Hakuya and Souji stood across from each other, the wind blowing between them. Souji took two steps forward and drew his claymore, pointing the massive weapon at his old comrade. Hakuya in turn raised his spear. The rest of Azure Storm remained silent, standing a few paces behind Hakuya. Arcadia's hands were joined against her chest as she watched the wordless interaction.
"So, you made The Divine Rose another group of lackeys for Nobunaga?" Hakuya asked, his tone serious.
"What I do with my guild is no concern of yours Hakuya. If you had returned when I asked you, perhaps this could have been avoided," Souji replied.
"So is that your only reason for joining him then? To get back at me?"
"I joined because I wanted to see the world that Nobunaga is going to bring about. The opportunity to kill you was an added bonus."
"What exactly is your motivation for fighting me? Hate? Vengeance?"
"I want to kill you to prove that I am stronger than you. That is all. The guild always revered you as the strongest player they ever knew, I'm going to show them that you've fallen from your throne."
"Typical villain response. Seriously, is your dialogue written by an amateur script writer or something?"
"You cannot talk your way out of this fight Hakuya, either fight me or I'll just cut you down where you stand."
Hakuya sighed and walked over to Arcadia. "I'll be done in a minute okay?" he asked. Arcadia nodded and Hakuya gave her a kiss on the cheek. He made his way over to Souji once more and readied Gungnir. His red scarf fluttered behind him in the wind as his eyes focused on the man he had once called a friend.
Hakuya was the first to move. He dashed forward like lightning, delivering a powerful thrust that Souji avoided by stepping to the side. Souji swung his claymore in an arc, nearly beheading Hakuya who ducked just in time. Hakuya spun his spear up, striking Souji in the side of the head with the base of the shaft three times before kicking him away. Souji fell onto his back, his claymore slipping from his grip
Hakuya leapt into the air and his spear glowed purple, initiating his Comet Strike skill. Hakuya descended at great speed, the tip of his spear striking the ground where Souji had just rolled away from. The ground was split by a series of cracks by the attack.
Souji lunged forward with his massive sword but Hakuya batted the heavy weapon aside and moved elegantly to his opponent's left where he countered with a stab that opened a small wound on Souji's side. The swordsman swung his weapon to the side, the face of the blade connecting with Hakuya's cheek and sending him flying.
Hakuya crashed to the ground and tumbled a short distance before swiftly rising to his feet once more. Souji was charging once again and his sword blade was glowing yellow. A small smile crept across Hakuya's face as he recognised the attack.
First came a downward stroke that Hakuya sidestepped. Next the sword twisted and came back up diagonally which Hakuya stepped backwards to avoid. Then the sword came back down on the opposite diagonal which once again Hakuya stepped away from. The final strike was a thrust with the face of the sword blade facing up. For this attack, Hakuya leapt into the air using his high acrobatics skill and landed lightly on the face of the sword blade.
Hakuya thrust his spear forward, piercing Souji's left shoulder. The swordsman growled and flicked his sword upwards, causing Hakuya to jump and flip over Souji's head. On his way towards the ground, Hakuya spun and slashed across his opponent's back with the tip of his spear. Souji turned and charged with a series of heavy but fast slashes which Hakuya barely avoided.
The two exchanged many blows, each one occasionally grazing the other until both had lost about half of their HP. They had returned to the positions from which they had started the battle and once again stared each other down. Each time one of Souji's blows had struck Hakuya, Arcadia's heart leapt to her throat and her whole body shook as the fight continued. Muko placed her hand on the older woman's back and nodded to her with a smile.
Hakuya stood up straight, his HP slowly regenerating from his battle healing skill. He could see that the same was happening to Souji and both players knew that the fight wasn't going to go anywhere quickly if it kept going as it had been.
"Why don't you just give up and call it a day Souji? We both know this fight won't end for a while," Hakuya said.
"I can't do that. I will not leave this battlefield until one of us is defeated. I don't care if I have to fight you all day, I will kill you," Souji replied. Hakuya sighed and crouched, his spear ready. The weapon began to glow with a brilliant white light.
"I didn't want to use this on you but it seems I have no choice," Hakuya said, pulling his spear back and raising it into a throwing position. "This is the end Souji, Infinite Spears!" he called out, throwing his glowing weapon.
"So you finally got your spear skill to one thousand, impressive!" Souji yelled, raising his claymore. He held the weapon up and threw it towards the mass of projectiles now heading for him. Souji did his best to avoid the hits but was still struck by almost half of them, bringing his HP down into the red.
Hakuya, staggered from using his skill was unable to avoid the massive claymore that pierced his stomach and threw him to the ground. Arcadia's eyes went wide with horror as she saw his HP drop quickly, stopping right before the end of the bar. She glanced over and saw Souji who was on his feet and staggering towards Hakuya who remained motionless.
"You…," Arcadia said in barely a whisper. Muko looked over and saw Arcadia's fists clenched at her sides. "You bastard!" the axe-woman screamed as she charged forward, drawing her axe. Souji turned when he heard the scream but it was already too late, Arcadia's massive weapon was already burying itself within his chest.
"How… dare you…," Souji groaned before he shattered along with his weapon that was still protruding out of Hakuya. Arcadia ran over to the spearman crouched down next to him.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly, placing a hand on his armoured chest.
"Well my girlfriend just went all badass on the guy who wanted to kill me so I think I'm good, and possibly afraid to make you angry for a while," Hakuya said with a weak smile. A few tears fell from Arcadia's eyes as she put her arms around Hakuya when he sat up.
"Be more careful next time."
"Sorry. I will."
The two sat embracing each other for a time while the others chatted amongst themselves. As Hakuya fully restored his HP and re-joined the group with Arcadia, it was Kotetsu who first pointed out a new problem that was arising.
"So uh… this may be somewhat bad," the dagger user said, drawing his weapon. Chrome and the others turned to see a rather large group of DGamers coming towards the manor. Chrome glanced back towards the teleport gate where he could see that Veille's guild were clearly outnumbered in their skirmish.
"Crap, we're gonna have to go back and help them," Chrome said, getting ready to charge through the approaching group of enemies. Arcadia however held out a hand to stop him.
"Hakuya and I will go back them up. You four deal with the problem here and then go beat Nobunaga," she said, looking to her boyfriend. Hakuya nodded and readied himself to run.
"Thank you, be careful," Chrome said. Arcadia nodded and ran off with Hakuya, taking a route to the left of the approaching Death Gamers. Chrome went to take up a combat stance but once again a hand stopped him. This time it belonged to Kotetsu. "Kotetsu, what are you doing?"
"You and Muko can't screw around fighting these guys. You need to get to Nobunaga. Vakross and I can hold them off."
"But there's too many…"
"Just go dammit! Just go do what you have to do and leave this to us."
Chrome and Kotetsu stared at each other for a few moments before the former took his hand from his sword handle and took a step back. "Don't you dare die…," Chrome said, turning and running for the manor door with Muko. Vakross looked over at Kotetsu with a raised eyebrow as he drew his katana.
"There's at least fifteen of them, you really think we can handle this alone?" he asked, readying himself.
"God no," Kotetsu laughed, "Just needed to do something badass and heroic at least once." Vakross shook his head and both players readied their weapons. "Come on you punks, Azure Storm is gonna cut you down!" Kotetsu yelled, dashing forward with Vakross.