Nässe [ˈnɛsə]

I tried to speak, but couldn’t hear any of my words.

There was a boundary of air forming around the small area affected by my power, air constantly rushing in only to liquify, return to their original state after leaving the affected area, and rushing in again.

The few droplets that the girl held floating within the area kept accelerating over and over, now barely scratching the hardened protective layer of ice around my body. At least I found a slight workaround for that. It wouldn’t stop the already existing wounds below the layer inside my body, though.

With every continuing second, while she still bombarded the other two with a flurry of water from the sphere above, the droplets within my vacuum kept accelerating far beyond the speed of sound, slowly scraping down the ice around my skin.

The few attacks Takako threw back at her were quickly swallowed by other, smaller spheres of water replicating Takako’s defence, or broken apart by the thin veil of water flowing over her skin.

Even with three of us, it was an even fight with the river constantly supplying her with water.

I risked more severe injury by her water blasts in order to communicate with the other two again, who were desperately yelling at me, though I could barely make out anything they said.

As I slowly raised the temperature around me again, the droplets of liquid nitrogen vanishing immediately, the entire sheet of ice surrounding my body shattered from the sudden increase in pressure.

I couldn’t create Ice dense enough to block her blasts, and I wasn’t fast enough to freeze them manually at those speeds. I could barely even see them approaching in the first place.

The ground below us slowly soaked up all the water she threw at us.

I could only hope for her to eventually tire out at that moment.

Even the pillars of earth Takako pushed toward her had barely any effect, being crushed by larger pillars of pressurized water coming from the sphere.

“I’ll buy you two time, since I’m pretty useless right now!” I yelled.

“Her powers aren’t limited to only water. They affect every form of liquid within her reach.”

As I said that, the small amount of blood flowing from the previously shock frozen wound she had caused on my stomach suddenly pierced back through my body, releasing even more blood.

Rinse and repeat.

After only a few seconds of being turned into what practically was swiss cheese, I collapsed to the ground, slowly losing my grasp on reality again.

My wounds didn’t freeze up, but also didn’t heal at all. She still kept drawing blood out of my open wounds, now aiming it at Takako and Ōhara. At the same time, blood still rippled through my upper body, a piercing pain emerging every time it hit.

The faint vision I still had I shifted toward the girl on the sphere, whose graceful stance slowly shifted to a more feral, hunched squat. Possibly a sign of exhaustion from simultaneous use of a wide range of her skills, but I wasn’t sure.

What I was sure of, however, was that Takako began overexerting herself when I collapsed. Ever larger pillars of increasingly more dense earth spiraled toward the girl, who still barely managed to shatter them with the pressure.

Ōhara also slowly shifted to a more offensive approach, his explosions increasing in size and number by the second. It wouldn’t be long until this entire Area would be entirely destroyed.

That’s when the dynamic suddenly shifted.

A single shot rippled through the sky, just barely overcoming the veil surrounding her, piercing straight through her chest. She was now severely bleeding, apparently being unable to directly control the flow of her own blood with her abilities. The thin veil slowly turned red, blocking her vision.

To regain sight, she had to release the veil around her. Not only that, but she also let the sphere she was standing on drop down, crashing onto Takako’s car.

She was now on the ground, which was Takako’s domain. Immediately, her feet were encased in stone, and thousands of paper-thin needles surrounded her.

My most severe wounds slowly began healing again, after Takako hurried toward me to stabilize my position.

I began heating up tremendously, reaching a breaking point after just a few seconds.

To stabilize myself, my outer temperature instinctively decreased. My hair turned back to the pure white of the endless snow, and the glow of my eyes reflected on Takako’s.

“This is the end, little girl. Anything you want to say before I end this?”

“Just one thing. Die!”

The soaking wet ground below our feet quickly dehumidified, with thousands of small but incredibly focused jets of water shooting upwards.

Caught entirely off-guard, both Takako and Ōhara’s legs were pierced from the bottom up.

The stone restraints on her feet also broke from the immense pressure of small water bubbles within them suddenly moving around.

Takako’s needles briefly fell to the ground, interrupted by the pain in her bleeding feet.

At least her dress had only been soaked with water so far.

The supersonic spheres of earth whirring around her suddenly left their orbit and uncontrollably flew in opposite directions, tearing down a few of the still standing trees with them.

It seemed like the situation had just escalated even further. Before anyone of us could react, the girl had vanished from our views.

“It hurts, but at least my plan worked. It took ages to find a rifle that had enough of a feared history to connect it to the spirit realm.” Takako said, slightly wheezing from the pain. “Thankfully, there were still a few left in the army’s storage back from the war with China.”

Even though she was nowhere to be seen, a slight trail of blood led us further into the forest.

Once we ventured down the slope, I could see the girl cowered behind a tree, crying. Her tears began orbiting her and the tree, as if they meant to protect her.