Chapter 112

No, please don’t fight me, Olivia silently pleaded even though she knew the answer.

The jaw breaker started levitating in the palm of the candy-colored cat girl’s hand, and with a move of her index finger, Portia sent it hurling through the air straight at Olivia.

Olivia dodged the attack easily enough just by ducking. Despite its size and supposed weight it moved at about the speed of Olivia’s shurikens, thus such movement in a straight line was manage. The jaw braker slammed into a stone wall far behind Olivia, lodging itself half-way into it, making cracks in the wall in a small diameter around the impact.

“Hmph!” slightly annoyed, Portia moved her index finger and motioned the jaw breaker back at the same exact speed with Olivia in its path. Such a predictable attack to her back was even easier to dodge and the jaw breaker flew past her right at Portia, stopping just short of hitting the cat girl. Portia held the jaw breaker on the tip of her index finger before sending it back at Olivia for round two.

The results for Portia did not improve. Olivia continued to avoid the straight-line attacks. Even when Portia tried to spice it up by slightly moving herself to send the jaw breaker back at Olivia in a different angle just as it passed the ninja girl.

“Sis, you suck!” Sofia said with her arms crossed.

“No, that’s literally what you do!” Portia retorted.

“Yeah, so don’t move in on my niche!”

“I-I’m just warming her up before getting serious.”

“Why?”

“B-because stretching is important! Anyway, one won’t be enough,” with her jaw breaker on the tip of her index finger, Portia sunk her other hand into her candy-colored hair and—

Three shuriken flew through the air straight at Portia, but Sofia jumped in front of her, opened her mouth and with an “oooooh!” sucked up all three shuriken into her mouth.

“...” Olivia looked dumbfounded as the puffy-cheeked cat girl held her breath with shaking fists and flushed face until she swallowed hard.

“Bleagh! Do you ever wash those!?” Sofia spit while her face returned to normal colors.

“It’s just the stuff I picked up from your guards while down in the Pits,” Olivia answered.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWW!!” Sofia stuck out her tongue and thrust two fingers up her mouth, but Portia stopped her at the last moment.

“Stop it! It’s bad for your esophagus and you know it!” Portia yelled, pulling Sofia’s hands by the wrist with one hand, while barely holding two jaw breakers in the other.

Olivia sent two more shuriken at distracted Portia’s face, but Sofia suddenly jumped in front of Portia again and sucked up the two hostile projectiles.

“U-UBLEEAGH!” Sofia gagged yet again as soon as she swallowed, and thrust fingers up her mouth only to again be stopped by Portia at the last second.

A-are they for real? Olivia was left momentarily stupefied.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?” Ophelia screamed and blasted both cat girls with an electric wave.

“KYAAAA!!” both cat girls screamed while their delicate bodies involuntarily contorted from the painful electric violation.

Ophelia’s electric attack ended almost as soon as it began, but it was enough to knock Portia off her feet. Her jaw breakers rolled on the floor away from her while Sofia leaned forward with hands on knees to catch her breath after her internal organs got blasted.

“When I said to entertain her, I clearly meant to entertain me!” Ophelia yelled at the two cat girls. “And the only entertainment I’ve gotten so far was your stupid expressions from a little tickling!”

“I’m ... Sorry ... That we ... Suck so much,” Sofia apologized and looked at her sister who was still on the floor, with tears in the corner of her closed eyes, hugging her slightly fluffy tail.

“Well?” Ophelia raised her hand, aiming her fingers at Portia.

“S-sorry! R-right away!” Portia jolted and let of her tail. Still on the floor, Portia stretched out her arm in front of her, concentrating her watery vision on the two jaw breakers on the floor. As soon as she made the jaw breakers rise from the floor, Portia sent them hurling at Olivia who was no longer there.

“H-huh!?” Portia blinked as her jaw breakers crashed into a battered wall for the umpteenth time with their intended target nowhere to be found. “Where’d she go!?”

“WHAT!?” Ophelia turned around and confirmed with her own eyes that Olivia was indeed gone. “How did you two feline fucks let her out of her sight!? Fuck! I should’ve expected that the coward would just run away.”

Just as Ophelia turned back to the cat girls, she saw Olivia behind them. “Morons! Behind you!”

Before either of them could react, Olivia struck Sofia in the nap with the side of her hand and incapacitated the cat girl.

“You—” Portia attempted to jump up but was also struck down by the ninja girl and collapsed.

Olivia stood up next to the two unconscious cat girls and faced Ophelia.

“Shadow Step, huh?” Ophelia did not look pleased. “Allows you to slip into the shadows if nobody is looking at you, which means...” Ophelia turned to the huddled bunch of kids and yelled, “Not even a single one was looking at her either!?”

“They were probably too distracted by their psychotic, screeching jailor who keeps lashing out on those weaker than her,” Olivia said.

“Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Ophelia said and painted her fingers in Olivia’s direction. “With a precise amount of force at a precise spot you’re able to knock someone out...”

Ophelia aimed at the cat girls on the ground and zapped them both with a small amount of electricity, jolting their bodies off the ground.

“GHUAH!?” both cat girls were forced into consciousness.

“So, waking them up is just as easy!” Ophelia grinned. “Hey, how about we do it again? If you’re all going to disappoint me with your combat skills, might as well entertain me in that way.”

“N-no, we can still fight!!” Portia begged on her knees and tried to get back up.

“Please don’t—” Olivia asked but was interrupted.

“SHUT UP!” Portia swung around with her arm out and launched her two jaw breakers at Olivia.

Olivia easily dodged both of the straight-flying balls.

“I’m not done yet!” Portia screamed, turned the jaw breakers around and using her other hand for control knocked the two jaw breakers into each other to suddenly alter their trajectory.

This attack was also within Olivia’s capabilities to avoid. But Portia did not relent. She kept knocking the jaw breakers together, chipping small pieces of them each time. However, each time the jaw breakers collided they also increased in speed as they zig-zagged across the hall, bouncing off the walls and each other, smashing every piece of furnishing in their path until eventually one of the jaw breakers got knocked at a bad angle against the other and zagged right into Ophelia’s head.

“GHAH!??” a thunderous lightning strike erupted at the point of impact. The jaw breaker flew off in one direction and Ophelia’s head was visibly knocked a few inches in the opposite direction.

“WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU AIMING!?” Ophelia howled, nearly popping a vein on her forehead. She then aimed both her hands at Portia and blasted the cat girl with so much electric magic that it knocked Portia off her feet and slammed her into a wall. “Incompetent! Useless! Pathetic! Trash!”

Sofia dropped on her knees and cried, “Please stop, I beg you!”

Olivia was surprised that the psychotic brat actually listened and stopped the assault before killing Portia outright.

“Oh, that’s right,” Ophelia turned her wrath toward Sofia, grabbed the cat girl by her ear and pulled her up by it. “What have you been doing all this time?”

“I-ow ... I—” Sofia grimaced from the pain with tears already forming in her eyes.

An electric spark lit up right next to Ophelia’s left ear and knocked away a small rock that somebody threw at Ophelia.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Olivia suggested while tossing a small rock up and down in her hand.

“Like you?” Ophelia let go of Sofia’s ear.

“Have either of those two ever been in real combat?” Olivia asked. “Or you just force them to bully kitchen staff and children in-between your tortures, and now you’re seriously wondering why they’re hopeless in a real life-or-death fight?”

“You are going to lecture me!?” sparks flew across Ophelia’s trembling hand. “How about I shove that rock up your sanctimonious ass and then ten more for good measure! What, did you think I have a weakness to rocks or something?”

Olivia did not think that. After all, Ophelia did not even a noticeable lump on her head after that jaw breaker struck her with enough force to shatter her skull into a million pieces. But each time the projectiles do seem to connect before getting repelled, Olivia thought. The reaction of her electric barrier is stronger against bigger attacks it seems. However, I can’t hurl a boulder at her with enough speed to hope to break through her barrier. Dropping a building on her head or throwing her out a window might work, but I still need her to talk. So...

Olivia aimed carefully and threw the small rock straight at Ophelia. It wouldn’t do serious damage even against a regular opponent, but—

“Are you soft in the head?” Ophelia laughed and easily evaded the small rock just by tilting her head a little. “If you think—AAARGH!!?”

Ophelia howled and covered her left eye with her hand. Just a second earlier another rock got thrown at her from a different angle. The rock was successfully repelled by Ophelia’s electric barrier, like always, but not before connecting with the surface, like always.

“WHO THE FUCK DID THAT!?” Ophelia screamed while covering her left eye as she looked in all directions for the cowardly fuck responsible for throwing a rock in her eye.

With Ophelia distracted and enraged, Olivia threw rocks one after another at the brat, aiming at different parts of her body. Sparks of lighting cracked all over Ophelia’s body at the point of each contact, turning the girl into a firecracker.

“UAAARGH!! FUCK OFF!!” Ophelia screamed and unleashed an electric storm on Olivia and slammed the ninja girl into a wall with her electricity.

“YAAAAAAAA!!” Olivia screamed at the top of her lungs from the insufferable agony. This did not stop Ophelia rather she seemed to unleash even more magic as if to prolong the cry of agony she finally got to hear from Olivia. She kept unleashing more and more and more magic until Olivia stopped screaming completely and her body simply convulsed lifelessly, pressed against the wall with unrelenting magic.

“Ah!?” Ophelia realized what she had done and stopped her assault at once. Olivia’s scorched, smoking body collapsed on the floor, motionless. A sickening burnt smell spread from the body.

“Haaa ... Haaa,” Ophelia breathed heavily as she looked at the result of her rampage. Sweat rolled down her forehead, a single drop got into Ophelia’s left eye that was slightly irritated. “I-it’s your own fucking fault! I didn’t want to kill you! Was it that hard to just play along a little? Annoyingly stubborn as ever! ... You didn’t deserve to get off that easy—HUAH!?”

Ophelia suddenly found herself grappled from behind and felt a piercing pain in her right armpit. Olivia had jumped on her from behind, grabbed her and sunk a dagger into a gap in Ophelia’s armor.

“AARGH!?” Ophelia screamed in pain. Her electric barrier ejected Olivia’s dagger but not before Ophelia tasted its blade inside her. “HOW—GYAAAAH!?”

Having lost her dagger Olivia poked Ophelia into the left eye. This time the electric barrier activated instantly and sent Olivia flying off Ophelia before she could poke the eyeball out.

“STOP WITH THE FUCKING EYE, FUCK!!” Ophelia screamed, holding her left eye again, hunched over the pain. She then raised her right arm to attack Olivia again, but suddenly jerked form the pain. A thin stream of blood trickled down the side of Ophelia’s armor. Ophelia clenched the shaking fist of her wounded arm. “Y-you ... You ... Wait!”

Finally thinking for more than zero seconds, Ophelia swiftly turned around and looked the burnt corpse that she scorched just seconds ago. Same clothes as Olivia, same body. Then she turned her head and definitely saw Olivia getting up after the electric barrier knocked her away. “H-how?”

“Shadow Clone,” Olivia stated flatly. “I made the first one as soon as you gave me the opportunity to use Shadow Step. I can make them all day long. Even this is a clone. Amazing, isn’t it?” Each clone only carves a year of my lifespan, but there’s no need for you to know that. “Meanwhile, your electric abilities have a limit. That is, if they are yours and not a borrowed power from an artifact. For example, that gigantic jewel in your armor?”