(MC POV)

With the winner of each of the duels decided, the rest started to look for the next opponent for their next fight.

I find it quite interesting how the fight first began as a free for all but they ended up picking out one person to duel in the end.

In Manami's case, she found herself in front of Eris's team.

"Ara, ara? Here I was prepared to fight against Lian Li. Did she lose to you, Eris?"

Bait stepped forward while tapping the flat of her blade on her shoulder, "What? Ya thought we couldn't beat her or somethin'? Ya lookin' down on us?!"

"Ufufufu~ I think you and I both know that between the two of you, Lian Li is the stronger one, yes? I was looking forward to claiming the number one spot from her too, I guess I will have to make do with you~"

Eris brought up her blade defensively, "Do not think that it would be that easy."

"Ara, ara~ I should be saying the same thing to the four of you~"

Eris went with the same strategy of having her other three selves spread out to surround Manami, my red fox looking none too bothered at her actions.

The two sides started the fight with the materialisation of their domains, both of them trying to claim as much space around them as possible.

A small sun started to form above Manami as a manifestation of her domain, heating up the area around her while Laverna and Denna worked on suppressing it from growing any larger.

Eris and Bait then slashed their swords at Manami simultaneously, sending out invisible blades that cut through Manami's domain as it travelled towards my red fox.

Manami then raised her hand and waved her hand casually as though she was greeting a friend, causing her domain to flare up which burned the invisible blades away.

Despite the unsuccessful attempt, Eris tried the same attack again while Bait tried to get closer to her, the latter attempting to destroy Manami's domain with her own.

Once again, my red fox flared up her domain to burn through Eris's invisible blade, though it did nothing against Bait who was slowly getting closer to her target.

The sun above Manami got just a little bigger and what looked like a solar flare lashed out from the giant fireball to strike at Bait, the swordswoman barely managing to raise her sword in time to defend herself against the blow.Despite that, the attack was enough to send Bait airborne, the swordswoman flailing around for a bit before managing to regain control of herself to land on her feet.

And as though to laugh at Laverna and Denna's efforts, a second sun appeared above Manami, though this one was black in colour instead of fire red.

No doubt this was something Manami picked up after her earlier fight with Kiyomi.

Now Laverna and Denna had to split their attention in trying to suppress both suns, which didn't seem to be working as the suns still continued to expand despite their best efforts.

Eris started to focus her attention on trying to cut down Manami, probably realising that allowing her to fully materialise her suns would definitely not end well for her.

Unfortunately, even she was unable to get close to her as solar flares from both suns would immediately strike at her the moment she tried, forcing her back.

Bait even attempted to throw caution to the wind and leapt at Manami directly, relying on her domain and sword to protect her.

The first solar flare that hit her was deflected away by her sword, the impact causing it to shatter like glass. The next one struck her across the face, burning off half the skin on her face.

Despite that, Bait continued lunging forward towards Manami, even as her face started to burn and flake away into the air.

Manami even took a moment to raise an eyebrow at her before lifting her palm to point at her.

Bait only had time to widen her eyes when a black wall of flame appeared in her path before she slammed right into the wall.

Her domain held for but a second before it shattered, leaving her open to being consumed by the flames and burning up into nothingness.

Manami then refocused her attention on Eris, the swordswoman still trying to get close to Manami in an attempt to cut her down.

Eris seemed to realise that she was being targeted, leading her to leap several feet back. Just in time as well since the ground she had been standing on exploded upwards in a pillar of fire.

That was the cue for even more fire pillars to start exploding out of the ground all around Manami, blocking the red fox from view.

Eris growled in frustration before swinging her sword down in an arc in front of her.

There was a moment of silence before the pillars of fire somehow appeared to have been cut in half, the top halves of the fire disappearing into thin air.

Looks like Eris had managed to redirect the 'paths' of the flames to somewhere else.

She then leapt over the fire, just as Bait reformed herself beside her to join her in her charge.

Manami raised her hand and the two suns touched, creating a stream of red and black flames that mixed together before shooting itself towards Eris.

"Bah! I can take it!!" Bait roared, reaching out her hand to grab Eris's arm and tossing her over the flames.

The red and black flames hit Bait right in the centre of her chest, the swordswoman roaring out in pain as it burned a hole through her chest and 'killing' her for the second time in this fight.

Eris did not look back, opting to concentrate on trying to plunge her blade into Manami's chest.

She was just within a metre of her when she suddenly stopped moving in midair, having been affected by Manami's domain of pausing the beginning of her descent.

Manami then made the two suns shoot out another solar flare, this time Eris being unable to avoid it as it struck her on the head and drilling a hole through her domain to burn her directly.

The red fox watched dispassionately as her own flames burned Eris up into nothingness, only nodding to herself when the swordswoman had completely burned away.

Behind her where Laverna used to be, however, the real Eris started to slowly crept closer to Manami, having altered the 'path' of her existence at the last moment to switch places with Laverna.

It looked like she would have succeeded in another sneak attack on another one of my disciples when the two suns above Manami suddenly fused together into one entity.

The place went silent as the gravity rapidly increased for a short moment before the suns exploded, burning the entire area into cinders with Eris alongside it.

To Eris, it would have looked like a flash of white light before her vision would change to see me floating in front of her.

"Master?" She called out to my split body that was waiting for her.

"Hello Eris. It was a good try, though it seems like Manami was the one who managed to get you to drop your guard in the end."

It took Eris and her three personalities a moment to realise what had happened.

"I… Lost?" Eris asked.

I nodded.

She sighed, "As expected of sister Manami I suppose… Is Master here to pamper us?"

I sat on my knees and patted my lap, "Of course. So feel free to come over here~"

The four of them cheered and quickly ran up to hug me, each of them trying to shove the other aside just so that they could lay on my lap.

Good thing I could just make more split bodies to fix this.

So cute~