Dragons Clash

[LAIX1: Painful Determination]

The dragon wrapped around Joule let out a piercing note and the world crumbled away. All that was left was Joule, Kimi and their dragons floating in a void of space.

Kimi clutched her throat as if she'd found herself actually in the airless void of space but with a replying roar from her dragon she relaxed.

While there should have been no air to carry her voice through the vacuum, Joule's eyes still heard her words.

"Amazing, so this is what your dragon can do!"

The four-eyed dragon was not a teleporter, it was an illusionist. However, what separated fact and fiction was merely what a human believed. Kimi had choked because for that moment she'd honestly believed that she was in the empty void.

"It won't work on me again though!" Kimi jumped off a ground that didn't exist and summoned a swarm of feathers.

"If I tag you, that's it!" Kimi yelled, a helpful warning or a threat?

Instead of fleeing though, the four-eyed dragon went on the attack. Its position in the void of space shifted towards Kimi, accelerating towards her at the speed of thought. Kimi pulled up her dragon's wing. As the image of the dragon flew into her, Kimi felt a rush of wind a moment before the real dragon snuck in a strike from her blindspot.

Kimi was able to get her working arm up to block the hit but she still yelled out in pain as blood fell into the void.

Joule couldn't think clearly as the battle raged on. Her thoughts were occupied with words and symbols that could drive a man to insanity.

This was not truly a fight between dragons after all. The dragons were merely representatives. This was a fight between forms of magic. Yet Kimi was an esper, and not a gemstone, using such magic should be destroying her.

And it was. Her arm was decaying. The more she used her dragonic passenger, the faster it degraded. Joule's ability development made her susceptible to this too, if only barely. The dragon wore away where it had made contact with her- her throat.

Each time the dragons clashed in truth, sparks flew. These were not united theories though, each was its own view on the world. This was a conceptual battle as much as a physical one.

Back in the "reality" the four-eyed dragon had created, Joule could do nothing but watch as the dragons fought.

There was no good ending to the fight now. Joule couldn't help but think she'd made a mistake in calling for her parasite. As Kimi fought, she was degrading further. The degradation was creeping up her shoulder.

"This is great!" The young woman called out with a laugh "I really got your fangs out of you, more literally than I expected even!"

"Be silent, foolish one!" The four-eyed dragon answered in Joule's voice "Do you not understand the ramifications for what you've done here?"

…It was strange in a way that the four-eyed dragon could speak and yet Kimi's angelic dragon couldn't.

"It's the simplest thing?" Kimi claimed as she blocked more attacks using her dragon's body "Both of us need to win to see our desires met, so we fight with all that we have. Every last tooth and claw is blunted and torn off if it will fulfil our wishes!"

Beyond the field the four-eyed dragon had created, in the prison yard, an orb of pure darkness had appeared. An orb that at once was massive and yet so small when you realised it contained the clashing of dragons.

As Misaka awoke and looked into it, she could almost make out flashes of light within.

"It's just like what I did before." She muttered, remembering the attempt made to shift her to level 6. The black orb which had been broken with Touma's dragons.

The Four-eyed dragon had created something like it. A barrier of a sort. As Misaka tried to touch it, there was a flash of light and she pulled her hand back as if stung. Her hand continued to sting but as she looked down at it, it seemed to be unaffected.

As Misaka looked at the orb though, she noticed two things. First, it was breaking the ground around it. The sphere cut into the ground around the base and the dirt there was being ripped apart. There was a growing area around it where grass was simply dying. Collapsing, turning grey before fading to dust.

The second thing she noticed was that the orb was floored. As time passed and flashes could be seen deep in the orb, cracks were forming across the orb. Sooner or later the orb would shatter and then… there would be nothing to contain the fight of the two apocalyptic dragons.

As she pondered, guards were running up behind her. One woman among them looked horrified.

"What's… going on?"

"We need to help them!"

Misaka and the guard looked to the side at the same time. Uiharu and Saten hadn't fled. Saten looked like she wanted to but Uiharu was standing firm.

Within the orb, both dragons had begun preparing their strongest attacks. The four-eyed dragon was singing, a single clear tone that was fluctuating across pitches as if looking for one in particular. The angel dragon's head was glowing as it prepared to turn its rival to salt.

Though the angel dragon didn't- couldn't- speak, it knew what the consequences of this would be just as well as the four-eyed dragon did.

If this went wrong, this entire city could be destroyed in their clashes. Even if it was though, in a way that might be seen as the least of the damage. Academy City was only a few decades old when compared to the millenia old records that could be destroyed if one of them were to be crippled.

And yet Kimi still pushed on as the corruption spread from her shoulder to her chest. In a way, the Angel dragon might be hoping it reached her heart before she was able to do irreparable damage in this fight.

It wasn't enough though as the corruption spread across her chest and began to encroach on her face- she still kept going. Kimi wouldn't give up until she got what she wanted or died.

Joule's own corruption now spread across her face too, veins running along her face and marks like scales trying to push through.

To be an esper is to ensure that sparks strike you physically, instead of conceptually. The clash between their own personal realities and the truths the dragons represented, the clash between the opposing truths of the dragons. The Poltergeists that came from the clashing of the personal realities of Kimi and Joule. No, that last one wasn't occurring. Their esper powers were no longer the cause behind this. Even if the AIM jammers were reactivated, this clash wouldn't cease.

Light shone and a song ran out and the fake world- the orb created to protect the real one- shattered. The battle would continue in reality.

And if something wasn't done then all of academy city would thus be reduced to a desert of salt and mirages.

End of chapter.

So: What are the dragons? I'm pulling mostly from a collected set of theories I could find online that basically defines the dragons in Touma's arm as something like a backup of various phases.

If phases are clashing, the result is sparks. I still don't understand sparks that well as I haven't read NT properly but this is what I got from them.

Someone without an account asked if Joule could be described as possessing an Octima in this draconic state, in answer I'll say… "Maybe?" Its not quite her power, nor is it truly another level of the lifewave. Even so… it's something alright.