“That’s one tough girl.”
“Yes, she is a very skilled fighter, though she would be no match for my blade were I in top form,” said Torreque.
While Homura was fighting for her life, Psycho and the others were kicking back and sharing their opinions on the match.
“Tsk… Remind me to punch them in the face later…”
Homura gritted her teeth. Elyliyah had the advantage, both from up close and far away. But if Homura tried to drag the fight out in an attempt to tire Elyliyah, she would just place herself that much closer to death.
“Finally! There’s the look I wanted to see in your eyes! But there’s still not enough despair!”
Elyliyah raised her arm, causing the whirring chainsaw to float into the air over the heads of Ares and Rhiann, who were still lying unconscious toward the edge of the plaza.
“Because you tried to make a scene, these two disgusting worms will have to pay with their lives!”
“Rhiann!”
“Yes! Feel the despair crush you!”
“Rhiann, run!”
As Elyliyah lowered her hand, the chainsaw began to descend according to the laws of gravity, as if a string holding it up had just been cut. The incredible mass of iron shards bore downward upon the immobilized pair, already inches from crushing them.
Suddenly, a booming explosion rang out, and the plaza was enveloped in blinding light.
“H-huh…?”
As the light faded and Elyliyah grasped what had happened, she could only groan in confusion.
“I almost let something happen again that I would regret… If I don’t fight, if I don’t burn, I could lose the people who matter most.”
Homura’s right hand flickered with the vestige of flames. The treacherous chainsaw blades had been blasted into pieces by a fiery explosion before they could reach Rhiann. Homura was at the peak of her rage, her body once again imbued with flames. A penumbra of fire manifested at her back.
“I hope you’re ready. My fire is brutal.”
Wildfire crept outward from her feet.
“Wh-what…are you? What in the hell are you…?!” Fear had begun to surface in Elyliyah’s eyes as the flames licked at her feet. “I’ve still got power left! Hurricane chainclaw!”
Elyliyah thrust her fist into the ground once more, causing chainsaws to reappear in the air above the plaza. Four, this time.
As Elyliyah punched forward, all the chainsaws hurtled toward Homura simultaneously. Moving four at once took a major toll on Elyliyah, leaving her barely able to stand.
The chainsaws tore up the stone pavement as they charged forward, coming at Homura from all sides. As Homura dodged one, another took its place. There was no place to run, no opportunity to get close to Elyliyah.
But Homura didn’t intend to run.
Homura’s bangs drifted upward on the shimmering heat. Her right eye, previously hidden behind her hair, flared with brilliant light and seething flames as she studied the approaching chainsaws. Instantly, four explosions were traced upon the air.
“Nrk…”
When the explosions faded, only fragments of the chainsaws remained. Elyliyah began to scream in disbelief.
“How can you have so much power?! You’re supposed to be afraid of me, not the other way around! No! No! No! Why should I, Elyliyah, be afraid of you?!”
“There’s the look I wanted to see in your eyes,” said Homura. “But there’s still not enough despair!”
The flames enshrouding Homura flared even higher. The fire that had ignited in her eye, however, had already disappeared. The toll must have been great, because tears of blood began to stream from her right eye. Homura, however, continued to smile.
“Those eyes! Those eyes! Those eyes…!! I hate them, I hate them, I hate them so much—!!” shouted Elyliyah.
Elyliyah must have been on her last legs, because she didn’t attempt to summon another chainsaw. Barely able to stand, she instead assumed a close-combat stance and attempted to punch at Homura with her needle-mitts.
“You didn’t put up much of a fight in the end, did you?”
The plaza shook with brilliant flames.
A merciless inferno enveloped the exhausted Elyliyah. Naturally, Homura held back so that the flames would not kill Elyliyah, but there was no way she would be moving for the foreseeable future with injuries like that.
Part of Homura felt like this wasn’t enough, an underwhelming conclusion to this sad saga. Her compulsion to burn everything to the ground threatened to take over. But Homura told herself to be calm. It didn’t need to be “enough.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Homura saw Ares’s two friends hurrying back. They pulled Ares and Rhiann away to safety. Now all that needed to be done was to heal Elyliyah and place her into custody.
The incident was finally wrapped up—or so it seemed. But Homura suddenly felt a powerful chill at her back. She had spoken too soon. Intuitively, she turned toward Elyliyah. An ominous red light glowed around her where she lay on the ground.
The source of the light was the choker that Elyliyah wore around her neck. Specifically, the ornamental red gemstones that studded its surface.
“Huh? What’s happening…?”
“Be careful, Homura. That choker gave me a bad feeling the first time I saw it. I think it’s a cursed item, just like my sword,” said Jin, who had grown familiar with the aura these items gave off.
“Do you think it’s controlling her?”
“A cursed item? Controlling me? I don’t know what you’re talking about…but I can feel the power surge within me!”
Elyliyah’s red and blistered skin began to visibly heal before their eyes.
“I’ll kill you all! I’ll demolish this entire town!”