Tricks with Tarisha

This battle was going to present us with three major challenges. First, the presence of the Twos. Although alone they didn’t prove to be much of a challenge, barely more than a distraction, fighting them together was troublesome. The second challenge was obviously Three—the powerful mage who we still weren’t sure if we could actually defeat.

However, the third and final challenge was Mana herself.

Her mere presence there served as a hindrance. She lacked any offensive spells as well as any experience fighting. Despite that, she was the most essential to our goal.

Even if Three wouldn’t outright kill her, he might take her out of the fight, kidnap her, threaten her or anything else to completely shut down our plans.

So I had to focus on protecting her at all costs.

Luckily, it seemed that despite his anger, Three was perfectly content to play with me at first.

“Make sure you don’t kill her, but make her hurt,” Three ordered and the Twos immediately rushed ahead.

Their goal was clear. Even as I engaged two of the giggling metallic women, I noticed that the third tried going past me and toward Mana.

“Hah!” I called, unleashing a kick to strike one robot’s wrists, causing her knife to fly off, then spun with my sword to catch the third Two by slicing through her back from behind just as Mana shrieked.

The robot aiming for her fell down, raising sparks. She still tried grabbing Mana, but then got stabbed by Tarisha and stopped moving.

Unfortunately, this act opened me up to receive a different attack by the other Twos. I felt my arm getting sliced before I swung it for a counterattack to behead the attacker. The remaining Two lunged at me wildly, cutting open my flesh but getting easily felled by my sword.

I didn’t even break a sweat, but my wounds stung and blood dripped down my body.

“Saga!” Mana called worriedly, but I went to focus on Three again until realizing something and turning around in a hurry.

Mana must have freaked out, seeing me lunge at her with my sword. Tarisha whooshed right next to that pink-haired head to stab yet another Two that had attempted to sneak up from behind.

The robotic woman gave a staticky laughter and fell. Mana yelped, her knees shaking.

I turned to face Three yet again. He’d been watching this fight dispassionately this entire time, his arms crossed.

He really was toying with us, the bastard.

“Useless,” he mumbled. “That’s why I wanted One to be here with us, too. You know, to have you fight One, Two and Three at the same time—that would have been an epic final battle. Ah well. Didn’t expect too much.” He spoke as if he wanted these robots to lose all along. “Might as well blow ‘em up, then.”

Clicking my tongue, I grabbed Mana and leapt away right as Three snapped his fingers and the unmoving robots left on the ground exploded with roaring flames.

Mana shouted as we rolled away together on the hard ground, luckily avoiding a direct hit. I immediately rose to my legs.

The fight only just started and I was already covered in burns, cuts and blood. Great.

Watching us while still floating, Three clapped his hands together, wearing a mocking smile.

“Well done! You really have performed beyond my expectations, Saga,” he said, his smile then vanishing. “For better or worse.”

I stood in front of Mana and readied my sword.

“You know—”

I was tired of him talking, so I went on the assault. Rushing ahead to gather momentum, I then kicked the ground hard for a jump.

Naturally, this action alone wasn’t enough to reach him, so I also threw the sword ahead like a javelin.

“—Can you stop interrupting me?” he growled, waving a hand. He conjured a very faint but glowing barrier.

Landing, I leapt yet again in succession, resummoned my sword before it even hit the barrier and threw it again, all in one flowing motion.

Three definitely hadn’t expected this move from me. Unfortunately, surprising him wasn’t enough to score a hit; Tarisha still bounced off the magical barrier.

So it was as we suspected.

Jarred had explained to us the various types of defensive spells; most of them could be activated only for specific moments and weren’t long-lasting, but this one remained even now.

There was now no doubt that it was the same as Half’s spell.

“Very nice trick,” said Three, floating higher and looking down at me with eyes full of scorn. I clicked my tongue; I actually wanted to make some more attempts, but that was apparently going to have to wait. Or perhaps we needed to switch to our other strategy.

For now, I watched carefully, moving backwards, as Three raised a hand toward the heavens.

“Saga, Saga, Saga… I know you’re a stubborn girl, but must we really do this?”

“Yes!” I called back.

He smiled again. “I keep thinking, you know… what if we mix your amazing battle prowess with my talent for magic? Doesn’t that sound like an incredible combo?”

Was he implying what I thought he was?

“I want you to have my children.”

Ugh, he was. I even felt a small shudder of disgust.

“Think of the possibilities!” he continued. “We could rule all worlds together!”

“Never,” I hissed, then looked back at Saga, making sure it was safe. It was probably about time for us to move to the next phase of our plan—

“Then you will die,” Three announced with a wave of his hand and the sky suddenly became brighter, as if the sun came back with a vengeance.

Or maybe there were multiple suns.

No, there were literal spheres of flames floating above, each about the size of a car.

“Let’s see how you handle this one, Saga.”

I was wrong. The spheres weren’t floating—

They were falling down.

Along with Three’s indulgent laughter, he bombarded us with flaming meteors.

Mana yelped as usual as I grabbed her and leapt away. One meteor landed right next to us, exploding even more powerfully than the robots, but we successfully evaded it.

The problem was the next one that was hurtling down nearby, too, not giving me enough time to prepare.

Gritting my teeth, I instead gathered my power and slashed with Tarisha, cleaving the fireball into two; while that did prevent the full brunt of the attack, I still got washed by intense scorching heat that burnt my skin. Mana yelled in pain too.

Another nearby fireball exploded, not close enough to cause us any damage, but enough to make me feel heat on my skin, and I could see another one approaching from above.

We had the option to use Mana’s ability to run away, but I couldn’t do that just yet. Instead, I decided to reveal one of our cards.

I pulled something from my pocket, stabbed Tarisha with it and thrust her above.

I think I could hear Three gasp even through the roar of the meteors as the entire flaming construct shrank and fully vanished as if absorbed into Tarisha.

What actually happened was that it was absorbed into something attached to the sword. A fragment of a metallic ore.

“I see,” said Three, “so you have mogage.”