"Onii-chan! An inversed spirit just popped up on radar and caused a spacequake!" A certain redhead screamed a shocking bit of info into Shidou's earpiece.
"I know. I'm already on it." The school was being evacuated already, but Shidou had slipped out of the crowd, telling Tohka to go ahead without him. He'd sealed his powers away at school grounds, so there was no way for him to sense the spirit's location.
"But I want to stay with you! What if something happens to Shidou!" Tohka protested, teary-eyed.
"Look, if you use your astral dress, either we'll both be weakened due to having to share the same power, or the AST will try to kill you, since you can't hide your spiritual powers when they're in full bloom! I can't put you in that position, Tohka… Not after what happened the last time…" Shidou's eyes were glossy, as if he weren't there, as if his body was here while his spirit visited some other place or point in time. The spirit-turned-human noticed this and went silent, knowing that the person she loved more than anything was going to stubbornly stick to his decision.
"Ok… But please… Be safe Shidou!" Tohka pleaded, worry and desperation apparent. Just then, a familiar feeling reached her head- Shidou's hand.
"I promise, I'll never die. Ever. I'm carrying the legacy of Kaguya, Yuzuru, and Miku after all… Dying would mean killing them a second time." His voice almost broke, and his eyes went bloodshot at the painful memory. Tohka ran off, deciding not to use up anymore precious time.
"Save that for later. Gotta focus on the matter at hand." Shidou steeled himself and ran into the school to give himself enough privacy to let his reiryoku flow."
"A fight between a blonde and a brunette break out, followed by a spacequake in the exact same area!? Plus, my name was mentioned!? No coincidence." The now energy-channeling adolescent pieced everything together quickly. After making sure that everyone escaped, he applied reiryoku into his legs –as well as a smaller amount everywhere else to protect himself from debris - and super jumped out through a wall in his school in the direction of the spiritual energy that he was now able to sense. He decided to take a stealth approach, running up one of the skyscrapers and jumping from building to building until he had a perfect view of the perpetrator. It was, undoubtedly, Ai. She was wearing a black chest plate and a red pauldron. She had a blue tee under the armor, as well as a red miniskirt with a lightning design(that was quite literally spewing out lightning bolts) and leggings with several spikes on it, as well as spiked bracelets and black boots that were red at the sole and point. Black gauntlets spiked near the elbow and clawed at the finger tips were present on each hand, with an ominous glow being emitted from the palm area. Ai's hair had several purple streaks that resembled lightning in it, and her eyes had gone from their usual light brown to a dark crimson, with a blue pupil. They were burning with empty rage and vengeance.
"Damn, looks like a tough opponent with several powers. Looks like her weapons are part of her armor, so she'll most likely be faster than the others, especially considering how she resembles lightning and has less heavy clothing. Tch, I may have to use Yamai's wind- no. Lightning beats wind by a lot. They just use reiryoku to manipulate the wind which won't help me much. Going inverse may work, if I can channel enough raw energy to keep up with her while using my light daggers. But if I can end it with a sneak attack…" Shidou contemplated with himself for a couple of minutes before deciding to summon Sandalphon, jump, seal of his reiryoku, and then release at the last second, which would hopefully catch Ai off guard and end it right there. He could easily sense that fighting would have to come before talking with just one glance of her eyes. Shidou steeled himself. If he deployed his reiryoku too late, then he'd be splattered on the floor. If he did it a millisecond too early, a lightning fast counter would come and there'd be nothing he could do about it. After a couple of deep breaths, he sighed.
"Here goes nothing…" Then he jumped, the wind blowing against his face, drying his eyes, pressuring his entire body. He resisted the urge to give in to his adrenaline and lose focus. After fully regaining his composure and refocusing his calculating gaze(though he did be sure to hide all murderous intent), Shidou's speed reached its peak and at that moment, where there was only a couple of inches between him and his inversed friend, the adolescent released all of his reiryoku at once, more than quadrupling his speed and swinging all at point blank range. The figure looked up and then smirked. Shidou hit the ground with an explosion, the figure's image fading like disrupted heat waves the moment his sword made contact.
"Dammit! She saw me coming from miles away!" The failed attacker cursed mentally before looking around anxiously for the real one. A blur came at him from behind and swung too fast for him to dodge, sending him flying into a nearby bookstore. Groaning, Shidou struggled to stand up from atop the several dozen knocked over bookshelves and crater in the wall behind them. Through the rubble walked a girl laughing maniacally.
"Nice try, Shidou-kun. But who really falls for a simple afterimage? Noob~" Ai teased, not losing the usual sarcasm of her counterpart.
"Wait, is it because you're not really a spirit? That you're limited to the speed and strength of a regular man, save the couple instances where you send energy to certain parts of your body? You can't hope to win like that…" The inversed spirit pretended to think out loud. Shidou stood up and chuckled.
"I'd been wanting to not use this, but…" Shidou tossed sandalphon away and inversed. There was an explosion that leveled the entire block. The vortex was exponentially bigger this time. The "victim" had purple eyes, white pupils, a viciously evil Cheshire grin, held two slim black blades that looked like halves of Sandalphon's inversed form, and a deadly purple aura.
"A non-spirit can inverse!?" Ai was generally shocked, but the doubt instantly disappeared as she remembered something.
"But that doesn't mean you have the body of a spirit. Heheh.." The blonde seemingly teleported in front of the smiling teen, yet his confident grin didn't budge. Not one inch.
"Oh, but I can be." The inversed human stated teasingly. He found out that, by unleashing all of his reiryoku and spreading it evenly throughout his body, he can transform into a false spirit. He altered his energy flow –which in turn changed his build- to give himself the body akin to that of a spirit. Laughing as Ai's face held doubt for a split second, he threw a roundhouse at the head of his enemy. In the place of the target, there was air, just as he predicted.
"So this will actually be fun, eh?" Ai smirked as her sweep kick was dodged just as fast.
"Don't disappoint me now~" Shidou stated, allowing himself to slow down to the point of visibility in front of his foe. They both took a step forward, and then the true battle began.