Subaru gasped into existence.
Air tore into her lungs as if she had been drowning. Her heart slammed violently against her ribs. The clearing returned in a rush of color and sound. Damp earth. The faint scent of rain. The pale morning light filtering through leaves.
"I just want to understand you."
The voice was light. Almost playful.
Subaru looked up.
Übel stood a few meters away, exactly where she had been before. Staff resting loosely in her hand. Green hair tied back. Purple eyes watching her with open curiosity.
Shit.
Even Rho Aias had not been enough.
Seven layers. A conceptual defense. A legend-backed shield.
Cut like paper.
How?
Subaru swallowed and forced herself to stand straighter.
"You want to understand me because I'm a demon?"
Übel blinked.
"Wow. That was sooner than I expected."
Her lips curved. With a small motion, she summoned her staff into her hand again. It materialized seamlessly, as if it had always been there.
"Well, yeah," Übel continued. "You're too human-ish for a demon."
Subaru's jaw tightened.
"How do you know that?"
Übel shrugged lightly. "I have good instincts."
That was not reassuring.
Subaru took a slow breath.
"I see. What exactly do you want from me? You think I'm strong, so you want to fight me?"
"That too."
She said it so casually.
Subaru felt irritation rising.
"What will convince you to leave me alone?"
Übel tilted her head.
"I don't know. I don't want to leave you alone."
Subaru stared at her.
"Then what will convince you not to kill me?"
Übel hummed thoughtfully, tapping her chin with a finger.
"Hm. I don't know that either."
"What?!" Subaru's voice cracked with frustration. "You're just saying things!"
"…but," Übel added calmly.
Subaru froze.
Übel's expression shifted. Not playful now. Curious.
"I can copy techniques," she said. "By empathizing with people. Understanding how they think. How they feel. Their impulses."
Subaru's stomach dropped.
"And… I've never heard of a demon who is this human."
The implication hung in the air.
"You want to replicate my spell?" Subaru asked slowly.
"I guess," Übel replied, almost blissfully.
Subaru cursed internally.
So that was it.
She wanted Erafassen.
It makes sense. But…
"Did I not tell you that my technique is just summoning a sword and fight? It's lame."
Übel scratched her ears. "What was that weird thing that you had used last night? Like a mushroom?"
Subaru froze.
Of course she had seen her use Erafassen to conjure an umbrella.
"That was a mana construct," Übel continued. "So you lied about your spell." She tapped her staff. "You can create anything with your mana, right?"
There's no point in hiding.
"So if I let you copy it," Subaru spoke slowly. "You'll leave me?"
Übel tilted her head again.
"Hmmm…"
Subaru clenched her fists.
"I don't know," Übel said honestly. "But… show me how strong you are. Just a teeny tiny fight. And I'll consider it."
"How about fighting later?"
"Nope."
Subaru's shoulders sagged slightly.
Of course not.
Übel bounced lightly on her heels. "Come on. Just a little."
This is inevitable.
Übel knows what her power is. But not the scope of it. If she refuses to entertain her, Übel might kill her again.
If Subaru agrees, what's the chance that Subaru will win?
Rho Aias had failed.
What else can she try?
Subaru exhaled sharply.
"Alright. I'll take one of your attacks. If I survive, you'll accompany me to the Northern Plateau. After you become a First Class Mage."
Übel raised a brow.
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you want to empathize, right?" Subaru shot back. "Traveling together would help. That's what you want, isn't it?"
Übel paused.
Then she smiled.
"Hm. Fair. Fair. Alright. Ready when you are."
"Just give me a moment."
"Oookay! I'm waiting!" Übel said cheerfully.
Subaru stepped back.
Her mind spun.
She could not outrun her. Not yet. Übel was more experienced in flight. Faster. More precise.
Last time, Rho Aias had failed instantly.
Why?
Because it had form.
It was visible.
It was a flower.
Übel only needed to imagine cutting a flower.
And it was cut.
Anything that had a recognizable shape could be severed if she could picture it splitting.
So what could she create that Übel could not imagine cutting?
What object defied simple visualization of division?
Subaru's thoughts raced.
Blade against blade would fail.
Armor would fail.
Barriers would fail.
She needed something more conceptual. Something ambiguous.
Her gaze drifted downward.
Übel had crouched slightly, peering at a puddle left behind by the night's rain. She tilted her head as she examined her own reflection in the water.
"Ready or not?" Übel called lazily.
Subaru's thoughts accelerated.
Puddle.
Water.
Reflection.
Mirror.
Her eyes widened.
A mirror did not block.
It reflected.
What would happen if Übel tried to cut something that only returned her own intent?
Subaru's pulse quickened.
It was absurd.
It might fail.
But it was different.
She straightened abruptly.
"Time to test it…"
Übel looked up.
"Übel! Can you cut this—?"
Mana surged from Subaru's core, spiraling outward in shimmering waves. The air distorted around her as pink and gold light intertwined, forming something flat, angular, ancient.
Übel blinked and stood up fully as Subaru shouted—
"Yata Mirror!"
A flare of orange light burst outward in front of Subaru, swelling like a sudden sunrise between them.
Übel's grin faltered.
The thing that formed was roughly Subaru's height, wide enough to swallow her silhouette whole. It shimmered, not flat like a simple barrier, but layered, rippling, alive. Subaru vanished behind it completely, her presence reduced to a faint pulse of mana leaking around its edges.
Übel tilted her head.
"A cloak of fire?" she murmured.
The surface crackled faintly, tongues of orange licking upward, heat bending the air around it. Yes. Fire was simple. Fire could be cut. She had cut flame before, split it down the middle just to watch the halves recoil like wounded serpents.
"I can cut it," she thought.
Her fingers tightened around her staff. The wood thrummed in her palm as she poured intent into it. The concept formed clearly in her mind. Flame divided. Flame parted.
She swung.
Before the invisible arc even reached the barrier, the orange shifted.
The heat vanished.
The surface turned translucent blue, fluid and heavy, rippling like a vertical lake suspended in midair.
Übel blinked.
"…Water?"
Her cut sliced through the air and struck the barrier. The impact produced no sound. The water-like surface simply folded around the invisible blade and then smoothed itself out again, as if something had been dropped into deep sea and swallowed.
"I can cut water," she muttered. She had done it before too. Dividing currents. Splitting rain midfall.
She sharpened the image in her mind. Not surface water. Something denser. Something like a compressed wave.
The blue deepened.
Then hardened.
The shield became gray.
Rough.
Layered like rock face.
Stone.
Übel's eyes narrowed, interest sparking brighter than irritation.
"Huh."
If it was stone, then it could be cleaved like stone.
She imagined the fracture lines. The stress points. The weakness running through it like veins.
The surface crumbled.
No.
Not crumbled.
It softened into brown earth, granular and uneven, soil packed tight as a cliffside.
Übel exhaled a short laugh.
"It's adapting to what I think."
She stepped closer, boots pressing into the grass. "If I think I can cut stone…"
The barrier shifted again, this time into something pale and fibrous, almost wooden.
"Then it changes."
Subaru's presence pulsed faintly behind it, steady but strained.
Übel licked her lower lip.
"Hehe. Very easy."
If conscious thought triggered its transformation, then she would simply act without thinking.
No image. No concept. Just instinct.
She flicked her wrist and released a clean, sharp cut with no defined visualization attached to it.
The invisible blade tore through the space between them in a heartbeat.
It struck.
And the barrier changed again.
Not to flame.
Not to water.
Not to stone or soil.
It became something colorless.
Not transparent.
Not opaque.
Just… wrong.
The air around it felt distorted, like looking at heat haze, except there was no heat. The blade hit and did not slice. It slipped. The sensation rebounded through her staff like striking oil on glass.
Übel froze.
"…Ho?"
She leaned forward slightly, peering at it.
"What's that thing?"
She sent another cut. This one sharper. Cleaner. Focused.
It struck.
Slid.
Dissolved.
"It's slippery," she murmured. "I can't really cut it?"
Behind the barrier, Subaru's thoughts raced.
Yata Mirror.
The name echoed in her mind as her arms trembled from maintaining the thing.
It was not merely a shield. It did not block by hardness alone. It shifted. It responded. The instant Übel's intent reached it, the Mirror altered its nature to something incompatible with that intent.
If Übel imagined wood, it would become fire.
If she imagined fire, it would become stone.
If she imagined stone, it would become wind.
If she imagined wind, it would become something with no substance at all.
The moment cutting intent touched it, it became the thing that could not be cut by that intent.
Formless.
Void-like.
A state without edges.
You cannot cut a vacuum.
You cannot divide something without defined existence.
Übel's entire magic depended on visualization. On understanding what she was cutting. On grasping its structure in her mind and asserting dominance over it.
But this shield refused to settle.
It was a lie made solid.
A hologram with teeth.
Originally, the Yata mirror was supposed to be bigger. But not only is this smaller but this is also very lightweight.
Subaru had to pour every ounce of her mana to maintain it.
There is no doubt.
That coin, that katana, axe... Even this, all of them are of the same mass. And inferior to the original ones.
Outside, Übel's grin returned slowly.
"Interesting."
She began to walk in a circle around it.
The barrier rotated subtly to keep Subaru fully hidden.
"You're not just defending. You're playing with my head."
She thrust her staff forward and unleashed a rapid flurry of invisible slashes, one after another. Grass around them split cleanly, trees in the distance shedding leaves as stray arcs carved air.
Each strike hit the barrier.
Each time it changed.
Ice.
Fire.
Mist.
Glass.
Shadow.
Every transformation occurred a fraction before impact, as if the shield anticipated her thought before she finished thinking it.
Übel clicked her tongue.
"Fine."
She closed one eye and focused deeper.
If she could not cut its form, she would cut its concept.
She imagined the shield as a defined object. A magical construct. Mana condensed.
Mana could be severed.
She had done it before. Cut spells mid-formation. Severed enchantments.
Her staff glowed faintly green as she carved downward.
The barrier shimmered.
Its color shifted to something almost pearlescent, like moonlight caught in oil.
Her cut met it.
There was resistance this time.
For a breath.
Then her slash bent sideways and slid off, slicing harmlessly into empty air.
Übel staggered one step back.
Her pulse quickened.
She laughed.
"This is fun."
Another barrage.
Left.
Right.
Diagonal.
She jumped, slashing from above. She crouched and sliced upward. She even kicked off the ground and spun midair, sending a crescent-shaped arc aimed at the barrier's lower edge.
Every time.
Shift.
Slip.
Fail.
Sweat began to gather at her temples.
The grass around them was shredded. Trees bore clean diagonal wounds. The air hummed with residual mana.
The barrier remained intact.
Subaru's breathing grew ragged behind it. Maintaining Yata Mirror was not effortless. Each adaptation cost mana. Each shift demanded awareness.
Her legs shook.
But she held it.
Übel planted her staff into the ground and inhaled deeply.
"Alright. Stronger, then."
Mana swelled around her, thicker now, the air tightening like a drawn bowstring. The sky above seemed to dim slightly as her focus sharpened.
She visualized nothing specific.
Just severance.
The pure act of dividing existence.
She swung with full power.
The invisible arc screamed forward, splitting wind itself.
The barrier did not become stone.
Neither did it turn into some gem.
It did not become fire.
Nor something else.
It vanished.
For a split second it simply wasn't there.
Her cut passed through empty space.
Then the barrier reappeared, calm and unmarked.
Übel stared.
Subaru nearly collapsed from the strain of that maneuver, teeth gritted hard enough to hurt.
"You can't cut what isn't present," Subaru muttered weakly from behind it.
Übel's shoulders began to tremble.
Then she laughed.
Laughed harder.
"Again!"
Another slash.
Shift.
Another.
Shift.
Minutes blurred.
The sun crawled across the sky.
Übel's attacks grew more reckless, less precise. She experimented wildly now. Trying to cut it as fabric. As bone. As memory. As illusion.
Every time the Mirror refused definition.
An hour passed.
Übel's breathing grew heavy. Her swings slowed slightly. Mana reserves thinned, each strike less sharp than the last.
Subaru's vision swam behind the barrier. The world narrowed to the back of the Mirror and the steady pulse of her own heartbeat.
Two hours.
The field was a ruin of carved earth and shredded grass. Distant trees leaned at odd angles where stray slashes had bitten too deep.
Übel launched one final, desperate strike.
It hit.
Slid.
Dispersed.
Silence followed.
Her staff slipped from her fingers.
She fell backward onto the grass with a dull thud, chest rising and falling rapidly.
"Ahh…"
She stared at the sky.
"I'm empty."
The barrier flickered.
Subaru let it dissolve at last. The strange, shifting surface unraveled into particles of light before vanishing completely.
Subaru herself wobbled, knees buckling. She managed two shaky steps forward before collapsing onto her side not far from Übel.
Both of them lay there, staring upward.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Übel began to laugh again, softer this time.
"This is so crazy. So crazy."
Subaru turned her head slightly, lips dry, and laughed too. It sounded fragile but genuine.
"I know, right?"
Übel rolled her head to look at her. Green eyes bright despite exhaustion.
"Yeah,"
"So are you still gonna kill me?"
"Nah, that's one spell, what's it called?"
"Not telling,"
"Awww, I thoughy we were partners."
"...we are?"
I will be posting chapters every day. Big chapters will be broken into 3 or 4 chapters, you can read it ahead by checking out the tips in my bio.
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