She suddenly finds herself in - a pretty normal valley, actually. One with a small waterfall spilling into a lake, that lets out into a slow river. There's a somewhat dubiously constructed wooden cabin perched between the lake and the grey cliff. She's on the other side of the lake from the cabin, with only a thin wooden bridge leading across it.

There's also a woman stepping out of the cabin - long white hair, white (and somewhat skimpy) dress that's cut on the sides, baring her thighs, and has a low neckline and a diamond cut out over her stomach. She has a white sword with a black edge strapped to her waist. And, notably, she has a flower in place of her right eye, and her left arm is made of metal. She pulls up short as soon as Eliese appears, her hand going to her sword's hilt. She doesn't say anything, though, just stares suspiciously. 

Interesting fashion sense. And body mods.

"Hello there."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Eliese. And you?"

She crosses her arms. "Zero."

"A pleasure to meet you, Zero. I don't suppose you've seen a large snake with a mirror-like face around anywhere, have you?"

"No. Though I wouldn't put making that kind of abomination past my sisters. Why? You hunting one?"

"One was the reason I appeared here so suddenly. Or so I assume."

"It teleported you or something?"

"Apparently so."

"Then where are you from?"

"The academy on Vulstix, most recently."

"Don't recognize that name. Is Vulstix an island?"

"It is a planet."

"What the hell's a planet?"

"A world that orbits a star. Typically spherical."

"Like, in the sky?"

Eliese is rapidly reevaluating her opinion of how much of a backwater this is.

"Exactly."

"Huh. Knew about other universes. Didn't know there were also a bunch of sky people."

"Other universes?" she says, raising a brow.

"Like whichever fucking one the dragons and Cathedral City came from."

"I am not familiar with those."

"Then you're lucky."

"Cathedral City's this massive city with weird ass buildings. The whole thing appeared overnight, like, a couple hundred years ago I guess? It was totally empty except for monsters - the dragons and wyverns are the only ones that left the city, but there's also these giant flying skeleton assholes and demons and shit still hanging around. People tried living there, found out it had magic, then they fucked around with the magic and the whole fucking place got depopulated, again. People were smart enough to stay the hell way after that - until recently when the Intoners set up shop."

"The dragons are people - obnoxious people, but they can talk - but I don't think any of the other monsters are."

"Interesting... And how do you know these are from other universes? The dragons?"

"Yeah, and the city had like a ton of books in it even if I guess it took a while for people to figure out how to read them, and there's some stuff with the magic. Magic's from the city."

"I should very much like to see this city."

"Its leader's on my hit list."

"And why would that be?"

She crosses her arms again. "We're both Intoners. If I kill her, then I take her power."

"Intoners?"

She frowns (as far as Eliese can tell, mostly at the topic of discussion). "Six magic assholes right now - one magic asshole when I'm done." Her frown deepens and twists into an intense scowl. "We're the most dangerous things in our world."

That is no longer true, Eliese suspects. She hums.

"I see. Have you a more concrete plan for facing your enemies? I ask because, as it happens, my primary occupation before this unexpected translocation was training magic users to kill others of their kind more effectively. As I find myself presently in need of a native guide, it seems to me we might come to a mutually beneficial agreement."

"There's an order I need to kill them in," she admits, grudgingly. "And I'll pick up their disciples after I kill them to help me with the next.

"Each of them's set up ruling a different country. I'm going to walk in and fight them until they're permanently dead."

"You certainly don't lack for audacity."

"Pussyfooting around's never helped."

"Indeed not."

"How strong are you?"

"I once glassed half a planet."

"Strong, then," she acknowledges. "Definitely enough for all the trash around them, and any demons they summon. Intoners can only be permanently injured or killed by other Intoners though - or by dragons. Strong alone won't cut it there."

"I do have some more subtle tricks."

She thinks then shrugs. "Let's see if you can hurt me."

"Do you have any preferences as to the location?"

"How hard's your minimum?"

"It is an entirely variable scale. Anything from, say, a sunburn to vaporization." Headtilt. "Were you an ordinary person, of course. I myself have ways of mitigating damage and I cannot yet say how you might interact with my magic."

Shrug. "I've already got a source for prosthetic arms, if you might blow a limb off. But if all I'm risking is a scar, I'd rather that be hidden under my clothes."

"The major regen'll only kick in for massive damage, and even if you don't block that it's still an inconvenient pain in the ass, but it'd cover vaporization and shit. I'll still heal quickly and without a mark from minor shit, though. And it should be all or nothing - either you can scratch me, or you can't kill me."

"Shall we try a scratch, then?"

"Sure." She pulls her top down (with the first smile Eliese has seen on her face) and gestures to the left side of her chest. "Under where the clothes go."

Smirk. "As you say."

She crooks her right hand into a claw and incants, "Five-fold Storm Talons!" Sharp blades of lightning fizzle into existence on each of her fingers, and she shallowly slashes up along the outer side of Zero's breast.

Her expressions stays perfectly even throughout - she doesn't flinch or make a sound when Eliese cuts her. "An interesting trick," she says - and the wound closes, leaving behind only the blood that Eliese drew. 

"As is yours." She holds her hand up to her face, inspecting the droplets on blood caught on the edges. She puffs out a soft breath to extinguish the claws, then licks the blood off her fingers.

Smirk!

"Looks like you can't scratch me after all."

"Not permanently, it seems."

"Fortunate in some ways. Unfortunate in that my sisters are similarly protected."

"As I said, I have other tricks than main force."

"What kind of tricks?" (She still isn't pulling her top back up.)

"Combat relevant ones? Battlefield control, illusions, various debilitations. I have been interested in curses of late. I could also operate in a support role, focusing on enhancing your capabilities. Besides that... I have at least dabbled in every aspect of magic I am aware of, enough that I am confident in my ability to construct a bespoke solution to any problem that presents itself, given time."

She frowns, then, quickly (before she can pause or change her mind): "Can you manipulate souls? Minds? Can you raise the dead, or banish the unliving? Can you target things without a physical form?" And, intensely: "Can you rip someone's magic out of them?" 

"Minds yes, souls are not a coherent concept where I come from. I could heal someone from the brink of death but not restore life. Like souls I have no experience with what you term the unliving. Something without a physical form... if it were otherwise sufficiently well-specified, possibly. To rip one's magic out... at home the entities that grant our magic would actively sabotage any such attempts. If yours is not granted from the same source I doubt the same consideration would apply, but I would be starting from more or less a blank slate."

"Could you transform an animal into a person, or create a person out of nothing? Can you bind people's wills? Can you manipulate time? Can you move between universes or divergent timelines? Can you observe past or future events? Can you grant lasting power to others? If your magic is opposed by another's will, what happens?"

"No and no. Not without a great deal of work. The perception of it but not the reality. Not yet. No. No. It would depend on who is stronger, I suppose; in my world magic can only be opposed by magic."

" - Do you know of an android named Accord?"

"No, I do not."

Thoughtful frown. Then: "Can you observe magic directly? If a body is inhabited by two things, could you target only one of them? - Actually, scratch that, can you try to rip my soul or lifeforce or magic or mind or whatever out of my body?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Does that matter?" she asks, oddly bitterly. 

"If I would be simply indulging a kink, I prefer a little more reciprocity to those arrangements. Otherwise, more information will aid my visualization, which can help avoid... undesired side effects."

"Fucking hell."

"I don't think ripping shit out by the roots will work, but I've got a fucking magic - parasite or shit - hooked into my fucking body and soul. It'll die if it's ripped out of my body. I want it dead, and I don't fucking care if that puts me back in the ground." (From her brittle tone, she probably cares.) "And I can tell what people are fucking doing to me. I'll get info from how you fail."

"I see. Might you permit me a few moments to do an initial survey and make preparations, or do you prefer I move directly to experimenting with whatever comes to mind in the hopes that this parasite will be taken by surprise?"

Huff. "I've been trying to get rid of it for three years. I can wait."

"Perhaps then we might repair to somewhere more comfortable."

"Inside, I guess." She jerks her head back through the cabin's open door, then turns on her heel and strides in without waiting for Eliese.

She follows.

The place is fairly run-down - it looks like it was abandoned for a while before Zero moved in, and like Zero's never intended to stay here long. She seems to have next to no possessions, just her sword and the clothes she's wearing. She perches on what passes for a bed and asks, "Need me to do anything?"

"I require a few moments to adjust the sensory spell. Further background on the parasite would be helpful, though not necessary."

"...I don't like talking about it." She huffs, though, and gestures at the flower growing out of her eye. "This fucking thing's part of it."

"More of a symptom than a cause, I assume."

"Not really. The flower's its physical form. ...Kind of. It's complicated. The flower sprouted after the last time I died."

"How many times have you died?"

Uncomfortable shrug. "First time was before this damn thing crawled into my body. Dunno how long I was dead, but it brought me back. I've died like, two times since. Last one was thanks to a fucking dragon blowing off my arm."

"Quite unusual. Hold still a moment."

"Eyes of Heaven with Sight Beyond Sight." Eliese's eyes flash purple with mystic power, and she turns her gaze on Zero and her parasite.

Zero's not too happy about the scrutiny; Eliese isn't exactly getting the sense that she's a private person, though, more that she's been burned a lot in the past. 

The flower in her eye has roots throughout her body, wrapping especially around and through vital organs - and many of its roots terminate in something beyond sight. It's immensely magical, far moreso than Zero. Possibly, actually, the source of Zero's magic - other than the evil flower infection, she looks like a normal human. Not even a dead human - though her lungs are thoroughly fucked, and it looks like the flower's taken their place, and what's left of her own lungs are badly scarred. She has deep marks like lashes on her back, too, though her skin is unbroken and perfectly smooth.

She shakes her head once and cancels the spell.

"You'll need new lungs, at the very least."

"Explains all the blood I was coughing up the first time," she says, only somewhat sarcastically. 

"It would."

"Unfortunately, I do not think any of my arsenal suitable for attacking this problem as it stands."

"You said you can develop things."

"I did, and I can. But it will take time."

"How much?"

"A few days. Perhaps a week."

Thoughtful frown. "...How sure are you that it'll work?"

"I am very good at killing things. Even- perhaps especially- magical things. What I am more concerned about is limiting the collateral damage. If I wanted to vaporize the parasite, and you, and everything else including the terrain in a five mile radius, I could do that today. Perhaps tomorrow morning if I wished to be excessively certain of my own survival."

"...I still care that it dies more than anything."

"But I suppose a week isn't that much more of a delay."

"It is not, as these things go."

"It'll get stronger over time. But it's already been growing for years."

"Just try to avoid dying again in the meantime."

"My sisters haven't come after me since last time. They'll probably leave me alone until I start attacking them again."

"Very considerate of them."

"Their mistake."

"Always appreciate when your enemy makes a mistake."

"They've made a lot, though more would be better."

"As is ever the case."

She's quiet for a long moment.

Then: "If your plan works... I might not have to fight them."

"Possibly."

"...Flower's rooted in me, but - anchored in them. I have to kill them to get rid of it."

"Whereas if you had a way to attack the parasite directly instead... I see."

"Might still complicate removing it entirely, though."

"I think you will lose your magic, if you do."

"It's not my fucking magic. I don't need something else's power." She actually sounds like she means it, unlike with her declarations that she doesn't care if she outlives the parasite.

"As you say. I wouldn't want it to be an unexpected surprise, in the event."

Small huff. "Thanks."

"But I've been expecting to die without it for years. Anything else is a pleasant surprise."

"Fair enough."

"And even people without stupid parasitic evil flowers growing in them can learn to use magic, and even if most of them are trash - I won't be."

"I see."

Another huff.

"I'm getting tired of talking about this."

"A change of subject, then. I believe it might be your turn to ask a question."

Hum. "You worked at some kind of school, right?"

"Indeed. The Imperial Charter, it is called. The finest center of magical education in the entire Domain." Her lips quirk. "Of course, it is also the only such institution..."

"Got better when they recruited you?"

"If you will not think I flatter myself overmuch by saying so."

"Not if it's true."

"Then yes, I do believe I made a positive impact in the overall quality of education given there."

"Good for them."

"And for me as well, it must said. It was... a welcome change from the front lines."

"You were a soldier?"

"'Warrior' would be a more accurate word. Not much good at orders or teamwork, you see. No magical girl really is, at the end of the day."

"I've never been one for orders, either. And I suck at teamwork, so."

"The trick is too be good enough that you are easy to work around, and can easily work around others."

"Other people get in my way." (Or, usually, die stupidly because she can't protect them.)

"I will strive not to repeat those mistakes."

"Good."

"Perhaps I can even teach you a thing or two."

"Going to put all your teacherly talent into it?"

"If required."

"Give it your best."

"Already planning to be a difficult student?"

"No teacher's survived me yet."

"I am rather hard to kill."

"Good."

"Though I would be obliged if you didn't try too hard."

"Then where's the challenge?"

"I'm sure something else suitable could be arranged."

"Oh?"

"I note you've yet to put your shirt back on."

She snorts. "If you want something, say it."

"How about this for a challenge- if you can get my shirt off in one piece, I'll let you keep it." She's wearing a rather nice blouse at the moment, soft, breathable fabric in a dark green flatteringly fitted with half-length sleeves.

"You planning to fight back?"

"That would be more challenging, no?"

She smirks and steps closer to Eliese, teasingly - and blatantly - reaching for the bottom hem of her shirt.

Eliese's hand slaps Zero's away, blindingly fast.

Oh she's on.

(Zero's hand: fails to be properly slapped away. Eliese needs to course correct mid-slap, for one, as Zero yanks her hand to the side - and even once she makes contact, Zero's hand is remarkably not-going-anywhere; Eliese is stronger but would probably need sustained pressure or a much harder hit to really knock Zero off balance.)

Also, relatedly: Zero's now trying to punch Eliese in the face, also blindingly fast. (Eliese said no tearing the shirt. She didn't say anything about the rest of her body.) (Her form's pretty blatantly not formally trained; she's an experienced brawler, not a soldier nor martial artist. She's remarkably good at not telegraphing her movements - one movement Eliese is pushing her hand away, the next Zero's other fist is flying at her.)

...And, simultaneously, she's kicking at Eliese's ankle, and grabbing Eliese's slapping hand.

Her ankle she doesn't allow to give at all, though Eliese will deign to allow her head to be twisted to the side by the punch. (An unaugmented human's extremities would still be broken by the impact in both cases.) The latter action is mostly to make it harder for Zero to read her lips as she incants a spell that causes her grabbed hand to burst into flame.

Zero's reaction to holding on to a fiery wrist is, as befits her name, exactly zero. She instead squeezes and twists, as if she's testing the breakability of Eliese's joints - 

- And digs suddenly clawed finger-tips into the skin, and she grabs for Eliese's neck with her free hand. 

"Clingy one, aren't you?" Eliese says as Zero connects. Her fire hand extinguishes itself, and Eliese slowly forces it out and to the side.

And then, seeing as both Zero's hands are occupied but she still has one free- "Gelskin," she says, and Zero loses all purchase on her body as Eliese delivers a full-force palm strike to her sternum.

That moves her! She goes flying back. ...Though she decelerates faster than physics would suggest possible, flipping and somehow ending up in a crouch about ten or so feet from Eliese.

"You're strong," she says, approvingly, and then she takes a swing - 

Without getting any closer. Instead, a red shockwave trails from her fingertips like claw slashes, hitting even harder than she does as it snaps at Eliese's legs. 

Followed very quickly by Zero, who blurs - 

And is suddenly behind Eliese.

It's been a long time since she's sparred this close to her level.

Hop up into the air over the shockwave, spin and snap a kick at Zero's face.

Zero grabs for her leg before she can make contact. 

"Ice Spike," which grows out of her foot at the same speed, continuing the trajectory.

Zero ignores that! (The blow lands, and does actually successfuly cut her. Like every other time Eliese has plausibly damaged her, she doesn't react.) And instead yanks at Eliese's leg, possibly trying to get her off balance, possibly trying to rip a joint or two out of alignment, while striking for Eliese's core with her other hand. 

Hard to get leverage when Eliese can support her center of gravity at will, hovering in midair. Incidentally, this makes it much easier to do improbable twisting dodges.

She does her own improbable twisting (partially supported by Eliese's leg) to try and kick Eliese in the head as she's dodging the earlier blow.

Head: is bonk. Head is then spinning back around to deliver Zero's head a bonk of its own.

She's apparently aiming to turn the oncoming collision into the world's most aggressive kiss, and she grabs Eliese's shoulders.

She's fine with that.

And what about Zero slowly, sneakily pulling up her shirt while kissing her? 

She's not quite distracted enough for that to work, alas.

She can increase the distractingness of the kisses (though she's going to get frustrated soon).

Perhaps she should occupy her hands in other ways. Eliese can demonstrate.

Hmmm... Still doesn't result in Eliese's shirt coming off. 

Alas.

Seems conventional means aren't helping Zero there...

As a magical girl of her experience, Eliese is more or less immune to inducement by conventional force, it's true.

Then it's time for unconventional means - 

Which apparently translates into Zero screaming as she starts to glow - a brilliant white fading out into bloody red light, power swirling around her, probably outright disintegrating any normal clothes in her blast zone - 

Also: not particularly safe to be standing this close to her. 

After one accumulates enough power to push themselves beyond normal limits continually, the next trick learned is extended that superhuman durability to the things one wears. Unless one happens to be a particularly showy sort, admittedly. Eliese has known one or two girls of that persuasion, who prefer to spend that magic on fanciful glamours. Not her preferred approach.

Still, best not to spend too much time in the vicinity.

She swipes at Eliese - 

And multiple overlapping claw-like shockwaves - as if she's condenscing all the attacks she could've done into one blow - snap at Eliese - and Zero's significantly faster than she had been (to her, the rest of the world looks slowed down, distorted like it's moving and being seen through thick water, light bending at odd angles - this is incredibly difficult to tell from outside her, since she's glowing brightly enough there's not a lot of visible details from her body, but she does seem oddly blurred) - and she's attacking again even before her first attack technically finishes, pursuing Eliese, keeping close - 

The intentional attack is far, far more deadly than simply being near her.

Time to get a little more serious, then. She snaps out the words of a spell to invert a target's perception of time to buy a bit of space to reposition- a quiet favorite of hers, usually unexpected and scaling in effectiveness in proportion to the ability of the opponent.

That... Doesn't seem to actually affect her. (She's swinging more or less blindly at Eliese, and as far as she's concerned, she's at her baseline perception of time - )

(Her time is just a little bit different from Eliese's time right now.)

She continues pressing the attack, more and more viciously. 

Unfortunate. A change of stratagy, then. Barriers, physical and magical, bindings, delaying actions, aiming to slow Zero down or box her in, while Eliese pours speed into her flight. Let's see who runs low first.

Bindings don't take, and she has some trouble with barriers but can burst through them with a few slashes - she keeps up with Eliese's speed, continually attacking her - 

And then between one moment and the next, the weird glow ends and she snaps back into the normal timeline - though she somehow now has her sword in her hand, despite having made no motion to draw it - and she doesn't actually stumble at all, or seem affected by the glowing mode ending. She's back to fighting at her previous level, maybe a bit more energetically even.

That's... worrying. Eliese isn't close to done yet, but if Zero's rebuilding faster than she is, this only ends one way.

She drops a large blast for cover, darts backward- and swiftly removes her shirt.

She pulls to a stop. "Surrendering already?"

"This was never going to be a fight to the death. I'm satisfied with what I've learned so far."

"That you'd lose a real fight?"

"While staying primarily defensive, yes."

"Means you'll need me to fight the other Intoners, then - I'm stronger than they are, but they're the same kind of thing as me."

"By then I hope to have more effective weapons."

"Going on the offensive will help. And - last time, they only beat me because One summoned a demon dragon between me and the others. My bet is they'll try to recreate that - most of them will only manage normal demons. Those'll sap their magic, but they should be plenty vulnerable to you."

"I'd like to test that in advance- you shrugged off some things I was expecting to be effective."

"Which ones?"

"The timeswap, mainly- just after you started glowing."

"Timeswap? Thought you said you can't affect time."

"Only the perception of it."

"The power I used wasn't affecting perception. It was affecting reality."

"Yes, I was hoping to create a clash in a more useful manner."

"I noticed something with my perception getting wonkier than it normally does, but I'm just attacking anywhere you might be, so I don't think it affected me much."

"That's one way to work around it."

"One and maybe Two'll be the same, there, but the others might be weak enough that technique would make a major dent - though I don't think One's going to try fighting us directly."

"How many of your sisters are there?"

"Five - they're numbered."

"In order of strength?"

"And creation order - though they're not much older than each other, but there's a... Noticable maturity gap, I guess. And their false memories I think give them a year's difference for each number?"

"I see."

"I'm going to start with Five and work my way down."

"Building up to the big finish. Do they cooperate well enough to prepare defenses if one is attacked?"

"Somewhat. One's the main organizer."

"How bad an idea would it be to take her first?"

"Won't work. She's protected by the others, same way I am. Five's the only vulnerable one right now. Four'll be vulnerable once I kill Five. It's like that all the way down the list."

"How do you mean, protected?"

"I can't die while the other five are alive. One can't die until Two through Five are dead. Etcetera etcetera, until we hit Four who only needs Five to die before I can kill her. I can just go ahead and kill Five."

"How very interesting."

"I'm guessing it's something about how this asshole flower anchored itself."

"That does seem likely."

"...It created them from me. They're not really my sisters. They just think they are."

Eliese hums. Based on earlier conversation, probably a philosophic examination of what the difference false memories and real memories make to a person will not be welcomed.

Sigh. "Anyways..."

She makes a point then of examining Eliese's currently exposed chest - a pretty clear topic change, especially given she'd been totally unfazed by actual nudity. 

Eliese offers up her shirt.

She takes it with a smile - though she doesn't put it on, just holds it. "This is a good fabric," she says, mildly, like she isn't still examining Eliese's body. 

"A special blend. Custom tailored for me."

"You're a rich girl, huh?"

"With all the power at my disposal, it would be harder to be poor, I think. And besides, the Domain is always eager to buy the continued loyalty of its most experience magical girls."

"I wouldn't know."

"Perhaps I shall have the opportunity to teach you, at some point."

"I've never cared about that kind of shit."

"There are benefits."

"I just steal anything I don't have."

"One way to become rich, if you do it often enough."

"...I get by."

"So you do, of course."

Shrug. 

"But I think we might have gotten distracted again..."

"From the more important things."

Eliese strikes a pose with a hand on her hip and smirks.

Very nice. 

"Based on that reaction, I'm assuming I won't be getting my shirt back any time soon."

"You'd have to steal it back."

"Sounds difficult. I think I'll put that off for a while."

"Suit yourself."

"I always do."

Cute.

"Are you content with just looking?"

"You are pretty."

"You were not so shy about laying your hands on me but moments ago."

That sounds like a challenge to her.

She steps up to it, of course - grabbing Eliese's shoulder to pull her in. 

Excellent.

Not bad. 

She likes to think she's learned from experience, over the course of her many years.

How old is she? 

Two and a half centuries, give or take.

...Lots of time to gather experience, then. 

So it goes.

Much more than Zero's gotten. 

Give it time.

"Until I'm an old lady like you?"

"That depends how active you are. Or... receptive to instruction."

Shrug. "I don't need to be taught shit. And I'm a lot less active than I used to be, so."

Shrug. "Suit yourself."

"I always do," she says, teasingly.

"Wonderful."

"Though this is the first time I've kissed someone who's thirteen times my age, give or take."

"I hope not the last."

"I'd be disappointed if it was."

"And I do so hate to crush a young woman's hopes."

"That works out."

"Good." Kiss.

Kiss!

Very nice.

So glad she's pleased.

More than just pleased, right now.

Naturally.

Kiss! (Zero is, actually, a pretty talented - and experienced - kisser herself.)

How much else is she experienced with, Eliese wonders...

A lot. Zero can demonstrate...

Please do.

Not the worst way to spend their time.

Fortunately so, as there does not appear to be much else to do in the immediate vicinity.

Five lives near enough.

Eliese would like to get the curse ready before that.

Is Zero distracting her from that?

She'll have to work a bit harder to make that happen.

She probably shouldn't.

Likely not, no.

She'll let Eliese focus, then. Maybe leave her be for a bit - ?

If Zero won't get too bored. Though Eliese has always found intermittent light physical exercise is good for focus.

A bit of variety? (And Zero's been alone for years - Eliese doesn't have to worry about her getting bored.)

Something like that.

That's something she can provide.

How very hospitable of her.

First time anyone's called her 'hospitable.'

Most people would probably be more turned off by the fight. Or pulverized.

Zero's killed just about everyone she's fought, true - her sisters and Eliese excepted. 

Zero's hospitality is an exclusive club.

Only Eliese is invited.

Fine by her.

Not one to share?

Only if she gets a compelling offer.

Zero's not one to bargain, but fortunately Eliese currently lacks competition.

Indeed.

Though, speaking of Eliese's work... What can Zero do to help?

If she will consent to further examination (sittting still for 15-20 minutes at a go) and intermediate testing (painful), that will speed the process up some.

She's fine with both (and though the sitting still is a little annoying at times, it doesn't last too long).

Then, five days later, after waking up in the morning, Eliese announces that she believes she has something worth a serious try.

Then let's do it.

"You might want to sit down for this."

She will.

Then here we go. Eliese settled on a moderately long incantation during the development- she suspects she'll need the extra power as much as the focus and finesse.

She raises her hand and points at the flower growing out of Zero's eye. "Roots Unbound that Coil and Surge to Seek the Life from Life Within." A sickly green flare lashes out to attack the flower.

That gets a sound out of Zero - a strangled, teeth-clenched scream - the flower twists and writhes and then starts to shrivel like a dying rose - 

- And then Zero goes pale, and her skin withers like the flower's petals - 

- And she collapses, and the flower surges from her eye, grows until within a single heartbeat each of its petals is larger than Eliese - 

And Zero emerges, naked and bloody and whole, from its center as it withers and dies - 

And yet the flower is whole and undamaged in her eye.

She is, also, cursing up a storm.

"I surmise that did not entirely work as intended."

"Goddamned bitch flower fucking killed me! ARGH!" She kicks the pile of bloody ash her old body and the enormous flower are turning into, scattering them into nothingness. 

"And thereby rid itself of the curse, through your regeneration. Unfortunate. More intelligence than I was hoping for."

"At least the fucking asshole didn't give me more fake sisters this time."

"Small mercies."

"It seems we will have to deal with the ones you already have first after all."

"...The spell might still dislodge it from them non-fatally, at least."

"Depending how spiteful it is."

"It was panicking, I think - and it's never killed me before, even though normally me dying roots it in deeper. Think that cost it somehow... And - "

"I don't know. If they can survive it being removed - I don't know if it'll be able to kill them."

"One way to find out."

"Worse comes to worse - I was already planning to kill them."

"True."

"Do you need more time to work on it?"

"There's always room for improvement. Practically speaking- if we can get to Five within... hm, ten minutes of a real fight starting? It won't be a problem. More than that and I'll need to get the efficiency ratio to a better place."

"Five's pretty likely to attack us. So either it'll be right away, or it'll be a lot longer than ten minutes."

"Then we should endeavor to make it right away."

"I can hold her, her disciple, and any demons they try to throw at us while you attack the flower in her."

Eliese nods. "Sound tactics. I'll want a day of rest before we face her, but I am fit to travel."

"Alright."

"When should we leave?"

Shrug. "As soon as you get up."

"That close? Then we have the rest of the day to ourselves, it seems."

"I thought you needed rest."

"I won't be doing much more magic today, which is the main concern."

Then just give Zero a bit of time to wash up.

Fair enough.

Zero collects her clothes from the ash smudge and heads downstream to wash the rebirth gunk off her body and the remnants of bloody ash out of her clothes.

Eliese will await her return.

She returns quickly. 

Wouldn't want the rest day to be delayed, after all. There's just so much to do.

And someone to do. 

As it were.

Makes sure they'll sleep well. 

And all the better.

Multiple benefits. 

Just the way she likes it.

Convenient when it happens like that. 

Providential.

Zero doesn't believe in providence.

The result of their own hard work, then.

She'll accept that. 

Excellent.

Though sadly it'll eventually be time for Zero to sleep.