Ano and Emanuel charged at Sylvester from both sides, again. Emanuel led with a high punch, knowing fully well that it wouldn't connect- that wasn't the point of the attack. To Emanuel's pleasant surprise, a hand caught his punch. Emanuel threw a kick aimed directly for Sylvester's ankles, as low as possible, and another hand caught his leg. Emanuel contorted himself, and squeezed out of their grasp.

Ano, meanwhile, hunkered down into a low stance, and suddenly flashed a bright blue as he inhaled sharply. This took both Emanuel and Sylvester off guard, but not as much as what came next. A series of punches, haphazardly aimed but with as much speed and power behind each of them as Sylvester's own Lavender Fields, hailed down on the man. Two of Sylvester's hands moved to block the attacks, but soon another joined as the speed of Ano's assault overwhelmed the two. Then another, and then another, and Emanuel smiled to himself as soon all eight of the hands had moved to block Ano.

Emanuel got behind Sylvester and put him in a chokehold. Sylvester reacted quickly, grabbing Emanuel and throwing him over his shoulder, ideally into the way of Ano's punches. To his disappointment, Ano's attacks had begun to slow, and he had enough time to react as Emanuel was flung over and into him, catching Emanuel as the two of them fell over. Sylvester seized his opportunity, and unleashed hell with another volley of Chalion punches. Emanuel reacted barely in time, taking a few hits from the assault- but none too damaging- and raised the same wall of Organion as he had raised last time. The two went flying again, knocked outside of the radius of Lavender Fields again.

The two stood up, and Emanuel quickly began healing his legs as he told Ano to keep up the attack. Ano dashed in, closing the distance with a punch aimed at Sylvester's head. With a loud crack as he broke the sound barrier, Ano collided with all eight of Sylvester's hands, which had re-formed barely in time to block the attack. Ano followed up with a punch to the gut, pulling away from the hands and putting all of his weight into the strike, but with nobody else to worry about the hands were able to focus all of their attention on blocking his strike. At the exact moment he thought that, Sylvester scanned all around him, seeing Canis Minor lowering its head to dash, but as soon as he caught sight of it the spirit settled back down into a sit.

Then a punch cracked into his face. Sylvester teetered backwards, and reoriented himself back on his feet. He saw Emanuel standing besides Ano, having just thrown the punch. With some luck, the damage of the punch was minimal, but Sylvester felt the blood starting to trickle down his cheek.

"Nice job," Emanuel said as he tapped Ano on the shoulder. "He's only got eight hands. If we can manage to keep all eight of them busy, he can't block us."

Ano smiled, and nodded. "I'll keep it up, then," he panted.

Ano was starting to feel exhausted. Ano did not experience a moment of revelation like Emanuel did; the strength he'd been putting on display now is the same strength that he's always had. His typical overuse and abuse of his Organion was at last beginning to catch up to him. As he panted, and returned to a fighting position, he looked at Emanuel and at Sylvester, who both betrayed no signs of wearing through their reserves. Maybe he was simply burning through too much of his own supply, but it seemed beyond comprehension to him that these two still had more Organion left. That only meant one thing: he had more training to do. Ano clenched his fists. He was more exhausted now than he'd been in a long time- but he was nowhere near tapped out.

Ano made another dash at Sylvester, noticeably slower this time but still faster than any human should be capable of moving. He launched into a combo straight out of Street Fighter, throwing a low kick right for Sylvester's shins before immediately moving into an overhead downward punch. He threw kicks at his midsection, punches at his face, kicks at his head, a punch at his stomach, a punch at his face, and another kick at his legs, giving Sylvester's hands as little time as possible to block. Emanuel made his way around behind Sylvester, repositioning Canis Minor alongside himself so the two were on opposite sides. Sylvester followed Canis Minor with his eyes, once again worried about it more than the other two boys, since one good bite from the wolf spirit could kill all three of them.

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Sylvester smiled to himself as Emanuel charged in from the side. Wouldn't that be great, though? He thought to himself. Why not kill these two pieces of shit, if I'm gonna go down anyway? Emanuel wound up a punch, and at the same time Ano sped up his attacks, causing the hands to all move to block his attacks. Now was when Sylvester decided to make a gamble. He changed the directive of Lavender Fields from "defend" to "attack" in his mind, and watched with a smile as the hands slipped right past the barrage of blows from Ano, and rained down upon the boy. Sylvester stepped backwards, dodging the attacks from Ano, and turned around and landed a kick in Emanuel's stomach right as the boy readied his attack. The two reeled backwards in pain, but had no time to recover as the eight hands immediately divided themselves among the two of them and began making their attacks.

Emanuel smirked as he blocked and dodged the four hands' blows- these attacks were nowhere near as powerful as the Chalion version. Chalion is inherently more damaging, after all, as its clockwise spin distorts space and causes damage to the targets at an atomic level. Wait a second- clockwise spin?

Emanuel dashed to the side Sylvester, who immediately made chase. There was a knowing look in the boy's eyes- Emanuel was on to something, and Sylvester didn't like that. The four hands kept Ano busy, Sylvester reassured himself, so he had time to put the pressure on Emanuel before he could finish whatever plan he was cooking up. At that moment, Sylvester remembered that the fight wasn't between the three of them- there was another! He paused his chase to quickly scan around him for Canis Minor, losing sight of Emanuel in the process. It took him only three seconds to spot the wolf, but those three seconds were all Emanuel needed.

Sylvester was startled into looking back in Emanuel's direction by a loud crash. He could not spy the boy- until he looked up, and saw him up in the air. Blue energy crackled around him, and quite a lot of it- Sylvester didn't like the look of that, and returned his hands to his side by changing the directive back to "defend." Emanuel reached the ceiling of the ceiling of the classroom, and kicked off of it, rocketing like a comet right towards Sylvester.

Sylvester had three things to worry about now. In this moment, the adrenaline kicked in, and he felt his combat instincts sharpen. There were three threats coming at him at this exact moment: the obvious threat of Emanuel, who would be upon him in less than a second; but also Ano, who was freed from the pressure of the four hands' attacks, and was certainly coming at him from behind with another barrage of attacks that would occupy all of his hands; and worse, the wolf spirit, whose position he could not ascertain for sure, and could end the fight with one attack and start a whole new fight against a Feeder. In less than a second, Sylvester had to decide how to act. The hands could take care of Ano alone, leaving himself to guard against Emanuel's attack, or could guard against the wolf and Emanuel together, leaving him to guard against Ano's assault. He could dodge Emanuel, but leave himself out-of-position against any attacks from the other two. The worst part was, Sylvester could not determine how the hands would act- he simply had to trust that their process would identify the most dangerous attack or attacks. Sylvester considered the exhaustion that was beginning to become apparent on Ano's body- he was willing to take the risk of letting his attacks through, since he was sure all it would take was one or two hands to redirect the boy's comet attack. Sylvester had made his decision.

Sylvester watched as two hands reached up to catch Emanuel's strike and redirect it, and as the remaining six disappeared behind him. He'd made the right call. He heard the clash of fists against fists behind him as Ano's barrage persisted, and watched Emanuel prepare to make contact with the two hands that he'd prepared to block him. He'd won.

Emanuel's blue trail shifted suddenly to a deep red, the crackling sparks of lightning shooting off in all directions as the untrained boy did his best to harness an energy unfamiliar to him. Sylvester watched in horror as the boy's fist phased right through the two hands he'd prepared, and as that same fist now hovered immediately in front of his face.