A moment of silence for the events that occurred in Paris just several days ago.

…

…

…

May those that have died rest in peace. And may those who lost loved ones in the attacks eventually find closure.

I'd like to dedicate this chapter to the ones who died, the ones who lost family/friends in the attacks, to the entirety of Paris itself and to all those in other countries such as Nigeria and Syria who've suffered at the hands of terrorists. Stay strong.

Chapter 41

Within the confines of Lugh's Robotics Space, the battle between said Holy Knight and Masami waged on fiercely.

Unlike moments ago, Masami was finding herself now having to genuinely put forth effort into this battle. For having activated his overbooster, Lugh was now several times more powerful than he was before and it showed first and foremost with the speed of his attacks, which were now little more than a blur to the ancient magus.

But while the young man's attacks had become much faster and more vicious in nature, Masami was still able to deftly repel each blow that came her way, using Brisingamen to allow her strings to absorb the kinetic force that each attack possessed, rendering them all but harmless.

Nonetheless, the sheer number of strikes Lugh was unleashing so relentlessly was slowly yet surely beginning to test Masami's reflexes and the speed at which Stringload responded to her movements, the Holy Knight showing a remarkable combat prowess by alternating the speed of each strike as well as the directions and angles from which they came from, the fifth seat constantly on the move as to avoid any of Masami's possible counter attacks.

And that wasn't all either.

Lugh let loose another violent thrust with Areadbhar, the Relic shooting forth from his arm and aiming directly for Masami's kidneys, only for the attack to be deflected and its force drained by a small handful of strings, which slightly glowed. But the heat from the Relic in question was enough for the beautiful ancient magus to flinch microscopically.

"His weapon's heat is increasing little by little," Masami noted, having long since noticed Areadbhar's tip glowing more and more fiercely with each passing moment, a light trail of smoke pouring forth from the tip as the flames within it began to burn even the air itself. If she wasn't careful, those flames buried within Areadbhar would burn her to death in zero time flat. That was how hot the weapon currently was.

"So then it's time to change things up a bit," the ancient magus then thought.

Up until now, she'd yet to even move a single centimeter from where she'd been standing. But now this was no longer the case. Waiting a brief second for her foe to draw close again, Masami took a sudden few steps forward and waved her right hand followed by her left in Lugh's direction. And like inanimate objects suddenly given new life, a torrent of strings responded to the movements of their master and lashed out at Lugh just as he'd moved in close.

The young man's eyes went wide as the strings approached him instantly, their speed easily on par with his own in spite of overbooster now being active. Having no time to dodge, Lugh had no choice but to block the strings as best as he could, whirling Areadbhar around in a circle in front of him to force the strings back. He'd counted on the heat of his Relic to perhaps even burn some of the strings.

And in this assumption of his lied Masami's trap.

To simply have great power, physical or magical, was great. To have skill and technique on top of that was even better. But it was ultimately experience that made for a great fighter and in that regard, Masami had it in spades.

Having long since fought foes who'd been in Lugh's same position, she knew right away that he'd try to block, thinking it to be such a direct attack. But in reality, that wasn't quite the case.

To Lugh's shock and even horror, the strings spread apart from one another and latched onto Areadbhar itself, grabbing hold of its long hilt and the beginning part of the bladed portion, avoiding the tip where the explosive flames were housed. Then with a strong tug on Masami's part, the strings pulled Areadbhar right out of Lugh's grip, which had become awkward during his spinning block.

And just as the spear went flying over Masami's head harmlessly, Masami then lashed out with her real attack, using Dansleif to empower her strings just as they all encircled Lugh.

Growling in great worry, Lugh wasted no time in trying to do something about his current predicament. Sensing a slight opening between the strings coming at him from his 5 a clock, Lugh turned towards it and actually ran and leapt right through it, trying to even out his body as much as he could in order to squeeze through the rapidly closing opening.

Masami watched, genuinely impressed as Lugh made it through while the spot he'd just been in had been all but instantly eviscerated from her Dansleif attack with even the grass being cut apart into microscopic pieces.

But it was clear immediately that the fifth seat hadn't emerged unscathed.

Lugh did his best to retain his normally stoic expression as pain shot through him. For as he looked to his left arm, he could see that part of it was actually missing, having been sliced off so cleanly that the wound didn't seem to be bleeding at all. He'd also lost two fingers in the process as well – his pinky and ring finger to be more precise.

Of all the Holy Knights, his regenerative ability was the weakest. He honestly wasn't sure if he'd be able to regenerate his fingers, much less the chunk of his arm that had no doubt been sliced apart into molecules, but if he did, the young man highly doubted it'd occur within the timeframe of this battle.

"Oh my… that looks serious," Masami remarked, smiling softly, making for a sight that contrasted greatly with the battle going on. It truly made her look like an angel of death, especially when she made a sweeping motion with her right arm and the entirety of Stringload responded to this. "Allow me to help ease the pain."

Again, the strings all glowed an ominous red as Masami activated Dansleif. Having blocked so many of Lugh's attacks, she had plenty of stored up kinetic energy to use to sharpen her strings, not to mention her mana to further empower them. And all of them went straight for Lugh.

With just a few minute adjustments of her fingers' positions, Masami masterfully bent the strings to her will, with only a handful lashing out at Lugh before a second and third wave immediately followed after that, the latter two coming from slightly different directions.

Lugh shrugged off the pain he was currently in just enough to dodge the first wave of strings by rolling back along the ground, heading towards the nearest tree. Said tree took the second wave for him, the strings slicing through the behemoth tree as if it wasn't there. It was only by ducking as low as he could without actually falling over that the fifth seat was able to narrowly avoid what would've otherwise been certain death.

And as for the third and final wave… Lugh decided to show off one slight feature of Areadbhar.

Almost grandiosely raising his uninjured hand and making a 'come here' gesture, Masami felt a slight alarm bell within her mind go off and she actually twirled gracefully out of the way just as Areadbhar, which had been lying on the ground several meters behind her, suddenly levitated and shot right past her towards its owner.

At a speed just slightly greatly than Stringload, the Relic returned to Lugh's uninjured hand just in the nick of time for the Holy Knight and he managed to use it to stab into the mass of strings about to strike him. "Ignite!" he roared and as he did, the explosive flames within his weapon did their work by setting Masami's strings on fire.

Lugh mentally cheered just a little as he saw this happen, the force behind the explosive flames being enough to even repel the horde of strings back. He'd noticed that Dansleif and Brisingamen couldn't be used at the same time, meaning that Masami couldn't attack and defend simultaneously, at least not with her actual magical abilities. This in turn meant that if he could get Masami to unleash an attack like this again, he'd be able to actually strike her without being deflected if he could just slip past the attacking strings.

But alas, like before, Lugh had made an error. He assumed that in all of the centuries she'd been alive that Masami wouldn't think of somehow advancing her abilities.

And such a thought gave the somewhat startled woman a slight deal of amusement as she shifted back into her former position.

Chuckling so quietly that not even Lugh could hear, Masami decided it was time to truly stop playing around and put an end to this. She might like to play around a bit, but once she's seen just a bit of what her opponents can do, she was always quick to follow it all up with a swift turnaround.

"Daingullveig."

The name of her new magical rune or ability, developed little more than two centuries ago. Masami had always had a powerful love – some would rather say fixation – on Naruto ever since they first met so long ago. And thanks to centuries of training and of that very 'love' continuing to burn so strongly, it'd given birth to a new ability for the ethereal beauty known as Masami, one meant to annihilate anyone and anything that would dare try to harm 'her dear Naruto-kun.'

Lugh could only watch, triumph turning to terror, as suddenly all of Stringload's strings ceased to burn and transformed instead into red flower petals of all things, which glowed brightly all around him. No longer bound by string form, the petals had surrounded Lugh from every single possible direction and angle and shot forth at him at exactly a dozen times the speed of Stringload's usual strings.

The flower petals that had been temporarily formed from Stringload's strings were very special. Not only did they move so much faster than their previous form did, they could even home in on their target and wouldn't rest until they struck their mark, otherwise passing through anything that would dare to obstruct their flight path. Furthermore, although this ability saps Masami of a great deal of mana – roughly 95% of her total reserves – it compensated for this by each petal packing enough power to completely flatten an entire city, though Masami could also alter them in such a way so that the target is the one most affected by the damage in order to leave the environment almost completely intact.

And seeing as there were roughly six hundred petals in total, Lugh had absolutely no chance of escaping. Not even Areadbhar, for all of its fiery power, could do anything to stop them since the petals will just phase right through the Relic to get to Lugh.

So it was with a muted sense of triumph that Masami watched as her petals struck their mark immediately, Lugh's terrified screams being the very last thing she heard before the explosions began.

Meanwhile, within the Robotics Space of Cinder, codenamed Amaterasu, the woman in question was having Daisuke on the ropes.

In virtually all respects, the ancient magus was simply outclassed. He may be a pretty decent hand to hand fighter, enough to school talented trainees such as team RWBY in a spar, but compared to Cinder who'd been training intensively in kenjutsu and even some taijutsu for many years, he was found somewhat lacking.

She had more mana than him to burn through since he and his magical weapon weren't necessarily meant for actual combat and their weapons in general were simply on opposite ends of the spectrum. Field Changer, despite how creatively he may use it, was ultimately a magical weapon meant for support, with his Scatter Lance being the only offensive ability he possesses even after all of these centuries.

But Cinder's Kusanagi no Tsurugi was a Relic meant entirely for combat, its large size and weight belying the speed at which it could be swung as well as the devastating power each blow possessed. The same thing could be said for actual magical abilities too, for each and every magical attack the Relic could unleash was tailor made for both single target and widespread destruction.

And with the fourth seat in question using her overbooster to amp everything up to eleven, these differences only became even more noticeable, with Daisuke being entirely dedicated to defense.

With a swing so fierce that it could level the top of a mountain, Cinder only barely missed her foe's neck by mere inches, the ancient magus having taken a last instant step back to avoid being decapitated on the spot. Even then, the overbooster had provided her with such a boost that flames literally poured out of her Relic with every attack she made, her mana proving too great to be contained within her or her weapon.

As a result, Daisuke was forced to take another hasty step back to avoid having his neck and face burned and promptly used the one orb he had of Field Changer to teleport himself a kilometer away from both Cinder and the area they'd just been in, the Holy Knight having managed to force him towards a volcano up until now.

Still, this did very little to cool him off, for the temperature within Robotics Space only seemed to be going up the longer Cinder's overbooster remained active.

And it also didn't help that Cinder had become quite good at locating him even when he teleports.

"There you are!" she exclaimed as she raced towards his new location. While it was impossible to predict where he'd teleport to, every time he did perform the maneuver and reappear elsewhere, he'd leak just a slip bit of mana, just enough for her Sharingan, enhanced by her overbooster, to physically track.

Alas, this didn't do her much good when the ancient magus simply teleported again, this time above her just as she'd leapt. She could only grunt as she went crashing to the ground, Daisuke having landed a surprise elbow blow to the back of her neck just now before teleporting again.

But she made an immediate recovery by jumping back to her feet and swinging her blade with both hands towards his new location, a wave of scorching flames, much hotter than anything Lugh's Areadbhar could produce, being sent outwards at several times the speed of lightning.

However, the new location to which Daisuke had teleported to was located just on the other side of a geyser that would periodically spew a thick stream of ash. Daisuke had managed to take just enough time to time said events and watched with a bit of relief as the geyser shot up so much ash and so thickly that the wave of flames actually faltered and fizzled out.

This didn't last long though, because Cinder was very quick to follow up the failed attack with something noticeably packing more power. "Flame Haze Break!"

The familiar sight of a phoenix made of flames reappeared as Cinder unleashed one of her most powerful moves. Thanks to her overbooster, the attack was even more formidable now, the flame construct being twice its previous size and packing at least four times more mana.

But for all its power and speed, it meant nothing to Daisuke, who simply teleported again to the opposite end of Robotics Note, so far away from Cinder that it was impossible for them to see the other at all. However, when Cinder's attack struck the ancient magus' former location, he was able to see even from this far away the sort of destruction such an attack could bring about.

"Whoa…" All of the usual playfulness in Daisuke's voice had completely died out now, the magus sweating a bit more and not just from the heat from this dangerous environment. The explosion just now had been immense in size and insanely bright, nearly blinding him and blowing him back just a bit before he was able to regain his footing.

He then went on the move, rushing down the slope he'd teleported to. Having figured out that Cinder was at least partially able to detect where he teleported to, Daisuke felt it best to go on the move by foot. He stay as low to the ground as he could, hoping to avoid being spotted as he no doubt knew that the fourth seat was already on her way here.

He was right.

From the previous spot, Cinder had sensed his teleportation ability being used and now locked onto where he'd gone. She'd broke out into a full blown run, dragging Tsurugi across the ground. She did so with such speed that the ground actually began to part to reveal the magma right underneath it.

She then leapt like a tigress upon her prey in the general direction of Daisuke, hoping to get to him before he could start moving too far away for her attacks to reach.

To her great surprise, she damn nearly ran right into him just as she made another leap and started rushing over a hill of molten rock.

"Hiya~" Daisuke greeted with a smile, basking in her shock. Then he punched her fiercely in the face while her guard was down.

Fist met nose and the latter broke on impact, resulting in a cry of pain from the young woman. Said pain channeled into anger and she tried not to stagger back, but her attempt proved futile as Daisuke elbowed her hard in the throat before following it up with an extremely fierce uppercut to her stomach.

Daisuke inwardly tsked as he delivered these blows. Having thought to take her by surprise, it'd been his intention to possibly KO her with as few blows as possible, provided he aimed for the proper places. After all, regardless of how tough someone was, a well-aimed and powerful attack to a more tender spot was bound to do some serious harm and floor the unlucky person. And yet despite his three blows, Cinder was still very much conscious.

Certainly, she was a determined foe to remain marginally upright.

Daisuke backed off, not risking a fourth hit, especially when flames had immediately begun to flow from the Holy Knight. He began to focus on the orb in his pocket, getting ready to teleport again-.

-Only for his concentration to be interrupted by Cinder's next move.

"L-Lava Burst!" Cinder exclaimed hoarsely, using another ability that her Relic possessed. Stabbing the Kusanagi no Tsurugi into the ground, the magma beneath the ground was flooded with her mana and responded to her will, surging up and immediately breaking the land apart rapidly.

Daisuke nearly yelped as his feet nearly got swallowed up by lava, the spot he'd been standing on now suddenly covered with the deadly and viscous substance. It was only thanks to a quick jump that propelled him onto a large boulder nearby that he was able to avoid harm.

Unfortunately, this kept his attention occupied just long enough for Cinder to go right after him and slash at his shoulder with her Relic. She allowed herself a subdued yet no less dark smirk as Daisuke let out a yell of pain, the edge of the blade having been burning fiercely as it dug into his right shoulder.

Focusing through the pain, Daisuke was able to teleport away, but not to anywhere particularly far. He just needed to get away immediately from Cinder. Sparing his shoulder a brief glance, the sight made him wince. The blade had managed to cut a good three inches into his shoulder, his shirt sleeve completely burned off to reveal that his wound had been cauterized from the sheer heat of the flames that had covered the weapon. It would take a good deal of time for his injury to fully heal, at least until the pain fully ebbs away.

"You can run all you want, but there's nowhere for you to go," Cinder remarked, her confidence returning quickly upon having landed that strike. She now sauntered forward, mindful of the much larger gaps between the pockets of safe ground and the lava that now flowed everywhere thanks to Lava Burst. "Now that I've struck you once, you can expect that wound to be internally burning for a long while."

Daisuke grimaced, but then chuckled. "Heh~ You really are something. I'll give ya that much," he replied as calmly as he could. Still, gripping his shoulder from the pain hardly made for a good image of confidence, which Cinder naturally noticed, to his chagrin.

"Hmph, still trying to sound confident, I see. I'll admit that chasing you down has been very… trying, but there's no chance of you winning now. Your magical weapon can't ever begin to let you get away from me within this space. Especially when simply having it out would put it at risk of being destroyed."

Daisuke chuckled. "Oho? So you really think you have me on the ropes here, kid? Well, I wouldn't really say you're wrong… but." His eyes took on a more predatory gleam. "What makes you think I'm stuck in here with you?"

"…What?" Cinder muttered.

And then very briefly, the forms of both Daisuke and Cinder flickered, like a channel on TV suddenly experiencing difficulties. This didn't go unnoticed by either of them, though Daisuke simply smiled whilst Cinder looked much more shocked.

Their forms flickered again and this time Cinder looked ready to panic, her entire body feeling as if it was literally vanishing. "What did you do?!"

"Heh… it takes a long while to pull off, but my Field Changer can teleport to more than just across a few dozen miles or so…" Daisuke reveled in Cinder's facial expression. "Given just enough time and a spatial point to focus on, my magical weapon can teleport me and others to other dimensions…. And the real world isn't exempt from the list."

As soon as the words left his mouth and Cinder digested them, she lost just a bit of color in her face and she took on an expression of muted horror. Because if what Daisuke said was completely true then…

…Then she'd lost the home-field advantage.

Daisuke's smile grew just a bit more before he raised his hand, ready to fully activate his ability, which he'd developed just a few centuries ago. It worked by leaving another one of Field Changer's orbs in a place for him to focus on and then teleport to once he was able to mentally lock onto it. And as his magical weapon wasn't exactly a frontline type of weapon, he'd become prone to subtly leaving an orb or two lying around just in case something like this happened.

And now it was time to get down to business.

"Dimension Cross!" Daisuke proclaimed the ability's name.

And as he did so, he and Cinder ceased to be within the volatile Robotics Space, leaving it abandoned.

At just a few minutes before this occurred, within Morgan's Robotics Space, Takehiko found himself seriously pressed, not simply to defend, but merely to even stay alive.

"'Distort the space around him!'" Morgan commanded through her Book of Spells, which promptly unleashed a wave of concept magic that began to do just that.

Takehiko tried to physically move out of the way, but found himself unable to; the spatial distortion was proving to be too much already, the very concept of distance being torn asunder. As a result, no matter how far back he attempted to jump, he simply remained rooted in the same 'spot.'

"'Stabilize distance!'" he commanded his magical weapon. King's Scripture immediately went to work and he felt the damage done to 'distance' itself briefly come undone, enough for him to move as far back as he could to avoid the distorted space from collapsing on him, which would've crushed him whole if he'd been even a nanosecond slower.

He huffed a little, feeling somewhat tired.

His opponent, upon activating that overbooster of hers, had become a real monster.

With mana so great that Takehiko could only think of two people to outdo Morgan in that regard, the young woman in question walked forward, her gait steady and filled with confidence. Her Relic floated peacefully before her, awaiting her command like a servant would await his queen's.

Sensing the young woman about to launch another move, Takehiko broke out into a cold sweat.

He'd never admit it aloud, but this woman was honestly beginning to scare him. Although she was lacking in combat experience, she'd begun to demonstrate a remarkable prowess of sorts. Clearly, she was learning on the fly with every attack that failed to kill him. But what truly scared him was the sheer amount of mana she was letting out. With so much at her command, there was simply no way that his concept magic could outright overwrite her own. The only way to truly counter was to exploit any sort of 'loopholes' that he could find, either within Morgan's commands or the aftereffects of her actual attacks.

But even then, it was almost impossible to pull off. With every sort of conceptual counter he'd performed, he'd had to expend a good deal of mana to pull it off. Soon enough, he'd run himself dry and be entirely at her mercy.

And he highly doubted she had much of that.

"Loki…" Morgan then muttered, grabbing Takehiko's attention. Her Book of Spells glowed brilliantly, flooded with the sky blue mana that pumped out of its wielder. "'Burn.'" She said this without malice, without hatred, without any sense of real hostility. She proclaimed it in a tone similar to how one would proclaim the current state of the weather.

And then… Takehiko burned.

There was simply no other way to put it. The instant before Morgan spoke, he remained perfectly fine. The next instant painted a much different picture, the ancient magus' body burning all over, yet without even the slightest trace of a source. His screams of agony pierced the very soul of Morgan – Celine Arc – and reached all across Robotics Space, yet Morgan remained unwavering.

Takehiko tried to remain standing, he truly did… but to no avail. His very muscle literally burning, he fell to his knees as his skin bubbled and slowly turned black, his organs slowly cooking from the inside out.

Truly, it was an impossibly cruel sight to bear witness to.

And yet Morgan watched as calmly as she could, even when her mind raced wildly.

She honestly didn't want to do things this way, but she felt as if she was left with no other choice. She had no desire to let this battle drag on too long, lest her overbooster run its course and leave herself victim to Takehiko's retaliation.

During the entire battle, as poor as her earlier performance had been, she'd studied Takehiko thoroughly, observing how he wielded concept magic and what sort of results it brought about. And as scared as she'd been earlier when it looked like she was about to die, she couldn't help but feel amazed by skillfully he'd used it. Even after she'd activated her overbooster, Takehiko had lived up to his codename of Loki by immediately exploiting the 'openings' within her commands and her very attacks themselves, making great use of skill and cunning in order to overcome her sheer power.

But alas, there was one thing he could never overcome.

To use concept magic to overwrite things all around them was one thing, but to force upon the very body and soul of a person a powerful wave of concept magic was something else. By forcing a great deal of her mana, Morgan had been able to affect even a magus as powerful as Takehiko on an almost spiritual level and definitely physical level in spite of his magical weapon and his own resistance to concept magic up to a point.

This was something she truly didn't wish to do, but it was really the only way to truly bring him down in a timely manner before anything too surprising could happen.

To the magus' credit, he was still very much alive and even conscious. Despite his entire body burning from within, despite his King's Scripture not having enough power to undo what she'd wrought upon him, he still kept his head raised high, glaring at her viciously now. His screams were reduced to low growls of suffering and anger and determination.

"No… I am NOT dying here…" Takehiko thought as he tried to figure out a way to get through this. He tried to stand, but to no avail; his legs refused to budge even an inch.

Almost a whole minute passes by after that, with Takehiko no longer trying to stand but rather think of a way to undo what was happening to him whilst Morgan simply watched, the young woman continuing to school her expression into an emotionless mask.

However, that was when something surprising happened.

In a light burst of static-like sound, both Daisuke and Cinder appeared in the sky directly above both of them, much to the outright astonishment of Morgan and inward joy of Takehiko.

"What?! Ho-?!" Morgan began to utter, only to be cut off when Daisuke grabbed a still stupefied Cinder and threw her hard at the third seat, the fourth seat smashing right into her with such force that both went crumbling to the ground instantly.

"Take-yan!" Daisuke exclaimed in horror upon seeing the state his longtime friend was in, landing just beside him.

"Took… your… time…" Takehiko grunted as the pain ebbed a bit. It would seem that whatever exactly Morgan had done to him was reliant upon her constant concentration – he could already feel the intense burning sensation sputtering to a stop. "Your… orb came in… handy, I suppose."

King's Scripture glowed momentarily and from it now rose one of Daisuke's orbs, the very same one he'd long since given to Takehiko to keep in case he ever needed to somehow contact the wandering man.

Daisuke simply cracked a forced smile. He was amazed Takehiko was still alive, regenerative ability of a magus be damned. "Time to leave!"

Summoning Field Changer in its entirety now, he launched two orbs towards the still down Holy Knights and took more than a little joy in watching the orbs smack the two women hard in the face right before teleporting them off to that castle that was in the distance of this Robotics Space.

Even from this far, he could hear the slight cries of pain and disbelief as the two women fell to the castle below with a heavy crash.

While that happened, he wasted no time in using the rest of his orbs to speed up the rate at which he could use Dimension Cross. Using another orb he'd placed back at Beacon Academy as a focal point, Daisuke reached out for it through the connection inherent to all magi with their magical weapons and upon sensing it, wasted no time in teleporting yet again.

"No you don't!" Cinder yelled, having recovered quickly from the impromptu teleportation. "Flame Haze Break!"

Her flame phoenix shot forth from the castle and towards the two ancient magi, but she proved to be a millisecond too late.

Grabbing hold of Takehiko, Daisuke roared. "Dimension Cross!"

And so the two magi were teleported to safety just as the attack was about to strike them.

Watching the field below explode in a whirlwind of flames, the normally calm and collected Cinder nearly let out a cry of complete and utter frustration, angry beyond belief that her target had outwitted her so thoroughly and so quickly.

"Damn that man…" she growled, her grip on her Relic tightening.

"C-Cinder…"

Cinder turned back to Morgan, who now was standing, a little worse for wear, but otherwise okay. However, Morgan wore an expression of great worry as she gestured to something that rested in her hand.

The orb that had struck her.

Cinder looked at it, almost baffled, only to start when she saw Morgan's form flicker… as well as her own. Now feeling something resting upon her left shoulder, she craned her head to look and find the orb that had struck her resting there.

Their forms flickered again and as this happened, both Holy Knights immediately caught onto what was happening.

They were being teleported too, just as Daisuke and Takehiko had done.

Before either of them could react, both flickered out of existence, leaving Morgan's Robotics Space as abandoned as Cinder's.

And when they reappeared, they found themselves in the sky, roughly two dozen meters above Forever Fall.

Only to be sent flying well away from the forest when Daisuke reappeared, kicking both of them as hard as he could in their backs.

"Alright…" he began as they both went crashing through the forest, landing well away from Beacon Academy and closer towards Vale, where the others were at. "Let's end this," he said in a deadly voice, anger barely held back.

He wasn't one to be angered particularly fast, but after seeing the state Takehiko was in, well…

It was time to make them pay.

Meanwhile, within the coliseum that served as Heracles' Robotics Space, the battle had almost grinded to a halt.

For something that would've normally been impossible had happened.

Just a moment ago, when Heracles had been helplessly falling through the air so high up, Miki had prepared her ultimate attack: Overload Tyrfing. Over the years, she'd refined and strengthened this particular ability until it was essentially nine swings in the span of just one, its destructive power and conceptual damage being so far beyond the normal Tyrfing that to compare the two was simply impossible.

When she'd unleashed it, a golden-white wave of pure mana in all of its destructive glory, she'd expected it to be the final blow, to be the one thing that'll finally pierce Heracles' defenses for good and kill the powerful Faunus.

But as her attack had struck its target and torn asunder the entire sky within Robotics Space, Miki and Mari could only gape when a barely a moment later, Heracles descended from the sky and crashed into the ground.

Even after being hit by a true deathblow, the man's body still remained in one piece.

And he was still evidently alive and conscious, demonstrated when the first seat grunted as he slowly got back onto his feet.

"What power…" he thought, his nerves feeling a little fried from worry and doubt. Even he'd doubted his own ability to survive such an attack and even though his doubts had been proven wrong, he still couldn't help but feel as if this was like a dream, a momentary one at best before death really set in.

But this feeling disappeared as he lumbered forth, showing to himself and to his opponents that he wasn't on the verge of death.

Though he certainly hadn't remained unharmed from Overload Tyrfing.

His armor, once so brilliant in color and scale, had been reduced to a shell of its former self, the chest plate utterly destroyed to reveal Heracles' bare torso, which in turn bore a massive bleeding gash that trailed upwards at an angle from his waistline to halfway up his chest. The armor that had covered his arms were in shambles as well from when the man had futilely tried to block the immensely powerful magical strike, revealing his lacerated forearms and biceps. His helmet had suffered damage as well, but not quite to the extent of the rest of the armor, still retaining a bit of its shine though it was as plain as day to anyone observant that a part of it had been caved in from the shockwave that had followed the attack.

The only part of Heracles and his Relic to not be particularly damaged was the lower body, Miki having aimed to utterly destroy his top half. Even then, the armor covering his lower half had lost its magnificent shine and the plates that made up said armor were partially cracked.

But none of this really mattered much to Miki and Mari. They were simply too stunned by the fact that Heracles was still alive. That he was still able to even walk right was a testament to the power of Overload Tyrfing and to Heracles' impossible toughness.

Miki in particular was the one most affected by this. In all of the centuries she's fought, there were only a handful of times that she's had to use her most powerful trump card. But in all cases, her enemy had never come close to surviving the blow, not even for a fraction of a nanosecond.

And here Heracles was, making himself the first person to be able to prove what had once been an irrefutable fact wrong.

"Well then…" Heracles muttered, his breath ragged, but slowly getting better. "My turn."

So deep in a stupor was Miki that she barely even reacted when Heracles charged right at her, still remarkably fast in spite of his current state. It was only thanks to Mari trying to slow him down with her arrows that Miki was able to snap out of her current state of mind and go on the move again.

Still, she'd reacted too late; Heracles was already upon her and swung his right fist at her side. The blow connected fully and Miki was launched at ridiculous speeds towards the coliseum's massive wall. She smashed clean through it with nary a cry or even a grunt.

Heracles immediately attempted to follow up the launching blow, but couldn't. Mari began to pepper him from afar, shooting explosive arrow after explosive arrow at him. The lion Faunus grunted as the mana arrows struck him in his chest. Because of the damage his Nemean Cestus had taken from Overload Tyrfing, the defense it offered him against magical attacks had been considerably weakened, enough for Mari's attacks to do far more damage than they'd been doing earlier, especially as she aimed for the wound he already had.

For the first time in this battle, Heracles had to beat a hasty retreat, jumping back lightly a few times to avoid Mari's attacks.

This was something that didn't go unnoticed by the one codenamed Sif and she utterly refused to let up. Moving forward at a fast walking pace, she moved down from her higher ground and went after Heracles, firing relentlessly.

To the man's surprise, she suddenly switched targets, now aiming for the remaining armor atop his shoulders. His surprise became even greater when the armor in question cracked even more. It would seem that not even his armor could protect itself anymore against magical attacks as much.

To add to his troubles, Miki had no come barreling out of the hole in the wall and went straight for him. So preoccupied by Mari's unyielding barrage, he'd had no time to prepare for Miki's sneak attack from behind, the ancient magus swinging Svafrlami with all her terrifying might at his back, which was only covered by light armor.

The man roared in pain and shock when Miki's immensely strong blow outright shattered the weakened armor and he immediately responded, turning and delivering a kick that would've knocked her head off. But Miki ducked under it and moved a half step forward, making herself too close for Heracles to attack her, while putting herself at even better position to assault him.

Which she did by delivering several light slashes to his exposed side. His armor gone and he himself weakened greatly, she was rewarded with her attacks actually cutting him, blood flying from the wounds and getting over her face and chest a little. But she paid this no mind and kicked him hard in the side, knocking him towards Mari.

Mari, in turn, leapt right over the stumbling man and shot a drill type mana arrow right into Heracles' left shoulder. The arrow pierced straight through the shoulder armor, destroying it completely in the process and promptly drilled a hole right through Heracles' flesh.

But Heracles merely grunted and righted his balance in an instant. Then before Mari could do anything, he managed to wrap a massive hand around the slender woman and threw her at the stands, where she'd once been sniping from.

Mari yelled out in pain as she crashed, which naturally drew Miki's worry. But the brunette knew that Mari could take a blow pretty well and instead remained focused on Heracles, which proved to be the correct thing to do as the man now went after her.

With remarkable accuracy and technique, the massive man performed a light series of punches that all but boxed Miki in, keeping her rooted to the same spot before delivering a kick that was only barely blocked by the flat side of Svafrlami.

Then Miki grunted, pushing Heracles' foot back and countered, swinging her blade upwards at his throat. The man tilted back to avoid it and then suddenly swung his entire upper body forward, delivering a surprise headbutt to Miki.

As he still wore his ruined helmet, he ended up taking no damage from the move whereas Miki did, a resounding crack being heard upon impact. Heracles smirked in slight satisfaction as Miki's head snapped back from the blow, her entire upper body leaning back as well.

Her grip on Svafrlami slackened a bit and her legs began to wobble as she went stumbling back-.

-Only for her balance to be righted immediately and she lunged forward as well and performed the exact same upper body motion Heracles just did.

Heracles still being in the same position as just now, Miki's headbutt took him entirely off guard and was therefore unable to move in time. Her forehead smashed into his helmet, shattering the upper part of it. And when her forehead came into contact with his own, another crack was heard, only much louder than the previous one as Miki's return headbutt cracked open slightly the front of Heracles' skull.

The man was now the one wobbling back and Miki took advantage of this just as she switched Svafrlami from her left hand to her right hand. Rearing back her left fist as she jumped lightly, she punched the first seat as hard as she could right in the side of his upper head, just to the left of where his skull had been cracked just now.

She was rewarded with yet another breaking noise and Heracles went spinning almost comically from the sheer strength and angle of the blow, smashing into the ground before almost bouncing off of it away from her.

To her amazement, Heracles managed to turn the second crash into a roll and returned to his feet. He rubbed his forehead slightly now, wincing upon feeling cracked bone under the skin and blood freely flowing from a tear in said spot. He paid it no more mind though, feeling his regenerative ability now kick in, the bleeding slowly stopping. The same could be said for the gash on his chest as well, the bleeding having stopped though the wound still remained and would likely remain for a very long time. After all, Overload Tyrfing was more than just an immense deal of mana being unleashed; it was also a conceptual attack, which Heracles highly doubted he could fully heal from.

Despite the current situation, he had to suppress a smile. This was the kind of battle that he lived for. Two sides facing off against one another, each with their own advantages and skills and tricks, neither side really knowing what'll change the tide of battle… it almost made him smile like a kid on Christmas morning.

But he repressed these feelings as much as he could when Miki went for him again, swinging Svafrlami. He managed to deflect the blade aside with his knee, which still had armor covering it, though not anymore when the material protecting said joint shattered in the process.

Nonetheless, he paid it no mind and retaliated with a fierce elbow strike to Miki's face. The brunette remained on her feet though, having anticipated such a counter and had planted herself firmly to keep from being knocked through the air again. She pivoted and swung again at Heracles' side, only for the man to mirror her motion and move mere inches out of her attack's range. She managed to reel back Svafrlami in time to parry his follow up punch, but then the first seat of the Holy Knights leapt back to avoid her next strike.

But this actually worked to her advantage.

Leaping back as well, Miki landed next to where Mari had been thrown, the woman in question having now recovered. "Guh… he sure knows how to rough someone up with just the one move…" Mari muttered, her clothes dirtied and slightly torn. She was bleeding slightly from her right arm, said limb having been cut by a jagged piece of stone after having crashed into the stone seats.

"You still okay to fire?" Miki asked as she held Svafrlami in a defensive stance. "Still have enough mana to use your trump card? It might be the only other thing that could work here…"

Mari grunted a little, the pain still getting to her, but she smiled right afterwards. "Now that he's been all softened up? Even if I didn't have the mana for it, I'd still think it's time."

She readied her magical weapon, Ichaival, which glowed marginally as she prepared to fire. Miki in turn stood closer to her and gripped Mari's right shoulder tightly. For this next move, she was going to have to lend some of her own power for this attack to truly work.

But being much lower on mana than when she'd started, thanks to using Tyrfing and Overload Tyrfing on Heracles, Miki felt she might not be able to give Mari enough to properly make it work.

Thankfully, she had a slight ways around this.

"Brynhildr-Paradox!" Miki cried out, activating one magic ability of hers that she hadn't had to use in a long while. By engraving unto herself the very concept of infinity, Miki could boost for a very brief time her abilities, including just how much mana she had as well.

Heracles, having backed off so that he could plan his next move, could only watched in a slight stupor as golden-white mana erupted from Miki, the woman returning to her SacredWaltz form despite said form having ended after using Overload Tyrfing. "What?!"

Then all of the mana she now had at her disposal flowed from her and through Mari and into Ichaival, a golden-white mana arrow forming, but with hints of the same color of mana used to indicate a piercing arrow.

Mari grunted as she focused hard on creating an arrow that could no doubt pierce through anything. And as she did so, she went for the final touch. "Equip: Tyrfing!"

'Equip' was a support/attack type magical rune that only Mari had. When in direct physical contact with another magus, she could 'borrow' one of their magical weapon's abilities and add it to the next arrow that she fires. However, in order for this to work, she needs to be in constant contact with the magus in question until the attack is launched. And the more powerful the ability she wished to borrow was, the harder it is for her to actually equip it. And with Tyrfing being a conceptual attack, that fact alone already made it almost beyond her ability to add to her arrow. It also requires a great deal of mana from both her and the borrowee – Miki in this case – for this transfer to work, making the Equip rune a bit impractical to actually use depending on the circumstances.

But alas, this was really the only other trick they had up their sleeves. Heracles was on the opposite side of the coliseum, weakened and wounded and with no idea of what to expect. And with his Relic in its current state, there was no better time than now to see what could happen.

With Mari constructing a drill mana arrow with Tyrfing loaded in it, it was her and Miki's hope that perhaps driving the conceptual attack directly through the man's body will yield better results than simply hitting him normally with it.

But Heracles was no longer going to stay still.

Charging forward, all of Heracles' instincts screamed at him that danger was approaching. He had to stop the two women right now or else he'd pay for his inaction.

But alas, as tired and beaten up as he'd become, he'd been a whole second too late in obeying his instincts.

Rushing at them to attack had only made him a much closer target.

So it was with wide eyes of horror that he watched Mari unleash hers and Miki's combined attack. "Tyrfing loaded! Fire!"

And then the arrow, now so much more deadly than it'd ever be otherwise, shot forth.

And Heracles' world went dark.

Hope as always that it lived up to your expectations everyone. If not, there's still plenty more action to follow this up. I can't wait to get to it.

Alas, once again, may Paris and Syria and Nigeria and every other country terrorized by ISIS find closure in the wake of the recent attacks.

Until next time, everyone. Take care and to any readers from Paris, may you be well.