Salt

She still had a trump card left.

“Don’t underestimate Ymir’s Ocean!!”

In response to the girl’s shout, something shot up from the ocean surface. It was a giant spike about 3 meters across and 20 meters long. It headed in a trajectory straight up from below Kanzaki as if to turn her to mincemeat. But…

“You should not underestimate a Saint.”

“Wha—?”

Just before the spike hit, Kanzaki twisted the trajectory of her water skis and evaded it with the least amount of motion. The girl sent a second and third spike, but Kanzaki moved slightly right and left to evade them. In fact, she even used the momentum of the fired spikes to jump forward a few dozen meters.

“Do you really think you can kill me with something like a pillar of salt?”

“I will kill you with a pillar of salt!!”

As Kanzaki jumped through the air, the girl moved her fingers complexly. Her reddish purple right wrist turned even darker.

More salt spikes fired up from the ocean surface.

And it was not just 2 or 3.

Enough spikes appeared to cover the ocean surface in their white color and they flew toward Kanzaki like surface-to-air missiles.

But…

“This is no different.”

Kanzaki swung her body around in midair and dodged one of the giant spikes at the last second. She continued to spin her body around and around and around and around as if she were performing some kind of trick. In doing so, she avoided the giant spikes one after another.

She then landed back on the water.

She did not lose her balance even for an instant and she used the crater-like surges from the firing of the giant spikes to accelerate more and more toward the island.

“…!!”

The girl’s breathing caught in her throat due to her tension and her fingertips unnaturally trembled in a way that had nothing to do with performing magic.

It was not enough.

It was not an issue of distance. Washing her away in a flood had not been enough. Using giant spikes made of condensed salt crystals had not been enough. She could not defeat her like that. Even if you played 100 rounds of rock paper scissors, you could not win if you could only use rock.

Yet she could not stop.

She knew she could not win, but that was no reason to stop.

-Kanzaki SS Ch. 2