Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 36: Grassy Plants & Chilly Ice! The Frigid Power of The Icy Fimbulvetr Magic! Yukino vs. Harui!
Yukino looked quite surprised at how the Arduous Blizzard spell was countered so easily, and seeing how Harui's spell known as Forest Shield seemed impervious to attacks was definitely something that the hazel-eyed mage would have to be mindful about when she wanted to attack her opponent. Yukino took out three more coins from the bag with her left hand, and the coins were all marked with the number 20 on the back of them. She sent her magical power into the coins, causing them to glow with a light blue aura engulfing them.
The aura remained in Yukino's hand while the coins faded away, and she watched that aura quickly become a light blue beam of energy. That light blue beam was known as Ice Frost Breath, and it headed straight towards Harui, The antagonist merely activated a spell called Leaf Twister, and she made one palm face upward while the other one faced downward. Harui's palms began to rotate, creating circles while dark green leaves emerged from her hands, and they formed a dark green cyclone of leaves! The thin cyclone was struck by Yukino's spell, and the leaves were frozen solid.
The high amount of leaves ended up bursting in dark green explosions that occurred right in front of Harui, but she used that chance to activate a spell called Frenzy Bulbous Plants. Harui slammed both of her hands down on the ground while sending her Plant Magic into the earth, and the loud rumbling of the ground made Yukino lose her balance. She fell on the ground while tightly holding on to her bag of coins, and she watched giant green roots with spikes emerge from eight spots around her. The roots wrapped around themselves, looking like spiky cocoons, but they soon converged towards Yukino to strike her with their spikes.
When the spikes made contact with Yukino, the plant roots exploded in dark green blasts that were quite large! They sent Yukino flying high into the air, and she was screaming in pain from the intensity of those blasts. As she screamed, her eyes were closed and she took out five more coins. Yukino decided to activate a spell called Ice Bubble, and the spell interestingly made Yukino shoot out a large gust of cold air from her left hand. The icy air went down to the battlefield, freezing the ground and the plants, but it soon created a bubble of icy air that surrounded everything that it touched. That included Harui, who shivered from the bitter coldness of this spell. Yukino soon fired a light blue bubble from her hand, and it fell down from the sky while the icy air that went upwards started to make its power increase.
The strong bubble fell down to the ground, and it created a light blue explosion that was quite massive! Its intensity made the ice shatter, as well as causing Harui much more pain during some moments where chunks of ice struck her directly to create smaller explosions. However, that pain didn't stop her from still being able to stand while Yukino roughly fell down to the ground. Even though the blast's light faded away for her to see how Yukino's attack destroyed the Frenzy Bulbous Plant spell and several plants, the fact that Yukino's third spell was needed for that caused Harui to feel like smirking in a very arrogant manner at her opponent while she slowly got up.
"Well, you're a pretty sorry excuse for a mage if that attack is the first one to land a hit on me. That's pathetic, just like how you must be the weakling in that group of mages. In a group of five people who are handling a job, there's always one loser in the group. The person who gets tossed aside like the pawn that she is, and that's who you are." Harui explained to Yukino in a very arrogant manner, as she built up more magic in her hands.
Yukino replied with a defensive facial expression, not perceiving this situation to have played out that way, "You're wrong about me! I chose to stay and fight you, since Sting-sama and the others had to catch up with your friends who have been causing trouble!"
"Oh, are you talking about that pathetic leader of yours who ran away with his friend like a coward instead of facing me himself like a more respectable leader would? Based on that, aren't you just a fool fighting for an idiotic guild master?" Harui rudely asked Yukino while continuing to smirk, before laughing at that last question as if it was very funny.
As Yukino panted heavily and accidentally infused magical power into some more of her coins, she thought about how the act of being a fool who fought for a stupid guild master was something she had gone through during the Grand Magic Games tournament that occurred in the previous year. On the second day of that tournament, Yukino had embarrassingly lost a match against Kagura Mikazuchi after creating a bet where their lives were at stake. Yukino ended up having the fate of her life be in Kagura's hands, which made the previous guild master be angry enough at Yukino for being a weakling who he thought had really dirtied the name of Sabertooth.
Yukino didn't want to ever make Sabertooth look bad, especially since she had to deal with the pressure back then of being a mere rookie who needed to take the place of a strong Sabertooth mage like Minerva Orland while she was out on a mission. When Minerva returned for the tournament, strength had still only been valued while Minerva was able to easily replace Yukino in Sabertooth's team. There was no one who would replace Yukino now, and she had to fight hard to keep her friends safe. Sting was her friend and leader instead of solely being the guild master, and Yukino started narrowing her eyes in a stern manner from realizing that Sting wouldn't have let her come on the mission if he didn't perceive her as a strong person.
"Sting-sama... He believes that I'm definitely a strong Sabertooth wizard. That' why he allowed me to handle this on my own!" Yukino thought to herself with a fierce facial expression, as she sent more magical power into her light blue coins for them to be glowing much brighter.
Yukino told Harui with a fierce facial expression, after picking up several coins and absorbing their varying levels of power for the aura to simply engulf her body, "You're going to regret speaking so poorly about my friend, and this next spell will definitely help me make this battle shift in my favor!"
Harui replied to her with a smile of disapproval, still seeming quite cocky, "That's quite an impressive amount of magical power for an aura, but it's still not going to help you take me down."
She was soon proven wrong from how Yukino activated a spell called Frost Snow Vortex, and that spell simply caused Yukino to unleash a vortex of white snow from her mouth. She soon watched the snow turn sky blue while ice shards in a light blue color started protruding out of the snow, and the vortex of heavy snow seemed like it was fusing with the cold air that had been created by the exploding chunks of ice. The ice definitely upgraded this attack to a higher level, as the spinning vortex refroze the damaged ground while small puddles of snow were on the ground, but Harui still remained arrogant.
She jumped up high while activating a spell of Plant Magic, and that spell was known as Plant Forest Hammer. Harui's arms started to become wrapped in dark green roots that were quite thick, before the grassy tops and branches of tree bark emerged from her palms, and a dark green aura engulfed her arms. They were soon coated in dark green tree bark, and she loudly slammed her arms down on the vortex like they were falling trees that could crush a snow-covered roof. Her strengthened arms and trees didn't even dent the vortex, and they soon broke apart quickly from how Yukino's spinning attack sliced through the tree bark with ease.
Yukino's spell also easily struck Harui, creating a light blue explosion that looked quite fearsome, and the ice shards that struck Harui in midair were exploding to leave ice on her body. She screamed in an intense amount of pain from the icy explosions, feeling like they were resulting from shards of dry ice that could burn a person's skin, and Harui was soon coated in ice to where she nearly looked like an ice sculpture. She ended up being blasted high into the air, before falling down to land on a tree branch that was heavily covered with grass. The sound of Harui's body landing on that branch alerted two certain children to her location, as they were observing the battle from behind a bush, and none of the Sabertooth mages were probably assuming that Kūkiatsu or Kusabue were still in this area of the forest while almost everybody else went on ahead.
Meanwhile, in a different part of the forest...
The Sabertooth mages who went on ahead with Haruna were all looking stern, hoping to immediately catch up with their enemies. Those antagonists still had the ring in their possession, and retrieving it from them was a task that had a high level of priority. By getting that ring from those researchers, Lucy could gain the ability to use new magic and possibly use some more high-level spells. Learning some stronger attacks would definitely help her with the tough task of fighting against Kotomi, who was probably making herself be more powerful than any evil researcher that the team would find in the Verdue Forest.
Speaking of evil researchers being encountered in the forest, Lucy turned around for a moment to look back at the path while she thought about how Yukino was still fighting against Harui. That villain who wielded Plant Magic seemed to be a strong opponent, since she could make large vines emerge from the ground while her attacks could be very explosive. The level of power in her explosive attacks seemed to be fearsome, and Lucy personally ranked Harui to be slightly stronger than her previous enemies. Lucy's ranking didn't allow her to smile about Yukino's situation, though.
Lucy frowned in a somewhat worried manner, and she seemed concerned about how Yukino wouldn't possibly be able to win with only her Icy Fimbulvetr Magic assisting her Celestial Spirits. Even though a Celestial Spirit Mage who got stronger would also be making their Celestial Spirits simultaneously become much stronger, Lucy wondered if Libra's Gravity Magic and the magic of the two giant fish known as Pisces would be enough for Yukino to be victorious in that fight. Even if Yukino wasn't just using her keys, that Icy Fimbulvetr Magic seemed a bit risky to Lucy.
She perceived it as risky because of how Yukino probably had to put different amounts of magical power into those coins, and expending more power for her attacks or defensive spells to work was definitely a massive gamble. If that Icy Fimbulvetr Magic and the Celestial Spirit Magic couldn't help her win that fight, then Yukino would probably end up being loudly crushed by a tree or getting decimated by a strong explosion. Lucy turned back around and kept looking worried while continuing to run straight ahead, hoping that Yukino would be safe. As Lucy seemed very worried about their friend, Sting ran beside her and smiled confidently to give her a contrasting facial expression.
"If you're worried about Yukino, then you should just relax. She's a strong mage. Yukino spent time training just like the rest of us, and she won't stop fighting until she takes down that girl." Sting told Lucy in a confident tone of voice, believing in his teammate.
Lucy replied nicely with a calm smile starting to be on her face, "You're right, Sting. I shouldn't be so worried about Yukino. After all, she's a very helpful ally who assisted us in the past when the team needed her help."
"As a leader, you definitely made the right decision by using her as a decoy to help the rest of your group move forward. As long as the rest of us survive, her sacrifice and those children's sacrifices won't be in vain." Haruna commented with a pleased look on her face, unaware that her words made Risa be the first person to harshly glare at her.
Risa told Haruna in a stern tone, not tolerating Haruna's words, "We didn't use Yukino as a decoy or as kind of distraction, in case you really can't understand the situation. She chose to stay behind to be useful to the team, and she's definitely not a sacrifice. Don't refer to my friends as expendable teammates."
Haruna merely scoffed at Risa's remark, acting like the pink-haired girl and her friends only showed a basic level of leadership skills while viewing them as being careless for feeling so emotional. From Haruna's perspective, a person who cared more about their own survival more than keeping other people safe was definitely going to succeed in their goal. She viewed other people as expendable, since decoys were people who could be sacrificed while she moved on to make progress with her goals. However, not everyone would agree with her views.
Risa certainly didn't agree with her, since she had been raised by Sara to have the beliefs of protecting other people. She felt like it would be a good idea for one person to at least go back to help Yukino, but something important made her eyes widen with a look of realization while she was running with the other members of her group. When the group of wizards encountered those researchers, the protagonists were in a group of eight people. That number ended up dropping to five, which meant that Yukino must not have been the only one who stayed behind.
Kūkiatsu and Kusabue were wizards who set up their act of making Kusabue sing while Kūkiatsu was hoping to help his sister settle their grudge against one of the researchers, so Risa wondered if those two children stayed behind instead of finding a different path to take. She couldn't sense their levels of magical power anywhere nearby, and they weren't up ahead to pursue the four remaining researchers. Since those kids were making their own choices, Risa sighed in a somewhat frustrated manner as she notified Sting of the situation.
"Master, neither Kūkiatsu or Kusabue is in the group. They probably stayed behind to help Yukino fight against her opponent, but they might be too careless." Risa explained to Sting with a concerned look on her face, thinking that they might all need her help.
Sting replied to Risa in a calm tone, as he only frowned slightly from hearing that, "If they're back there with Yukino, then more magical power being sensed in that particular fight is good for us all. Risa, that includes you. If you went back there and instantly killed Harui, then those researchers would sense that and probably try to plant some bobby traps for us to get harmed. That won't happen now, though. They probably think we're all dying, which makes them also think that they're teammate is the only one following them."
"They won't need to feel worried about their own teammate following them, Risa. It's a good opportunity for us to hit those researchers with a surprise attack. In fact, that's one reason why we're glad to still have you around." Lucy replied to the pink-haired girl with a friendly smile on her face, before cheerfully giggling.
Upon hearing Lucy say that the team needed Risa around for their surprise attack, that made Risa think more about how a good princess and a good leader always planned things out for the best possible outcomes that would benefit the entire group. Even though Sting and Lucy chose to leave Yukino behind with two mages who weren't even part of a guild, respecting Yukino's decision to fight on her own was a crucial part of what made Sting be a good leader with Lucy by his side. She was probably just as good as him at making the best decisions, and she tended to show Risa how to be a good leader.
Risa felt like she needed to respect Lucy's decision of not letting the group split themselves up anymore until they caught up to the researchers, since that would be the perfect time to see if their surprise attack would work. If it worked, then getting that ring off of a researcher's finger would be an easy task. The easiness that seemed to come from a surprise attack could only truly occur if the enemies didn't give them too many problems, but Risa's Psychic Magic couldn't give her the skill of foreseeing their abilities right now.
Instead, she and her friends would just have to display some patience while they escorted Haruna to the research lab. If that lab was under the care of someone who specialized in making perfumes that wouldn't get people sick, then things would be much better for the people who lived in Ryokufū Town. The residents of the town would no longer be dying or feeling ill because of the sweet scent from the perfume, and they'd probably start to realize that people who work in research labs have more control over the chemical ingredients involved in making perfume. In fact, a certain former researcher could probably try to educate people about perfumes later.
Back at the current fight...
Kūkiatsu looked quite shocked to see the ice-covered body of Harui up in a nearby tree, not expecting a seemingly strong researcher to ever get frozen by an icy attack, and Kūkiatsu watched the antagonist's body slowly fall down to the ground. When Harui's body hit the ground, the ice began to loudly crack in several places. The loud sounds of the ice cracking caused Kusabue to stretch out her hands while a shamrock green aura engulfed them, and Kusabue looked quite calm. She simply absorbed the waves of sound into her palms, since that gave her more magical energy.
She received more magical power from the ice continuing to loudly break apart, before seeing it shatter like glass. The sound of the ice shattering only gave Kusabue more magic, but she started to look stunned from how Harui began to break free from her icy prison by aggressively moving her limbs. That freedom came with pain, however, and the numbing coldness against her body made Harui ache. She winced from the pain while thinking about how this fight against Yukino wasn't over, but her thoughts were soon interrupted by the sound of a nearby bush lightly rustling.
Harui started to have a bit of curiosity in her eyes, wondering if there was still one mage hiding for some kind of ambush. That possibility made her walk towards the bush, before moving some leaves aside to see Kusabue sitting next to Kūkiatsu. He looked just as surprised as his sister from realizing that they were spotted, and Kūkiatsu watched Harui attempt to use the Plant Forest Hammer spell again. Her attack was interrupted by Kusabue's terrified scream that was infused with Sound Magic, and the sound wave of Kusabue's scream pushed Harui several feet backwards.
She ended up being slammed against a tree, and the sound of Kusabue's voice was now in her head. Harui could hear the loud scream happening over and over again in her mind, since she couldn't get the sound out of her head. Kusabue chose to let out another loud scream of fear again while sending her Sound Magic in Harui's direction, and the sound waves were directed towards the antagonist. Instead of feeling any loud explosions occur, Harui soon found herself having to deal with more loudness being in her mind. Her head felt like Kusabue's sound waves were being drilled into her ears, and Kūkiatsu wondered if Kusabue learned a new technique.
"Kusabue, when did you learn how to do that?" Kūkiatsu asked her with a shocked look on his face, since he hadn't seen that spell before.
That prompted Kusabue to simply explain with a kind look on her face, "I needed a strong attack to help us defeat those researchers, Kūkiatsu-onii-chan. It's not able to explode yet, though."
"I'm definitely about to explode with rage at you, especially since your natural hair is in that trashy shade of dark green! Someone like you managing to hit me is a very disgusting thing to be real." Harui angrily told Kusabue with a stern look on her face, as she proceeding to run towards her with eyes that showed disapproval.
Kusabue could only look offended at Harui's words, not taking kindly to that remark at all, and Kūkiatsu started to look miffed. He felt angry about his sister having to hear such a rude remark over something that she was naturally born with, and Kūkiatsu built up the mint green aura of Wind Magic in his palms. He proceeded to roughly slam the air with a backhand movement, causing a mint green tornado to head straight towards Harui, and Kūkiatsu created a second tornado behind that one by making another motion with his hand. He pushed his hand forward to make the tornadoes go forward, and they ended up bursting with a high amount of mint green winds. The wind sent Harui back towards to the battlefield, and she ended up being blown high into the air before falling down.
Harui fell down to the ground, landing in front of Yukino, and she slowly got up. Harui stood up to look over at the two mages who had earned her full attention, and she felt very enraged by Kusabue's actions of creating those loud waves of sound. The loud sound waves made Harui's ears bleed while the pain in her ears made her start to move in a wobbly manner to where she couldn't stand up straight without constantly stumbling, and the slight dizziness that she experienced was starting to make her vision begin to be distorted.
Harui charged up more magical power, however, and she felt like it would be good to finish off those mages with one attack. Harui decided to mainly aim her hands at Kusabue, though, and she wanted the young girl to be severely wounded after dealing with that explosion. By making someone as nasty-looking as Kusabue end up dead, Harui thought that it would send a good message for people with dark green hair to not rise up against people who had their hair in lighter or other shades of green. Those shades of green were all deemed to be better than the shade of dark green, and that made Harui feel like she could speak very lowly about Kusabue.
"It doesn't matter if you want to fight hard against me, since dirty trash is always dirty trash. You people with the dark green hair just manage poor shops where you make stupid perfumes or work in shoddy flower shops, and your existences are extremely disgusting. You're all nasty like diseases." Harui told Kusabue in a disgusted tone, as she kept increasing her magical power.
Kusabue responded in an offended manner, looking very displeased, "You shouldn't say such horrible things about me, especially when you're judging me without even getting to know me!"
"My actions of being prejudice aren't bad at all, since I'm merely talking to dirty scum that belongs on the ground!" Harui yelled back at her, as she looked more angered by Kusabue's presence.
Yukino sternly told Libra with a serious look on her face, not wanting to let Harui continue with her hurtful remarks, "Libra, shift the target's gravity downward!"
Libra nodded in an obedient manner, before moving her hands around in a psychic manner, and she ended up aiming her scales down at the ground while keeping her eyes focused on Harui. The woman with pale green hair soon felt an immense amount of gravity push down on her body, the gravity pushing with a tremendous amount of pressure for the Gravity Magic to smash through the ground, and Yukino even sent more magical power into Libra's golden key for some of the largest plant roots to end up being crushed.
That was Yukino's way of trying to fight against that horrible mage's roots, since eliminating them would probably keep Harui from making any giant plants emerge from the ground whenever she wanted to have them on the battlefield. The ground continued to break apart while Yukino was crushing the earth, before she even flattened mounds of dirt with the gravity, and she made sure to mainly focus on pushing the gravity down on Harui. The antagonist could barely lift a finger, since Yukino was making her be pushed against the ground to immobilize her for a long amount of time.
Yukino's plan to immobilize her opponent wouldn't be sufficient, however. She watched more magical power engulf Harui's body, before her opponent began to have pale green skin with parts of her arms and legs having areas of skin that grew to resemble sharp-edged leaves. Her eyes soon became fern green with her left sclera and right sclera both becoming light green, and her wavy hair grew longer. Harui's pale green hair matched the aura that engulfed her body, as the dark green aura of Plant Magic was now replaced by a color representing a stronger amount of power. In fact, that level of power was strong enough for Harui to jump up high and break out of Libra's intense Gravity Magic.
With the Gravity Magic of Libra now seeming like it was ineffective at this point in this fight, Yukino sent Libra back to the Celestial Spirit World and looked at how Harui seemed stronger from powering up to have her new appearance. Yukino looked somewhat frustrated at how she would have to definitely use some spells that were far more powerful. Yukino decided to infuse some more magical power into the coins that were in her bag, and she activated a new spell that was known as Frost Blade. Yukino's spell required her hands to be raised up high, and the magical power went out of her hands to form a light blue circle in midair. Several light blue blades of ice began to emerge from the circle, and they all floated high in the air.
That didn't really matter to Harui, who activated a spell known as Botanic Grass Bomb. That spell required her to aggressively slam her hands down against the earth, and several large trees with pale green leaves began to rise up from the ground. The trees had leaves that glowed in a pale green color, and their bright glow caused Harui to push her hands forward. That action made several leaves rise up from the trees, and they formed twisters that were aimed up at the blades. The icy blades were struck by the twisters, causing pale green explosions to occur right before they were followed by light blue explosions.
The light from those explosions was perfect for Yukino to create some more blades from the magic pertaining to the four coins that were all marked with the number 50, and the newly created blades reflected the light from the explosions down at the trees. Seeing the pale green light strike some trees to damage them was something that prompted Yukino to use her next spell that was known as Freezing Spin, and she infused power into several coins that were all marked with the number 30. Yukino interestingly threw the handful of coins towards one of the thin beams, and she watched them turn into nine icy drills that spun in midair.
The spinning drills pierced through the thin beam, and one interesting ability of this spell made its frost attract one puddle of snow towards the group of ice drills. The snow began to coat the icy drills, powering them up to where they grew larger, and Yukino thrusted her right palm forward to send the ice drills towards Harui. Seven of the ice drills smashed into the large trees, creating massive blasts that were in a light blue color, and the icy air from the blasts even made the trees be frozen while the spell's snowy effect made them appear to be snow-covered trees from a northern forest. The beauty of the forest didn't stop Harui from feeling one ice drill strike her directly in the chest, engulfing her in a powerful blast while she couldn't see the other ice drill, and she screamed in pain while the other one went into the sky. As that projectile went into the sky, Kūkiatsu looked amazed that Yukino was being quite powerful during this battle on the ground.
"She's just... so cool. She's taking on that researcher with no fear, even with that change in appearance. The Sabertooth mage isn't scared at all, Kusabue." Kūkiatsu stated aloud with a look of amazement on his face, as he sounded quite stunned.
Kusabue explained to her older brother with a smile of courage slowly forming on her face while calmly observing the situation, "She and her friends have been wizards for a longer amount of time than us, and the harsh battles probably helped them grow much stronger. They're so powerful, and they don't seem to care about hiding from the enemies while they fight hard."
"You're definitely a strong mage, but I won't let you do whatever you want!" Harui exclaimed to Yukino with a fierce and enraged look in her eyes, as she built up a high amount of magical power and placed her right palm on the ground.
The light from the blast cleared up to reveal that Harui was using her magic to make a large flower emerge from the ground, and its green bulb opened up to reveal six pale green petals surrounding the flower's middle part that was in a dark green color. This spell was called Flower Bullets, and it involved the flower firing six large mossy green boulders from its mouth. Yukino could only pant with some exhaustion from expending so much magical power, and she couldn't dodge this attack right now. Yukino ended up being struck by the attack, and she was caught in the pale green blasts. The high amount of Plant Magic in the blasts made Yukino scream in immense pain, and she ended up becoming heavily bruised with some wounds starting to bleed.
The sound of Yukino's scream was enough for Kusabue to finally fight at a serious level instead of showing restraint or hiding, and she jumped out from behind the bush. Kūkiatsu emerged from the bush a few seconds later to see Kusabue running straight towards Harui, and Kūkiatsu wondered why his sister would rush off into a battle again. He thought that she was just going to get badly hurt again by being reckless enough to try defending Yukino, but he saw Kusabue bravely sing the eight notes of a musical scale before she fired a large beam of Sound Magic from her mouth. That spell was known as Musical Cannon Shot, and the shamrock green beam even had light green musical notes physically appearing within it. The beam struck Harui to create an average-sized explosion, before the musical notes themselves exploded to create shamrock green explosions that came with the aftereffect of making high-pitched sound waves occur.
Kusabue's multiple sound waves prompted Kūkiatsu to run towards the situation, and he built up a mint green aura in his hands. Kūkiatsu soon created a large twister of mint green winds in his left hand, and he created winds in his right hand to aggressively push them against the twister. The large tower of winds soon broke apart to form seven beasts that resembled birds with spikes and long beaks, almost like they were dangerous birds made from Wind Magic. The magic made their wings be as jagged as their faces, and the birds were part of a spell called Aerial Annihilation. Kūkiatsu thrusted both of his hands forward multiple times, causing the birds to rapidly fly towards Harui, and they flew past her in different directions several times. Even after Harui was free from Kusabue's blasts, she couldn't escape the sight of being confounded by the birds. The loud sounds of the birds zipping past her only increased the amount of sound that was irritating Harui while Kusabue had more sound to absorb into her hands, and Harui was distracted enough for all of the birds to strike her simultaneously! They all created mint green blasts that were quite large while Harui only felt a mild amount of pain from the siblings' combination attack, before heavy winds blew through the area to nearly blow Kūkiatsu and Kusabue away. As they were sent up into the sky, Kūkiatsu noticed that Yukino was struggling to stand up. She proceeded to just observe the situation, and Yukino liked how her new friends had given her an opportunity to think about her next strategic moves.
"That little distraction bought me some time, so these next attacks can't go to waste! They'll either help me win this battle, or I can't help my friends defeat those other researchers!" Yukino stated sternly with a brave look on her face, as she took out three large coins from her bag that had been getting lighter in weight.
Harui exclaimed with an angry facial expression, as she ran out of Kūkiatsu's blast to be in front of Yukino with pale green magic continuing to engulf her body, "You won't help them defeat anyone, since I'm going to kill you! After that, I'll kill your pathetic leader!"
"Sting-sama... is definitely not a pathetic leader, and this spell shall make you regret your tendency to insult him! Seventh spell of Icy Fimbulvetr Magic, assist me! Fimbulvetr Frost Punch!" Yukino replied with an offended look on her face, as she infused magical power into the coins and made her eyes show an immense amount of fierceness.
Yukino's spell made a light aura engulf her body right before the aura primarily concentrated itself into her right fist, and she waited a few seconds before doing anything. Yukino waited on her icy drill from earlier to do something, and it proved to be useful. Her spell made light blue snowballs fall from a high height to massively burst when they hit the ground, making it be snowy while light blue pieces of hail also started to descend. The moment that a piece of hail touched her fist was the moment where Yukino slammed it down on the ground, and her powerful punch refroze the damaged ground right before the waves of the attack made large shards of ice rise up around Harui. They soon formed a dome around her and Yukino, but that dome couldn't protect them from the snowballs that fell into it. Yukino slammed her right hand into a snowball, and she let it rest on her fist while feeling ice start to coat her hand. The icy effect was part of this spell that made her punches be more powerful, and Yukino proceeded to aggressively punch Harui.
That only made Harui retaliate with a punch of her own, however. She activated a powerful spell called Pine Needle Punch, and the spell made large leaves of pine trees engulf her fists while they were covered in many pine needles. The pine needles were pale green like the leaves, and Harui felt like the spiky spell could make her fists be heavily coated to withstand Yukino's ice. Making their fists collide wasn't Harui's smartest idea, however. She soon saw her pine tree leaves become completely frozen, before they shattered into dust, and the seemingly endless hail touching her fist made Yukino's attack continue to gain strength. Her powerful fist moved away from Harui's hand, before going right past her to strike a very harsh blow to her chest! The punch made Harui be sent crashing into the ice dome, smashing through the walls, but the pieces of ice remained on the ground. Yukino punched the ground again to rebuild the wall, before picking up two chunks of ice that became covered in snow and hail.
The hail and snow that landed on the ice made Yukino feel like she had to end this battle with her final spell, and she put her remaining magical power into two of three remaining coins in the bag. They glowed in a light blue color right before they vanished, and Yukino unleashed her final spell that was known as Fimbulvetr's Blizzard Kōriryū. The spell made Yukino unleash the large head of light blue dragon from her hand while the dragon had white eyes matching its fanged teeth that were as snow, and the dragon appeared to be charging up a light blue sphere in its mouth. The sight of the fearsome dragon made Harui decide to unleash her final spell, which was known as Pale Green Solar Energy, and she made the pale green aura heavily engulf her body while Yukino's cloud slowly moved to obscure the sun.
"This Plant Magic can be gathered fast enough, even with only a tenth of the sunlight! My attack will obliterate all of your ice, you trashy mage!" Harui told Yukino with a confident grin on her face, before a large pale green orb formed in her left hand while pale green leaves began to appear around her in a spiraling formation.
Yukino responded to her with an annoyed facial expression, as she thought about this battle, "You can keep on calling me names, but you've done very unforgivable things! This strike won't just be for your rude insults against me being in a group of mages, or for what you said to Kusabue-sama! You had the nerve insult Sting-sama, who is a good friend of mine! If you disrespect my friends, then I will end your life!"
"Let's just see what you can do, mage! I'll take down all of you Sabertooth mages, and I didn't need to do any research on someone who's going to die here!" Harui exclaimed with a fierce look on her face, as she chose to fire her attack at Yukino.
The pale green orb propelled itself off of Harui's hand, and it soon became surrounded by the spiraling beam of pale green leaves! The Plant Magic in the area strengthened the power of this spell, making it double in size while it also gained more power from the sunlight shining down on it. The sun's light didn't stop the hail and snowballs that came from Yukino's Icy Fimbulvetr Magic to keep powering up her final spell, since the dragon's head grew larger. The light blue orb grew larger, too, and the dragon let out a vicious roar to make the orb become a light blue beam that was quite massive.
The massive beam of energy collided with Harui's spell, before overpowering it to push through while Harui's attack created a large pale green blast. The blast blinded Yukino's eyes for a moment, but she still casted her spell to make it head straight for Harui. The antagonist watched Yukino's attack increase its speed, seeing it move faster while the strength of the attack was on a very high level, and the beam struck Harui to create a massive blast of energy that was in a light blue color! Harui was blinded by the light, and she couldn't even open her eyes to see the head of the dragon that left Yukino's hand. The icy dragon rammed itself into Harui, creating another light blue blast that was severely cold, but the pressure that Harui felt from both blasts resembled fangs crunching down on her body. She began to be badly bruised and bloodied from Yukino's fierce attacks, even to the point where she could feel the blasts leaving burns on her skin, and Harui screamed in excruciating pain. She ended up closing her mouth, before coughing up blood, and the blasts faded away as soon as she fell down.
Yukino heard her enemy fall, and the light blue clouds of smoke lingered on the battlefield for about ten minutes. They soon cleared up to reveal that Harui was on the icy ground, reverting back to her normal appearance, and she was severely bleeding from that attack. Her wounds were also very severe, and Harui's eyes remained open while she appeared to no longer be alive. Harui was now dead, and she would no longer be one of Ryokufū Town's researchers. In fact, the lab coat that was her research uniform had now been torn to shreds like the rest of her clothes that were damaged by the blasts. Yukino's clothes were damaged from the blasts that she had to endure, too, and she fell to the ground while being heavily injured from Harui's attacks. She was unfortunately also quite tired from expending nearly all of her magical power, too, and Yukino was lucky that she could collapse after not using up all of her coins. The sight of Yukino falling down to the ground with the bag in her hand was enough to make Kusabue run over to her with a concerned facial expression, and the young girl knelt by her side. She watched Kūkiatsu also run over and kneel, but he knelt down by Harui's side.
"Kūkiatsu, what are you doing?" Kusabue asked her older brother with an astounded facial expression, as she watched him put his hands in the pockets of Harui's damaged lab coat.
Kūkiatsu explained with a stern and focused look on his face, as he hoped to find a certain item, "I'm just looking for the card key, Kusabue. Every researcher has a card key, even if the typical entrance to the lab is deeper in the forest."
"My friends are... also deeper in the forest." Yukino weakly stated, as she struggled to get her body up from the ground.
Kusabue told Yukino with a worried look on her face, anxiety in her eyes, "Yes, but you're very injured right now! You should at least try to rest while the remaining researchers aren't focused on us."
The fact that the remaining researchers weren't focused on them was something that made Kūkiatsu smile confidently, as that information was just as good as the sight of finding the card key. The card key was a rectangular pale green object that had been in the right pocket of Harui's pale green booty shorts that matched her light green T-shirt, and Harui's light green T-shirt complimented her plain green high heels that had straps on the fronts of them. One of her shoes had something fall out of it, and Kūkiatsu picked up the object to see that it had been a neatly folded piece of white paper.
He grabbed the paper to unfold it, and Kūkiatsu widened his eyes in shock from seeing the contents of the paper. The paper was displaying the list of plants that were used in the creation of that sweet-scented perfume, but Kūkiatsu noticed that not all of the plants were naturally grown. Some of them sounded like hybrid plants that had been created, but the botanists still had to care for them. Getting more information from the botanists would be an important step to take in this situation, especially since they probably had more documents on the perfume's plants in their research lab.
The thought of going to the research lab made Kūkiatsu wonder if he would be trespassing, since he no longer worked there as an employee, and the mages could viciously strike him with their magic. He couldn't fight against them by himself, and Kūkiatsu groaned in a frustrated manner from feeling like he would have to team up with Kusabue again. They were lucky to not get killed by Harui, but the thought of Yaeko coming back to kill them made Kūkiatsu feel like the group had to leave this frosty area of the forest. He proceeded to pick up Yukino to carry her on his shoulders, ignoring the feeling of her torn clothes against his back, and Kūkiatsu watched Kusabue walk by his side. The duo would be glad to help out the Sabertooth mages with putting an end to the deadly perfume, and they hoped to put an end to Harui's partner who had taken their ring.
How was Chapter 36? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Yukino and Harui's battle certainly made them be in a fight to the death, and Yukino won! However, the coins of the Icy Fimbulvetr Magic actually represent how that magic uses up her life force. If Yukino runs out of coins, then she will die. That doesn't mean the coins aren't refundable to her, however. Yukino is now going with Kūkiatsu and Kusabue to the research lab in Ryokufū Town, which is different from the research lab's other entrance in the forest. That one will appear later, along with another nice surprise. Also, the end of one fight means that another one shall soon begin. By the way, this is the third part of the Emerald Wind Arc! I'll update soon. :)
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