Capricorn reached Kagura first, curling his fingers into tiger-like claws as he struck directly for her face.
But Kagura had already drawn her weapons.
The blade in her left hand swept horizontally and forced Capricorn back.
An ordinary sword might not have been able to injure a Celestial Spirit like him, but both of Kagura's weapons were exceptional blades.
At the same time, she flicked the sword in her right hand aside and casually cut through the golden sphere of energy Loki had fired with Regulus.
Lucy, clad in her Capricorn Star Dress, came in with a kick.
Kagura simply bent forward and let the strike pass over her, planted the tips of her sword and blade against the ground for balance, then kicked Lucy squarely in the backside.
"AHH!"
Lucy went flying.
When Loki and Capricorn tried to close in from both sides again, Kagura pivoted sharply.
Her two weapons spun with her like a wall of steel, leaving neither Celestial Spirit willing to enter her reach.
That exposed one of Lucy's greatest weaknesses.
Even with the Capricorn Star Dress granting her access to Capricorn's close-combat techniques, Lucy herself was still the one performing them.
She could imitate his style, but she could not fight with the same effortless precision as Capricorn.
Hand-to-hand combat had never been Lucy's strong suit.
Still flying backward, Lucy caught herself on both hands, flipped over, and changed Star Dresses in the same motion.
Sagittarius Star Dress.
Green battle attire covered her body, her long blonde hair tied into a single ponytail.
A bow appeared in one hand and a sword in the other.
Loki and Capricorn attacked again.
Kagura leaned aside to evade Loki's Regulus-enhanced kick, then used the momentum of her turn to bring her blade upward.
When Capricorn swept low at her legs, she launched herself into the air, changed her grip in mid-motion, and brought her weapon around in reverse.
Clang! Clang!
Her sword and blade moved with the rotation of her body, intercepting Capricorn's attack while simultaneously cutting apart the powerful arrow Lucy had been charging.
But the force behind Lucy's shot exceeded Kagura's expectations.
The impact hurled her backward.
She quickly stabbed both weapons into the ground and used them to stop herself.
Loki immediately pressed the advantage with a whipping kick.
Kagura ducked beneath it and, without interrupting the motion, reversed her grip and slashed horizontally across his midsection.
Loki had not expected her recovery to be so fast.
The blow sent him flying.
Capricorn attacked from her flank at almost the same instant, but Kagura's right-hand sword thrust out to meet him.
After several exchanges, Capricorn realized that trying to overwhelm Kagura barehanded was not going to work.
"Miss Lucy, may I borrow your sword?"
"Sure!"
Lucy tossed him the sword from her Sagittarius Star Dress.
Capricorn caught it cleanly.
With a weapon in his hands, his threat level rose immediately.
He charged Kagura and unleashed a ferocious sword combination, his blade striking five times in the span of a single second.
Clang-clang-clang—!
Kagura caught an upward strike in reverse grip, redirected the force, then brought her weapon down in a crushing overhead slash.
Capricorn raised his sword and blocked.
Sparks burst between the blades.
Several rocky outcroppings had been placed around the arena.
Lucy leapt from one to another until she reached higher ground, intending to use the elevation to line up a clear shot at Kagura.
Loki had recovered by then and rushed back into the fight.
Faced with both him and Capricorn attacking at once, Kagura dropped her center of gravity and abruptly changed direction.
All three began moving at high speed, almost like hunting cats skimming over the ground as they fought on the run.
Kagura was doing it deliberately.
As long as she kept moving unpredictably, Lucy could not get a clean aim.
Then Kagura finally revealed her fangs.
"Gravity Suppression: Full Power!"
A vast purple magic circle spread across the sky and covered the entire arena.
Loki, who had been sprinting low to the ground, instantly lost his balance.
He dropped face-first and practically performed a formal New Year's bow for the audience.
Kagura and Capricorn both managed to steady themselves by driving their weapons into the ground.
But Kagura had one advantage.
She was holding two weapons.
Archenemy flashed.
Capricorn was caught off guard and slashed backward.
Loki was already trying to roll upright, but Kagura brought her weapons together, spun, and cut horizontally across his body before striking him across the face with the flat of her sword.
Just as she prepared to press the attack, four arrows came streaking toward her from different directions.
Capricorn had also recovered and was charging again.
Kagura chose not to block.
She ran.
She moved behind one of the arena's enormous rocks just as Lucy's four tracking arrows struck it.
BOOM!
The rock exploded into fragments, filling the battlefield with dust.
Kagura immediately used the smoke as cover.
A spectral azure bird burst from the haze and shot toward Lucy's elevated position.
Lucy had no choice but to leap down from the rock to evade it.
She succeeded.
But the forced movement ruined her rhythm.
When she tried to climb back to high ground, her body suddenly felt much heavier than before.
Lucy clenched her teeth.
'Crap... I'm almost out of Magic Power.'
She had been maintaining two Celestial Spirit Gates while also using a Star Dress, and the battle against Kagura had already lasted quite a while.
That was exactly what Kagura had been waiting for.
Her strategy had never required her to defeat Lucy, Loki, and Capricorn outright while all three were attacking together.
She only needed to drag the battle out.
Maintaining two Gates and a Star Dress consumed Magic Power far faster than anything Kagura was using.
And Kagura had deliberately saved Gravity Magic—something she rarely relied on these days—as a surprise weapon.
It had even allowed her to seize the advantage for a time.
Loki and Capricorn normally spent their lives in the Celestial Spirit World and had very little experience fighting Kagura. Back when Kagura used to punish Loki for his womanizing, she had never even needed Gravity Magic.
Neither of them had anticipated that she would suddenly bring it out now.
Realizing she needed to reduce the strain on herself, Lucy closed Loki's Gate first and left Capricorn to continue the fight.
Kagura pressed down against Capricorn's sword with the blade in her left hand, initially attempting to disarm him.
Capricorn was no ordinary opponent, however.
When the disarm failed, Kagura immediately reversed the motion and swept the blade upward toward his face.
Capricorn raised his sword horizontally and knocked it aside.
The instant Kagura's first weapon was deflected, the sword in her right hand followed.
This time she aimed low, cutting toward Capricorn's legs.
His reflexes were excellent.
He jerked backward just before the blade reached him, then immediately shifted into a counterattack, bringing his sword down toward Kagura's wrist.
Kagura changed her horizontal slash into a forward lunge and rising cut.
Steel met steel again.
The fight settled into a relentless exchange of close-range swordplay, interrupted every so often by Lucy firing arrows from a distance.
Kagura answered with ambushes of her own.
At one point, she suddenly hurled Archenemy straight at Lucy.
Lucy watched the blade rapidly grow larger in her vision.
At the last possible instant, she poured the last of her Magic Power into opening another Gate.
"Open, Gate of the Clock! Horologium!"
Horologium appeared around her just before the weapon struck.
Kagura had expected it.
She knew that even if Lucy herself failed to react in time, Horologium would often appear automatically to protect her.
It was effectively Lucy's emergency survival measure—and one that triggered with remarkable reliability.
The battle between Lucy and Kagura continued for quite some time.
Eventually, Lucy's Magic Power approached complete exhaustion. She could no longer maintain either her Star Dress or Capricorn's Gate.
That finally brought the match to an end.
Kagura was declared the winner.
She had hardly emerged untouched, however.
Capricorn had put her under considerable pressure in close combat, and one of Lucy's fully charged arrows had landed cleanly during the fight.
Their match lacked the enormous spell collisions common to many high-level Mage battles, but the constant clash of blades and sparks made it every bit as exhilarating to watch.
Kagura had looked remarkably composed even while facing three coordinated opponents at the beginning.
That came from years of training against her three sword spirits.
Not many people spent their childhood practicing one-against-three battles against three opponents who moved independently, understood one another instinctively, and coordinated without needing to speak.
Lucy accepted the result without much complaint.
The gap between her and Kagura in Magic Power, physical training, and childhood discipline was simply too large.
When Lucy had been young, she had been far too mischievous to take meditation, etiquette lessons, or physical conditioning seriously.
She had slacked off on practically all of it.
The only thing that really bothered her was Capricorn's parting remark before returning to the Celestial Spirit World.
"Miss Lucy, it appears your training will need to become considerably more rigorous."
Lucy recoiled in horror.
"DON'T YOU DARE COME NEAR ME!!!"