“Folding?” Ayumi crammed a lot of training and knowledge into him during their sessions, but it was one term that he never heard spoken. He didn’t like the sound that it had coming from Vangelis. Staring down at his hand, the blood layered thinly across his palm, kept in place by the particles surrounding him. ‘The strength of his attack increased significantly after he did that ‘Folding’, enough to break my defense.’
Tapping the sword against his shoulder, Vangelis looked a little relaxed by the situation. “Seems like you’re confused.” Vangelis tilted his head to crack his neck a little. ‘I figured with someone of his natural strength would have been noticed attending the academy. Which means he either stayed hidden or was from the outside, but there shouldn’t be anyone this powerful out there, at least not marked. Very interesting kid, I doubt he’s self-taught with the control he has…’ A shift in his eyes turned to the distant battle with Eudokia.
The pieces fell into place for Vangelis quickly. ‘Considering her skill level and talents, it’d make sense she trained him. Though why withhold such information? He’d be considerably more powerful, just what is her game?’
Yuki hated admitting he didn’t know enough in front of Vangelis. The man was terribly arrogant and it only gave him more ammunition for his taunts. ‘Wish I had pressed Ayumi for more details, there are clearly things I’m unaware of. This man is likely making use of advanced techniques…damn, this is going to be even more difficult than I figured…’ Yuki’s fists tightened up considering the rest of the battle he had in store against Vangelis.
Chapter 189 – Shifting Attacks
Vangelis’ knowing grinned seemed to get deeper on his face. Any deeper and he would start looking like a mischievous cat. “I’ll leave you to figure it out.” The sword in his hand came back down, the blade tip pointed at Yuki. A raise from his eyebrow signaled a small bit of pity for Yuki. “One little bit I’ll pass along to you though. You’ll like this.” His grin went deeper. He drew out the pause to make it even more dramatic. “The average MP can only do one Folding,” he added, showing his index finger to Yuki. Even though his face didn’t change, the words made his face seem like it turned darker with his intent.
Grinding his teeth, Yuki pushed his foot back a little to brace for the next attack. Padding out his particle armor on his hands, he sidestepped to deflect the sword blow away from him. ‘I don’t know if he’s just toying with me or not, but if what he said is true then I’ll need to end things before he decides to do another Folding.’ Yuki rushed in with his wrist holding the blade away, causing sparks with the clash. As Yuki came into range of Vangelis, a shield shifted out of a different dimension to block his fist.
The initial impact of his fist cracked the shield. His hand continued to punch through, even with the shield trying to regenerate. Yuki’s eyes narrowed as he forced more of strength into his arm. ‘I’m this close and his weapons aren’t disappearing…he truly has increased the strength of his Field…’ He quickly realized that he wasn’t going to succeed with the frontal attack. Yuki leapt back, already noticing a spear shooting in from the side of the shield. The spearhead caught the edge of his gi, but did nothing other than tear fabric. ‘Too close…’
Vangelis retracted his sword’s blade to the standard length. Returning back to the previous dimension, the shield vanished from sight along with the spear. “You’ve got good reflexes, kid!” He took another swing with the sword at Yuki. While still in the swing, an arrow appeared in front of his head. Several more materialized around in a circle before firing at Yuki as well.
Moving to deal with the sword, Yuki could only swipe his free hand through the area to create a wall out of the particles to block the arrows. Using the denser gathering in his hand blocking the blade, his hand closed around the blade to destroy it. Yuki followed through in a smooth motion to snatch up the broken metal and fling it back at Vangelis.
The blade vanished before it got anywhere even close to Vangelis. He smirked a little, enjoying Yuki’s efforts. However, amongst the counterattack Yuki disappeared from his sight. ‘A distraction huh? He’s smart on his feet now that he’s cleared out the emotions.’ His arm arched through the air suddenly causing a thick wooden wall to grow out of the ground. The Field at his feet now appeared to be a finely polished hard work floor that shone brightly his reflection in its surface.
A thud echoed around the wood. Splintering, it broke free a moment later. Vangelis glanced around behind him knowing that it was Yuki. ‘This should be a fun moment. The destructive nature of his powers makes things interesting.’
Slightly surprised, Yuki’s eyes widened a touch to find wood blocking him. The fact that it was wood came as more of a surprise to him than the fact that he was blocked. He actually expected to be stopped by Vangelis. Everything that he had done so far in the fight produced no results. If a simple feint defeated the man, Yuki would have been disappointed, relieved but certainly disappointed. He didn’t disappoint him.
Wood stopped him. ‘Something new again…what’s with this guy? How does he have so many different abilities? Just how complex are his Laws?’ Suddenly, a block of the wood stretched out at Yuki grabbing at his arm. It quickly wrapped around his forearm and upper arm in only a second. “What?!” The motion caught him off guard.
Yuki ground his teeth together and thinned his features as he recovered himself. Peeling away from his legs, the energy around his arm brightened between the wood increasing in density and opacity. It tore through the wood turning it a soft shade of red. Once he ate away enough of the wood, Yuki escaped to a safe distance.
Shaking his arm a little to get the feeling off, Yuki stared back at the wall. ‘Wood this time…he keeps changing, why isn’t he using one theme? Everyone I’ve fought always had a theme, but this guy doesn’t seem to have a theme at all!’
A loud bang ripped through the area leaving torn wood in chunks. Across the wood and grass, a dull ping rang out. “Thought I told you to stay awake, kid!” remarked Vangelis, leaning against the wall as though casually talking to a neighbor over a fence.
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Snapped out of the distraction, Yuki narrowed his focus to the source of the attack. A thin smoking trail came out of the hole in the wood. Hidden behind the black hole, a faint shine of a circular object surfaced. ‘I thought wood was his new power.’
Vangelis leaned his head down resting on his hand, appearing bored. However, out of the wall came another series of loud shots ripping through the wood. The speed left Yuki with no chance to do anything. Crashing against his barrier, nothing happened. Vangelis grinned despite the lack of effectiveness.
‘Huh? His last attacks were more effective. They pierced my defense, but this is weaker…is it because they’re too small?’ Yuki started to march forward. Channeling the particles to gather in his hand, he hardened the shape into a sphere. ‘I need an offense…’ Yuki fired it off once finished before Vangelis got another round off.
The ball destroyed the wall and kept going. Vangelis managed to evade a direct hit, but something still took a hit. He lifted up his arm to examine a pistol with the entire barrel cleanly cut through up to the trigger. The arch cut through his gun left his trigger finger exposed, nearly caught in the attack. “Hmm…” Lazily, he turned his eye back to Yuki as he approached. “That was rather close, kid.”
Yuki didn’t like the look in his eyes, but still continued forward. He started up his next attack. ‘I got through, so even with him stronger I still have the superior power! Just need to keep pressing—‘ A force from behind interrupted Yuki’s thoughts. It grabbed him by the leg and threw him to the ground. “What the—“ Before Yuki could even look around at what happened, it was dragged into the air. The stinging in his face barely had a chance to pass before pressure wrapped around his leg.
“You might want to keep your eyes open too, kid,” Vangelis replied, still from his position leaning against the remains of the wood wall. He turned the broken gun back on Yuki, no longer using subterfuge to hide it. The barrel of the weapon materialized, quickly recovering its form. “This might sting a little.” Vangelis smirked as he fired the gun. Four bullets came out of the gun so quickly they ran only centimeters behind the next, despite him only having fired once.
Each bullet slammed into Yuki’s trapped chest. The wood wrapped around him ensured a direct hit. The bullets did nothing to scratch him, but the impacts left his chest stinging as promised. They felt like being hit with a sledgehammer. His bones groaned, making Yuki wonder if it cracked a rib or two. ‘…damn…’
“You might want to dodge the next one, kid! If you can…” The gun suddenly morphed into a significantly larger weapon, resembling that of a shotgun merged with an assault rifle. A barrel more like a sniper rifle extended from it, appearing even more deadly, if not bizarre.
Gritting his teeth, Yuki stared down the barrel. ‘He’s got me trapped. If I transfer the strength, the wood will crush my unprotected body, but if I do nothing…’ His mind went over the scenario repeatedly in the precious seconds he had before Vangelis attacked him.
Vangelis grinned watching the panicked look in Yuki’s eyes. He gave him a couple seconds longer to let the feeling drench him entirely before firing the strange weapon. Firing the gun caused a giant cloud of smoke to blast the area while the massive bullet spun through the front of the cloud trailing streams of white.
The theatrics left him waiting on the smoke to clear for his conclusion. ‘I wonder what sort of results I got…’ While the smoke started to fade, he retracted his weapon. The wood disappeared along with the Field. A cement Field replaced it, an unbroken sheet of cement continuing on to the ends of his Field. With the wood gone, a thud against the cement crawled out from the smoke.
Yuki surfaced from the smoke appearing surprisingly unharmed by the attack. Vangelis narrowed his eyes reading the scene for an answer. When he understood, it made him laugh a little. “So you moved it only from the places the wood didn’t cover to give yourself more protection.” He watched the transparency slowly expand back over his body.
‘That was close, I wasn’t sure if it was possible…’ Yuki trailed off his thoughts when he noticed the situation. The wood was gone and a new Field was present. He understood well enough what it meant. ‘He’s got a different power now. What is it this time?’
Yuki waited on the next action from Vangelis. He started learning how he couldn’t react thoughtlessly against him. Every time he tried before it failed. He always failed to reach him. The man seemed to have a trick in his bag for everything. Yuki had to wait to see what came next. It was his only chance. ‘He’s got to have a limit to how many different Laws he’s using. I just need to wait until I’ve seen them all. I can’t just do full offense against him like I thought, I’m going to end up failing again.’
Tension built up between the two as Yuki waited in a delayed action. Vangelis seemed to pick up on Yuki’s hesitation and let the tension play out. Like with everything else, he enjoyed playing with Yuki in any way possible. Everything dragged out for his entertainment. He knew he would win. It was a question of how far he would have to go before the end. ‘He’s making things very fun, finally…I think it’s about time to throw off the balance he thinks he’s found…’ Vangelis grinned at the thoughts playing through his mind.
The grinning devil only made Yuki’s body more rigid with tension. He could see the man had things planned, but could only guess as to what they were. ‘I wish he’d stop drawing this out. I know he’s just playing with me and I can’t do anything about it. I need to understand his power to beat him. All this switching he’s doing is making it clear that he doesn’t want me to figure him out. It’s all part of his strategy, to keep me off balance and moving at his pace.’ Tightening his fists, Yuki felt a change in the winds as an omen of things to come. ‘I’ll have to keep playing his game until I’ve got him figured out and hope I survive until then…’
Resuming the fight, Vangelis casually flicked his finger at Yuki with the tip of his finger discharging a wide green blast. It completely engulfed Yuki with no time to react. However, moments later Yuki burst through the light trailing off dust from his gi. Vangelis immediately disappeared and reappeared nearby giving him enough time to notice before firing off another green blast of energy.
Yuki managed to have enough to transfer his defenses forward to deal with the force of the attack. It merely blew over him, but it still pushed him back. The previous attack left his body sore and stinging, unable to dampen almost any of it. ‘He’s back to the energy blasts and the disappearing thing again! It’s significantly more powerful because of his Folding technique, but I’ve dealt with this before. I know how he moves and what to expect. I’ll show him how useless it is against me and force him to change to something else, perhaps another I’ve seen and counter easier!’ Yuki got a little excited to know he started to feel comfortable with the fight. He could finally fight Vangelis.
Lifting two fingers at Yuki, a ball of green light grew at the tip of his fingers. ‘He’s doing something different this time. I figured wide blasts weren’t the only attack he had, but I can handle this as well.’ Yuki dug in as he prepared for the attack. He kept his eyes focused to respond to the type of attack Vangelis planned to use next.
A narrow beam of bright green light came at Yuki. It looked concentrated unlike the previous shots at him. Yuki’s mind instinctively redirected all of his defense towards the left side of his body, while he tried to get himself out of the way. Yuki turned his head only a little in the time he had to watch his left arm disappear from sight as the force of the blast turned him and made him stumble backwards. He could feel his arm heating up from the blast with things becoming even more uncertain.
Vangelis gave a wicked smirk to Yuki as he pulled out a pistol from behind his back. He quickly took aim at Yuki.
Wide eyed with shock, Yuki didn’t know how to react. The blast slowly ended with his arm still intact, but when he heard the gunshot, his defenses weren’t ready. ‘Both?! He tricked me again!’ A large amount of blood sprayed up into the air as Yuki fell backwards. Pain screamed through his body and reached his lips. He couldn’t hold it back.
Suddenly, all of his bruises, bumps and minor injuries felt like crippling ailments. Yuki struggled with his wrecked body to look over at the injury. His eyes shrank to the size of pins when he saw his arm completely missing. Blood continued to pour out into the grass. Shock kept him from being able to scream anymore. ‘I still don’t understand…’ thought Yuki, as light faded from his eyes.