“She’s fighting by herself?!” Allison said as she gave Kaede to Joseph. “I’m going. Both of you get off Atlas.”

“Hannah told us to go to Atlantis and wait there.”

“Yes, that’s good. Go.” The boys teleported away with the baby and Allison teleported to the beach. She found quickly found Alethea. “Is she really fighting solo? The power I’m sensing right now is from her alone?”

“It’s hard to believe. It’s as though she’s using Overdrive, but it’s something else,” Alethea said. “She said ‘Aether Drive’ when she activated it.”

“What?”

“You don’t know it?”

“No. I’ve never heard of it, and it’s not in the archive either.”

“Oh. Huh.”

“She’s gone and created another spell.”

“Yeah. And she knows the name of this world now, too.”

“She does?”

“This world, Elysium, is her design. Now that she knows this is her world, she’ll defend it to her last breath. She’s... angry.”

“I’ve never seen her angry.”

“I’ve only ever seen her angry one time. That was in our previous life together when she killed Shiro Shikigami. Our daughter was very young at the time, but he tried to use her against us.”

“To do that to a parent as powerful and caring as she is...” Allison looked toward the sea. “Whoever angered her has made a dire mistake. Her rage is what one should fear the most.”

“Awaken!” Kye felt a surge of aether from Hikarimaru. Soul weapons are rare and powerful. To wield one is to wield the power of the person behind the weapon. Astraia’s power was great, and her aether was at Kye’s disposal. She held the katana on her left hip, poised to draw at any moment.

Soon, the beast grew impatient and began to swing its weapon. Before it could move an inch, Kye vanished. She moved at an incredible speed, drawing Hikarimaru as she closed in, and slashed the beast with such force that she launched it backward with a shockwave. As it flew, Kye appeared above it and struck again, this time sending it downward diagonally. Before it could hit the ground, she got ahead of it and sent it flying further out to sea, each strike releasing a shockwave.

Next, she kicked it into the sea, where it finally recovered and skated along the water’s surface. Kye was two steps ahead. As the beast was flying across the surface trying to get a sense of its opponent, Kye appeared in front of it. “Seiken!” The split second her sword impacted the beast’s sword, it shattered and it was flung far into the distance on a powerful blast of radiant golden aether that threw up waves on either side.

Kye flew up in the air, generating four orbs of radiant aether before flinging her arm forward in the direction the beast was sent. “Detonation!” The orbs bolted forward and collided with the beast. The resulting explosion shook the ground all the way back where Alethea and the others were.

“What the hell?!” Hannah exclaimed as she and the others struggled to stay on their feet. Many of the civilians they were evacuating fell to the ground. “Is that really her? That’s coming from a sixteen-year-old?”

“It is,” Allison replied. “I’ve had the privilege of training her personally all these years. Her growth is unprecedented. It was as though she had a new surprise every time I’d blink.”

“But it makes more sense now, right?” Ginchiyo said. “Knowing she is Elysia.”

“To a degree. I feel as though this is unusual even considering that.”

Glowing in radiant pink aether, Alethea looked at Astarte with her hand held out. A moment later, she held Gaia. She flew toward the source of the explosion until she arrived at the edge of the open sea. “Awaken! Divine Aegis!” With the surge of power from Gaia, Alethea erected a gigantic barrier reaching from the sea floor to high in the stratosphere and further than the eye could see to either side.

“And then there’s Alethea.” Allison smiled as she admired Alethea’s handiwork. “As if it wasn’t enough that we have Elysia.”

“Its weapon is gone. Let’s change it up on our end.”

“Right.” Hikarimaru transformed from a katana to a pair of gold metallic fingertip-less gloves.

“How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine. The aether you are wielding is phenomenal, but I can take it.”

“Alright. Since Alethea put up that barrier, I’m going to go harder. Let me know if it becomes too much!”

“Okay.”

Kye bolted forward, catching up to where she had flung the beast in an instant. It recovered from the blast and met her head on, throwing a right jab. Kye brushed it away and kicked the beast’s side. It spun around, moving back just enough to dodge Kye’s kick and followed up with its left fist. Kye ducked under it and countered with a jab at its gut. It caught her fist and kicked. She blocked the kick with her left hand.

In a flurry of attacks, neither gained any ground until Kye finally knocked it off balance and landed a solid punch to its chest, launching it backward. Following up, she brought her hands together and focused an immense amount of aether between them before finally releasing it as a beam that carried the beast even further.

“You got that from a manga!”

“I sure did!”

With the beast launched far away, Kye moved on to cast her next spell. She brought her hands together, sparks of aether surrounding her. She quickly raised her right hand, with only her index and middle fingers extended. Ten orbs of radiant golden lightning aether formed in the sky, making a circle above the beast. “Kami Ikazuchi!” The brought her raised hand down, and the biggest lightning bolt anyone had ever seen fell from orbs. It was the size of the circle of orbs. When the giant bolt of lightning dissipated, the beast was still there, its body smoking.

“Tough nut.”

“What’ll you do? You’ve thrown two ultimate spells at it and it’s barely damaged.”

“Yeah. And it regenerates quickly. I’ll have to hit it with something that’ll destroy it in one hit.”

“Do you think you can?”

“Yes. I have another spell in mind that isn’t classified. It’s one that I put in the archive when I created the system. I’m sure the council will classify it since there’ll be a way to measure it now.”

“Coming from you, I’d expect nothing less than ultimate-tier.”

“It’s certainly powerful enough. Oh, the beast is powering up. Heh, it’s angry. Oh, it’s got a new sword.”

“I’m changing back to a katana.”

“Right. Where did it even get that sword? Whatever, no time to think about that now.”

The beast rushed Kye, closing the distance quickly. It did not catch her off-guard. She parried and kicked the beast higher into the air.

“It’s focusing too much on its weapon now. That’s a fatal mistake against me.”

Kye flew upward to meet the beast and exchanged a number of blows. Kye landed several counters on the beast with her feet and knees while keeping its weapon occupied with her own. She soon started getting in small cuts. It screamed in pain when Kye cut deep across its chest. It broke off and flew higher into the sky, but Kye didn’t chase it.

“Perfect.”

Kye examined the blood left on Hikarimaru. She pulled the mana from it and encased it in an orb of her aether. The beast began gathering mana, which Kye knew wouldn’t end well if she didn’t act first. She quickly poured aether into the orb, it growing bigger until it was a meter in diameter. She pointed the orb at the beast and shouted. “Light Nova!” The orb leaving her hand generated an enormous shockwave and a bright flash of light that temporarily blinded everyone that could see it. The flash only lasted a second, but in that second the beast was carried off into the upper atmosphere.

Alethea teleported next to Kye and berated her. “What are you thinking using a spell like that!”

“Detonation and Kami Ikazuchi barely hurt it. I had to use Light Nova to finish it off.”

“Shit!” Alethea quickly reformed her gigantic pink barrier above them. Soon, an explosion appeared far above them. It expanded and expanded... and expanded.

“I think I need to put one up, too. Divine Aegis!” Kye layered another barrier on top of Alethea’s. The explosion met Kye’s barrier, and it cracked under the pressure but held up. A few moments later, the remnants of the explosion were gone and the beast was nowhere to be found.

“You did it!” Alethea hugged her blonde love.

“Yeah. That was pretty hard.” Kye’s aether dissipated and she suddenly had trouble staying in the air. “Hey, help me back to the beach. We need to tell everyone it’s safe.”

Alethea nodded and teleported. The two appeared next to Hannah and Allison, and Astarte and Astraia took their human forms again.

“Good work out there,” Allison said. “Aether Drive, eh?”

“Yeah.”

Allison smirked. Kye’s knees gave out and she almost fell to the ground. Allison quickly jumped forward and caught her with Alethea. “What’s wrong?”

“I used a lot of power.”

“Yeah, I can tell that much.”

“No, you don’t understand. I used a looooooot of power.”

“Okay, I’ll bite, how much is a lot?”

“You know how Dragon Force lets the Drachenheim royals put out more mana at the cost of consuming more? Like, say they put out a million per second, and boost it one hundred-fold at the cost of say... twenty times more to maintain that. They’re outputting 100M at the cost of 2000M in that scenario.”

“And Aether Drive has that same drawback?”

“Worse. I had to blow a hundred times more aether than I was getting out of it. But, I was able to match Overdrive, so there’s that.”

“Holy shit, you have to teach me that!”

Kye smiled at her pink-haired partner. “I was planning to after our honeymoon. Heh, what a trip this has been, eh?”

“No kidding. And it’s only been a day!”

“Yeah. Hey, let me down. I wanna lay down in the sand for a sec.” Alethea and Allison gently laid her on the sand, and her kimono returned to bracelet form.

“I like the outfit,” Hannah said. “Interesting idea using a bracelet to make it.”

“Oh the uniform? Yeah it’s nice, but I had to make it out of aethersteel. It wasn’t comfortable at all. I’ll have to come up with a new thing for transforming something wearable.”

“That was a uniform?”

“Yes,” Alethea said. “That was the uniform we wore during and after the rebellion in our past life together.”

“I’ve used that uniform in a lot of lives,” Kye added.

“Me, too! I love it.”

“Got a name for it?” Hannah asked. “After that performance, people all over will want to dress like you.”

“Oh uh... no. I guess you could call it ‘sentou kimono’.” Kye flopped over and drew four kanji in the sand, 戦闘著物.

“Combat kimono,” Ginchiyo said. “Nice and simple.”

“Shi-chan likes simple!”

“Is Kaede okay?” Kye asked.

“She’s with my troublemaker sons,” Allison said. “I had them take her through the gate to Atlantis.”

“Okay, good. As long as she’s safe.” Kye closed her eyes and mumbled something unintelligible before falling asleep.

“Huh?”

“Shi-chan said she’s gonna take a nap.” Alethea scooped her up. “We’ll be in our hotel room.”

Allison nodded. “I’ll go fetch your kid.”

“Thanks.”