Chapter 6: Tag-team

The world was changing. I felt myself fitting into my Duel Avatar again, and I found myself in an abandoned building in a blue, moonlit field. The guide cursor was pointing to… the northwest, I think. Running out of the building, I followed the cursor's indicated direction, and was soon met with an Avatar with a dark blue robe, a dark blue hood with the letter F above the eyes, and a scythe. His eyes were completely circular and glowing red.

He charged at me, brandishing the scythe. "Rainbow…" I shouted, feeling my head-plates readjusting, "…Sword Rain!" and two swords thrust into the ground by my hands, where I wanted them. Picking them up as my head returned to normal, I was barely in time to parry FFF Tau's scythe attack, and from there, I just kept trying to attack with the swords. Many weapon clashes followed after that, and I just kept trying to do some damage to Tau.

How could I damage him? He kept blocking my swords, and the only other abilities were a long-range bombard and an area-of-effect healing move. What other moves did I have? No matter what, although my killer move gauge was full, I couldn't do any damage to him with swords, as he would just block with his scythe. Just then, I saw something that I thought was worth a shot. "Rainbow…" my head readjusted itself again "…Blade Whip!" My two Blue swords disappeared, and in my hand was thrust an indigo colored hilt with a trigger. Small blades started to crash into the guard, connected by what looked like a thin indigo rope, gradually building a long blade.

Just then, I saw FFF Tau's scythe swinging in for another strike. The scythe blade slashed through the air, and I was only just able to dodge as I ducked and prepared to strike. Catching on, Tau repositioned his scythe to counter my thrust, but just as I lunged the sword forward, I squeezed the hilt's trigger. The blade separated into segments connected by an indigo rope and shot further forward. The scythe pole still descended, but only managed to contact the blades from the midpoint of the sword. Finally, he had lost some health, and although it wasn't much, I now had the upper hand. Yanking my hilt up, the elongated blade started to wrap around Tau's scythe.

The blade continued to wrap more around the scythe, and just as the tip was about to hit, I yanked the sword backwards. My gambit worked; the scythe was shot out of Tau's hands and I moved in for the kill. Clicking the trigger again, the elongated blade rapidly withdrew to re-form a normal sword blade, and I attacked with that. Slashing, thrusting and cutting his health off, I was getting quite close to victory until…

"Hands of Tau!" he shouted, seemingly hugging himself. All of a sudden, his hands glowed green and his health bar started regenerating. I had forgotten that he had his own Killer Move gauge charged. Hoping to stop the healing, I continued my onslaught but to no avail: his health bar still climbed. The rate at which I was damaging him was too low to overcome the healing, and he was soon at full health again.

The only other thing that I can remember about that match is that, although I would deal damage to him and heal any damage to me with my powers, he always recuperated. It was by sheer chance that the match ended, as I was trying to attack with my Blade Whip weapon. He had just healed, but as his scythe and my weapon clashed…

"Rainbow Sword Rain!" I shouted, having a full killer move gauge. My head readjusted itself, and two swords shot directly into FFF Tau, damaging him by nearly half of his health. As this happened, my Blade Whip disappeared, leaving his scythe to continue on its course and slice into my chest. Although I took damage from that, he took just enough to keep me ahead.

The timer hit zero by that point, making me the winner. I can't remember how many Burst Points I got from that, but this little adventure proved nothing. My hunch… could it have been a dead end? Oh well, it was a good fight, and I got some good points from that, but that had to be it for the night.

Waking up the next morning, I knew that I wouldn't be able to check up on Haruyuki, or else Ane-ue would get even more moody. To keep her quiet, I would have to go back to Fumizuki, although I could maybe meet up with Muttsulini while there.

Things were more or less normal: I'd met up with Akihisa, Himeji, Shimada, Yuuji and Muttsulini, I practiced with my Summoned Being, wrote a few tests, etc. At some point, I managed to catch Muttsulini alone and explain my dilemma.

"You will have to Level Up. You can use the subsequent Level-Up Bonus on a Killer Move," was Muttsulini's suggestion.

"How do I Level Up?" As of yet, I had no idea how to do so.

"You will need to spend 300 Burst Points to do so, but if you acquire them, do not spend them right away. Make sure you have got at least 50 reserve Points."

"What are you two talking about?" All of a sudden, I heard Shimada Minami's voice.

"Nothing."

"Really? It sounded interesting. Fess up."

"Hideyoshi is just making a purchase."

"Fine, if you don't wanna tell me, I guess I can live with that."

That was close. I wasn't sure how I would have explained Brain Burst to Shimada, but then again, I could probably have come up with something plausible given a few more moments.

Near the end of the day was when I started to get worried; Haruyuki called me and told me that Kuroyukihime had been involved in an accident and was fighting for her life in hospital, ending with a request for Muttsulini and I to keep an eye out for Cyan Pile. Muttsulini came to me afterwards and told me that, as soon as we left Fumizuki, we were going to start Tag-Dueling. Our first opponents, when we were connected to the Global Network, were Nickel Doll and Sand Duct.

Muttsulini and I found ourselves in what he called the Demonic City Stage. Soon enough, Nickel Doll appeared along with what must have been her partner. Her, I knew, but she also knew my Duel Avatar. Sand Duct, however, was a mystery.

The word 'FIGHT' appeared in my HUD, whereupon Muttsulini, or rather Grey Smoke, spoke "Red. Blue. Red. Seal!" while making the relevant hand gestures. He threw small volley of kunais at Nickel Doll, and I saw small-ish chunks of her Health Bar blast off as the projectiles hit.

"Damn it! Sandy!" Nickel Doll shouted, "…I'll take that Grey Smoke. You take Rainbow Mirror!"

"Careful, Nicky…" I heard Sand Duct reply. "Grey Smoke is Level 6."

With that, we all charged. As I ran, I saw Sand Duct's arm pointed at me. "Sand Blaster!" came his shout, and sand shot at me from the arm. I could see that he was away from me, so I thought I would take a chance. "Rainbow Sky Fire!" I shouted as my head adjusted itself. The oncoming barrage did damage Sand Duct, but not by much. He actually started running towards me and in so doing evading the bombardment, and while I tried to aim the target location just ahead of him, I kept missing him. He eventually reached me with three quarters of his Health left and rammed into me. I lost about a fifth of health from that attack, and was left unable to retaliate. As he propelled me forward, I could see Grey Smoke and Nickel Doll in close combat. From what I could tell, neither had taken much damage.

Just then, I thought of something else; I turned to look behind myself and hoped this plan would work, as my head armor was still erect. "Rainbow Sword Rain" I shouted, feeling the heat in my head again. "Aaaaah!" Sand Duct screamed as he suddenly started decelerating, my body falling to the ground. My plan worked: there were my two Rainbow Swords in his back and, to make it better, he was down to half health.

"Sandy!" Nickel Doll shouted, running towards her partner but getting blocked by Grey Smoke.

"Rainbow Sky Fire!" I shouted, this time looking at her. Fireballs began bombarding the area where she and Muttsulini were fighting, with him jumping out of the way and her taking damage to come to having a third of her Health left. Sand Duct, I saw, was also running towards her.

Just then, Sand Duct slammed his arm vents together, saying "Turbo… Molecular!" Air immediately started blowing out one arm and getting sucked into another. Soon afterwards, when Nickel Doll was slightly in front of him, he stuck both arms forward, creating what must have been a vortex. I felt myself getting pulled towards them, but I also saw Muttsulini's Duel Avatar directly behind Sand Duct.

"Can you take out Nickel Doll?" Muttsulini spoke directly to me, as if by radio.

"Considering this suction, I think I might be able to. What about Sand Duct?" I replied.

"I can finish him off from here. My killer move gauge is ready to fire."

"Fine. Rainbow Blade Whip!" I felt a single sword with a trigger on the hilt appear in my hand. The suction had gotten somewhat stronger, so I decided to test my theory; I thrust the blade of the sword forward and pulled the hilt trigger. Immediately, the blade separated into a line of blade segments connected by a small rope and shot forward. The suction created dramatically increased the speed at which the segments were soaring, and the tip blade segment shot straight into Nickel Doll, dealing a lot of damage such that she only had a fraction of health remaining.

"Nicky!" Sand Duct shouted, stopping the vortex and knocking away the blade.

"Red! Blue! Red! Blue! Red! Seal!" Muttsulini shouted while forming those 'seals' with his hands. "Buki no arashi no Jutsu!" he shouted again, immediately emptying his killer move gauge, spinning and creating a grey whirlwind. From that whirlwind, a whole storm of four-bladed shurikens shot out at Nickel Doll and Sand Duct, blasting chunk after chunk of their health off and eventually destroying them completely.

The victory screen came up, and both of us received some points. However, once we returned to the real world, Muttsulini had us fight another Tag Match, and another one after that, and another. It was just about dark, but I had finally made it. I had amassed 450 Burst Points. Clicking the Level Up option, I could see my status upgraded to Level 2 along with a list of Level-Up Bonuses. There were quite a few tempting options, such as one Enhanced Armament that projected the Rainbow in front of me and not behind me, another that allowed for precise aiming of my Rainbow skills and a few others, but I needed a killer move. Looking through my other options for bonuses, I found a killer move that I thought really reflected the 'Mirror' aspect of Rainbow Mirror, and would also help me a lot. For level 2, that move was what I chose. My first killer move… I felt quite happy as I went to sleep at home that night.

Just as I woke up the next morning, I accelerated involuntarily. Apparently, I had been selected as a spectator for the fight between Silver Crow and Cyan Pile.

End note: "Buki no arashi no Jutsu" = 'Art of the storm of weapons', though I prefer to think of it as 'Storm of Weapons Technique'