‘…crap…’ The feeling of being more in control of the fight left him unprepared for the woman actually coming at him in earnest. ‘I had a feeling she was withholding power, but nothing like this…’ He had only barely seen how much his sister could do in the battles in Atlantis. So he had very little to work on for his expectations.

Sweating a little, he uneasily slid his leg back getting the feeling he was in over his head again. He committed himself to the fight, but doubt popped back up with a vengeance. Not that he was allowed much room to take action on it.

Now that he displayed some amount of competence, the woman in his sister’s body started taking their fight seriously. She opened with a significantly larger barrage on him than she used previously. None of his plans prepared for such a scale of assault. ‘I can’t be running now… Not with my sister in front of me!’

Making use of his only motivation, he hardened his position and focused his attention. What little plans he had set up for a major counterattack against the woman he used up just clearing out the initial wave. It only covered a third of the attack. Afterward, he had to get more creative making use of his shield, weapons and energy attacks just to try to stay ahead. But it still left him with a third. It wasn’t enough to completely take down her attack. ‘She’s got a numbers and tactical advantage over me… How am I supposed to beat her like that?’

There were still leftovers that he hadn’t dealt with and they were upon him before he could think about the problem. All he managed to do was dodge what he could and take the rest. Everything he couldn’t stop slammed into him, throwing him backwards across the ground.

Chapter 340 – Dawn Light

Coughing his throat nearly hoarse, Yori was still alive, somehow. Blood dripped down his face and soaked into his clothes. “Damn…how am I going to do this?” He used a collapsed chair for support to stand up. “Huh?” Yori looked around not even realizing that he crashed into someone’s home. “Oh yeah, we’re not on the school grounds anymore…”

Staring around at the destruction he caused from just colliding with the house gave him a moment of pause. It was just another reminder of how different he was now. “All my insistence on being normal… This isn’t normal. None of this is…”

Though he didn’t have much time for such thoughts as he picked up the woman through the hole he created. “Right, our fight isn’t over.” He glanced around at the sound of something off only realizing in the last moment that it was another attack. It punched through the house hitting the ground where he stood only a moment before.

While he turned in the air, his eyes sought out the next attack. ‘I know that’s not the only one she’s got. She’s not like that. This is only a setup so that I go where she wants me.’ Using his barrier along his arms, he caught sight of the attack. Since he reduced the barrier size and increased its thickness, he was able to use it to block the attack. Yet she had already planned for that as well with Yori detecting another attack.

He crashed to the ground again. Only changing where it hit him saved him. ‘She’s getting lethal with the attacks now. I guess she’s seeing me as a serious threat now…’ Pulling himself out of the rubble, he wiped away the smoke that masked his vision. ‘She can see three or four moves ahead of me and I’m only looking one or two at best… If I’m going to be able to stand on even footing I’m going to need to do something to throw her off. Something she can’t predict.’

Another attack came in after him, which he took head on rather than dodging as he had the habit of doing. His barrier could manage it. After a little bit, he saw the next attack meant for him, but nowhere he stood. ‘She expected me to be there rather than here… She already knows I like to dodge rather than be hit, though I hate risking being hit, this might be the only way I can work.’

He launched a counterattack immediately in timing with her second strike. Being in the house, he had a lot of guesswork at her location. Jumping around the house to avoid her previous attack made it difficult to see her. ‘This really is just like a game of Shogi, she’s playing. Positioning, counter positioning. Forcing moves and threatening. It’s all tactics for her… I’ve got to play on her level…but she’s better at this than me… I was never great at Shogi…’

Running through the ruins of the house, he started to work on his own plan of attack. He kept things simple for himself. She had better predictions than he hoped to match, but he could count on that. It gave him a place to counter from knowing what she would know him.

She already made adjustments to her attacks knowing that he stopped trying to be so predictable. As he moved around, she planned for more variables. ‘Dammit! She’s able to have this many alternate plans set up? Just how is she able to keep track of this many plans at once?!’

The more things dragged out for him the more it became clear how skilled the woman truly was in tactical battles. Yori struggled just to keep his own plans together against her.

An explosion from the roof of the house preceded the appearance of Yori. Landing on the roof, he had a better view of the woman than before. ‘I don’t know how much longer I can keep this going…’ He spared the moment to breathe after all of the running.

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Then the game began.

Attacks positioned themselves in the air against Yori. He immediately responded with counterattacks lined up. A defensive line came up to stop her. But she clearly had more at her ready. Flanking attacks came out and he spread out his line to cover them.

Then she repositioned everything in a new line up. Yori could see how different the attack was from the others. It was no longer about direct attacks. She was playing mind games with him now as well. She moved to out position him.

Always one step behind reacting, but ready, Yori managed to mostly stay even with her. It was hard to try to absorb everything that happened. The sky filled with their attack moves and darting around in feints and flanking maneuvers.

Yori wiped away the sweat and blood that collected on his forehead. ‘Focus…she won’t let you up…even breathing is wasted time…’ He was more right than he wished. The exact moment he paused in their dance, she punched to his defenses. It all collapsed in an instant.

“…damn!”

“You played well for a novice.”

The part of the roof Yori stood up collapsed underneath him. He spun down while keeping an eye on her. “I’m not done yet!” Behind him in the darkness of the house, a bright light grew out.

Tilting her head a little, she swiftly analyzed the situation. “So you’ve been diverting part of your power to charge up that. You sneak a cannon behind your defense. Impressive…”

As he disappeared out of sight, Yori gave a small grin. “Always have an ace up your sleeve.”

The mass of energy finished its charge releasing all of the stored up energy the moment he left. Shockwaves from the initial release ripped the roof off the top of the house as the beam completely obliterated the shards of wood and clay. Kick back from the force blew out the floor and walls of the house bringing it all raining down around Yori.

A crater remained where the house used to be with Yori collapsed at the bottom. Pillars of smoke completely surrounded the area as the black energy raced through the sky for the woman. Even before it reached her the black light shining from it darkened her skin and appearance. All of her attacks lined up for Yori were washed over like a tsunami crashing into the shore.

Nothing remained behind.

However, she did nothing more to counter his attack. Yet with an attack of such size, it seemed unlikely anything she had could actually change its course. The mass of energy would easily overtake her. Yori could finally rest at ease having beaten her at her own game.

Black completely surrounded her leaving nothing of her visible from the outside. It continued on past her taking over the space around her.

While the attack kept up the intensity, Yori started to pick himself back up. He wiped away the smoke around him to get back up. Sweat covered his body. “Finally… It was nearly impossible keeping it together the whole time, but it paid off for me. Her overconfidence defeated her in the end.”

Yet as he watched his attack, there was an unsettling feeling he got watching. “The hell? What is this that I’m feeling?” Then a split developed in the black waves of energy. He knew what it had to be. Yori stepped forward in surprise. “Impossible! That had all of my power! She can’t have survived unscathed!”

The black energy finished its pass and continued into the sky destroying the cloud cover before disappearing into space. Still standing unmoved from her place was the mysterious woman. She turned her gaze down to Yori. “You’re right that there is a powerful advantage to having saved an ace. But such tactics are only for those that are weak. True power doesn’t require the reliance on such desperation.”

Yori’s shoulders slumped from his neck. “That’s not possible…”

“This is possible. This is the reality.” She pointed her finger down at the ground. A massive crater, one that eclipsed Yori’s, ripped through the neighborhood destroying all of the homes. All the debris came floating up into the air. “I told you before this started that it was going to be impossible for you to defeat me.”

He still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The power that she displayed went beyond anything that he thought possible for Yumi. Even worse, she didn’t even look like she was breaking a sweat. “You can’t be this powerful! We all got our powers at the same time!”

“But everyone’s evolution is different and more than any of you, Yumi’s desires for power eclipses all of you. Thanks to the desperate battles she found in Atlantis, her power is rapidly advancing to meet with her wishes. This is still nothing compared to what she wants.”

“You’re lying! Yumi doesn’t wish for power, not this destructive power!”

“You’re the one that’s clueless. You claim to know your sister, but you know nothing about her. This is what she wished to be.”

“Not that again! I know my sister! You’re just a fake personality created by the bastard!”

“I might be fake, but I know my place unlike you. So who is actually fake?”

“Stop acting like you know anything!”

“Denial will only lead you to your own destruction.” She motioned to the debris that floated around her. It all flew down at Yori in sizes that varied from small pebbles all the way to massive chunks of earth or houses.

Gritting his teeth together his body was already telling him no. “Dammit!” Swords appeared in his hand as beams erupted from the crater around him. He used the opening volley of his attack to thin out the storm while he jumped into the debris storm. Within the moment, he body attuned with his memories of fighting against Athene. The training carved into his muscles remembered it all. It moved without his thoughts as though it was the most natural thing.

His blades sliced through piece after piece giving him a path through the storm. From the side, he called upon spare blades he had in the air to flank her. She quickly countered them before they even got anywhere. He kept materializing attacks as she shot them down. She saw through it all, but he kept cutting a way to her.

Unfortunately, buried behind all the storm was a purple beam coming straight for him. He punched out of the storm already seeing that she had another attack lined up outside. She left him with only one exit through it. It was obviously going to have an attack as well, but he charged it into flying through the air. Deflecting them off his swords, he lined up a series of feints and flanking attacks. She had more than he had planned, completely wiping out all of his attempts.

Yori spun through the air dodging and jumping around trying to stay ahead, still three steps behind her. He took a lot of damage when she wanted it to happen, but he survived biting through the pain and reaching out for her.

Stretching out his blade, he closed with her getting the closest that he had been since the start. However, she stopped his sword with just the tip of her index finger. Surprise flashed through his eyes.

“You’re finished.”

“I can still keep going!”

“No, this is the end for you. I only allowed you this close, because you’re out of power. I knew how much you had left and allowed you to be here so that you could understand that you’ve failed. You can’t win.”

“What?!” The energy in his sword suddenly evaporated into the air and his body slammed like a truck just fell on him. He fell through the air crashing into the crater he created before. “No! I won’t…”

She appeared down at the edge of the crater. “You already exceeded your limits a long time ago and had been forcing your reserves empty to reach this point. You can’t fight anymore.”