The options that he had to consider didn’t exactly give himself any internal certainty. The woman had managed to take everything he gave and came out of it with hardly any real injury, as far as he knew. Shrinking wounds he imagined had to make them no longer a danger, but that was just a guess at the moment. But it seemed pointless unless it was just a mind game she wanted to play. Though he didn’t know if she seemed the type for that.
Worst for him, some of the alternatives that he considered he pretty sure would kill her. And that wasn’t a bridge he wanted to cross just yet. Even if he had the emotion packed away, it was stored for someone special. He didn’t plan to just give it away to anyone. They had earned it and no one else could claim it.
Chapter 634 – Heated Words
Kenta found frustration mounting with the lack of progress. It hampered his shadow as the fight resumed. Each dodge or empty strike only twisted on him more. The brat annoyed him because he could never land a blow on her, but he knew this one wasn’t well beyond him. This girl didn’t feel out of his reach. He felt she could be beaten, but it was just a tedious wall to climb. He hated it.
His daggers made a few scores, but she kept everything to a minimum. It troubled him what was happening. Kenta stared pausing in their fight. ‘What the hell is she? This can’t be just body expansion. It’s something else, but what the hell is it?!’ It heated up his body trying to sort through the possibilities.
The anger started to boil up that he had so carefully managed to keep in control. It made small little slip ups in his fighting. An over extended thrust or a missing timed use of his plasma charges. Each miss only triggered his heat more. “Just stop dodging me, bitch!”
Light flared up on his daggers as the plasma turned more red than purple. Heat that normally pooled from the controlled substance began to rise as though there was a leak. Though it did little to affect Kenta, the air warped with distortions. What moisture that existed naturally started to burn away into vapors creating a faint steam around his hands. It almost acted like a blur disrupting visibility on his swings.
While their dance continued, the girl struggled a little keeping up with the wild flailing of Kenta. Though he became more inaccurate in his anger it had the side effect of his trained processes falling away as well. The rational choice ceased to be the one that he picked. And he scored strikes, though none of them could succeed, even if his increased heat did start burning her skin.
She still minimized everything that he landed on her. It put their fight into a battle of attrition, one that only she recognized at the moment. Something that she clearly favored with her defensive stance. Though it did start giving her the appearance of freckles or moles with the number of shrunken wounds now.
“Dammit, why can’t you just take a hit?!”
“I’ve been blessed by God. He won’t let me come to harm.”
“God ain’t got nothing to do with it! It’s your shitty power, nothing more!”
“It was given to me by God. He protects me.”
Kenta smashed his dagger down, missing the girl, but cracking the roof small. “The hell he does! This wasn’t something a god did, just some stupid accident!” Part of the concrete started to melt turning red from the sustained heat pouring out.
That seemed to have triggered something in her as in the next moment, a large fist came from nowhere to slam into Kenta. It covered half his body, throwing him through the air. Uncontrolled, he crashed into the edge of the roof feeling the concrete in his back.
He pulled himself up to a seated position on the roof still feeling the ringing. The rage numbed a lot of the pain that rattled through his body. Kenta brushed away a bit of blood from his chin. “Oh did I touch a nerve, little Miss Stubborn? You afraid I’m right, that your little god is a fake? That it’s all just a shitty lie!”
Another fist, rather hand came in that suddenly shot out the fingers like spears. Kenta rolled over to keep from being gored. He grinned a little through grinding his teeth feeling the intensity increase. In a way, it didn’t properly feel like a fight before if all he did was attack. This was how it should be. His daggers flared again in response.
“They are real! We are proof of it! We wouldn’t exist otherwise!”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, girlie!” He jumped forward at her with a burst. His blades came up trying to parry the next strike, but the weight pressed him. It killed his speed to a stall. His feet pressed into the roof feeling the sudden increase. It was just her arm, but it felt like lifting an entire car. Kenta fought with the pressure until he surrendered and rolled away.
He bounced off getting into the blind spot of the teen. “You’re too slow! Did your god not give you better sight?” This gave him enough speed to get under her defenses. She had strength and resilience on her side, but speed didn’t appear to be part of it. It gave him that advantage, even if it didn’t seem to make as much impact. It did keep him in the fight.
Though even with the full burst, it wasn’t enough to get her to fall. His blazing daggers cut in deeper than before burning up cloth, but while he was trying to dig for a severe injury, she shrank it actively. It pushed his blades back. He ground his teeth in frustration at the failure once again.
Though his insults had a greater impact on the teen than he thought. She turned to face him as he tried to recover. A heavy headbutt rang his bell. Stunned by her, she then lifted up her fists and slammed them down. Kenta completely disappeared from sight as though turned to paste as a large blast of smoke erupted with the damaged roof.
In the smoke, she lifted her hands to try to figure out what happened to Kenta. There was a bit of silence as she worked to blow away the dust cloud she created. The longer nothing happened the more she looked on with a little concern.
“Why don’t you come down here!” shouted a familiar voice that momentarily preceded a large explosion coming up from the below. The roof shattered up around her as she collapsed into the blast. A second column of debris spat out with both fighters gone.
Inside the now ruined apartment room, Kenta watched the girl get buried in debris and smoke. All around him pieces of the roof continued to fall down making more of a mess of the bedroom that they dropped into. Above there was a good meter of roof and utility work before it reached the apartment. The cross section that he carved sparked and cracked out.
It didn’t take much settling before she broke free from the rubble. Even with the large blast he created, it didn’t look to have done much to her. Though most of her sweat pants were burned away becoming sweat shorts. The harsh lines cracking though her face painted the clear emotions. She didn’t quite match his rage, but she did a pretty good job of getting close. “You blasphemer! The powers He granted you are wasted on someone like you!”
“I never asked for this. I’d rather have been given something more useful. So your imaginary god can go shove it!”
“It’s not ours to question His wisdom. Peace will only be found by looking to His worthy praise He granted us.”
“So all you can do is bullshit. Though how do you know your god is a dude?”
That did make her pause a moment in thought. “Faith is all you need to know the answer.”
“So you can’t think for yerself then. Figures how much of a waste you are.”
“You wouldn’t understand the peace that comes from it.”
“No, I wouldn’t and I’ll fight against anything that tries to steal from me!” Those words faded to the back of Kenta’s mind. An echo of them bounced around drawing his thoughts away from the fight. Distracted in personal goals, he went back to the day, that day.
The ground shook as fires surrounded him. Even in the twisted corruption of the city by nature, nothing stopped their advance. They marched through in trucks and helicopters. The efforts to stop them didn’t amount to much. After the triggering event of the Solstice Nightmare, they invaded the unprepared land.
Kenta ran out ahead of the storming forces. He looked back hearing the screams of people panicking. ‘Dammit! I’m sorry, guys, I’ve got to make sure!’ When the raids started in the city he left the safety of his family to return. Even if they were important to him, there was only one other family that he had. They had to be safe as well. ‘I don’t care, I’ll take you away!’
Thanks to his speed, he could keep up with the vehicles from the UN staying ahead. However, when he arrived in his neighborhood, the UN wasn’t behind him. They were in front of him in the area already. He looked back seeing the advance of a completely different group. “Shit! How many of them are there?”
He ran hard between houses to stay off the streets. ‘Don’t be there yet! I’m coming!’ Kenta prayed to whatever god or being that would listen to him. It didn’t matter who listened so long as they did. They had to get him there in time. That’s all that mattered.
Panting lightly when he came to his house. He saw soldiers already all over the streets. “N-no…please…” Kenta dropped around a neighbor’s house going over fences to get to the back of his house. “Dad…mom…” He pressed his hands up against the door to the house, listening.
There were too many sounds around him. He heard screams, shouts and shooting along with other things he couldn’t clearly identify. If his parents were in the house he couldn’t tell. “Where the hell are you?” He jumped up to the roof to hang down by a window. With a free hand he pulled on the window knowing that it wasn’t locked. He normally kept his window cracked open a little.
He rolled inside looking around upstairs for his parents. “Mom! Dad! Are you here? Guys?” Their bedroom was empty, but also looked untouched. Perhaps the UN hadn’t come yet. Did they run away before it all? Could they be safe? He prayed more as he hurried downstairs.
The living room showed clear signs of his parents. A few books laid open on the coffee table and tea poured. But nothing that showed anything more. He still didn’t hear them. They weren’t in the house, but he still searched. Maybe he just couldn’t hear them with all the chaos. They should be alive. They were safe.
Somewhere.
Kenta found the kitchen and adjoining dining room. The table flipped over and food was thrown on the floor. What he didn’t want to find showed in front of him. Yet he still held on to hope. “They could have bolted when it happened!” He ran to the front door that was ajar. It made his body run cold.
The UN had only been in Japan for a few days and he heard stories through the streets. They just stole people taking them back to their base. No one knew what they did, only that they hadn’t returned. And no one managed to break into the camp. They had something that protected them, but no one knew what it was exactly. Technology or weapons didn’t seem to be the case, but rumors only went so far.
He clenched his hands together feeling the heat in his body increasing just thinking about the tales. There was no proof. His mind didn’t need any. His anger boiled up hotter and hotter as his hands glowed purple.
Through the door he saw three vehicles parked out in the street. A large van along with two smaller ones with a machine mounted. There was a soldier in each constantly looking around. Even with this body feeling differently, he didn’t know if it could take a bullet from that. He might have been like a Shounen Jump hero, but he doubted that he was so lucky as to be immune to bullets.
Searching, he found the soldiers escorting citizens into the van. Most of them weren’t resisting and looked like adults. He focused tighter on the individuals. “Mom! Dad!” In an instant, his hands exploded with plasma forming a massive slab almost like a bat as he flew out the door.
