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CHAPTER START---
"You blew it," Mei Mei says.
Yuki grits her teeth as her nerves regenerate, now allowing her to feel pain in her immolated feet as they reform.
Mei Mei frowns and stands in the pool, waist-deep, and walks over to the edge where Yuki is. "I told you to make the first attack count. You should surrender now, if he lets you."
"What game are you playing?" Yuki asks as her bones and muscles slowly reform.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. You asked me to get him to a secluded place outside of Japan. Job done. It's not my fault you're out of practice."
"And how exactly did you lure him out of here?" Yuki turns to Mei Mei, glaring a hole through the woman's blackened soul. "What is your relationship with that boy?"
Mei Mei giggles and descends to her shoulders in the water. "What a rude question…"
While Yuki Tsukumo was trying to repair herself, Taiyo was doing the same to his mangled body.
Hundreds of feet away, he lay in the soft, warm dirt, the boiling blood soaking the ground as heat spread farther and farther, melting snow around him. A steady stream of pale blue Cursed Energy flows through and atop him, releasing steam as it restructures his bones and cracks them back into place.
Waves of pain surge through him as the fragments are pushed back into place by reforming muscle and regenerating blood. His organs are repaired and reconnected, leaving his missing eyeball for last.
And lastly, his muscles heal and stitch themselves back together before his skin reforms, allowing him to sit up with one final wave of pain and a desperate gasp.
"Ngh!" Taiyo clutches his chest, feeling the last of his ribs snap into place, removing themselves from his collapsed lungs as his spine realigns itself.
He then lifts a hand to his eye, wincing when he accidentally touches the regenerating eyeball.
"So annoying," he blinks a few times to adjust his vision before glaring at Yuki sitting in the distance.
Rising to his feet, Taiyo lowers his stance before leaping hundreds of feet over to the women, landing between Yuki and the pool.
She freezes, looking up at him as her feet are almost done healing, taking note of how rapidly he recovered.
'Is he that fast, or am I that rusty? Probably both…' she thinks as he turns to her, leaving his back to Mei Mei.
"Sneak attacks are bad sportsmanship," Taiyo says as she's almost done healing. "You're definitely not my type."
Yuki moves to get up and into a defensive stance, but Taiyo is faster, kicking her in the face.
She raises her arms, blocking his strike, but it launches her hundreds of feet away, crashing in the hard snow and dirt before bouncing a few times.
She takes this moment to tumble and dig her bare feet into the ground, skidding to a halt and looking up at her opponent. But she frowns, not sure what's happening as he's at the top of this hill facing Mei Mei.
'What the hell is even going on right now? Did Mei Mei tell him? No, that's impossible, thanks to the Binding Vow we made. But, he doesn't seem mad, is he going to kill her?' She looks down at her hand, seeing all the skin burned off from his kick, and begins repairing it. 'I need a moment to heal, her death should buy me that time…'
Meanwhile, Taiyo casts an annoyed look at Mei Mei.
"You know, technically, we met with a sneak attack," she says.
He rolls his eyes. "And now I'm paying for it. What even is this? Is this the surprise?"
"Do you not like it?"
"If you're going to surprise me with another woman, I'd prefer a redhead."
Mei Mei glares at him and pokes her tongue out.
"I'll deal with you later," he leaps high into the sky, jumping off the air a few times to gain height before turning and rocketing toward Yuki with Immolation.
'Got you.' Yuki stands her ground and pulls back her fist, ready to meet his strike with all her might.
Taiyo descends at a speed she can't react to, but his attack was plainly telegraphed, and she took full advantage of that fact.
She punches forward, allowing the fists to collide, feeling the immense heat surge through her body for a moment. The skin on her hand is instantly gone as the nerves are fried, but Taiyo's entire hand is shattered into red mist from that one clash.
He slams into the ground and rolls into a recovery, leaping away from her follow-up kick to his back and spinning.
He aims his left hand at her and fires a heat beam, charring her left shoulder as she advances onto him.
She gets close and strikes at his head, but Taiyo steps back and kicks toward her side, aiming to break her ribs. Only for her to strike down with her elbow of the extended arm.
'What?!' His eyes widen as she shatters his shin with what should have been a far inferior strike.
Yuki wastes no time in striking his extended thigh with her other hand, only for him to use Immolation to propel his body into a spin. He spins in place and kicks the charred side of her face, sending her crashing through the snow once more, all before his shin could fully heal.
"What is your Innate Technique?" Taiyo asks, yelling through the clearing as his arm reforms.
Yuki gets up and wipes the blood from her mouth, taking the moment to heal her face. "I'm not in the habit of revealing my arsenal."
"Neither am I, but I was just trying to be polite."
"Yours is very well documented. You raise the atomic heat of anything your Cursed Energy touches. No fire, just Immolation."
"Which is why flying was such a pain," Taiyo says jokingly. "And yours? I'm guessing…Super Striking Power?"
"Something like that," Yuki takes a boxing stance, and behind her, a Shikigami appears.
A serpentine skeletal Shikigami as long as the woman is tall. But the segments of white bone were connected by a thick column of muscle, ending in a square beak-like protrusion on its face and a sharp point on its tail.
Yuki rushes Taiyo and holds her open hand to the side. "Garuda!"
The Shikigami curls into a ball and floats into her hand. She then throws it at Taiyo with full force.
He easily leaps to the side, but she uses this distraction to close the distance and enter another close combat round with him, quickly realising he's no longer allowing any clashes, using his superior speed to avoid every strike.
As he's avoiding every hit, Taiyo ponders what he's learned about her. 'Slow RCT, a Shikigami she can throw as a ranged attack, absurd striking power. But her throwing strength is less than mine by a lot, same as all her other physical stats. Her Innate Technique must only work for striking power, not strength, and certainly not durability.'
He smiles, realizing her weakness. "You're a glass cannon."
Yuki's eyes widen, not expecting him to figure her out so quickly, and he immediately counterattacks.
He pushes her wrist aside to safely redirect her strike before punching her in the gut.
He hits so hard she nearly folds over his fist, before he releases a heat beam point-blank at her.
Yuki actively reinforces the contact point, allowing her organs to get ruptured without him blowing a hole through her body as she's sent flying into the air.
The pain blurs her vision for a moment, but she blinks it away in time to see Taiyo rocket up to her.
With a thought, she summons Garuda to her side and grabs its square beak. Taiyo cloaks his fist in Cursed Energy, smiling manically as he launches a strike at her, but she uses Garuda as a whip and meets his attack.
His fist is blown into red mist from the strike, but her momentum causes her to spin while he moves toward her.
He slips and kicks her in the shoulder as he's upside down, sending her back into the ground as he hovers above.
'So, that Shikigami is a conduit for her Innate Technique,' he thinks while watching his hand reform. 'And it only works for striking, ho—'
His All Combat senses an incoming attack and moves him aside, just in time to avoid Garuda smashing through him in ball form.
Taiyo glares down at her, then drops to the battlefield below, standing a dozen meters away as she summons Garuda back to her side. The Shikigami flies down and hovers behind her, poised to strike as its owner heals.
"You're healing even slower than before," Taiyo says. "Slow healing, low versatility, slow combat speed, bad mobility, what exactly makes you Special Grade?"
"Star Rage."
"Your Innate Technique?"
Yuki smiles. "It allows me to add imaginary mass to my body for striking. But as you've surely noticed, it only works for hitting things. My actual weight, speed, and durability don't change. But Garuda can act as a conduit for this ability."
"And what's so special about that?"
"There is no limit to the mass I can give myself. And what happens when something has infinite mass?"
Taiyo's good mood fades as he realizes what she's saying. "You're a walking black hole…"
Yuki takes her combat stance again, and Garuda curls into a ball in her hand.
"If you do that, you'll punch a hole in Iceland, if not destroy the whole thing."
"A fate I'd rather avoid since it would kill me. But be honest with me, which is worse for the world, losing one country, or whatever you have planned?"
Taiyo chuckles and also takes a combat stance. "Oh, lady, you don't even know the half of it…"
Atop the hill, Mei Mei records the battle from the pool while they rush each other, and she can't help but scoff.
"Special Grades, always such a handful…"
END CHAPTER---
Discord: discord .gg /eHuxNeZfyS [Come chat with me]
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
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