*
The eyeball readjusts to its new stats, the destruction of its structure only occurred because it briefly lost all magic support, it didn't noticed the change then. Now it's even beginning to recover on the inside, simultaneously it needed to secure time for recovery, so it mustered all of its energy. A radiant yellowish green light gathered from around its body and converged in front of the pupil, pulsing ominously with every heartbeat.
Without magic support, not only was its body dying but its territory also fell apart and shrunk. Sariel didn't let go of this opportunity, black spikes shred into the remaining dark green land, spreading like roots all over. Sariel swapped into a spot right up close to The Observer as it begun to gather its energy for one massive attack. Before it could shoot, Sariel traces an arc in the air with her fist, thrusting her knuckles straight through its cornea. Golden light pours out of the hole she made, licking everything in sight.
She won't give it the chance to recover, this will end the fight! Light and fluids spray out of her embedded wrist animatedly, she wasn't done yet!
"{Swap}!" (Sariel)
Instantaneously, a kinetic impact explodes out of her fist, sending more cracks and blood. Her arm is dragged even further into the cornea as a crater of mangled rotting flesh begins to swallow her whole.
"{Swap}!" (Sariel)
Again, and again. Until finally, the last impact carves a nice line down the centre, splitting its corpse in two down the polar regions. Swapping an idle moment with an attack from the past, she can repeatedly fire the same attack without moving. Calculations of the past and subsequent emulation done by courtesy of her Oblivion Magia. The grimy black eyeball crashes into the ground, large swathes of volume turned into black ash and started floating into the sky to who knows where.
After some amount of mass is gone, the process should speed up exponentially. Give or take, Sariel figured she had less than 5 minutes. Just as she had released her Oblivion Magia, bringing herself back to that monochrome amusement park, she spotted Aura not far away. Her face beaming with delight the moment they made eye contact. Aura ran up close in her cool teal dress. As Aura landed on one foot at a short distance away, her skirt bobbed gracefully like gentle clouds announcing her arrival.
"Senpai!!" (Aura)
"Aura? What's up?" (Sariel)
"Don't what's up me! Did you win? Is it staying dead??" (Aura)
Her junior was boisterous as always, filled to the brim with energy that she'd hop about just asking questions. Sariel turned to the ground and silently exhaled, she could feel her tired body cooling down after that extreme workout session. Whether it's the cooler air she breathed in, or the lingering heat that escapes her mouth when she breathed out. It felt like she was looking at someplace far away before she came to a decision.
" How was it? Did I fight well like a magical girl?" (Sariel)
"... Uh... You're not gonna disappear are you?" (Aura)
She stared blankly at her junior's face suddenly welling up with concern at her. Just what was going through her mind? She was too tired and too unbothered to dive into that.
" I won't disappear. Not while this world still stands. So what did you think?
Aren't I beautiful?" (Sariel)
Naturally she didn't mean it in that way. She only saw things in the lense of a magical girl, she might have been too consumed by this monochrome world to think of other implications. How her junior saw it might be another story. Nevertheless, she piped up.
"Y-yeah!! You rock! You beat up that big lug like it was nothing! Even though everyone suddenly disappeared and I couldn't see anything..." (Aura)
That's right, it was absurd to ask. However her junior answered all the same, what spread in the wellspring of Sariel's thoughts was a warmth she knew well. It was all too strange, this sense of familiarity, it almost scares her. The fickle bonds of magical girls, something taught to her by Lastia and Arin who were no more than mere strangers back then. Yet she can't help but read through this memories in a rose tinted fashion, a fabrication in a sea of flowers.
She released her transformation, and before long her junior had already returned to her casual wear way before she did. Colour returned to the world, like the casual flipping of a television screen from off to on. The cacophony of crowds, the sea of visitors sauntering about and exploring every nook and cranny of this park, the comforting return of the sound of living graced her ears. The deathly stillness of an event was infinitely unsettling, a world without people was something she'd likely find impossible to acclimatise to, no matter how many Traces she fought.
Something about this congestion felt like the natural state of living, of the massive beast known as society. The sun was blinding, a fiery presence in the sky that goated and forced everyone's head down, avoiding direct sight. The food centre was filled with planted parasols, huge and expansive painting a wide shadow over every dining table. They form almost a sea from on top, occasionally letting bits and cracks of light spill onto the seats below. It had just about hit noon when they queued for their food, a Trace event had ended moments before and the girls took their time whiling away the lines of people waiting for food.
That was strange. She hadn't felt anything. Her junior hadn't as well. Rather it's a lack of something that pricked at her senses. She felt like she was watching something important before, only for it to slip away at the last moment. Was she always so paranoid? Sure, Trace encounters were getting less and less frequent, and keeping her guard up for 24 hours a day was hardly necessary now that the Heavenly Kings were all dealt with. Nevertheless, Sariel was determined to surpass the magical girls of this generation, of this era.
She would never let up in her training, and she learned even the most trivial micro detail held some intrinsic importance to her cultivation. Even so, she had some understanding that this applied to life as well, that even the smallest things couldn't be overlooked. Right, she was watching someone. That was the sensation, she had an eye on her entire friend group the entire way and she lost one of her eyes. She lost her concentration after the fight with The Observer.
Aura. She's still there, watching her phone as she waddled forward with her queue. She's been craving western cuisine.
Pepper. Nothing is wrong there, she's almost at the end of her line.
Dina? Dina. Where is she?