Yay, we are finally at my favorite fight. I hope I explained it half as well as I envisioned it. It was incredibly tough to have an Accelerator fight that lasts an entire chapter. He normally ends his fights in seconds. Luckily for us, Pride is no pushover. It is time for Academy City's strongest vs The Seven Deadly Sin's Strongest. It is sure to be an exciting fight with twists around every turn.

Okaidi: Ok I have to ask. Can I please have whatever you took before writing that comment? You made sense then I could tell the drugs kicked in. After a while you ALMOST made sense so I assume you took more drugs because your comment exploded again. If you share the goods I am sure it will help with the creative process for this story.

Shuko & Szen: Yea, site had problems for a couple days but no worries. It usually gets cleared up fast. Just gave me more time to write.

I see some knew names on comments so I am glad you guys liked it.

Oh, Accelerator is pretty dangerous so this fight is a little more violent in some places. This story is rated T so everyone should be ok with some violence. I just wanted to warn you all since this is the most violent chapter in this story I wrote so far. Otherwise, enjoy it.

Or die.

Disclaimer: I do not own Toaru Majutsu no Index or any of the characters.

"Crush me?" Accelerator laughed. "You should know what it means to stand before me. There is only one fate for you."

"Yep," Pride agreed. "I will win like normal. I hope your choker is at full power to make this fight fun for as long as possible."

Accelerator's grin flickered to a frown for just a moment. "I don't see why you care," he said. "I can end your life in just a few seconds." He wasn't surprised they knew about the choker. After all, the first time he met Pride, the female who was with him control Last Order and incapacitated him. What briefly flickered in his mind was he had a little under half of the battery life left. Using it during the festival and not having time to recharge it was an unforeseeable complication. This was still plenty of time in normal mode, but when he turned it on, he had less than fifteen minutes of actual combat time. However, he could finish off an enemy almost instantly so, unless Pride had a lot of back up, the fight would be over pretty fast.

"Talking about killing already?" Pride said smirking while raising an eyebrow. "Here I thought you were a hero trying to save that little girl?" He frowned when Accelerator burst out laughing.

Accelerator couldn't believe his ears. The very thought of him being a hero was hilarious. "You are stupid," Accelerator said when he stopped laughing. "I'm no hero, that other guy is. I am a villain like you. But there are different levels of evil. A first class villain doesn't target honest lives. Now I am going to show you the terror of The One Way Road."

"Things never go as you plan," Pride said his grin stretching across his face. "But enough talking, you and I are men of actions. I hated Lust's round about methods."

"I couldn't agree more," Accelerator said as he reached up to flick his choker on. "I still remember your cheap shot back in Academy City." When he flicked the choker on, the ground around him broke and sent cracks spreading all over the arena floor. At the same time, Pride ran toward him. Accelerator was briefly confused for a moment. Pride had no weapons on him and Accelerator could not see anything special about his attacks. He should know about my ability so why is he attacking straight on?

Pride didn't seem to care and delivered a powerful right fist toward Accelerator's face. Accelerator watched it with an almost bored expression. A sickening crack echoed through the ring as Pride's arm was suddenly in the opposite direction it had been a fraction of a second ago. Pride looked undisturbed by this and spun his body on his left foot to aim a kick at Accelerator's side. Accelerator raised an eyebrow at this futile attempt and the exact same thing happened. The bone broke and the leg had suddenly moved in the opposite direction. The force caused Pride to lose his balance for a second.

"How boring," Accelerator yawned as he reached out his hand and tapped Pride in the chest. Pride went flying backwards like a bullet and crashed into the wall of the arcana. "I thought you would be strong, but you only know how to talk big." He turned to look at Last Order and saw the blue barrier was still up. Huh, I thought he said it would disappear when one of us dies. The force of that crashed should have crushed his chest. He heard something moving behind him and he quickly turned around in surprise. Pride was standing up and his arm and leg were bent in weird angles but, a second later, they looked perfectly fine.

"As I said," Pride laughed. "Things never go as plan. You have to try a lot harder than that to defeat me." He started to walk toward Accelerator.

"I see," Accelerator said thinking. This same thing happened back in the city. Pride would regenerate his wounds almost instantly. "You have some type of high speed regenerative ability. If you think you can outlast me with just that, you have a lot more to learn." I could cause damage faster than he could regenerate or just kill him in one shot so he doesn't have a chance to heal.

"If you try to rationalize magic like your science," Pride said the grin never leaving his face. "You won't get anywhere and just end up as those other poor souls." He motioned to the pile of skulls.

There is that magic crap again, Accelerator thought. He had come to terms that magic existed. There was enough evidence over the last couple weeks. However, to him, it was just abilities that followed a different set of rules. There should still be rules. I guess I can just systematically try things until something works. He lunged forward and Pride copied his movement. Pride was larger and more athletic than he was, but Accelerator's vector manipulation made it all useless. He reached out with his left hand and lightly touched Pride's punching arm. Prides arm made an immediate right angle away from his body as the bone cracked loudly. With his right hand, Accelerator reached out toward Pride's head. Pride tried to dodge by moving his head back, but Accelerator's hand brushed against his face.

CRACK.

Pride's head rotated on his shoulders over 180 degrees instantly. His head was facing directly behind his body instead of forward. Accelerator watched as Pride fell onto his back and face. Accelerator shook his head and turned around. "Garbage," he muttered. "Regeneration doesn't do any good if you die to fast." He started to walk away when he looked up and froze. "That's not possible." The blue barrier around Last Order was still there.

"HAHAHAHA."

The horrible laughter made Accelerator slowly turn around. The laughter was obviously Pride, but it sounded as if he was laughing while his mouth and throat were full of water and did not have full access to his windpipe. It was a hideous gurgle like laugh that sent a chill even down Accelerator's spine. He saw Pride slowly rising to his feet. His head was still facing directly behind him. Accelerator didn't have any words to say to this and just watched. As Pride slowly got back to his feet, his arms grabbed his head and with popping sounds slowly put his head back into its proper place. There was a strange lump in his neck, like something inside of him was pushing out against his skin, but while Accelerator watched the lump slowly shrank until it disappeared. Finally, he spat out, "That's impossible. You should have died."

"To a small wound like that?" Pride asked incredulously. "You should know breaking a neck doesn't cause death that fast. Even if it would normally instantly kill someone, it would have no effect on me."

"What?" Accelerator asked narrowing his eyes. "You saying you can't die?"

"Yes," Pride said. "I am immortal. No matter how much you struggle, no matter how strong you are, no matter what you do, you cannot kill me." His words started to resonate with authority.

"Challenge accepted," Accelerator said grinning. "Immortality is a bunch of bullshit. I'll destroy you so badly, no matter how fast your regeneration is, you won't be able to survive."

"You aren't listening," Pride said sighing. "But go ahead if it suits your fancy." He stretched his arms out wide like he was offering Accelerator a hug. "Let me see what you have you fake hero."

Accelerator rushed forward again and pressed his hand against Pride's chest. Instead of propelling him forward, Accelerator decided to see if he could out damage Pride's regenerative ability. He manipulated all the vectors on every one of Pride's bones and broke them all simultaneously. He then changed the vector on Pride's body as a whole and smashed him into the ground. The ground below Pride collapsed into the hypogeum, the tunneled area below the ring, and buried the body in a pile of rubble. Accelerator looked down with a satisfied look on his face. "Let's see you recover from that." He started to laugh but then stopped. "F$&^ no, he couldn't still be alive."

The rubble pile began to move and several pieces rolled off the top as a hand appeared, followed by an arm. The arm was in several very weird angles and bleeding heavily from the open fractures caused by most of his bones. As Accelerator watched, the bones started to move back into place and the wounds began to close. The arm grabbed a large rock and pushed it off the pile. The pile began to move some more as Pride's head appeared followed by the rest of his body. Pride stood up, dusted himself off and looked up at Accelerator. "That hurt you know," he said almost as if was commenting on the weather. "You said you were going to destroy me. If you hold back, you won't be able to do it before your time runs out."

Accelerator frowned and flipped his choker off. He had less than 10 minutes left of power and Pride's regenerative powers were quite powerful. He backed up a couple of steps as Pride climbed out of the hole. I guess I have to use an instant kill. Reverse his blood flow or his electrodes in the brain? Suddenly, he felt something in the middle of his gut. It was a feeling he wasn't accustom to. When he thought of killing Pride with one of those moves, he immediately thought about the level 6 experiment.

It was raining and a girl was lying on the ground injured by a bullet from her own rifle. The girl looked up at him and her appearance was exactly like the rank 3 level 5 Railgun. Accelerator looked down at her expressionless face. He mocked her explaining all about his ability and how she never stood a chance. He reached a single finger slowly down towards her. He stuck it in to her bullet would with a squish. He never stopped taunting her the entire time he was doing it. Her blood did not faze him in the least. "What do you think will happen when I change the direction of your blood?" She didn't answer, but he could still remember the look of fear in her eyes. He smiled as he changed the direction. Blood flew everywhere and he simply walked away leaving the corpse on the ground.

Accelerator shook his head to clear it of the memory and focused on the man before him. Pride had finished climbing up back into the ring and started to walk away from the hole. Accelerator followed him still lost in thought. He wasn't sure why he felt sick killing by reversing the direction of the blood or electrodes in the brain. He had killed many other people after that, the Hound Dogs who captured Last Order and many other criminals while working for Group. The only reason he could think of was the only people he killed with those abilities were the clones. Shit, I still remember those times. I don't have a choice though. He won't die a normal death. He flipped on his choker again when Pride suddenly rushed at him.

Accelerator reached out a hand and grabbed Pride's outstretched arm. His vector manipulation allowed him to stop Pride who looked confused as all his momentum disappeared. He looked directly into Pride's eyes. He didn't see any fear or worry there, just the desire to fight. Accelerator mentally sighed and braced himself. "Die," Accelerator said simply as he reversed Pride's blood flow. The effect was instantaneous. Pride's organs and blood vessels exploded and a large pool of blood formed beneath his remains. The blood that would have hit Accelerator was reflected away keeping him clean. He did not immediately let go of Pride though. He used his other hand to check Pride's pulse and other signs of life to determine if he was still alive. As there were no signs, Accelerator dropped Pride's corpse onto the ground. He took a couple steps back. "I am the strongest and you are still trash. No matter how powerful your regeneration is, you can't beat instant death."

The pool below Pride was getting bigger and Accelerator turned around and walked away. He suddenly felt sick and held a hand up to his mouth. Damn it, I can't use that move on another person. I can't let go of those past memories yet. He could still kill to protect people he considered important, but reversing blood was mentally damaging to him now. That is why he stopped using it. He took another step away when he heard a voice that caused him to stop.

"Leaving already," the snide voice said. "I told you it's pointless to try to kill me."

Accelerator balled his fist in anger as he turned around. "How are you still alive?" he demanded. "I checked your body signs and it all showed you where dead. No regenerative ability should have been able to bring you back." He could not understand how this was possible.

"I told you I can't die," Pride said exasperatedly. He hated explaining things over and over to people, especially people of science who didn't understand magic. "I am immortal."

"Again that is bullshit," Accelerator said. "Immortality does not exist. The only thing certain in this world is death."

"Hahaha," Pride laughed. "Are you are a philosopher now? My Mark of Pride defies all those silly rules." He pointed to his forehead as a black mark appeared. It looked like a Y with the top left side longer than the right. A small triangle was in the middle of the top half of the Y. "My curse grants me high speed regenerative abilities and my immortality. I can't die and my wounds all heal. The only downside is I still feel pain, but after a while all physical pain sort of becomes the same."

"What kind of f&%*ing power is that?" Accelerator spat out. Screw this magic shit. When I get out of this I'm going to strangle Jason and the hero until they tell me everything they know about this shit. He gave a quick glance up at Last Order who was still sleeping. "I don't care about your power. I am going to kill you and save her."

"There you go again," Pride said sighing. "You are trying to play the hero. But it is pointless if you can't kill me and I bet you don't have much time left."

Accelerator frowned, but Pride was right. He had a little more than five minutes left on his choker. At the rate this fight was going, he was not going to be able to kill Pride. If Pride was truly immortal, then he could keep attacking Accelerator indefinitely. He thought of several ways to fight and decided on the only other course of action truly available for him. He could try to use an attack that would completely destroy Pride until there was nothing left. It had been a long time since he used that technique. Last time I used it was against the fucking hero. I might be weaker than I was back then but, in this confined space, I should be able to.

Pride was watching Accelerator with a look of amusement on his face. He could tell, as he glanced into Accelerator's eyes, he was not planning to surrender, but there was now a slight trace of doubt. Accelerator was beginning to doubt if he could win the fight. Pride grinned widely. It's only a matter of time until his battery wears out, and then he is mine. He started to walk forward. "I can't wait to see your look of despair as your last few minutes tick away. When do you think you will realize you can't beat me?" He stopped when Accelerator grinned. "What is so funny?" he asked. Accelerator said nothing, but reached his right hand into the air.

The sound of wind roaring whipped through the arena. A vortex appeared in the air above them. As Pride watched, it started to form into a sphere. The wind was spinning in the sphere at high speeds and it was getting larger the longer he watched it. Dust was being blown around creating small dust storms and the broken rubble from their fight was scraping and clattering on the ground as the wind pushed them around. "Well that looks interesting," Pride commented. "Is this your last attack?"

"Not even close," Accelerator said. He was planning one more attack after this. However, the next attack, after this one, would take an enormous amount of calculations in order to use. With his weaken state, he would need to focus all of his brain's processing power on it. That includes turning off his automatic reflection. This was dangerous for him because, if Pride managed to get close and land a hit before he finished, he would be defenseless. In the worst case scenario, he could be knocked unconscious and, even if he didn't, he could lose focus for a moment and be unable to complete his attack. So the first thing he would have to do is put some distance between them. I'll use his weakness of not dodging attacks against him. Accelerator noticed Pride rarely seemed to try to dodge attacks. It made sense if you thought about it because he wouldn't need to dodge anything if he was immortal. It still takes time for him to regenerate major damage. He focused on the giant sphere of wind he gathered and threw the 120-meter-per-second maelstrom at Pride.

Pride's eyes widen in shock and pain as the storm hit him full force. He felt his feet lift up into the air as he was thrown backwards out of the ring. He crashed into the stands and kept smashing through the seats as the wind forced him upwards. The seats and walls blew to pieces as his body crashed through them. He slammed into a stone wall near the middle of the stands and finally stopped. Most of his bones were broken by the impact. However, he still smirked, because to him, this was nothing more than a desperate attack from a cornered animal. His wounds were already healing and he started to stand up. Something caught his eye and he frowned. What is that? He looked up into the sky and saw a white light. He started to walk back toward the arena to investigate the strange occurrence.

Accelerator had one more plan at his disposal. He had raised both of his hands and started laughing. The last time he tried to use this technique was the first time he met the hero. If he had succeeded, the hero would have died, but Accelerator was interrupted by the third rate and the sisters. He frowned slightly at this thought. Am I glad he didn't die? However, now there was nothing to stand in his way. His eyes darted to the stands where Pride had been thrown. There was a straight line of destruction as his body had smashed through everything in its way. Accelerator had made sure to keep the wind pushing him as far as possible. Now, he was taking all the air in the sky and compressed it into a single point. The number of calculations almost exceeded his weakened state but, now that he now longer was wasting any on his automatic reflection, he was just able to do it. A brilliant white light appeared, like a full moon coming out of the clouds on a pitch black night. He laughed again when the light started shining.

Plasma.

The temperature of gas rises when it is compressed because it takes on heat; internal combustion engines use this principle. Accelerator was shrinking as much air as he could at an extremely high rate. This was creating a superheated ball of energy that was more than ten thousand degrees Celsius. The atoms in the nearby air was breaking into cations and electrons, it becomes ionized, then completing its metamorphosis into a high energy plasmatic state. Above Accelerator was now a tremendous amount of energy in a single location, which he could control, and it could uproot a nuclear shelter right out of the ground.

Pride did not know this. He knew basic science, but he was part of the magic side and did not know about plasma. He knew Accelerator could control the movement of wind, the blast he just took proved that, but he had no idea what the white light was. It almost looks like a star. Is he trying to access the heavens? He frowned trying to think what Accelerator could be up to. The laughter from the boy echoed across the arena. "No matter what you do it won't work," Pride said strutting forward faster. He was curious about the white light, but he was not scared. Once he got use to his immortality, he no longer got scared. Why would he? Nothing could kill him and, after a while, pain stopped mattering to him. He could still feel it but, after being 'killed' by virtually every means possible, he got used to it. As he got closer, he suddenly felt a searing heat as his arm started to burn. It generates so much heat. What is he trying to do? He jumped into the ring as his body continued to burn, but repaired itself instantly.

"I never got to use this on the hero," Accelerator said. "You are going to be my first guinea pig. Prepare to be incinerated." The white light swallowed more currents of air and grew to ten meters in diameter. It was a little smaller than the one in Academy City, but with less air in this space, it was to be expected. It also made it easier for him with the calculations. He felt it was ready and the grin on his face grew. At ten thousand degrees Celsius, a human body would disappear instantly.

"Ha," Pride laughed. "You probably can't even control it. You are just a coward."

"Eh?" Accelerator asked narrowing his eyes.

"Suicide is the coward's way out," Pride smirked. "You just want to die with me. I won't be able to see you fall into despair then."

"Let's test your theory," Accelerator said. Pride nodded and broke into an all-out run towards Accelerator. With barely a flick of his wrist a large bright segment of white light flew from the mass above him. Pride stuck his hand out to knock it away. He did not expect what was going to happen next. His arm, and part of his body, just disappeared. He didn't even have time to feel pain. The heat was so intense and concentrated, his arm disintegrated instantly. He wasn't even bleeding as the heat scorched and cauterized his wound closed. The intense heat also destroyed all his nerve endings. The remainder of his ride side was burnt worse than most third degree burns. The strip of plasma also burned a large ravine behind him into the floor of the arena and all the way to the stands.

"Die!" Accelerator yelled as the rest of the plasma ball flew at Pride. A quarter of the coliseum was disintegrated as the blast came forward like a cone of light from Accelerator. Pride disappeared in a flash of white light and the entire area behind him did too. There were small explosions to the left and right, but most of it had melted or disintegrated instantly. The floor was a good fifty feet deeper as the floor, hypogeum, and the thirty feet or so of ground below it had disappeared. There was some type of liquid left on the ground, what was now the new floor, which remained from some material that did not get disintegrated instantly.

"Tsk," Accelerator made a disgusted noise with his mouth and turned around and walked away. When he was far enough away, to not feel the remaining heat from the ground, he flicked his choker off. Due to the time it took to create the plasma, he had less than one minute of using his ability. It translated to a fair amount of time of being able to move normally though. If the fight lasted much longer, he would be in a lot more trouble. He started to walk toward the location where Last Order was laying. Now I have to wake the brat up and get out of here. Everyone else better have beaten their opponent too. I can't baby sit everyone. He looked up and stopped.

The blue barrier was still around Last Order

"What the F#&$?" he spat out confused. Pride had told him if one of them died the barrier would disappear. He glanced behind him quickly and saw nothing. There was no way he could have survived being wiped away by the plasma. His entire body was disintegrated by the heat and energy. It is possible he was lying to me. I guess I have to smash it the old fashion way. He started to walk forward when he felt it. An unexplainable shiver went down his spine. Something in the back of his mind told him to turn around again. He did and saw something he could not explain. A small tan lump was forming on the ground right near the destruction caused by the plasma strike. As Accelerator watched, it slowly grew bigger. This can't be possible. This isn't real. All the moisture left Accelerator's throat, leaving it as dry as a desert. He couldn't speak. All he could do was watch as the lump began to resemble a human as it started to grow appendages. Its face was the last thing to develop, but once it reached adult size, Pride's face formed. "How?" Accelerator asked finally finding his words. "I vaporized you into dust."

"You really don't listen," Pride said. He was stark naked because his clothes did not reform with his body. He did not appear embarrassed at all though. "I am immortal."

Accelerator really had no response to this. He began to have the same dreaded feeling he had when he fought the hero. Touma Kamijou would not stay down no matter how many times he was knocked down. Touma was not even immortal. Pride and Touma fought for two completely different reasons, but Accelerator felt they were similar in how they defied all common sense. They stood up again no matter what happened to them. He did not know how he could defeat Pride. His last option did not work.

"Speechless huh?" Pride said shaking his head. "Can't say I blame you, I would be too if I stood before someone as awesome as me. Do you have anything left in your bag of tricks or will you just surrender?"

"F#%& you," was Accelerator's response.

"I see," Pride said sounding disappointed. Then his face broke into a grin and he sounded cheerful. "I do have good news for you. I know how we can both get out of this space alive."

"Huh?" Accelerator said surprised at this sudden turn of events.

"You see the barrier on the girl won't go away until one of us dies," Pride explained. "However, I know how to trick the system into thinking I died and the barrier will disappear. Then I regenerate and we all can leave."

Accelerator was confused. He suddenly wants to help me? "Why?" he asked unable to contain himself. "Earlier you wanted to kill me."

"I didn't really want to kill you immediately," Pride explained. "I want you to sink into a state of utter despair when you realized you couldn't save her. So after we free her I plan to kill her right in front of you."

"You a$$&%*!" roared Accelerator anger consuming him.

"Maybe I'll break her neck or stab her multiple times," Pride said conversationally as if he was not interrupted. "I wonder what your face would look like when you watch her die in front of you because you could not save her. I'm sure the despair will be…"

He didn't finish his sentence as Accelerator flipped his switch. The ground around him exploded as he rushed forward grabbing Pride and slamming him in the side of the coliseum. He then took his left hand and stuck it into the wall. It went through it like paper. He yelled out in anger as he lifted an entire segment of the stands with a single hand. Turning his head to look at Pride with pure hate in his eyes, he slammed the segment down onto Pride, crushing him under a ton or more of rubble. Accelerator quickly flipped off the switch. He didn't have much time left on the battery. If he flipped it on again he would probably use up what was left before he could do anything. It was going to get used up soon anyways, just keeping him in the normal state. He hobbled away from the rubble to put distance between him and Pride. Accelerator knew Pride couldn't be dead after that. He had been disintegrated moments before, but Accelerator was out of ideas. The gun on his waist wasn't going to do anything.

He leaned up against an unbroken part of the ring wall and watched the rubble begin to move. Pieces started to roll off as Pride forced his way out of it. As he stepped out of the rubble he stretched. "So that was your last rage induced attack huh. So now you realize that girl is going to die."

"F&*$ you," Accelerator said definitely. "I'm going to kill you."

Pride sighed. "You still won't fall into despair? I guess I have no choice. I believe you live with three other females too?" Accelerator froze and Pride smirked. "I'll keep you alive after killing the girl up there and then I will kill those three in front of you, maybe some of your classmates too. Which ones do you like the most?" He laughed a terrible vile laugh as he revealed in Accelerator's stunned face.

Accelerator pushed himself off against the wall. He never felt so much hatred to a single person. Not only was Pride trying to kill the girl he sworn to protect, but also everyone else in his life. He didn't understand at first, but realized how important they all became to him, even if he didn't want to admit it. He wasn't afraid of dying but, if he did, Last Order would be sad. He was afraid of leaving her alone in this world. He reached up to his choker. Please last even just a little bit, I want to save them. Pride watched him as he flipped the switch. It is up to fate.

Fate was not on his side.

Accelerator barely managed to take one step and collapsed as the battery ran out.

Pride looked at him wide eyed for a moment and burst out laughing at his suffering.

Damn I can't move at all. He barely could look up toward Pride, who was laughing and saying something. Accelerator could not comprehend what he was saying as most of his brain functions were not working without the choker. Pride then made a motion with his hands. He reached out in front of him as if he was grabbing something, and then made a quick 90 degree motion with his hands as if he was breaking the thing he was holding. He pointed to Last Order still in the blue barrier then started walking toward her.

Accelerator was screaming in rage and fear inside his head. He could not let Pride go near Last Order. His body would not move and all he could think about was his memories with her. Last Order had found him and pulled him out of the darkness. She had given him a chance to live in the light. He had promised to be there for her and protect her from harm. It was because of her he was able to live a normal life, meeting people like Aiho, Kikyou, and even Worst. Even the memories of his school days flashed before his eyes, with the class full of monkeys. He remembered hanging out with Piece, Motoharu, Jason and the hero. He even found himself having fun with them all. Last Order's face once again swam to the front of his mind. His heart ached. His hand clenched the dirt in his hand as his anger grew.

He would kill Pride, no matter what it took. He was going to stop Pride, not just for himself, but to protect everyone else in his world. Stand up and save them. He could not make even simple calculations such as balancing his body to stand up straight or even count on his fingers. He would lose track halfway through. But in his mind he would not give up. He would not allow Pride to hurt Last Order. He would continue to fight, even without his powers. He felt his arms begin to push himself up. No matter what the rules were, no matter what science and reason said, he would not lose.

Pride was laughing loudly to himself. He had just shown Accelerator what he was going to do to Last Order. Pride was going to take her right up to Accelerator, who was lying helpless on the ground, and break her neck in front of him. The look of despair on his face will be priceless. It feels so good to take down the arrogant strong types. He walked over to Accelerator first, who was struggling on the ground, and gave him a good kick, in the side. Accelerator gagged loudly and a little blood came out of his mouth. Pride laughed and started to walk toward Last Order.

He was about thirty feet away when he felt it. A chill ran down his spine. There should have been no reason for this feeling. After all, he was immortal. He had been killed, or what would have killed a normal person, more times than he could count in every way possible. He should have no use for this feeling, but he still felt the familiar overwhelming sensation.

Fear.

Pride was use to fear, but he never let it control him. Before he received the Mark of Pride, he actually was one of the weakest magicians in existence. He was not gifted with vast intelligence, extreme creativity, or anything special. He had trouble casting even the weakest spells, but he was a hard worker and always tried to better himself. The world however is not kind and he was bullied by other magicians whose powers were greater than his. The weak magicians especially were the worst. Since they constantly got overshadowed by the gifted ones, they took out their frustration on people like Pride. Over the years, something grew within Pride, tenacity and desire.

He wanted to win and the more he fought, the more he realized right and wrong are just based on perspective. The winners are right and the losers are wrong. It didn't matter what you believed in, history was written by the winners. He stopped playing fair and fought dirty, ambushes, traps, assassinating, the method did not matter. The only thing important was winning. He especially enjoyed defeating those who considered themselves powerful. He would make them realize just how weak they were before he killed them. He wasn't sure when he started to think killing was ok to prove his point, but he believed it was when he accidently knocked someone out and they hit their head on a rock. He never gave up, no matter how many times he failed at defeating someone. He just tried a new tactic until it worked. He was injured near death so many times, but he always found a way to win. Until one day.

Pride picked a fight with the wrong person. A powerful magician visited the town he was in. He had heard the guy enjoyed picking on weaker magicians and planned a surprise. Pride was overpowered with power he had never imagined before. The magician controlled fire and all the skin on Pride's body was burned away. The magician didn't even acknowledge his existence and walked away leaving Pride for dead. He was in pain beyond recognition. It was then the Herald found him and granted him the mark. He survived and never lost again, no matter how powerful the opponent was. He now felt the same fear he had when he first met that magician. He finally turned around when he heard the rustling of clothes and the sound of air blowing all around.

Accelerator had stood up. His eyes looked murderous as he looked right at Pride. His eyes had red veins through them, and he started staggering toward Pride. Pride was about to laugh at Accelerator's final attempt, but his words got stuck in his throat. Out of Accelerator's back came a pitch black substance that seemed to swallow the very light around him. It formed into roughly what looked like two wings as it flowed away from him to both sides. They actually looked more like jets then wings. "What the hell are those?" To him they felt similar to Telesma, but still fundamentally different. I wasn't told anything about that? He realized what was causing the fear to build up inside of him.

Before Pride could react, the ground behind Accelerator exploded. Accelerator flew forward and landed right in front of Pride. He reached up and grabbed Pride by the face. Pride struggled and delivered a punch to Accelerator's face, but he might as well have punched a stone wall for the amount of notice Accelerator gave it. Instead, he said a simple thing that was hard for Pride to hear, but easy to understand. "ihbfKILLwq." With a single flick of his wrist, Accelerator sent Pride flying backwards at the speed of sound crashing into the side of the coliseum, plowing through several stone walls and stands.

"What happened to him?" Pride muttered as he started regenerating. "Does he even know what kind of monster he became? It's like he became a demon…" His eyes widened. Did science really come that far? They are actually able to create an artificial demon? No wonder his Telesma was so warped. His thoughts were interrupted as Accelerator leaped up to follow him. It seemed to Pride, Accelerator wasn't interesting in mercy, only destruction. Accelerator reached down and grabbed Pride by the arm. "You still can't win," Pride said in an undertone as he stared into the demon's eyes. The demon grinned back at him.

A ripping sound split the air.

Accelerator tore of Pride's arm and threw it away from him. He then used his other hand to pick up Pride's body and threw it, once again, at the speed of sound into the far side of the coliseum. Pride crashed far into the stone walls of the coliseum and blinked. His bones were broken and he was bleeding because he was missing his arm. After a second his bones started to regenerate and he started to stand up. A sharp pain continued in his shoulder. His arm should have grown back but it seemed to be regenerating at a much slower pace than it had before. That's impossible. There is no limit to how often I can heal. Even if he destroyed my body every second for a year, I would still regenerate. Is it just my imagination?

An explosion came from the far side of the coliseum as Pride watched Accelerator start heading toward the blue barrier holding Last Order. Pride walked out of the hole in the wall his body made and started to head toward Accelerator while watching him closely. Accelerator stood over the blue barrier while raising a hand. He brought the fist down into the barrier with a crash. A white shockwave emerged from the barrier and filled the entire arena. Accelerator's black wings got pushed back slightly but they still held. The wave passed through Pride and he felt the hairs on his neck stand up. He can stand up to a barrier made by the Herald? He really is a demon. He didn't have a choice, but to keep walking toward the monster.

The monster formally known as Accelerator slammed his hand on the barrier again creating another white shockwave. He felt it push his body back, but he did not care. He howled in anger and smashed it again with both hands. This time the shockwave pushed him back a foot while the ground all around the stone alter was blown away several hundred feet. "You can't break it," a voice behind him said but he ignored it. His only thought was to destroy this barrier in front of him. "Can't even hear me anymore huh?" the foreign voice continued despite being ignored by Accelerator. "I can't die and you will run out of power eventually. She's going to die and nothing you do can stop it." This time the creature stopped and slowly rotated his head to see who was talking.

Pride watched as Accelerator's head turned slowly to look at him. His eyes were like a wild beast and only had destruction etched in them. "I know you can't keep that power up forever. Just give up and let her die. You caused me a lot of problems." His voice suddenly got harsh as he too got angry. "I am going to make sure I kill all those others you lived with. I will personally guarantee every one of them suffers. I will even throw in the death of all your friends who came with you, but first the girl dies." He started to laugh when he was suddenly was forced to stop.

Accelerator threw his head back and roared in anger as he turned to face Pride. Pride did not, he could not, know the impact the words he just said would have. Accelerator may have been controlled by his anger, but he still had his main objective, protect the girl. Pride had just broken his last thread binding him to his goal. The two jets of the dark black substance split and spread into murky black wings from his back. This pair of wings contained something which could blow away the mind, anger that shattered his last shred of humanity, grew instantly over tens of meters. The nearby stone walls and concreate floors were shaved just being in mere contact with these new wings. Pride felt a new feeling he only felt once before, right before he was burned alive by the one magician.

Terror.

There is a big difference between fear and terror. Fear is like driving along an icy road late at night. One would be afraid of sliding off the road into a ravine and being trapped. That would be an example of fear. You worry something bad will happen, but there is no proof it will. Terror is when you slide off the icy road over the side of a cliff, and there is nothing below you as you plummet to your death. You know you are going to die, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. That is terror. Pride felt terror when he saw those new wings. He didn't know why he was terrified, he couldn't die. But no matter how hard he tried to reason with himself, he could not calm down. He knew he was going to die, but did not know why. Before he could react, Accelerator struck.

One of the jet black wings tore through the air with a boom. The explosion was air being pushed away. Simply by moving, these black wings produced a powerful gale blowing away everything next to Accelerator. The next second, Pride looked down as the wing pieced right through his chest. Pride could do nothing but open his mouth and coughed up blood. The black wing retracted out of him, and Pride fell to the ground. Accelerator roared in anger and pain. Even stabbing Pride, the person who caused it, did not stop his rampage. His wings split up into separated into countless sharp wings and aimed at Pride who was still on the ground.

Pride was lying on the ground bleeding out. His wounds were closing, but incredibly slowly. I'm having trouble regenerating these wounds? What is he and how does he make the wounds unable to be healed? Before he could try to explain this impossible situation, his entire body was stabbed by the countless razor sharp wings. His wounds were not healing, but he was not dying either. The symbol on his head was glowing brightly, but Pride could not see it. Hah, immortal but can't heal, this sucks. He now had to live through the intense pain that would not end. A second later, he felt his body being lifted into the air.

Accelerator was using the black wing to lift Pride up. It was still split up into the countless sharp points so gravity was pushing Pride's body weight down onto the spikes. He could not move so Accelerator's wing instead moved Pride to face him two feet away. Pride looked into the monster's eyes and only saw death. All trace of humanity was gone. Accelerator howled in anger and pain then stabbed Pride in the chest with his other wing. More specifically, Accelerator stabbed him in the heart. Pride still would not die.

"I am immortal," he called out through the blood that was threating to choke him. "I can't die. You can only fall into despair…." His words where cut short when he saw something. Something was beginning to appear on Accelerator's head. It was faint at first but started to grow darker. "It can't be." The Mark of Pride was appearing on Accelerator. Pride could not see his own forehead, but he felt his power beginning to leave him. He's stealing my curse mark. That can't be possible. His wounds were not healing and everything started to get blurry. The last thing he saw was Accelerator's eyes. They did not appear to even be aware Pride was losing his mark. They only had the desire to kill in them.

"kceyuiREASONplwq lihxDIEwqx"

There was no mercy. Afterwards the slaughter of Pride began and ended in seconds. A roar echoed across the arena. A roar that was more frightening than a beast's and more terrifying than a demon's. But it had the sadness of the crying sounds of a helpless child. Accelerator's youth had been nothing but a tragedy and now it was beginning again. The monster turned around as the blue barrier faded away. He glided over to it and looked down at the sleeping child before him.

Liquid started to flow from his eyes, but they were not tears. It smelled of rust, was dark red, thicker, and full of pain. The roar became more of a howl as the creature fell to his knees and reached out. He picked up Last Order and held her close to him. The black wings behind him began to shrink. He sat on the ground, holding her tightly against his chest as he leaned against the stone alter. She was breathing and his heart did not ache anymore. He looked at her sleeping face and his mind was now miraculously clear and he began to think once again.

His sight was blurring as he slowly was beginning to pass out. He looked up at the sky and saw everyone's faces again. He saw Aiho, Kikyou, Worst, everyone form his class, and even the hero who did more for him then he could ever hope to repay. As he saw all of their faces he realized how large his world had become. He looked at the sleeping Last Order, who was clutching his shirt, and he pulled her close to him. He swore to protect the people close to him, but he just now began to realize how many people that was now. He saw Last Order smile while she was snuggling against him. Before he realized it, a smile grew on his face too. Not a smirk like he normally wore, but a true smile of happiness.

Maybe being a hero once in a while isn't a bad thing, he thought to himself. I may have too much anger inside to be one though. Everything went dark, but before he lost consciousness he thought he heard a song in the distance, a calming song, full of hope. He didn't see the remains of his black wings beginning to break apart into pieces. The pieces turned white as they fell down around him, like snow, while he held Last Order.

Everyone: (Silence)

Mikoto: Did he just admit he likes us?

Touma: I think he did.

Jason: Awesome fight though, full of ups and down. But yea, he likes us all but is just shy.

Accelerator: Shut up all of you.

Misaki: It's ok Accelerator. We like you too.

Motoharu: I think we are missing the important part above.

Touma: What?

Motoharu: He admitted he was a lolicon for Last Order.

Accelerator: WHAT THE F&*$%!

Mikoto: Damn, now he is going to be a step brother.

Jason: Good job Accel-kun

Misaki: How sweet.

Accelerator: I'm killing all of you.

Feel free to leave a review, comment, suggestions, or idea. I love reading them. Next fight we get to see what happens to Touma. I did like this chapter though. It was the very first fight I envisioned when I originally thought of this arc.

Oh, out of curiosity on my part, who was your favorite sin and which fight was your favorite?