Shin stood on the battlefield Grayfia created for Riser and him to fight. He was surprised how quickly she was able to create it, as it only took no more than ten minutes. The battlefield looked just like the one he saw in the anime, which now that he was actually on it, he understood just how big it actually was. It was much bigger than he was expecting, the battlefield capable of being compared to multiple football fields stacked side by side.
"It only occurred to me just now, but I never did see you do anything in the rating game between Rias and myself. Why is that?" Riser asked Shin.
Shin rose his eyebrows and looked at Riser. Knowing that cameras were currently on them and that their audio would be heard by everyone, he would have to come up with a bullshit excuse. Luckily, bullshitting came naturally to him. "Rias is a big girl, she can handle herself. I wanted to give her the chance to prove that she didn't need someone to fight her battles for her. After all, what message would that send?" Shin bullshitted perfectly.
Riser smirked. "And yet, here you are, fighting her battle for her. Her knight in shining armor." Riser mocked.
"Haha, believe me, Riser, I'm no knight in shining armor. And it was just a mishap of unfortunate circumstances that I'm here fighting you. Merely a bad matchup. After all, how is someone like Rias, who yes, has a lot of strength, but low stamina... Supposed to beat someone who heals from all injuries done to themselves in seconds, at a very low cost to their stamina. Possibly the worst advisory Rias could go against." Shin answered, which actually held some truth to it. Although, he knew she could have won if she just used her brain and prepared for the fight ever since she found out about it instead of waiting for years. Until the very last minute to prepare.
"Hmm, perhaps your right." Riser said.
Shin smirked. "Although I must admit, there is a part of me that's glad she lost." Riser rose an eyebrow at Shin's statement. Shin balled up his fist and looked at it. "Ever since I've been reincarnated, I've wanted to get in a fight. And not that stray devil or rouge fallen bullshit. A real fight. A fight so hard I'm nearly falling unconscious from exhaustion. The kind of fight that gets your blood boiling with excitement. I can only hope you give me that fight." Shin said, the bloodlust obvious from his tone of voice.
Riser bellowed quite loudly. "Your quite the battle monger, aren't you Shin Hyoudou." Riser smirked at Shin.
Shin smirked back. "I suppose I am."
"This is going to be fun." Riser remarked.
Shin clinched his fist and unclenched it. "I can only hope so."
In the spectator's booth, Sirzechs sat, a small part of him excited to finally see what Shin's sacred gear was capable of with his own eyes. From the accounts Rias, Shin's sacred gear seemed to really be something with seemingly no limits, it didn't help that Grayfia told him that his sacred gear seemed to be very near, if not at, Longinus class, which admittedly puzzled him as that would mean there was 14 Longinus class sacred gears.
"What do you think the chances are of this Shin Hyoudou winning this fight?" Robin Phenex asked Zeoticus.
Zeoticus hummed and scratched at his crimson goatee. "Hm, to tell you the truth, I haven't got a clue. From what I understand, Shin is quite the prodigy, however not in the sense that he has overwhelming strength. Due to his sacred gear, he has a vast array of magic that he can use with the only inhibition being his imagination. However, he's still just a newborn, he has very little experience in fighting. If this was a battle of strength, I would say without a doubt that Shin would win with his overwhelming large array of magics. However... This is a battle of attrition. At this point in time, I would say it's a coin toss on who will win." Zeoticus said.
Robin nodded in response. "Yes, you may just be right. However, I have faith in my boy, and more than that, I have faith in the Phenex bloodline. I don't mean anything against the young Hyoudou boy, but I just don't see any way he could beat the Phenex regeneration." Robin added in his two cents.
"Yes, you have a point. But, you never know what will happen. With a wild card like Shin Hyoudou, you never know what he will pull out of his sleeve." Zeoticus replied.
"My name is Grayfia Lucifage, and I will be the proctor for this fight. There are no inhibitions or banned items, and the fight will continue until either someone gives up, is unable to fight, or is dead. If I feel as though someone cannot fight any longer, I will stop the fight, by force if necessary. I wish you both luck, and may the fight begin." The voice of Grayfia spoke loudly over the magical intercom in the field.
Shin watched as Riser's flaming wings sprung forth from his back as he rocketed forward towards him. Shin smirked in response. In what seemed like a blur, Shin pulled a throwing knife from a pocket dimension a quickly threw it in the direction of Riser.
Riser saw the knife coming, however also saw that the knife was not on the correct trajectory to hit him, so let him wizz by him as he continued to fly towards Shin. Without pause after throwing the knife, Shin rose his hand in front of him as called upon his favorite areas of magic.
Riser expected Shin to do a lot of things, however, when Shin rose his hand and he has suddenly rocketed it back by some invisible force, he was quite surprised. Riser flew back at twice the speed he was coming at Shin, tumbling on the ground and through the air. While flying back, Riser saw from the corner of his eye the same throwing knife that Shin had thrown before, and Riser disgraded.
However now, he noticed something he hadn't noticed before. Attached to the knife was a piece of paper. That's all he had time to recognize before a sudden spark of red lightning appeared from the paper, and all of the sudden Shin was there, his eyes glowing a demonic purple. As Riser was still flying back, he couldn't do anything as Shin quickly picked up the knife, stabbed him in the left shoulder with it, and then once again used his weird invisible force magic to rocket him even harder back.
In nearly no time at all, Riser slammed into one of the giant pawn pieces on the corner of the field, his body leaving an indent in the wall where he crashed. Meanwhile, Shin landed on the ground where he had used his force magic to throw Riser into one of the chess pieces in the corner of the stage. With just a thought, lightning encased his hand in a screech, before jumping forward with as much force as he could, and then he was gone in another flash of red lightning, appearing in front of Riser through the knife he had stabbed in his shoulder.
Riser once again had no time to react as Shin and purple glowing eyes appeared just a foot in front of him, his hand covered in lightning and extended forward. Before anyone could even realize what had happened, Shin had skewered Riser, causing a spiderweb of cracks to appear on the pawn. As the lightning disappeared from Shin's hand, Shin went to punch Riser, hoping that if he did it enough he would fall unconscious, however his fist was caught by Riser.
Shin's eyes widened before Riser's other fist buried itself into his gut, knocking the air out of him. Shin hunched over as the pain spread through his body, however, forced his mind to focus on the situation at hand before anything more could happen, and quickly jumped a few dozen feet back to get out of the other range of Riser. Shin breathed heavily as he watched Riser's body heal the hole in his abdomen in mere seconds.
Riser smirked at Shin. "I've gotta admit, I was not expecting that. However, if you want to beat me, you're going to have to bring a lot more than mere tricks!" Riser said, finishing his sentence by throwing a giant fireball at Shin.
Shin looked at the fireball and knew that he didn't have time to dodge it as it was too wide. Thinking quickly, he rose his hand and a wall of rock formed a foot in front of him, made from the floor. The fireball hit it not seconds later as the flames parted around the wall of rock and came back together again a few feet behind it, leaving a small area for Shin to stand in, the flames all around him, singing his arm hairs.
The fire lasted for only a few seconds before it was gone, replaced by a smokescreen, impairing Shin from seeing anything. However, he could still feel, and he could feel another rush of heat coming at him from the right. Acting quickly, Shin jumped as high as he could. Propelled high up in the air, it gave Shin the opportunity to take a stake of the whole battlefield. A glint from over by the destroyed chess piece caught his eye. The artificial light was refracting off something metallic. His throwing knife he realized. Riser must have pulled it out of his shoulder and discarded it. The paper on the end was burnt to a crisp, so he figured that Riser likely thought the paper was what was allowing him to teleport.
Shin smirked. He used that paper intentionally to try and hide how he was actually teleporting. Forming a battle plan, lightning started to arc around his entire body, catching Riser's attention. Shin's eyes once again began to glow a beautiful purple as he extended his arms out to his sides, the lightning following his movement, crawling along his body to his shoulders. In one swift movement, Shin brought both his hand forward in an arc, the lightning violently surging off his arms and to Riser in a very bright movement, completely blocking Riser's view of Shin. This gave Shin the distraction he needed as he teleported to his throwing knife.
The lightning continued on its path towards Riser, crashing into the ground with a resounding electrified explosion, sending rock debris rocketing in all directions and kicking up a large cloud of pulverized rock dust.
Shin's body once again started arcing with lightning, his eyes still glowing an eerie purple, his breathy slightly labored. He couldn't afford to give Riser a seconds break, this was a battle of attrition. The only way he was going to beat Riser is if he overwhelmed him and never gave him a second to breathe.
With this in mind, the lightning sparking off his body increased in intensity as he allowed the full brunt of his demonic magic be released, the lightning sparking off and hitting the ground all around him, leaving scorch marks everywhere. His hair, reacting to the electricity in the air, started to slowly raise mystically, and his eyes glowed an almost blinding purple, which, when all combined, gave off a very intimidating appearance.
One moment Shin was crouching on the ground, the next he rocketed off at neck-breaking speeds, a trail of lightning arcing off behind him, leaving a trail of scorch marks on the ground. In what felt like an instant, he was upon the explosion area, the wind generated from his speed blowing away most of the dust, revealing that unexpectedly, Riser hadn't just tanked the hit, relying on his regenerative capabilities like he always did. This put Shin on edge, quickly looking around, he saw just in time that once again, a giant fireball was headed his way. Reacting quickly, he used his speed to dodge the fireball, somewhat impressed by Riser.
It seems Riser was starting to take this fight more seriously if he was trying to come up with plans to catch him off guard. However, to Shin's horror and shock, it seemed Riser was much smarter than Shin had given credit to.
Just as he stopped to get his bearings after dodging that fireball, he felt the immense heat of another one already on his ass and moving very quickly. However, it was obvious this one wasn't sent just recently. This one was sent before Shin had dodged the first fireball, meaning Riser had predicted exactly how Shin was going to react to the first one and planned accordingly.
Shin was getting ready to dodge it, when he felt the heat of another fireball coming from behind him. 'Shit!' Shin thought, pinched on both his front and back by a fireball. The amount of time it would take to turn his body and dodge, the fireballs would already hit, he also couldn't teleport away as he had his throwing knife in his hands. Maybe, if he had more time to think about how to get out of this situation, he would see a solution, but at the moment, that was all he had, a moment.
However, even though he most likely wouldn't have enough time to pull off dodging the two fireballs, it was better than doing nothing, so he took the only option he could see at the moment. Turning, he could feel the heat of the two fireballs already scorching his skin, however, he didn't have time to worry about that. Moving as quickly as he could, pushing as hard as he possibly could, he tried to get out of the path of the two fireballs.
Everyone sat with bated breaths as the two fireballs collided, combining into a beautiful ball of turbulent flames, swirling around in a violent maelstrom. No one being able to see if Shin had gotten out of the way in time.
The fire continued to swirl for a few seconds before slowly dissipating into the air, a form slowly being revealed behind the fire. The form was still blocked by the smoke from the fire, however, from what everyone could see, it was unmoving and most likely on its knees.
As the smoke dissipated, it revealed Shin to be on his knees, the entirety of the right side of his torso burned horrifically by Riser's flames, his skin still smoking and sizzling.
Shin's entire body was shaking, having trouble even processing thoughts due to the immense amount of pain he was in. However, he was still able to faintly hear Riser's footsteps approaching him.
Slowly, Shin looked up, his eyes hooded, barely able to keep them open. Riser was standing ten feet from him, looking down at him with a bit of sympathy. "You know, I'm surprised. I wasn't expecting you to be as strong as you are. I'm sure that if it wasn't for my regeneration, I wouldn't even be a challenge to you. I commend you for that." Riser said calmly, the respect in his voice obvious.
"But, I mean, come one, what did you honestly expect? That you would come in here, ruin a plan years in the making, and beat me? ME? Don't make me laugh!" Riser said condescendingly, taking a few steps closer.
"Your strong, I'll give you that Shin Hyoudou, stronger than me. But you never stood a chance, and that's just the plain truth." In response, Shin's body stopped shaking, a sudden calm coming over him.
"Are you done?" Shin's voice whispered, the coldness in it sending shivers down most people's spines. "Because do you honestly think, that this, is enough to beat me? ME?" Shin asked, his voice getting louder and louder.
Shin slowly stood up, looking down at his burnt skin, showing no traces of feeling any pain. And that's because he didn't.
"You ruined my shirt," Shin said, his voice full of controlled rage, his voice still labored, however.
Riser snorted. "Well, if you didn't want it to get ruined, you probably shouldn't have worn it to a fight." Riser pointed out.
Shin paused for a second. "Alright, fair point." Shin conceded, "But still, fuck you." Shin said, smirking. Riser could only smirk back in response, meanwhile, Rias was up in the stands, her hand on her forehead shaking it back and forth and muttering hatefully something about only Shin being so stupid.
Although he didn't say it out loud though, Riser was quite impressed by Shin. His sacred gear was really something. Riser wasn't naive enough to think that Shin was just fighting through the pain. No. Riser knew that Shin had used his sacred gear to somehow completely stop himself from feeling the pain in the first place. It was really quite impressive.
Shin, however, was panicking. He hadn't realized it before, but the control aspect of his sacred gear has a drawback that he hadn't noticed until just now. Whenever he uses the control side of his sacred gear, it drains his physical stamina, very similar to the Boosted Gears boosts. He hadn't noticed it before because using it to control elements here and there was nothing, the drain was almost inconceivable.
However, using his sacred gear to forcefully shut off all the pain receptors in the entire right side of his body, was not as small of a drain, it was quite big in fact.
It wasn't the first time this happened, it had happened multiple times before, like when he absorbed holy magic, or when he absorbed the Power of Destruction, but he had just figured that was his body being sore due to the changes that had happened to it. But now, he wasn't quite so sure of that.
However, now was not the time to dwell on that. Luckily, due to the damages done to his body, everyone would just assume that is the reason why he was drained physically, and not because of his sacred gear. After all, it wouldn't do good for everyone to know his sacred gears' weaknesses.
So, as to distract from that, Shin quickly engaged back into combat, shocking Riser with his sudden choice. Riser had just enough time to raise his hands up to block Shin's sudden incoming punch. The punch connected with Riser's crossed arms, sending him skidding back a good way.
"So, that's how it's going to be then?" Riser said, chuckling. "Very well then." Riser said, his flaming wings coming out of his back and launching forward at Shin at great speeds. In response, Shin's body once again became consumed in an arc of lightning, his eyes glowing purple, and the most shocking of all, his magic was significantly stronger than it had been before.
Shin and Riser met each other head-on, Riser deciding to throw the first punch, a right hook aimed for Shin's head. Raising his arm, Shin blocked the punch with his forearm, ignoring the sting he felt from the power behind Riser's punch, throwing a hook of his own with his left hand instead. Riser reacted quickly, pulling his head back, the punch whiffing in front of his face. Shin, however, didn't give him a chance to counterattack, and quickly moved forward, much too quickly for Riser to react, and planted his knee into Riser's stomach.
Riser hunched forward, breathless as he wasn't prepared for the attack. Not stopping there, however, Shin struck his left hand out and hit Riser in the neck, crushing his larynx.
Riser stumbled back, clutching at his neck, unable to breathe. Striking out again, Shin spun in a clockwise arc, his right leg leading him and connecting with the side of Riser's face, sending him crashing to the ground, skidding across it.
Shin stood there, slightly hunched over, breathing heavily. The drain of keeping his pain receptors disabled quickly catching up with. The longer they were disabled, the harder it was to keep them like that.
Looking to Riser, it only took him a few seconds to get up off the ground, his larynx completely healed, and besides a few heavy breaths, completely fine. "That's quite a kick you got there." Riser commented off offhandedly, flexing his jaw. "But look at you, it looks like your going to drop at any second from exhaustion. Just give up." Riser pointed out.
It wasn't exactly wrong, Shin was exhausted, and was getting more exhausted with every second that passed. And that is exactly why he didn't have time to stop and chat. He had to end this before he passed out from exhaustion.
Rocketing forward once again, Shin showed that although he hadn't been a devil very long, his combat prowess was much larger than Riser's. Although Riser this time was expecting Shin to outright attack once again, it didn't matter. He threw out a right punch to try and hit Shin on his way to him, but Shin easily countered it, grabbing his wrist with his left hand while simultaneously bringing his left hand up palm facing the sky and hitting Riser's extended arm at the elbow, a sickening snap resounding throughout the field as Riser's elbow now had one of his bones protruding from the skin.
Everyone in the crowd was shocked still by Shin's brutality. Sure, they had all seen much more brutal things happen to people in fights, but it wasn't something they were expecting from such a young devil, especially not the happy-go-lucky Shin they had all seen so far.
However, Shin didn't simply stop there. Using Riser's shock to his advantage, he threw a quick right elbow into Riser's jaw, satisfied with the sickening crunch he could feel from Riser's jaw. Not stopping there either though, his left hand was already on the move, grabbing his throwing knife from his belt loop, and gliding through the air, slitting Riser's throat without a second's hesitation.
Shin's mind had only one focus, one goal at the moment. Win. Whatever horrific things he had to do to achieve that was irrelevant. He would beat himself up over his decisions later, but one thing he could not allow at the moment was for him to lose.
The lightning arcing around Shin's body once again kicked up in intensity, signifying Shin was preparing another attack. The lighting crawled along his body, sparking in a path towards his right leg as he swung it high, the lightning exploding in a beautiful array of sparks in all directions as it came into contact with Riser's jaw, sending him rocketing back.
However, unexpected by the crowd, Shin did not have the physical energy to keep himself standing after such an attack and fell face-first into the ground. However, he did still have plenty of magic, so while he was falling, rose his hand for another attack.
While Riser was plummeting through the air at great speeds, a portion of the stadium ground behind him started moving, quickly forming into a sharp spike and shooting out towards the direction Riser was flying back. The spike did exactly as Shin planned, and Riser was impaled through the stomach on the spike.
Meanwhile, Shin hit the ground face first, his whole body aching, screaming at him to stop. Every breath he took shot pain throughout his entire body, sans the right side of his torso which was still completely cut off from feeling any pain.
Shin just barely was able to gather enough strength to roll himself onto his back. Looking to his left, he watched as Riser's body exploded in flames all over, instantly healing all damage done to his body except for the area where he was still impaled on.
However, that was quickly solved with one flaming punch to the spike, pulverizing the spike where he was impaled, his family bloodline quickly kicking in and healing the hole in his abdomen.
Shin let out a weak chuckle. All that, for nothing. Even now, Riser still wasn't even winded. "That ability of yours is just broken," Shin said weakly, but with Riser's devil hearing it was heard quite easily.
Riser let out an uproarious laugh. "I suppose so." Riser took some steps toward Shin, who began mustering his strength to very slowly picking himself off the ground. "Are you ready to give up yet? Your strong Shin, but with my healing, you will drop dead from exhaustion before your able to make me even break a sweat." Riser said matter-of-factually.
Shin laughed again, trying to push himself off his knee and into a standing position, but failing multiple times before he was able to. Even then, once he was standing up, he swayed around, struggling to keep his balance.
"Yea, your right. At this rate, I'm going to die much before I'm able to do any actual damage to you." Shin said, Riser, taking this as him giving up. "You know, I was really hoping I wasn't going to have to resort to this, but you're really not giving me much of a choice here," Shin said quietly, putting Riser on edge.
Shin felt down into the pit of his stomach, feeling out the lock that the doctors had put on the holy magic in his body, stopping him from using it or from it circulating throughout his body. He really didn't want to use it, as it could cause even more damage to his body, but he could already feel it. His body, it was much stronger than it once was due to the changes he recently made to it, and it was growing stronger by the second. It's why his magic was seemingly stronger than it was at the start of the fight. The simple answer is because it is stronger.
If it wasn't for the physical drain of keeping his pain receptors disabled, he wouldn't be in such a tough situation.
'But, fuck it. What do I have to lose? If I lose this fight, I die. If I use this power, there's a good chance I die. I might as well go out swinging.' Shin thought, his body suddenly exploding in a brilliant golden light, shocking everyone there.
The lock was broken, and his holy magic was once again released inside his body. In just a second, a single moment in time, the entire battle, which everyone had assumed was going to be won by Riser, was flipped on its head. For once, with the shocking appearance of Shin's holy magic, Shin had an actual chance of winning this fight.
"As much as I would like to have fun with you, this fight has drawn on much too long," Shin said, the lightning sparking around him changing from a blue hue to red, and his eyes glowing a dangerous crimson red. The natural hues of demonic magic and holy magic mixing into red.
Shin's sudden power-up had shocked Riser, and honestly, it scared him as well. Holy magic was the one weakness of the Phoenix clan's regeneration. It was the only thing capable of stopping them from healing.
However, Riser was no coward. He watched as Shin's right arm exploded in a brilliant ball of lightning, violently lashing out at the air around. If this is how Shin wanted the battle to end, then he would play along.
Drawing on all of his magic, Riser's body exploded in a torrent of flames, his wings spreading out further than they ever had before.
The red lightning arc all around Shin's body surged and he launched towards Riser. Riser, in response, did the same. All that could be seen was a maelstrom of lightning and a torrent of flames shooting off towards each other at great speeds.
Shin watched carefully as Riser got closer and closer, Riser doing the same. Fifty feet, twenty feet, the close Shin got the more he could feel the heat from Riser's flames. Just as they reached the ten feet marker, however, the lightning on Shin's right arm exploded violently, a screeching noise coming from the lightning. Then suddenly, just as they got five feet from each other, Shin disappeared in a flash of red lightning just like before.
The eyes of everybody in the crowd widened as suddenly, Shin was no longer in front of Riser, no. Instead, he was a foot, maybe two feet behind him, his arm extended out to run Riser through.
Riser's head slowly turned, his eyes wide in horror as he realized there was no way for him to dodge. He wouldn't be able to stop or alter his trajectory in time as Shin was moving at much faster speeds than he was capable of. All he could think of, was how? How did Shin get behind him? The throwing knife Shin had been using to teleport was discarded when Shin fell after kicking him into that spike.
A squelching sound was heard, and blood squirted out of Riser's chest. Shin had done it, his hand ran right through Riser's back and through his chest.
However, there was no time for Shin to gloat. "Riser, you have.. two options.." Shin struggled to speak due to how exhausted he was. "Surrender.. and I will.. withdraw all the holy magic.. in your body.. Or.. I will remove my hand.. and you will die." Shin made the situation obvious.
Shin wasn't the only one struggling to stay conscious however, Riser was too. For that reason, Riser knew Shin was telling the truth and could tell that if he didn't answer soon, Shin would faint from exhaustion and the choice would be made for him.
"I.. I surrender," Riser said quietly, however it was heard due to the pin-drop silence except for the screeching from Shin's still electrified hand. However, as soon as Riser surrendered, the hand powered down, the lightning that was surging around Shin's body dissipating completely.
Shin quickly used his sacred gear to extract all the holy magic inside of Riser's body and removed his hand from Riser's chest cavity. Near instantaneously, Riser's chest ignited in flames, healing him.
Shin meanwhile, smiled and fell down to his knees, his breaths heavily labored. He faintly heard something fall to the ground beside him and figured that Riser had fallen. The holy magic may no longer be in his body any longer, however, the lasting effects of it still hit him pretty hard obviously.
Shin was soon to follow Riser, not having the strength to keep himself upright on his knees, and fell onto his back. "Heh, that was a pretty good fight," Shin said, looking up at the empty sky of the simulated battleground created by Grayfia.
Shin and Riser could both hear Grayfia announcing the end of the fight, but both ignored it. "Haha," Riser laughed weakly, Shin barely being able to hear him. "Yea, but just so you know, you fucking cheated." Riser said jokingly.
Shin laughed, unable to keep it in, but quickly regretted it. "Ouch! Don't make me laugh you fucker! It hurts!" Shin said, Riser, laughing weakly again in response.
"Man, I'm hungry. And tired. I think I'm going to pass out now." Riser said, his voice getting weaker and weaker the more he talked.
"Yea, that sounds like a good idea, I think I'm going to do that," Shin said, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as the exhaustion finally took over and he passed out, Riser doing the same.
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