could fasten those attacks quicker than I could.

I’ll keep on firing until she’s out of magic. That was the only way I could win. As I went on, every time she won the struggle, and the collisions kept crawling more towards me, inching towards my face. My protective suit looked fine, but I could feel that now there was places where it the protection magic wore thin and where I shouldn’t get hit at all.

Josten grew impatient. Only a few seconds had passed, but since we were both in ‘fight or flight’ mode, it felt as if time grew to a standstill. She was strained, but for her, none of my shots really got anywhere near her.

Instead of icicles, my coldness magic deformed into less solid attacks, which also made them harder to use to counter Josten’s bolts. I could tell since her magic never really manifested at anything else besides a really boring orb-shape attack, that she was not all that great of a fighter.

Maybe Rufus found out from the rather shabby nature of her summoned beasts. After all, he wouldn’t let me fight an enemy I couldn’t beat. I hadn’t released the liabilities yet.

“Why!?”

“Why what?” I said.

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“Why do you continue to fight a losing battle for no gain.”

“You’re right. There is no more gain for me. But I will make sure that you come to justice.”

“Justice,” at the mention of the word she calmed down and aimed down her wand, “There are many reasons why justice is on my side.”

At this point, I heard Rufus and Clara say something from above, probably to the effect of a warning, but right now I only payed attention to this heinous criminal in front of me.

“If you don’t know why you continue to fight, you’re not nearly as purposeful as me. Purpose and justice, can you reconciliate those two?”

Now, I myself was thoroughly confused so I glanced upwards at my mentors again. Seeing I was tired and could easily drop the volley, I took the opportunity to listen. After all, this was how Magical Girls solved problems on television.

However, forgetting that she was a young girl too, I did not expect her to breakdown and cry.

“I was born for this one job. I learned all the necessary skills for this contraband before all else. Why would you stop me from returning to my family?”

That’s right, she did say something about being the scion of the family.

“My words didn’t reach you then. What will you say to the people who could have lost their lives.”

I could only be half-hearted with her. Josten seemed to be genuinely holding back, but I had time to think about all the symptoms that occur when she drained mana from the city. Rufus said that nothing that dangerous could happen, but he didn’t understand life for humans.

For example, someone could lose their mental alertness and end up in accidents, not to mention the many who’re fighting old age and sickness. There could be so much loss of life and I would never know for certain it was her fault.

“Kill someone, No, all I did was borrow some mana. Humans like you and me don’t suffer from mana drain.”

“You lie. The entire city is shaken because a lot of people suffer from mana drain. My own Dad. My friends and family. I’ll make you pay.”

I knew I shouldn’t have been this angry. Because when I said this, Josten tensed her body and aimed again at me.

It didn’t matter. I had to prevail. The time to talk was over. Anyway, because I made her stop, I realized that she didn’t know any combat-oriented spells except for that one condensed shield orb. I also judged that she could make them faster than I could, but they were not so easy that she could two in the time it took me to conjure my coldness bolt.

“Fine, then. I don’t care what happens to you. I don’t care because it is my fate. My destiny,” she was cold.

It was now, the last opportunity to win.

“Die. Die so I can live!”

She hurled her very boring attack at me, so I used my coldness magic to launch myself in an arc into the air, since I couldn’t use flight magic by myself yet. I trusted my protective suit to catch my fall, but when I landed behind her, I could only feel my legs freezing.

Yet, while she was confused, it was then I struck her in the back. The protective suit was merely a vessel for defensive magic. Attacking her where she did not ever expect to get hit would bypass it completely. It was a total victory.

Except that her magical power greatly exceeded mine. The very minimum of focus on her back, just the reflexive portion when I disappeared from her sight of fire, that was enough to limit her damage to merely being pushed to the floor and feeling a shiver. After she got up, I was unable to choose any more effective moves. An empty hand.

But she was smiling now, perhaps my words had finally reached her, propelled by the determination I attacked with.

Or…

Rose was standing behind me, wand raised. I did not see her expression, but it was enough. It was effectively two against one, but Josten said something unexpected.

“I surrender. If you beat her, then I have no chance.”