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

16. Chapter 15-2: Is the Sky the Limit?

Hyperdimension Neptunia

Third Sister; Darkness

Chapter 15.2 POV-Acclaim

Is the Sky the Limit?

A ray of light goes over my closed eyes, the black void brightens. It is uncomfortable, but it wakes me up. My eyes open, I see the light was one ray of the sun piercing a passing cloud.
Before I got knocked out, I had physical contact with Yume's arm, tapping it. I copied her healing ability.
"Phoenix Flame…", I say, almost gurgling with my throat. Flames exit and reenter my body, my wounds are healing. I am raised off the surface and gently put on my feet.

Yume turns around.
"I see, you aren't done yet.", she says.
I swallow whatever liquid was stuck in my throat. I catch my breath and look toward my enemy.
"You must know by now, even with copying my healing, you can not surpass my flame.", she says.
She's correct. This is now a war of attrition. Whoever has their SP drained first loses. I can only use her flame recovery without SP if she uses it, copying her move rather than using it.

I had overused SP healing items, being under the impression that I could rely on copying any special ninja's technique and outlast them without the need of them. I am ashamed to have gotten so arrogant. But I can't sulk. Leader believes in me. I have to fight.
I jump forward with Light Step and shout, "EXE Drive Skill!"
I will fight using my friends' most powerful moves.

I hit her with FusionStar Light Slash, Leader's move. But she recovers herself with flames and blows me back with a blue flaming bird.
"EXE Drive Skill! Archive of Magic!", I shout, using Theresa's magic manipulating moves into a giant explosion before finishing it with a meteorite crashing into her. But she could mostly protect herself against the elements and only took damage from the meteorite.
Whilst she is stunned from that, I use the last bar for Sili-san's EXE Drive.

"EXE Drive skill! Ultimate Stinger!", I shout as string entangles and whips Yume until I thrust my sword into her torso that sends her flying. I breath heavily, the Phoenix flame only recovers me by 50%. I see flames in the distance, she already recovered herself.

I am under a huge surge of blue flames she waved my way, she then, dove from the sky.
Now in front of me, she enveloped herself in blue flame the shape of a bird. The flame explodes when she hits me, sending me soaring. In the middle of being pushed back, I shoot a blade of light at her, but she disperses it with her fans.
"Great Explosion!", I cast afterwards, doing some damage to her.

This annoys her, she shoots a tornado flame at me from a spin of both arms like she was turning a wheel. The flaming tornado chases me as I use her flame flight technique, she herself using it to chase after me. I avoid her assault whilst eluding het tornado, but I know it is in vain. My mind only tells me to counter it with a copy move, but I know it will be less effective.

Giving in to the urge, I instead control the counter tornado flame to spiral around the blue one. My orange flame gets close to hitting her. I wait until her tornado almost hits me. In a tense moment that felt like time stopped, I fly around the tornado, getting close to her. But she ends up blowing herself high in the air and immediately dives straight down after. My mind only tells me to mirror her incoming attack, and instinctively, I did. I had no other ideas. Her tornado had blown up, blocking my every other maneuver. I kicked an orange flame at her whilst she kicked a blue one, she knocks me downwards, and made me crash onto the ground with a plunging attack the second later.

"Phoenix Heal.", I say, healing myself with her technique. I stand back up. Her nose is raised, looking at me like I am a brat trying to fight his father. My skill has become lacking. But I refuse to give in. I would feel ashamed for the rest of my life. Our fight has less and less tact, she can easily chase after me and attack me. My mind keeps telling me to mirror her moves, I am fighting against my very instinct knowing I can't copy the true essence of her flame.

Even if the power output is the same, she resists fire. Occasionally, I can use Light Slash or a spell from Theresa to damage her more than her own attacks. Otherwise, it is physical attacks that always places me in harms way. I didn't mind doing so at first, however, I am running low on SP. As the fight continues, I only use her moves against her, wearing down both of our health. Sometimes, I got the timing right and copied her Phoenix healing to heal without using SP, but I assume she has learned of that trick, for she is choosing more attacks that would do less damage against herself. She doesn't heal as often.

I don't even use Light Step or any move that uses the slightest bit of SP. I have run dry of using SP for any SP skill, I have been knocked over the battlefield countless time, mirroring her move, our flames exploding with me taking the most damage. On the other hand, she has been hitting me with weaker moves, she must be close to her limit no less than me. She hasn't healed in a while.

I need to get a single critical attack in. I need to force her to heal once more to recover my own wounds through the copy ability.
In order to do that, I would have to take her by surprise…She is a clever opponent. Which means doing something ill-advised would be the least conceivable. That would catch her off-guard.
When she got close, she tries to draw me inside a blue fire tornado. Of course, I copy the same skill, she already knows I instinctively follow my mind to copy her every move.

This time, I blow myself out of my tornado with explosion magic, and then use string on the building to our left to swing around her back as the tornadoes explode. Now I get up close to her, she was about to use her fans to either knock me away or run, but I just nudged them the wrong way with string. She can easily burn it, meaning she could never anticipate I would use something so unpractical, alas for her, I have her just too slow to respond to my trick that is easily overcome by burning the string.

Yes, the string does burn, but that one small fraction of a second was enough to let me strike her across the face, flailing her onto the ground with all my might. It is unfortunate I do not possess the SP to do more damage. As I make my landing, she rises from the ground, looking sour. "Essence of Blue Flame!", she calls out the name of a dangerous attack, I can only kick a sphere of flame back that contains the same power, it is only strong enough to stop hers from exploding directly onto me.

I get slightly burned from the residue, which she easily flies through having transformed into a flaming bird.
I mirror her attack and the moment our flaming birds melt into each other, I deliver a headbutt onto her forehead, which she responds in kind with a kick to the gut and a following explosion from the flap of her fans.
After I fell on my back, she gracefully lands near me, I barely see her blow a few strands of hair across her forehead before approaching me. Her flame aura diminishes.

With no other tricks in reserve, I conceived to just play dead. She must be wanting to heal after all.
She eyes me, leaning over my body. I hold my breath, I make an effort to mimic the dead.
She kicks me a few times, not very hard, for she is merely checking if I am knocked out or not. She bends her knees slightly. I can feel her hands hovering over me. Her hear reaches close to my mouth. She gets back up and sighs.

She walks for a short couple of seconds. Then she says, "Phoenix Flames."
At the same time, I too say, "Phoenix Flames", using her recovery move without SP.
She glares at me in astonishment, her pupils dilating in time for my punch to her front, blowing her a few dozen meters away.

It was but a punch, it will do no major damage. She gets back up mostly unscathed. She slaps some of the snow off of her. She looks at me with a frown, but calm eyes. She can tell, this is the end for me.
"I am impressed with your performance. You do not put your master for shame, that is certain. I must inform you, I still have 10% of my SP left. You were probably considering using one or two EXE Drive skills to beat me, but I can heal myself from that. You are out of SP, otherwise you wouldn't have to play dead to copy my healing. Need I go on?", she talks me down.

I can not find fault in her statement. There is no way to victory taking this road. Out of SP, and wasting my EXE Drives only to have her recover is no less plausible. My brain is constantly telling me to mirror her moves. I look out into the sky.
Is this my limit? Can I not be helpful to leader?
Leader. She could've killed me. She could've run. She stabbed herself to get to me, something that even when I foresaw it, was too stupefied to defend myself. One would need to go against all survival instinct to pull something like that off…

Can I do that?
I see one bird fly by…I remember, when I was but a worker, I would stare at the sky. While I was hard at work surrounded by the noise of others, I see those birds fly freely, and pure silence. I was romanticizing their lives. Seeing them far above me. But my data tells me that they too have their struggles…I wonder…
Do the birds, look into space and acknowledge their limit? Do they not feel as frustrated as us on the ground?

To go above one's limits, is to hurt themselves and be put at life risk. If a bird flies too high into space, they won't be able to use their wings for long, they won't be able to breath, perhaps they may even get burned by the sun…In fear of that, the moment we feel pushback, we call it our limit and stop…But when one overcomes it… Leader would go that far.
Can I go that far?

I was informed, I cannot incorporate all my learned moves into unique complex attacks. The only exception was EXE Drive skills, and even then, it has its limits. What if I tried to go beyond? My arms could overheat and break. But the copy ability doesn't come from the arms alone, it is my brain itself. I would overload my brain and lose critical functions…Or worse…Death. Yes. It is scary, going out into the void…That is why I follow my instincts…But they are now the ones that get me burned.

Leader would do it.
We sought the ability to reach the skies, and did it. We see space, and I will reach that limit too.
My heart is ready. I grab the fans, and I will use every movement technique to fly straight up.
"DOTON! LIGHT STEP!", using both Doton and Light Step in sync, I launch myself up into the sky, much to Yume's shock. I suppose she may think I'm running, but she must be able to tell I was up to something, for I only flew straight up.

I WILL SURPASS MY LIMITS!
Using thrusters from the mechas I've fought and the flaps of the fans I've acquired, I go beyond the clouds. Of course, going beyond limits doesn't mean there isn't a new limit, but learning what it truly is will put me above most.
Finally, I have reached it. I lack the power to fly higher, but that may be for the better. I can see it, our planet. It is beautiful, the light of the sun reflecting off it…In the void of space, it's pretty. Now, I am not that far away, I am just above the atmosphere.

This will be it. I bet everything in this next move. The only way to go beyond your physical limits, is with an EXE Drive attack. Neither ones I had before would be enough to defeat her, but this one would knock her out even at full health! My 2 bar EXE Drive Skill!
"EXE DRIVE SKILL!", I shout, my muscles slightly pulsing. I can feel it, my mind going overdrive.
"Unlimited Arsenal! OVERCLOCK!", I shout, flames coming from me forming a bird.

The flames become hotter and hotter, turning into a giant blue flaming bird.
"Essence of Wind. Fire. Water. Ice. Lightning. Earth.", I say as all the elemental spheres swirl around my right fist, which I had let spin like a drill using thrusters.
From above, I dive down using the thrusters and wings of the fire bird. Now going beyond terminal velocity, I catch on fire as the earth's gravity tries to take me down as it should. The flames from my descend only fuel my fire magic. I can feel my arms tremble and the metal screech as they are overburdened with the different skills I have combined. The essences fuse with my spinning fist and become one element.

The flaming bird also gets combined into the attack, creating a blue pheasant over my fist.
I see her flying towards me.
"EXE Drive Skill!", she tries to counter my attack with her own. It is irrelevant. Like a meteor with dozens of boosters and magics surrounding it, I will strike her.
Hm…But she looks impressive.
"Flame Transmogrify! Vermillion bird of the South, Suzaku!", she had shout, her flaming bird having a vermillion hue around its flames and a bunch of vermillion details decorating its appearance. She blasts a beam of vermillion fire my way, but at my high, I don't even feel the pain. We're colliding, it shall shake the surface below us!

"PHOENIX METEOR IMPACT!", I shout as I punch into her, dragging her towards the surface with a sonic boom blasting off us.
I shout as we crash into the ground, creating a giant explosion that evaporates the clouds, and the ninja building breaks into pieces despite the explosion itself not even reaching it.
In the end, the explosion forms into a big wyvern that hugs the center of impact, setting us ablaze once more.

The battle is won. I am 100% certain my foe has met her match. On the other hand, it may as well be a draw. Stuck on my knees, I am unable to budge a single ounce of my body. I can't see anymore, everything looks like static. I can faintly hear. It seems my brain has been hurt, I am unsure if it is permanently damaged. My arms have shattered, only the exoskeleton remains. And I am in a grave situation, for the ninjas that stood by are escaping the rubble caused by the explosion destroying their homes. They have no reason not to be vengeful. A few thousand might be approaching me.

In this less than favorable spot, I hear the sound of a large object dragged over the ground. It is nearing my right, now I also hear the sound of a blade dicing flesh. My hearing becomes a bit clearer, I hear the voice of a man as he lands past me, the monster barely stopping next to my right.
"Claimer, are you alright?", the voice came from the man I identify as Wolf.
He must've been fighting that beast as it was pushing him all the way here. No trifle foe.

"The blue flame has fallen, albeit, it was at the cost of some brain functions and my arms. At this moment, I am unable to move my body.
"I understand.", he says, I can hear him walk in front of me at the same time.
My vision is slowly returning, but everything looks like a blur still.
I can hear a gruff noise coming from Wolf, he surely is able to see our victory is impossible with these numbers.

Suddenly, I hear explosions, even with my blurry vision, I can see some blurs fly over the sky.
"What happened?", I ask Wolf.
"Unexpected reinforcements…", Wolf says quietly.
"There sure are many ninja over here. A few thousand against two? Well that seems quite unfair.", I hear a spry female voice.
From the opposite side, I hear the noises of blades clanging against each other. My vision is slightly getting better. I look to my right to see two women charging through a few squads of ninja.

"Get out of the way, weaklings!", I hear one of them…isn't that Kagura?
"Surprise attack Successful!", I hear from the girl that sounded like Marvelous.
"Oooi! Marvy!", the woman to my left calls out to the two girls.
"Hey! Falcom! Are you done on your end?!", Marvelous shouts back as she runs her way.
They sound happy to see each other.
"What is going on? Who is the woman on the left.", I ask Wolf.
"Falcom. An adventurer.", Wolf tells me.

"Ah, that must be a member of the crusaders.", Falcom says as the girls run my way.
"Yoho. Our fight has concluded!", Marvelous tells me.
They turn to Wolf, Marvelous bowing and telling him, "I'm sorry for the times we've fought. I didn't really know the full truth.", she tells him.
"But why did Kagura switch sides?", he asked.
"I just felt like it.", she says to him.
Wolf doesn't respond.

"Enma should be on her way here. I have cleared the forces and killed a bunch of monsters. I thought there were more, though.", saying that, Falcom started to scratch her head, seemingly puzzled.
"I was tasked to take care of most monsters.", Wolf states.
He might be the reason I haven't run into any at all. He must've eliminated the ones of larger sizes whenever he could.

The ninja around us are beginning to gather again. A few were shouting, perhaps they are the ones holding authority over these forces.
"Are you betraying your lord, Green and Red Flames?!"
"Sorry, I just got a better deal sticking with these idiots!", Kagura speaks back to them in a cheeky tone.
"I apologize as well. We'll explain after we beat you up.", Marvelous tells them in a cheerful voice.
"I'm sorry to make you two fight this horde alone. But I was tracking a person of interest. Is it okay if I leave?", Falcom asked Marvelous and Kagura.

"Hmph. We can take care of these weaklings ourselves.", Kagura replies.
"Hm… I'm pretty sure we're kinda beat, though…Oh well, I'll try my best.", Marvelous didn't sound so sure at first, but she peps herself up.
"Do what must be done.", is Wolf's answer to Falcom's question.
"I thank you. And good luck.", Falcom says before running off. Whatever ninja got in her way was less fortunate and turned into fireworks.
"Enma should be arriving with reinforcements soon.", Marvelous tells us.

"Is that true?", Wolf asks her.
"I spotted them heading this way. Marvy talked to them about us switching sides.", Kagura explains.
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. I suspect Doton was used, for a bunch of ninja shoot out of the ground fighting against the horde in front of us.
A few ninja were headed our way, they skillfully step around their assailants to get to us. I can't really tell by their looks with my poor vision, but from their movement I can tell they are skilled.

"I guess were are up. Let's head out!", Marvelous says excited. She and Kagura take their leave.
Wolf bows to me and says, "I have a task to fulfil. These enemies are dangerous.", then he leaves to fight one of the skilled ninja as well.
For minutes, I am burdened with the sounds of combat and the sight of blurs smudging into each other. I could do nothing to help. Eventually, a few ninjas sneak around me.

Some were snickering. They must've been Genin. The few quiet units might be Chunin, but if I am unlucky enough they are higher ranked. To my fortuity, the ninja tortoises appeared to fend off the ninja surrounding me. I can hear their voices as they speak with vigor. Their fight must've been a great success. Their master slowly walked my way. Up close, I can faintly make out that his eyes are shut and his mouth is moving as he holds his hands in a peculiar way.

Before I knew it, Enma suddenly appeared.
"The summon technique was a success. I thank you, master Splitter.", she says.
"It is my honor, Lady Enma.", Splitter responds with a bow.
Enma talks to me, "I see you were gravely wounded in your battle. That explosion we witnessed must've been your doing. You won, but at what cost, do I dare ask?"
"I have overburdened the copy ability system, damaging my brain and destroying my arms. I can't move and at the moment, I am unable to make out any visual details.", I inform her.

She stares at me silently.
"You can speak perfectly fine, however. Let's hope that is a sign your brain is not permanently altered. I can't run a diagnosis here. I can only make a basic brain recovery item. It's a bit complex, so I don't have the medicine itself on hand, but I do carry the ingredients.", Enma tells me. She puts down a cloth, sits on it, and starts her work. In the meantime, the tortoises from a circle around us to protect us from any of the attacks.

It took her twenty minutes, within that time, an all-out war is around us. She administers a drug into me. It doesn't take long for my vision to return. I can feel my body again, but only my head and eyes can be moves. I observe the surrounds to get a good idea of the situation. I do not recognize much of our own forces.
"Lady Enma, is it conceited of me to presume we have new allies?", I ask her.
"You are a sharp one. A lot of the ninja defeated in this war had been revived by my medicine, some are taken as prisoners, but others we explained Tenchu's corruption to. Since Marvelous joined us, they couldn't help but doubt him as well. We have convinced many to join.", she explains.

I had been under the impression we were in a pinch, but being able to see clearly. Marvelous and Kagura are playfully fighting their opponents, which seem to be special ninja as well. They don't look like they are out to win.
"This fight is soon to be over. Your leader is likely fighting Master Tenchu as we speak.", Enma says.
I do hear Marvelous and Kagura argue with the special ninja about Tenchu's corruption, but stubborn as most special ninja are, they refuse to believe them.

I don't see any of this fighting ending soon, yet every one of our allies seem high spirited.
"You know, defeating the blue flame gave us a great morale boost.", Enma says.
Did she read my thoughts?
For a limited time, the fighting stopped. All of us noticed something looming in the air. Three colors of red, green, and blue.
Enma stepped in to the left corner of my eye, I can't help but notice her gawking.
"These are the flames…", she utters.

I look at Kagura and Marvelous, they both look at their hands as green and red auras leave their bodies, they seem confused. I look over to the knocked-out Yume, her blue energy is floating up into the skies.
"Lady Enma, do you understand what this means?", I ask her.
"…", she's audibly thinking, then she begins her elaboration, "I have never seen this before. But from my studies, I know the flames represent the four gods. Flame Transmogrify always turns the flames into one of them. According to the original myth, there is a fifth one. In some beliefs, a dragon of the center, the ultimate god is made when all four of East, West, North and South combine together."

"Do you reckon Tenchu may be combining the flames?", I ask her.
I can see her frown and cold sweat.
"It is possible, he may obtain a flame far more powerful than the ones before…Even worse, the sun is low. He is at his strongest now. I can only pray your leader overcomes this challenge.", she tells me.
I look to my right to see the sun low, creating a perfect twilight.
Leader will be fine. I can't shake the thought of her being entertained by a challenge.

"Leader will win.", I speak quite bluntly.
Enma looks at me for a few seconds, then she smiles and says, "Your faith in your leader is strong."
"Of course, my conviction is what pushed me this far. Leader pushes herself way further every fight. All of us are worried for that reason, but is it also her greatest strength. She won't lose.", I tell her.
Enma looks out into the distance. She says, "If she wins…This war will be over. I am counting on you, Goddess…Lady Suno."

To Be Continued…