"So annoying. Whatever." Blue flame shot from Kronii's free hand and coalesced into another sword, longer than its twin- the minute hand to the hour hand. "I guess we're going to do this the hard way." Kronii crouched down slightly, looking ready to strike.
In the time it took Shori to blink, Kronii had closed three-quarters of the distance between them. She was fast, even with the archive suppressing much of her temporal abilities. There was barely enough time for Shori to reach into her black coat and retrieve a pair of scissors. The clash of metal on metal created a tiny but dazzling spark as Shori parried the attack aside.
Kronii pushed the advantage, not relenting, striking at Shori with a barrage of strikes from the clock hand blades. "Scissors? Really, librarian?"
"What's wrong with scissors? There's so much you can do with them. They can be used for arts and crafts, as a dinner utensil, or even for self-defense." With every strike from her opponent, Shori parried. But Kronii's relentless onslaught left no openings for Shori to consider going on the offensive.
Within Shori's heart, an intense emotion exploded like Vesuvius. It had been so long since she felt it that for a moment, she almost didn't recognize it, fear. No, not just fear, but blind terror. She was facing off against a demigod, a personification of one of the fundamental concepts of the universe. After the boredom of being trapped in the archive with nothing to do, she relished the feeling as though it were a fine wine. She only hoped that it would last. Despite the terror, she wore an expression of delight, like a child on Christmas morning.
"What are you smiling about, weirdo?" Kronii asked.
Several overlapping cracks of gunfire rang out. From the periphery of her vision, Shori saw Amelia and her bodyguard side by side and unloading on Kronii. At the same time, Kronii spun one of her blades in a circle fast enough to make it nearly invisible. Sparks could be seen where each bullet struck and was deflected by the whirling blade.
Not wasting the opportunity, he leaped on Kronii's back and drove his miniature Katana through her back just below her neck.
This caused Kronii more annoyance than pain by the scowl on her face. She flung one of her blades up into the air to free up her hand, grabbed her feline assailant by the leg, and threw him so far into the distance that he ended up out of sight in the space between two bookcases. Kronii then leaped into the air and caught the blade on its way back down. When she landed, Kronii slammed the blade hard against the marble floor. Amelia tackled Shori as a shockwave of force from the sword's tip shot forward, tearing a gulf in the floor a half foot deep and twenty feet long.
"Thank you, Ms. Watson," Shori said as she helped Amelia back to her feet.
"This is taking too long!" Kronii yelled. Her voice started to lose its cold, aloof monotone and became louder and angrier. She spun both blades around by their ring handles. They hummed as they sliced through the air faster than the speed of sound. Both moved so fast that they became completely invisible. Kronii whirled around and flung one of the blades. Shori managed to batter it away with her scissors but felt bones in her wrist shatter from the impact, forcing her to switch her weapon to her off-hand.
Kronii wasn't done. She flung the second blade at Amelia. In the detective's hand, she held a small gold pocket watch. When she pressed a button on the top, she seemed to wink and stutter out of reality for a fraction of a second. When she reappeared, she was only inches from where she was. The blade skimmed by her close enough that it cut off a few locks of hair.
"Did you forget, detective? No time powers for me also mean no time powers for you!" Kronii held out her hands. Both spinning buzzsaw-like blades reversed their trajectory and returned to her.
"I don't suppose you had a plan to defeat her, did you, Ms. Watson?" Shori asked. She let her broken wrist dangle limp at her side.
"Getting her to the archive was the plan. Now I'm just winging it," Amelia admitted with a shrug.
"Well, follow me then." Shori whistled and pointed at Kronii. The books on the coffee table she had been reading moments before launched themselves at Kronii like paper missiles. The books flapped like bats as they circled Kronii. They would swoop in and smack against Kronii whenever they found an opening. Though they did no damage, they served their purpose as a distraction. Kronii sliced book after book into confetti.
Shori and Amelia ran toward the labyrinth of the city-sized archive, followed by the feline bodyguards. With a glance back over her shoulder, Shori couldn't help but feel a small pluck of guilt on her heartstrings at the destruction of her beloved books, even if the archive itself would soon fix them.
"Yorick! I need your help." Shori said, seemingly to her shoulder.
"Who is Yorick?" asked Amelia. Her question was answered when an inky black blob on Shiori's shoulder opened its eyes. While dormant, one might think it is some inanimate rubber or plastic flair to Shori's gothic-style attire.
Shori scooped the living liquid up in her hands. She whispered to it right before flinging it to the bookcase. Yorick hit the wall with a wet SPLAT. The impact spread the creature out in a way that looked like someone had thrown an inkwell against the bookshelf in a fit of rage. Yorick gathered itself up and slid along the sides of the bookshelf, easily keeping pace with the others.
"Watson!" Kronii screamed as Shiori and the others ducked around the bend in the maze of bookcases.
From above, Yorick extended a tendril that snagged a book off a shelf and let it fall. Grabbing it, Shiori read the title and saw that it was The Tempest. Her eyes glowed yellow as she poured her willpower into the tome. Just as Kronii rounded the corner behind them, Shiori flung the book behind her.
Just as Kronii was ready to slice the book to shreds, it beat her to the punch by tearing itself to pieces. The loose pages of the destroyed book began to swirl as though caught in a dust devil. But what started as a slight breeze intensified into a full-on tornado. The storm tore through the city street-sized pathway between the opposing rows of bookcases. Books were torn from their homes and were sucked up from the funnel. Lightning lanced out from the storm, creating small fires where it struck.
"Will that stop her?" Amelia asked, looking back in awe at the tempest behind her.
Books continued to rain down where Yorick knocked them down. Shori carried an armful. Those that caught her interest were added to the pile; the rest were tossed aside. She glanced back to see a furious-looking Kronii emerging from the tempest. "Unfortunately not, dear detective. We are still in the stalling portion of the plan."
Shiori grabbed a book from her armful. Don Quixote. It would have to do. She poured her will into it. She dropped it, and when at foot height, she booted it ahead of her. When the book hit the ground, it exploded into a shower of shredded paper and sparks. In its place was an elderly-looking man in full-plate knight's armor on an old gray mare.
"Do you see that blue-haired woman? That's a shapeshifted dragon." Shiori pointed back at Kronii.
That's all the old "knight" needed to hear. He leaned forward, readied his lance, and urged his steed into a full gallop. As the knight and steed rushed onto what would surely be their death, Shiori thrust her palm back. Her eyes glowed yellow. The old speed of the old mare increased severalfold, exceeding that of even a filly in its prime. Hooves pounded the marble floor like rolling thunder. Even the grasp of the old knight on his lance became surer. Kronii was ready to run by this strange nuisance but was caught off guard at the sudden burst of speed. The tip of the lance impaled her through the abdomen and briefly swept her off her feet. Her expression was that of dumbfounded confusion, apparently confused that a being of her status could be caught off-guard by such a bizarre attack. Kronii was carried back a good twenty feet before she regained her bearings and drove her elbow down through the knight's lance in front of where it pierced her belly and snapped it in half. Two quick slashes with her twin blades followed this, decapitating the horse and knight in succession.
The death of the old knight appeared to pain Amelia. "We do have a plan, though, right?"
"As a personification of one of the universe's fundamental forces, it would be impossible to kill Ms. Ouro. Well, unless we were willing to erase time itself from reality. Though I would be curious about the mechanics of a universe without time, it's probably not an option. Therefore, our only other option is containment."
"So how exactly are we supposed to contain her?"
A smirk spread across Shiori's face. "We find someone that knows time as well as she knows herself."
From above, Yorick knocked another book down. Shiori read the title, and her face lit up. She dropped her armful of books to the floor, save two. One of them shoved under the armpit of her arm with the broken wrist. She opened the second book, The Mark of Zorro. The pages turned themselves. Shiori seemed to fall into a trance as her glowing yellow eyes gazed at the flipping pages. In seconds, Shiori absorbed the entirety of the book. Within her brain, she felt the words and sentences dig their way into her gray matter like burrowing worms.
From her side, Amelia shook her shoulder, snapping Shiori out of the trance. "She's still coming!" the detective woman said and pointed down the hallway where Kronii was quickly closing the gap. An aura of blue flame wreathed the enraged woman. "Uh, we should probably start running again," Amelia noted, tugging Shori's arm.
"No. Now is when things get interesting," Shori said with a manic grin spreading across her face.
Kronii whirled her twin blades at her sides. As she pulled back her left arm to throw the spinning blade, Shiori shouted, "Nyakuza! Now!"
From the shadows of a bookcase shelf behind Shori, one of Shiori's feline bodyguards shoots out like a furry cannonball. He fired a single shot as he dove through the air before rushing back into the shadows. The bullet hit Kronii in the back of the head and exited through her left eye socket. The eye was vaporized, and a bloodless hole was left behind where if one gazed into it, they could see what was on the other side.
Though Kronii didn't seem bothered by mortal concerns such as pain, the sudden loss of fifty percent of her vision surprised her enough that she stumbled as she went to make her throw. Rather than sailing through the air, the spinning blade chewed through the marble floor like a saw.
Before Kronii could recover, Shiori rushed at her with scissors in hand. It was easy to dodge around the slow-moving blade tearing up the library floor. As soon as Shiori passed it, the second Nyakuza leaped from the shadows and landed on the sword's handle. With his sword, he pinned the ring handle of Kronii's clock sword down.
With a hand clapped over her hollow eye socket, Kronii lashed out at Shiori with her remaining sword. Infused and empowered by the skills of a legendary swordsman, Shiori easily leaped over the strike and somersaulted over Kronii's head. When Shiori landed, Kronii snapped a roundhouse kick back with her long legs but was blocked by scissors sinking into the meat of her calf.
Pulling her leg free, Kronii followed the kick by slashing back with her sword. Almost casually, Shiori blocked the strike along with the several that followed it. Previously, Shiori was overwhelmed by the onslaught of the blue-haired woman. But now, with the skills of Zoro crawling around in her brain, the fight was like a chess match, and she saw several moves ahead. Kronii's swordsmanship was perfect, textbook, and painfully predictable.
With a wince, Shiori raised the hand with the broken wince so that her fingers touched the book under her armpit. She poured her willpower into it and swooned. Pulling off the next part of her plan would take every bit of her remaining reserves and maybe a little more. The bibliomancy she'd performed in quick succession had already drained her, and this next bit where she planned to ensnare a god would be challenging to pull off even if she were at full strength.
Kronii held out her empty hand, squeezed as though she were trying to juice an invisible orange. The sword that the Nyakuza had pinned to the floor attempted to return to its master. As it did, it dragged the feline's smaller sword through the marble flooring. The Nyakuza wrapped both hands around the handle of his sword and pulled back with all his might to prevent the sword from returning. Amelia rushed up and grabbed the sword as well. Kronii gestured as though she were pulling something. The sword wrenched itself free from the four hands holding it and flew back through the air to its owner.
As soon as Kronii wrapped her hands around the blade, Shori stepped in. The pair of scissors wrapped around Kronii's wrist and lopped off the hand with a quick snip. The sword maintained its momentum, and the sword and hand continued flying.
"When I escape this library, Archiver, I'm taking you with me. I'm going to leave you broken and bleeding within an inch of your life; then I'm going to stretch that moment out for you, so it lasts a quintillion years!" Kronii lashed out with her sword, but Shiori ducked under it.
Shiori slashed three lines into the front of Kronii's vest with three quick slashes, creating an "N" for Novella. Beneath her armpit, the book A Brief History of Time trembled, begging to be unleashed. Shiori stowed away her scissors in her belt and opened the book.
In a desperate final attack, Kronii performed an overhead strike to attempt to bisect Shiori evenly down the middle from the crown of her head. An invisible force struck Kronii, causing her to stumble back. Between Shiori and Kronii, a form took shape. It was a man in a wheelchair.
But Kronii was undeterred. She pulled back to take the head off this summoned being, but her arm froze mid-swing. Her eyes flashed wide with rage, and she pulled on the frozen arm.
The man in the chair used his fingertips to move a joystick around. In the air around Kronii, glowing mathematical equations appeared surrounding her. The letters, numbers, and symbols around Kronii caged her in on all sides, a cube. The sword clattered free from Kronii's grasp. She bellowed out a cry and her body erupted in blue flame again. The force of her aura pushed against the walls of the box she found herself in. The cube trembled but held. She yelled, screamed, and raged so hard that Shiori wondered if she would tear her vocal cords. The blue flame changed into a deep red, which looked like the color of coagulated blood. The whites of Kronii's eyes became black as onyx, and her pupils glowed red like a pair of embers from a fire.
Kronii's arms dropped limply to her side, and she smiled. "There's still three more of us detective. You have no chance of winning, even with your new friend," Kronii said, looking back at Amelia. The voice took on a low, echoing, demonic-sounding tone.
From his wheelchair, the man continued to work on the equation to ensnare time herself. Once the cube was completed, it began to shrink. As it did, Kronii shrank right along with it. When it was no larger than a single six-sided die, it floated towards the man in the wheelchair. The cube, now no larger than a grain of rice, pressed itself against the man's forehead. The cell containing the Warden of Time vanished into his head.
With a skip, Shiori walked around in front of the man. "Thank you so much for your help, doctor. But I need to return you to the book now."
The man nodded as best he could despite his paralysis. Shiori held out the book. The man evaporated into smoke which was then sucked back into the book. Shiori slammed the book closed. The book squirmed and writhed, and Kronii's faint screaming could be briefly heard.
"Well, that was exciting, wasn't it, Ms. Watson? Since I helped you out with your little Time Warden problem, I was wondering if you could perhaps do me a favor in return?"
"Anything. What?"
"Oh, well, you see, I'm going to pass out now. I'd much prefer to fall into the arms of a cute lady Sherlock than fall face first on the cold marble floor."
With that, Shiori's eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she tilted forward. Amelia rushed in and wrapped her in a hug.