It was Ouma who made the first move.
“I’m not in the habit of exchanging words with people I’m dueling. Let’s get this started,” he muttered, extending his right arm behind him. “Howl, Ryuuzume!”
Mana coalesced at his hand, and a nodachi, a curved sword longer than a katana, formed in it.
“First off, let’s see how much stronger you’ve gotten since that pitiful display you showed me last time.”
“Try me.”
Ouma responded to Stella’s taunt by dashing straight at her.
“Whoa! Until now, Ouma’s waited for his opponent to make the first move, but he’s going on the offensive right off the bat! How will Stella respond?!”
The people in the crowd started chattering excitedly to one another as the match began. Stella didn’t bother to move out of the way, however.
“Serve my will, Lævateinn!”
Instead, she gathered her mana and summoned her own Device—as well as something more.
“L-Look at that! Stella’s created a bunch of fireballs behind her!”
She swung Lævateinn like a conductor’s baton.
“Burn it all—Broken Arrow!”
The hundreds of fireballs she’d created shot toward Ouma, crimson trails streaking behind them. The bombardment was massive enough to cover the entire width of the arena, leaving no space for Ouma to escape to.
“Th-That was a direct hit! Those explosions sent half the arena flying too!”
Stella didn’t stop there either. As one explosion engulfed Ouma, she directed the rest of her fireballs to hone in on him. There was a thunderous roar and a massive conflagration as all they impacted the arena. No one could make Ouma out from within the fiery whirlwind. Each of Stella’s fireballs was powerful enough to down a regular foe, so everyone assumed he’d been beaten down by the onslaught.
“But it looks like none of those attacks are even fazing him,” Saikyou said with a smile.
Stella wasn’t up against a regular foe. She was fighting the Gale Emperor. With a huge gust of wind, Ouma blew away the flames and smoke surrounding him. There wasn’t even a speck of soot on his clothes. He’d deployed a wind barrier to deflect all the fireballs coming his way, keeping him safe as he advanced toward Stella. The barrage wasn’t even slowing him down. It was clear from his defiant gaze that her pitiful fireworks display wasn’t an impediment.
“Empress Dress!” Stella shouted, immediately changing tactics. As flames enveloped her body, she stepped boldly forward.
“Stella’s brought out her fiery dress! Look at those flames! You can see the air shimmering in the heat!”
Stella’s flames could reach up to three thousand degrees Celsius. They were hot enough to burn anything that came close, and left third-degree burns on anyone they scorched directly.
“But Ouma’s not stopping! He’s charging right into that hellish inferno!”
“Ouma-chan’s got the power to control wind, after all. He can easily create a vacuum barrier to keep the heat away. Anyway, I recommend everyone in the front rows brace yourselves.”
“What for?”
Before Saikyou could respond, Stella’s and Ouma’s blades clashed. There was a visible shock wave as their two Devices slammed into each other, and it rippled out toward the audience.
“Waaauuugh!”
Those who’d been leaning over the fence to get a better look were blown backward. The blazing crimson greatsword and emerald green nodachi clashed again and again, each blow causing the fence to creak and the glass windows at the back of the arena to rattle.
“H-Holy smokes! Just the shock waves caused by their Devices crashing into each other are strong enough to send everyone reeling! And that noise! It’s like two jet fighters slamming into each other over and over!”
The two people at the epicenter of the shock waves weren’t yielding an inch, though, as they weaved an intricate dance of offense and defense. After about ten thunderous clashes, there was one even more powerful clash that caused both fighters to be blown back to the edge of the arena. Neither of them had landed a solid blow on the other throughout that whole exchange. That alone had proven that in this short period of time, Stella had closed the gap in strength between the two of them.
“Impressive as always, Stella-san,” Kanata said with a sigh of admiration.
“She won’t lose out in power like she did last time, at least,” Touka added.
“Yeah, and Stella hasn’t even gotten serious yet. Both of them are still just warming up,” Ikki noted, nodding.
Indeed, that first bout had been nothing more than a warm-up for the two of them. After seeing her first match, Ikki knew she’d realized a lot more of her potential than before. That dragon he’d seen at the end of her first match, and again last night, told Ikki that she still hadn’t brought her full might to bear.
“But Ouma-san hasn’t brought out his full strength yet either,” Touka replied.
The two of them had just been feeling each other out, trying to get a good gauge of whether their opponent would break if they went all out. As Ouma’s younger brother, Ikki was well aware of how Ouma fought.
Nii-san’s not the kind of person to go all out against just anyone.
He only unleashed his full might against those who were worthy. But now that the fighters had finished sizing each other up, things were going to get even crazier.
The real battle starts now.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I see. You’ve certainly powered up. Enough to take my sword head-on, anyway,” Ouma said with a nod. His arm was slightly numb after their fierce exchange. He hadn’t felt that tingling sensation in a long, long time. “But if all you can do is numb my arm, you won’t be able to take my life.”
“You talk big, but do you have the bite to match your bark?” Stella replied, frowning. She knew she was the underdog here since she’d lost to him once before, so she couldn’t really blame him for being confident in his victory. Nevertheless, she leveled Lævateinn at him. “Guess I’ll have to knock your socks off before you take me seriously.”
She sent flames running down her blade, enveloping it in her all-consuming Dragon Breath.
“Haaaaaaah!”
The flames grew larger, hotter, and brighter, turning into a crimson tornado that extended out of her sword. Touka recognized what she was doing immediately.
“That’s the move she used back during the training camp!”
Indeed, that was the long-ranged attack Stella had hit her with during their training matches: Dragon Fang. But it was far stronger than the Dragon Fang she had seen a few weeks ago. She had needed to use her Thunderbolt to just barely destroy it back then, but here, Stella launched seven of them from her sword at once.
“Devour it all! Satan Fang!” Stella shouted, swinging her sword down and unleashing all seven fiery dragons at Ouma. They traced different trajectories as they bore down on him, surrounding him from all sides. But Ouma didn’t seem even the least bit concerned.
“This one technique alone contains more mana than the total mana pool of several average Blazers put together. It’s quite something. But surely you didn’t think your little snakes would be enough to beat me.” Ouma thrust Ryuuzume into the ring. “Wind God’s Barrier.”
It was the same Noble Art he’d used to protect the audience from Stella’s Bahamut Soul in her first match. A whirlwind whipped up around him, shredding the flaming dragons that crashed against it with razor sharp blades of wind. The scattered embers were sucked into the whirlwind and slowly faded away.
“Is that the best you’ve got, Crimson Princess?” he asked, looking almost bored. But then he realized that Stella was no longer in front of him. In the brief instant that her Satan Fang had obscured his vision, she’d vanished.
“Oh, I’ve got a lot more, Gale Emperor!”
The air behind Ouma shimmered in a haze of heat, and Stella appeared out of thin air, swinging her sword down at his neck. This was another one of her Noble Arts—Flame Veil. She used heat to bend the light around her, making her invisible.
Ouma had misread Stella. She wasn’t just a power fighter who simply used her immense mana to overwhelm foes. In truth, she more often used that overwhelming strength as a smoke screen for her more devastating attacks. She had as many tricks up her sleeve as Shizuku and was a very rounded fighter.
“Haaaaah!”
But right when her blade was about to reach Ouma, she realized that she’d made a mistake.
“O-Oh no!” Touka shouted as a spray of crimson painted the ring.