(Elaria POV)
"Papa! Cool!" Cai Hong clapped while sitting on my lap.
Onii-sama's two foxes were also curled up beside me, watching the scene with great interest.
It was not the first time I've seen Onii-sama spar with my fellow sisters, but it was definitely the first time he took them all on at the same time. Not in the bedroom sense, since Onii-sama has done that plenty of times.
Of course I have no doubt that Onii-sama would still win with those odds but it's how he does it that I'm interested in seeing.
There was a distance of about five hundred metres between Onii-sama and the rest, their spar would start the moment I fire off this flare gun in my hand.
Onii-sama gave me a nod to show that he was ready before I lifted up the flare gun and pulled the trigger.
As soon as the flare left the gun's barrel, Onii-sama stretched out his arms and caused hundreds of copies of himself to appear all around the field, encircling the girls.
Just when I thought the fight would begin in earnest, everything suddenly stopped moving.
Even the blades of grass that had been rustling earlier stopped suddenly, as though frozen in time.
The area under the tree was unaffected of course, since Onii-sama had designed this place to be a safe zone.
From what I understood, it was meant to be an alternate space so literally nothing that happened outside could affect us without coming in first.
As I was wondering what caused the outside world to stop moving, the maid of the Queen started walking towards Onii-sama, pausing halfway when she realised we were staring at her.
"Hmm… Interesting, it seems you're really not affected by my Technique. Then there wasn't really a need for me to hold back," She mused to herself.
She continued to walk towards Onii-sama slowly, apparently being the only one who could move right now.
She took out a knife from within her sleeve and unsheathed it, going straight up to Onii-sama who still had his arms spread out.
I'm not sure if she was being arrogant about it but she was really taking her time with her movements, as though she was just simply strolling through a park and not currently in a fight.
That maid girl brought her knife up slowly to Onii-sama's throat, "Please do not hold this against me, Master… But my Mistress will always take precedence over everyone else."
I frowned when she sliced her knife slowly across Onii-sama's throat. I would have thought she was enjoying it if it wasn't for the look of indifference on her face.
Once her hand had gone all the way across, she turned back and strolled back to the Queen's side.
The world only started moving again when she reached there, looking just as she had started.
Onii-sama disappeared from where he stood and reappeared beside me, an indication that he had lost.
I was a little upset that Onii-sama lost so easily but the odds were against him anyway, so it wasn't… Eh?
When I turned to look at Onii-sama who should have been beside me, I was looking at sister Diao Chan instead.
She looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see her.
"Wha… What happened?" She muttered, still looking confused.
I turned back to see all of Onii-sama's clones were still around and the sister Diao Chan that was standing behind the maid girl suddenly changed into Onii-sama.
"Ehehehe~ Papa switched places with big sis Diao Chan before maid lady moved~" Cai Hong explained with a giggle.
Ah, no wonder the little dragon was so quiet even when it looked like Onii-sama was going to lose.
She can get pretty passionate when watching her beloved Papa spar against her big sisters. And because Cai Hong had better vision than I do, she would explain what happened to me most of the time when things were happening too fast for me to comprehend.
Right then, the maid girl appeared beside me, looking just as confused as Diao Chan had been when she first appeared.
"H… How?!" She shrieked.
I managed to see Onii-sama putting away his sword before he teleported away from his location, reappearing at where he had been at the start of the fight.
Onii-sama smiled in our direction, "I actually guessed your specialty to be spatial manipulation. Others might have mistook you to be able to manipulate time but not me. You're compressing the space that you exist in so that you can move faster than everyone else. But the drawback is that you cannot move too fast or you might risk collapsing the space you exist in from your movements alone."
The maid girl furrowed her brows, obviously not amused that Onii-sama had figured her out.
"But how did you switch? I activated my Technique as soon as you did yours."
Onii-sama tapped his nose, "Unfortunately for you, my specialty is space as well so I could actually do the same thing as you. It just took me a little while to figure it out though."
"Ugh… It seems like I still have a lot to improve on… My apologies, your Majesty..." The maid girl conceded.
Diao Chan was pouting, "Not fair Master… Why did it have to be me who got out first… I didn't even get hit by Master at all…"
Onii-sama shook his head at her, "Hmmm… You get fifty spanks for falling for the trap, Diao Chan. I did tell you to prepare some countermeasures against this type of Techniques since your Spells require chanting. Do keep that in mind next time."
"Ohhhh~~ I have no complaints now, Master! I'll warm up my bottom for you!"
Onii-sama let out a sighe and turned back to the other girls.
One might have thought Onii-sama was distracted while he had been talking to us, but we all knew from experience it was a trap. Right now there were still multiple copies of Onii-sama around so they wouldn't even know if the one talking was his real body.
Judging by how sister Manami's hands were glowing, she was tasked as the one to find out where the real body of Onii-sama was.
Onii-sama cracked his knuckles, "Another wrong answer, Manami."
She tilted her head slightly, "Ara, ara? Whatever do you mean Master?"
As soon as those words left her mouth, she shot out a blast of fire from the tip of her tail while sister Kiyomi followed with her own blast of ice.
The attacks connected with the Onii-sama that was above them, preventing him from throwing the boulder he had been preparing.
But seeing how Onii-sama didn't appear in this space, that either didn't affect him or it was an illusion too.
Onii-sama grinned, "You're wondering why you can't find my Quark signature among these illusions right? That's because they aren't illusions. I had split myself amongst all these bodies, you'll need to defeat all of them to get to me. Now prepare yourselves!"
As soon as those words left Onii-sama's mouth, all of the clones moved at once.
Oooh! Onii-sama is going to start for real now!
