The cold night became brisk all of a sudden in the foresting trees as Derek stared hard at the arrival of a new opponent. His dark eyes were piercing against her seductive ones. Her clapping had stopped and now, her hands lay limp at her sides.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Derek asked, remaining cautious of whatever her abilities may be.

She scoffed. "That's a new question," she piqued. "You must not be from around these parts. No matter. It just means you'll go down even faster," she stated, flashing an evil grin as her fingers moved creepily at her side, her wrist cracking with the sound of glass.

Her… her hand? Derek thought as she looked at the creepiness of its motion. He swallowed hard to keep down his nervousness that he never seemed to show. "Answer my question," he demanded, hiding his emotion. "Who are you?" Derek narrowed his eyes.

"Does that even matter?" she laughed at Derek. With a sudden motion, she swung her arm across the distance between them, her limb shooting out surprisingly an arsenal of glass shards that darted through the air like ninja stars.

At the sudden attack, Derek ducked down and fell on his back. What the – he cut off his thought as he fell through the floor, falling into the Darkness.

Coming back to the real world, Derek emerged from the bark of a tree, panting lowly just in case his enemy heard him. He took short breaths, keeping his senses active. That could've been dangerous, he thought tiredly. He peered to his side as his the trunk of the tree gave his back support. The coolness touched his skin barely as his chest continued to rise and fall as breaths came in and out. In the corner of his eyes, Derek spotted the glass shards that had posed a threat to him, stabbed into a tree, glimmering in the faint moonlight as if giving a threatening glare. Derek gulped, and then resumed his silent breathing.

"You can't run away, kid," the woman said with an evil smirk, her voice loud and demonic. Her arm began to crack with the sound of breaking glass again. "My glass is specially made by me and my body, and is denser than steel yet harder than diamond," she informed to scare the jitters out of her opponent, yet failing.

I see, Derek realized, thinking hard. So by firing her glass at a constant rate with glass shards, she forces the opponent to run from her attacks as they trail behind them, forcing to wear them out. She must tell everyone that they're denser than steel and harder than diamond so they are aware of the current situation they could be put in, whether it is true or not. A tricky strategy to realize she's using, but all her efforts are pointless if the enemy has a good defense, even if they have the characteristics she just stated.

Suddenly, without Derek noticing, glass restrainers emerged from the tree Derek had his back on as he continued to think. They glimmered in the dying moonlight and took caution before they wrapped around him, keeping a tight hold on him. When they finally struck, Derek was left surprised, letting out a shocked cry. Remaining somewhat calm, Derek didn't seem to resist the hold of the restrainers and just waited. Where'd these come from? he asked himself as he moved uneasily in the glass hold, gritting his teeth.

On cue to his thoughts, a figure began to rise from the ground in front of him in the form of powder that molded itself into a person. The same woman from before. Regeneration from the ground? Derek figured, his eyes wide with shock to what his opponent could do. She continued to grow like a fungus on the dirt ground as the rest of her body began to stretch out, molding into a normal figure.

"I told you," the woman growled, as the last bit of her body was risen from the ground. "You can't run away!" she reminded Derek as a long, glass shard began to protrude from the palm of her hand, ready for use at any moment.

Damn it! Derek thought to himself. This is getting bad, he thought, beginning to sink back into the bark of the tree, feeling the surface beneath him turn to zilch. With a deadly attempt, the opponent took the glass shard and tried hard to stab Derek through the heart, but missed as he sunk back to the Darkness dimension, his handy escape at all times. Her shard ended up striking the bark of the tree that seemed to clamp on the glass dagger in a grudge. "Shitty brat!" she growled.

Like a wave of evil, blackness crept from the corners of the shadows and sunk away the dirt ground in a sea of ebony, washing against the confused opponent. "What is this?!" she cried angrily, her only emotion.

A hand began to rise from the blackness sea, sneaking upward without the victim noticing, the hand creepy-looking if you didn't realize what it was immediately. "Ankoku Jutsu –Darkness Technique-" Derek muttered to himself silently, his voice only heard in his own ears. "Yoku no Zaigou, -Sinful Greed-" Derek's voice rang in his own ears as the hand tightly gripped his opponent around the ankle, the feeling sudden to the complaining woman. The hand had a soft touch to it at first, but then had a rigorous tug that would've surprised anyone with its sudden, immense force, dragging the victim downward into the ground and into the Darkness, the familiar interface world between the world and hell.

The woman cried out as she felt herself lose sight and feeling of her body parts from the bottom up, being drowned in the deviance of darkness.

As she found herself blinded and lost in the empty, spacious darkness, she desperately looked around, trying to find something she could see – anything. "Now you're in my technique," Derek's voice whispered in her ear suddenly and creepily.

"W-Where am I?" the complaint demanded, looking around frantically, as if searching for something.

"The Darkness. It's the interface between earth and hell, and your abilities are powerless here," Derek's voice informed. "Now, tell me," he demanded solemnly, his voice deep and creepy like Hibiyomi's. "How do I get my friends out of your illusion?"

The woman scoffed. "It's hopeless!" she cried out with a happy grin filled with deviancy. "Even I can't drag them out at this point. They've probably gone psychotic by themselves by now!" she yelled out in anticipation, happy to inform Derek of what could've happened.

Damn this woman, Derek thought to himself, gritting his teeth tightly. If that's true, then… I'll die easily without their help. There has to be a way to get them out! Even the strongest technique has to have a weakness! "Where the hell are you, kid?!" the unconcerned foe demanded. "Come out so I can tear you to bits and pieces!"

"Give it up," Derek muttered loudly. "Your powers are useless here," he reminded. "There's no use in trying to attack me as long as we're in here."

"Oh? Is that so? Interesting," she muttered to herself. That evil grin on her face never seemed to wear off. The sound of blaring trains soon filled the pitch blackness, the roaring sounds emerging from different directions like a blasting noise that filled the two people's ears.

"Yeah," Derek repeated. "Now spill the secret of your technique so I can get my friends back!" the desperate Minor demanded. The anger in his voice masked his desperation. He always seemed to find a way to look tough all the time, even if he was feeling some very non-tough feelings.

"Ha!" the woman laughed in the teenage boy's face. "It's doubtful you'll get them back," she said loudly, making sure the Minor heard her. "Many have been trapped in my technique for years and still haven't come out. What makes you think your friends are any different?"

Damn it, Derek thought to himself, cursing his luck out silently. "As for my 'powers' being unavailable here…" the woman muttered, his voice seeming to calm, yet not so much. From Derek's watching eyes, the woman seemed to stare hard at him, directly at him as if to say "I've got you now." But that was impossible. She couldn't see him, could she? Or sense him. So why was she staring at him like that?

Suddenly, she swung her arm across the darkness, forming it into a glass limb that had glass shards protruding from the arm like shark fins gliding easily through the water. Her fingers had become large, deadly glass shards that were as long as a trunk of a tree. The palm of the glass hand trapped Derek in its hold. "Got you now, don't I?" she asked in amusement.

"What?" Derek cried out. Impossible! he thought to himself. Slowly, the Darkness's ebony began to fade away, slightly at first, but then the shivering became so intense that it was inevitable what was going to happen next. Feeling the hard, cool glass against his body, Derek tried hard to move, but his body didn't seem to react. As the darkness faded away, they were slowly taken back into the Outer World, and the coolness of the dying night was felt again, along with the damp, towering trees that filled Derek's eyes. "What the hell is going on? Your powers should have been sealed as soon as we entered the Darkness!" Derek complained.

"Kid, these aren't my 'powers'! My glass abilities are my body, and my body is my glass abilities!" she stated, making something clear. "You can walk and talk and touch in the Darkness, can't you? Well, using my glass powers are the same thing as walking and talking for an ordinary person!" Her words seemed to add pressure to the grip she had on Derek, making him groan in a short pain.

"Is that so?" Derek grunted, trying hard to speak, his voice filtering through the sharp, threatening glass blades she now called fingers. The heavy glass was cold against Derek's hot skin. She was right. It was harder than diamond, Derek thought. I can't even crack it.

"Yeah," the opponent muttered quietly. "Now, suffer and die!" she declared, adding immense pressure to the palm of her glass limb.

Derek felt the glass come down harder on his chest, and was suddenly reminded of the time when he had the first encounter with Eruption and his crashing, burning fist that broke off two of his ribs. Now, Derek was getting that same feeling all over again. He tried hard to make a noise under the imprisoning, icy glass. His hands were at the surface of the hard material, trying hard to push it back up but failing every effort. With an effort he didn't want to make, Derek sunk back into the ground, running back into his infinite escape.

"How many times are you going to run away, shitty rat?" the foe made a complaint, her only way of speaking. Her voice was angry that she couldn't continue her fun as she drew back her glass limb and molded it back to the normal, human looking kind.

Rising from the body of a nearby tree, Derek landed on a tree's branch with a grunt. The barely supporting limb of the tree made tiny efforts to make him comfortable. Splinters seemed to come from everywhere. This is getting dangerous, Derek thought as he tried hard to conceal himself. Not even the darkness can restrain her. Without much info on her abilities and without my teammates, I'm a sitting duck! Damn it!

PoVS

Dylan ran through the unfamiliar, orange grounds, running away from what he had just seen. "What's the matter?" a booming voice seemed to follow him in the photographic world. "Running away from your problems again? Kindness won't help you now, brat!" the godly voice boomed.

Dylan continued to run frantically across the dirt field, almost tripping on his feet in his panic. He breathed hard as he made sure he didn't even take a peek back, afraid of what he might see. His unsteady, heavy breathing seemed to weigh two tons as perspiration rolled down his face like tears of an angel from his pure, snowy hair. His eyes were folded in racing panic and his heart rate seemed to jump off the charts, banging on his ribcage as if protesting its bony prison.

Ahead, rushing past the frozen shrubs and trees, Dylan saw Zack, bound together by millions of chains, half his body sunk into an orange lake with constant ripples that seemed to come from Zack's waist. He cried out angrily as he tried to break free from the binding chains, hating to be locked up. Dylan was thankful to find his teammate so close by.

"Zack! Zack, are you all right?" Dylan cried out, his voice bare to his own ears. Fortunately, Zack heard him. He flashed a blank look at him, as if trying to figure out who he was.

"Dylan-san?" he muttered more calmly now. Then, the thought suddenly flashed in his mind. "Do you think I'm all right!?" he shouted comically, his face growing ten times as large, his eyes rounded humorously with his mouth curving into a square, giving a literal definition to chatter box.

"Calm down, calm down, just asking," Dylan apologized, waving his hand in the air in a nervous, tedious way, an anxious smile growing on his face.

"You can't run away!" the booming voice came back again. Dylan turned, and with a blank, widened stare, he cried out in despair, his screams echoing off the solemn, monument-like trees that forever remained shot in time.

PoVS

Derek thought hard as he kept his eyes peeled for anything strange in the brisk night of the real world. He was thankful he was back, but he had to keep his mind off of such matters if he wanted to get his teammates back. He couldn't think to imagine the kind of trouble he would be put through if he let two of the Minors die.

There has to be a part of her that controls the technique they're still stuck in, Derek figured, gritting his teeth as confusion filled his thoughts with stormy clouds that thundered violently. Her mind? No. She's focusing on the battle, isn't she? She can't multitask with the mind. Then what?

Suddenly, a rumbling came to from below the ground, and quakes began shaking the trees violently, their heads rustling, as if shaking their heads, saying a solemn no. The ground continued to quake rigorously, and the sound of cracking glass emerged what seemed to be millions of glass shards protruding from the ground like towering statues. They crept up towards Derek's tree branch, and he was forced to jump off before he was cut in half by a pillaring shard.

He soon found himself engaged in a forest of glass and plant life, and looked around nervously as he thought carefully. Did she find my whereabouts? No, it was just a random, wide-range attack that she used to look for me. Thank god. He peered around him continuously and found nothing but broken trees and glass pillars. He noticed something strange and looked hard at the almost transparent glass, and found something that piqued his interest. On the surface of the glass was brown sand that seemed to dissolve into the air slowly, disappearing into nothing but glass. Sand…? Derek thought to himself.

On cue to Derek's thoughts, his foe rushed out of the canopies of the skyscraping trees and cried out to surprise him. "I found you!" she called out with a smirk that revealed all her current emotion. She held her glassy limb in her arsenal as she crashed down, colliding with Derek and sending a towering cloud of dust into the air as a sickening clattering was heard and spread throughout the forest grounds.

"Damn it, you're one troublesome woman," Derek muttered as the dust clouds cleared and revealed the final happening. The woman was seconds away from crashing into Derek when he had stopped her suddenly with his own kind of limb, the Shadow Limb. "You never get off my back, do you?" Derek muttered as he held her in place in the air. "Now release my teammates!" he demanded.

She scowled. "Shut up and stop worrying about your worthless friends!" she cried out as she sent her glass arm diving through the air, crashing into the ground as Derek jumped away at the last second, releasing the Shadow Limb's hold. His foe crashed into the grand with a clatter as more dust was sent flying through the air.

As the last wisps of dust were clearing, she became barely visible again and sent another whipping, stretching glass arm through the air, the glass shards glimmering slightly in the failing moonlight that was soon about to set. The limb rushed across the air like a thick, growing snake as Derek jumped to his side to dodge the crashing arm. "Damn it, you never give up!" Derek cried out, the constant glass attacks infuriating. The sound of cracking glass is about to become infuriating to me, Derek realized as he narrowed his stare, watching his opponent draw back her human arm.

Sensing that she was about to do it again, Derek sent his own arm through the air and sent her flying through the forest, crashing against a nearby tree. The shattering of glass filled his ears with an ironic, pleasant noise that was like music to Derek's ears. The breaking glass fell to the floor in a helpless pile as Derek drew back the Shadow Arm and molded it back to his human arm. Derek waited in silence.

An eerie rustling of trees brushed by as the light breezes ran past, filtering into a hundred little ones through the dividing branches of the pillaring towers of trees. Derek swallowed in suspense and nervousness.

Suddenly, the pile of glass began to clink together. The shards were like toasting to each other for a sign of victory. The clinks made Derek even more nervous as they began to shuffle into the air, like someone had picked them up with invisible hands that manipulated everything and everyone in the world. The glass shards began to pour into each other, clinking as they piled on top of one another in two separate piles, one bigger than the other in the air. They look like they're rebuilding her… Derek noticed.

And he was right. Soon, the glass shards began expanding and color began to paint ominously across them. Moments later, with the sound of cracking glass, his opponent was back to normal, unharmed and unscratched, laughing in his face at his dire efforts to do some damage to her.

I can't believe it… Derek thought with gritted teeth and narrowed eyes, his fists clenching grudgingly. She… she rebuilt herself!