Isher Notra

Stella:

The duo ran side by side, mere seconds from clashing against a walking mountain that created dozens of craters through her frenzied run! The Oni's blazing yellow eyes were enough to send a powerful wave of doubt into anyone's mind.

The world almost came to a standstill. The opposing sides drew closer. A perfect distance.

"Scatter!" Stella cried, prompting her partner to evade the Oni's mighty stomp by jumping to the side without losing too much momentum. The shattered earth and mighty aftershocks had not impeded the girls' trajectory; they were running circles around the brute.

After circling Hanaken, Stella and Lien regrouped behind her, returning to each other's side.

The Human glanced at her packmate briefly before charging once more at the monstrous Oni. Her heart pumped with adrenaline when a massive earth wall was erected before them, wide enough to encompass the entire width of the arena, screeching their advance to a halt!

"Ready, Lien?!" Stella's golden Saniya descended to her legs.

Lien nodded, her milky eyes overtly serious as her paws brightened with energy!

The Human summoned twin rock pillars to propel her upward, while the Wolf shot a gust of air from her furry hands, sending both of them high enough to jump over the barrier!

"Let's try this on for size!" Stella quickly transferred her aura to her fist.

Lien reflected her action. "I'm with you!"

Twin meteors dropped down at the Oni, who... turned back to see them with a full mouth with dirt smearing her lips.

The fuck?

Hanaken spat a large, fast volume of mud, swallowing them just before their fists could hit their mark!

"Tell me this isn't her spit!" Lien shouted while the repulsive mass sent them back up.

"Shield, Lien!" Together, their Saniya reshaped into individual bubbles to stop more mud from dirtying them! Although the Oni's technique's sheer potency wouldn't stop sending them away from her.

High in the air, the girls' velocity ceased at the crest of the throwing angle. The Human's stomach dropped once the momentum returned, bringing them downward as she glimpsed the edge of the arena, which they were about to soar past!

Bullshit! As if Stella would let this dumb pile of muscle show them up before they could do so much as chip her tusks!

"Lien, push us in the opposite direction!" Stella commanded, deactivating her shield.

The pup did the same, then caught her packmate's hand. "Got it!" She inhaled an insurmountable amount of air, then shot her powerful Super Breath to redirect them back to the battlefield, pulling the Human with her!

Ignoring the minor discomfort in her arm, Stella shifted her position midair before landing, supporting her weight with her legs and one hand as the remaining one was still clasped on Lien's paw. Kind of a romantic take on the "superhero landing."

Without allowing a moment for them to breathe, Hanaken punched her way through the wall she created, reveling in it crumbling into dust and smaller chunks, falling all over her.

"Good!" The Oni grinned while cracking her knuckles. "I was afraid using my new technique on you would end the fight too soon!"

The nerve... Stella wasn't the biggest fan of the giantess's long-ranged approach. She wanted some goddamn blood-pumping action, for Namadi's sake!

"What's the new plan, Stella?" Lien asked, her breathing heavier after exerting herself from the last spell as she disentangled her fingers from her girlfriend's. "Go underground?"

"Nah." The young Human glared at the Oni, who stood there and waited for them with a confident smile. "The bitch is good with earth magic. She can feel us coming a mile away. Even if one of us stays to distract her, there's no way to guarantee we're strong enough to make her ignore everything-"

Stella's jaw hung open as a flicker of inspiration struck her.

"You know what?" A fierce scowl overtook her features. "You dig. I distract."

Lien's ears twitched. "What the heck?"

"We'll do 'Strategy H'. Just make sure you cover every corner, understand? I can buy us time."

Stella's heart raced once Hanaken, after a prolonged yawn, started marching towards them.

The pup's paw grasped her arm. "But are you sure you can-"

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"Trust me." Stella's gaze turned to her. Her hand flashed an assuring thumbs-up as she winked. "Just as much as I trust you."

Those words struck a chord within Lien, who regained her usual confident, plucky, energetic demeanor since the end of their struggle against the Icy Sorceress. Her tail lashed quickly, and her limbs promptly sprang to action, clawing into the smooth rock as if it were sand.

"Do your best, Stella! I believe in you!" were her last audible words before the hole she created was too deep to hear anything concrete from. It was heartwarming for Stella to see her dear Wolf reacquiring the pep in her step. Of course, she'd never blame the pup for missing out on the last efforts against Yuki-onna, but she understood a self-loathing conscience all too well.

...

No time for the fuzzy feelings. Hanaken was slowly but surely approaching.

Already time to distract a bitch, huh? Stella quickly stretched herself, steeling her will for the adrenaline that would come with her role.

"Those stretches are for before the fight, you know," Hanaken teased as the girl crouched, then extended her leg fully to the side. "Here I thought you'd take this seriously. Or are you distracting me from whatever your pup mate is doing down there?" She leaned closer, her surprisingly pleasant, minty breath huffing on the Human's forehead. "Care to elaborate on what 'Strategy H' is?"

"You heard that?" Stella nonchalantly stood up and then mirrored her posture, looking down at the Oni's feet. "It's named after Sayama's least likely to get laid bachelorette."

A low yet threatening growl was elicited from Hanaken. "Back to the kindergarten insults, I see..."

"Why, I'm always concerned about accessibility," Stella smirked, looking back into the fiery yellow pits in the brute's eyes unflinchingly. "Since you never moved up from there, I might as well keep it simple for ya."

Hanaken's grin twisted with the carved frown above her mouth. "Oh, you deserve this..." She twisted her waist to the side, raising her titanic fist. "You insolent BRAT!!!"

Stella jumped out of the meteoric impact the Oni created with only one fist, summoning yet another shockwave, stronger and louder than the last, which forced the young girl to get on her fours and sink her fingers deep into the tough ground to anchor herself and avoid getting swept out of the arena!

Her fingers ached as if fire ants were mercilessly biting them, the sheer force of the dislocated air pulling her curly locks so strongly she was afraid she'd need to wear a wig for the rest of her life! However, there was still one silver lining, one theory yet to be disproven.

When the shockwave ceased, Stella pushed through the pain and cracked her hurt knuckles, putting whatever dislocated fingers back in place.

"That's all?!" Her cocky grin reignited. "Maybe it's all that fat you're carrying! You do look like a walking pile of ham..."

Hanaken growled, taking her large fist out of a crater before charging at her. "This is all PURE MUSCLE!!!"

Alright, there she came. If her blows could create those shockwaves so easily, Stella couldn't count on evading her without something extra...

"Let's burn those calories, cow!" The Human crouched, supporting herself on her toes. Her Saniya commanded two tiny earth pillars to rise at the exact angle to press against her soles as the hulking lady entered a dangerous distance!

Hanaken raised both arms above her head, preparing herself for a double axe handle!

Stella's grin was unwavering while she made the minuscule earth constructs suddenly expand, propelling herself between the Oni's legs like a rocket! As hoped, the displaced air was too slow to reach the mischievous girl, who was starting to slow down close to the center of the arena!

The crowd's vibrant cheer, which was practically muted over the louder rhythm of battle, grew stronger as Stella flipped and redirected herself midair, finishing her dying momentum by using her finger and toes as anchors once more!

"I REMEMBER THAT ONE!!!" Of all people, Asra's shout broke through the deafening haze. "SHE USED THIS AGAINST ME!!!"

Stella scoffed while standing back up, smirking. "I wonder if I can use this offensively here, though..."

The robust lady, close to the edge, had her eyes locked on the Human, daunting and blazing with visible anger all the way from here. Still, as long as the distance was kept, the girl would-

A crimson geyser shot straight up to the Heavens as a reverberating growl broke through the air and sent shivers all over Stella's skin! A few seconds later, ten boulders menacingly hovered close to the Oni. If this stoked the Human's dread, imagine the greater heights it reached when the brute's yellow sclera flashed, prompting those to melt into liquid rock, forming a group of magma blobs circling Hanaken like moons to a planet!

"So this is Hanaken's full power?" Stella gulped, assuming her battle stance, though the very foundation of her limbs was crumbling in fear. "At least, that means she's focusing solely on me."

The goddess of destruction roared before stretching her arms at the girl. "I WILL BATHE YOU TO CINDERS, INSOLENT WORM!!!"

Magmatic comets soared towards Stella, one after the other! Was Hanaken going for the kill? Has she pushed the sensitive behemoth too far? The latter question is rhetorical.

The girl frowned, steeling herself to weave through every searing projectile with the footwork she honed long before she stepped into Sayama! The battlefield trembled with each splash of molten stone, the heat stinging her eyes while she used more of her handy earth pillars to stay one step away from them!

Meanwhile... the quakes beneath her feet strengthened as she witnessed the ferocious Oni approaching her like a rampaging rhinoceros, still commanding one of her lava bombs after the other to leave her orbit and target Stella!

Could it be... that Hanaken's intent was not to hit the girl with this magma, but to keep her busy while the gap between them was closed? Clever girl...

When the last projectile vandalized the arena, forming a crust of cooling rock soup around Stella, Hanaken was too close to her, bearing a crooked grin as her fists blazed with potent fire magic.

"Gimme more, Stella!" the Oni cried, her eyes glazed with the thrill of combat. "MORE!!!"

The young girl evaded two massive, flaming fists, restrained enough not to target the earth and create more explosions.

"More?!" She summoned all her Saniya to her legs, granting her the strength to jump away from the frenzied brute for a considerable distance.

"I'll give you more!!!" The golden energy relocated to Stella's fists, forming two shining suns for her to weaponize!

Hanaken quickly pursued her much smaller opponent with the grace and poise of an elephant on cocaine. Seemingly, keeping distance was a fool's play. If Stella wanted to distract this freak to exhaustion, she'd have to play by her game.

After all, the young girl still held an advantage that could flip this entire fight to her advantage... or so she theorized.

...Oh, how she prayed her theory was correct. Bad time to be an atheist.

Her heart raced once Hanaken closed the gap once more.

"Come and get me, freak!!!"