Vol 2: National Development - Chapter 16: Miss Pink Elf

Author notes:

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With a well-timed elbow strike, 'Yuki' knocks the air out of Elysia and causing the latter to stumble backward. Elysia struggles to regain her balance as her back crashes onto a brick wall. Barely a blink of an eye later, 'Yuki' has disappeared from her field of view, this makes Elysia hastily jumps and rolls to the side, narrowly dodging a cut that has split the brick wall in half.

Stabilizing herself into a crouch, Elysia squeezes the rapier in her hand tighter before deflecting a heavier-than-expected blow from 'Yuki''s blade. Such a miscalculation while it did make 'Yuki' miss her mark, also causes Elysia to position her rapier at an awkward angle, unable to retaliate. Seizing the chance, 'Yuki' presses the advantage by rapidly giving out deadly slashes and stabs, pressuring Elysia and giving her no leeway for a breakthrough.

Looking at the apathetic eyes of 'Yuki', Elysia can barely bite back a curse directed toward Yggdrasil. The 'Yuki' in front of her is not Yuki, per se, but a shadow that was made with Yuki's combat experience in mind. Elysia is fighting this shadow, and losing because Yggdra thought that Elysia will be more mature if she fights again the subject that she's so in love with. Well, it's damn hard to stave off the lover that's trying to kill you, Elysia thought. And Elysia can hardly muster up a retaliation when she really doesn't want to see the Yuki-look-alike getting hurt.

*CLANK*

With another heavy blow, 'Yuki' breaks Elysia's rapier in half after successive hits on the same spot.

"Damn it! That's so sneaky!" Elysia jumped back while casting a pink hexagonal barrier with an outstretched arm, letting Yuki's strikes cause cracks as pinkish sparks fly out.

With a hasty mental command, Elysia wills the Void Archive to figure out a solution to this predicament of her while she conjures a pink energy blade, growing from the broken rapier, to meet 'Yuki' in a deadly confrontation again.

"Just how much strength are you packing in that small body of yours!?" Elysia wondered as the pink barrier broke into motes of light as 'Yuki''s blade impacted on the energy sword Elysia has been holding horizontally. With a bit of effort, courtesy of buffing herself with a reinforcement spell, Elysia manages to push 'Yuki' backward a few steps.

Unwilling to let 'Yuki' regain her advantage, Elysia charges forward, swiping her blade diagonally. Sparks fly as 'Yuki' deflects blow after blow from Elysia as it's now her turn to be backed into a corner. Yet, as if mocking Elysia, 'Yuki' successfully parried everything Elysia throws at her, even with the Void Archive working overtime to analyze her defensive pattern.

To counteract Elysia's analytical ability thanks to the Void Archive, 'Yuki' has presented herself as an enigma that's constantly changing her style. Even if Elysia managed to figure out a possible opening for one moment, 'Yuki' can just switch up her already masterful style to a different one. This effectively means that Elysia is fighting not just one but multiple godlike levels of experts, all in one body. To be honest, Elysia is surprised that she is still holding on and not dying, yet.

After five minutes of trading attacks at each other, Elysia has decided that she has had enough. Knowing that she is lacking in the aspect of stamina conservation like 'Yuki', Elysia decides to screw swordplay and bid a tactical retreat. The moment when their swords are about to clash again, Elysia closes one of her eyes as she commands her energy sword to dissipate and explode into a flash of blinding pink light. This cause 'Yuki' to misjudge and her blade narrowly misses Elysia as she jumps back. Temporarily blindsided by the flash, 'Yuki' takes a mere two seconds to reorient herself, more than enough time for Elysia to create clones of herself as they all run in different directions of the concrete jungle.

Knowing that she can not chase Elysia, given her physical stature, 'Yuki' puts her fingers into her mouth and whistles. This command of hers spawns the entire 404th Division and its supporting elements of aircraft as they all spread out and hunt for Miss Pink Elf. A chorus of "That is so cheating, 'Yuki'!" comes from all directions as the Bf-109s and Ju-87s strafe and bomb building blocks as soon as a lock of pink hair is spotted. Overhead, armed Ju-52 circles the airspace in counter-clockwise formation, rearing their 20mm autocannons to take aim at anything that's pink.

A clone of Elysia lets out a complaint as she is blasted through a window and onto the street by a 75mm HE shell from a Panzer III. "Pink did nothing wrong! Mo~!" She is soon obliterated by the Ju-52s as similar sights happen all across the simulated city.

Meanwhile, the real Elysia is chuckling wryly as she hid in a dark corner of a cathedral. Having witnessed the carnage and destruction 'Yuki' caused just to eliminate her, Elysia shivers as she imagines what would happen if the real Yuki really went hunting someone with a vengeance. Elysia plays with the thought that maybe their soul won't even get to the afterlife if that's the case.

Shaking her head, Elysia knows fully well that she truly cannot win this battle. Not when 'Yuki''s everything literally includes the entirety of the 404th and Belka's full might. She is but one person so how can she fight against a country? The answer to that is...

Just don't.

Unless she is a godlike being, which she isn't, Elysia has no hope of coming out of this engagement, alive. Guerilla warfare doesn't apply to this when you're outnumbered by Yggdra knows how much. Running is also out of the picture when the whole damn city is flooded with soldiers. Hence, a last stand is the only possible choice. Elysia has an idea as to what she can do to cause as much damage as possible in return. In fact, she has been preparing for the eventual final act during the time 'Yuki' has been hunting her clones.

Elysia has been charging up a special area of effect spell, one that promises absolute destruction to anything in its range. It's also why she is in a cathedral as it's one of the taller buildings in this simulated city. Slowly, Elysia starts ascending the cathedral's bell tower as she listens to the commotion outside the sacred place. In her hands is a white and black bow with purple decorations, in place of a physical arrow is an energy arrow that's glowing a soft pink, its light casts a soft glow onto the dark wall of the cathedral. Ascending the final portion of the stair, Elysia soon comes to see the now smoking city below, courtesy of the decorative acts of 'Yuki'.

"You really aren't pulling punches." Elysia complained with a twitching smile. Thankfully, Yuki in real life is on her side.

Mustering up a daring smile, partly to psych herself up, partly to taunt the enemy, Elysia steps to the ledge of the bell tower. There, she leans out and looks in the direction of the largest concentration of the Belkan military, the only place 'Yuki' could possibly be. After a deep breath, Elysia screams out.

"It's over, 'Yuki'! I have the high ground!" Her voice, carried by the wind, soon reached 'Yuki'. The latter turns and with a swing of her hand, orders everything to converge on the bell tower.

Grinning at the attention she is getting, Elysia points her bow and arrow upward as she casts a city-wide pink kaleidoscope dome. "In an alternative timeline, maybe I would have really been hunted by you. Yet, this one is not that timeline, for we've developed feelings for each other, feelings that serve as the source of power for me to struggle more, reaching this stage."

The pink arrow shines brighter and stronger as Elysia continues saying. "Even though I wanted to show this move to Yuki first, I guess we can settle for a test run on you for now. Take a look, 'Yuki', for this is the beginning of you and I."

Unleashing the arrow skyward Elysia and 'Yuki' watch as it grows bigger and ever brighter as it impacts the kaleidoscope barrier, causing it to split into multiple beams and bounce everywhere. The beams, either hit something and decimate it, or hit the barrier again and split up into many more beams. Soon, the entire simulated city, stuck inside the pink barrier, is ravaged by countless beams of light that leave behind unrecognizable mess and destruction. Planes are shot down, crashing and burning, while tanks are left as smoldering wrecks with infantries disintegrating just by standing near a beam. During the chaos, Elysia has lost track of 'Yuki''s whereabouts, partly because the spell cost her entire mana pool, partly because she herself is also trying to survive being killed by it.

"Ok! Side note, need to work on mastering this spell otherwise it's no different than suicide bombing!" Elysia shouted to herself as she jumps off the bell tower that was cut in half by a pink beam.

Elysia is about to use whatever scraps of mana she has left to cast a slow-falling spell, thus preventing her death by jumping from the previous high ground, when her danger sense flares. With less than a second to process it, Elysia turns to look in the direction her sense is tingling, only to see a battered 'Yuki' holding up an NTW-14.5 with its bipod deploying on a car. Stuck in midair with no foothold, still in the middle of casting a now-made-useless spell, and a damn good sniper takes aim at her with, quite possibly, something that should be banned on employing on flesh and blood... Yeah, Elysia knows of a fucked up pink elf when she sees one.

"This is so unfair~!" Elysia screamed in protest as the NTW-14.5 shocked its surroundings and its hypervelocity projectile wasted no more than a second to tear her in half.

Elysia feels a lurch and sudden weightlessness as darkness pulls her in and suddenly chews her out, spatting her back into the land of the living. Sitting back up with incomprehensible screams, mixed with annoyance, anger, and helplessness, Elysia directs a hateful gaze to the orchestrator of her misfortune these days.

"I demand a rebalance!" Elysia jumped and grasp Yggdra's shoulders, causing the latter to almost spill her tea. "That mission, killing 'Yuki', was impossible! What the hell was that with her pulling an army out of nowhere!? It's like I'm a complete newbie against a player with money to bribe and pay for their winning streaks!"

Yggdra, however, just chuckles and places her teacup down. "Such an apt and detailed description you made, it reflected your circumstance fully."

Patting Elysia's head, Yggdra lets her cool down for a bit by letting the pink-hair high elf slumps down onto her breasts. "For what's worth, you performed a great deal better than what I've been expecting. In a way, you managed to accomplish your objective."

Elysia visibly perks up, and with upturned eyes, she demands. "Explain."

Yggdra chuckles at the absurdity of the situation.

"Believe it or not, after sending away the bullet that would become your eventual demise, Yuki's shadow died of blood loss."

It takes ten seconds for Elysia's brain to buffer and process the information, even with the Void Archive helping. Finally, having let that information sinks in, Elysia jumps and celebrates with both hands in the air.

"YATTA!"

Yggdra laughs as the elf return to her hyperactive mood in the span of seconds. Knowing that she has been subjected to cruel training and trials though, Yggdra let Elysia perform her merry dance for a little longer. The pink elf deserves it for she has graduated from her first course, earning herself enough readiness to face the world at large.

Once Elysia's done getting her frustration and happiness out of her system though, she collapses down onto Yggdra's lap in exhaustion. The latter pats Elysia's pink hair, soothing her with motherly love.

"...I did it, huh?" Elysia asked, as if still unbelieving that she has survived everything Yggdra has been throwing in her direction.

"That you did, my dear. That you did." Yggdra said with a small smile.

"I'm glad. With everything you've been forcing me to learn, I hope I'm useful to Yuki now that I've grown this strong."

As if waiting for Elysia to say that, Yggdra gives her a piece of news. "The chance for you to shine is nearer than you think."

Elysia looks up, not getting the meaning behind Yggdra's words. The latter patiently explains. "Remember Eden? The one you said is more of a spymaster than an idol?"

Seeing that Elysia nods slowly, Yggdra continues. "Eden has asked if you want to help her on her tour, going around the world, seeing new places, helping people, and helping Yuki by doing odd jobs here and there. Yuki has said to me that you can go with Eden, only if you're judged ready by me and you're willing to partake in the offer."

Stopping herself to rearrange Elysia's hair, Yggdra smiles. "Though you will still need a bit of work, I deem that you're strong enough to spread out your wings. It's time that the fairy leaves her home to start her own adventure. The question now is, do you want to?"

Though Elysia is glad to know that she has grown to be a better person, she is also anxious about the sudden offer. Don't get her wrong, Elysia really wants to take a look around the world, meet new people and experience new things. Yet, doing that means she is cutting the time spent with her new family short by quite a margin. She has grown deep in love with Yuki, developed infatuation by the confidence radiated by Lu, come to be invested in the profoundness of Hel, forming a deeper connection to the ever stoic but helpful Bryn, and even though she's not a masochist, Elysia is fond of the effort Yggdra has shown to develop her into someone greater. Surprisingly, even Nicolae is growing on her, just because the Shoggoth lady is a funny package that Elysia is never bored hanging with her. And let's not discount Ningyo, that little cutie pie takes a special place in Elysia's heart.

Still, Elysia knows that she can't be coped in one place forever. It's not in her style nor it's good for any of them if she does not move on. As a holder of the Void Archive, Elysia needs to independently learn new things and grow up in an uncontrolled environment. Training can only get her so far, after all. So, even if it pained her to do so, Elysia nods and accept the offer from Eden. She takes solace in the fact that she will be helping Yuki, even though they may be separated for some time.

Knowing what's on her mind, Yggdra comforts the elf. "Don't worry, it will be after Christmas that Eden will be going for another tour. Till then, you have all the time you need to create memories with Yuki, with us. After that, you will be turning a new page in a story that, with your relentless effort, will no doubt result in a happy ending."

Smiling, Yggdra adds. "Be proud, be brave. For you have the chance to be the pillar that Yuki needs in her journey."

Nodding with a smile, her eyes a bit teary thanks to the holy and motherly aura Yggdra's releasing, Elysia mouths with conviction. "I will! I won't let any of you down!"