Around the same time Drexel was fighting Hitsugaya, Jax was making his way to find his wayward apprentice Kieran Heartfillia. He couldn't help but wonder how both Kieran and Chaos had ignored much of his training only focusing on the techniques rather than the character building which was just as important to being a good warrior. He gave a sigh bringing his mind back to the issue at hand, he would have to destroy the ritual site first of all, redeeming Kieran would have to come later and if necessary he would kill Kieran. He saw the doorway that he presumed led to the ritual site, but he felt that something was wrong, drew his katana and advanced slowly to the door. Suddenly a dark blue lance pierced through the wall next to the door, Jax managed to put his katana in front of his chest before the lance could strike it and was pushed back before he could stop himself. He pushed the lance to his left, used his object multiplication to create two more katanas which he grabbed with his left hand, and sprinted towards the doorway.
"When fighting an opponent with a spear closing the distance is often the best way to win to take away their reach advantage" he remembered
He glanced to his left and noticed that the dark blue lance seemed to be receding quickly, he soon realized that this lance was no ordinary one and knew he had to get out of the cramped doorway if he stood a chance of winning. He reached the door way and soon met a slash from a forest green lance that he tried blocking with his two katanas, but was surprised when it broke both of his katanas and only his quick reflexes managed to avoid a deep slash from the lance but he still had a scratch along his chest though. He blocked the other lance which was on the offensive once more and flipped back to catch a break.
"Looks you still got it Master, anyone else would probably be dead by now" he heard a voice say
"Looks like you have some new toys Kieran" Jax replied
"You like them? They're weapons said to have been used by the Ancients themselves so many years ago" Kieran said spinning both lances easily
"Hmm looks like the green one is able to cut through most things quite easily while the dark blue one can modify its length according to what you want… am I correct?" Jax theorized
"Haha, already you've figured out their properties I must say I forgot just how smart you were, but it doesn't matter I'm going to win either way and make sure the ritual stays safe" Kieran complemented
"I assume it's in the room behind you?"
"You got it, beat me and nobody else can stop you… shall we begin?"
"Whenever you're ready"
Jax replicated three more katanas two of which he kicked at Kieran who sliced apart both of them with his green lance. He then ran towards Jax and extended his blue lance out aimed at his master's chest, Jax sidestepped the lance and with several quick slashes from his katanas managed to break the lance into two pieces. He kicked up the bladed portion of the lance and with another kick sent it flying towards Kieran who ducked out of the way. Jax closed the distance quickly and began a quick flurry of attacks at Kieran before he could replicate the blue lance again. Kieran was being pushed back and being forced to use his other lance for defense couldn't break Jax's weapons, he then parried away Jax's katana and aimed a high kick at Jax which was blocked but it gave Kieran some breathing room for the time being. He quickly replicated the green lance and now began his own offensive.
"This isn't good, I can't block any of his attacks but I also can't dodge forever" Jax thought trying to formulate a plan in his head.
He knew that breaking one of the lances would give him a brief respite and slowly move Kieran closer to his object multiplication limit. Kieran exchanged an unlimited amount of object multiplication for the ability to replicate an object perfectly, something that was very useful when the object had magical properties like in this instance. Jax remembered that Kieran could get up to seven copies of an object so it would be a long process if he would meticulously try and break every lance, time however was something he didn't have though if he wanted to stop the ritual. He saw the handle of Kieran's broken blue lance and knew he couldn't let Kieran get it again, he quickly formulated a plan in his head; he began replicating as many katanas as he possible could while staying on the defensive.
"He's basically throwing things at me at this point" Kieran thought as he was spinning both of his lances to break the katanas more efficiently.
"Got it" Jax said triumphantly as he managed to get to the fallen lance
"Oh what are you going to do with that, it's broken you idiot I'm the only one who can fix it" Kieran scoffed
"Oh I know that" Jax said as a magic circle appeared over the lance and soon copies of it were appearing on the ground
"What are you doing" Kieran said confused
"Like you said you're the only who can fix it, but you can't fix what didn't have any magical properties to begin with right?" Jax said as he finished creating over one hundred of the lances and scattered them in every direction
"Well I will admit that you've made a lot of lances for me to sort through but the fact that your copies become more obvious as you make more kind of whittles down what lances I need to go through. Besides I still have these lances which are all I need to take you down" Kieran responded with a confident smirk
He advanced towards Jax who began an intricate sword dance that was sweeping up the fallen katanas and broken blades and he tossed them at Kieran who again was forced to try and deflect the endless amount of blades. However the amount was too great for him and he felt the blades cutting into him in different locations all over his body, if Jax kept this up Kieran knew eventually he was going to give in to blood loss and he had to act now. He replicated the lances in his hand to the maximum amount he could and kicked two of them towards Jax, Jax sidestepped them easily but Kieran was glad to make him stop the sword dance.
"What's wrong Kieran you look flustered to me?" Jax asked
"Shut up old man!" Kieran yelled out with blood starting to obscure his vision "When did I get a cut there?" he wondered as he started feeling weak
"This battle is over Kieran do the honorable thing and surrender" Jax recommended
"Ha! You think you've won? I can still kill you just watch" he yelled back defiantly
Jax just sighed knowing he had to end things quickly and that Kieran was most likely going to die trying to stop him. He replicated even more katanas which he scattered throughout the battle field; he ran towards Kieran and resumed his attack on Kieran. Kieran was able to block the attacks at first but he couldn't prevent Jax from knocking away the copies of his green lance away from him and soon Kieran only had the two in his hands left. He had to end this soon, the blood loss was beginning to affect him and it was hard to keep up with Jax let alone try and remain standing. He began a furious offensive desperately trying to break his master's defenses, however each time he managed to break one of Jax's katanas Jax would simply pick up a replacement that was usually close by and stay safe from Kieran's assault he could only land a few scratches that didn't affect Jax too much. Kieran then went for broke deliberately opening up his defenses to force his master into an attack and relying on his lances' longer reach to defeat Jax. Jax knew it was a ploy but used this as a way to end the fight now; he picked up more katanas until he was holding three in each hand and charged towards Kieran. They both rushed at each other and with a quick burst of speed were soon past each other.
"Sorry Kieran" Jax said sheathing his katana as the other five he held broke apart
"No way… I can't lose" Kieran said weakly looking down at the long slash across his chest before falling over
"Don't worry about your life, after I destroy the ritual I'll see to your wounds" Jax said leaving towards the ritual
"Like hell you will" Kieran muttered and weakly started crawling towards the many blue lances "The real one has to be in here somewhere"
Jax shook his head and went inside the chamber where he saw the site in its entirety; what looked like a large pool had been set up and filled with a substance he couldn't recognize. There were five mages around it who seemed to be conducting the ritual, all stood in magic circles, and they seemed to be chanting in a strange language. He didn't waste any time though and he set upon each of them with his katana quickly killing the mages who strangely didn't even notice being cut apart. He sheathed his katana before the last mage fell and began walking away, suddenly whatever was inside the pool began hissing and soon lightning was striking in random directions. He realized that since the ritual had been stopped in mid ceremony the summoning of the magic wasn't complete so whatever had been summoned was unstable and being released in violent outbursts of magic. He managed to get out before getting struck by any of the lightning but then he felt a piercing pain in his back, he looked down to see one of Kieran's blue lances sticking out from his stomach. He could feel blood coming out of his mouth and spat some out, he turned around slowly to see a smiling Kieran.
"I told you I'd find my lance" he said with a small laugh
"Catherine, I'm sorry but I'll have to leave you now" Jax said quietly as he fell to his knees and then collapsed forward feeling the little life he had in his body seep away.
"Oh it always makes me laugh whenever I think about how Jax died like this" Chaos said with a bright smile
"How can you laugh at your own Master being killed?" Lahar said with disgust
"It's easy actually all I need to do is keep thinking about it and I just laugh, besides why should I care that he died? The man obviously didn't like me and this was karma biting him in the ass… or well stomach actually. Anyway he did his job I honestly didn't care what happened after that" Chaos explained
"Well that certainly was a very entertaining fight, who's next?" Guran asked trying to diffuse the tension in the room
"Hmm I could go back to Drexel's fight but honestly I think I can leave that one alone for a little while because I think they're in the middle of some banter right now. Ah I know Kyro's fight with Jackie was good" Chaos said returning to the story
Jackie sat on a bench watching the ritual take place with a bottle of whiskey in his hand; he took another swig wondering why he was being forced to guard this area. They could have easily just put an army or something to block whoever was coming this way, all he wanted to do was get drunk and maybe gamble sometime later after this was all done.
"I hope that Kaizus doesn't make gambling illegal when he becomes ruler of the world" he thought to himself gulping down the whiskey until it was finished "Can one of you guys go get me another one?" he asked to the mages conducting the ritual
He was met with silence and he remembered being told that once the mages began the ritual they were compelled to finish the ritual, anyone who stopped them in between would end the ritual immediately and cause catastrophic destruction in the area. He sighed before deciding to take a walk outside and to perhaps find something else to drink and put on his straw hat before heading off, as soon as he walked outside though he was met with a punch to his face that knocked his straw hat off.
"That wasn't nice" he said looking fairly unfazed by the punch
"We are opponents after all" Kyro replied
"Still though you're punching my pretty face what're you going to do if my game with the ladies goes down because of this?" Jackie asked
"Well that assumes you're able to beat me" Kyro said withdrawing his hand
"You bastard, that's my line" Jackie said grabbing his bottle of whiskey and smashing it over Kyro's head "Now we're even"
"Now that wasn't nice who honestly hits people over the head with a bottle of whiskey anymore?" Kyro asked looking like nothing had happened
"Hmm you look like you might take a while for me to beat" Jackie muttered picking up his hat and putting it on again
Kyro aimed another punch at Jackie who was able to grab Kyro's fist with his right hand and with a little effort pulled down. Kyro unfazed by this punched again with his left hand; again Jackie grabbed the fist and brought it down before pulling Kyro close and giving him a headbutt. Kyro was knocked back by the blow but then he suddenly returned to a normal posture with a large grin on his face.
"This should be fun!" he said releasing his magic aura
"Oh he's getting serious now… guess I should do the same" Jackie said taking his hat off and releasing his aura as well
"Well they take a while to release their aura so I guess I'll shift to Drexel and Hitsugaya's fight again" Chaos said
"What? I thought you said the fight was boring or wasn't important for now" Lahar asked confused
"Well I realized that her fight does build up some suspense for other things that are going on at the time I also think she and Hitsugaya were done chatting, besides what are you going to do to stop me?" Chaos replied
"Whatever just tell us what happened" Guran said
Drexel was getting tired of the seemingly repetitive fight between her and Hitsugaya; she would try to destroy the ritual site or at least kill one of the mages conducting the ritual, Hitsugaya would block it, he would respond with a powerful attack to deflect it and then try and crush her with said attack, and then her ice giant would get in the way to protect her from the attack… and they'd repeat this process again and again. Drexel didn't have much time and she knew it, her long range attack wasn't working but trying to get close enough to Hitsugaya was a tough task.
"Hitsugaya relies on chaining his attacks together, meaning that a defensive spell can easily be turned into offense and vice versa… you think Chaos would have just said that" Drexel thought
She could only cast one spell at a time at the moment due to having to control the ice giant, letting it go wouldn't mean it disappeared rather she would lose control over the giant and it would do whatever it wanted. She decided to take the risk and let the ice giant do what it pleased, the giant seemed uncertain as to what to do for the moment before it turned to Drexel and started walking towards her.
"Wait why are you walking towards me? Go get him!" she said slightly panicked
The giant bent down towards her gave her two pats on the head before it turned around to a very confused Hitsugaya and started running towards him. Drexel shrugged before running behind the giant, with one hand she cast ice armor that covered every part of her body in thick sheets of ice, she then fired an ice lance barrage and then an ice dragon to aid the giant. Hitsugaya formed a wall of his black water that enveloped the lances and crushed them inside; he used this to attack the dragon which he knew would be easier to take down than the giant. After the dragon was taken care of he aimed a bellow of the water god at the giant which was momentarily stunned by the blow before it slowly pushed forward to the Councilor's surprise.
"Hmm this is going to take the big guns to get you down. God Slayer's Secret Art: Torrential Burst of the Water God" he said with his palms facing the giant
A midsized circle appeared in front of his palms and a large torrent of black water rushed towards the giant, this time when it hit the giant it drilled through the giant and went through it. The giant staggered forward before falling down at the feet of a satisfied Hitsugaya.
"That'll show that stupid giant… wait where'd Drexel go?" he said triumphantly before looking around "Oh fuck!"
Drexel had taken this time to kill each individual mage conducting the ritual, as she dispatched the last mage. For added measure she fired an ice beam to destroy the ritual site entirely.
"Looks like someone forget their objective" Drexel said with a smirk on her ace
"You bitch! Do you know what's going to happen if Kaizus lives to see that I failed? He's going to yell at me that's what, and then he's probably going to make me do stuff that's really tedious" Hitsugaya complained
"Ah, you want some cheese with that whine?" she retorted
"Okay now I'm really going to kill you" Hitsugaya said angrily while drinking some more water from his canteen
"I've also never seen someone angrily gulp down water before" Drexel commented to an annoyed Hitsugaya
He fired a bellow at her which she dodged easily while she formed an ice floor to get towards him faster, she then formed ice swords from her armor and hacked at Hitsugaya wildly. He dodged the first slash but was slashed across the shoulder with the second slash drawing a good amount of blood. He responded by firing his own blades of the water god at Drexel. It hit her but her armor absorbed the brunt of the blow and kept her safe while still staying intact. He saw his chance and as he was about to fire a torrential burst at Drexel when a large beam of light drove through the ground between them blowing them in opposite directions. The blast shattered Drexel's armor instantly and she hit the wall hard making her dizzy, Hitsugaya was nearly knocked out by the blow but he managed to get up.
"What the hell was that?" Drexel asked groggily
"I have no idea but I'm getting the hell out of here" he said weakly
"Good idea" she said as she limped her way out of the room soon another light blast came down from above sending Drexel flying once more "What the hell are they doing up there?"