Hyperdimension Neptunia Third Sister: Darkness

by Somedudeonline

WARNING: This a direct sequel to 'Light', read that first if you don't want to be confused. After having died, Bios is reborn with the energy of Despair running through her, now the opposite of a Goddess. In spite of what fate demands of her, she gathers a group of vigilantes to save Lowee from a sinister group of organisations known as, SCJP

7. Chapter 13: The Great Ninja War

Hyperdimension Neptunia

Third Sister; Darkness

Chapter 13

The Great Ninja War.

A night has passed with the opposing ninja force expecting the war to begin, but unbeknownst to them, this war will start the next day. Neither side have the advantage during daylight, but that also makes our attack come as a surprise. Today, we all stand gathered on top of the village's wall. A bit further ahead, we can see ninjas patrolling. Some are here with orders to wait for an attack, however, they clearly don't expect one to happen right now.

"Theresa, Can you summon a foothold for us elevated to this height. I think it would be better if our vantage point is a bit closer to them", a lot of ninja look at me as I say all of that. They think I sound crazy for suggesting something like that.
Theresa just nods and gives me a casual, "Yes.", which has these ninjas look even more intense.
Theresa steps forward and waves her wand around. She summons plenty of different magical circles.
"Lady Enma, could your ninjas help with Doton? We plan to make a giant foothold for ourselves.", I ask her.

Lady Enma looks at me, then she turns her gaze to our allies as she shouts, "Ready Doton! Assist our allies!" Even if the ninjas have their doubt, their loyalty easily overcomes these feelings, and so, they immediately replied, "Roger!", and prepare their hand signs.
Theresa is charging all of her SP into the magical circles she is creating. A quadruple layered one below her, a six ringed one around her wand, four circles in the air surrounding a giant one on the ground below us.

"Great Eternal Cocytus Force!", with Theresa's shout came many ninjas yelling, "DOTON! EARTH PLATFORM JUTSU!", and "DOTON! EARTH REINFORCEMENT JUTSU!"
Ice shoots out of the ground and this mountain side as Theresa stabs her staff into the circle, cold air blows from the four circles surrounding the giant one on the ground. Combined with the earth shooting out of the ground a giant frozen mountain is made with a spiked wall reaching all the way to the glass house that is the entrance and exit to the underground cave.

After walking to the edge of the new foothold we've made, we look down at the disorganized ninjas below. Some have stopped running around to look up at us. Before giving them a chance to fight back, Enma holds her hand out and shouts, "Release your flames, Kanin squad!"
"Roger!", can be heard from many behind us as they jump into the air, releasing fireballs and other flaming projectiles from their mouths and hands with the shouts, "Katon!"

Begun, the war has. Many ninjas were already on their way here. They must've made plenty of lookout posts and all of them are now in a chain of reporting it and sending reinforcements. Some are already shooting their own fire balls to melt out platform, though, even if they managed contact, this ice has not only been created with powerful magic, the layers of Doton would still hold us up for a while if it DOES melt. Not that Enma and her ninjas would let that happen.

"Futon!" "Suiton!" With wind the flames get blasted away, if not, the waters will douse any fire near us.
"Raiton! Tenraigeki Jutsu!", some ninjas near us came together to summon lightning clouds that would fire bolts of electricity down below at the incoming hordes of ninjas. Theresa has dropped to one knee, she was already breathing heavily before, and now her hyperventilation has picked up.

"Magical lady, are you okay?!", a ninja next to her shouts in concern.
"You used up all your SP in one go, didn't you? Even if it is magic, there may also be some physical strain required for such a large spell, maybe you should rest, Lion.", I tell Theresa.
She tries to get up, leaning on her staff, but she barely gets up before dropping again.
Enma observes our group, she then states, "This platform is made with a bunch of SP used from her and the other ninja."

She grabs something out of her sleeve and says, "Don't fret. I've prepared all necessary items for this war."
She throws an Charger 2 at Theresa, or, that is what it looked like. This was even more potent.
Theresa took it in, and suddenly, she gets up with color returning to her face, her eyes widening, almost glowing in power. She couldn't help but break a smile. She says, "Thank you", to Enma.
"Everyone! Replenish your SP now!", Enma shouts, making the other ninjas take chargers. It would seem they just use the normal items, but they also aren't as low on Sp, and I doubt they have as much SP in the first place.

"You should know, Lady Suno. I am the daughter of an exalted doctor. Most items I gave your group are handcrafted by me.", Enma tells us.
"You gave us boxes before this fight and told us they were healing items. I suppose it is reassuring that they are that potent.", I reply.
With this amount of SP healing items we won't have to worry about conserving energy. We can just go all out the entire time.

I have already been preparing a big attack. Two swords are fused with light and I gather more and more snow into this light, as is the plan. Right now, we are only waiting for the mass army of ninjas to arrive. Until then, it is a war of projectiles, whether that be magic or bullets. There were plenty of shots taken by snipers on both sides. Some are even placing cannons down, which Theresa and Acclaim easily blow up using spells.

Now I see a mass of ninjas running off a hill. There must be tens of thousands. A larger division is being led by a girl with a purple-blue-ish gi on and a long red scarf, mask and other red colored extras. She had two odd weapons that looked like a mix of a broadsword and a tonfa. I think they are called Cyphers. Her hair is brown and eyes are red, I believe Enma described such a person with her name being, Strider.
"The time has come to split off. The plan is in motion.", Acclaim says whilst I inch to the edge.
I jump to the skies with a strong burst of Light Step.

"FusionStar Helios Slash!", I scream as I unleash a giant blade of light charged with an absurd amount of power. A version less than half as powerful can heavily damage a mountain. This light I shoot out in the form of a slash envelops nearly the entire army. Run as they might, even the once furthest away will at least be knocked over. Many come up with defensive measures, but no matter what, this light will hit the ground and explode leaving a huge rift behind that is at least a hundred meters wide. Ten-thousand ninjas are knocked out and heavily damaged, unable to fight even if they wake. Many are damaged. Nearly all of them were on the ground.

The only one left standing was the girl with the Cyphers. She got out of the way in time, her speed must be incredible. That will matter more to Acclaim, who speeds by me using my Light Step. With all the ninjas' eyes on themselves and the giant rift, they won't even notice us having switched places. They will think Acclaim is me and focus their attacks on him. I try to get onto the ground and use Yukishihai to cover myself with snow.
More and more ninjas are appearing from beyond the hill, they have many more reinforcements.

Acclaim goes down on Strider whilst she moved in to attack him. The two clash with their blades before landing. They walk in circles around each other. Some ninjas try to take revenge for their comrades and attack Acclaim from behind, but he just moves quite a ways away from them and blasts their back with a Light Slash.
"You must be their leader, the Switcher. Your strength is terrifying. But I, Strider, cannot lose.", so she says. She moves all over before launching herself at Acclaim.

Acclaim dodges an attack that splits the surroundings apart. The two move at blinding speeds. Of course, my Light Step is hard to beat, but it is impressive Strider can keep up nonetheless. Most of our ninjas have also jumped down the foothold, a lot of them glided using a cloth and casting Futon onto it. Their assault on the ground forces are successful, most of them have barely gotten up after all. It is good our forces are able to trample over most of them, for we are extremely outnumbered by the incoming reinforcements. Their massive force has no choice but to split up to surround our army. Expecting that, our ninjas retreat. Seeing this as an opportunity to attack, a lot of the stronger Ninjas prepare to launch themselves at our fleeing army using Doton.

This was also according to our plan. A flaming wall surrounds our force, this already puts a stop to the Jonin who got scorched by touching said wall, but then the flames also curve.
"Great Fire Beam!", Theresa shouts as the flaming walls turn into a burst of flames that take out at least a few more thousand ninjas. With eyes on her, she teleports below. She casts another mass spell, "Great Explosion", blowing up another thousand ninjas.

Enough of their combatants realize the threat she poses and have already made numerous ninjas sneak around to attack her from all directions. Using the Speed Stealth skill, they prey on her, only to be caught in a web of string. Sili-san had gone down the moment I blasted them with Light Slash. "Oi oi, don't think we wouldn't have thought of that already. Both sides will use techniques to obscure vision. And ninjas are quite fast. That is why Leader asked me and Theresa to defeat half of you in the frontlines before taking out a special ninja. Whatever happens, Leader will beat your master. And I won't let anyone harm our Theresa."

Sili-san wraps the ninjas with silk and swings them into other ninjas. With Theresa teleporting the both of them around, there is no one that can remove the web of strings from this battlefield. The whole middle below the hills and our foothold has become a no-go zone now, but ninjas are forced to try their hand at assassinating the two, for Theresa is still able to blast others with massive spells. Now, she doesn't have to however, for she already has everyone's attention.

Not that everything goes as we expected. Some of our ninjas are getting thrown into the air or cut down. A man twice the size of a normal adult walks through our soldiers and casts them aside like dirt. I sense the Tortoises jumping down. I can even hear Splitter shout, "Mincer!", he sounds especially emotional. I haven't heard him like that at all. As far as I have been informed, this Mincer person was a ninjas master of the ninja clan that killed Splitter's master.

He was more machine than man, his gauntlets having two blades on top of his knuckles almost like claws. His armor had many spikes coming out of it, his lower body had kneecaps that can penetrate steel. He wore a kabuto helmet. Master Splitter was the first to attack him, he tried to stab him with the spear extending from his staff, only to be stopped between Mincer's claws. Splitter's strength did require Mincer to stand strong, and he can't brush it off that easily, I think.

I can hear Splitter shout, "Taking my master wasn't enough. Now you are after my boys. What is it that you want to achieve, you monster!"
I thought Mincer was struggling, but he was rather calm, he looks at Splitter and says, "The world."
Now I can feel Splitter struggling to push his spear forward whilst Mincer weighs in on him saying, "For years, I've wanted my kind to live above all of you. The ninja are perfect for my goals, but there are those that are talented and are sure to be in my way. Your master, your tortoises, that woman, and you as well." Then he turns one claw and cuts through the spear, breaking it apart with an upper slash. I don't know what Splitter was thinking or feeling, but he seemed emotionally compromised, he could barely react to a kick and gets knocked over.

Mincer approaches, ready to end him. But then, Leo jumps in between and blocks the first claw crossing his katana.
"I won't let you take Master Splitter. We are your opponents!", Leo says.
"Not opponent. Victim.", Mincer corrects him as he is about to stab Leo with the other claw.
But his arm is stopped by Micheal, who entangled it with his nunchuck. He can't hit him with another nunchuck, because all of his strengths is needed to hold just his arm back. I assume Mincer's physical strength is beyond that of a super human.

Dio jumps above him from behind, ready to strike him with his b ō staff. Mincer ducks, he raises the elbow of the arm he is pushing against Leo, the elbow's blade blocks the staff. The next moment, he dodges Dio's body with excellent footwork, turning around whilst looking like he jumped back, pulling Micheal towards him, Dio falling on top of him. With his second arm free, he thrusts the two blades into Dio with a jab, if it weren't for their shells, Dio's back would have had a gaping wound in it.

Simultaneously, Ralph tried to run into him with his Sai, only to be backhanded in the face. Impressively, however, Ralph immediately gets back up from one leg and tries to stab Mincer again.
But Mincer uses the Stealth Speed skill to escape, with his legs strength, he has created an advanced version of Stealth Speed that creates a silent shockwave as he practically leaps with his movement, increasing his speed and strength.

A gap between him and the tortoises was made, but he didn't realize Micheal was behind him. He tracked him with his own Stealth Speed skill, instead of hitting him, he got his neck in the chains of both nunchucks. He attempts to hold him back and choke him. Dio moves forward and strikes him with the middle of his staff, through it gets blocked my Mincer's arms, Dio turns his bow around with his right hand and slams to bottom end of the staff against Mincer. His head came off. Somehow, he still moves and shouts, "Minced Meat!", which must be the name for the upcoming skill.

He vanishes, leaving a bunch of slashes behind that instantly knocked the two turtles away. He reappears elsewhere with head in hand. he put his head back, his armor regenerating by itself.
"You are not human. What are you?!", Micheal shouts, there is some clear panic in his voice.
"Whatever he is, his head is unlikely to be where we should strike. Since he doesn't draw oxygen either, we can't choke him. We should try destroying his chest next.", Dio says.

"The back is more vulnerable.", Mincer says before leaping away with a shockwave. He appears right behind Ralph, who is too slow to react. However, Leo had been keeping an eye on the fight and uses his Stealth Speed skill to stop Mincer's cross slash with both katana.
"You can't take any of our lives today…", Leo says.
"You can't defeat me, silly tortoise. None of you have the strength to kill me.", Mincer replies.
Ralph quickly turns around and thrusts his sai at Mincer, which Mincer now has to block with one arm whilst holding Leo back with the other.

"Ever since you beat me. Ever since we barely escaped thinking's we killed you in that explosion. Ever since you came back and defeated us. We've been training. Together!", Ralph says back.
Dio comes in with his bow, being held back by Mincer's leg, "We have all resolved to beat you no matter what."
Micheal comes in and says, "Alone we can't win. But together, we are taking you down once and for all!" the four of them slam Mincer away.

"Master Splitter doesn't have to see anyone die again.", Leo says.
"And we won't let him die either.", Dio speaks.
"Because we will defeat you.", Ralph states.
"And before our pizza back home gets cold at that!", Micheal says lively.
"Train a thousand years together. All life forms in this realm will cease their breathing when facing me.", Mincer responds in a belittling manner.

We are already a good ten minutes into the war, and two fights between strong people are already set, never mind Theresa and Sili-san wreaking havoc. I have been slowly moving west. The plan is to divert everyone's attention so I can move around the battlefield and invade Tenchu's mansion alone. Enma told me there is a high possibility of special ninjas stationed outside the battlefield in order to hit our flanks, I am to destroy them. With SP chargers and other healing items, I don't have to worry about energy consumption, it is all about efficiency now.

However, things aren't going as we expect, I can sense large monsters heading our way. Some of them I've never seen before. Eyes glow beyond the snowy haze, I jump away as a wolf with very long and round limbs and neck jumping. He flies past me, missing his gnaw. He looks like he leaps onto and off air as he moves around to pelt me again, I move back a bit and knock him away with my sword, but he is quite durable. He lands on the ground, shaking off the pain of my attack.

I see the wolf quickly jump to the side as I can sense the air being sucked inside something. I follow my first instinct, which is to move above with Light Step. A soundwave powerful enough to become a physical attack is shot out of a beasts' mouth. I could feel it from up here. Back down, I swiftly have to deal with the wolf's attacks. I jump, simultaneously sheathing my sword. I use my free hands to materialize the explosive axe and do a mid-air flip to hit the wolf below me, he was attempting to bite me whilst I was down but missed.

The explosive axe knocks him back and left a mark, but this wolf does not appear to lose his spunk anytime soon. It still goes after me. He opens his mouth and fires a shotgun of ice from his teeth, I side step it and dodge his following jumping bite attack, with my leap I do a spin to swing my axe his way. It saw that coming and jumped over my axe, it may think it can bite me now that I missed, but with light step I can simply move away and use the momentum from my missed swing into a second swing that hits the wolf even harder, blasting him away. It did some decent damage, but it still stands back up without issue.

I on the other hand, have to jump back from a slam of a proboscis. The big monster that was slowly walking my way unleashed a large nose from its front to slam me. But it doesn't seem elephant-like at all. It is just a big hair-ball with a head and large round legs, it had no nose, in fact, I can't tell where the proboscis is even attached to, it is like it just suddenly grew one somewhere.

It tried to sweep my feet, so I jump over its trunk and smacked my hammer into him, even though it exploded, it managed to catch the hammer with said trunk. It is very strong, able to slowly push me back. I use reflection from my left hand on my handle to make my axe strike itself down through the nose, cutting the trunk off. I grab the axe behind me with my arms as I go down, and without a second to spare, I move above him with light step, the axe flies out of my arms, but I quickly grab it before performing a flip into a strike on its back. I can tell it hurt it from its recoil, but I am not even close to cutting through the beast as a whole.

It regenerated its trunk somehow and knocks me back with a swing. Then it returns its trunk into its hair and flesh before charging at me. Its sheer strength has me unable to move, for he causes tremors with his feet, then he slams himself into me. I can kind of stop him from hurting me using the axe as a shield. After being shoved back, the wolf shoots a breath of ice at me. I easily dodge it by hopping to my right, I see it leave a trail of ice behind.

I sense two knives moving my way, I duck and feel the air itself getting split with speed. I look to the right of me and see a new monster about to jab me with his knives, I move out of the way. The three monsters surround me. They all look bizarre. The new monster looks like a living stick figure, with its whole body spiked. It actually has a few more arms that just disappear into the Aether and returns to reality, knives being soldered into where its hands would be whilst the two main arms do have hands that carry normal looking daggers compared to the kunai-esque knives soldered into the fake arms.

It makes weird wavy motions with its limbs almost as if it were dancing. Its head was a white-ish disco ball with white hair sprawling out of it. There are a lot of bizzarro monsters that have entered the battlefield. They almost look fake. Many of them are as large as a small house. Ninjas all over are having difficulty. They do target us mostly, but the fear of monsters has the enemies attacking them, which in turn, has the monsters fight them as well. One of them even was a very slim dragon, its arms, feet and jaw being the only things appearing thick, it had multiple wings, allowing it to move swiftly.

Acclaim and Strider had to cease fire for a bit as some bird-like enemies are coming their way. They look like blue ravens with muzzles you see dogs wearing, only it goes over their whole heads. Acclaim shoots a bunch of them with arrows, it disperses the group over the air. The ones flying directly above him get swatted in the air as Strider jumps off Acclaim's shoulders and uses his inanely quick movements to cut them apart. The two stand back-to-back as the birds surround them.
"It seems this fight is put on hold.", Acclaim says.
"Monsters should always be prioritized enemies, they are below even the worst man.", Strider says.

Some dark blue monkey-like monsters have climbed up the foothold. Enma waves the ninjas next to her away. She steps forward, taking on the few dozen monkeys. She pulls out a blade from her long sleeves. One monkey jumps her way, but with an instantaneous movement, she eludes the monkey's attack making it bellyflop onto the ground. With her movement, she had already cut the monkey's back as she swings her sword up from her back. Like a river flowing past rocks, she moves gracefully along each approaching monkey. However, with every monkey she passes, she quickly cuts each in six different direction before moving onto the next.

Behind all the monkeys, she swings her sword vertically down to her midriff. It is then that the monkeys suddenly feel their cuts and collapse. An even bigger white monster with a sword stuck in its neck jumps before her. It angrily roars before trying to grab her, in self-defense, she elegantly grappled its arm and throws him over her shoulder, then onto the ground. She stabs it in the neck before hopping backwards. She was about to sheath her sword, but then notices it twitch.
"My, my. You are quite strong indeed. Could you even be alive right now, I wonder, Guardian?", Enma says as the big ape just stands back up and slams the ground in anger.

"Zersturong!", I shout as I use the kinetic energy from spinning the axe around, slamming my foot into the ground to smash this axe with all my might into the wolf's side, the explosion crashing it into the ground. It took many hits but it is finally dead. I immediately move away with Light Step to avoid the numerous of 'ghost slashes' as I call them unleashed by the stick ghost monster, disappearing right after it is done cutting the air I was in before.

But the moment I stopped moving, I am hit by the sound wave attack from the big hairy monster, its mouth just kind of appearing to blast me with a thick wave that almost knocks me over. I can see the stick monster gliding over the snow about to stab me. I stop its movement by hitting the earth with my explosive axe, the explosion and rupturing earth blocking it. It may thrust its knives forward and create piercing shots of air, but I jump above him with my sword drawn out.

I use my special snow cut to slice him, or so I wished, alas, he moves out of the way like paper in the wind, I only cut through earth. When I go down, I try to follow it and hit it with my axe, that one, nor my following axe and sword swings hit him. I make sure to defend myself from the numerous slashes it tries to hit me with after.
This guy is super hard to hit, but his defense is paper-thin as well. One more hit should do it…

The big guy is approaching me now. I jump back to gain some distance. Suddenly, Wolf jumps in, deflecting the knives of the stick monster and cuts his neck off as he moves past him. He then deflects the trunk sweep. Right after, he jumps back, throws a bottle of oil at the monster, immediately runs towards it after landing, deflects a few attacks before blasting that monster with fire. As it is moving in pain, Wolf uses his special red glowing blade to cut it twice, knocking it back.

"Wolf.", I call out his name.
"Lady Goddess, you have to run quickly. These monsters shall be mine to cut. They don't deserve your time.", he says.
"Thank you.", I say to him before moving past the monster.
I can sense the monster shooting a big sonic wave at Wolf, but Wolf gets some kind of iron hat-like shield out of his prosthetic arm and defends himself from it easily. The battlefield has become complete chaos. I'm sorry, but, I have my own mission. Good luck everyone!
I've gotten too far away, I can't sense them in the wind anymore.

I am running into the wider snow plains. I can be certain I am a bit far from the residential areas. Monsters roam this place too, albeit, weaker ones. The big strong ones are rather slow and I can easily slip past them.
I sense air escaping beneath me, I jump away to see some mole-like creature jump out of it. It is dark blue like the other monsters. Its long claws are actually drills, so is its nose, its head has a drill and so do his thighs. He also has a bit of red around his belly, it actually looks like that one Pocketed Monstrosity that Rom and Ram showed me once.

I am getting distracted by the similarities, it shoots its drill claws off of itself like rockets, and he instantly regrows them after.
"GatheringStar Light Slash", I shout as I shoot a slash of light that hits most of the drills.
Then I fire off another blade of light at the mole, but it quickly dives under it and goes below ground. I stand still as I wait out for him appearing. It digs itself out behind me, jumping into the air combining all the drills into its head to turn himself into a big drill as it is trying to penetrate me. But even with its rotating energy, my blade engulfed with Light easily allows me to knock it away, albeit, I need to use the full strength of my arms.

After watching it dig back into the ground, I run. I figure I can kill it whilst moving to my destination. It tries to be a bit tricky, diving around like a dolphin whilst firing drill rockets. I can easily outmaneuver them with Light Step. I materialize a spear.
Soon after, it is about to jump from straight below me, I get up in the air as I plunge my spear down, it goes right into its face, hurting it enough to make it jump away, with the help of me pushing it.

Disoriented, it wobbles trying to stay on its feet. I jump in on him, even though he shoots his rockets at me, its aim is off and I easily get past the projectiles as I thrust my spear forward. With rapid jabs and a slash as a finisher, the mole is knocked over. I see it disappear into data.
When I think to walk for a minute before going back to a full sprint, I sense something blow in the wind up in the skies. A sniper shell is fired at me, I stand firm with my feet and let my blade knock it away as I turn my hips.

It doesn't take long for a whole armada of machinery to fly a bit lower to me from the clouds, firing at me with their machine guns. I jump back with light step before moving all over the place. These mechas had a smaller exoskeleton with grey armor plating, except the one that os twice their sizes with white plating and more individual machine parts build onto them. At a quick glance, there are about thirty grey ones and ten white ones, but I sense a few more a bit further away. Both types look rather lean, their heads looked like big white bricks. Maybe their eyes were on their chests? They had multiple boosters on their back, thighs, shoulders and feet.
Whilst dodging Vulcan bullets, a white machine flies my way at the same time as it is shooting me. With some turbo jet, it closes in on me fast to slash me with a thick blade on its arm, I block it with a strike after a twist jump. Of course, with no strength, I am flung over the snow, but that is on purpose. It is to gain distance. I still hold my spear in my left hand, but with my right, I swing my sword vertically.

With the snow, I create an air-cut that slices right through the white machines. It explodes after being halved. But that was just the first one. Three of them gathered and barrage me with missiles, which I can easily knock into each other from afar by creating shockwaves in the snow next to them. I immediately escape some more Vulcan fire from the grey ones in the air, and then, I am followed by a faster white one.

I try to turn around and slash him with the air cutter as well, but it blasts some kind of wind from between the gaps of its internals and armor plating. The machine combines with the winds with speed, it cancels out my special cutting attack, only making it scratch the machine. It flies in on me, its arms retracted, unleashing air between a split in both hands turning into saws of wind. The wind blades can actually change shape from buzzsaw to chainsaw to whatever else. It is very impressive and forces me to put effort in dodging its attacks.

At some point, it opens some holes on its chest and pelvis, blasting me away with air, right into the line of fire from the white mecha with the giant sniper rifle arm. I quickly throw my head backwards to avoid a bullet. Then I kick my legs above me to flip over and land on the ground, I immediately shoot myself into the sky with Light Step and charge light into my sword. I do one turn to rev my blade up and shout, "CombinationStar Light Slash!" I blast the sniper mecha with light, but it had zero effect.

Even the explosion from impact did nothing. These Mechas nullify light magic. Usually they have some other elemental weakness to compensate. Between mechas lining up to fire bullets at me and the wind mecha charging at me from my lower left, I cast explosion above me to move away. Whilst I go down, I thrust my sword into one of the grey mechas to pierce it with shockwaves through the snow.

Sideways in the air, I cast explosion from my feet to dodge a crushing impact from the wind mecha, which instead fell onto the ground creating a big crater with a heavy winds surrounding its body. It flies at me with great velocity, but I just move around with one Light Step to my right facing it, and then another Light Step to its back. As it turns around to attempt a slash, I stab it with my spear into a gap between the exoskeleton and armor plates, I had prepared a Light Step to move away the next instant, dodging its slash.

With how rather thin they are, I can tell where their ventilation shafts and gaps are at through Wind Sense. The armor plating usually resists elemental attacks, but not their core, if I poke enough holes into them, I can blast them with light anyway. I use one more CombinationStar Light Slash on the grey mechas above me, and as I suspect, they are also resistant to light. Now I evade every attack the wind mecha has got, whilst also keeping in mind the machine gun fire, sniper shots, and missile launchers. My sword is used for the defensive, and I exploit weak joints and gaps that lead to the inner mechanisms and exoskeleton to wear it down.

Eventually, I am able to use the full strength of "FusionStar Light Slash!", to blow it up. I avoid another sniper bullet, but this time, it is a diversion, I can sense the grey mechas gathering, they have also increased in number by the dozens. They gathered together using solar energy to fire off a giant laser my way. It is close to light magic, so I sheathe my sword and use my reflection palm to reflect it towards the sniper mecha, who for some reason is flying straight at me.

But just like the others, it resists light magic and just flies through it. It suddenly extends a bunch of tiny muzzles out of his armor plates, every few inches has a gun ready to be fired. I jump far away with light step, then I cut it apart with a slice through the snow. The lines of grey mechas firing bullets at me in front of the many that shot the laser at me also get cut by my snow cut, the surrounding mechas in the air disparages, some landing on the surface and other staying in the sky, I get surrounded even more by mechas, all the while a new white one hovers behind me.

I try to cut him as well with my slash through the snow, but it never reaches him. I move away as it combines his hand to emit a fire that burns the air and earth below it even twenty meters away. The mecha emits so much heat around the plates already, then the flamethrowers themselves are crazy potent. No snow can reach it. I might have ran away from its first burst of flames, but he can simply wave the fire my way by aiming his flamethrower to his left. I hop over the flame with Light Step. Then it just condenses its flames throwers, with every swoop of its arms it shoots some wave of flame at me, both vertical and horizontal ones.

It has some turbo ignition on its back that also sets itself ablaze, making it dangerous to hit physically. Now, I have been dodging his attacks and eluding the other mechas' barrage of projectiles. But I do have one advantage, the heat this machine produces comes from a powerful engine, I suppose it is made to overheat? I don't know how, but I can more easily sense hot air coming from what I assume is its heart. I use reflection from my hand to shoot the spear through it, with its main source of power destroyed, it quickly shuts off and falls over.

I hear more approaching. Thinking about it now. With quite a few mechas being designed to remove snow and all of them having anti-light magic plating, I can only assume these are made specifically to fight me. Albeit, they are made on the cheap. They are way easier to break than the human controlled mechas.
As I think that, one other machine has flown my way and is about to hit me with one of its two huge hammer arms.

As I jump away, I notice it has barbed wire in a ring accessory stuck over its head and arms. Now I see it generating electricity between hammers. At the same time, the divided mechas are trying to hit me from two flanks. I first shoot some knives into the lightning mecha at light speed, despite hitting the same area the generator was at for the flame mecha, it didn't do much damage to it.
They don't all have the same inner designs either…

I materials the lightning absorbing blade as usual, I jump up and hold the blade forward, this technique can be done with a normal sword at the expense of your health. Now the lightning is stuck at full power inside the sword, and when I swing it the exact moment I land, it all will discharge to where I swing it, I cut down two white mechas and nearly a dozen grey ones to my right. Then I immediately get away from the left flank's fire.

However, me moving gives time for the thunder mecha to charge up another attack. As it pulls its hammers closer and closer to each other, the lightning converses in mass, then it shoots it at me like it's a beam. Despite my blade, lightning is not getting absorbed into it as it seems to mostly become a physical element. That isn't to say there is no conduction at all, but this attack is clearly designed to knock my sword out of my hand. I grunt as I pull the blade down so I can shoot it into the machine at light speed.

Being successful, the blade inside the machine completely conducts its inside with intense lightning. Not surprisingly, it has some resistance to it, but the sheer voltage has it still stuck in error. I gather more light into my sword and destroy the mecha with a "FusionStar Helios Slash!"
Out of nowhere, a bunch of snow is blown my way after a white thin mecha with roller skate blades moved next to me at high speed. I block a spin kick with my sword, but am hurled into the sky anyway.

Something explodes below his roller skates and shoots himself in front of me whilst I am still flying in the air, he turns his back before hitting me with another spin kick. I am about to crash down, I think I should cast explosion to soften my landing. Undead or goddess, falling doesn't really kill me anyway. It is still quite taxing on my knees, Either way I land. With haste, I throw myself over the ground with a burst of light under my feet, that machine crashed down into the spot I was at right after.

He moves at incredible speed with his skates, he actually breaks the sound barrier. I sheath my sword and materialize two morning stars with much longer chains than normal. These are tailor made with one of Lowee's magical blacksmiths, I can transmit both lightning and wind magic to make their movements even more controllable, and I can even enchant the spiked balls with magic from a distance. With both long chains, I am able to entangle the skater Mecha with one chain, I pull him my way whilst thrusting my second morning star at it.

It dodges that morning star, but after I drag it into the air whilst jumping near it, I thrust my other spiked ball the opposite way, so that I can smash the mecha between them as I slam them together into it. It explodes whilst I simultaneously land in front of the army of other mechas. A really big one lands in front of them. This one has a cockpit, it is human controlled. It is mostly the upper body that is very wide, but the legs are much thicker as well. Its arms are also very bulky, and the back has plane-like wings with its thrusters.

Judging from the design, this mecha looks like one SCJP often deploys. The mechas also explode rather than turn into data, so they are not monsters but human controlled devices most likely.
Either way, I can't waste that much time. They haven't fought me with these morning stars, so if they have mass produced mechas made to fight me, these weapons would be something they haven't accounted for.
I shout test one thing.

I throw one morning star handle into the air to grab my sword. I make a clear cut in the air that made a shockwave travel through snow that would normally cut buildings in half. But this mecha was unaffected by it.
As I thought, they even accounted for attacks through snow. Perhaps they have something to make sure snow doesn't reach their body?
Either way, I run forward, as it and a few dozen mechas assault me with various weapons.

I decide to charge through them. I assume they know they can't just beat me, so they must be stalling for time. I have to hasten my progress. With these two chained spike balls, I can easily deflect bullets and destroy missiles. The balls are made of nintendium after all, there is no tougher material. Explosions mean nothing to them. I run forward smashing them through the grey mechas with ease. The white ones have tougher plates, but they can be defeated by simply wearing them down with repeated strikes, to finish them, I charge the ball with lightning magic, they are weak to that.

Plenty of high end mechas come with lightning protection, but with them being mass produced and made with Light resistance, they probably couldn't afford to make them fully resistant to lightning, with enough cracks, their weakness to lightning increases. Other ways of defeating them is by catching a grey mecha with a chain and throwing it into a white mecha, combined with an sequel attack of a spiked ball imbued with explosion magic.

I can also easily grab a grey mecha to better defend myself against rocket and missile attacks. With Light step, I am also able to speed up the balls when I swing them forward with my movement, making them capable of even penetrating the white mechas. I do this whilst avoiding most combat with piloted mecha. They do chase me, shooting far stronger rockets and energy bullets at me. But I know they are tougher by just looking at them, so I feel better destroying the more fragile mechas first. They can come with the specialized types like wind, fire and thunder, but with my fine control, I can spin the handle and have only a part of the chain swing the ball in circular motions in the air, destroying many grey mechas, which gives me time to squash these special mechas between two balls.

These balls are great for offense and evasion, I can easily use the entanglement of the chains to pull myself wherever I want, usually between mechas and away from missile barrages, the best part is, the other chain and spiked ball would follow, allowing me another attack in the middle of dodging another attack. The other great thing is, thanks to the wind and lightning magic, I can move forward and I barely have to yank these chains to move the morning stars, they move with my mind thanks to magic, so they just slither over the skies like…Sky snakes. Yes. And they just blow things up or disrupt enemies as I run forward.

I can even make the balls blow up in full, and with Weapon Create, I can easily repair them in seconds. Although, that aspect of my ability is powered by the negative energy at the moment. Is it a good idea to tap into the power of the evil me? Regardless, I am running around with two chained balls flying around at high speed causing a storm of destruction. A water mecha I hadn't seen yet came forward, and it looked a bit cooler than the other ones with its blue accents and fountain like accessories.

It had a hydro cutter and uses a high pressured water beam that actually felt the most threatening out of all machines. But this one is even easier to destroy when amping the spiked balls with lightning magic. The water helps conduct it into its engine after I smacked the chained balls into it enough times. I also make the balls explode once more, the spikes are designed fly out of it, slightly damaging nearby mechas. Not that it matters, I do it to disrupt the human controlled mecha, he will be too distracted by spikes flying into his wind shields. I never see them fully pierce through, however.

I see two more human piloted mechas fly near me. These are the only three left. The first one ignites her turbo and flies in front of me. I know her armor is a bit thick, but I have observed her speed and I know doing heavier attacks with these balls allows her time to dodge. Unlike the remote controlled mechas, she is directly in the action and can respond like the mecha is her own body. I pretend to sweep her legs with the chain in my left hand, which she flies up in the air backwards whilst releasing rockets, that is when I shoot the other chain ball at her with a jump in the air, it goes right through the rockets, but doesn't hit her due to some thrusters on her shoulders allowing her to quickly fly below it.

But that is what I was planning, the moment the ball was above her, I cast thunderbolt at it so it would immediately drop onto her mecha with lightning conducing it. These mechas are tougher, but they are still made on the cheap, once I tear the armor apart, their resistances are greatly reduced. The ball's impact made a big dent in her machinery, and the lightning has her slowed down.

She may rise up, but she can't escape me, I have already caught her in the chain of my other spikes ball, she tries to shoot me off whilst I was being dragged up with her, but I easily let the chain pull me around her, I get thrown up above her while I make the spiked ball stuck in her torso explode to tear her armor off. Above her, I let the chain around her unwrap so I can hurl the other spiked ball at her as hard as possible, she may dodge it, but I certainly hadn't forgotten her two friends, they had been shooting at me for a while now, just not accurately.

I missed her on purpose, it hits the shoulder of one of her friends whilst charged with thunder magic. For her, I prepared a javelin that can pierce through the damaged spot made by the exploding spiked ball, at light speed I throw it through her, opening a sizable hole under her cockpit. With that hole, she isn't fully protected from the snow around us, I gather the snow around her and force it through her hole, allowing me to cut the insided of the mecha apart. Unlike the big one Dadd was using, this cheap one has all its important function stuck to its uh…Whatever it is. Either way, I see the machine shut off entirely.

I should try out the new weapon.
When I land, I materialize a pair of nintendium boots and gauntlets, both of them have a silver coating.
The last time I used gauntlets were at the tournament when I first transformed. I never really made proper ones before. I consulted the same magical black smith, who made my magic reducing sword from long ago, how to make their magical conductivity as efficient as possible. They mostly have inner functions of fire and lightning, light is already easy for me to enchant onto other weapons, so we didn't bother with that.

The two mechas land before me. First thing's first…
I materialize a few knives and shoot them at the two at light speed. I assume they had prior knowledge, for they quickly set up some kind of barrier to prevent them from doing any damage. They were green energy barriers in a hexagon pattern. They had to slam their arms together in order to activate it however, so they can't move or attack at the same time.

I take a stance, my left foot forward together with my left fist in front and above of my face, my other foot behind my back with the toes to the side and my right first pulled to my side ready to be twisted. With the ignition thrusters in the boots and Light Step Combined, I am launched at the mecha to my left at high speed. She shoots me with a huge laser of light magic, but I just enchant my right fist with light, and with a twist I punch through the laser and damage the plating on her left arm.

With my added strength, she is shoved back slightly. It seems she has some kind of energy shotgun on her other arm, I dodge it with a side step and immediately try to punch her again, she can block my fist pretty well with both arms using some kind of pressured wind. However, that doesn't protect her lower area. With these booths, I can kick it with a powerful explosion combined with light magic and thrusters.

The kick leaves black scorch marks on the plating as she is flung back a little over a meter. I land back on the ground, hop back with Light step to avoid rockets and gun fire from the mecha to my right. Then I dodge her gatling gun by zigzagging around until she is within range. Close enough, I thrust myself forward with an explosive fist, but she stops it with the energy barrier.

I dodge a big laser from the other mecha by shooting myself over the one guarding herself in front of me. Her shoulder has been damaged and reveals a pretty wide gap. I mean to exploit it. Once I am close to her back, I cast explosion from my left hand and punch her shoulder with an electrically charged fist. That alone did some damage, but I use my fingers with the gauntlets still surging with lightning to reach through the rift widened by my punch, at the same time, I use my other fist to block incoming bullets. Nintendium is as tough as advertised.

Electricity is already damaging the mecha, but I don't think it would be enough. However, with resistance lowered, I am able to tear off the armor plating on her arm before getting off of it. Just in time too, the second mecha decided to swing a blade at me, which is coming from his arms.
This mecha now flies over to me attempting to pincer me between its blades, even if they are high frequently blades, I can easily block them with the palms of my hands. If it weren't for the training I did a while ago, he'd probably have pushed me back. But now I am strong enough to slowly inch his arms off me.

More importantly, I make the gauntlets generate heat. They can already get super-hot without magic, but that is dangerous. Unless you are already dead, which I am. But if you can use fire magic, even a little, it is much easier to enchant these fist with them. But I won't let them burst in flames, I try to be subtle with my next plan of attack. Locked in close quarter combat, my already good martial arts gives me an advantage, but on top of that, he has to move a body that isn't even his own. I outpace the machine, dodging its many swords as I repeatedly punch his armor plates specifically with heat punches. Occasionally, I would get onto his body or arms and only push my hands onto the armor.

Each time I touch him with heat, I cast ice on him right after. Eventually, I jump over a jab, I then get behind his back to hit his thrusters with an explosive kick. I damaged his thrusters and pushed him back slightly. I have to quickly get away, the other mecha shot some metal shells into the air, and they unleash super-fast missiles that explode in unison upon touching the ground. Even dodging the explosion isn't enough, the flames emitted magically come to life to follow me.

Well, they are way too slow to catch up. I move around at high speed, eventually reaching the mecha who shot those shells, I hit her with lightning a few times, giving her no chance to react with my quick movement. All so I can tear off the front plating of her mecha.
Well, I'd say this weapon test is a massive success.
With that in mind, it is time to finish things. I move at insane speeds, increasing my speed with Light Step as I move around both mechas.

I suddenly stop, keeping all the kinetic energy into my boots with Light and fire leaving a huge trail behind me. At that moment, I shoot myself at the mecha with the front plate removed at maximum speed. "Reflection Punch!", I shout as I shove my fist through the mecha, knocking her on her back. The other spent no time waiting and immediately gets in front of me, but with his thrusters not functioning as well, he can't move as fast.

With blinding speed, I hit him entirely with a barrage of punches engulfed with light whilst shouting, "Light Fist combination!" I have caused thermal fatigue on his steel with the great heat punches and ice magic, they can't resist my light magic anymore and easily get torn by my fist. After dealing enough damage, I fling myself forward with my boots' thrusters and throw one punch up the mecha's gut with explosion magic, creating a big hole into it.

Afterwards, I quickly get into the air, avoiding a bunch of missiles and rockets they fired in desperation, I see a big explosion below me. I unequip my gauntlets and boots. Then I take out my sword. Now I can have snow enter the holes I created through them, actually, even their cockpits were broken open, so I let the snow enter there as well. I break the mecha from inside and cut the people piloting them. I haven't tried killing them, and as long as they go down, I don't care to check.

With all mechas near me wasted, I land on the ground and put my sword back in satisfaction. I see that I am close to the mountains. I should see if I can get a vantage point. I do need a little rest, so stroll over them at first before making a run for it.

…

Finally I reach the mountains, the weather has gotten pretty bad. Steel clouds and a mist-like snow blowing around. I thought I was alone, I was actually pretty relaxed for a few minutes. It is then, I sense a presence.

From the way she carries herself, I can tell she has experience and confidence. I see her silhouette through the snow storm. I already have my arms close to my sword.
"Are you the leader of the Phantom Crusaders?", she asks me.
I can somewhat make out what she looks like. Her gear fits that of a typical adventurer.
"Are you the rumored adventurer hired by Tenchu?", I ask her.

She walks closer and says, "Rumored? And I thought I could surprise you. Aren't ninja supposed to keep secrets better? Oh well. I should be honored the leader of the Phantom Crusaders knows of me.", she says playfully.
I can see her in vision now, she actually has a smile on her face.
She has brown eyes and rusty red hair that is cut pretty short, a silver headband is worn, with some of her hair actually going over the left and right side.

She wears a light blue winter coat with a fluffy trim, she has it tightly strapped to her with a leather belt over her hips and just below her bust with golden accents. Her belt also comes with a sizable pocket the average adventurer carries. She wears dark thighs with a golden line ringed around close to the end. She also wears pretty large blue boots with white, gold and brown accents…Also they have belts strapped close to the toes. I don't know why. Is that metal plating on the front and back?

She takes out a decently big falchion sword.
"So, what do I call a famous adventurer such as yourself?", I ask her.
"Famous? I wouldn't call myself that. My name is Falcom, an average adventurer.", so she says.
Name: Falcom.
Age: Too old for CFW Trick.
Height: 162 CM.
occupation: Adventurer.

"Well, I haven't heard of you anyway…But I can tell you are strong. Despite that, do you face me even knowing what is going on?", I ask her, I want to see if wisdom comes with her strength she most likely got from experience.
"This, "Lord Tenchu", told me there were heretics within the ninja village, but to be honest, I don't think it is my place to interfere with their internal struggles. I'm not even sure if they are telling the truth. On your end, there are multiple high bounties on you, especially if I capture you alive.", she tells me.

I feel a bit disappointed, "Heh…So you are in it for the money? More of a bounty hunter than an adventurer?", I say dejected.
"Oh no, don't misunderstand me. I only take rewards from adventuring guilds and the Basilicom guilds, I would never hunt people for money. And I specifically took this job because your group interested me. A mystery group of unrecognizable individuals who take matters into their own hands, having been named terrorists, vigilantes, or even heroes by many people. It sounded like an exciting adventure!", She says with a bit of enthusiasm.

Somehow I feel relieved. But one thing bothers me. I look at her puzzled, "But didn't you take direct orders from White Heart?", I ask her.
"Huh? Blanc? Ah, the guild did issue a quest as well, but I haven't spoken to her personally.", she tells me.
She knows her human name?
"So, really. You came her just to fight me for fun? Wouldn't you want to know my motives?", I ask her.
"Maybe later. I think we can understand each other better after a fight. Besides, I doubt we'd have much time with all the fighting around us.", Falcom says.

I close my eyes. Somehow she doesn't even seem that type of person? Oh well.
I open them, unfold my hands, and then, I take my sword out. I take a stance aiming my sword at her eyes grasped in both hands, thus I say, "I can respect that. Let's dance."
I don't have to worry about SP at all. I'll take any challenge.
The stance she takes is pretty different. Her right knee is forward with her left foot right behind it, her upper body is facing almost ninety degrees to her left as she has her eyes on me and her sword is held with both hands straight forward next to her head with the point facing me directly.

The two of us take a huge leap forward, we reach each other in no time. Her first attack is a thrust, I barely move my arms, for my movement forward would have my sword naturally pierce her if she didn't do anything, of course, I now had to deflect a stab, she had flipped her blade back from upside down position leaning her whole body into it, a red aura almost pierced me, but that isn't all, before I can do anything back to her, she leans back which she can easily do with a push of her right leg, she does a slash motion with her sword only held in her right hand.

The Falchion is a one handed sword, but she is quite skilled in using it with both hands as well, adding more strength to her swings. With her sword off mine she shuffles aside my thrust and tries to hit me with an overhead swing, but I easily block that with a slight turn to my left and holding the blade above my head. I can push her sword away, but I won't lie, she is very strong. I wouldn't be able to simply shove her if I wanted to. As she is pushing my sword down, I figure I can just go in for a kick. Her eyes twitch for a second, and with good reflexes, she blocks that kick with her hand, which probably still hurts, for it is with enough strength to shove her ten meters away, it isn't going to damage her much, on the other hand.

As the fight continues for another minute, the differences in our fighting styles is clear. Falcom switches between one handed and two handed at a dime without a single thought, adjusting your strength when slashing with a shorter weapon with two hands is hard, swing too hard and you easily lose your balance. With one hand, she cannot only be quicker but actually move around me more, not to mention she can easily swap hands and block attacks from any side, and with two hands, she can hit and push me with more strength.

My sword is a katana in functionality, I use it two handed mostly, and use one handed only to conserve strength, keep my hand free for punches and grapples, or for certain tricks. Switching between two styles like she does wouldn't be as advantageous to me. She can also keep a hand free for when I do surprise kicks and punches.
After a minute we lock blades, heavy winds blow due to our sheer strengths being pushed against each other.

I use Light Step to move a distance away from her, then I get back to her with that same speed, about to hit her with Cold Edge. "Fire Blade!", she stops my cold attack with a burning sword, it actually is similar to Flame Edge. In the end, she just blocks another of my sword strikes. "Wind Blade!", she say knocking me back with a wind infused blade. She hops over to me about to strike me with "Thunder Blade!

"Shadow Drive!", A shadow is emitted from my blade whilst she attacks me with lightning, the darkness swallows some of the lightning, and it disorients her ever so slightly, it is enough to push her back. I pursue her to get a hit in, I slam her further back and will follow her once more with a stab. This time, however, she recovered, knocks my sword to my left with her sword to her right shoulder whilst placing her left leg behind mine, almost like she is wrapping herself around me. Then she grabs the sword with her other arm, attempting to hit my neck with it. But since I am a bit over thirty centimeters shorter than her, I can easily duck under it and escape with a burst of light with Light Step.

Just like me, she won't let up and dives towards me with a thrust. Unlike her, I don't have to do much with my feet, just a small step to the side and a knock on top of her sword to align my blade with her neck is enough, for I only need Light Step to quickly move into her. I think she saw it coming, for she quickly avoids my attack, barely in time, I should mention. I did graze her neck. Our backs were turned, but we both quickly turned around to clash with a diagonal slash. The steel of our blades unleash a heavy gust around it.

We both lean in to push our swords forward, but our strength is closer than I thought. We ended up jumping back. Falcom takes a breath before exhaling it calmly. Then dashes forward. I hop to my left to dodge a strike, and it is a strong strike, the wind that came after blows a big cloud of snow into the sky. It seems she is using even more of her strength. She comes after me, each swing packed with weight. Blocking it is going to get my arms sore, so I hover backwards after a Light Step and I shoot a "CombinationStar Light Slash!" at her.

She jumps up high to avoid it, of course, that makes it easier to hit her with another medium Light Slash. However, she gathers a lot of strength, her sword glows a bit as she cuts through the light blade. I fire multiple smaller light slashes at her, which she can easily cut through as she goes down. At first it looked like she was about to strike me, but closer towards the ground, she goes into a stab, I dodge it, turning to my right after jumping next to her side.

I block a one handed hit after Falcom turned to me with a swing. I am still capable of blocking her blade, but this is only to make me unprepared for the strength she unleashes when she uses both arm. Once that second arm grabbed onto her blade, she cracks the ground beneath whilst she blows me high in the sky with a mighty push. She jumps to my altitude, channeling some kind of energy into her sword. It grows big into a white light with purple and blue glow as she swings it vertically shouting, "Photon Blade!"

I cast explosion from my left hand to avoid it, her sword strike creates a rift-like attack in midair that carves itself into the mountain that was behind me. After I get down, I immediately move away to avoid Falcom's plunging attack. She is quick to get the sword out of the ground after stabbing it into the snow, and she is good for doing so, because I was about to unleash my special attack. I create a shockwave blade through the snow, Falcom jumps over it with sweat coming off her body, probably instinctively feeling how dangerous that attack was.

But I knew she was going to dodge it, I aimed it so that it would cut the mountain behind her, the same one she carved into. Now it slowly tips over to us, but she hasn't noticed it yet and goes into the attack. I jump to my left, then I turn ninety degrees to try and hit Falcom who had just missed her swing, however, my attack turned into a block for she uses a lot more strength into her turn slash. The strike I did might've failed, but the mountain is closer to falling onto us, so I decide to use my position to thrust my sword up into the air, slightly to my right to hit the mountain with a thrust. I'm not sure how much it did, but it definitely got her to look up.

The mountain is now falling onto us in multiple pieces. I see fear in her eyes, she is in a hurry to escape getting smashed. Of course, I should get out of the way as well. I should still be impressed, I can sense her cutting through the mountain as she escapes certain doom.
She cuts her way out of the mountain, on the other end, I get high up with my blade engulfed with a big flowing spiking white light.
"UnionStar Light Slash!", I shout as I swing it down at her. She appears very cautious with her eyes wide open, she goes into the evasive right away and quickly dashes to her left before jumping over the debris of the mountain. My Light Slash blows up close to her and even destroys some of the debris, a few of it almost hitting her.

I get above her, my sword bursting with light as I attempt to strike her physically, but she moves to my left, so I only tore apart a big chunk of the mountain's leftovers. She tries to hit me with her blade glowing as well, then from below, I parry it, the clash of our blades shooting air with such high pressure in one direction, it pierces through big mountainous chunks and blows debris away at high speed.

I go backwards with Light Step, forcing her to run my way. However, I intend to increase the strength of my Light Step, the trail of white below my feet spiking up hard, the burst shoots me towards her. She stops for a bit and once again, she protects herself with the flat end of her blade, but even if my thrust doesn't hit her, with that much velocity behind it, she is flung through walls and debris of this mountain. She is shot all the way to where the debris end. I chase after her, but she is quick to figure out my scheme, she moves to the side and with a tricky motion of displacing her sword with her hand, she lets me pass her just slightly so she can turn around and grab me by my clothes with her left hand.

With a spin, she throws me in the air whilst having prepared to smack me with the sword in her right hand. Even if it was a one-handed attack, her strength was undeniable. I crash inside a big piece of the mountain, it is actually hollow inside. She breaks through it to tries to stab me, of course, I dodge that rather easily. Her sword thrust leaves a hole inside this hollow mountain chunk. I decide to kick through it with explosion do get outside.

She actually breaks through its ceiling and jumps over me, she lands on a medium sized chunk next to me.
"It's over Switcher! I have the high ground!", she shouts.
What the heck does that mean?
I block a strike from her. I see her planning to drop down to push through my guard. But her high ground means nothing to me. I just kick the big stone she's standing on with explosion magic to blow it away. Losing her foothold means losing her balance, so I kick her up into the air with my other foot.

I jump her way, but she does a mid-air strike that unleashes a sharp gale, I instinctively cast explosion to fling myself away from it, I can see it break through some stone below me. After I dive under her, I do my own air-cut, which she avoid by leaning backwards. Right after, she places her feet onto a tall elevates boulder and jumps off it to get to me quickly. Her legs kicking off the builder caused it to collapse.

But my speed easily allows me to circle to her back, she misses me and just blows a bunch of rubble into the air, scrambling them. She quickly turns with a one handed sweep of her sword, shooting a small gust of wind that still cracks the stone that it hit behind me, of course, I jumped over it. I avoid another thrust that is powerful enough to create perfect round holes in a bunch of stones.
After that, however, she picked up the pace and shouts, "Moon Dragon Cut!"

Her blade become one of a raging wind that can tear through dragon scales, even blocking it I felt myself getting cut as she hits me four times. She was able to close in on me with that attacked and followed up with another combo as her face turns into rage.
"Dragon Pheonix Burst!", She shouts as she hits me six times with blows powerful enough to wear me out despite perfectly blocking each move.

"Genos Nova!", she shouts knocking my sword to the side with a magical slash, now I have to take another one, but she puts her full strength in it, knocking me through multiple pieces of the mountain.
Naturally, it follows that she runs after me, so I shoot a medium sized Light Slash at her. This is to give me time to move right next to her with light Step. She may expect me to attack her from there, but I just used Light Step with one foot, I immediately bump myself into her using a burst of light from the other foot. She blocks my attack, but with my swing comes explosion magic that drags her through the rubble.

I follow her, strike and miss, destroying big rocks in front of me, she tries to hit me, misses and cuts pieces of stone sky high. Eventually, I do a right turn sword swing to clash with her blade. At first, she stands her ground with my push. But I only put a little pressure into my attack. I hold my blade firm and strain all my muscle. Then I enchant my blade with an overflowing light and push her over the large stones leftover from the mountains. She is back towards the epicenter of the mountain's crash.

I jump her as we both often do in this fight, so it comes to no surprise she dodges me again. I jump back and parry a one handed swing to my left, and I see she is going to immediately follow that up with a two-handed strike, so I figure to do the same. Both of us at full strength, we smash our blades into each other, our strength unleashing a shockwave that has the mountain's rubble hover or fly into the air depending on size.

Our fight goes on for a bit, cutting and slashing every piece of stone nearby, but never really hitting each other.
Falcom was the one to break us out of this loop. She moves forward and uses an SP Skill.
This move has her stab me like she's fencing, each thrust packed with a red aura, almost like she is hitting me with energy needles. Even though I block her stabs, the red aura goes through me, damaging me and the stone behind me. After seven stabs, she holds her blade with her right hand over her left shoulder and sends me soaring out of the rubble shouting, "Demon Flame Cut!"

Despite the name, I don't sense any heat or flame coming from this attack, nor magic. But it did send me hundreds of meters away, a devastating move it is for sure. I am now closer to more mountains that are bundled together.
"Photon Blade!", Falcom shouts as she is running towards me. I avoid another rift of light and blow a penetrating gust at her from a thrust of my blade. She jumps over it and slams her sword down once more with the same Photon Blade.

Flying Blades of light, air slashes, shockwave cuts, our ranged battle could last for hours did she not inch closer and closer towards me. I step aside her thrust attack, knocking blade with a tap to my right. Alas, I couldn't cut her, for she quickly waves her sword with her right hand my way, and I have no choice but to block it, but as I do, I can duck under it and place my sword under hers to push it up. Even then, she lets go of her sword so it gets flung in the air, but while she turns, she picks it up with her other arm to do another slash. Back and forth we weave around, almost like a swords dance.

Eventually, she hits me with an impressive rush of 8 slashes. The next moment, I have stopped her sword with a strike, I perfectly calculated the distance so I can slide my blade under hers, following my attack up with a one handed uppercut that knocks her sword above her and tilts herself into the air. Completely taken aback, she reacts with a gasp.
"Critical Edge!", I shout as I increase my speed for a second to the point where it looks like I go through her with my body mostly vanishing. Once past her, I have already cut her.

She lands, grunting in pain, but we all know it won't beat her. She is, however, bewildered. She lowers her posture as she looks at me saying, "You know Neptune's moves?"
I don't give her time to respond. I run at her preparing my next onslaught. Her responsiveness has gotten sluggish as I knock her sword around, she can only run back as I shout, "Cross Combination!"! I Fling her into the air before moving above her with great speed, I finish my attack by knocking her back onto the ground.

She has barely any time to recover, I can see her desperately push herself off the ground to avoid my next attack. "Fall Down Slash!", I shout as I shoot a white energy blade at the ground, missing her. Said energy blade creates a small shallow rift as it explodes, beaming upwards. I move back down to dive over the snow. She gets a bit better at stopping my attacks, parrying a thrust, but she does not expect me squatting to prepare a backflip kick.

I kick her in the jaw, tilting her upwards, I bet she already knows what attack this is, she is even guarding her head with her sword as I get up to her.
"Drop Crush!", I say, striking her with my sword. I see her landing roughly on her feet.
Now diving down towards her, I see her slowly and gently brush her blade with her left hand, right after, I see a blue aura emit from the sword.

"Magic Sword Sorcarian!", she shouts before shooting a bunch of crystal-like shards my way with three sword swings. I stop my dive to guard myself, but she didn't directly aim all of them at me, they were spread out. I couldn't dodge, and even then, that wasn't the full attack. The crystals resonate and they are about to unleash some magical attack. I am stuck in a blue pillar of light that hurts me.

That one hurt quite a bit, I took the full brunt of it. I land back on the ground, smoke coming from me. It felt like an explosion went off in front of me. I see her running my way. But I feel this fight doesn't need to go on if she can't take my next attack.
"EXE Drive Skill!", Shouting this has her tense. The air must feel dense for her now.

I move all around her, hitting her with two swords brimming with Light Magic. After the few dozen slashes whilst moving in circles around her, I lift her up with a few spin slashed combined with a jump, then I knock her down with a smash from both sword. I fuse the two blades of light together to create a big sword of light.
"FusionStar… Light Slash!", I shout as I drop this blade down at her whilst I land, the burst of light magic enveloping her doing massive damage. I see her drop to her back. I did not expect her to roll back on her feet, however.

Despite all the bruising and slow movement of her arms. She struggles to speak, but succeeds to say, "Tear…"
I see, she casts a healing spell on herself. Her bruises go away. Despite that, I see her sword lowered, like she is about to ask for a break.
She catches her breath before speaking, "You really are as strong as I was expecting. I'm almost a bit frustrated I haven't done more damage to you."

"But you aren't satisfied, are you?", I ask her.
I can tell, she hasn't used her actual full strength yet. She only panicked because I used Neptune and Noire's techniques.
"I don't think you are a bad guy. Even with that EXE Drive skill, I see no attempt to kill me. But what I want to know is, how do you know their attacks?", she talks with a smile at first, but it turns into a confused look after.

"I have seen their moves and simply practiced them. That is all there is to it.", I tell her.
Not untrue. I really did watch them fight a few times and practiced right after.
"Hm… So. You are quite the adventurer, too, then? You wouldn't just look at all of them fight from Lowee and copy their moves perfectly otherwise. It took me a lot of practice to get to where I am.", so Falcom says.
"You could say that.", I reply.

"Either way, I can tell you haven't fought your best yet. I would feel even more frustrated knowing I haven't gotten close to beating the real you.", she tells me.
"To be fair, you probably haven't gone all out yet either.", I argue.
"Yes. I really want to know what you are about. But I think we should fight our best first…", she tells me.

I see her get serious. "Qilin Attack.", she says casting some support magic. I see her body bulge for a second. Her physical strength must have increased.
I enchant my sword with light, I intend to have it be a sword of bursting light at all times.
Yet, I hear objection from Falcom, "No. I mean your full power."
As I raise my head slightly, she elaborates, "I have heard you can change shape."
"If I transform, you have no way of beating me. I can guess you'd understand that.", I tell her.

"Yeah. That is what makes it worth it.", Falcom tells me.
I take out an charger, the lowest SP charger items Enma has given me to regain some SP. Then I say, "I shall grant your wish."
If I beat her showing what I am, maybe she would join us.
I can sense those two haven't started their fight in my mind yet, allowing me to attain HDD.
I transform. One again, my transformation just stops at my clothes being torn off. I see a new disc floating below me.

I grab it and see that, "Rainbow Snowflake Sweetch OLED Processor Unit", is written on it.
This naming convention is the complete opposite of the new form other 'Me' got.
"Processor Unit, set!", I shout, wanting to try this new form out anyway.
My fists get huge dark blue gauntlets built into them, from there, white sleeves with black lines form over my arms. Then the rest of my body suit is getting formed, pure white skin tight suit with light blue snow flake patterns and black metal details plastered all over.

Just like the gauntlets, I get similar blue boots, albeit, it looks less blocky with sharper metal detailing almost looking like ice, they even have thrusters with light blue flame-like effects coming out of them. Black thigh highs from the boots with white snowflake patterns, my left leg has some metal band strapped right above the knee. Now the hip parts come in, they both looked like a small part of a belt attached to me, then I see four controllers attached to this belt like thing, and between these controller-like objects came a light blue flame from what looks like electrical sockets, these light blue flames form some kind of short skirt around me.

The wing and shoulder parts come in, they almost look like a set. My wings are ridiculously big light blue snowflakes, looks like crystal, but they are hard as steel, and the shoulder parts for some reason are behind my back, three dark somewhat large crooked metal spines sprawl out of the each plate on my back, which there was one for each shoulder blade. Each metal piece emits a light blue flame, almost forming wings themselves. I suppose they are thrusters as well?

Then comes my head piece, A black vizor that I can see through, but from the outside, the window is glowing light blue…And on top of that are…Metal cat ears? Wait, they are shifting in different colors through those lines…Wait, I have a bunch RGB what the heck?!
To my surprise, there are certain circle spots across the metal pieces, or some lines along the body suit, wings, around the vizor, and throughout the crystal-looking snowflakes that have a colorful glow to them. Also, each light blue flame has snowflake particle effects.

What the heck is this form?! I game the least out of everyone, why do I get the gamer form?!
I observe my own form whilst I get praise from Falcom.
"A goddess. Now I can see why you are so confident. I was hoping I'd face someone like you…But I have to be honest. You frighten me a little", she says, I can see one drop of cold sweat run across her cheek.
Yeah, that is nice and all but…I mean, I don't dislike this form, it just confuses me.

"Do you think this form looks good?", I ask her.
She looks at me like she doesn't know how to react.
She manages to relax herself and replies, "I mean, it looks fine to me. Except…Are all those light really necessary?"
"Don't ask me. I don't choose this for-…", I stopped midsentence once I took a good look at my left gauntlet and noticed a switch. I then say, "Oh wow, I can change the lighting."

"Hey, not to be rude but…I think we still have to fight… Or something like that.", Falcom says.
"Alright…Let's set the light to blue…That makes it match well…Huh?", I mumble whilst fiddling with the controls, then I look at her. Her sword is ready but she is fidgeting a bit between a battle stance and a relaxed posture.
"Sorry, let us start from the beginning.", I say.

I let the light blue flames flare and the snow particles fly all over me as I say with a haughty tone, "Adventurer! A mortal such as you should be honored to face the likes of me. Even if your power pales in comparison, come! Show me what you're made off. I, Cold Heart, will show you your place."
She stands ready and says with intensity, "Yeah…Let's do it!"
What the heck am I doing?

Even taking myself by surprise, I fly over her at Mach 4 speed, I was used to HDD being slower than SSD, never mind how bulky and heavy this body is. Either way, she could barely follow me, despite her parry, I blow her away by a few dozen meters with a sonic boom. She instantly gets jumpy, like a ghost can pop out at any moment. I fly over to her again, but use Light Step just as I get in front of her to dodge her sword, she put more strength in it than necessary and lost her balance.

With her about to fall over, I can easily circle around her and drop kick her from her right. She does strengthen the muscles in her right arm to lessen the pain from my attack. She is flung over the snow, and I follow her behind her back to knock her fifty meters into the sky. I fly straight into her, breaking her guard with a slash as I pierce her. From above I make her crash into the ground with a kick.
It's been a while since a fight has been so unfairly in my favor…I have forgotten how strong I was.

I can feel the shares given by the ninjas I allied with. They must've granted me this new power. Unlike the other form, this HDD uses 75% share energy and 25% negative energy.
On the other hand, Falcom is just getting started. I see her get up and glare at me with determination. She blocks a strike from me and manages to flip me over with a tricky movement of her sword, using my own strike against me.

Normally, a sword is more a dexterity than a strength weapon, but at the moment, she knows she won't do a thing against me with a normal slash, she takes this opportunity to hit me like her sword was a baseball bat. And now I get a true taste of her power, she slams me pratty high up into the air. In terms of physical prowess, she may be the strongest human I've ever met.

She pursues me and we get locked in with our blades, the clash wiping the snow off the ground and cracking nearby mountain walls. If it weren't for my speed, I'd be worried. Falcom chases after me, blow after blow, her attacks are packed with weight that could crush the bones of dragons. But she is outclassed by my speed, I can easily float backwards and guide the true power of her swings away from me. Still, I can see gusts fly from each swing that destroys bedrock.

I duck under a blade that was crookedly swung upwards, cleaving the top of a mountain off.
I use Light Step to move a large distance to my right. She can't follow. She doesn't know where I am yet…I move behind her with my blade charged with light. I think she sensed me, for she turned around ready to take my ranged attack. Except, I am not firing it, I instantly move in front of her.
"Light Slash!", I shout as I swing my light engulfed sword into hers, launching her into the mountain she cut the top off of. She was right near the destroyed peak, she stabbed her sword into the ground to let the light magic travel away from her instead of taking her into the air.

Of course, I get there in no time, and she swiftly takes her sword out of the ground to block my uppercut. She gets tilted up into the air, but she isn't fazed by my strength this time. The next moment I come close to her, she hits me with a great almighty blow that send me flying down the edge of the mountain's current top. I move away from her plunging attack, I see she has the strength to create a crack that travels all the way to a midway point of the mountain.

I fly to her right arm and kick her in a spiral down the mountain, although, she stops herself with he sword digging through the base of the mountain. I fly after her, but she dodges my follow up attack and then knocks me to her left. She dodges my counter thrust attack, but I am fast enough to simply kick her with my boot back up the mountain. With great speed, I fly in front of her and jab her with my sword, she does block it with her blade, but lands in the middle of the mountain's top.

I fly in front of her, before quickly using mid-air Light Step to get behind her, but she predicts that and tries to swat me out of the sky. I just use Light Step again to retreat. Now I spam Light Step all around me, increasing my speed to Mach 5.5, a new record for me. I can see her eyes struggling to track me. I occasionally come close to her to get a quick weaker slash in before moving away. She eventually stops trying to track me with sight alone and uses her instinct to predict where I would come to attack.

Now she parries every attack I do. I keep moving at high speed without attacking to see if she can break my formation. She composes herself, closing her eyes. I have seen people do this so often, I already knew she was going to move in front of me into an attack. I block it and kick her onto the mountain. I get above her and will crash into her with my blade. Actually, I let her parry by plunging blade so she won't see my punch coming. These gauntlets are like the ones I had recently tried out, I easily dig her into the mountain with my fist, yet, she is able to block and withstand my attack.

From inside the mountain, our attacks carve through it. First she blows me through the mountain with a powerful slash, then I fly back through the hole she made to slice her, only grazing her and cut the half the mountain off. Now she counter attacks with her own edge shouting, "Twain!", tearing the mountain apart with her blade. Then I kick her next to another mountain.

Our battle stays at high speed as she dodges my diving sword strike, I pass her right side. We both turn around and clash blades again, only this time, we both push our swords off each other to my right in the direction of the mountain, our combined kinetic strength tears the mountain apart. We send each other flying and break through mountains and rubble. This goes on for a few minutes.

Falcom is amazing, as time goes on, she gets closer to the enemy she fights. Through her competitive nature, she quickly grows to match me. I doubt she actually has that power on her own. As for me, this form is a bit different from the last. The defensiveness is only slightly decreased, but my speed has gone up, but in turn, my luck, intelligence, tech, and agility are abysmal. On the other hand, I can tell now, this form is made for Weapon Change. The ability to quickly change any weapon into a different kind. Which is odd, because I don't think I got that ability until the negative powers awakened…

On top of that, it is made to boost multiple weapon types and have them on standby. The gauntlets and boots alone count as weapons, there are placeholders for a bow for increased stability and boosters for powering arrows, there are two halves of a spear preinstalled inside the gauntlets that I can put together as a weapon. A staff can be put inside one of the shoulder parts turning it into an axe. Chains can come out of my gauntlets for the spiked balls or if I wanted to use them as whips. With Weapon Change, I can fix them all immediately as well.

At some point, I sent her flying off a mountain again, this time, I sense her tensing her every muscle, avoiding my strike and then shouting, "EXE Drive Skill!"
"Hachiyo Itto Ryu…", she says calmly whilst striking the same pose she started with in the beginning of this fight.
Just like her first attack, she thrusts herself forward and stabs me, immediately slashes me with the sword in her right hand with a swing to the right, than strikes me with two hands, then she cuts me a few more times, including two jumping spin slashes and two thrusts before shouting, putting all of her essence into her reverse grip uppercut that sends me into the sky.

She uses her left palm to aim at me as she points the sword directly my way, charging herself up with a great energy. The strength she is using has the floor crack underneath her, rubble flying all around. Suddenly, she bursts with a blue pillar of light surging around her.
"Moon Dragon Sword!", she shouts as she shoots a blue beam at me with a thrust of her sword. The blue beam did great damage against me already, and still the air is tense, meaning it isn't over. That same beam had shot me above the clouds, I fall down uncontrollably.

I sense her, she holds her blade with two hands low next to her right hip. It bursts into light turning into a photon blade. As my altitude gets closer to the ground, she jumps into the sky and slashes me with an uppercut that can atomized a mountain behind me. I could barely guard against it. Whatever damage she may have dealt to me, she now is stuck in the air with me. I easily kick her around whilst charging and fusing two blades with light turning the surrounding snow into light to absorb it into my swords as well.
In the middle of my onslaught, she casts "Tear!", on herself for healing.

"ShootingStar…Helios Slash!", I shout as I cut her down with a giant sword of light, toppling a mountain behind her and turning a small strip of this winter land into a desert. I slowly let myself get back to land. The smoke fades and I see her hyperventilating, holding herself up with her sword. She casts "Tear!", once again. I see, as long as she has SP, she won't go down.
"That attack was brutal…", Falcom utters.
"Yours wasn't bad either. But even more surprising is you not getting knocked out from mine.", I tell her.

"Well…Some adventurers can survive anything on 1 HP.", she says.
I see her straighten her back and sway her sword forwards, pointing it at me again.
She gets very serious and says, "Let's continue, Cold Heart!"
She looks frustrated. Well, I have all the healing items in the world at the moment. Perhaps I should make her join our side?

"Then, let's hold nothing back.", I say, bursting my black sword into light.
"I can't win, but I don't want to lose either. I will show you what I can do!", she reacts by activating her Photon Blade.
The two of us leap forward into a clash of swords of light that brightens the surroundings with a flash. And so…Our battle continued…

…

…

In the end, she runs out of SP and is on her knees. Sweaty and out of breath, she surrenders.
"You did well. It's unfortunate you work with them.", I tell her.
"It's a bit lame of me. I fought you so seriously when I knew I couldn't win. I even realized soon you couldn't be a bad person…", she says.
She looks back up, her face looks a bit sorry when she asks, "I didn't hurt you, did I? I just wanted to fight for fun, but got a bit too excited."

I think if she could move, she would spring into action and see if I was alright. But she needn't worry. I already am using high-end healing items I got from Enma.
I throw her a charger 2 and a Healing Bottle.
"I'm fine. Enma has a lot of healing items, a lot of them she made herself.", I tell her.
She drinks the Healing Bottle and takes the charger 2. She stands back.
"You don't think I'm an enemy anymore, right?", I ask her.

She laughs a bit, then she says, "Would an enemy just casually heal me? That lady you speak of must be amazing. That Healing Bottle didn't taste as bitter as usual."
While we are talking, I sense a presence nearby.
I turn around at the sound of snow dropping on the scorched earth. From a hill, I see MarvelousAQL walk over it with a petrified looking face.

"Ah, Marvelous. I was hoping to see you.", Falcom says.
"A goddess… Falcom. Did you fight her?", Marvelous asks her.
"I hate to say it, but I lost.", Falcom answers with her eyes closed. She opens her eyes and tells her with a straight face, "I know you probably realized it. But this is the leader of the Phantom Crusaders."
"…We were tasked to fight a Goddess. Does Master Tenchu know?", Marvelous asks.

"I think so. He didn't tell me anything. Either way, whatever he said about her, I can tell isn't true. I mean…", after talking for a bit, Falcom looks at me and asks, "Cold Heart, you don't intend on harming people or anything, are you?"
"My goal is to defeat Tenchu because he is trying to gain the power to destabilize the four nations.", I answer her.
Marvelous sits down on her knees. Falcom gets down on one leg holding her hand over one knee asking, "Can you tell us the full story?"

I revert back to my normal form.
"I will tell you everything you need to know.", I say.
The only things I don't talk about are my true identity and those of my friends, the rest is all about SCJP, Avenir and their collusion with Master Tenchu and all the vile things they have done and are doing in the shadows of Lowee. Of course, our goal is defeating them.

After a brief silence, it is broken by marvelous who speaks like she's lifting something heavy with each word, "So…Master Tenchu…Deceived us, didn't he?"
I nod and tell her, "Yeah, that seems likely."
Marvelous gets up and gives me a courageous gaze, she states, "If it's like that, we should fight against him! I am on your side now, Lady Suno."
Falcom gets up and says, "Now I have a pretty good reason to fight in this war. For the sake of the other ninja, I won't let him get his way!"

"Before that, do you two know each other? You seem pretty familiar?", I ask them.
"Hm…Well, we both have traveled with the goddesses. We have fought together and are practically friends. Right?", Marvelous says with a pretty smile on her face.
Falcom returns a warm smile back saying, "We've fought together and have no issue partying up again."
"Just like Broccoli. Does White Heart (Big Sis) have that many friends?", I ask.

"You must know her, too, right? You even name her specifically.", Falcom says.
"It's a bit complicated. Either way, I don't want these ninjas to get in her way.", I answer.
"Let's get going then. Kagura is fighting on the wrong side, and I won't have that. I will beat her up until she joins us!", Marvelous says, quite excitingly even.
"Well then, I think we should be fast about this. I wasted enough of everyone's time. I should take out some of their numbers in the middle of the residential area.", Falcom says.

"Do you two know where I might find Dragonette?", I ask them.
"Eh? Dragonette? You mean the daughter of Tenchu? You know the name she used to go by? Um…I believe she is stationed at the smaller mansion to the west of Tenchu's mansion. She stays there with her sister often.", Marvelous says.
"Thank you. I'll be off.", I tell them.
With that said, we split off and continue fighting the good fight.

To Be Continued…