Translator
Copen versus Xiao Wu.
Time to shatter the clock.
"INFINITY DOPPLER!"
Xiao immediately stopped time again, and not a moment too soon. For the slayer had dissapeared from where he stood, and the arena was now surrounded by multiple mirrors that held the slayer's reflection and if his info is right, they'd be jumping out and trying to slash him apart once time resumes. Gun drawn in one hand, Xiao shot one, two, three bullets to (eventually) shatter that many before he made one last backwards jump before drawing in a breath, no longer freezing his opponent in time.
As expected, several copies moved out of their mirrors, before dashing straight at him. Golden lines of what Xiao assumed were the result of the Splitting Ends septima segmented right behind them and remained in place as he barely dodged each attempt, all the while aware that it starts to limit his movement space as well and most likely were meant to ensnare him even in stopped time.
"Trying to weave a web around me, aren't you?" Xiao could easily see the strategy behind it, first one distracts him with a bunch of clones and the moment he touches a thread, be it stopped time or not, the slayer might be able to invade his world because the original one is attached to it as well.
"I'm afraid it won't be that easy!" He shouts, before taking in as deep as a breath as he can before stopping time again as he lunges as high up as he can before letting go of one sword so he can step on top of it as a semi platform, followed by dropping another in order to climb higher and higher.
Once he's a solid ten feet in the air, Xiao looks down at the battlefield, sharp eyes scanning for any hint on where his real opponent might be hiding. Seeing how a view with plain eyes just isn't enough, he takes out a pair of glasses from his pockets and puts them on to gain thermo vision.
And there he is, looking down on him from a higher roof, hidden by some invisibility camo stands the Adept Slayer, passively waiting for his prey to tire out so their breath becomes more frantic and with it, their ability to stop time. Too bad for the hunter, this isn't the first time Xiao's been chased.
Throwing one blade that freezes in mid-air, Xiao lunges towards it, spins up and around it with unnatural agility, before landing on the same roof that his target is at. Not one to lose momentum, he continued the movement by doing a roll before going for a jumping slash as he releases time again.
The Slayer didn't even have more than half a second, still he grabbed onto the blade with both sides of his palms and glowered at the young boy putting him in some sort of hold, "Who are you?"
"Who do you think I am?" Xiao asked back, a mischievous smile on his face.
"Hm. With the way you fight and act, I would think you're another member of Quill? Regardless, you're just a kid. Most likely just some no-name boy who thinks he can take me on because he's too overconfident in the strengths of his septima. Many who thought the same still fell to me."
Xiao grinned. The side of Copen's mouth twitched and his glare turned all the more colder.
"So? Am I right?" he said.
"That's what you'll find out right now!"
Copen slid his feet shoulder-width apart. He bent his knees and gripped the blade even harder, crushing it apart. His left hovered over where Xiao's head used to be as the other crouched low, stopped time and did a small back roll alongside a few further steps away before resuming time.
He swiftly drew out his next blade, deflecting every hard light projectile coming his way before side jumping from his previous spot. A shock wave of blue energy appeared where Copen tried to stomp onto after using a portal to appear above him. Said waves kept moving onward, forcing Xiao to jump over them to avoid their azure power. Again, he stopped time and once close enough to the visible Slayer, resumed it in the middle of a rising draw-slash. Copen sidestepped it and struck the blade at its base. Rather than fight against the force of the parry, Copen used his momentum to set up a kick downwards that would have broken Xiao in two from neck to hip. But Xaio blocked the strike with another blade and crashed downward, the momentum and strength putting him to a knee.
He gritted his teeth when Copen used the opportunity to shoot a few more lasers at point blank. Sure, they wouldn't kill outright but the bruises and burns that gather on his unarmored body are injuries that will swiftly burn through his stamina if he doesn't do something against them.
"E-enough!" With a shout, Xiao shook and slid out of the clash as the other fighter went to regain their balance. Xiao tracked the boy's gaze, and noted that he was looking above and behind him. He flared his boots upwards and leapt back. "Let's see how long your timestop can last." he said.
What does he mean? A simple time stop and a glance behind him answered Xiao's question.
Red missiles, orange ring shaped projectiles and blue bullet were covering the night sky by the dozen. When did the slayer have time to set those up? Nobody answered Xiao's question, what they did answer was when they would come for him as not a moment too soon, the bullet hell unleashed!
"Tch, looks like I got no choice but to use my trump card!" Xiao announced, not wanting to end up out of breath and useless after dodging all that nonsense. The young boy instead took a deep breath.
And another, as many as he could take before the first bullets were about to hit him and then.
Feet that travel a forbidden realm.
Where no action will reach its consequence.
Reach the end of the road with bated breath.
To shatter the clock of misfortune!
CHRONO TRIGGER!
He saw it. Every path he could take when time would unfold and resume, the explosion that would knock him out of the sky if he were to try to smack a red missile aside. The way the orange ring would have his foot sink within it if he were to try and use it as a platform. The square prison of aqua suffocating him as he tries to struggle his way out of it to no avail. As his eyes glowed an emerald green, Xiao saw every possible path that would lead him to failure in this fight. Not because he wanted to, but because those were simply the majority. Still with a focus far above those this own age, he searched and searched through the results until he saw the one path to victory.
If seeing that path was hard enough, successfully replicating it would be even harder. For even as he resumed the clock and started running towards the Adept Slayer, he could not help but mimic the look of surprise on his opponent's face as he moved towards them like a blur, dodging, jumping, diving and even parrying away the attacks of hard light he hadn't even had the time to see yet. The many projectiles behind always just one inch short of hitting him while he made something as outrageous as dodging the metaphorical rain look easy as he finally closed the distance again.
"Enough playing games!" The Adept Slayer as he jumped back, one hand put on his fa-
"As if I'd let you!" Xiao shouted, recognizing the move and unleashing another sp!
Time that moves.
Like a river, ever so forward.
Bend to your one master
And slow your flow.
Second Stopper!
Before Copen could start his own, Xiao's technique abruptly activated, and he dashed into him with blinding speed. Copen parried two swift strikes, but his movements became panicked and stiff as more of them came, each faster than the other. His eyes tried to guess where the next angle of attack was, but the moment he did so, Xiao would strike at his blind spot. From an outside view, the slayer was being attacked by a greenish blur that swarmed at every side off him, the image similar to that of a fly harassing a lion. Only this cat has resources. Copen crossed his arms and with a shout spread them apart. A burst of electricity scattered around him, hoping to repel his harasser.
To some success, as Xiao's voice was now a mixture of pain, exhaustion and aggravation. Having had to stop time yet again to avoid the surprise, he's now seated at one knee while his lungs burn.
"Ha...well, look at that...looks like someone's not one to run out of tricks. Talk about being armed."
Copen simply took a step forward, then pointed his gun at the prone youth. Looks like the latter finally ran out of stamina before he could overturn the fight. "So adept, do you yield?"
That got a laugh out of him and a cough as one hand went to his chest in pain.
"W-why should I? When I've already won?"
Copen flashed red then, his last two bullets spend in order to have a falling sword from above not hit him in the back of the skull. Xiao stood up and brought his leg back for a roundhouse kick. Before it could reach Copen, a golden hand burst from the ground and grabbed Xiao's leg. It pulled him backwards, dragging him through the stone floor. It flung him into the air, off the roof and towards the direction of several unfinished buildings. As he soared off into the distance, Xiao yelled in panic and frustration, his voice lowering in volume the further down he goes.
Copen watched his descent quietly. Then let out a sigh of frustration as he rubbed his forehead. The fall wouldn't kill the boy since the Splitting Ends septima would protect him. But the lights of neighboring buildings were mostly alight and if one combined that with the louder noises made as the conflict escalated. He is pretty certain that he has to bail before the law enforcement comes.
He jumped downward, out to locate and recover his prey to do exactly that.
A dive into the shadows.
It didn't take long for him to see signs of Xiao's drop. Several golden strands lie detached from neighboring buildings, all the branches on one side of a massive oak tree hung loose from damaged slivers of wood. An aging ware house had its 2nd story window shattered from a blunt impact.
"He's in there. Now to hope he's still alive."
Copen took one of the dropped swords he found nearby (keeping it for later in case it has the boy's DNA on it IF the latter somehow escaped) and jumped towards the entrance. Though he did not stop, he shivered and slowed down when he took in the building's appearance.
It was big enough to be its own mall.
Fissures and cracks shot out like lightning in random directions throughout its sides. The warehouse had strange drawings painted in random spaces. Images of snakes, swords, butterflies and masked women loomed over the adjacent walls. One piece of work stood out from the rest, larger and created with more precision than the other paintings. Emblazoned inside a circle adorned with siddharm scripts stands a proud yet bizarre creature with the body of a deer, tail of an ox and a single horn. Said horn however is coated in blood as it looms over the corpse of a grand dragon in blue.
"Discovery after discovery. What evils must be festering inside this rotten town?" Copen said to nobody as his slow jog transformed into a candid walk as he stepped through the entrance.
"This must be one of the hideouts that the assassin who works for that organization must be using to both report in the town and do…" He trailed off for a moment, eyes scanning for more details.
"Research?"
Columns of light beamed down to the center of the warehouse. Blackness shrouded the corners and walls, but they did not hide the beds that were covered by hospital curtains or the offices on the side filled with clean tools that are meant to be used on live bodies for the sake of...esoteric purposes.
Copen shook his head in dismay, "I can deal with this later." and he focused on his true target.
Across an empty tile floor, Xiao lay spotlighted by the shattered window. His body had lodged itself beneath a broken concrete pillar. The boy stirred just as Copen walked in. At first Xiao looked around, confused. Then he felt the pillar holding him in place. He turned his head towards his stone prison, then checked his surroundings with an exasperated expression on his face. The boy's eyes soon drifted to the hunter looming beside him, and he let out a tired sigh. "Guess you got me…"
"That I do," Copen said as he took a seat on another broken fragment beside him. In the meantime reloading his ammo and spend bullits now that he knew his prey wouldn't go anywhere. "So, will you speak willingly or will I have to knock you out and make you talk at some other location?"
"I mean there's always another option…" Xiao spoke back, a tired smile on his face as he gave up on pushing against the pillar. "You could always pull up this thing and we can have a chat back at-"
"Assuming you don't stop time and run the moment you're free." Copen interrupted. "Assuming I'm not willing to simply find the other friend of the Azure Striker so that she-"
"NO!" Xiao screamed in reflex, caught himself and tried to look more relaxed. "That's not needed."
Huh, would you look at that? A weakness. Copen capitalized. "There's only one route in which you get to see your friends alive and unharmed the next day. And that is by cooperating here and now."
Copen didn't see the need to clarify how that was a lie. Seeing how he hasn't decided yet or is even inclined to actually let the latter go. But the boy's young age made the thought of just crushing his head once the slayer got all he needed from him an image that put some disgust in his cold heart.
That and, knowing the Azure Striker's history. Gaining his wrath this soon would be suicide.
Again, Xiao showed that little smile of his, blatantly fake at the moment before he lets out an annoyed groan, as if he lost at some competitive game on the couch. "Alright, I'll talk."
If only it ended there. Copen would have seen this day as a relatively okay one.
Except fate was never kind to him.
A mature, sultry laugh sounded behind him. The boy turned to face the dark corners of the warehouse, sensing those who watched him from the shadows while the hunter facepalmed.
To be continued!
Yeah, I went all out on Xiao Wu's septima after all. Changing his septima from being just 'stop time' to being 'control time' so his Sp skills can be more creative as well, be it speeding up time or seeing ahead of time or perhaps even retconing time as his own form of evasion later on.
Though for the latter, he'd definitely need an empowering phenomena like a fake glaive or other tool yeah, since right now, despite his best efforts, he lost the boss fight due to a lack of endurance.
I will give no comment on the rest for now to avoid spoilers. Just know that I definitely intend to give a deeper look on Shadow Yakumo for the 'Copen fucks around in japan arc'.