The clash with the guards hadn't even settled when the door behind Voss opened again.
This time, it wasn't just one person.
Two more figures stepped inside, followed by a third who lingered near the entrance. All of them carried the same quiet presence as the guards already in the room.
Touko glanced briefly toward the newcomers, then back at Voss, her expression unchanged.
"…You planned for more than just a conversation." she said.
"Since we're no longer pretending this is a simple meeting," Voss continued, "I see no reason to hold back."
One of the new arrivals moved forward and took position beside the guard already engaged, clearly reinforcing their side. Another positioned themselves near Touko's flank, while the third stayed back, observing.
Voss adjusted his coat and looked directly at Touko, then briefly at me.
"You're outnumbered." he said calmly. "Outmatched in resources, preparation, and personnel."
"Separate them,"
The more composed of the two moved first. He raised his hand slightly, not toward anyone in particular, but toward the space between us.
The moment the magus raised his hand, the air in the room seemed to fold inward.
I felt it before I saw anything happen. A subtle shift in the mana flow, like something had hooked onto the space itself and pulled.
"…Ah" Touko muttered, her eyes narrowing.
The next instant, everything around me changed.
The room didn't just split.
It vanished.
One moment Touko was across from me, Voss in the center, his guards and the others surrounding them.
The next, they were gone.
Silence replaced the tension.
The surroundings were no longer the same private room. The layout was different, the lighting off, the air slightly colder. It wasn't a shifted perspective.
It was somewhere else entirely.
I turned quickly, scanning the area.
No doors. No windows in the same place. No sign of Touko or Voss.
"…So that's how it is." I said under my breath.
A bounded space.
No, not just a bounded space.
A separated space.
The kind that didn't connect back to the original room in any straightforward way.
The magus who had done it stood a few steps away, his posture unchanged. He wasn't attacking. He didn't need to.
He had already accomplished his role.
"You've been isolated." he said calmly. "Rejoining the others won't be simple."
I clenched my hand slightly.
I'm on my own now, Touko isn't here to protect me. Damn it. My first real fight is against a veteran magus. And that ability… ordinary magecraft shouldn't be capable of something like that.
"Just a kid… I'll finish this quick and go back to the boss." my opponent said, his tone calm, almost dismissive.
The moment he moved, I knew I was outclassed.
His first strike landed before I could fully raise my guard. The impact hit my side and knocked the air out of me, forcing me back several steps. My footing slipped for a moment, and I had to force my balance just to stay upright.
"…What the hell…?" I muttered under my breath.
He didn't bother explaining.
Another strike came in.
I felt his fist drive into my stomach, the impact knocking the air out of me as pain surged through my body.
Another followed immediately after.
Then another.
And another.
Each hit came faster than the last, my body barely able to react in time. My guard was up, but it didn't matter. He was slipping through it, finding openings that didn't feel like openings at all. Every impact pushed me further off balance, my steps becoming uneven as I tried to keep myself from collapsing outright.
I forced my arms back into position, but his attacks overwhelmed me completely. By the time he stopped, my body is bruised and bloody all over, and I could hardly maintain my stance. My breathing was uneven. My stance was shaky, and every part of my body felt slow to respond. I knew if he came at me again the same way, I wouldn't be able to hold out.
"…Still up?" he said, sounding more annoyed than impressed.
I could feel it.
The next hit would finish it.
He took a step forward. That same distortion gathered around his hand again, the air around it tightening like it was being pulled out of place.
Then everything slowed down.
"Huh?"
My vision shifted before I could make sense of it. The world didn't blur or fade, it became sharper in a way I couldn't explain. Lines of movement started to stand out, and faint streams of color began to trace through the air around him, like something that had always been there but was only now visible to me.
"…I'm seeing multiple colors…"
They weren't random. They flowed, followed paths, gathered and dispersed in patterns that matched his movement. The distortion in his hand had its own distinct trace, different from the rest, condensed and unstable at the point where the attack formed.
"Is this mana?"
And in that instant, the moment his attack should have connected—
I was no longer there.
His fist drove through the spot I had been in a moment before, missing completely as I reappeared a short distance away, already steadying my stance.
For a brief second, even he paused.
"…What?"
...
Touko's POV
One moment she had been facing her opponent, the next, the space around her had folded unnaturally, cutting her off cleanly from Eiji's presence.
Five signatures. All against her.
Alaric Voss didn't rush. He stayed where he was, watching, while his four guards shifted into position around Touko, each one trained, coordinated, and clearly used to working as a unit. They didn't speak. They didn't need to. The moment Touko adjusted her stance, they moved.
All four came at her at once.
No probing. No hesitation. They committed fully, prana already rising as their techniques activated in sync, aiming to overwhelm her from every direction.
Touko didn't step back.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small lighter.
The flick of the wheel was the only sound.
A tiny flame appeared at the tip, barely noticeable at first.
Then her expression shifted.
Her prana surged, compressed, and released in a single controlled instant.
The flame expanded.
Not outward like a normal fire, but outward and then inward, as if the space around her had been claimed and rewritten. In a blink, the small flame erupted into a violent burst that consumed the immediate area where the guards had entered.
When the light and heat settled, the four guards were already gone from their positions, their attacks cut off before they could even land.
Silence returned just as quickly.
Touko closed the lighter with a soft click, the flame disappearing as easily as it had appeared.
Alaric Voss stood frozen.
The confidence he carried earlier was gone now, replaced with something far less certain. His eyes shifted between where his guards had been and Touko, as if trying to process what had just happened.
"What are you?" he muttered, his voice no longer steady.
Touko didn't answer immediately. She took a small step forward, her expression calm, but her presence alone seemed to press against the room.
"You're clearly just a spoiled brat." she said coldly. "Not knowing the difference between a Grand Rank magus and a third-rate like yourself."
"Now then."
Before Voss could react, Touko closed the distance in a single step and seized him by the collar, lifting him clean off the ground into a choke hold.
His breath hitched immediately.
His hands shot up, grabbing at her wrist, but there was no leverage, no opening. His prana surged instinctively, trying to reinforce his body, trying to force her grip away, but Touko's hold didn't budge. The pressure only tightened.
Voss's breathing grew ragged. His movements slowed, then turned erratic. Panic replaced whatever composure he had left, his eyes widening as he struggled against her grip, his face losing color by the second.
Touko's expression didn't change.
"Where is the kid?" she asked.
...
Eiji's POV
"I see it." I muttered under my breath.
It wasn't just movement.
It was space.
The way prana flowed wasn't invisible anymore. I could see faint distortions around his hands, the way energy gathered and bent the space before he used it.
And somehow…
I understood it.
"…So that's how you're doing it." I said quietly.
My prana started to respond on its own, reacting to what I was seeing, the same kind of distortion began to form.
My opponent's eyes widened just for a moment.
"You copied it?!"
His distortion gathered again, the same familiar pull forming around his hand. This time I didn't just watch it, I felt it more clearly than before. The way he forced space to bend toward a single point. The way his movement dragged everything into alignment with his strike.
He came at me without hesitation.
I didn't mirror him.
Instead of copying the distortion the way he used it to approach, I let it spread differently, loosening the pressure, widening it just enough to let space slip rather than compress. The prana in my body followed the idea I had seen, but I bent it in a slightly different direction.
When his fist closed in, the space between us shifted, not pulling me toward him, but letting me "slide" out of alignment with his strike.
His attack passed through.
I stepped in immediately after.
Using his own distortion as a reference, I extended mine in the opposite way, catching the residual flow he left behind and redirecting it through my movement. For a brief moment, our techniques overlapped, but mine didn't clash with his.
It flowed around it.
"You don't even know," I said, my voice low, almost quiet as I closed the distance, "just how amazing your ability is."
His eyes met mine.
There was a pause.
A split second where he seemed to realize something, whether it was what I had done, or what I had become in that moment, I couldn't tell.
But that was enough. I striked his chest, piercing his heart.
The end came quickly.
When it was over, the pressure in the air eased, the distorted flow settling back into something normal again.
"…Thanks," I said under my breath, glancing at his lifeless body. "For giving me such a cool ability."
..............
Just a quick explanation on Eiji's abilities and his opponent this time.
The opponent's ability works by distorting space around his hands. He compresses it toward a point, creating a pulling force that drags his target into the path of his strike, making his attacks harder to avoid even without relying purely on speed or strength.
The way Eiji uses the ability is different. He can copy magecraft by understanding how it works. He doesn't just copy the move, He copies the idea behind it. After seeing his technique, He learned how he bends space using prana.
But instead of using it the same way to pull someone in, he used it to move himself out of position. That way, when his opponents attack comes in, he's no longer in the spot where his opponent aimed, so it misses.