Taming SSR And UR RANK Superwomen-Chapter 71 — A Former Heroine in the Capture Zone

Chapter 71: Chapter 71 — A Former Heroine in the Capture Zone

The rooftop was silent.

Evelyne was still sitting on the edge with her feet dangling over the street, gazing at Ark’s nighttime horizon with the same expression she wore when looking at everything: unhurried, without any particular emotion, as if the world were a phenomenon she observed from a certain distance.

To her right, Seraphine sat with her legs stretched out in front of her, her back resting against the edge of the roof and her ankles crossed in the air. Her hands rested over her abdomen, and she looked at the sky with a calm that wasn’t forced.

To her left, Freja sat with her legs crossed and her back straight, as if meditating on the edge of a rooftop at eleven at night were something completely reasonable.

Her three tentacles extended from her back and swayed slowly, with that lazy passivity of something that had no particular objective. Up, down, up, like seaweed underwater.

All three looked up at the same time.

Ashley flew past them, her silhouette outlined against the city lights. She stopped in midair in front of the rooftop, floating with a naturalness that made it seem as though the ground were the inconvenient option.

"Why did you fail?" she asked calmly.

Evelyne didn’t turn her head toward her.

"Her whips are too strong." Her tone was the same as always, flat and direct. "When she lost consciousness, her gift stayed active and covered her body. I could get her out of there, but I’m not going to destroy the entire building. That would only get us into trouble. You handle it instead. It’ll be easier for you."

Ashley watched them for a moment.

"It’s only training." Her voice held neither reproach nor condescension. It was simply a fact. "Capturing Inori is very easy for me. That’s not the point." She paused briefly. "Focus on your teamwork."

Then she looked down toward the street below.

"Although, judging by what happened, civilians have already seen you."

Evelyne let out air through her nose.

"People watch this kind of conflict every day." She kept looking at the horizon. "It’s just a show to them. There shouldn’t be any problems."

Ashley didn’t reply immediately.

"Like the crack you left in the floor?"

Evelyne tensed up.

It was a small movement, almost imperceptible, but it was there. Her shoulders rose slightly and her jaw tightened slightly. She turned her head to the side, looking nowhere in particular.

"That wasn’t my intention."

Freja covered her mouth with one hand to keep from laughing. She didn’t quite manage it.

Seraphine didn’t laugh. Her gaze was fixed on the body covered in black whips at the center of the rooftop. Her expression was thoughtful.

"She has an incredible gift," she said softly. "She manipulates too many whips at the same time, from different angles, with independent precision for each one."

She paused and sharpened her gaze.

"My master mentioned that it would be useful for capturing other heroines." Her eyes never left the black barrier. "Seeing it in action... he thought things through well."

No one answered. The wind passed over the rooftop with a soft sound, and then the barrier broke. It wasn’t gradual. It was abrupt, like tension building until the material could no longer hold.

The black whips retracted toward Inori’s body in an instant, and she jumped, using the momentum of a whip that shot toward the building across from her to launch herself into the void.

The three of them stood up at the same time. Ashley was already moving.

"I’ll take her to the capture zone," she said as she accelerated through the air. "You go there."

Inori swung between the buildings with her whips, opening portals in the facades to change direction, gaining speed with every swing.

Ashley chased after her through the air, closing the distance with an ease that made the pursuit look uneven from the very beginning.

Inori noticed. She twisted in the air and launched the whips.

Dozens of them. They came out from multiple portals at the same time, converging on Ashley from every angle, coiling over themselves to cover her completely, layer upon layer, intending to immobilize her in midair like a mummy.

Ashley extended her left hand. A bluish energy covered her palm, dense and luminous, and pushed.

It wasn’t a strike. It was an expansion. The energy spread from her hand like a wave, and the whips were sent flying in all directions, moving away from her as though they had touched something they couldn’t hold.

Inori’s golden eyes widened, bright beneath the city lights.

’What was that?’

Ashley reached her.

Her hands moved with a precision that didn’t need speed because she knew exactly where to place them. Black whips emerged from her palms, dense and fast, and wrapped around Inori’s body in a second.

Inori’s pupils widened.

"That’s... my gift!"

"Something like that," Ashley said, and flew on.

The buildings passed on either side like walls of light and shadow. Ashley flew between them, dragging Inori, who hung from the whips with her body tense and her teeth clenched, trying to activate her gift and finding that the whips holding her responded to every attempt with more pressure.

At one point, one of them wrapped around her mouth and squeezed hard. She shut one eye from the pain.

’M-my body...! Even moving a little hurts!’

The construction zone appeared at the end of a closed-off street.

Metal fences. Idle machinery. Mounds of dirt and gravel. No civilians and no active lights except for the city’s glow filtering over the fences.

Ashley released the whips, and Inori fell.

She twisted in the air on instinct, trying to control the landing, but the impact against the ground was rough. Her skin scraped against the gravel as she rolled and kicked up dust.

She came to a stop on her back, her hair spread out over the ground and her chest rising and falling with quick breaths.

She stood up.

Her white shirt had shifted with the fall. Her round, large, white breasts with pink nipples had partially slipped out of the fabric, bouncing with the abrupt movement of getting back up.

Inori looked at them. Then she looked to the sides with an expression that was half pain and half pure irritation. She yanked her shirt back down with a sharp tug.

Ashley landed in front of her.

Behind Ashley, Freja, Evelyne, and Seraphine arrived from different angles, converging on the construction zone with steps that weren’t hurried because they no longer needed to be.

Ashley stepped aside.

"Here, you don’t have to hold back anymore." She glanced at them briefly. "There’s enough dirt and space. Everything will serve as a cushion."

Evelyne walked forward.

She stretched. Her arms extended over her head, her shoulders cracked, her neck turned to one side and then the other. She did it slowly, with the calm of someone preparing for something that didn’t cause her any particular anxiety.

"I don’t need to hold back anymore."

Her golden eyes found Inori.

"Now I’ll show you what a former heroine can do."