Daisy The Destroyer

For the second time, Kir found himself in the stadium.

After going through the formalities, they moved on to the stakes. Daisy bet that Kir would have to obey her as long as he was in the Academy and Kir bet that Daisy would have to apologize, leave him alone, and pay him five gold. The last he added on a whim, figuring that perhaps charging a semester's worth of survival money would deter future aggression.

Even so, the construct in charge of the arena weighted his demands as less than hers.

Before the fight, he and Rain had a talk.

"Listen, I'm sorry I got you into this mess. If you want to forfeit I'll do everything in my power to make sure she drops it before it becomes official," Rainier said, his eyes so full of sincere regret Kir couldn't help but melt a little inside. "She's been after me for the last year, not you."

"I'm not going to back down from a fight," Kir said. "People keep wanting to see what I'm made of, why I'm here, and the only way I get out of this is to go through anyone in my way. Besides, you shouldn't have to put up with her."

"But she's a noble... I can't just..." Rainier seemed taken aback, but he quickly recovered. "Look, if you're really going to fight her, Daisy's not exactly known for fighting fair... there's a reason they call her The Destroyer."

"I've been in unfair fights since the day I was born. What else is new?" Kir smirked.

"Have you ever faced a void sorceress?" Rain asked.

"No, what's that?" Kir asked.

"Well..."

In the arena, Daisy preened from her starting position. She amplified her voice with magic and spoke, "I hope you're good at crawling because you're going to be my personal bench after this."

Once more, Kir put up his shields. Both of them. He suspected they wouldn't be effective, but even seeing how they fell apart might be useful.

His plan was simple. If she had magic that could directly counter his, all he had to do was turn things into a physical match.

He started walking forward, pulling off his coat and casting it aside behind an illusory rock.

Daisy began chanting a spell, and Kir recognized what he regarded as a pretty standard fireball. Only when it finished, the fireball in question was black-burning-purple. It struck his shields, and Kir watched as both of them seemed to expand and wither away from him, drawn away by the sudden force of negative magic.

"Fascinating..." Kir noted, then dodged as another fireball came his way. His mind was already churning with theories about void magic, but now was not the time for it.

"Your little stalling tactics won't work on me!" Daisy shouted, changing up her attacks to bolts of lightning as she began to circle, keeping him at a distance.

"Let's see if you can keep that up," Kir said, concentrating as he released the seal on his wings. His wings ripped apart his undershirt as he let them out, a dramatic gesture that set the audience - only a few dozen this time - gasping. He flew up before discarding the rest of the shirt, his bare chest and abs exposed to the world.

Unfortunately, someone else was in the audience.

"Yeah! Take it off!" Kir heard in his head.

"Stella?!" Kir replied, distracted enough that he almost didn't dodge the next lightning bolt.

"You owe me for that gut punch of a kiss yesterday!" she said. "Putting all that weird lovey-dovey stuff into it."

"I'm a little busy right now," Kir said, not knowing what she was talking about. He couldn't afford distractions. He went into a dive, intent on clotheslining Daisy and pushing her off the arena.

"Yeah, void mage, I see it. You really don't-"

Her next words were drowned out as Kir connected with Daisy, only to experience an enormous amount of pain as he impacted her shield.

As the lights faded, the rest of Stella's words came through. "The fuck, boss!? I said don't get close!"

"Oh my, did you think that would be enough?" Daisy giggled, stepping forward.

Kir felt drained. Striking against her magic had drained him quite a bit. He could see with manasight that her shield was shredding away, but he'd paid for it more than her. Walking up to him, she stepped on his wing, drawing out another cry of pain.

"I heard you were a first generation, but your mana is exquisitely vast for someone with beastkin blood..." she taunted. "Don't mind if I help myself..."

She chanted a quick spell, and bolts of draining lightning shot into and out of Kir, taking his mana from his as she drained him and drained him, a lustful glint growing in her eyes. As he felt his entire body growing heavier.

"Don't fall asleep now. I'm going to enjoy torturing you into surrender..." she licked her lips.

Kir grit his teeth. He didn't want to do this, but it was clear that with these duels, anything short of fatal was allowed. He released the seals for the tattoos on his wrists, grabbing a knife in each hand as he slashed at her.

His left knife cut into her kneesock but she jumped out of the way before the right could connect. A line of red started bleeding into the cloth of her left kneesock, but the cut was shallow.

"You..." Daisy started swearing at him, calling him all sorts of things as she built up for her next spell. "I'll make you rip out your own guts and eat them!" she finally threatened.

What an ugly mouth she had.

"Boss! Boss! You okay?" Stella said.

"Would've been nice if you showed up before things got messy," Kir snapped back, dodging a series of fireballs. It made sense Daisy would use almost entirely energy-based attacks given the draining quality of her spells.

"Yeah, well, if you want to beat her, I know a thing that will surely work!" Stella asserted.

"And what's that?" he asked, sending his own lightning at her, only to have it break against her shield. He really needed to work on his non-fatal options.

"Succubus magic!" she said.

"What?!" Kir shouted out loud, taking a lightning bolt to the shoulder that drained him further.

Gods, stars, whoever! Why did it hurt so much?!

"You heard me. I know exactly how to defeat her. Just let me take the wheel for a bit," Stella asserted.