It was the contradiction above all that made Chiharu interested in the man. She didn’t know what was going on with him. His mind held tightly closed from the outside. Only through his words could she piece together any sort of an idea of what type of man he was.

Beyond the words, Nereus was a tall man, even compared to the others. Few in Chiharu’s group matched or surpassed him. Though, it was the bright red hair that stood out the most for Chiharu. Living in Japan, such a hair color was uncommon unless it was dyed. It made him seem like he still had a lot of youth in him, though she was certain he was actually fairly old. If she had to make a guess, he was probably in his forties, but in good shape for such an age.

After ten minutes of marching casually away from both the fighting and Capital, Chiharu started to consider if he was going to do anything. “We’re far enough away.” However, he didn’t stop or even react to her. A bit annoyed, Chiharu moved a little closer. Perhaps he didn’t hear her. “This is far enough. We can stop.”

Nothing.

Chiharu reappeared in front of Nereus looking to stop him, however he continued on through her, literally. The unsettling feeling of having someone pass through her sent a chill down her back, but not as much as the same dead look in his eye. It didn’t even look like he saw her, as though she was invisible to him. ‘What the hell’s wrong with him?’

Trying to understand him a little, Chiharu monitored and followed for a little while. Yet, he didn’t stop after waiting. She moved to grab his arm and force him to stop, but she went through him again. ‘What’s wrong with me?’ Chiharu tested her hands and body, everything was solid, normal. Ahead of her, Nereus kept walking. ‘What’s going on? Is this another manifestation of his power? I thought he was water based on what he showed before.’ When she called out to him, he didn’t answer and physically stopping him did nothing as well. She could do nothing to him.

Eventually, he halted, appearing to be no longer interested in their walk. Chiharu moved out in front of him wanting some answers. “Finally decided to stop.”

Nereus barely looked in her general direction. It was hard to tell if he actually saw her. “You failed the first test. Just further proof. I wondered if it was possible, but it seems I might have over spoken about you being alive.”

“Huh?” Chiharu leaned in a little not entirely clear if he was insulting her or not. He wasn’t making a lot of sense. She remembered him saying something about being alive before. “You mean to tell me you were testing to see if I could stop you?”

“Correct, but you failed. Though you seem to have some degree of intelligence and deductive skills. But even an animal has instincts.”

Now she was certain he was insulting her. A bit of a vein popped up on her forehead as she struggled to keep her anger in check. “Comparing me to an animal now? That’s some mouth you’ve got. You’re quite an arrogant bastard, aren’t you?”

“You’re right, animal’s have claws and can protect themselves. I haven’t seen you prove you can do such things. You simple follow, you’re led. You let me do whatever I wanted. You are nothing more than dirt.”

“…dirt…” Chiharu started to lose any control she had on her emotions. He went beyond just being arrogant. He was looking down on her, but he wasn’t even arrogant. The whole time he was so far above her that arrogance was a waste of time. Such superiority made her blood boil.

She leapt after Nereus, throwing out her fist at him. He stopped her with his hand before she got too far. “Can dirt do this?!” A flurry of punches tried their best to land hits on him, but all she got for her troubles was an oddly moist hand dripping in water as he stopped all of her attempts.

“I guess you’re right. You do talk. You’re living dirt.”

Chapter 249 – Living Dirt

Shock and anger mixed through Chiharu’s eyes. She couldn’t break through his defense, but he still called her dirt. ‘I’ve never known someone so…so…’ Anger prevented her from finishing her own thoughts. Only the muscle head made her so upset and it was nothing compared to him. It was worse. She knew he at least acknowledged her despite all of their arguments. The same wasn’t the case for Nereus. He didn’t even know she existed, it felt like to her. And that wasn’t even the worst part of it. She wasn’t worth time in his eyes.

She retreated, seeing that her punches weren’t doing anything to him. Anything she threw at him was just stopped. ‘Water?’ she noted, from looking at her hand. It felt strange when she hit his hand. It wasn’t as though it was soaked in water, but her skin was damp. A couple of drops of water slid down her fingers before getting stuck at her tips. ‘Did he stop me with only water? So is his element really water? Then what was that lack of physical form from before?’

So many questions came up from so little shown. It also seemed that he wasn’t aggressive or eager to start their fight, almost as if she had to prove something to him before the fight could begin. Perhaps another one of his tests needed to be passed.

The thing that bothered her the most was the way he was before during the walk. Further analysis only made the thoughts more unsettling. ‘I couldn’t grab him. It was like he had no real form or it was just an illusion. But he can’t do anything to himself with his powers. So there’s only two possibilities. He created a double of himself or did something to me. Did he take away my physical form?’ Chiharu didn’t want to consider it a possibility, but she knew with their powers anything was possible so long as they thought it up. Nothing was outside of the possibilities. Their power completely denied nature, if they wished for it.

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Negatives from the thoughts became too much of a dwelling point for her. She pushed it aside to focus on the more important issue in front of her. She couldn’t touch Nereus with any of her punches. It wasn’t her normal method, probably a bad habit picked up from the moron, but it should have done something. She knew that she didn’t swing lightly. ‘How did he keep up with my speed? I wasn’t going the fastest I could, but it should have been too fast for him to react. I should have seen what his defense was with that attack.’ The whole thing was covered in a shroud of mystery, both his attitude and his powers.

She knew he used water and it seemed part of his defense. But she needed more information on him. The disinterested, nearly disconnected look from Nereus only made her angrier. Chiharu charged back in for another test. She needed to understand how his power worked.

Chiharu flung her foot out in a wide kick to his upper arm. It should have been sharp and fast, but he still blocked her with his hand. ‘How is that possible? His body shouldn’t be able to move like that!’ She threw more at him as her frustration mounted. Everything she did she wrote off as a test, but it no longer looked like one. Emotions came out more in her voice, grunting and roaring.

Nereus stopped her last attack and placed his hand on her chest. Her body recoiled from some unknown force. It sent her flying backwards out of control. ‘What did he do to me? He just touched me!’ Chiharu stared at him while spinning through the air, the same unfocused eyes never meeting her.

Retrieving her kunai, she dug both into the earth to control her speed and body, no longer flipping end over end. She still carved out a several meter long line through the soft earth with her blade before coming to a full stop. The kunai reached back to their sheath at her side. Chiharu stood up checking on her garb from whatever hit her. The outer layer of cloth covering up the chainmail was destroyed, but it seemed the links of metal remained intact.

Nereus pulled his hand back, rubbing his fingers a little. “I had to hold back quite a bit. It was so weak. So flawed. But I guess it’s the best you can do.”

‘More of his crap. I’m getting tired of listening about it.’ She wanted to do anything to knock him down off his mountain that he stared down upon the world. Anything would do for her. It would make her feel better.

Chiharu glanced around the area for anything, but found that there was literally nothing in sight. The slightly tall grass stretched out to the horizon. It was endless. ‘Must be his Field’s doing. They probably know about my shadow powers thanks to the last fight, even if their Captain came with us. They passed on what they learned no doubt since he faked his death.’ She looked down at her feet. ‘Fortunately, my powers have evolved. I don’t need something else’s shadow anymore.’

Her body slowly sank into the grass until it completely disappeared from sight. Within the shadow world, she moved to the window from Nereus’ shadow. ‘This should catch him off guard.’ She shifted her position a little coming out on his left flank rather than directly behind. Her kunai swung out for the gap between his ribs, but something stopped her blade. He was standing before her with his hand preventing her blade from going any further. “What?!”

“Confused? Is it so beyond your comprehension?” He pushed back on the blade knocking it out of her hand by the same unseen force. “This is why you’re nothing but dirt. A sneak attack was too obvious.”

Chiharu leapt away from him, getting out of his hand’s reach. “…damn…” She rubbed her wrist, a little sore from her weapon behind ripped out of her hand. Redness painted her palm from where she held it. ‘I specifically made sure not to do a direct back attack, figuring he’d expect that, but he still predicted what side I’d come out on. He’s as dangerous as he is arrogant.’

Worse from the attack, she failed to learn anything from the attempt. She knew nothing more about his powers from it than she did a moment before. They generally had a defense as a final line to protect them. She expected to see that defense and hopefully understand what his power was based around. Everything she saw made her doubt his water power. It seemed unlikely from the displays.

She needed a new plan. Confronting him directly proved not to have any success. ‘If I attack from multiple sides, I should be able to learn something. He only has two hands. He can’t block everything.’ Out of sight by her feet, portals into the shadow world opened up for her. She pulled out several kunai and shuriken hidden underneath her mail. They all fell into the grass disappearing from sight.

All around Nereus portals opened in the very air into black voids. They varied in height and position to encompass him completely like an invisible sphere. Not even a second later, weapons flew out of the portals straight for Nereus. Straight became both a figurative and literal interpretation of what happened next.

The kunai and shurikens all moved at him, but their courses weren’t the ones set by Chiharu or their exit from the portals. Some external power seemed to be at work. They all gravitated to him along different lines, but came to the same place, his hand. Nothing hit anywhere else. He had somehow managed to make all of her attacks still come to him and hide his power. “Trying to be clever? It’s going to take more than that.”

‘Dammit!’ Grinding her teeth together, Chiharu tried to analyze what she saw. ‘Even if he’s not doing what I want, I’m getting something. I just don’t know what!’ Nothing about him made any sense to her. Everything she tried just failed. It was as if he knew what she was going to do before she even made it. Like he was inside her mind. An unsettling thought to be sure.

She started to run out of plans to expose his power. All he did was wait for her, making him even more annoying. She wanted to just punch him in the face. If she could, it might calm her anger. Those eyes made her blood burn like nothing else. They continued to look past her rather than at her. She didn’t understand what his problem was with her. ‘I’m not dirt! Bastard!’

In her attempts to buy time for something else and partly because she couldn’t control her anger, Chiharu flew at Nereus. She increased her speed to make it more difficult on him, yet it didn’t work. Mixing up her attacks, she swapped in her blades between every couple of attacks out of pattern just to throw him off. Even if it wasn’t expected, he still didn’t lose his defense. Nothing breached the impossible wall he put up. His hand mocked her. Nothing got through.

She slid back for a break. Nothing worked. What could she do? ‘Those eyes…damn those eyes!’ Emotions raged beating her heart faster. She charged for him again out of options. Anger had full control of her actions. It did even less than nothing. He seemed to handle her easily. ‘How is he so fast?! It’s not possible! I can’t be this slow!’

Nereus ended it by knocking her back. Her back scraped through the earth kicking up a small cloud that hovered around her body. It barely cloaked her, but she used it to disappear into the shadows. She popped out above, but he still stopped her with the same effortless action. “Bastard!”

“Even an animal would know when to run away. This is pointless.”

“Damn you!” Chiharu charged in blindly after him. However, he stopped her in her tracks before she could do anything. She tried to fight him in that position, but it did nothing. All stopped before his hand.

He appeared tired of the events and repetition. Nereus placed a single finger on the chainmail exposed through all of her fighting. “I can see the weakness so easily. Just a slight crack is all that is needed to break something so fragile.” Suddenly all of the links in Chiharu’s chainmail shattered. Her protection blew off her body as the force sent her flying away. “It all crumbles like dirt. Worthless dirt.”