Chapter 一〇: Queen’s Feast
Exo Drazz had always been a timid child.
While he had become a bit more open to communication in his high school years, he could still get a hunch about the people he wasn’t supposed to talk to because they were dangerous.
One such person was Ulura Nightsong.
She was quite tall, with long straight black hair, a fringe combed to the sides, skin a bit lighter than that of Exo himself and poison-green eyes. A year older than the techno-genius, Ulura had already become known as the Queen of Sunbird when he had enrolled in the deviant-only academy in Deckstoru.
And after his enrollment this young woman had proven over and over that she was the most powerful, most beautiful and most ruthless one among all the students. Hence everyone who valued their lives and had half a brain knew to steer clear of both her and all the students in her class.
The people from Exo’s class were the most reckless, insane or maybe downright stupid people he had met, however, so they engaged in confrontations with Ulura’s class on multiple occasions. A single clash stood out as the biggest and most destructive one amid all others – the one from the day a girl named Yuki Iceflame joined the techno-genius’ class.
Back in the present, the white-haired beauty was apologizing to Miss Nightsong after the small incident that had started everything as her dreadful gaze pierced the new student.
(Yuki) ‘I’m really sorry about your lunch. I got caught up in the fights and didn’t see you. I’ll get you a new one right away. If your uniform got stains on it anywhere, I’ll pay for it. And anything else I can do to make up for …’
Having grown more and more infuriated while listening to Yuki, Ulura grabbed her by the throat and lifted her from the floor before she could finish.
(Ulura) ‘Are you deaf as well as dumb? You’ll pay for what you did with pain!’
(Yuki) ‘I think that’s going too far …’
Angered even further, Ulura created a blast of thin green laser beams from the hand she was holding Yuki by the throat with. Those lasers cut the walls, ceiling and floor of the canteen in several places, the students within the range of the attack managing to respond fast enough by creating shields with their devas to block it.
Miss Iceflame wasn’t able to do that, however, being thrown back a couple of meters and crushed in the floor with more cuts on her uniform and skin, by that time the boys from her class having gathered behind her, each one of them looking angrier than the next. Exo was the last to join the boys’ group while Hikaru helped the white-haired amnesiac up.
Joining up with them, the techno-genius knew full well he couldn’t fight against her, but he could at least protect his classmates from Ulura’s wrath. If there was anyone who could make him stand up for something, it was the hot heads from his class. And in spite of having just joined them, Yuki was one of those hot heads as well now.
The girls from the class also gathered around Miss Iceflame while Miss Nightsong’s classmates gathered around her, Exo looking around and realizing all the fights in the canteen had come to a stop and everyone’s attention had been redirected toward the two classes.
(Hikaru) ‘It was an accident, Nightsong. Give it a rest.’
(Ulura) ‘You her babysitter, Summerbolt? Care to take her punishment? Your valiant stunts won’t work with me, though. It’s her pain I want to see.’
(Seiren) ‘Bitch, if pain’s what you want …’
Yuki looked at her classmates, all of which equally ready to fight except for Exo, and then stepped forward, looking serious now. The techno-genius attributed her being so calm to the fact she had no idea who Ulura Nightsong really was.
(Yuki) ‘You want to fight me for what happened?’
(Ulura) ‘A fight is an overstatement, but you can call it that if you want.’
(Yuki) ‘I’m fine with that so long as you don’t hurt anyone from my class.’
(Tokura) ‘Yuki, you don’t have to do this! We can handle these …’
King , who had turned back to his normal form and stood out with his half-naked appearance among the other people in the canteen as always, pulled Tokura back before he could say more, the pseudoknight looking over at him instead now.
(King) ‘It’s her choice, Tora. You know everyone’s got to prove their worth in Sunbird.’
(Vega) ‘Yeah, but they don’t have to prove it by going up against Ulura!’
Seeing her classmates couldn’t come to a unified decision on how to handle the situation, Yuki turned to them to reassure the hot heads further, continuosly surprising Exo with her willingness to risk her life.
(Yuki) ‘Just let me deal with this, OK? It’s my fault, anyway, so I’ll take responsibility. Don’t jump in without even knowing how the fight’s going to turn out.’
Barely had the white-haired beauty said that when her black-haired opponent came up closer to her and the other members of her class to interrupt the negotiations.
(Ulura) ‘If you’re done with this, let’s go to the inner yard. It’s the best place for fighting without holding back.’
As Yuki followed without letting anyone else protest against her actions, Ulura led the way to the rectangular grass-covered area of Sunbird’s inner yard. It had oak trees with circular benches built around them in its four corners and a pair of oak trees – a much bigger and much smaller one – in the center with the biggest bench of all the five in the area encircling them.
After the students formed something like a circle with a large diameter around the opponents, Miss Nightsong stepped forward with a mocking smile on her face, Yuki doing the same, but without showing any emotion.
(Yuki) ‘Are there going to be any rules to this fight?’
(Ulura) ‘The fight will end when I decide I’ve made you suffer enough.’
(Yuki) ‘That’s simple enough.’
Cracks formed on the ground around the white-haired beauty’s feet as she jumped up over ten meters, enveloping her fists in ice and getting ready to hit the ever-so-confident black-haired beauty with them. Many green lasers started to swirl around Ulura’s body a second later, being shot at her opponent in a number of fast long-range high-precision attacks while Yuki was still in the air.
The newest member of Exo’s class immediately switched to defense by covering her entire body in ice, managing to dodge a few of the lasers before being fully armored by her deva. When she landed back on the ground, many more lasers were sent to Miss Iceflame, but these were in the shape of condensed bullets, the white-haired beauty being shocked by the fact that her ice armor couldn’t fully stop them. That shock provided an opening for Sunbird’s Queen to teleport right in front of her through a single green laser beam.
Right after coming out of that laser beam, Ulura split her body in a number of lasers that cut and pierced her opponent’s armor with high speed, the very sound of each of those drilling through the ice, the fabric and then the flesh hurting Exo. Soon enough all the lasers disappeared, in the aftermath of their rampage the amnesiac falling to her knees which coincided with the remains of her cracked armor shattering and the cut-up uniform under it being stripped away.
Now Yuki was left only in her white underwear, the skin around it being covered in stab-, cut-type wounds and a lot of blood. She was about to fall to the ground all the way with half-closed eyes, but then Miss Nightsong was reformed by the lasers behind her, her hand having barely returned to normal when she used it to grab her prey by the head.
(Ulura) ‘The smaller the shape used for an attack, the more concentrated amount of the deva it will carry. That’s why laser bullets can get through your armor better than laser beams. You don’t even know that and agreed to face me?’ – turning from triumphant to disappointed, Ulura channeled tens of green lasers from her arm to the palm of her hand so she could run them through Yuki’s head while still talking – ‘Maybe I went overboard right from the start. Too bad. I guess my feast won’t last as long as I thought.’
A crack of thunder echoed through the inner yard as Hikaru appeared in front of Ulura, having grabbed Yuki’s shoulder to pull her away from the attack. Seiren had followed suit, coming out of a burst of bright red fireworks behind Miss Nightsong and grabbing the wrist of the hand she was planning to use to hurt the duo’s friend even more.
(Hikaru) ‘The fight’s over. You won.’
(Seiren) ‘Now let her go and end this, so everyone can go back to class.’
Ulura’s irises turned to a brighter hue of green and her eyes widened as she unleashed a 360-degree barrage of laser beams and bullets upon the rivals with a furious roar, the two cloaking themselves in their devas to defend against that attack.
(Ulura) ‘My victory against her was assured from the start, you insects! I didn’t come here just to defeat her, but to enjoy her pain!! And since I haven’t had enough of that, I might as well make you two suffer as well!!!’
A chill was felt in the air as a hand grabbed Seiren’s hand that was holding Ulura by the wrist, starting to cover his skin in ice. Yuki was the one who had done that, the young Blackscale looking at her dead serious face now with as much surprise as pretty much everyone else in the yard who felt the aura released by her deva.
(Yuki) ‘Step back. I’ve got this.’
Hearing the white-haired beauty say that, Hikaru and Seiren both smiled.
(Hikaru) ‘I was just thinking you went down too easy.’
(Seiren) ‘If you don’t want us to step in again, kick this bitch’s ass, girl.’
The rivals teleported back to their classmates while Yuki got back on her feet, Ulura looking rather annoyed now.
(Ulura) ‘I didn’t hold back with that last attack. You shouldn’t be able to move freely.’
A confident smile appeared on Miss Iceflame’s face then as she took her battle stance and started armoring her body with ice again.
(Yuki) ‘I’m not your ordinary deviant, though, so what you know doesn’t apply to me.’
(Ulura) ‘Your ice armor again? That’s not going to work against me.’
(Yuki) ‘If you’re so sure, go ahead and finish me already.’
Yuki’s smile went from confident to mocking when she said that, the black-haired beauty she was facing being no less astounded than everyone else who bore witness to this historical moment of defiance and madness. Ulura’s astonishment was short-lived, though, because it was replaced by murderous anger in her eyes while puffing out her cheecks to fire a wave of laser beams and bullets greater than the one she had unleashed against Hikaru and Seiren from her mouth. The difference was this time the roar-type attack was focused on Miss Iceflame rather than going for a 360-degree range.
Ice walls formed around Exo’s newest classmate as the beams and bullets reached her, icy spikes coming out in rows from the ground between her and Miss Nightsong, eventually reaching Sunbird’s queen.
She was fast enough to make pillars of wide laser beams come out of the ground around her to destroy the spikes, as one of those spikes broke into pieces, Yuki coming out of it and landing a solid hit on Ulura’s face with a grin.
(Yuki) ‘You should’ve walked away after the first round, Nightsong!! I didn’t have much of an incentive to fight you before, but after you attacked Hikaru and Seiren, things got personal!’
