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."