“It really…is you,” the woman said, sighing. Oscar looked at her, and she stared back, gaze unwavering. Her eyes were as unpredictable as the night. Emotion had risen to the top of those inky pools. Her feelings were as plain as a child’s—but incredibly charged. No woman had ever stared at Oscar like this before. Her gaze was so much more earnest and overwhelming. Feeling that if he kept looking into her eyes, the heat there would spread to him, too, Oscar let out a breath he had instinctively been holding

“If you don’t want to kill her, then you could always die, yes? Because it’s too painful to live?”

“What?” Tinasha questioned, stunned. The man’s words had been too blithe and abrupt, leaving her dumbfounded.

Tinasha’s body moved instinctively to weave a spell, however. Travis didn’t joke about things like that. He did everything seriously, and it was all play to him. She had learned that firsthand. Immense magic amassed at his fingertips, enough to change the whole atmosphere. Carelessly, he flung it at her. The energy, powerful enough to eradicate anything, rushed violently at Tinasha. She let a defensive barrier take the hit. Yet the spiral vortex of magic washed her away, barrier and all. She let it ferry her some distance back from Travis. Shivers chilled her body. Her heartbeat thudded out of control. Travis smirked, amused. The second wave came from the right. If taken head-on, the attack would tear Tinasha apart; she eluded it by turning aside.
Travis mocked, “Come on, face me and take it. It’s no fun toying with a defenseless girl. Or are you just suicidal?”

“I still have a few things I need to do, so I don’t want to die…,” Tinasha stated, a spell coming to life in her palms. A mighty cruciform sword took shape in midair and slashed at Travis. But with a light wave of his hand, he dissolved it.

“Are you underestimating me? If you haven’t made any progress in four hundred years, then let me blast your guts open,” Travis hissed, his smile a lurid gash on his face.

Licking her lips nervously, Tinasha dashed through the air. She recited a short incantation. The direction of the wind changed. Offsetting the formless power that assailed her on all sides and swallowing it up, she sent it back. The wild winds howled and grated harshly. "I never thought I’d end up having to fight him again".

For just a second, Tinasha closed her eyes. The moment lasted an eternity. When she opened them again, she found herself on a battlefield.

“I will decide when I die,” the young woman declared, composing an impossibly intricate spell. Tightly interwoven white strands of magic swelled and multiplied, the spell terrifying in its sheer density. If this power came from her very core, then it would stand as proof. Tinasha would rise above this. She would hold her head up high. Trusting in herself, Tinasha let the energy fly.

***

Tinasha ached all over. She had far too many injuries to count. A short incantation stopped the bleeding on her leg. Without a moment’s delay, she teleported a few steps to the right. Immediately after, a great black maw passed through where she had been moments earlier. The spray of magic kicked up stung her with lingering waves of pain.
Tinasha traced a bloody finger through the air. Upon the spell’s completion, four thick pillars of water sprung up around her. They surged into a roaring whirlpool, though Travis remained unfazed. Tinasha pointed at him.

“Go!” The liquid columns rushed at the man from every direction at terrifying speed. All at once, he vanished amid the deluge. As she made sure he wasn’t reemerging, she began a new spell.

“Don’t use a double incantation right in front of my face,” said a voice from right behind her.

In a panic, Tinasha cut the recitation short and ducked. She teleported a distance away. In a delayed reaction, searing pain lanced through her left arm. She looked down to see that a chunk of flesh was missing from the limb. Bone was visible. Though it hurt something fierce, Tinasha stanched only the bleeding and numbed the pain. Torn flesh would take time to restore, and she didn’t have that luxury at the moment.

Travis loitered in the air, a bored look on his face. His left hand was dripping with wet crimson.
“You don’t have any of your spirits, do you? Don’t leave yourself wide open like that,” he drawled.

“Yes, but…” As Mila had pointed out once before, Tinasha had only ever fought in the rear guard. Aside from doubling her incantations, she didn’t know what else to do.
Regardless, she was up against the virtually all-powerful demon king. His magic was in an entirely different league, not to mention his combat skills. Forget about winning — Tinasha couldn’t even survive a head-on challenge like this.

I need to think…

Controlling her breathing, Tinasha sought after an idea. Even as she did, countless blades of wind bore down upon her from all sides. The relentless, inescapable hail of attacks continued to buffet the young woman. There wasn’t the smallest pause in the onslaught. Taking a sharp inhale, Tinasha deftly weaved through the storm, each strike missing her by a hairbreadth.

I should be able…to make it even more precise and well honed…

She focused her mind. Her thoughts cleared.
Tinasha got ahold of all the paths of her magic. She sensed them quite distinctly, whether they were behind her or above her. All her years of experience started to catch up to the future, always one moment ahead.

“…Sing.”

A spell exploded out. It was made up of infinite lines of magic woven together, beautifully intertwined as it expanded. Though each and every strand was so fine it was almost invisible, the spell still deflected all the wind blades. Tinasha was utilizing the minimum amount of power to defend against a storm of attacks.

Travis whistled. “Did you finally get serious? Your moves are better than they were last time.”

Not only that — they were superior to what they’d been several minutes ago. Tinasha was transforming into someone who existed purely to fight, not in the vanguard or in the rear.
Travis eyed the woman with amusement before muttering, “But you’ve still got a ways to go.”

Then he launched an invisible net toward her. She noticed it and leaped out of the way, but it pursued her as if possessed by a will of its own. Beams of light erupted from Tinasha, tearing the net apart. Unfortunately, it stitched itself back together in an instant and resumed pursuit. It caught her foot, slicing right through the skin and getting ahold of her bone.

“AAAAAAHHHH!”

Burning pain wrecked her concentration. Tinasha panicked.
The net kept twining around her body; she writhed as terrible agony devoured her.

Travis jeered, “What, over so soon? How dull. My loss for getting my hopes up. Should I make your little crush pay for the rest?”

With pain bleaching her mind, Tinasha only barely managed to hear Travis. Anything was preferable to that.

Energy emanated out from all over her body, powerful magic without a spell. It burned up the net, which vanished.
Wounded all over, Tinasha glared at Travis, her abyssal eyes glinting murderously.

“I won’t let you get anywhere near him.”

“…That’s a good expression. I can’t say I don’t enjoy it. But you’ll die with all that blood rushing to your head, you know,” he taunted.

“I will rip you apart!” Tinasha cried, cloaking her right arm in magic and leaping at him.

The power around her hand turned into a giant black sickle, which she used to slash at him.
However, Travis evaded the scythe hurtling toward him by dodging neatly to the side. The sickle scattered into pieces. Launching herself higher and teleporting away, Tinasha began an incantation. The sight of her racing through the sky on her bloodied limbs was abnormally beautiful.

As Tinasha verbalized the spell, hundreds of vines appeared from within her arms. Each one was as sharp as a pike and lanced straight for Travis, who snapped his fingers and cast a barrier. The vines stuck against the shield one after another, then stopped. Once every vine was caught, Travis smashed it apart, barrier and all.

“Your attacks have been getting sloppy,” he commented.

Tinasha didn’t answer. She teleported to a new location and began a different spell.
The demon king eyed her coldly. “So this is all you have…”

The instability of the human psyche was at times intriguing and, at others, irritating to him. It was fascinating how people could call upon strength beyond their limits for the sake of another, but they inevitably grew too hotheaded to heed warnings. It was rapidly driving down Travis’s interest in his opponent.

Tinasha’s waves of destruction surged before him. However, he canceled them out with a light wave of his hand. “I’m so bored. Soon I’ll be totally disillusioned with you.”

A massive spell took shape within his hands, brimming with more than enough power to wipe out a single person.
Yet in the distance, he saw Tinasha — who should have been resigned to her defeat — smiling bitterly. She stretched out a bloodied hand to Travis.

“…Culminate.”

With that word as the final thing wrung from her, a gigantic cage materialized in midair. It was crafted of a colossal, finely woven spell. As it locked Travis up, it glimmered brighter and brighter by the second.

Shocked, the demon king stared at the magic enveloping him. “You little… A double incantation?”

“I bet you didn’t think I’d try one after you said all that. I used your argument against you. I divided it into seven charms and doubled them, creating one spell configuration,” Tinasha explained while panting.

Travis laughed out loud, highly amused, even as white radiance pressed down on him. “So that fit of rage was all an act? You’ve gotten quite a personality over the years.”

“I couldn’t win unless I tricked you,” Tinasha admitted, lifting her hand up and intensifying the spell.

The luminous cage turned into a gigantic sphere, a formidable feat of magic that outdid even the forbidden curse that decimated Ynureid.
Even as Tinasha spoke to Travis, her hands continued to work at her spell. “I owe you a debt. I don’t want to kill you.”

The demon king had nearly destroyed her, but she was only here now because of him. Tinasha hoped this could end with a draw.

Unfortunately, Travis didn’t reply, no matter how long she waited. She vacillated over what to do. There was little time to keep waiting. Tinasha came to a decision and mobilized the last of the magic needed to complete the spell. The force of her will traveled through the air.

Then there was a sharp pop, like something rupturing.

“What…?” she muttered wonderingly. The spell wasn’t complete. The magic carrying her will had gotten shot down in midair.

Tinasha looked down at herself. Her lithe form was battered all over, and there was a hole the size of a child’s head through her abdomen.
The moment felt interminably long. Eviscerated organs and severed flesh fell to the earth with a spray of blood. Tinasha tried to cry out, but her mouth filled with blood.
The light sphere encasing Travis lost its spell caster’s magic and disappeared. Wide-eyed as she beheld Travis floating there, Tinasha knew she had lost.
She slumped over. The magic that was supporting her dissipated.

I don’t want to die yet…

Tinasha reached out, grasping after someone. But then she dropped slowly to the ground like a broken doll.