Stormy clouds swirled overhead. Rain fell on the burning city in a heavy torrent. White steam and black smoke mixed. The raging inferno that threatened to consume everything receded to a simmering fire. Yamata no Orochi thrashed, its severed necks pouring blood and its wounded heads reeling.

  "Aileen-san," said Erina in awe.

  "It looks like I arrived in the nick of time," said Aileen. Her eyes moved across the trio in front of her and settled on the woman in the lab coat. "Lazarus, I take it?"

  "Yes," she said. The rain poured, damping her long white hair. "And you must be Darius' mother."

  Aileen watched Lazarus rest one hand on Erina's shoulder.

  "Long black hair," mused Aileen, "and green eyes… A young girl chasing the Great Witch's legacy…"

  A flicker of irritation crossed Erina's face.

  "Now I understand." Aileen gave her a warm smile. "Yes, I can see it in your eyes—an adventurer seeking her own path. Kids really do grow up so fast these days."

  "Hate to break up the reunion," said Akira, "but that over there might be worth taking a look, wouldn'tcha guys say?"

  The stumps of Orochi's necks boiled and erupted, scales rapidly growing over the emerging raw flesh. The slit necks healed and the severed heads regrew in twice the amount. The ground shook with Orochi silent roar as it rattled its talisman-lined chains, great glowing swords shifting in the earth.

  "Of course." The armored Aileen strode through their midst, cape flowing. "I'll take care of things from here."

  "Wait," said Erina. "That's Yamata no Orochi—a part of it, at least, fused with other dragons. Patriarch Kirigami created it. We can't kill it by normal means."

  "At risk of sounding immodest, my means aren't quite what you'd call normal." Aileen reassured her with one more smile over the shoulder before turning her attention to the beast. "Now, if you'll excuse me…"

  Her eyes settled on the tangled knot of coiled necks, sheltered behind the others. The heads there were riddled with fresh cuts, glowing white swords still buried in their flesh as they wrestled with the target of their ire.

  Thunder rumbled overhead as Aileen's mask refroze into place, and the knight of ice brandished her blade in the storm.

  "What have you done with my son."

  Four serpentine heads struck at once, jaws unhinged—

  Huge spikes of ice burst from the ground and impaled them all, pointed tips piercing clean through their skulls. Water currents gathered at Aileen's feet and roared to life, moving for her to glide across the war-torn earth.

  Several heads opened their mouths and unleashed powerful jets of flame that burned bright and harsh, even amidst the storm. Aileen's armored figure vanished in the inferno—and then burst through. The flames licking at her crystalline armor washed away in the rain.

  Water surged through the city, rushing over the fallen bricks and upturned rubble as swiftly as its master. Whirlpools formed under Orochi's fire-breathing heads, and then giant hands of ice exploded up to grab them and drag them to earth with a resounding crash. Their necks flexed and bucked, struggling futilely against her iron grip.

  The knight of ice raised her frozen blade. A shrill noise pierced the air as water streamed along its edge at impossible speed, and then one blow decapitated three necks in one great swing. Erina watched as the draconic scales she had no chance of piercing now melted away in the face of a hydro cutter whose speed easily exceeded Mach 3. It didn't matter how far in the sky Orochi's heads hovered. Aileen's blade was as the storm itself, reaching every way she swung to cut them down.

  The divine dragon reeled. Its many heads made to retaliate and found themselves besieged from every direction. Great spires and hands of ice from below. Punishing rain that froze over their eyes the moment it touched them. Sharks and whales cast from solid ice soared the air as easily as the sea, wielding razor-sharp teeth and immense mass against the beast. Rivers of poisonous boiling blood froze as Aileen skated overhead, the surging rapids carrying her with them as easily as flying in a dream. She struck with unprecedented agility—complete mastery of water moved the shell of ice armor around her, more swiftly than she ever could under her own body's power.

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  "This is… her true power…?" Erina watched on incredulously. "All by herself, she can…"

  "Damn." Akira pulled her orange hood over her soaked hair. "We might as well be twiddling our fingers."

  Lazarus watched closely, silver eyes undaunted by the pouring rain. "No," she muttered. Then, "No! It's not enough! Aileen, watch the stumps!"

  Orochi's severed necks boiled to a fever pitch. Raw flesh burst from them, bulging and morphing as it regenerated.

  The armored knight turned. She extended one hand and clenched it into a fist.

  Thick spires of ice burst up, striking the boiling flesh and mixing itself with them. With a loud creaking and groaning, the ice spread and refroze. One after another, the stumps were stifled and frozen solid, bare half-grown flesh still visible under thick layers of crystalline ice.

  But for every neck she froze, another had already regrown. Orochi, sensing danger, ripped free several heads of its own volition and grew even more to take their place.

  The rainfall intensified from a heavy storm to a torrential downpour, bringing with it renewed ferocity. Thunderbolts lit up the clouds as Aileen's barrage of attacks intensified in earnest.

  "Over there!" said Erina. While almost all of the dragon's active heads focused on Aileen, a few had turned their attention to the other little creatures in the area. "Here it comes!"

  "I have had it up to here with these fucking heads!" Akira raised an arm and swiped down in a burst of static. The attacking heads crashed to the floor as if swatted by a great invisible hand. "Die and stay dead, damn it!"

  Boots stomped through the water pouring down the street, and then Akira sent one head bowling over with one nasty kick. The other stirred, righting itself and locking onto its targets.

  Lazarus slammed the barrel of her weapon up into its chin. The heavy spike deployed with a resounding boom, smashing scales and bone alike. Orochi's head snapped back and crashed back down, writhing and twisting. It swing its great mass back her way—

  One strike in the top of the head. Lazarus' hand phased through solid matter, and the head went limp as she drew back.

  Erina took up the attention of the third and last head attacking them. Spear in hand, her feet shuffled across the ground. She dodged and rolled around jets of flame, waiting for her opportunity to present itself. Finally, Orochi opened its maw and struck with all the swiftness of a great snake.

  Erina's accelerated spear met it head-on and exploded within its mouth. Branches of light burst, perforating the land around Erina as much as it rebounded within the beast's throat. The smoldering head crash landed beside her, its long neck carving a trench across the street as it scraped to a stop. Before she could move to finish it, the ever-present rain hardened and encased the head in solid ice, freezing it to the earth.

  Erina looked up through the storm. There, several blocks away! The armored knight weaved and danced with the surging currents, hands of water and weapons of ice flying around her. Blades, icicles, sharks, whales, even the rain itself as a hailstorm of razors—an ocean's worth of firepower lay at her fingertips as she fended off over a dozen of the beast's heads, with a dozen more turned into huge ice sculptures littering the city.

  "We need to support Aileen-san!" said Erina. For the first time in who knew how long, she felt the urge to smile as she conjured another spear. "We can do this."

  As she fought, Aileen turned her focus to the ball of heads where Darius was held. Every second they fought, Orochi wrestled to crush the life out of him. If it could just defeat him, it could free itself of the blades keeping it trapped and sealing its growth. It snapped and bit, fangs grating against the white mana shield that covered his body. It buried him in its coils like the greatest constrictor serpent, bringing its tremendous physical might to bear on his body as much as it heaved and pulled at his swords.

  The earth tremored. The towering swords of light shifted. For a moment, every party ceased to attack. All eyes turned to the four great swords on the skyline around them as they tilted inwards. Huge chains clanked with a great din as they pulled taut. Yamata no Orochi heaved, and then the blades began to rise from the land—

  Their blades shone with light piercing the storm, and the beast buckled as the great swords hammered themselves back down. Darius wouldn't let it free so easily.

  Orochi struggled to move its frozen parts. Heads encased and impaled by ice couldn't move. Decapitated necks tipped in frost couldn't grow. Then, it ripped at those same necks at the very base, sheltered with the ball of muscle holding Darius behind the rest of its heads. It cut them loose, new stumps protected by the rest as they split and grew all the more dangerous.

  Aileen's approach was deterred by a near-total wall of serpentine heads. She backdashed away, ice spires impaling them and shrieking sword swinging. The four of them formed up again, heavy rain pouring down in sheets around them.

  "You have actually got to be fucking with me!" said Akira. "How many times have we killed it? After that all of that, it's back like nothing happened!"

  "There has to be a limit," said Erina. "Nothing can just create more mass indefinitely. There must be a way. But what is it…?"

  "We still have time." Lazarus looked over at the ball of necks hidden behind the rest. "He's still holding on."

  "No," said Aileen. "Look at the swords."

  Despite driving themselves down with greater force than ever, it didn't last. Orochi continued to struggle and pull, and the swords no longer offered as much resistance as they once did. With each movement, the blades listed a little further from vertical and retracted a little more from the earth.

  "He's at his limit."