Kawaii princess's Arc

Chapter 46 of 54

The crowd had barely settled around her lit dome when the heat reached it. Across the field, the rival's tower poured blue flames into a structure of clustered ice pillars, a flame marker that threw warmth across the stones. Kawaii Princess felt it on her cheek first. Then she saw the panes of her dome begin to fog. She stepped down and walked to the boundary between them. A metal archway stood there, half-iced, half-smoking, dripping on one side and charring on the other. The line was clear. If the heat crossed it, her stage was finished. She set her palm on the cold pillar and felt water run under her glove. She turned back and climbed into the dome. The walls were fogging fast, the door cracking near the top. She could not put out the rival's fire. She could not cool her own glass. So she did the only thing left — she pressed her followers' hands against the inside of the panes. Twelve palms. Then twenty. Then more, lining every wall with cold skin, holding the frost in place. The fog thinned where they touched. The dome held. The head scout watched the archway hiss and ruled the boundary unchanged. Her stage survived — but her hands were pinned to the glass now, and she could not perform from inside a wall of bodies.