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

11. Chapter 14: Your Friends Will Remember

Hyperdimension Neptunia

Third Sister; Darkness

Chapter 14

Your friends will remember.

After splitting up with Falcom and Marvelous, I had gone my way to the western mansion close to Tenchu's residence. On my way, a few monsters and mecha soldiers attacked me, but I made short work of them. I did use a few SP chargers because I didn't hold back, but I still have a dozen left.
Walking forward, I see a building in front of me, very traditional architecture. It's only one floor, but its roof is super high up. It's like a one-floor home made for a giant.

The roof was made with azure-colored tiles and the top part is surrounded by a golden dragon. Golden dragon decorations were all over the bottom of the roof and the terrace. On top of the roof, one individual looks down on me. She dons an expensive looking purple yukata-like outfit with silver dragon patterns. Under the yukata, I think she's wearing a thin body-suit with a darker shade of purple, covering her mouth. Some kind of ninja garb?

Her red Naginata is already drawn out. She was wearing black gauntlets with golden and silver accessories. Her left foot planted forward, I can see she wears black heels with golden mechanisms that get them stuck on her feet. Dragonette stands, waiting for me.
"So, you have arrived. Switcher.", she says.
"You were expecting me? Was it instinct that led you to believe I'd come here?", I ask her.

"I had a feeling, I suppose. Either way, I would've run around to find you near my father. Fighting him is your goal after all. However, I was promised to be left alone if you came here. I requested a chance to kill you myself. And here it can be granted with ease.", she explains.
"Of course you'd expect me to be here. Your soul remembers what I'd do.", I tell her.
"Silence! How many times do I have to repeat that I don't know you?!", she tells me.
To be fair, I think even if she did remember, she doesn't know my tricks all too much. But I feel like messing with her a bit. I heard it is a good way to break ice…Right?

"You say that. But I know you. I already counted on this bout. Deep down, you feel satisfied in a duel. And maybe you've forgotten, but you hated cheap tricks.", I told her.
I see her lean back for a bit, her naginata is shaking as she talks back irritated, "How…Just how do you know me?! I don't understand! So what if I used to hate cheap tricks! I am a ninja now! I will use whatever I can to dispose of you! However! I want to prove I can beat you! So come up here and fight me!"

Deep down, she hasn't changed.
I use Light step to get onto the western side of the roof. I glance over to Dragonette, who turns around.
"You don't remember. We've fought before. The world has forgotten about me, but I've realized our souls can not forgot what is most important.", in my speech, I draw my sword, finishing it with, "I will make you recall my name."
"Fine then. If what you say is true, you'll be able to force me to recognize you.", so she says, returning to a battle pose.

"Tailwind!", she shouts as she sets up her Tailwind that increases her speed and decreases mine.
This time she has set up a wind so thick, it obstructs my vision. Perhaps this is a ninja technique.
"Futon! Shadow Wind Jutsu!", I hear her.
Thanks for clarifying.
I can sense her run around using Stealth Speed, she appears behind me, holding onto the middle of her spear with both hands.

"That won't work on me!", I shout, turning around and blocking a swing of the Naginata handle, I can now see she tries to occupy my sword so I can't block her blade.
I squad under her slash before quickly hitting her with an upper kick. She does block my kick with her knee, yet she is flung over to the end of the roof. I use Light Step into a two-handed strike, which she quickly evades by sprinting to my left. I can sense her run around with Stealth Speed, seems she's trying to do a hit and run tactic.

With Light Step, I get high into the air whilst gathering light into my sword.
"FusionStar…Light Slash!", I shout as I shoot down a big blade of light at her. The attack can easily dissolve the whole building itself and leave a crater. Yet, Dragonette jumps on the elevated roof and stands ready to take the attack head-on.
The light behaves oddly, it gets wobbly and doesn't move further…And now it explodes as I would expect. I see Dragonette standing tall. She attained some bruises, but otherwise, she looks fine.

I can see that her spear has absorbed the light into some kind of orb.
My true intention was to blow the murky dark winds away, which the explosion of my attack succeeded in doing. Even if it did nothing for the Tailwind.
After I land back down, I see Dragonette drop from the elevated roof. She instantly waves her spear around, creating a flash from the light sphere she had made. This is blinding, even so, I can close my eyes and just rely on Wind Sense.

I hop to my right to avoid her blade, but with her swing, she can do a turn and let her handle hit me, I bend backwards under it. The moment I get back up she had moved past me with that last swing, so now I have to block her backwards spin kick with my left arm. She swiftly follows that kick up with a jump kick, shoving me a few meters away from her.

She does one turn before doing a spin slash that shoots three horizontal blades of wind after me. I simply jump over it and shoot a small blade of a light at her back. She moved out of the way whilst pulverizing the blade of a light with a swing of her Naginata, then she fired a horizontal wind blade at me. I cast explosion to avoid it and safely get up the elevated area of the roof. I step back a little before dropping on my back to evade her spear thrust, for she immediately jumped my way in an attempt to skewer me.

I made sure to drop on my left hand behind my back whilst pushing her staff up with my sword in my right hand.
"Explosion!", I cast from my left hand to send myself flying to plant my feet into her stomach, kicking her down.
The moment my feet touch the surface, I will use Light Step to mover over to her and hit her with a short strike.
She seems to have seen it coming, for she quickly jumps away before I even had the chance to hit her. In order to keep me further from her, she did a spin kick that created a whirlwind, blowing me back a little.

Right after, she jumps towards me to barrage me with dozens of spear thrusts. Unfortunately for her, even with the Tailwind, I can sense every hit coming and my Light Step still makes me a little faster. I step away from each thrust and carefully but gently brush them away from me by tapping them with my sword. I do that whilst slowly creeping up on her. I got close enough in such a subtle way she barely notices, I think.
Now I can block her spear my pressing my sword down left from me, I align the blade with her head so I can just use Light Step to cut her.

Of course, I am fighting a talented ninja, she narrowly dodges my sword slash. Now I am quite a few meters away from her with my back turned to her. I will change my plans and use my speed to overwhelm her. Something else is bothering me…
With Light Step, I get in front of her to feint an attack, she slashes at nothing as I launch myself towards the side of the elevated roof. From there, I use Light Step to send myself flying towards Dragonette like a canon. She perfectly followed me and blocks my attack, even with some added strength, all I can do is push her a bit before she flings me over the roof. I am not done. I move all around with Light Step. I quickly get next to her side, but she parries my sword. Now I go back to moving all over the place at high speed.

Time and time again, from 360 degrees, I attack her, still she parries and blocks every attack I do.
"You can easily see me coming now, can't you? Because you remember seeing my speed and are used to it?!", I shout, almost in jest.
She reacts with a banter-like tone, "Yeah. My instincts can easily help me detect where you will strike, coward."
"Yeah, because your instincts are actually your memories of me! You can tell because you know me!", I tell her with a smile.
"Shut the hell up! I don't know you!", was what she said whilst doing a power swing that almost makes me kneel upon impact.

"And yet, you feel so bothered you put more energy in that attack.", I say.
"You are a pain. But for some reason, I feel both frustrated and amused. Why don't you keep going with your puny sword.", she replies, almost lowering her Naginata to relax.
I use Light Step to shoot myself over to her, this time I will strike her from a meter above her, using more of my strength. I knew she would block my blade, and on top of that, she wings her handle to my left to hit me. I have no choice but to block it, but it will knock me over.

Once my feet have dragged over the tiles, I am stuck in thought.
It would seem she has much advantage with her lance. Her range allows for easier reach, she can attack and block with no delay, and her handling of that weapon is too good to create an opening. Especially since she now knows more of my attacks.
I sheath my sword. It's no use fighting with it. I need a different weapon.
First thing I test out is a spear. I materialize a spear, it's staff made from a combinations of rubber and Nintendium to make it just flexible and tough enough, the head is made of Titanium alloy.

I see her strain her face more, she's anticipating a more difficult battle. I can't be sure I can deliver on that. My skills aren't as great as with my sword or fists.
In the blink of an eye, I thrust myself forward with my spear in front, almost stabbing Dragonette, she barely steps aside it, her front being right next to my left side her naginata held sideways. Knowing that attacking me with her blade would leave her open to mine, she places her staff under my spear and attacks me with the handle, which I block by reflecting my handle off my hand to knock her back at light speed.

I give her no choice but to attack me with a swing of her blade, I jump over and swing my own spear head back at her, it barely scratches her neck as she pulls her neck back with the bending of her spine. I jump on her leg, which she tried to kick me with.
I cast explosion from there to hurt her leg and blast myself away for some distance.
I can see her whence as she places her leg back to the floor carefully.

I run in to attack, I perform a strike that has her jump out of the way, I see her try to counter me, so I shuffle my left leg back to my right and parry her naginata with and upper cut. I see her jump back before doing a spin-slash that unleashes a razor whirlwind. I spin my spear around at a speed that blows the wind to different direction whilst I run over to her.
"Purpurascents Burst!", shouting that alone has her stagger for a second, she could only jump back and hold her spear in front of her as she is blown far back by a swing that unleashes a green burst of energy, damaging her despite my spear itself missing.

"She knows Green Heart's moves…Didn't she use White Heart's moves too? Who is she?", I hear her mumble.
I ignore her and attempt another jab after closing our gap with a sprint, she mirrors me at the end, stepping aside my spear and trying to stab me. We just missed each other, but don't fret and immediately use our right hand to steer out polearm weapons to each other's throat, my spearhead and her blade clashing. Our attacks were strong enough to push ourselves back with a heavy shockwave.

Dragonette unleashes a powerful gust of air with a spin kick, I jump over it, and I need to prepare myself to blast myself higher with explosion, for she quickly does another spin and is about to shoot three wind blades at me. I move over her wind blades and do a flip as I go past her head. Now I enchant my spear with light magic, I have no real techniques when it comes to infusing spears with magic, but I can do a slash that shoots a small blade of light at her.
She jumps away from it, I think I can plunge into her with an explosion spell from my feet.

She stops my plunging attack, leaning backwards as she uses the middle of her Naginata to hold my spear above her. My strength still drags her over the tiles, but that is irrelevant. She uses wind magic to enforce a back-flip-kick that tilts me up in the air, she immediately follows this up with a punch engulfed with heavy winds, sending me sky-high. She uses her wind magic to kick herself up to my altitude. The both of us have a dance of waving our spears around as we fall down. A few seconds later, and we infuse our spears with our most used magical element. Eventually, we would get near the ground.

Before that, we push the tips of the polearms against each other, just before she moves hers under mine to nudge it upwards. I can sense she will deliver a kick, so I stop it with my own leg thrust, both are engulfed by light and wind magic, so our feet colliding blows us both back before we can even reach the surface. I watch her prepare a wind slash as she slides backwards. I reflect her with a swing of my own spear engulfed with light. Our shooting blade attacks cancel each other out. Now we run towards each other, she does some spin tricks with her spear throwing it into each hand once before spinning it around. An intimidation tactic? I try to stab her, but she combines her Stealth Speed skill with some kind if wind blast that has her elegantly dance around. I try to keep up with her and do a 90 degree turn with a slash, but I miss her still.

She appears behind my back, even so, I have prepared for this. I am holding my spear by the pommel, I cast reflection to pommel Dragonette behind me shooting the pommel into her gut at light speed, knocking her over to the elevated roof. It must hurt like crazy, but I sensed her recovering with a back-flip before landing, so her pain resistance must be quite high. I go after her. She avoids my strike, her feet almost tipping over my right off the elevated roof. I place my feet on the left side after I landed, we both backed off as we thrust our polearms forward, but the obvious result is us not even getting close to hitting each other, I can see her blade right above me as I am sliding off the roof.

I take this opportunity to use my spear's flexibility my jumping to the elevated roof's end, with my spear bending as I use its pommel to land on the ground, it allows me to catapult myself over to Dragonette. I thought I had her, and she certainly looked a bit surprised, yet, she jumps around me whilst doing a spin kick that ends up hitting me in the back. I am about to crash onto the lower roof and see her plunging down on me. I hold my spear in front of me and shout, "Reflection!" Her instinct has her almost dodge it, but it does penetrate her side at light speed.

I land after a back flip, as for Dragonette, she must've been in more pain then even she can tolerate and backed off.
The spear can reach her, but I don't have any attacks that can deal enough damage to cease her fighting. Maybe overwhelming strength combined with range? I materialize my explosive axe. With my strength, this weapons isn't as slow as it should be. I think it will do fine in this fight.

I see her run over to me, but her assault can easily be stopped by a smash from my axe. I don't even need to hit her. She hops back out of instinct, the explosion of my axe blows a tiny gale into her whilst some tiles fly against her body. From the cloud of smoke, I leap in front of her. I swing my axe horizontally, she jumps over it, boosting herself with wind magic to avoid a potential explosion. She tries to stab me whilst she's over to my right, but I block her spear by tilting it above my head using the staff of my axe.

This axe has a long staff like Big sis', it can block a lot more attacks whilst doing devastating damage.
I slightly push her naginata to my left so I can Light Step into a jump that would jab my knee into her gut. It is a successful counter and hurls her almost off the roof. Despite that, she doesn't flinch and barrages me with ranged wind attacks.
I decide to charge through her razor air blades, dispersing the wind as I rotate at high speed with my axe tearing through everything. She now tries to attack my physically, but she cannot stop my spinning, tap dancing all around to trying to knock me off balance by poking me with her naginata, only to be knocked back. After one leap to her rear to gain distance, she gets up high into the air and goes over my head. I was about to reach the end of the roof, even if she tries to escape my ground attack, I will not let her go off easy.

After my last rotation, I smash the axe into the roof with an explosion, the shock so powerful it sends a bunch of tiles flying towards her like a reverse rain of arrows. She spins her naginata around at high speeds with wind magic to create a shield that protects her from the projectiles.
I don't give her any rest, the moment she lands, I launch myself over to her with a full burst of light step, I have already extended my axe so I can swing it into her with all my might.

With a 360, I force all the kinetic energy with my swing as I stop myself with a step of my leg in front of her, even when she dodges, she isn't safe, my explosion combined with my strength hurts her elsewhere. She tries to retaliate, but whatever attack she does with her spear is easily countered by my axe's weight and strength, even if she is fast, I can predict her movement and swing my axe like it has no weight, making it impossible to penetrate my offense.

On top of that, she has to risk getting close to the explosions my axe makes. This weapon is indeed a pretty good counter. I whirl it around to my side with only the fingers of my right hand. I see her cold sweat, even if she doesn't have much fear, she must recognize my physical strength to twirl my axe around so effortlessly.

She stands ready to attack, I kick up a tile and smash it with a spin attack so it flies over to her at the speed of a bullet. He eyes widen, but along with what I assume is a hastened heart beat she moves away from it with blinding speed. She swiftly dashes towards me whilst spinning her naginata before throwing it at me. "Wind Saucer!", she says, her naginata turning into a buzz saw of wind she can control remotely.

I have to jump over it to avoid it, which easily allows her to leap over to me ready to throw her fist down with wind magic. All I could do was block her fist with the middle of my axe's staff. She pins me with my feet onto the ground, then she relentlessly throws punches and swings kicks at me with wind magic. She does it fast enough so I can't counter with my axe, she precisely makes sure to put enough wind magic into her attacks for enough power, but doesn't waste too much time revving them up so she can keep me on my guard.

Then from behind comes her wind saucer flying, I can't block this with my staff this time. I have to hop over it, and that only leads to Dragonette getting the upper-hand. She goes up with me, she intentionally misses a right hook to drag her whole body with it into a swing of her right leg that knock me onto the elevated roof. Two seconds here, and I already get assaulted by her saucer. I bend myself under it to let it fly over my face, and right after, I see Dragonette spinning vertically in the air with wind magic to rev up a heel strike.

It is a pretty strong attack that puts a heavy weight on my shoulders when I blocked it. With flowing movement, she flips over backwards. I would love to attack her back, but her saucer is already rebounding. I jump over it and prepare for her next attack. I stop her fist, holding my right hand near the axe head and my left hand a little lower. With hips turned and her fist deep into my staff, I cast reflection from my right hand to smack her with my axe, forcing her to crash below the elevated roof.

I hop down to crush her with my axe, but she jumps away from it, and her saucer comes in a diagonal position my way. I lean over to my left, narrowly letting it pass me by. She had snuck around me in the meantime, ready hit me with a spin kick filled with wind. I don't have time to make a full turn to guard myself with the axe, so I only block it with my right arm, she sends me close to the end of the roof with her powerful kick.

She runs towards my left whilst the saucer approaches my right. I dodge one punch from Dragonette with a hop before going into a high jump backwards to avoid the saucer, this leaves me open to a high-jump kick from Dragonette that sends me back to the elevated roof.
She gracefully gets on top of the other end of the elevated roof, forcing me back with punches and kicks. I now sense her naginata behind me.

It stopped spinning, meaning it will use some kind of wind implosion to blast itself towards me at high speed. I dodge it pretty easily, but now I can tell that was by design. She jumps towards it, and once she grabs it, she lets it spin her around with all the kinetic force it has absorbed. She creates a tornado that draws me in. I know this move, so I thought to do what I did before and simply dive into it with speed to attack her first. But this time, she absorbs all the wind into her naginata whilst lowering herself below me.

"Tatsumaki Naginata!", she shouts, a sharp dense wind surrounding her polearm's blade is thrust into me. Colliding with my axe's staff, it blasts me into the sky thanks to an explosion of wind. It hurts a bit, but I won't let this stop me. I use the wind that has blown me up to allows me to spin vertically. I drop down towards Dragonette with my axe about to smashed down with high velocity. She jumps out of the way, my smash crushing a part of the elevated roof, a huge dust cloud shoots out of the middle of the elevated roof.

"Here's another SP move!", she shouts as she throws her spear like a wind saucer, I can dodge that, but then she does constant spin kicks and punches, not close to me, however, instead she sends the wind from those attack knocking into me, and they pack more of a punch than you'd think. She gets closer and closer to me, once she's nigh, her naginata flies back to her. The moment she grabs it, she spins around with it, and with a wall of sharp wind, she slams the blade into me to knock me down onto the lower roof whilst shouting, "Guru Arashi."

I knew she was going to pounce me, so I throw my axe up towards her and just let it explode with my magic. This gives me the time to move away with Light Step, she lands nowhere near me.
The axe was neat, but it doesn't compensate for her attacking from multiple directions with powerful wind.
I've got one more weapon I'd like to try it. My Nintendium gauntlets and boots. This should help her remember our fight in the tournament. I materialize the weapons over my feet and hands.

I enchant my boots with light, the Light Step coming from the increasing my acceleration, they propel me close to her, I barely have to throw my right fist as it is close to crushing her at this speed and distance. She manages to circle over to my right. I turn around with a kick boosted by the turbo engine inside my left boot. She tries to parry my kick with her own covered in high pressured wind, but clearly, my boot is tougher. I see visible discomfort in her face as her leg was knocked back, she instantly, used her other foot to hop a bit further from me, most likely sensing the danger.

I use Light Step once more to close the gap, she tries to prevent me from punching her by thrusting her naginata into me, she even enchanted it with sharp winds. Despite that, my right gauntlet was already close to my head and I can use it to deflect her blade with ease. Whilst my right fist is to my left hip, I use my right hand to grab her Naginata and push her baffled self towards me. She did nothing as I turn my hip and twist my fist, punching her directly into the gut, almost bending her. With my fist digging into her skin, I shout, "Explosion Punch", as an explosion sends her nearly off the roof.

I relax a little, watching her pull herself up with her naginata.
A few steps in my direction, and I think it's fair to run her way now.
She tries to intercept me my shooting wind blades my way, but I clasp my two gauntlets together, holding them vertically in front of my torso, whilst guarding my lower body with a boot. The wind blades are unable to penetrate the nintendium.

I launch myself over towards her with Light step into a drop kick, she dodges it, meaning I'd almost fall off the building, but I cast explosion, which is powered up, from my left boot to fling myself back at her. She tries to hit me with a sharp whirlwind as I uncontrollably fly her way, but that is only what it looked like to her. I cast explosion from my left hand to lift myself over her whirlwind attack, and immediately after, I can cast explosion from my other boot to send me back down to her. She can't counter my last maneuver, only can she block an explosive punch to her naginata. Her staff must be from some tough material as well, it holds up great, even if that doesn't stop her from her feet being dragged over the roof.

With my feet back on solid ground, I spent no time and move to her with haste using Light Step. She swings her blade to my left. I cast explosion with my left hand below me to go backwards into the air, whilst I've been holding my other hand behind my head to send me back down right after. With this technique, I can drop kick her in the face. After an explosive blow to her face, she slides back, holding her smoking face in pain. She looks at me angrily and shouts, "Damn you!"

Agitated, she dashes at me, trying to stab me, but I swiftly move to her left, grinding my right boot behind my left as I hold my left gauntlet in front of me as a shield, all so I can make a precise blow to her gut with my right fist. I shove her slightly into the air before doing a rush attack. twenty fists a second, I keep punching into her with my fists engulfed with light magic, "Light Punch barrage!", I shout as I punch her over and over, finishing it with a heavy jab that send her flying through the elevated roof, causing it to collapse.

I see her laid out on the opposite side. I walk closer, mostly to throw the rubble from the elevated roof out of the way, it obscured my vision.
I see her give me a wry smile as she asks, "What the hell is up with those gauntlets? I can't even put in a small dent."
"They are made of nintendium. Even your wind can't shatter them.", I tell her.
"Oh, now that makes sense. Hehe…", as she talks, she starts lightening up more.
She wipes some dust off her face, she gives me an excited expression.
"My wind isn't good enough? Don't blame the wind magic. I just need to get better.", she tells me.

"If you can cloak yourself with metal, I just need to improve my own cloaking!", she shouts before summoning wind magic, I can see her muscles expanding slightly for a few seconds. She curls green tornadoes around her Naginata, then her legs, and finally, her forearms.
"Tornado armor!", she calls her newly thought up move. The wind magic is way denser than what she used previously, probably because this is a temporal buff skill whereas the others were attacking skills. I can see it, she sacrificed a good bit of SP but gained new weapons in the form of dense spiraling winds.

I can't really tell how much tougher this cloak of wind is, I'll just have to test it.
I move forwards. With a leap, she thrusts her spear forward, not sure how strong it is, I try to deflect it like last time. But even with my gauntlet enchanted with light, the wind around her spear knocks my arm back, almost turning me to my right. Dragonette hops forward slightly to land a kick against me, and all I could do it is block with my other hand. Her blow made me feel her improved strength, forcing me to slide over the tiles with my feet. Now I understand that her enchantment allows her spear to damage my gauntlets, albeit slightly. Her fists and legs are now just as tough, whereas the spear is slightly stronger than my gauntlets.

Oh, she didn't pause, she actually just jumped her way over to me using the wind from the leg she didn't kick me with. She can propel herself forward with her winds to increase her speed. Either way, I escape her next kick with Light Step, but she does another spin after her kick to unleash a heavy gust of air that shoots many blades my way. So even this attack das advanced, huh? I can still guard pretty well against it, but her blades can now be felt through my gauntlets.

With me stuck in a guard, she flies over to me about to stab me with her naginata. I cast explosion from my left leg to vault over her whole body. Since my other leg was already held up high, I only need to extend it above me to blast my in front of her back with an explosion, and at that point, I aimed my two hands in front of me, my next explosion skill would slam my back against hers.

She was forced into a little skip, now she hits me back with a backwards spin kick, her leg incoming from my right. I hold my arms together to block it, the heavy winds still shoving me, not to mention she can do another kick with her right leg now that she is fully turned to me. Her winds hit my upper arm, which damages me quite a bit as she blows me over to my left. I quickly had to duck to avoid a swipe from her naginata, her spiraling winds brushing the back of my head and my back itself, that ruined my coat.

I had not way to counter her upper-kick except for my arms, alas they can't stop her shooting me into the sky. She blasts air from under her other foot to soar towards me. I cast explosion to my side to avoid her Naginata, however, I didn't expect her using her left leg's tornado to quickly spin her right leg around to reach my neck. Her foot pulls my me around by the neck as she does one spin before throwing me onto the ground in a rotation. I crash pretty hard down, so to make sure I can shrug it off I immediately jump to my rear.

I see her come down to me, spinning around like a drill, now her whole body wrapped in a green tornado. I use Light Step at max strength to get away in time, a somewhat distant mountain gets a hole in it from the wind that she cast after she landed with a thrust of her naginata. I myself stopped my movement to not fall off the building by slamming the palm of my hand down onto the building. I see her heading over to me. Well, allow me to do a surprise attack next.

I cast reflection off the ground to zoom myself at her at light speed, forcing her back with a headbutt.
The second I reach the ground, I bounce over to her to throw a punch, which she dodges with a turn to my right. I cast explosion from my right leg to circle away from her spear thrust, I see now she held it only in her left hand and is now trying to elbow me with her right arm. This is actually a clever trick that made me grab her forearm out of habit, you see, it is covered by dense spiraling winds that just fling me over her.

The arm she elbowed me with is used to blast herself my way thanks to her tornado, she holds her naginata in front of her so it would naturally stab into me provided I don't dodge it, which I obviously do. She misses me, but immediately gets close thanks to the tornado of her blowing her over to me. I see her about to kick me in the front with her right knee held forward, but then she suddenly extends it towards the ground. I can sense her using the tornado to circle around me with a spin kick to hit me in the back with her other leg at high speed, but with her tailwind up, my Wind Sense is a little vague and I couldn't tell in time, so she tosses me a bit further from her with said kick.

I sense another wind blade being emitted from her naginata, so I decide to use Light Step to move a large distance away from it. I speed around her using Light Step over and over again. I think of doing an arial attack. So at full burst, I shoot myself into the sky with Light Step. I get a bit excited, because this next move requires prefect precision despite it being rough and rather wild. I cast explosion from one leg to dive down at her at high velocity, then I cast explosion from my left hand to turn me into a spinning human cannon ball.

She thinks she can block me as my heel is about to hit her arms, but in my last rotation, I cast explosion to stop all of my current momentum and slightly hover over her head. I can see her too confused to react to my next attack. She turns around, but is too late. I cast explosion from my right hand before turning it into a fist that I use to perform a heavy punch into her face.
I see her stumble a bit I both the recoil and recovery. She looks at me with her teeth grit. She felt that one, and that means I can't let up. If she is shaken, I can try to overwhelm her.

I make a speed jump forward. I do a punching motion with my right arm after I hurl my body her way. I notice she is about to swat me away, so I cast explosion from my right hand instead to move to her left. The resulting miss from her naginata almost leaves her open, but I know she can keep track of me, she throws her right leg at me to prevent my assault. But I circle around to her left after I cast an explosion spell from my right leg, and instantly swing my left leg around activating the just thrusters combined with another explosion magic, I hit her on the right side of her head, which nudges her away from me.

I use Light step to continue attacking her. She attempts to stab me, so I raise my legs all the way into the air to cast explosion, this way I get really low on the ground, my arms bend as my back rests on my hands. I compress myself like a spring with my legs until her naginata has reached the end of its movement. That is when I cast reflection from my hands to shoot myself at Light Speed into Dragonette, my two feet shoved into her gut whilst heating up. Why is it heating up? It's the full power of my explosion that I use to send her flying over the little upwards ramp that used to be the elevated roof.

Despite landing on her back and her stomach attaining burn marks, she swings her legs around to lift herself into the air so she could return to a standing position. I try to reach her, but she throws her naginata this time, the tornado increasing the speed and strength of her throw. It actually took me for a spin, I almost got skewered if I didn't side step at the last second. After it passes me, I sense it spinning around like a saucer again, only this time with way more wind. I jump over the saucer and then…It just kind of flies away…I don't even sense it anymore.

I'm not at leisure to think about it, for Dragonette storms at me with a punch. I use Light Step to move next to her arm, now I do a feint punch with my left fist, she would instinctively knock it away with her already thrown fist, allowing me to quickly punch her with my other arm. She holds it back with her left arm and tries to kick me, with light infused within my left boot, I push her leg thrust away from me to my right. This gets her in a bad posture, she almost falls over. I see her try to use her other leg's tornado to recover, but she is too late, I blow her back with a straight kick from my other leg.

I leap forward into a punch, but this time, she shuffles left of me and pulls my gauntlet forward with her right hand before doing a turn and hitting my neck with a wind empowered karate chop.
My back may be facing her, but I can fix that as I kick myself off with a 180, throwing myself at her with a kick. She blocks it with her arms, as for her counter, she attempts a straight kick with her left leg that I evade by casting a small explosion to my left. She follows me to try and kick me with her other leg, but I don't give her the chance to lift it by kicking it back down with my right leg.

She then tries to swing her right leg at me, which I mirror to parry her, our light and wind magic clash, our powers pushing our legs back onto the ground. Our collision feels heavy.
We mirror a shuffle to our lefts before each throwing a punch from our left fist at the same time. We both weave our heads next to our fists to avoid it, but I cast explosion and she casts air-blast from her fist, the residue of our magic blowing into our faces. We both ended up squirming backwards in our dismay.

She thrusts her legs at me, I jump over it and smack it back down with both my hands clasped together, then I cast explosion from my boots to smack my head into hers. I see her about to hit me, but I avoid her blow and get to her left with an explosion magic from one gauntlet, then we shove our left arms into each other, pushing them forward, despite my explosion magic, her wind blows all the heat and force away, I wonder if it at least felt annoying to her. But this doesn't go anywhere so we back off from each other.

Our fight continues like this, there is no grappling, we mostly stay a certain distance stopping our punches and kicks, moving around some times to getting a hit in, only for that to be blocked, with the counter-strike also getting blocked. In between, we were talking.
"We fought like this in the tournament?", she asks.
"We did more grappling, since I am small, I could kind of weasel around your body to attack you.", I tell her.
"You know? That does sound familiar!", she shouts as she attempts to land a heavy blow.

I weaver under it and continue brawling, saying, "I can see you're enjoying this! Are you remembering our first fight? How exciting it was?"
"I'll admit and be fair, I do recall fighting someone like you now. But still…", she pauses to push me back with a good swing of her leg. Then she shouts, "I just can't remember who you are!"
Whilst our bout continues, I am thinking, she is closer and closer to remembering. But I need to push her further.

Our round ends in a cross-counter. I say that, but with our spirits high, we throw down once more, our fists clashing. My punch brimming with light and hers flowing with ravaging winds creates a shockwave that can push anyone away. In the end, it forces us back. Now, I just sensed something coming in. I had forgotten about her Naginata altogether. Now I understand, she had been hiding it far away to attack me when I least expected it.

I could only turn around and hold my gauntlets in front of me to block it, but her naginata was using its rotation and wind gathering to increase its momentum and power, I am thrown over the roof, my gauntlets have a hole in them, the attack reached my arms. After I fall down, I see her grab her Naginata. The wind around her arms and naginata have vanished. I thought this to be a good time to go into a full assault, maybe even grab my sword when she least expects it. But the moment I get up, she runs to me and shouts, "EXE Drive Skill!"

She creates a huge tornado that she tosses over to me, its sends me into the sky whilst it slowly is assimilated into Dragonette as she spins towards me with her Naginata, then she pushes me further into the air whilst grinding into me after turning into a human drill. From there, she throws me with her spinning Naginata, the wind expanding and turning into a green dragon made of wind. I end up falling off the Naginata between the long body of a Chinese Dragon as she jumps onto said dragon like it is a solid object.

She jumps from one spot of the dragon to another, each time passing by me with a punch or kick at rapid progress. After doing so a few times, she knocks me towards the roof. Whilst I still fall, she spins herself around, almost turning into a tornado as she throws kick a punches of air into me at crazy speeds. A flurry of boots and fists slam me into the ground, eventually she gets close to me and physically digs me deeper into the roof with punches and kicks whilst her wind dragon just flies around in circles.

Now comes her finisher, she jumps high into the air as her dragon dives down. The dragon's main body is actually the naginata, which she kicks down towards me. As it is still flying, she dives down towards it to push it further with a punch shouting, "Kami Kazeryu"
As I get stabbed by the naginata, it looks like the dragons goes through me, creating a big explosion of air, thus ending her ultimate attack. I can hear her panting. Her naginata has impaled me through the roof.

But she doesn't know I am already dead. Despite that, after she pulls her Naginata out, she jumps back, still cautious. Good on her, because even if that did hurt me, I can still stand. I get up, covering the hollow hole she has made through my body. Even if she was prepared to keep fighting, I can see on her face that she is beginning to fear me. It makes sense, I take that kind of attack, and I don't even appear panicked to her.

"Now I wish I did know you. Who can just stand up from that. I have assassinated a few men in my work as ninja…None as tough as you.", she tells me.
"Yeah…It was fun.", I told her.
"What do you mean, "was?"?", she asks me.
"Well. I can already defeat you without transformation. But I think I'd just waste time. So, I am going to speed things up. Maybe you will remember me if I transform.", I tell her.

"Heh. Right, you can do that. Well, I won't be defeated regardless. Bring it.", she talks tough, but I can see her stepping back ever so slightly. Even she knows, she can't beat my Goddess form.
"Rainbow Snowflake Sweetch OLED processor unit, set.", I say before a towering pillar of light springs from me, shrouding the building with light. Snow and dust fly into Dragonette's face due to my transformation. I open my eyes. embedded with power symbols.

After covering herself for the incoming wind, she pulls her arm away from her face and took a good look. I can see her laugh, but her nervousness is showing.
"So that is the form of a Goddess. I've seen enough on screens. but in reality…Such strength.", excitement comes from her voice with the corners of her lips raised, yet she trembles and sweat being able to feel the girth of my power.
My share energy has increased a lot. This aura surrounding me didn't scare Falcom, though. But then again, she hanged out with eight goddesses.

"I won't be easily swayed, Goddess!", she says with glee, getting into battle position, she sinks to her knees holding her naginata directly at me. She leaps to me with a thrust, somehow, I feel no danger.
Her tailwind does little to narrow our gap in speed now, I easily float next to her naginata and grab hold of it. Dragonette looks stunned for a short time, then she tries pulling her Naginata hard. But no matter how hard she pulls, she can't budge it.

"I told you…The fight is over.", I say before pulling her Naginata to me. I almost drag her with it, but then I shove the pommel into her. I thought I didn't hit her that hard, but she's flying, almost off the roof. In the last second, she uses a wind spell to flip herself back to stamp her feet into the roof, stopping her motion. I throw her naginata back at her, I can feel it blast off like a cannon.

I see her react with shock, panickily catching the naginata by the handle, she was almost thrown off the roof by its force alone, but she instead uses it to do a spin into a whirlwind slash. Despite the added strength of winds, it all seems too slow to me. I quickly use Light step to go up, then I fly beyond the reach of her tailwind. I see winds surging all over the building from up here.

I can use my sword's ability to control snow now that the winds won't interfere. I summon my black sword into my hand and absorb the snow falling onto me.
"UnionStar…", I say as the light blasting from my sword increases in size. I saw Dragonette looking around, having lost sight of me, but I know she can't miss the giant light shining above her.
"Helios Slash!", I shout, shooting a giant white energy at her from a slash of my sword, it is too big for her to escape, all she can do is endure it.

Her naginata and her endurance are exceptional, but even then, she's reached her limit. After the light explodes into her, I see her body wobbling and her muscles strained, she has to force herself to stay up, looking as stiff as a plank. The power of my slash has blown her tailwind away. Slowly, I get down to her level.
She breaths out and gets ready to attack me. I must say, I respect her stubbornness. She's no different than me in that regard.

The naginata has gathered some of the light magic, but it won't be able to utilize its power. All she could do was create a dazzling flash, and sneak behind me in the one second I could've been blinded. I already know that move, I can just close my eyes. I easily dodged her sneak attack with my superior speed. I even put my sword back, not feeling I'd need it.

"Tailwi-", she tries to call upon another Tailwind, but I stop her with a dashing gut punch that knock the air out of her mouth and sends her flying.
I fly over to her, she thinks she can reach me with her Naginata, but with Light step, I just move away from her attack and appear to her behind at unfathomable speed. I slam her away with my feet. She holds her ground, dragging her feet through tiles. She looks like she is about to drop.

I move around all over the place, spamming Light Step on the ground or in the air. Moving at Mach 8, I think it's daunting onto her that even with Tailwind, she can't match me anymore.
Never mind that, she still tries to follow me. I slow down a bit to make her think I'm coming from one direction, only to force her to open herself after an attack, appearing from her side or behind to punch her. I basically toy with her, knocking her from one area of the roof to another.

I thought Dragonette was really strong. But I can now see a clear gap between her and Falcom. Falcom's strength increases to get closer to a more powerful force, but Dragonette has a clear limit. She definitely grew, though. Somehow, I feel good about that. At first, I just needed one special magic using move to knock her out of the ring. Now I can only defeat her with my normal form after hours of fighting. It's unfortunate we don't have that kind of time.

While flying towards her whilst she's till sliding back from my last hit, she stabs her naginata into the ground in front of me. Forcing me to change directions, this was a trick to circle around me and punch me with her fist swirling with a green dense mini-tornado. I turn and let myself get punched in the gut, she can't even make me move. Maybe I twitched a little when her fist impacted me? She went from a smile to her jaw lowering. Yet, she has the gall to try and spin kick me with a heavy wind, I easily stop her leg by grabbing it, the force of her attack just passing me by like a breeze.

I throw her close to the middle of the roof, once her back is stationary, I throw her Naginata at her, plunged right next to her head.
I see the fear settled in from her face, yet she gets up and grabs her Naginata to continue the fight.
"Give up.", I blatantly demand, she looks even more surprised at those words than anything I've done to her.
"You can't defeat me. The rift between us has widened to a point you can't keep up with me.", I clarify.

She gives me a bitter scoff, "Hehe…I can't give up. A ninja either dies or wins…That is what my dad always told me…Damn it…I'd be too frustrated, if I didn't fight until the end!"
"Do you still not remember?", I ask her.
"Like I hell I would forget if I fought someone like you! I have never even seen a Goddess move that fast, their fastest goes at what? Mach 5?"
"I suppose that is fair. My fighting style and form are also way different than the time you've seen me.", I say.
She holds her head, agonizing about something. She now shrugs it off. Running towards me, she shouts, "Enough talking, I want to fight you with all my might!"

I see. This is a waste of time.
Using my sword, I casually knock her Naginata thrust away, her feet unable to stop moving forward, I need not even move my legs to get a blow into her face, forcing her to tumble back.
With insane swiftness, I appear behind her and double kick her up into the sky. I pursue her high up, quickly appearing above her whilst flying forward. I almost passed her, but slowed down enough to do a backwards turn slash that knocks her back down.

That headache was because she remembers having seen a Goddess, which used to be me. But in the end, she can only recall fragments. Something stronger is required to refresh her mind…What do I do?
I fly down towards her. I see her, her eyes ironed with determination. She takes her last stance. "EXE Drive skill!", she calls for the only move she can use that can damage me.
Just like before, a tornado hits me, then her Naginata sends me flying as it turns into a dragon.

After she jumps on and off the dragon's body she knocks me down, beating me whilst spinning like a tornado. In the end, she punches her Naginata down into me as the wind dragon bites me, but this time, I have the strength to catch her blade, my hands covered by this form's gauntlets. It did damage me slightly, but otherwise, I am alright. I can see her staring at me with a drained face, yet her arms are filled with life as she persists to force her naginata into me.

It's no use I kick her away from me, almost having her drop from the roof. I get up to see her struggling to draw in air. Yet she comes my way with a thrust, I use a shockwave through the snow to knock the blade away from me, then I do a simple gut punch that pushes her a distance from me. She tries to jump me, I knock her away with another shockwave through the snow.

She uses Stealth Speed to sneak around me, I swirl some snow around it before gathering the snow together to turn them semi-solid, grabbing her Naginata with her hands to send her into the air. Then I use the snow to grab her leg and slam her into the wood of the roof, I lift her, and slam her back down to another side of this roof. Then I grab her arms and drag her over before flinging her away. Even this humiliation doesn't stop her. She gets back up and runs at me. I knock her over and over again, rapidly swinging my sword around as I do continuous hits against her, which at this point are shallow weak blows she would shrug off if she wasn't at her weakest state.

"I won't give up! Never!", she shouts, gathering wind around her.
Is this how all those guys felt? When I kept getting beaten with seemingly no ray of hope?
I recall the times I was at my worst. Even the lowest villain I fought started to feel no joy constantly beating me up when I had no way to fight back anymore. Overwhelming strength…It's empty.
She blows the snow away and shoots a few blades of wind at me.
I fly around and cannon her into the air with a swing of my sword.

I fly up to knock her around a bit in mid-air, until she prepares one more desperate attack.
With all her remaining SP, she summons thick winds around her Naginata, almost shaping it into a dragon.
From above, I dive down, gathering snow into my sword as I charge it with light.
She screams at me, our weapons colliding. It felt like she could push me back a little, but in the end, my light blade eats through her wind. The energy of white pushes her down onto the roof, the resulting explosion most likely finishing the job.

I fly back down, expecting her to be knocked out.
How do my eyes look? I thought I was feeling down. But Now I could cry, seeing her still getting up.
"Why are you going so far?", I ask her.
"You don't understand.", she says, still struggling to get up.
"I am not just a shinobi…I am…The master's daughter. Every day, I was forced to train as a child under him. I see him punish others. I see him do dirty tricks. I see what evil ninjas can do…I couldn't stand any of it! But in the end…Me and my older sister tried…We tried to fight back…Tried to end his schemes…But we failed!", she shouts.

I hear no sadness, she continues to talk with pride, "I may have given up on my rebellion…But I would be a loser if I gave up twice! I understood, I was born for this job. I have learned how good I was at it. I went to the other side of the extreme. I have seen the evil some do and get away with. Punishing them is our job! How can I not be proud of that! So even if we are evil…I won't give up. For my family's sake. And to continue defeating the strong. I won't fall!"

I understand now.
"I'm sorry.", I say. I grab her attention easily. Especially when I revert back to my normal form.
My conviction was lacking in comparison. If you want to help someone, you need to give it your all.
"I've been trying to force you to remember me…But I just gave you vague hints. it's selfish of me, isn't it? I fought you, beat you, but didn't dare tell you anything about me.", I told her.

"What are you talking about? Why did you go back to normal?", she asks me, completely stunned.
"You are my friend…Dragonette. I didn't want to take off my mask, you see. If the wrong people remember, my world is over.", I tell her.
I grab my mask, and slowly, I take it off. My hands twitch a bit, but surely, I take it off, still talking, "I can't expect you to remember me, if I don't take that risk and reveal myself…So. Let me reintroduce myself to you."

The mask is off, now she can see what I truly looked like. Her eyes widened. She looks like all her pain suddenly vanishes as I am the only focus of her mind right now.
"You are…I…That face…", her mind is slowly piecing it together as she mumbles.
"Bios…My name is Bios…", I told her. I force a smile on my face, my heart pounding with fear.
"Bios…I know that name!", she loudly proclaims.

She holds her head again, feeling pain. But I can't stop now.
"You have to look into your memories. We fought in the tournament before!", saying that causes her to grunt, then I tell her, "I am the one who avenged your sister against Yellow Light", she grunts again.
"I…I do remember!", she says.
I'm not quitting yet, "Besides Fububi…You were my first friend! It was you and your sister that visited his grave with me! Not even my sisters! You are important to me, so remember!"

Her pain ceased. She looks at me with wide open eyes, tears welling up.
"Bios…Bios!", she calls my name. Not even bothered by any hurt, she runs towards me into an embrace.
"How could I ever forget you! Am I stupid or what?!", she shouts.
I hug her back and say, "Well. A lot of things happened…"
We let go of each other as we get greeted by God rays for the sun splits through the clouds.
With my left hand above my eyes, I look to the left and see the sun, "Wow… It's been cloudy for a while now. It's so nice to see the sun again.", I couldn't help but comment.
"What nice timing…Huh?", Dragonette says, almost about to laugh.
We take our time. It was a true reunion. I never thought I'd see her this emotional, though.

I take out some healing items so we could both recover to full health and SP.
We sit on the side of the roof, our arms close to touching each other.
By this point, we've talked about what we were up to a little over half a year since we last saw each other.
I didn't tell her EVERYTHING, but most of what we've been doing and why I'm here. She tells me about her failed rebellion against her dad.

"I can't believe all of that has been happening under our noses.", Dragonette tells me.
"Yeah…I'm sorry about your situation. I wish I could've helped.", I told her.
"No no. Honestly, I was fine. But memories of you being globally erased just happened during the time of me and my sister attacking father. It was inconvenient. Your memory was linked to our plan, so we had forgotten it. Otherwise, we might've stood a chance.", she tells me.

I look up. So I died during her operation, huh? I'm so sorry. I can't help but feel it my fault.
"Last time I met you was a few weeks before the fire festival, wasn't it?", I asked her.
"Yes. I wanted to see you one more time before the final preparations for our operation.", she explains.
"I see.", is all I can come up with.
She stands back up. Looking way more energized, she tells me, "Welp, it is time to drag my sister out of this mess."

I look at her questioning, I ask her, "Without me even asking? You would fight your sister?"
"All siblings fight at some point. It is destiny. Besides…", she stretches as she talks.
Looking out in the distance, she gives me a serious, "It is my bad timing that put her back into this hell. She was afraid of dad, she never thought of rebelling until we hanged out with you. I convinced her help me, and our failure brought her fear to live. Even if she is older, I can't accept her going down this path. She doesn't remember you right now, and you don't have time searching for her.", she elaborates.

"You're right. Even if she is your older sister, you still must fight for her sake.", I reply.
Dragonette looks at me with a cheeky smile and says, "Out of anyone, I knew you would understand! You have sisters too, after all."
I nod to her. And one day…I have to fight big sis too…
Getting back up, I brush off the dirt from my clothes.
"You're going to meet up with my father, right?", she asks me.
"Yeah. I'm sorry. But I might end his life. I already told you why.", I answer.

"My dad's not been acting himself anymore. Be careful.", she warns me.
I look to her for an explanation.
Her voice gets a bit deeper as she says, "When I was a kid, he was strict and aggressive. He was like a plank of wood that would hit you for the slightest offence. I wasn't allowed to do anything that didn't have to do with shinobi training. He would hit us and berate us at any second. He only talked about rules…Yet, somehow that didn't feel as evil as now."

I can hear her breath waver as she speaks with angst, "Now he is indifferent to us. And he acts the exact opposite. Loose, uncaring. Not even breaking the rules boldly has him get angry. He now wears a smile. He was abusive at first, but at least he cared about the ninja world. Now he shows no ambition for the sake of ninja. He has something planned, and it makes him giddy like a murderer about to unfold his master plan. I have never felt a distance I have felt since this half year as his child. At first I hated him…But now I am scared of him."

"Do you know what he is up to?", I ask.
"I did not get informed at all. I didn't care much anymore about what dad was up to, I allowed him to do anything at the time…But I did notice weird generators in his house, and some strange unknown people entered the building. But I never questioned it.", she tells me.
"Alright. Well. Whatever happens, you know I won't lose.", I tell her.

Her smile returns, "I know. You'd win."
"Either way, I should head off as fast as I can. My sister will certainly target one of your friends after they've won a fight. An exhausted foe is her preferred pick lately. I would be a terrible friend if I let them get harmed.", she tells me as she gives me a wave of her hand.
Before my eyes, she leaves at breakneck speed.
I turn around. Alright. Shall we dance then? Tenchu…

To Be Continued…