Ch.61 Desperation

Inverse Tohka Timeline

Saori holds her jagged sword, puts her gun away, and turns to Akane, who is trying to crawl away from the action. Saori simply watches for the moment and smiles at seeing such a futile effort but is still planning on enjoying it. She slowly walks towards the injured Spirit child and has a very malefic aura around her.

Akane doesn't look and continues crawling away from her foe. She tries to keep going but her hand and her blood loss makes it very difficult to keep moving. Saori begins walking a little faster while humming a happy tune to herself all the while.

Her smile fades when she senses a nasty attack coming her way and she turns to see a black slash wave coming towards her and while it seemingly is about to hit her point blank, Saori suddenly dodges it by being out of the path.

She looks further and sees Haruhime wielding her sword forward while she seems the black swordswoman is here to back up the fallen fire Spirit Child. Haru holds her sword with both hands and asks with disgust "Does picking on the helpless pleasure you?"

Saori smirks as a reply and then calls out "Lucifuge!" and her demon king reappears as the two girls warp away and begin fighting in the skies with Haru deflecting many of Saori's shots as the time manipulating Spirit Child shoots relentlessly.

Saori's eye glows bright neon blue and she smiles sadistically "Lucifuge!" She cries as the number 5 glows on Lucifuge and Saori grins."

Haru, however, suddenly finds herself swinging in a circular motion and then Saori is suddenly behind her and now has a light cut on her face and a frustrated look.

Saori touches the wound and asks "How did you know?"

Haru holds her sword with both hands and answers "I know everything about inversion and all of the Spirits powers with them."

Saori scoughs at this and begins to laugh a little "You know of MY powers. Please, that little party trick is nothing compared to my other new tricks….LUCIFUGE!" she cries as the eight on the clock glows and Lucifuge appears before her as she apparently walks through Lucifuge's form and then that's when something strange occurs, Saori's clock rapidly counts down reducing her lifespan greatly but then as she walks, a clone appears with different hours on their eyes but they take her normal form not her inversed and she creates three clones.

Haru replies to this ability "I know of Kurumi's cloning abilities, and it's nothing I can't handle. Since None of them can use your powers outside the guns."

Saori 's clones laugh at the Spirit Child and each of them announce "Come Zafkiel!" as three Zafkiel's appear above them and greatly shocking Haru.

"No way…." She utters as she readies her sword with a sweat going down her face.

Saori, the real one, then says "You know, it's going to be really boring if you don't have any backup against my three doppelgangers, so why don't you let the little flame girl get her powers back. I can tell it was you who did it since little Shido is no longer here."

Haru looks at Akane, who is clearly in pain from Saori's torture, but she's still unsure, so Saori grabs the latter and tosses her to the ground "Well, I'm waiting." She says with impatience.

Haru is still hesitating because of the damage Akane was doing, so Saori grits her teeth and then exclaims "Fine, I'll make this easier." She then takes a gun, and then shoots Akane in the head without even a moment of hesitation.

Haru, greatly disturbed by this action, has to act quickly as she announces "Unlock!" as a dark shot shoots from her sword and hits Akane's dying body and then her body envelops in negative mana.

Saori is a little unnerved because she didn't realize Akane had achieved inversion, and this is going to haunt her because Akane's wounds close up with dark fire rather her normal ones. Her inversed outfit returns and the ground begin to shake a bit.

Akane rises with her eyes glowing dark as she kicks Haru's sword out of her hand as the first thing she does. She then punches the hero of this world in her stomach and sends her away with a quick and powerful blow with her dark fires in it.

Akane then sets her sights on Saori and tells her "Now, I'm gonna break you into pieces." Saori becoming unnerved by this threat readies herself for fighting.

Saori summons her dual swords and puts one of the blades to her mouth and says to herself "This is going to be a tough one." and then puts her mouth on the blade as she sucks power from it and her time is restored.

Haru finds herself somewhere in the sky and sees herself surrounded by the Saori clones, who all still have their own Zafkiels behind them. Not taking any chances, Haru summons her sword and takes her stance while the Saori's brandish their guns.

Elsewhere, Mana is trying to make contact with the Bifrost while she and Ellen are now returning to the battle scene, but can't get a connection. She looks at her ally and requests "Ellen, I can't anything from the ship. Do you think you can fly to it and find out if anything is wrong?"

Ellen nods and flies off to check on the ship. However, Mana barely manages to dodge an incoming attack from a red laser. She turns to see the Ellen of her time, now recovered as her wounds have red lights coming from them and are closing.

Behind Ellen, is a familiar face, Mana's eyes widen as her former companion floats behind Ellen, Aki, and he's looking unhappy to see her.

He floats next to Ellen and tells her "Move on to the next appointed area. I'll clean up your mess."

She looks at him and rebukes "No, I'm the one assigned to reclaim Saori Itsuka. You are not in charge."

Aki warps in front of her and adds "I am giving you your orders, Ellen Mira Mathers. If you want to defy them, I am permitted to give punishment by my master."

Ellen looks at Mana and then nods and warps away in a dark aura. With that settled, Aki looks at Mana and gives her a warning "Back out of this fight, Mana, and my master promises you won't get hurt."

Mana, unease by Aki's change in alliance as well as his new dark form, states "Aki, why didn't you come back to us? We've been looking for you and my brother. Why did you join up with DEM?"

Aki shakes his head "DEM means nothing to me. I was tempted to kill that woman, but my Master told me not to. It's nothing personal, but I've decided to work with him for a while."

Not wanting to fight her friend, Mana tries to reason with him "Are you listening to yourself? Do you know how much we've worried, about how much sleep that Tohka and Kotori lost trying to find you, and you just turn on us. I don't buy it. What about your mom too? You think she would like to hear you talking about killing someone?"

Aki smiles at this and then his voice changes a bit and it sounds like a mix of his voice with a female voice "What are you talking about. Aki has his mother right here. She's keeping him safe from people who'd hurt him." He answers as he brandishes his word and Mana has no choice but to raise her guard.

Bifrost

Kotori manages to get a warp from Ellen as they met up on the way here, they appear in the transporter room and already something is off, the ship is very cold.

Kotori looks at Ellen and wonders "You don't think…"

They try to exit the room but are impeded by a wall of ice. Ellen uses her sword to slice through the wall and then see something unsettling, there is snow falling in the hallways of the ship. Kotori equips her Astral Dress but not her angel out of worry of going out of control. Having her powers ready all of the time is convenient thanks to the deceased Kotori from a previous world.

Their first response is getting to the bridge but on the way there, they spot an unconscious Shiori with a bloody lip and Kotori uses her power to heat up the area do to Shiori looking like she's about to freeze to death.

Ellen looks around and wonders "Where's Kenji and Miyuki?"

Kotori, while heating up the area, suggests "I think it's safe to bet that Miyuki is behind the ice. She's Yoshino's kid after all."

Ellen agrees and uses her territory to protect from the snow while Shiori warms up and her body reflexively enters its spirit form to help her body temperature. Even her guardians appear from the concert appears and help her up.

Shiori wakes up and asks "Where's…Mi…yuki?" her voice weak from her body being so cold. She mutters out "I…heard her…crying."

Kotori sighs and remembers a similar incident at the shrine back in Miyuki's home. Ellen remembers hearing about it so all they have to do is wake up Miyuki.

Shiori's guardians lift her up and carry her around.

In another room, Freki looks upon her arm because she grips her fist and her frozen arm is now healed and ready to use. She has to leave the ship before too long, but then she begins to feel isolated because of her environment. She sees the door to the room she's in has frozen shut and she has no crystals left to transport out and has to make contact with one of her comrades. But she can't bust through the door because it's too cold and her hands would freeze on contact with the ice, so she sits and wait.

However, being alone like this causes some painful memories from her time under the name CWM-O.

Years Ago

O, as she was called then, had an negative reaction to a power drug injected into her and is in the infirmary of the building crying as her arm has a great throbbing pain.

A doctor reads her charts with Westcott nearby and informs him "Among the models, this one seems to have had the worst reaction. I believe this model's physical abilities are far inferior to the original's."

Westcott reads a medical report that states model O will recover but that further drug experimentation will lead to her death.

The doctor further proceeds "She would simply euthanize and keep the organs in case the original joins or a donor is needed?"

The director looks at the clone in great pain and smiles "No that would be a waste. Sure, her physical development is lacking, so we'll look into mental development. I also would like to see how their mental fortitude holds up."

Even though he used mental in his idea, what he did was very cruel and very heartless. O did indeed recover within the next days and is brought to a giant room with padding all over it, no windows, no grates, no cracks, and no holes. There is only one door with one hatch on just wide enough for smaller objects.

O looks around the room and asks "Mr. Director, what is this place? She asks weakly.

Isaac simply waves and walks out of the room as the door shuts, much to the horror of the cloned wizard as she bangs on the door while begging "Please don't leave? I'm sorry…I'm sorry….I'm sorry…." She sobs and just keeps saying sorry for what feels like hours.

Days go by while the cloned wizard simply mutters sorry every so often. She looks hungry and thirsty while completely drained emotionally. She only has the clothes on her body and nothing more in this isolated room. Then, she hears a noise, and the hatch on the door opens as she gets up and runs to it
"Hello?" she asks desperately wanting to hear anyone talking to her. The only thing she gets is a small package and the hatch closes with her banging on the door. Her banging on the door only stops when she stomach rumbles from hunger and her mouth dry from thirst.

Collapsing, she sees the package and smells a faint aroma coming from it and she reaches over to check it. She opens the package and finds a canteen along with a bundle of dried meats, fruits, and vegetables. She drools and starts eating all of the food and drinking water from the canteen. When she's finished, there is little food left, and the canteen is half full. But there is a note that reads "Food only comes once every three weeks, make it last." With no signature and a book underneath,

The book is about math problems and O decides to read it to pass the time and is worried about that note. It was true, she only got food every three weeks, which she had to ration.

Present

Freki stares at the door and waits for the next signs of movement to make her escape. Her eyes never leaving the door and she begins to hear footsteps.