Natalia’s mind raced through options, discarding each as quickly as they ford. She couldn’t freeze all eight marionettes simultaneously without leaving herself completely vulnerable to Reyna’s personal assault. She couldn’t dodge through the overlapping electrical fields without taking hits that would drop her imdiately. She couldn’t rely on Skylar to distract them because the smoke would conduct electricity beautifully.
They were trapped in a cage of lightning with a Siren who’d already proven she could adapt to anything Natalia threw at her.
Natalia felt Satori’s presence pulse through Sovereign’s Mandate, a wordless question that asked if she needed help. She almost laughed. He was about to intervene, probably planning to vault into the arena and solve her problems with that bat and his suicidal grin.
Absolutely not.
Natalia sent a spike of rejection back through their bond, hard enough that she felt him flinch in the stands. She didn’t need rescuing. She needed to prove she could stand beside him as an equal, not hide behind his strength whenever things got difficult.
She was Natalia fucking Kuzmina, Rank Ten and soul-bonded to a scumbag with a System. She’d torn reality apart rather than watch him die.
A Siren with so electrical constructs wasn’t going to make her yield.
Natalia grabbed Skylar’s hand and t her violet eyes with her own purple ones. "Can you make illusions of ?"
"Obviously."
"How many?"
"How many do you need?"
"Eight."
Skylar’s grin turned wicked. "This is going to hurt you as much as it hurts ."
"Probably more."
"Definitely more."
Skylar exhaled her Phantasm Smoke in a controlled burst, the indigo mist forming into shapes that beca copies of Natalia herself. Eight perfect duplicates appeared across the platform, each moving with Natalia’s exact posture and bearing.
Reyna’s erald eyes widened slightly as she realized the problem. Eight targets and eight marionettes ant she couldn’t cover them all simultaneously anymore.
But creating eight solid illusions while maintaining their individual movents required concentration that left Skylar vulnerable. She swayed slightly, her face going pale as the strain hit her system.
Natalia felt it through their brief contact, the way Skylar’s consciousness spread too thin across too many projections. She did what Satori would’ve done without hesitation.
She poured her own energy into Skylar through their clasped hands, channeling telekinetic power directly into the Phantasm Smoke Aspect and reinforcing the illusions with her own mana. The duplicates solidified, becoming more real and more convincing as Natalia’s strength flooded into them.
Skylar’s eyes went wide. "That’s cheating."
"Learned from the best."
The eight copies of Natalia moved in perfect synchronization, all raising their hands as frost gathered around their palms. Reyna’s head swiveled between them, her tactical genius working overti to identify the real threat among the fakes.
She chose wrong.
Reyna sent four marionettes toward four of the illusions, the electrical constructs moving with lethal intent. They struck ho, their voltage surging into the duplicates.
Who shattered into harmless smoke the mont the electricity made contact.
Natalia had already moved, using the distraction to close distance with the real Reyna. She channeled everything through the Cryo-Lich Ring, pulling ice from the frozen platform and shaping it into chains that wrapped around Reyna’s ankles and wrists.
The Siren looked down at her bindings, then back up at Natalia with genuine respect written across her features. "Okay. That was clever."
"Thanks. Can we finish this now? My feet are cold."
Reyna’s laugh rang across the arena, bright and unrestrained. Then she flexed, and pure electrical power erupted from her body in a sphere that vaporized Natalia’s ice chains instantly.
The remaining four marionettes converged on Natalia’s position from four different angles, moving with synchronized precision that spoke of hundreds of hours of practice. Natalia threw up a telekinetic barrier, but electricity didn’t care about invisible walls. It arced around her defenses, seeking the path of least resistance.
Which happened to be directly through her body.
The voltage hit like a hamr made of rage and mathematics, every nerve ending screaming in protest as her muscles locked involuntarily. Natalia’s vision went white at the edges, her knees buckling as the current tried to cook her from the inside out.
But she’d experienced worse pain before.
In the Necropolis, when she’d burned out her mana circuits trying to stop a death beam. In the Black Gate, when Satori had nearly died and her power broke reality itself to prevent it. This was just electricity, just pain, just another obstacle between her and victory.
Natalia gritted her teeth and channeled her Aspect through the agony, pulling moisture from the air itself and flash-freezing it into armor around her body. The ice conducted electricity away from her vital organs, grounding it harmlessly into the platform beneath her feet.
She stood up through the assault, frost spreading from her skin in waves that pushed back against Reyna’s marionettes. The Cryo-Lich Ring blazed cold enough to make the air itself crystallize, her platinum hair streaks glowing like captured moonlight.
"My turn."
Natalia grabbed two of the marionettes with her telekinesis and slamd them together with enough force to destabilize their electrical signatures. They dissolved into sparks, leaving only two constructs plus Reyna herself.
Better odds.
Skylar recovered from the flash-bang, her vision clearing just in ti to see Kira break free from her ice prison through shadow manipulation. The Shadow Dancer erged from darkness wearing frost like a second skin, her daggers already moving toward Skylar’s exposed back.
Skylar twisted and parried with her trench knife, tal ringing against tal in a sound that cut through even the crowd noise. The two fought in tight, vicious exchanges that spoke of genuine skill on both sides. Neither had the raw power of their partners, but both compensated through speed and technique that made them equally dangerous.
Natalia couldn’t help Skylar without leaving herself open to Reyna’s assault. She had to trust that the Phantom Blade could handle herself, the way Satori had trusted Natalia to fight her own battles despite his protective instincts screaming otherwise.
Hard to let people you care about bleed when you could stop it.
Harder still to recognize that sotis they needed to bleed to prove they could survive without you.
Natalia focused on Reyna, channeling her full power through every enhancent she possessed. The temperature dropped so rapidly that frost ford on the crowd’s breath, ice spreading across the entire arena section where her supporters sat.
She pulled moisture from everywhere at once and shaped it into a massive construct above her head—a dragon made of ice and telekinetic force, its crystalline form refracting light into rainbow patterns. The creation stood fifteen feet tall with wings spread wide enough to cast shadows across half the platform.
The crowd went absolutely silent.
Even Maximus Hype’s amplified voice stuttered mid-comntary, the announcer rendered speechless by the sheer scope of what he was witnessing.
Natalia felt the drain imdiately, her mana circuits burning with the strain of maintaining sothing this large and complex. She’d have maybe ten seconds before exhaustion forced her to release the construct. Ten seconds to end this fight.
Reyna stared up at the ice dragon, her erald eyes reflecting its crystalline beauty. Then she started laughing, that wild unrestrained sound that said she was having the ti of her life.
"You’re insane. I love it."
Reyna summoned six more marionettes in rapid succession, her crimson hair floating around her face as electrical power surged through her body. Ten electrical constructs total, each blazing with enough voltage to power a small city.
She was matching Natalia’s escalation with her own overwhelming force, turning this into a pure contest of who could channel more destructive power before their bodies gave out.
Exactly the kind of fight Natalia had been training for since childhood.
The kind her father warned would kill her if she pushed too hard.
The kind Satori had watched her nearly die from twice already.
Natalia didn’t care.
She sent the ice dragon forward with a roar that shook the arena’s foundations, its jaws opening wide enough to swallow a truck. Reyna t it head-on with her electrical army, ten marionettes converging into a single concentrated lance of pure lightning.
The two attacks collided at the platform’s center, and reality scread in protest.
Ice and electricity annihilated each other in a catastrophic explosion of steam and ozone that sent both fighters flying backward. Natalia hit the platform hard, the impact driving air from her lungs. Her mana reserves bottod out completely, the empty feeling in her chest like having her soul ripped away.
But she’d achieved her objective.
Through the clearing steam, Natalia saw Reyna on her knees, breathing hard and visibly shaking from mana depletion. The Crimson Cot’s marionettes had all dissolved from the massive expenditure, leaving her defenseless and exhausted.
Natalia tried to stand. Her legs refused to cooperate, muscles trembling from the strain of channeling so much power. She made it to her hands and knees, frost still spreading from her palms in weak, flickering waves.
Across the platform, Reyna attempted the sa maneuver with identical results. They were both spent, both running on fus and spite.
Skylar and Kira’s fight had devolved into a wrestling match on the far side of the arena, both won too exhausted to use their Aspects anymore, just grappling and trying to choke each other out with desperate strength.
Professor Hanae approached with her small fra sohow commanding despite the chaos around her. "Well. This is awkward."
Natalia forced herself upright through sheer stubbornness, ignoring her screaming muscles and empty mana pool. She took one step toward Reyna, then another, each movent feeling like wading through concrete.
Reyna matched her step for step, both won stumbling toward each other like wounded soldiers refusing to acknowledge defeat.
They t at the platform’s center, close enough that Natalia could see the sweat beading on Reyna’s forehead and the way her hands trembled from exhaustion.
"Good fight," Reyna said, and the words carried genuine respect rather than condescension.
"Not done yet."
"Yeah. neither."
They both swung simultaneously, Natalia’s fist eting Reyna’s jaw as Reyna’s knuckles connected with Natalia’s cheek. The twin impacts rang across the suddenly silent arena.
Both won dropped like puppets with cut strings, hitting the platform hard and lying motionless.
The crowd held its breath.
Professor Hanae knelt between them, checking pulses with professional efficiency. She stood and addressed the arena with a voice that carried despite its conversational volu.
"Both team captains are unconscious. Checking secondaries."
Skylar and Kira were still grappling, but both had passed out from exhaustion at so point during their struggle, wrapped around each other like sleeping children.
"All four combatants unconscious." Professor Hanae shook her head, looking genuinely impressed for the first ti all day. "Match declared a draw. Both teams advance to finals."
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