"," Eve incanted in a soft murmur. "O world, I offer this ephemeral life. Spill me unto this canvas. Paint it in my past, that I may mold from it my future."

  The cloak unclasped and Eve threw it to the air, swept away by the wind. Its cloth melted away, the starscape within bleeding out and rushing over the void to paint it in the brilliance of deep space. The pillars of light and the far white horizon faded as the world filled with shining nebulae and streams of distant stars.

  A wave of light swept out. Erina realized it wasn't just a surge of shapeless energy. It was the border of an impossibly immense spell circle, forgotten scripts flashing across its edge faster than she could comprehend as it expanded beyond the horizon.

  She knew that spell signature, if only a part of it.

  Mass-scale temporal reversion.

  There was soil under her shoes. They stood on a great surface of rich, dark soil. Green grass sprouted at Eve's feet, growing rapidly over the earth as the ocean melted away. The endless starcape looked back every way Erina turned, whether above or below.

  A gigantic bar of brass closer in scale to the face of a canyon than a building loomed at the edge of the earthen platform, startling Erina. Inscriptions beyond her understanding covered it. It was a gargantuan ring, one of many, all interlaid within each other as they spun around like a vast armillary sphere.

  Immense gemstones hung suspended in space, cast in myriad colors. They were huge, the size of skyscrapers just the same as she saw in the gateway that led her here. Erina realized she was standing on one herself—a shining emerald of immense proportions.

  It was overwhelming. It was too much to take in. Even in this distorted world, this wondrous scene was beyond anything else. It struck Erina to the core, before a single attack had truly been thrown.

  Eve raised one arm over her head. The stars flared, brilliant rays of light colliding in the palm of her hand. It grew harsher and harsher, Erina squinting against the glare as something took form. This was construct manifestation, the same principle Erina used to wield her spear and katana. It was of a scale and power beyond anything she thought possible.

  The blazing light howled against its restraints as Eve shaped it into the make of her choosing. Raging gales swept out, each shockwave pushing Erina back. A form coalesced, and then the light burst as Eve's hand closed around her weapon. Glimmers of emerald lingered in the air, gently floating down over the starry battlefield as the wind settled.

  Fragarach rested in her grip. A deep green scabbard lined with gold flashed into being, sheathing the legendary blade for her. Eve lowered her arm, calm emerald gaze finding terrified green.

  "Y-You're not real," said Erina. "This is a world where cause and effect fall apart. Time, space, and reality are suggestions here. Eve is dead. You're nothing but an echo of the past."

  She steeled herself and swallowed her fears. Erina brushed her clip and set free a small flock of butterflies to scatter about the arena. Conjuring her own sheathed katana into her grip, Erina floated one orb in her other palm. It split, compressed, and flared into a shining bolt as she loaded it into the forming railgun with a high-pitched whine.

  "Disappear," said Erina.

  The bolt fired with a powerful boom—

  "Shine," incanted Eve.

  A chunk of the emerald gem unearthed itself and jumped to absorb the railgun blast, crystalline ringing resounding out as the bolt reflected dozens of times within its surfaces. Erina's eyes went wide as light flared.

  The bolt shot right back at her and clashed against her hexagram barrier. It screamed, hundreds of layers forming and breaking with every tenth of a second under her own power—

  Erina deflected the bolt aside as the barrier shattered, letting it fly over her shoulder into empty space. Eve watched in cold silence, waiting for the next sorry attempt.

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  "Don't look down on me…!" Erina swiped her arm, commanding the butterflies to open fire from every angle.

  "Grow," ordered Eve.

  The earth ruptured. Thick roots burst out around her, shifting and cracking as they absorbed the barrage.

  "A naive approach," she said. "How very like you."

  The roots shifted from defense to offense, crawling across the soil at high speed. Erina leapt away to safety on a floating seal, watching as sprouts grew from the roots.

  They bore the first leaves and then morphed entirely. The branches of a plant became the branches of lightning, exploding upwards around Erina and shattering her platform, sending her back to the ground. She got up in time to see the lightning had frozen over, countless branches of solid ice reaching all the way up to the dome of the vast armillary sphere.

  "Do you truly know where you stand?" said Eve. "This is as much the primordial chaos that births all things as it is the nothingness that awaits after the end of all things. Here lies the moment time ends. Burn."

  The roots immolated. Searing flame surrounded Erina. No sooner than she leapt away again did the branches of ice fracture and fly in, pummeling her back down to the earth in a relentless barrage.

  "This is the end of the world." Eve's calm voice rang out over the din of shattering ice. "The root of my Harbingers' powers. Power with which to rule the world."

  The hexagram barrier formed, protecting Erina from the rest of the barrage as she struggled to her feet. "Why?" she said. "By what right did you rule the world?"

  "Naive. Grow."

  Thin vines rose up and ensnared Erina's foot before she knew what had happened. They dragged her off her feet and then flung her through the air like a long whip, mana shield pulsing as they slammed her against the earth.

  "Ghk—!" Erina couldn't even cry out properly as all the air was forced out of her lungs. Her fingers twitched.

  The butterflies opened fire with another salvo. White hair and dress flowing in the wind, Eve didn't so much as bother looking as thick roots blocked them too.

  The vines tightened around Erina's ankle and they swung her in a full one hundred eighty degrees, smashing her down just as vicious on the other side.

  The katana left its sheath and severed the vines. Erina let out a sharp breath, curling up as the pain of her battles began to set in.

  "Stand." Eve watched dispassionately as Erina struggled. "Raise your hand against me. I will teach you as many times as I must."

  Anger sparked in those green eyes as they found ruthless emerald. Erina slammed her palm against the soil and forced her body upright, stumbling until she found her balance.

  The array of spell circles formed. A cloud of energy became a single shining bolt, accelerating to lightning speed. A tilt of Eve's head, a single sharp word, and a chunk of emerald jumped to reflect it—

  Erina tilted her railgun and the bolt reiterated from heading straight at Eve to a line of lightning that shot through the railgun once more, deflecting off the armillary rings towards the back of Eve's head.

  Eve's eyes flicked aside. A second, larger gem ripped free of the ground, rebounding the bolt into space.

  A boom of displaced air, and Erina threw herself into her accelerator setup as it flashed and returned her shot to its original course. The railgun blast reiterated for the last time, lancing over her shoulder as she bore down on Eve with a powerful quick draw slash—a perfect imitation of the crimson swordmaster.

  Steel met steel. Fragarach clashed with the emerald katana. The gales screamed, raging winds threatening to blow Erina away as they swept over her.

  The railgun blast clipped Eve's shoulder. It didn't trigger the mana shield of a mage nor burn the flesh of a youkai. It tore away the surface of the skin, revealing featureless pure white light underneath, and then bolted off into space.

  "Your mind is fast." Eve's emerald eyes burned with calm, vicious power. "But the body and will are lacking."

  Fragarach pushed the katana aside and struck down again. Erina's barrier parried it aside, but not the explosion of wind that accompanied it. It wasn't mere invisible air. The wind fused with mana and took corporeal form, shining emerald arcs striking like ten slashes accompanying one blade that lashed Erina mercilessly.

  She reeled, faltering under the barrage of cutting wind and screeching gales. Eve struck once more, one slash becoming twenty in a fleeting tornado that sent Erina tumbling gracelessly away. Her katana slipped from her hands and dispersed as the ground seemed to spin with her, pummeling her up and down until she found a sense of gravity and rolled onto one knee—

  "Grow."

  The thick log of a massive tree smashed into Erina's flash barrier like a battering ram. The triangles deepened at incredible speed, layer after layer breaking, and then shattered. The log stopped cold on impact, Erina skidding to a stop even further back on their earthen battlefield.

  The log rotted in seconds and returned to the earth. Erina coughed and struggled for breath as she rose. Blood oozed from the small cuts covering her, the shields unable to block all damage.

  The wind murmured inaudibly around them in this otherworldly arena. Eve held Fragarach low at her side as thick roots churned and coiled at her feet. In lieu of blood, glimmers of light shed from the tear in her skin. She raised one gloved hand to cover the wound and Erina felt the pulse of mana.

  "Return," murmured Eve.

  The flow of time stemmed and turned back. When her hand lifted away, her skin was whole and unblemished once more.