Akane shot an angered glare at the Five Columns. She knew she would be putting everything at stake by disobeying, but she had decided this latest venture was going too far. If she was truly going to be Windbloom's Otome, it was up to her to show that her king wouldn't tolerate the level of insolence the Columns had expressed from the start of this war.

"Kazu, please, activate me!"

The new Windbloom king was taken back by surprise at Akane's words.

"Wha-... what?"

She turned to face him again, and he soon nodded as he saw his Otome was fully determined to fight.

"Alright, Akane."

He leaned forward and gently kissed the GEM earring on Akane's ear. The device began beeping again in response and began its Materialization process. In a short flash, Akane was dressed in her Meister Robe. The Five Columns scowled with contempt, and then responded by activating their own GEMs at will and donning their corresponding Meister Robes.

With the battlefield drawn, Akane summoned her tonfa weapons to her sides. She levitated a few inches off the floor before dashing toward the Columns. The remarkable speed and agility of the Pure Heart Malachite Robe caught the Columns off guard, and she brushed past an unprepared Mahya and left the young woman reeling off of her feet. Nao made the first counterattack and tried to shoot a glowing pink web from the large claw-shaped shield she wielded. Akane jumped over Nao's line of fire and answered with a flying punch that dazed the aggressive Column. Akane's decorative cat ears then twitched as she heard the familiar sound of Shizuru's naginata chain lashing toward her back. Akane instantly turned around and dashed toward Shizuru, evading the more experienced Otome's attack by looping through the air and countering by slashing the staffed weapon in two with her own bladed tonfa. Although briefly shocked at this elegant maneuver, Shizuru backstepped in time to avoid a second sweeping attack aimed at her head, leaving the very tip of Akane's glowing tonfa to lightly graze her cheek. The attacking girl threw a third punch, and Shizuru collapsed after Akane's fist and the dull side of her tonfa violently struck her in the gut.

Natsuki was struggling to aim her Robe's portable cannon at the lightning fast target when she became the focus of Akane's attention. Akane raised her tonfa to perform their elemental attack, then used an uppercutting motion to create a concentrated gust of wind that lifted Natsuki off the ground and painfully slammed her against the adjacent wall. Akane then turned to notice Mahya had recollected herself and had now activated her Robe's doppelganger feature, as she now held maraca-shaped devices in her hands. A large creature appeared behind the frustrated Column and began mimicking her every move. The beast's head nearly broke through the Windbloom throne room's ceiling as Mahya used its long arms to aim a series of punches at Akane. The faster Otome was able to evade these by flying low to the ground, making her body parallel with the stone floor of the castle, and then answering with a sweeping kick to Mahya's legs when she was in the proper range. As the dark-skinned Otome toppled to the floor a second time and dropped her weapons, Akane stood up and crushed one of the fallen maraca instruments under her Robe's glossy white heel. This caused the summoned beast to suddenly fall limp and return to its stasis mode in Mahya's GEM.

Akane returned to a hovering position as her eyes scanned the room. Kazuya was safely watching from a distance, and four of the five Columns were hopelessly groaning as they struggled back to their feet. However, the final Column, the blonde-haired Sara Gallagher, was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, the sensitive microphone ears on Akane's hairband heard a faint mechanical whirring noise coming from just above her shoulders. It was the sound of the black-Robed Column's optical camouflage deactivating. Akane turned around just in time to take the full brunt of Sara's surprise diving kick.

Akane cried in pain as she forcefully fell to the throne room floor and her metallic tonfa clattered far from her reach. She slowly rose back to her feet to notice the Column Nao was now shooting the same webbing material as before at her ankles. Akane proved to be too weakened to dodge this attack, and Nao didn't miss her target a second time. The glowing pink material left Akane's feet stuck to the floor like a ball and chain, and Akane could do nothing but watch in terror as Nao stepped out of way and left a perfect line of fire for a repositioned Natsuki.

The defeated Otome's scream filled the Windbloom throne room as she was struck by the widespread laser from Natsuki's cannon. Even though the weapon was only using a portion of its maximum firepower, Akane could briefly feel her flesh sear and her very molecules split apart before her nanomachines began to self-destruct. The anti-matter ray was far greater than Akane's height and width, and it left a sizzling hole through the stone wall of Castle Windbloom. Windbloom's new king was standing at a safe distance from the blast, but he suddenly began painfully screaming in unison with his Otome as he disappeared into a flurry of green fire and embers.

Natsuki calmly lowered her weapon when the matter was finished. Nao began speaking as she repeatedly shook her head, still struggling to regain her full senses.

"Damn it, Shizuru. Can't you be a little more careful when you go off judging people?"

Shizuru ignored her companion's words as she reached to her wounded cheek and grit her teeth at the sight of blood on her gloved hand. With her vanity ruined, the only thing that kept Shizuru from falling into a more detestable mood was the fact Natsuki was the one to win the battle. Sara spoke next, taking amusement out of the fact she was the least harmed of the group.

"Well, I guess we can officially say we conquered Windbloom, at least."

The Columns walked out of the throne room and began their return to Garderobe after they collected themselves. They knew the damage Akane had done could easily be repaired with the academy's technology, and it was only a matter of time before another one of the ruling families came begging for mercy. They were determined to win the War of the Five Columns and unify the world.

THE END.