"So?" I asked him, "Now?"

"Now!" Shaid yelled, signaling the Voices to send all three of us sky high.

Being sent upwards with such force basically equated to plummeting to your death, but like, the opposite. Plummeting upward? I guess that's the best way to describe the feeling. It was as if all of the organs inside my body were lagging behind due to the inertia, and I found it hard to pick up any air along the way too. Right, we probably should've thought this one through a bit more...

"The hell did you do!?" Olya's vocal cords just barely reached us.

"When are we gonna stop going up, dammit!?" Lem too seemed terrified.

Indeed, we haven't exactly stopped ascending, and judging by the speed we're going at, I don't think that fact is gonna be changing anytime soon. The islands below us already look miniscule, so I have to wonder what it'll look like at the top. At this point, we might just reach Heaven without ever having even died.

"Lune Grimheart, answer me this instant!" Olya still raged on, "What's your goal with this!"

My goal? Simple, beat you to a pulp while I have the chance. Well, I say this, but we wouldn't have been able to do anything against Olya had those Voices not called out to us. They're the real MVPs making this possible.

"Fine then, if you don't wanna tell me...!" Olya's Eyes turned a deep Gray, "I'll just have to beat the information out of you!"

Right now, we were in the sky, so movement wasn't as easy as it would be while we were, say, back down on the ground. Still, he shifted his bodyweight until he was practically hurling towards me. Somehow, he must have had experience to know how to do this. Thankfully, though I didn't have experience, I did have Lem.

"Hey, are you even trying to survive!?" He chewed me out, moving me out of the way of the attack just in the nick of time.

"Tch, shiet." Olya cursed.

Indeed, Olya had overshot because of putting all his weight into that attack. It took him a while to steer himself back towards us, but he managed soon enough. Quicker than last time, he had gone in once again only to get dodged once more.

"Stop running!" He Commanded.

Though his Eyes glew that demanding golden Yellow, they didn't frankly rob us of our movements since we weren't running in the first place. Right now, we were "ascending". Yes, that is the true reason behind our master plan! With the Voices' mighty updraft sending us soaring through the clouds, most if not all Iro Abilities were directly made useless!

"How are you still moving!?" He got angry enough for his Iro to turn Red, "Burn to a crisp! E-Eh?"

"With so much airflow, you can't expect your Sparks to last, can you?" I jeered, "Hey, come on! What's wrong, big guy? I thought you said you were gonna beat the information out of me?"

In truth, even his Gray Iro Ability wasn't helping him one bit. To Go Solipsistic meant to slow if not stop the flow of time completely, but that does nothing if all you're gonna change is the fact that you're now ascending slower rather than faster. Since he wasn't grounded, even that was made useless.

"If I can't come to you, I can still bring you to me!" He shook away the anger in favor of Converting to a Blue Iro.

Ropes, lassos, Instaropes, whatever he Materialized and tried throwing at me was either completely blown away from the sheer speed we were going at or was just incredibly easy to dodge. That one failed as well, meaning he was down to just Brown, Purple and White in his arsenal. All three Iro Abilities don't have a physical effect on the world around them, so in other words...

"You still don't get it, you rat bastard?" Lem mocked the desperately panicking old man, "Until we reach the ground, you can't do anything to us!"

"No, I refuse to believe it!" He shouted, "Iro Abilities, the strongest Ability a human in this world can Behold, completely negated by just this!"

"Believe it, don't believe it... All the same when you're facing the facts." I smirked, "Now old man, ready for another shocking piece of news?"

As I shifted my bodyweight to rush to him, my Blue Eyes greeted him first whilst the gauntlets I Materialized sent him flying. Olya was sent hurling in the opposite direction, but he found it difficult to recover from it.

"Baaah! Wuh-!? Eh...!?!" He noticed, "W-Where am I!?"

"Confused? Over here, old man." I merely existed behind him, not even moving just to give him a chance to strike back, "Hey, you're close enough to Spark me, ain't ya'?"

Annoyed by my jeers, he threw another Fireball at me that missed spectacularly, then another one, and then another. He then Materialized a sword, which he lugged and swung about sloppily, though I parried each and every one with the gauntlets. With each attempt, he would become weaker and more off the mark as he lost Focus. The air around us was hitting his face too hard for him to even muster up a smile, meaning the Green Iro's Ability was also impossible to accomplish. Yes indeed, Olya could neither Heal back his body nor his Focus for the duration of our stay here in the skies.

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"Just... die... already..." He dropped the sword weakly, "Shiet..."

As he was falling in and out of consciousness, we had finally reached the top of our ascent. As if to spite him, we remained firmly planted at the apex of our amplitude, meaning had he just saved up the tiniest fraction of Focus, he could have fully Healed himself back to full. But he was too conceited, too full of himself to back down and too stubborn to quit attacking. Now, as we saw the curve of our world from down below us, Lem and I nodded to each other in agreement before turning to the old man.

"You're old, frail, and can't rely on Iro Abilities to bail you out anymore." Lem mocked the old man, "What's more, you can't even run anywhere anymore. Old man, you can't die, but after this you're gonna wish you could!"

"Couldn't have said it better myself!" I cracked my knuckles, going in full force for the dual beat down of the century!

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***

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"Come on, fight back!" Lem whaled on Olya repeatedly, "Hey, don't go falling asleep midfight, you senile bastard!"

"Don't go too hard on him, kid! You'll pop his dentures off!" I joked as I kept sending kicks his way.

Despite being beaten from all sides, Olya's speech was slurred and his mind a total mess. It was as if he had not enough Focus to even live. This was probably the first time he felt so much pain for so long, since he would most probably either have Healed or died and revived a long time ago. Now that he's completely helpless, I'd even go so far as to say I actually almost feel bad for him... Almost.

"Lem, send him here!" I signaled.

"Coming up!" Lem obliged, grabbing Olya by the head and spinning him until the old man got launched to where I was.

Reinforcing my shin with a metal plate of armor, I tilted my body for the nastiest bicycle kick, sending him plummeting down below us at a rate that felt faster than sound. Lem didn't wanna let him rest for too long, however, so he dived to catch up to him and "fish him back up to us" with an air friction powered uppercut.

The back and forth rally between us ended up in a complete stalemate. It's like we were in a badminton match, unable to give the final point before calling it game, set and match. Meanwhile, our shuttlecock was still too pea brained to care.

"Ghooouugh..." He kept slurring, unable to Focus on even mustering a single word, "Shaid, Schnell..."

"Thinking of your old pals at a time like this? Naww, how sweet!" I jeered.

"Hey, you think he'll actually croak from this much battering?" Lem worried a bit, and rightfully so, "If we accidentally take it too far and kill him, he'll revive at full power again."

"Good, that's exactly what we need." I concluded.

Beating him within a cinch of his life is fun and all, especially since we get to have our long overdue revenge for him taking Nelly, but we have a plan to follow. Olya is practically brain dead right now, but we need him to be able to listen and give out reasonable thought for the next part of the plan. If he doesn't, I'm afraid this'll all be for nothing.

"Lem, I think it's about time we finish this." I turned to him.

"Really? Ugh, fine. I wanted to play with him a bit more, but if you say so..." He groaned, "Let's go!"

from both sides, we dived headfirst into him before dishing out countless kicks and punches, headbutts and knees to the nuts. Not a single millimeter of his body was left unhurt, and as the light in his Eyes began to flicker, his Iro Converted to Purple to indicate we were reaching our limit with him, so we just had to rub our victory in one last time.

"Old man, it's been fun knowing ya'. Say hi to Shaid for us." Lem primed his last punch at the same time as me.

"Shame we won't get to see him off ourselves, but that's life." I punched at the same time as Lem, "See ya' never, you rat bastard!"

And so, with that decisive punch quite literally knocking the headlights out of him, the old man was no more. Well, he WAS no more, but then he became more once more. Ah, what's more... Wait, what's more? Ah, I'm tongue twisted. Basically, he died and revived back with full Focus and health. Glancing at us with a menacing smirk, I'm sure he expected us to have a right proper rematch, but sadly both of us have people waiting for us to come down.

"Eh?!" He saw us blink into thin air, "Invisible!? No, I don't sense their aura at all anymore. They're... completely gone! But how... Why!?"

"Amigo." Shaid took our place as we did his, "Shall we have a talk?"

"Shaid, how are you...!? N-Nevermind, listen, do you still have the Books with you!? Listen well, write down..."

"You listen well." He shook his head, "Amigo, it's time to face the future head on."