Hyperdimension Neptunia
Third Sister; Darkness
Chapter 14.1 POV-Acclaim
The Flames of War.
The big open field next to the large complex of apartments, I am about to face one of the four flames here. Leader told me she represents the Blue Flame and wields some type of fan. Her fighting style consists of many wind attacks, flying in the air, magic infusion with said fans and doing combo attacks to generate some kind of elemental orb that can explode. Her strongest attack she's seen is her turning into a giant bird of all elements.
From what she said, she has nothing to out speed Light Step, she can avoid any incoming attack by using a breeze from wind magic to flutter around an incoming assault. I believe it be best to test that. So I use Light Step and throw my sword in front of me. It was quite elegant how she lifted up and let the wind take her over my right. I try to swing my blade with a turn, only for her to parry it with her fan, hardened by high pressured wind magic. She used the strength of my sword to float a short distance away from me.
Once on the ground, she shoots a sharp whirlwind at me from her fan.
I block it with my arms, it doing inconsequential damage to me. She jumps back and does another one of those attacks. Now I copy her and summon a copy of her fans to do the same attack. Our whirlwinds collide and peter each other out.
"I see…", I hear her quietly speak to herself.
I move over to her at high speed once more, this time, I shuffle from position to position as I make my way over to her so she can't predict where I might strike. I do that whilst throwing shuriken at her to apply pressure.
It isn't long before I sense she's going to avoid all of it by flying upwards. The moment I touch her, I too, would be able to learn this useful skill. It is a pity It'd only last three days.
I see lightning flash from one of her fans. She does a vertical swing that summons a blade of lightning…But. It's going to miss? I look to the right of me to watch it blow up onto the ground behind me. What was the purpose? A renowned warrior must have a reason. She did not miss by accident.
I should throw something back at her. I launch an array of missiles out of my arms. She flies around as they chase her, she moves more sporadically so the missiles don't follow in a straight line, simple winds can make them collide and explode. If that was her plan, it worked. Currently, she lowers herself a bit to accurately shoot a blade of lighting at me using, "Raiton!"
"Doton! Earth Wall Jutsu!", I shout as I stop it with a wall that shoots out of the ground. I must say, I am impressed this lightning is strong enough to not be nullified by the wall, for it manages to make it crumble upon collision.
I cannot help but worry. I see her smile suddenly deepen.
She was planning something when she missed and it must've paid out. What did she do?
Lets analyze. She missed. I attacked her. Then she does an attack that would accurately hit me. I blocked it. And the results made her happy. Either she is building up an attack that can only be done by firing off multiple attacks before it. Or…She must know my copy ability and have figured out I can't copy her attacks if they don't hit me.
I can't say how much the ninja know of me, but the only ones that do should be SCJP. I heard Tenchu hasn't informed every ninja on his side about their collusion. So the only way she can truly know of me would be through Tenchu having information from SCJP. Which would make her a right-hand woman rather than a pawn…I'm certain Leader would then agree I be a little rougher with her than the others.
For now, she stays in the air. Repeating the same single attack over and over. Dodging it is child's play. The only problem is me unable to counter. I can only imagine her decision to not use powerful moves to prevent me from learning is the reason for her wasting our time. She can not get a fatal hit in, and my stamina may be limited, but with the ease of me evading her whirlwinds, I won't run out even if the day ends.
I try to snipe her with a real sniper rifle, but even before firing the bullet, I can sense she will just use the winds from her fan to slice it the exact instant it is shot. I can easily avoid the wind slash afterwards, so I lose nothing. I've only got two more ideas left. Lightning should strike her easier whilst she is airborne. I summon something akin to Theresa's staff and shout, "SP Skill! Great Thunderbolt!"
I see her shook as she turns around to view the clouds above her. Great lightning is about to zap her from the sky, but she places her fans together to create some kind of shield. No, she is going to wave her arms away swiftly.
"Magic Dispel Jutsu!", she shouts, her hair standing up and sparks shooting off of her, but the actual bolt never managed to touch her. It was close enough to electrify her with low voltage, but nothing to swat her out of the air.
Another very convenient ability to get. Perhaps I need to just get to her level.
I shout, "Doton!", to shoot myself over to her in an attempt to hit her with my hands. She floats around, elegantly circling around me. I see wind magic gathering around her as she uses it to spin her leg into me, with that leg, she pushes me down with a kick, the wind forcing me to crash below.
Probably figuring it is the best time to do a stronger attack, she comes at me spinning like a drill wrapped in wind magic.
"Futon! Arashi Dageki!", she shouts when getting close. But thanks to her touching me, I have learned her flying technique, and with a copy of her fans, I've flown over her drill attack. She hits the ground before blowing herself over the surface into a safe graceful landing.
She looks at me with an irritated puzzled expression.
"How could you learn flight when I haven't hit you with it?", she asks.
I have no obligation to answer, figure it out yourself.
The only con being I would never know if she will understand I learn moves upon touching the attacker or get hit by said move after seeing it. Either way, she follows me into the sky and shoots a whirlwind at me. But it is useless now, I just shout, "Magic Dispell Jutsu!", and turn her winds to gentle breezes.
I fly down towards her, casting explosion from my feet to get to her faster. She tries to block my kick with wind in her fans, but then, I engulfed them with light magic to further push her back. Next, I shoot missiles at her again. She can easily destroy them using wind, but the smoke screen gives me an easier window of opportunity. "Arashi Dageki!", I shout slamming her down with a wind infused spinning attack. She makes herself hover over the ground so her landing becomes soft.
Once on the ground, she stops my flight by casting a heatwave shouting, "Katon!", swinging her fans apart from each other. The heat pains me and makes it too hard to fly in. In order to avoid taking unnecessary damage, I dig underground, plunging into the below shouting, "Doton!" I blast myself out of the earth behind her back as I see her frantically looking for me. She does hear me, and therefore, is able to block my punch, but that is all. I send her a dozen meters away with a good fist to her left upper arm.
"Katon!", I shout as I shoot a heatwave at her. She converges it into a tornado, similar to how Theresa has done, only the tornado she summons is the one she spins herself. The incoming fire seems to not affect her as the tornado turns into one of flames. Then she brushes it outside, understanding that it hitting me would make me learn that move. I, of course, use that time to get closer to her.
Before I get the chance to do anything, she slaps her fans together, blasting once compressed winds against me shouting, "Futon! Reverse Compression Jutsu!" It blows me far away from her. Looking at my feet getting close to touch the ground, I'm thinking of stamping into it and use Doton to smack her with earth magic. "Doton!", I shout as a pillar of earth knocks her over to her left, not even trying to block it.
I see, she was busy conjuring a sphere of wind from the tornado and air compression she has made, saying, "Futon…Essence of Wind!" She kicks it towards me shouting, "Shin Kaze!"
I thought to dispel it, but the sphere curves around me. She knew I could just stop it, so she aims to have it blow up behind me. I noticed too late and can only get close to leaving the blast radius with Light Step. The explosion of winds sends me towards her, at the same time, she does a lightning drop-kick calling it, "Raiton! Wind Splitting Thunder Clap!"
But I can use the wind to fly far above her, avoiding her entirely.
Her essence elemental attacks are strong, but would take too long for me to properly set up, and Theresa's magic can achieve close to the same. This move is not the best one I've copied yet. I grab my blade, which slowly causes me to fall, but I am high up already.
"UnionStar Light Slash!", I shout, shooting a big blade of light at her.
She disperses it with the Magic Dispel Jutsu, this is to give me time to dive towards her.
I sense her about to hit me with an attack, so I cast explosion from my feet to jump over her whilst in mid-air. Then I shoot a whirlwind of razer blades at her from up close, she jumps back, dispersing that as well.
Now, in perfect position, I cast explosion from my hands to blast my feet into her stomach, kicking her with a dual explosion kick that sends her flying. Right after, I shoot a CombinationStar Light Slash. Although, she easily avoids that with a flap from her fans, I can see her get a bit frustrated.
"Futon! Kofutori!", she says, turning into a green bird of wind a little over my size. She flies my way at a pretty good pace.
I thought I could simply use Light Step to get away from it, but the moment she gets next to me, Yume expels the bird formation out of her, sending it to me like a projectile.
"Magic Dispel Jutsu!", I shouted thinking I could simply rid myself of it, but it seems this bird form is actually made mostly of actual winds, it's weakened, sure, but without the magic gathering it and compressing it together, it turns into a blast of wind that flings me over the ground.
Yume flies back into the sky, shooting blades of wind at me from above. I figure I can easily track her now, the bird technique she used is great for pursuing her, as flight speed and precision increased combined with its decent attacking prowess. She herself turns into a bird of wind and tries to flee. I can't help but wonder if she is scheming something. I can only find out as I get closer to her.
Only now do I understand she is luring me as I get near her, we should've been flying at the same speed, but she flew slower. I doubt it isn't on purpose. Now I sense her about to create a giant tornado. So I fly away to steer clear.
"Futon! Dai Tatsumaki!", She shouts, constantly spinning with wind magic to create a huge tornado. It isn't much different from the usual magical tornado, but this one would also gather real wind alongside the magical wind. Dispersing it would mean little. I was waiting for her to throw the tornado at me, but she just stays in one place.
If she keeps using wind, she could form another Essence of Wind.
I thought that, and I may have been right, but I see this essence is used to form a giant bird of wind as opposed to the small one.
"Shinfutori!", she shouts. Leader told me of the huge wind bird, but this one was even bigger. I see, she absorbed an essence to power up the wind magic.
"UnionStar…Light Slash!", all I could do was fight back with a powerful move I knew. We get pretty close to each other before our special attacks clash. I get send to the ground regardless. Not that my own attack had done nothing, I see her go back down with a few scratches.
I sense her about to do another Tornado, and automatically, I follow to do the exact same move. I thought we'd both form a giant bird, but I now sense her adding multiple elements together. This must be her ultimate move. Logically, I should stop and flee, perhaps counter it with Theresa's spells. But, my mind can only think of the move she is about to do, how to copy it and just survive to learn it. Burdened with my brain working on that, I can only think of hitting her with a wind bird knowing I will take far more damage from the upcoming collision.
"Shin-Oyatori!", she shouts as she turns into this rainbow flaming bird that alternates colors constantly. I can only use the wind bird. We fly into each other, I, myself getting shot into the ground after an explosion. I am not going to let her get away with that. I am right below her, for she flies over me. "Blade Burst!", I shout as my blade is shot at her and hits her directly, not expecting me able to strike back. The heat transferred to the sword combusts upon contact, taking her out of the sky.
With Light Step, I jump out of the hole dug by my landing.
I see her trying to fly away again, not on my watch. I use Silicon's string to stop her movement. She looks annoyed at first. She uses flames and sharp wind magic to undo the silicon as she flies around, speaking to me as if she were insulted, "You think a great ninja like me hasn't trained with others that can use string techniques?!"
Obviously, the string is just a distraction. I jump from one string to the other, once close to her, I turn into a bird of wind. I fly towards her, she is about to hit me with strong wind, but I just let the bird that surrounds me blow up by itself, creating a gust that just bothers her, but more advantageously, I get to be flung over her. A string is pulled under my feet as I stand above her with my head close to touching hers. All she could do was shield herself against my sword engulfed with light, "UnionStar Light Slash! I shoot her down onto the ground into an explosion of light.
I got back on the surface. I can't do much more but let her get back up. She immediately charged towards me.
"Wind Splitting Thunder Clap!", she shouts as she kicks herself forward with lightning splitting the winds, creating rays of electricity next to her feet. I simply counter it with my copy of the same move, once we pushed our feet into each other, I turned mine into one of light to bounce hers away, allowing a free spin kick engulfed with light.
After I kicked her away, she constantly shoots electricity my way. I can easily deflect such weak attacks. But Now I see she was creating another Essence, this time a sphere of lightning.
I try to stab her after a fast dash with Light Step, but she not only flies over me, she does a U-turn to try and hit me physically for one reason or another.
"Fire Wall!", I shout, creating a wall of fire around me that forces her to stop, she immediately gets in the air when I shouted, "Fire Beam!", curving the wall of flames until they burst into a beam of destruction.
Once in the air, she conjures up another tornado and tosses it my way. "Magic Dispel Jutsu!", I shout, weakening the tornado so I can blow it away with my own wind magic. Right after, I am barraged with blades of winds she infinitely throws at me. Light Step easily lets me avoid them, but now she manages to make an Essence of Wind. Not allowing her to continue her plans, I shoot a blade of light at her. Knowing she could just dispel it, I make sure to have launches more missiles right after I swung my blade.
She flies down right after dispelling the light blade, nearly dodging all of the missiles, but a few chase after her. Her altitude getting lower and lower, she does what she historically has done before and uses wind to direct the missiles into each other. But she wasn't prepared for one of them to be attached to a string of mine. Her miscalculation shall cost her dearly, for I swing said missile out of harms way and back to her.
She gasped for the shortest amount of time, yet she shows her experience and battle prowess, for she calms down instantly and just blasts wind above her to get to the ground immediately.
My assault shall not stop, it would be no good if I give her time to rest.
"Ice Coffin!", I shout, summoning a big icicle that would trap her inside once hit, she barely manages to fly out of range, not without the force knocking her over, disabling her flight.
"Doton!", I immediately shout, she has no time to react as her feet dip onto the surface, she is smacked into the air by stone that gets shot out of the earth.
She would get knocked into the icicle, but she shouts, "Katon!", and melts it with fire. On top of that, she shoots a bunch of small fire tornadoes at me. I use Doton again to kick myself off into the sky. I barrage her with multiple projectiles, however, she avoid them using "Suiton! River escape jutsu!", coating herself with water, she slithers through the rockets, bullets, light slashes, wind slashes and fire balls like a snake, creating a road of water that seem to weaken or cancel said projectiles.
"Essence of Water", I hear her. I land down, thinking I might dissolve said water using heat.
"Katon!", I shout as I create a big heatwave, but she cancels it out with the opposing temperature. "Hyoton!", she shouts, throwing a blizzard that collides against the wall of scorching air. Steam is the only thing left after, I create a barrier of Earth to block incoming icicles. "Essence of Ice!", I hear through the wall.
Before I know it, I suddenly have to deal with stone spikes, pillars, and walls slamming into me, as I zoom around with Light Step.
She is using her own Doton spells to attack. The next moment, she waves her fans over the ground, unleashing a wave of earthly movements that will create a much bigger spikey wall of earth to my front. I cast Doton to block it with my own earth attack. Even if it is weaker, it still stops her earth spell despite shattering.
"Essense of Earth.", she says. I don't see a sphere this time, but her body looks slightly more muscular.
If this is what I think it is, I should use her super attack to coat myself with all elements.
I spin into a tornado, adding all elements to it before forming it into a giant colorful bird shouting, "Shin-oyatori!"
I lift myself a little higher off the ground before diving towards her. I sense her combining all essences together into one sphere before kicking it to me. Understanding her mentality, she wants to hit me with attacks that overpower whatever I've learned. 70% probability her attack will go through the bird and annihilate me.
Understanding this, I use string to pull myself out of my own flaming rainbow bird, the essences blow the bird up into fireworks whilst I slowly curve around Yume with her only noticing my escape after she doesn't see me inside the blaze of her making. She may see me swinging now, but I also cast explosion from my feet to get even closer to her. Before she can do anything, I body slam myself into her and combine that with a punch to her face.
Then I shout, "EXE Drive Skill!", I trap her in an infinite amount of string. I use Sili-san's "Ultimate Stinger!", to jab her with my sword and sent het flying out of the arena shaped crater.
As expected of a flame, she manages to take that and stand back up. She looks slightly miffed, then her eyes squint due to the sudden light from the sun that pierces through the clouds.
"Well well well…The sun has come to greet my victory, what pleasant timing.", she says.
She looks at me. I am waiting for what she has to say.
"My, aren't you one of few words.", she tells me.
I have no obligations to speak, my only goal is to defeat you.
"How boorish. Well then. I understand the level of your power. You are dangerous indeed. I can't defeat you like this…But watch, as the sun shines upon me, let me give you a taste of its heat!", she makes a speech before screaming as loudly as possible. Flames erupt from her, slowly changing its colors from orange to blue.
In Gamindustri, stopping someone's transformation is the greatest taboo. As a honorable warrior, I shall refuse to attack her until she is done.
"Blue Flame!", she shouts, having her hair turned blue, a blue flame surrounding her. Her clothes have slightly darkened, and her fans are now attached to her knuckles, they themselves burning with blue fire.
I can feel it. I don't know by what senses. There is no logical explanation for this feeling. But looking at her, it feels as if she towers over me with this power. The air's moisture is drying up. Her flame is way hotter than Kagura's green flame. I doubt it is due to them being so different, Yume herself is simply a cut above. Ten years of experience is a gap too wide compared to one year of experience after all…
I hold my sword firm, waiting for her to attack me first. I need to know her changed move set.
The most predictable one is her shooting three flying blades of fire from her fan, I thought to cancel it out with Magic Dispel Jutsu, but when I did that, she got way too close to me. I escape from her with Light Step, yet, I notice her catching up to me in no time. She is not just mixing fire and wind together, but she summons earth from her body that turns into gun powder. With a swing of her fan, she creates small explosions that turns herself into a human bullet, but unlike most versions of this technique, she can elegantly change course making her the fastest human in the air.
"Doton!", I force her to move as my call expels some earth from under the ground in front of her, she goes around it, but it helps me nonetheless. I fly up using the fans. I get as high as I can. She follows me, and will certainly fly circles around me once she catches up. I shoot a blade of light at her, which she easily avoids as she flies up to me.
I cast explosion from my side and use its residue to fly away from her kick. I doubt I can do this more often, I must first copy her new flight maneuver by touching her.
No matter what I do, she is only a breath away, eventually, all of her flaming attacks converge into her left leg, turning into a blue orb, is it plasma? It looks like a blue sun. "Katon! Niashige!", Yume shouts before she kicks it into me, hurting me greatly. Even as I fall, I feel fine, for now I can fly like she does. With our fans creating explosions to propel us in the air, she is about to kick me with the miniature blue sun again, so I shall mirror her.
"Niashige!", we shout as the suns collide with our legs shoving them into each other. They somewhat fused before exploding into both of us.
Unfortunately, it only seems to affect me. The explosion pushed me back. As for her, she might've budged a little, but I saw no painful expression.
"Katon!", I shout as I create a heatwave, but this doesn't even register to her as she flies through it.
My conclusion is that she is completely immune to flame in this form. Perhaps only someone with one of the four flames could hurt her with fire. This means the copying of her moves is not going to help me much more.
"Katon. Tokasu Namiutsu!", she shouts, blowing a heatwave in my direction. Actually, its like a visible wind of blue blazes. The heat is melting my coat, and if I stay in it any longer, my arms and skin shall follow. I see her come close to me and sense her about to shoot a flame thrower from her two fans, it really helps me wake up and cast explosion to flee. I manage to get out of the heatwave and dodge her blue flamethrower. I see the heatwave reach the ground, melting even the earth itself.
I look back and see her hold her arms out, one fan above the other, she strongly flips the position of her hands around and creates an explosion with wind, fire and earth magic shooting a vertical blue flaming tornado my way. It wasn't that big, but it would give any normal person a fright, for it chases after me no matter in which direction I fly. I may be fast now that I know her explosion trick, but this tornado will not let up. Its movement is perfect, even if I get close to the ground and back into the air it will not hit any other object except for me.
I know of only one solution. I stop moving to turn around and shout, "Magic Dispel Jutsu", knowing it won't be enough. I can already tell this will explode regardless of what I do. She has the ability to blow it up before it hits me and does so. It's a lot less damage than getting hit by the tornado, however, so it was worth the effort. Never mind that I can now use it myself.
Even having thought so, she flies towards me with me still suspended from the pain. Even if she is on fire, maybe I can just barely pull myself towards her using Silicon's string combined with explosion magic. When thinking that, I managed to perform an action that get me in range to headbutt her and succeed.
I sense her about to retaliate with a flamethrower attack, I simply mirror her move. However, now I am stuck within this attack, and I can now sense her flames about to turn into plasma. She transforms her flamethrower into a beam that shoves me close to the ground. Just in time before being sandwiched between earth and flame, I cast explosion and escape my predicament, but not without having taken plenty of damage.
Getting back in the air, I turn around as she is about to launch another tornado my way. I am just compelled to mirror everyone's moves, but I genuinely believed I could cancel her tornado out with my own. The two collide, I figured she might want to blow hers up, but she actually turns a few of the flames into plasma. When they combusted, a few of her plasma turned flames spread out into laser shots that hit me directly. The pain burns me more than I've ever felt before.
She gets close to me, trying to smack me down physically, but I stop her flaming fan attack with a blade of light. Our clash nullified all shock, forcing us both to retreat, because pushing forward would be meaningless. I shout, "UnionStar Light Slash!", attempting to hit her with a big blade of light. Spinning around with flame and wind, Yume drills through it, not unscathed, still, she will soon reach me, possibly doing a heavy sweep of both fans to my direction.
I can sense she is about to explode a burst of blue flame and plasma combined. Uncertain of what defense I could use against it, I cast Suiton to create a layer of water that would shield me from heavy burns, but she evaporates it easily and slams me away. Yet, I can tell the water did save me from taking more damage than necessary.
She gets closer to me and shoots her blue flamethrower again. I easily dodge it, but this time, she turns it into a plasma beam whilst holding it up. She tries to strike me down using the plasma beam as a sword. Intimidating as it appears, I elude the beam, it hitting the ground creating a large rift below me instead.
"Dai Aoihonõ Tatsumaki!", she shouts, spinning around to create a tornado of flame that she blows my way.
There is no need to do a corresponding tornado physically, Theresa's Giant Green Tornado should be more efficient in blowing it away. And so I cast it, shouting the attack name. The flames go up into the air, perfectly protecting me, even if she tried to blow it up or turn it to plasma. Looking over to her, she pauses for a second. Without warning, flames spread around her. They start to take shape as she chants.
First it took the form of a bird, but its wings get tucked into the flame's body. Suddenly, a tail spreads out into many thick feathers of blue and golden flames. The bird resembles a chicken…No…It is actually.
"Katon. Peacock formation Jutsu.", she coldly says as I stare at this huge peacock made of blue and golden flames, the end of its tails having golden eyes that stare at me. It is both majestic and ominous. But I am captivated by its beauty, and terrified by its size towering over me…No it just feels like that.
I have never felt this before. Not as a human weapon. My emotions had lessened over time. This power doesn't simply use my visual perception and other stimulants, the aura alone is bringing out feelings I never thought I had to petrify me.
I see the dotted patterns and eyes light up in blue blazes…They get hotter and hotter. The upcoming attack is enough to snap me out of it, I do an air-dash away explosion magic to avoid a multiple plasma laser attack.
It is troublesome, once heated up, she can keep firing them at will. Even if I got close to her, that flame body of the peacock may have mass, I doubt I can cut through it. I'm not even sure if I can maneuver behind her to do an attack. Sometimes, the lasers go out immediately after missing me, at other times, she keeps them up to redirect them my way before I fly around them, she can even individually move the tail feathers to create tricky mazes of beams she tries to trap me in. I sense her often redirecting beams up into the air, even if I am not even close to the vicinity. There is an intend.
Eventually, she shoots all beams into the air. I look up to see some kind of artificially made blue sun above me.
"Aoi Doshaburi.", she says as it starts raining plasma from above. I may be agile, but avoiding every single one of them is next to impossible. I can only try to get close and attack her to make sure she doesn't ambush me with more lasers.
As I expected, her peacock is not for show, it even breaths fire once I approached. I dodge it by moving down, but am immediately shot out of the air by blue lasers that followed after.
On the ground, I get back up whilst another rain of plasma beams is now directly aimed at me.
"Barrier! Doton! Suiton!", I use Theresa's barrier combined with earth and water ninjutsu to cover myself, even then, her lasers were too strong, they take a minute to break through and hit me. Nevertheless, that is 75% less damage. I try to fly back up, I avoid a barrage of lasers. Now I sense that it was a distraction, she is able to jump out of her flame and kick me at high speed. Of course, I could sense it, so I knock her back with a blade of light. I end up on the ground regardless.
I see her flying around sporadically, perhaps to confuse me. The most efficient move for this is one that covers a large area.
"Giant Explosion!", I shout, using Theresa's magic to create an explosion near her, she can not evade it completely, knocking her off balance once it blows up to her right side. She gets close to the ground with me.
Her blue flames gave her two new wings as she flies over to me at an accelerated speed.
"Ice Coffin! Doton! Comet shower!", I cast spells that shoot ice and earth out of the ground and a spell that rains small comets of light at her. But she just uses "Suiton! Water escape Jutsu!", and flutters around all of it with ease, once she got close to me, she spread out her arms to splash boiled water onto me. Even though I jumped away, some of it still got to me.
She flies all over and around me, one I was able to touch her, I could use all of the techniques she's shown so far. Even then, whatever flame technique I used, they would never go blue. It shows how much more in tune she is with her flame. Kagura's green flame color could be copied. I guess there is something divine about the flames themselves. I could never copy the actual transformation or inherit power, only the moves. But here, I can make her moves as powerful, but they lack the same heat.
Yume is the first opponent to put fear into me. Probability of winning is below 50%. At first, she fought with elegance, like a butterfly who could sting like a bee. But she is different. Not just her fighting style. Her face has been twisted by flame, I can't make out a cruel laughing face or an emotionless one that looks down at the world. Her fighting style is now of that of an aggressive eagle high on performance drugs. Then she uses her Peacock mode where she gets slow, but uses her huge body for perfect defense and powerful physical attacks whilst overwhelming me with flames and beams.
I can copy it all, but she resists every move she now uses. My ability has never felt so useless. Back and forth, we move at high speed, only leaving explosions in wake of where we clashed. But in the end, it is me that is getting pushed. I copy her flaming wings, but it doesn't make me much faster than her. Above in the skies, I copy her Peacock form. It is red with yellow as opposed to the blue and golden form that faces me.
I can make plasma lasers too, but they lack the strength to penetrate through hers. I decide to get closer, hoping I can make a difference physically. The two flaming birds headbutt each other, our feet claw at each other. I swing a sword at her which she parries with her flaming fans. But in the end, her heat wears me down, and she manages to knock me back.
With the remaining flames, I spin around. Slowly, I create a tornado of all elements. at first, the opponent mirrors me. Albeit, she is using a blue flaming tornado that should form into a big fire bird soon. I can already sense it surpasses the rainbow bird I am using, but my brain is stuck thinking only of copying her move and using it against her, despite it having no way to damage her.
"Shinoyatori!", I say with my bird finished.
"Shin Aoi Hinotori!", she shouts, surrounded by flame in the shape of a beautiful blue bird. We collide, our flames close to melting together. But in the end, hers is stronger and retains more of its shape as she pushes forward through my elements. Finally, she sends me packing, my back reaching the surface as I am flown forward. She chases after me, to which I will use one of my only original moves. Starting with the words, "EXE Drive Skill…"
With a jet boosted fist, I punch her away from me. Then I shred all metal plating from my arms to unload an infinite amount of weapons and magic spells. With jet boosters, I fly forward shouting, "Unlimited Arsenal!" I fly around her and capture her in a storm of rockets, missiles, bullets, all magical elements, all ninjutsu, shuriken all the while flying around her to hit her with every weapon I have copied. This should be my strongest version of the EXE Drive attack for it includes all techniques during this war.
In the end, I fly high up. My right fist spinning like a drill before I am thrust towards the ground with my jet boosters at maximum performance.
"Armory Combustion!", I shout, punching her into the ground combined with every weapon and spell surrounding her, creating a great explosion that has me flying. We were quite a distance away from the arena, now I fall on top of it with my back.
This shouldn't do enough damage to take her out. But I should've hurt her enough to stiffen her movements. I believe one more decisive hit will do it. Perhaps I can get another EXE Drive off and beat her…
But my hopes are dashed. I hear her, "Pheonix Flames!", and right after, I see her float back up onto her feet with blue flames coming from her back and being absorbed into her chest.
It is definitely a healing spell.
As long as she has SP, she can return her health back. Now, If I copy that, I'd have a chance. She gets closer to me, her face has returned to normal, but I don't think she's losing her flame's stability.
If anything, she looks at me unamused. She closes her fans and says, "You have done well. But I tire of this farce. EXE Drive skill…"
I can barely move with the air becoming denser. I am about to get hit by an attack that could spell the end for me.
The fan opens in front of her face, covering her mouth as flames spring from her. They surround both of us, my surroundings turn into imageries of peacocks, I am rained in golden particles as giant flaming feathers stare at me, their light shining brightly upon me.
"First Flap, Birth.", she says as she uses said fan to create a heavy wind that turns into flames. Its bursts into me, burning me badly. She pops out from the flames that have passed me and she opened her second fan.
"Second Flap. Growth.", she says as her next wave of her fan causes a bunch of feathers from the flaming tails to rain onto me.
She spreads her arm to lift herself up into the air with a gale, then she flies through me saying, "Flap 3."
Once past me, she says, "Prime.", which summons a bunch of smaller flaming birds that fly around me, claw shaped flames keep slashing me ad nauseam.
Every flame starts to warp as they combine together with me in the epicenter. She closes her left fan as she says, "Flap 4…"
I am set ablaze, a giant blue fire rising above the clouds.
Then she closes her other fan and says, "Death."
She quickly turns around and shouts, "Hitsuden Ninpo! Shinotori!" her right fan turning into a flaming dagger that she stabs into me, in that second, I tried to slap her away, but I only brushed her skin, The stab was with such strength that it sends me flying through concrete.
I am laid out on the ground. I can barely lift my eyelids. Is this my defeat? Leader, I thought I would never lose for your sake…What is this feeling? Am I sad? I thought I could be useful, like a tool…In the end, I couldn't fulfil my one purpose. I thought I could beat anyone one-on-one…But it appears, I am inadequate against a real fighter. I…My eyes are…I can't see….
To Be Continued…