“Lindvolus Championship Match—battle start!”
✦ ✦ ✦
No sooner had the mechanical voice announced the beginning of the match than Julis concentrated her prana and started manipulating her mana.
“Bloom—Impatiens Balsamina!”
The second she uttered those words, petals of flame opened up above her head, morphing into a cocoon-like shape in the blink of an eye—and then bursting.
Droplets of fire fell in a torrential downpour, covering the stage.
“Riessfeld makes the first move! Flames are scattering across the battlefield like a veritable hailstorm!”
“That technique…is probably based on a balsam plant. If I’m right, she must have further developed her abilities.”
“Oh? What do you mean?”
“Riessfeld materializes flames in the form of flowers. In principle, her moves have always been styled after petals and the like. Well, there do seem to be a few exceptions, but even then, there’s no mistaking that her attacks all took after flowers in one way or another. But this one seems to be based on a balsam—the way the fruit pops open to disperse its seeds. So the central motif has changed from flowers to seeds. As such, we should probably expect more diversity in her techniques.”
Zaharoula, the commentator, was spot on. After emerging from her match against Xiaohui Wu, Julis could tell that her abilities had improved dramatically.
This omnidirectional burst of flaming projectiles would last for well over ten seconds.
It wasn’t as potent as Saya’s Neunfairdelph, but the range was quite wide—impossible to dodge.
Well, in theory, anyway…
After the billowing smoke cleared, there stood Orphelia, looking exactly the same as she had a moment ago.
“But would you look at that! Landlufen doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest!”
“Of course not. Orphelia Landlufen possesses immense reserves of prana, surpassing even Ayato Amagiri. To her, that would have been no more than a light rain.”
Julis was well aware of that, naturally.
There probably wasn’t anyone on the face of this earth who understood Orphelia’s power as well as Julis did. And that was precisely why she needed to use a move like this in the opening seconds of the match.
“…”
As Orphelia wordlessly raised the Gravisheath, its urm-manadite core began to emit a threatening light.
The next moment, Julis was helplessly crushed by a tremendous gravitational force.
“U-ugh…!”
Orphelia’s attack was undodgeable. Its area of effect covered almost the entire stage.
Of course. She was responding to a wide-range technique with one of equal scope.
“Here it is! A ruthless and overwhelming area attack from the Gravisheath! Will this technique, which not even Saya Sasamiya could escape, usher in an early end to today’s match?!”
Several gravitational spheres appeared around Orphelia, each aimed right for Julis.
Reduced to crawling on the ground, Julis could neither defend nor evade.
Nonetheless, she endured the pain and flashed her foe a fearless grin.
“Ah!”
Just then, a fresh flower of fire exploded beneath Orphelia’s feet.
Of course, this attack, too, was unlikely to inflict any damage on its target.
But that was fine. Because that wasn’t what Julis was aiming for.
“…?!”
Orphelia, thrown back by the force of the blast, collapsed to her knees like she’d been knocked hard to the ground.
This was exactly as Julis had intended. The Gravisheath had two weaknesses: The first was the tremendous cost of using it; the second was that its user wasn’t immune to its effects. The only thing that could resist its immense gravity was the body of the Gravisheath itself; its user remained fully vulnerable.
In other words, if Orphelia had activated the attack over the entire stage, leaving only a narrow gap around herself, then all Julis had to do was make her leave the safety of her original position.
That last explosion was meant solely to knock her into the area of effect.
As Julis had expected, not even Orphelia could resist the crushing output of her own Orga Lux. And sure enough, she swiftly neutralized it.
“Bloom—Strelitzia Petty!”
Julis had been waiting for this moment, and she hurried to activate her next ability.
Accelerating in the blink of an eye on wings of flame, she brandished a gleaming sword, charging straight for the school crest on Orphelia’s chest as her opponent struggled to recover.
…The attack, however, was repelled at the last minute.
“Whoa! That was a close call! But Landlufen has blocked Riessfeld’s attack with her bare hands!”
Orphelia rose slowly to her feet, looking completely unbothered.
Julis had gone all out with that strike just now, hoping to snatch victory in one fell swoop.
Of course, her top priority in this match was to buy time. She hadn’t forgotten that.
However, she also understood how difficult that would be when facing a foe like Orphelia. If she tried half-heartedly to lead her across the stage, she would quickly wind up cornered with no means of escape.
The only way to keep this match from ending was to go all out.
“But that attack just now required prior setup, right? When did she have time to lay the trap?”
“Probably during that initial scatter bomb. That must have been the medium. I wonder if she planted it by visualizing a seed sprouting.”
“Are you saying Riessfeld anticipated this turn of events?”
“Well, I’m not sure about that. She must have prepared for it, though, as one of several possibilities.”
At the very least, this would make it difficult for Orphelia to use the Gravisheath’s powers. The seeds from her Impatiens Balsamina technique were scattered all over the stage. If her foe tried to create another wide-ranging high-gravity zone, she would risk falling victim to the same ploy that she had a moment ago.
Orphelia wouldn’t cut corners or let her guard down no matter what kind of opponent she was facing.
Nor would she allow herself to overreach.
After all, the power of the earth was overwhelming. She would no doubt determine that she could win through other, less risky, means.
In that case, I’ll just have to overcome everything she tries…!
Renewing her resolve, Julis began to weave her prana once more.
“Bloom—Stargazer Pollen!”
With that, a giant lily of roiling flame blossomed above her head before once again bursting.
This time, however, no pellets of fire scattered over the stage—instead, a mist of fine, shining crimson particles covered the area like a haze. It wasn’t dense enough to block one’s vision. It was more like miniature stars twinkling in midair.
“…”
Orphelia’s eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly, and she raised the sleeve of her uniform to her mouth to keep from inhaling any of the particles. They were harmless to the human body, but Julis was under no obligation to tell her opponent that.
Then, under her breath, Orphelia murmured: “Kur nu Gia.”
Plumes of miasma welled up under her feet, coming together to form a huge undead arm.
The red particles drifting through the air stuck to it, as though being sucked in.
“Oh? Those red sparkling things are sticking to Landlufen’s miasma… What’s going on here, Zaharoula…?”
“Hmm… I wonder if the motif is pollen this time around.”
Orphelia paid this no heed, swinging down at Julis with the arm made of deadly miasma that would corrode and consume anything it touched.
“Bloom—Amaryllis!”
Julis responded with a fresh technique, but the firepower of her Amaryllis wasn’t enough to counter Orphelia’s ability. Normally, the difference in power output would have pushed her back.
And yet—
A moment after the Amaryllis made contact, a huge explosion erupted. The stormlike blast was followed by a deafening roar.
The miasmic arm crumbled like a giant tree burning into cinders before her very eyes.