Gematrail — Echo Observer — Lævateinn Chapter 22: Echo20 – Ballet on Ice

🎶🎧 Spotify 🎧🎶 track Num : 31 / 32 — Meiun Shrine, Around the Same Time — Ayaka’s Perspective The creature needed time to regenerate the iron feathers along its back. That was our window. “We push now — Miku, cover Mika!!” “On it!!” Notoyo’s ability flooded through us — blood surging, something enormous waking up in the muscles and bones. We threw every last measure of it at the thing in front of us. “Take three back-to-back fireballs, you monster!! ” FWOOM—!! A pressure wave of searing air rolled outward, and three massive spheres of flame engulfed the creature’s bulk. Unlike before, the impacts had weight behind them — real, registered damage. “Now — Mika!! ” Mika stood in the full current of Notoyo’s Word Spell , her hair lifted by the charge of it, magic crackling across her skin. She drew a breath, and screamed her ability into the air: ‘SPELL BREAKER!!!’ —KIIINNNG— A high, piercing tone cut through the air and the world went white. When vision returned, the creature was staggering — its massive armored frame grinding and buckling as damage it should have been absorbing tore through at full force. “It’s working!! Everyone — everything you have!! ” The creature lashed out in desperation, its counterattack driving straight toward Mika. Miku was already moving — she caught the blow on both forearms, the impact clanging through metal and bone, and shoved back with everything she had. “Don’t you dare—!! ” ‘DIVIDE Dgelugsp’ ‘FATAL DESTROY’ Blade after blade, stacked and overlapping. The creature writhed in sustained agony — and through its plague mask, its targeting locked onto Notoyo, positioned at range behind the line. “Oh — oh no—!! ” The instant Notoyo shouted, the creature discharged its heat ray directly at the ridge she stood on. KRASSHHHHOOOOOM—!! The earth shook. The ridge collapsed in a cascade of rock and volcanic soil. “ NOTOYO!! ” “—!! Thank you, Notoyo-chan!! ” That one moment of cover, bought at cost. Miku’s blade rose overhead — light converging on the edge with an intensity that pulled the surrounding air inward, pressure building until it registered on skin. “Here comes my finisher — ‘EX — CALIBURRRR!!!!!’ ” A column of light punched through the sky and came down on the creature like a verdict from something above the world. Swallowed in the torrent, the enormous body could barely hold itself upright on its black wings. Nearly finished. Nearly gone. “ Now — this ends here!! ” The blade in my hands was hot enough to feel through the grip. I charged. “ RAAAAAAHHH!! ” Fwsh. Nothing. The cold sound of a sword cutting empty air. The creature turned to face me one final time — and the expression behind the plague mask was unmistakable. Something like amusement. Something like contempt. Then it sank — liquefied into the shadow spreading across the ground — and dissolved like smoke in an open space. “You coward—!! ” Miku slammed her foot into the earth again and again, fury with nowhere to go. Subaru pressed her back teeth together, jaw tight. “So close…” “Notoyo-chan… I tried, didn’t I… she can see me from up there, right…?” Miku was crying now, tears running fast, her voice barely holding together. Haruhi placed a hand gently on her trembling shoulder. “I’m sure she knows. I’m sure she knows you gave everything.” “I’m right here — stop burying me!!” The voice came from behind. We turned. There was Notoyo — limping, streaked with mud and soot, clearly in pain, and very much alive. “You’re alive!! Oh thank god —” Miku launched herself at her and held on. “I’m — okay — just — not so tight — mrrggh— ” “A draw, then… not how I operate.” I let the tension run out of every muscle and sat down in the scorched dirt, unbecoming as it was. “Still a long way from the Kensei title.” “So — we’re okay for now, right? Like — we made it?” Hinata looked around with the careful expression of someone who still wasn’t sure the danger had passed, fingers not quite steady. “For now. Yes.” I drew a long breath of cold air into my l