He was light. The embodiment of a hero. Pure and radiant. A white shadow; armored, sword in hand. He robbed the light of the world and everything darkened around him, midnight became black and Lain’s pure white blade vibrated with heat, speed, and the pressure of his radiant mana.

She was water. The concept of liquidity itself. Her hair flapped as waves of water. Her eyes golden. Claire Hill stared at the boy with apathy as her radiating calm, azure mana matched the erratic, bellowing rage of his white mana—his armor of light bellowing like a living fog of pure miasma.

She could tell it was a transformation he rarely used and one that he had no perfect control of. She surmised that it was something newer he had recently become capable of or something he kept solely for a challenging opponent; to which few likely existed for a hero capable of killing other heroes. Either way, she didn’t care. Hers might be new as well, but there would be no hiccups with her control.

Lain took a step forward. He blurred and swung his sword, vibrating through the air. His blade passed through her, bisecting her head into two. Yet, Lain did not think for a moment that he had won. There was no blood and no scream. He leaped back just in time to escape Claire's arm—transformed into a scythe—slicing through the air.

"So awfully close," Claire muttered as her face squirmed and melded together, water molding her back to form. She shook her arm and it too morphed to normality. "You know, I don't usually use water to fight. I am an Ice Queen, after all."

Loan’s figure blurred, dodging threads of water as they ripped the ground like a net, encircling him as if they were precision lasers.

“So, I suppose we’re even, considering how shoddy that transformation of yours is,” Claire spoke. She walked forward as the boy slashed his blade.

Light exploded, splashing away her attacks.

“How cute,” Claire muttered.

The droplets of water squirmed together and reformed in the next instant. Before he could move once more, Lain was tied and wrapped, limbs stretched up with coils of water keeping them at bay.

Lain’s armor of white vibrated faster and brighter. Shining in a luscious glow that radiated the world with his mana and burned off her trap. For a moment, it was as if night had become day again. The city. The entire world. Everything lit up like a sun had descended onto the world. Then, he stole it all back once again and he was free.

They stared at one another. Claire’s arm squirmed once more and water shaped until she was gripping a blade of ice. The two blurred. Their swords swung. Azure and white light exploded with the meeting of their blades. Their clash ruptured outwards, destroying their surroundings as buildings and homes crumbled around them and ground ripped. Claire frowned at the sight, wondering what use a lord was to his city if his own actions caused destruction. She saw it as needless causality.

She jumped back and swung her sword, the blade instantly became a wave of flowing water--thinned into a minute point, and sliced downwards. He stared up at her and slashed upwards, his blade growing into a massive wave of white mana which exploded.

Claire crashed against a nearby building, half her body gone. As she began to reform, debris falling around, he appeared before her with a flash.

“<Excalibur>!”

His sword shined. The sky illuminated in the brilliance of a white beam. He swung down. The vibrating intensity of his mana tore through her. The building. The ground. Everything became an affront of white light; swallowed into decimation.

The blizzard of the city changed to rain in the next moment as a rush of water sprung up from the destruction of his attack. Like an ocean’s wave, water rumbled forth, towering over him.

Lain slashed upwards. A thousand cuts sent the giant wave splashed apart. It reformed and exploded onto him. The next moment, he was swimming. Stuck in a bubble, he was drowning. Every single part of it restricted him.

The bubble exploded. His transformation momentarily ripped apart from the force as blood soaked him. The force threw him across the street and he crashed and skidded against the floor, his white light flickering. He stood as his armor reformed, diminished in intensity.

There was a splash as his feet moved. He looked down and found himself standing in a poodle of water.

Water exploded from the ground and surrounded him, then froze solid. Cracks spread. A blade of water eclipsed the sky and sliced, fragmenting the construct into two. Then another followed, dividing it into four. The clicking of her heels rang as Claire walked closer and snapped her finger and a wave of water became a precise laser which pierced through the ball of ice from where she stood.

She tore her hands apart, opening up the construct to reveal a battered and blood riddled lain. His armor of light barely flickered on his person as his feet found ground.

“You still wish to fight even after losing so much mana?” Claire asked as she walked closer to him.

Lasin held his weapon. The white light surrounding him slowly reformed. “No hero gives up.”

Claire chuckled. He had not understood her question. When someone’s mana was weaker than hers, they should not try to fight her. After all, how would they defend against her namesake?

“Tell me, how do you feel right now?” She asked.

Lain found that he could not speak. His insides were freezing. Not solid. No, even she could not eclipse his mana to such a degree, but Lain found himself slowed to a crawl. He could not move as his breath frosted and his eyes clouded. In that same vein, he found his thinking crawling as well. And even if he could think, water wrapped around his limbs once more.

“Sometimes, it’s best to learn when to give up, ‘hero’,” Claire spoke as her figure inexplicably grew in size, towering over him as a giant.

In this state—which she termed ‘Water Avatar’—she was immune to physical attacks and could reform herself infinitely in whatever means she pleased. And she was still capable of everything she could previously do. If Claire was overpowered before, she was now downright broken. There was no longer any notion of being less versatile in a close-combat confrontation.

Lain watched in horror, capable of no counters as she raised her foot above him, staring down in apathetic loathing as if he were simply an ant.

“There is no such thing as winning against me.”

She stomped—her foot crashing against him. The ground rumbled in an explosion of force, rubble, and the light of azure and white mana. Crimson splashed. His blood curdling scream tore through the night.

“You can only struggle as a stepping stone.”

Claire returned to size and looked down at the Hero of Light. He was battard in blood. She was sure some of his bones themselves might have broken. He stared up at her with an unflinching gaze, what was left of his mana flickering across his body as white light.

“Today is not the day I lose,” Lain spoke through harsh breathing.

Claire stared at him. “Oh? And what makes you say that?”

“I saw my defeat for another day.”

As those worlds left his mouth, a ripple of purple tore through Claire’s surroundings. She turned her head and spotted space itself ripping apart as two individuals stepped out.

One was a young male, white haired and crimson eyed. He wore a cloak of white over his form, and he was missing his right arm. He was Bell Francis, the Sword Saint. The other was a female she had seen before. It was a girl with white hair and lavender eyes, wearing shorts of purple and a white dress-shirt. She was Bam Veronica, the holder of the Space Seed.

Claire frowned in derision. ‘Heroes and their last minute deus ex machina.’

“Hey hey, long time no see, Ice Queen,” The girl said chirpily, waving at her,. Then she pointed at the defeated Lain. “Could you do me a tiny favor and let me have him?”

“No,” Claire replied.

She turned to ignore the two. At least, she tried to turn and ignore them. Then, naturally, she noticed that she was incapable of moving. In fact, she wasn’t so sure she was capable of anything. There was something raging inside of her, fighting back. But for the moment, she was barely able to perceive her own thoughts.

"Space is my domain, genius," The girl said as she clapped her hands together. "And thus, time becomes a measure of my strength as well. Now, Bell, would you be so kind?"

The boy looked at her, aloof and expressionless. His hair was as white as pure snow. His eyes crimson with a touch of gold. And grasped in the hand of his sole arm, he wielded a sword which vibrated, twisting itself and the space around it.

The two considered one another for a moment.

"You will owe me," He said.

Then.

"<Sever>"

A blinding white streak bisected the sky. The world fractured into two halves. Then, everything shattered as space ripped apart, bursting in a fragmentation of purple.

‘Wha. . .th. . ?’

Claire's consciousness scattered. One moment, she was real. A being of water, but a mind of one. The next, her figure exploded into a rain of a million droplets and she found herself struggling to find reality, her mind split between each individual drop of water. The pain seared through her. She seeked to scream and found no voice in her lack of form.

The Sword Saint had sliced her into countless droplets of water with a single attack. He had done so without having moved. And yet, as he considered this achievement, streaks of blood ran down his arm, his skin ripping like the torn bark of a winter tree.

Claire’s mind churned to reform her. Slowly. Slowly droplets began to gather as the Sword Saint raised his weapon once more.

“Haha, do you think I’ll just stand back and let you two do whatever?” A laugh echoed.

The scenery became dyed in the crimson of red as the Sword Saint’s arm stopped with his body.

“Oh?” Bam Veronica turned her head to the new presence. “Why are you here?”

Lara De. Frag grinned. Her right eye was patchless, shining a crimson ray of her mana which stopped time for everything it touched. She pointed to Claire’s figure reforming and spoke, “I came here to help her sorry butt fight, but she told me to just take two bodies to safety and healing. Well, someone else is doing that, so here I am.”

Claire finally finished reforming. Her mind shaken, she watched as Lara kept her eye on the Sword Saint, stopping his time. And yet, somehow, the space around him was distorting. It was clear that some way, somehow, he was going to break free of Lara’s eye with enough time.

“. . .you can deal with her, right?” Lara mouthed to Claire, sweat trickling down her forward.

“. . .”

Bam Veronica chuckled and began walking blissfully out of the Hero of Strength’s time stop. Something like that had little effect for someone like her. People who controlled similar powers naturally had resistant to one another.

“Deal with me?” The girl walked leisurely past Lara and towards Claire.

At that moment, Claire felt a pressure descend upon her as space distorted around her. Space and time contorting against her. Once more, she could not move as the girl approached her.

“Did you two forget?” Bam said, whispering into Claire's ears as she caressed her face with a soft smile. “I control space and time. If she’s busy keeping Bell at bay, do you really believe you alone could possibly take me on while incapable of moving?”

Claire couldn’t reply. Then again, she found that she had no need to. As the sky began to turn red, she felt it; something beating wildly within the recesses of her being. The recesses of her Elemental Realm.

The sky was crimson and the moon dripped blood.

“What is this. . .?” Bam stammered.

Claire felt something rip out of her Elemental Realm. Overpowering even her domain to manifest. It diminished Lara’s light. It suppressed the Sword Saint’s spatial rumbling. It ignored Bam’s order over space and time. It did all these things and more because it was pissed.

“Get your hand off of Claire,” An enraged voice of pure loathing resounded as a blood-red bat flapped its wings into existence above them.