"See, this is what I'm talking about."

Bella shrugs her shoulders as she turns her head for a moment to watch the action unfold. She predicted this. Counted on it, more like. But that isn't really the same thing as seeing it coming. 

For one thing, most of it doesn't really make a lot of sense? The Codexia opened with an absolute hailstorm of knives, all just sharp and lethal and thrown as perfectly as you like. Surely the move would be to dodge, somehow? Y'know, do one of those bull... shark martial arts thingies and step between the shadows of the blades or whatever. Or maybe she knows how to turn her sword into a shield? Or she could dig up part of the floor with a quick slash and use [i]that![/i] Right like... you can picture that, yeah? 

This is a sliiiiiiight overestimation of the subtlety a girl who cut a spaceship in half by whacking it really hard with a sharp object is actually capable of. What she does instead is make a little "hyup!" noise and slash the knives as they come at her. Not, like, a series of faster-than-lightning cuts in a flurry worthy of some perfected master. No, she swings once. She cuts [i]once[/i]. And all of the terrible blades coming to end her fall at her feet. 

It's as if she summoned the wind with her blade, even though she hadn't swung particularly hard or fast. It's as if she cut the air itself and opened a little hole that everything just tumbled helplessly through. The glittering, silvery afterimage of her slice still hangs in the air like a painting of her intention. She smiles, and flips the sword in her hand. Carefully, she plants her foot. Hyupfully, she hyahs. Her second slash is aimed at the lightning carrying these peerless warriors above her. It is a bright and gaudy pink rising up toward the ceiling of the palace, even though none of the light that could be reflecting off of the weapon could possibly have matched this hue. 

Bella blinks. She does her best to return her attention to the matter at hand, but her Auspex keeps wandering against her will to track the fight.

"You phrase it all so carefully! One second it feels like you're speaking to me directly, but then I think it over and there's not a word in there that isn't talking just to Redana. My whole life I've been left to wonder if you meant for me to hear any of it all. But here we are, aren't we? You listened to my proposal. Tell me, Mother, is this the only way you and I get to have a conversation?"

The wall of flames consuming the palace starts to dim. The air fills with a kaleidoscope of colors in its place. The silver and the pink, but also a rich cerulean and metallic purple. A handful of blacks, all crosshatched like shading, stand against a green and a brown, and a yellow above them. 

Yue laughs and jumps inside the world of her cuts. Suddenly the movements of the phalanx are irrelevant. The peerless form of Achilles means nothing against the silliness of a girl at play. Because every time they try to get close, they're cut. Cut by, well... the cuts. They're not exactly afterimages, y'know? What Yue is swinging around on, ducking under, and twirling inside of is nothing less than a history of this fight so far. One that's still alive, even! Every slash is just as real, just as dangerous, just as pretty as when she put it there a moment ago. And it's all--

"Oh whoopsie doodles! That one should go... here, I think!"

Yue reaches out and plucks a long, red-orange slash from the air in front of her. She turns it in her wrist and carefully, caaaaarefully guides it down to a spot between her yellow and her green. In an instant, four shields of the finest quadronic alloys the Empire can forge are split in half along the angle of its new position. 

"Ah, there we go!"

These, for the record, are the Wandering Tales of Yue The Sun Farmer. The eighth Secret Sword: Art Lessons From My Best Friend. And that's the thing, y'know? Like, yeah, Yue put this one together on the off chance she could impress Qiu with it, but at it's core this Secret Sword isn't even a combat technique. What does Athena have to say about that? Well, nothin' much I'd wager, given the state of her. But even if she was all good and whatever, what counterpoint would she have ready? What riposte is there in the formations of this perfected fighting figure that has an answer to lil' ol' Yue? Just... Yue?

And into this deadly painting walks Bella. To her, it's nothing more than paint. She smiles, softer than she should, and brushes her fingers along a trail of red and gold that is more beautiful to her than anything her eyes can remember seeing. Behind her are the sounds of the whooshing of blades, the cracking of armor, the dull thwack of a body hitting the floor, and a medley of truly [i]ridiculous[/i] laughter. 

But her eyes are facing forwards.

"I see your love, Nero. But do you see mine?"

In her outstretched hand is an old, familiar sword. Her tail swishes once, twice. As if to pounce.