Meeting The Demon Herself

"Why... do you keep bringing him up?" I asked Illya. Even looking at her filled me with fear... like talking back to her would leave me with my arms snapped off.

"So you don't forget. Pain is what brings strength, after all. Your friends don't know pain like you do." Illya said to me.

"Yes... they do. You can't assume that about them." I told Illya. My wound had finally completely healed and I stood up. No matter how scary it was.

Illya, who was still crouched down, nodded while keeping her eyes locked on the ground.

"I can assume whatever I please. Nobody here is strong enough to stop me, you know that? Absolutely... nobody..." She said. She drifted off halfway through her speech and her eyes eased off the ground to look back up at me with a frown.

"You won't believe this, but I'll tell you anyway. Are you ready?" Illya asked me, standing up on both her feet again and keeping a distance between us.

"W-What...?" I unwillingly asked her.

"Well, it's just that... I think this will explain it a lot better." Illya said. She rose her hands and sprouted strands from her fingertips. Everybody stared at Illya and me from a distance and she smiled as the strands were blowing in the wind.

"When Ali and Providence were fighting, I noticed something was off with the atmosphere, and do you know what I found? An intruder in The First Trial! Can you believe that? While two Deities were pointlessly fighting each other for my amusement, I was too busy on the intruder to enjoy it! That made me so mad! I'll never see a display of power like that again!" Illya complained.

She was getting closer and closer to me. I finally drew my own saber and held it between us.

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm telling a story, turn that thing off." She told me.

Illya, with a simple wave of her hand, collapsed the entire saber and it dissipated in midair.

Holy shit... how did she do that? She wasn't even touching it!

This was starting to get scary... even more than before.

"So then, I watch this Intruder get her powers from Ali Asterio, which is baffling to me! And then, you know what happens?! Providence kills herself! Of course, I'm lucky enough to have my beautiful husband take her out and save this world, but after he did that, he told me that his useless friends didn't deserve a life in the world he saved. I was baffled! Who just says that? I've decided to listen to him in the end... and I will be taking your life." Illya told me.

I focused on her feet and summoned spears of ice underneath her.

They shot up and pierced her body in several places, spurting blood like crazy... but she didn't even flinch as it happened.

"Oh no! That doesn't look good!" Illya said. She snapped off each spear of ice, so I summoned my saber and closed the distance on her.

I swung downwards onto Illya and she caught the saber's handle with her hand before spinning it so I was out of balance, and then throwing me to the ground, just with her hand on the handle.

Afterward, she dissipated the handle, stomped her foot about a foot into the ground, and pushed rocks up in front of me that launched me backward.

I landed roughly on the ground while looking right ahead, and Illya's unchanged face had finally shifted. She was unhappy...

I'm just trying to have a conversation here, and here you are, resisting with all your might. Have you ever considered how irritating you are?" Illya asked me. She turned her head slightly to the left and caught another sword as it came down on her.

It was Boo's katana, and it was too sharp to hold for Illya. She cut straight through Illya's hands and managed to plant her foot into her stomach, but Illya caught it and held it there.

"Hey, how would you like it if I took your fingers as well?" Illya asked Boo.

Boo tried to retreat, but Illya's iron grip on her sides pulled her close and slammed her to the ground.

That's when we all started to attack.

Mitra and Myth both got up close and hit Illya with a saber with lightning infused into it thanks to Myth's ability. Alexia stood back and enlarged her saber to slam down on Illya, and I was ready to summon the spears of ice underneath her.

It all happened at once.

The spears impaled her, Alexia's saber slammed down onto her, Mitra and Myth's attacks both locked onto Illya's body, and then the impacts of our attacks happened and dug a shallow hole into the ground.

We all retreated next to Eo to regather our thoughts, and as the dust cleared, Illya was still standing there, looking at her hands.

"You could've at least given me a warning. How would you feel if I did that to you? Not really good, right?" Illya asked.

She wasn't breaking a sweat or taking any damage... she'll be a tough opponent for sure.

"Master! You must stop this!" Eo shouted out to Illya.

Her face turned sour. "Shut up Secretary," Illya said. That was the one thing she seemed genuinely pissed about.

"I was pushed to this point, I didn't choose it! The lives of the people you tried to ruin mattered to me more than anything! These... are my friends... and I won't let you hurt them any more!" Eo shouted out to Illya. That was the most emotion I've heard from her, in I think forever...

"You weren't meant to have friends. I'll have to end you too, I'm sorry." Illya told Eo.

Illya finally summoned a weapon of her own. A purple saber, outlined in red strands, moved at a rate about three times as fast as anybody else's. She rose it up to attack.