The Final Moments of Despair

Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Unnamed Island.

December 14, x787.

Dashing forward, Elicia arrived in front of the rubble she knocked Junko into just as the Ultimate Despair pulled herself out of it. And when she did, she immediately threw another kick at the young woman with bleached blonde hair.

"Damn you! You fucking---" Junko shouted as soon as she pulled half of her body out of the rubble.

*Bang!*

However, before Junko could finish cursing Elicia, Elicia's foot slammed into the side of her head, sending her flying once again before slamming into the ground and rolling into the adamantite dome Alfonzo created to protect the forced laborers.

"Last time I made the mistake of fighting you with magic." Elicia said as she slowly approached Junko. "But I realized that you're pathetic when it comes to close quarters combat. On top of that, your [Arc of Time Magic] doesn't work on living things."

As she reached the end of her sentence, Elicia was standing in front of Junko, who was looking at her with an enraged expression on her face.

"I'll kill you." Junko muttered as she stood to her feet. "I'll make you suffer in the worst way imaginable. Just you wait."

In the next instant, Junko cocked her fist back and threw a right hook aimed at Elicia's jaw.

"I don't think so." Elicia replied as she swayed to her right to avoid Junko's incoming fist that was powered with as much magic power as her body could handle.

*Bang!*

Then, in the same motion, Elicia stepped forward and raised her left knee into Junko's abdomen.

"Gah!" Junko groaned as the wind was knocked out of her.

A moment later, as Junko doubled over her knee, Elicia raised both her hands, locked her fingers together, and brought her dragon scale-covered hands down on the middle of Junko's back.

*Bang!*

"Ahh!" Junko shouted in pain as she was slammed into the ground.

"You don't have what it takes to carry out your threats." Elicia said coldly. "On top of that, like I said before, you made the worst mistake of your life by threatening my Mar'e."

As soon as her words fell, Elicia leapt into the air and performed a summersault. Meanwhile, Junko was pushing herself off the ground with the flames of rage burning in her eyes.

*Bang!*

*Crack!*

Before Junko could stand up, however, the soles of Elicia's feet slammed into her back, once again slamming her into the ground once again. And due to the force behind the blow, a small crater was created underneath them. ON top of that, the sound of several of Junko's vertebrae breaking could be heard, as well.

"Ahh~~~~~!" Junko screamed once again as she lost feeling from the waist down.

"You know, for even thinking about doing something to my Mar'e, I wanna torture you and make you feel the despair you're so fond of." Elicia said as she stepped off of Junko's back. Then, she bent forward and pulled Junko up by her hair as she continued. "But I don't wanna give you the satisfaction. I'm pretty sure you'd get off by being subjected to despair, right?"

In response, Junko did not speak. However, when Elicia raised her to eye level, she had a smile plastered all over her face… An unhinged smile that would send the chills down the spines of weaker minded people. Elicia, on the other hand, looked at her with utter indifference.

"And if you thought your little pet would be enough to get you out of this, you were sorely mistaken." Elicia said as she twitched the fingers of her free hand.

In the next instant, a number of threads shot up from the ground before they wrapped themselves around a knife aimed at Elicia's heart from the back. Then the threads began to vibrate at high frequency, cutting the knife's blade into several pieces.

"Although I sent you to prison last time, Toga…" Elicia said as she turned her head to look back over her shoulder. "But I let you live. And instead of being grateful for that, you try to kill me a second time."

"What can I say?" Himiko asked with a radiant smile. "I just think you'd look even prettier covered in your own blood. And I'm really looking forward to seeing that."

"[Arc of Time Magic: Flash Forward]." Junko chanted quietly.

Despite the fact that Junko had chanted quietly, Elicia, who was standing right in front of her was still able to hear it. So, she could only shake her head in response before leaning to the side to avoid a swipe from Monokuma's claw.

"[Electromagnetism Magic: Spark Cannon]." Alfonzo's chant could be heard from the distance.

*Bang!*

A moment later, Mokuro, whose body was sparking with violet electricity, slammed into Monokuma, causing them both to fly away for a distance.

"Sorry about that, Lici." Alfonzo said as he appeared next to Elicia in a flash of violet light. "I may be fast, but I'm not faster than compressed time. Not yet, at least."

"It's okay, Fonzie." Elicia said calmly as she stared into Junko's eyes. "That didn't work when I fought her three years ago. So, there's no way it would work now. Especially since it doesn't seem like the attack came any faster than it did last time.'

"Well, although she's got a lot of magic power, her control is the sloppiest I've ever seen." Alfonzo replied with a shrug. "So, it's no wonder she hasn't improved."

As soon as he finished speaking, Alfonzo's left hand shot out, with his hand coated in Techno Organic Metal, and caught the blade of a knife just before it could stab into his side.

"Oh, this one's smarter than I gave her credit for." Alfonzo said as he looked down at the knife in Himiko's hand as she continued trying to push it forward. "She's using a ceramic knife against me. Not a bad plan. A much better plan than the one over there."

As he reached that point, Alfonzo's right hand started sparking with violet electricity.

"But you're just not strong enough for it to make a difference." Alfonzo said as he flung the back of his right hand at the side of Himiko's head.

Reacting quickly, Himiko released the knife's hilt. Then, she performed a backhand spring, narrowly avoiding Alfonzo's back hand. However, before she could retort, she felt a hand clamp onto the back of her head. A second later, the Alfonzo in front of her faded away.

"Not fast enough, either." Alfonzo said in a cold tone.

*Bang!*

In the next instant, Alfonzo slammed Himiko, face first, into the ground, shattering her nose, eye sockets, and most of her teeth, as well as fracturing her skull on impact. On top of that, the impact was so strong it created a crater two feet deep. And when Alfonzo removed his hand from Himiko's head, she was completely unmoving while blood was splattered all over the bottom of the crater.

"*Sigh* She's still alive." Alfonzo muttered as he looked down at Himiko's motionless body. "Well, I guess you're lucky. You get to go peacefully, unaware of your coming death."

With that, Alfonzo materialized a sliver of Techno Organic Metal in his left hand. Then he let it fall into the crater, just to the left of Himiko's head. And it did not take long for the living metal to detect Himiko's injuries before quickly slithering into to them.

"I give it about a minute before her brain dies." Alfonzo said as he shook his head.

Meanwhile, Junko looked on in shock. Never did she imagine that Himiko would be taken out so easily. In fact, she was so surprised that she did not even cast [Restore] on Monokuma, who had been impaled by several pipes sticking out of a pile of rubble when he was blasted away by Mokuro.

Luckily, Mokuro was saved from a similar fate thanks to slamming into Monokuma. So, although her body felt weak and slightly out of her control, she carefully climbed up to her feet while staring at Alfonzo and Elicia with copious amounts of killing intent.

"Let go of my sister." Mokuro said in a threatening tone. "You'll regret it if you don't."

However, both Alfonzo and Elicia ignored Mokuro's threat. As a result, Mokuro gritted her teeth. Then, she reached under her skirt and pulled out a green, egg-shaped object with a pin sticking out of the top.

"Then, we can all die together." Mokuro said as she reached for the pin on the top of the object in her hand. "This is an ethernano grenade. Something our scientists have been developing ever since the first time the magic council used the Etherion. And although it's not as powerful as the real thing, it's enough to take out everything in a hundred foot radius."

Mokuro's explanation was enough to make Alfonzo look in her direction. Elicia, on the other hand, continued to watch Junko's changing expression. And she fully enjoyed the perturbed look on her face. Seeing Junko realize that everything she had worked to accomplish was going to come crashing down… And that there was nothing she could do about it delighted her immensely.

"There are actually three problems with that threat of yours." Alfonzo said as she stepped forward towards Mokuro. "First, we all know that you would never detonate that thing with Junko so close. It's obvious that you care about her too much to risk her life."

Reaching that point, Alfonzo took another step forward. At the same time, Mokuro gripped the grenade's pin tightly.

"Second, I'm fast enough to get us out of here before it explodes." Alfonzo continued as he took another step forward.

In the next instant, a fingernail sized piece of metal appeared in front of Alfonzo's right index finger, which was quickly coated in arcs of violent lightning before he flicked it against the piece of metal.

*Boom!*

After another instant, a doorknocker sized hole was in the middle of Mokuro's chest, allowing the onlookers to see the scenery behind her, right where her heart used to be. Then, the sound of the sound barrier breaking once again rang out over the site where the school once stood.

"And lastly, I can attack much faster than you could ever hope to pull the pin from that grenade." Alfonzo said, ending his explanation.

Meanwhile, Mokuro had not yet reacted to the fact that her chest had been pierced by a piece of metal traveling at four times the speed of sound. However, she did notice that she was unable to muster the strength to pull the pin from the ethernano grenade. Then, when she finally looked down, she saw that her left arm, from the elbow to the wrist, was just bone, the flesh having been burned away by the superheated air as the projectile passed by. On top of that, she could see the cauterized hole in her chest, which was bare and covered in burned skin from the heat, as well.

After realizing what state she was in, Mokuro turned her eyes to her sister, who looked as if she would orgasm from the despair she could see in her eyes. Then, she slumped to the ground lifelessly without the ability to say a word, the ethernano grenade falling out of her hands as she did so.

Before the grenade could fall to the ground, however, Alfonzo flashed next to Mokuro and carefully caught it. And once the grenade was in his hand, he used his magic power to inspect it, not even giving Mokuro a glance as he did so.

Meanwhile, Elicia frowned at Junko's reaction to her sister's death with disgust.

"And this is why you don't deserve to take breath in this world." Elicia said coldly. "That was your sister, your family, that just died and you look orgasmic."

"Actually, I'm jealous." Junko said while continuing to look at the frozen expression of despair on Mokuro's face. "She got to experience such despair. Mmm~! It was wonderful."

Hearing that, Elicia's frown deepened. Then, she shook her head.

"Well, you can join her in the afterlife." Elicia said as she let go of Junko's hair. "I'm sure she'll tell you all about it. But I've had enough of your presence. And Now I'm gonna make sure that you can never hurt my Mar'e."

A moment later, Junko fell to the ground. However, instead of begging for her life or showing fear, she smiled at Elicia. And when Elicia raised her hand with her fingertips pointed at her, Junko's smile widened.

However, when Junko saw threads extending from Elicia's golden dragon scale covered fingertips, her smile dimmed. A hint of disappointment flashing past her eyes.

"*Sigh* I thought you were gonna kill me." Junko said, sounding like a valley girl as she spoke. "but this is, like, so not gonna work. Did you forget, I can [Flash Forward] the time of your threads. They're, like, totally useless against me."

Instead of responding, Elicia only continued extending her threads towards Juno's neck. And when she saw that she was unable to get a reaction from Elicia, Junko frowned.

"[Arc of Time Magic: Flash Forward]." Junko chanted in a bored tone.

In the next instant, however, Junko's eyes widened in shock. And the reason was quite simple, Elicia's threads were not turning to dust due to the passage of time.

In fact, Elicia was using something she learned from the magic power training scrolls Alfonzo got from Danzo's records room. And that was [Magic Power Threads]. So, because Elicia's threads were not physical threads, but magic power shaped into threads, Junko's magic had no effect on them.

"Do you really think I wouldn't learn anything to counter your magic after three years?" Elicia asked coldly while her threads looped around Junko's neck. "If you did, then you weren't nearly half the threat I thought you were."

As she spoke her last sentence, Elicia tightened the [Magic Power Threads] around Junko's neck, slowly cutting off her air flow. And when Junko realized she would die slowly, in despair, she smiled brightly, despite the fact that she was unable to breathe.

Seeing Junko's reaction, Elicia's disgust for the young woman rose to new heights. So, instead of suffocating her like she had planned, she flicked her fingers.

*Crack!*

As a result, the threads around Junko's neck jerked, breaking it in the process. However, the euphoric smile on Junko's face was frozen on it, disgusting Elicia even more as she looked into Junko's lifeless eyes.

A moment later, after looking away from Junko's corpse, Elicia dispelled her [Magic Power Threads] and the release state of her [Soul Armament]. Then, she slowly walked over to Alfonzo before wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest.

"Fonzie, I wanna go home." Elicia said quietly. "I miss Mar'e."

In response, Alfonzo raised his free hand, the one not holding the ethernano grenade, and gently combed his fingers through Elicia's hair while dispelling the adamantite dome.

"Me, too, Lici. Me, too." Alfonzo replied. "Let's call the Magic Council. And when they get here and take these people off the island, we'll head straight to Magnolia. But before we go, you should make something for them to wear."