While the technique hit the Agustus dead on, it wasn't enough to aether it or freeze it solid. It was, however, enough to give it a nasty injury. The Agustus stopped swirling around as rapidly as before, the leaves and twigs composing it seemed to float around slower than before and several of them showing visible signs of frost damage. On the other hand, a set of what appeared motes of light that looked like eyes manifested inside the living cyclone and went from white to blood red.
The Agustus began to glow with an azure light as a visible funnel of wind formed in front of it and launched itself at Rakka. The wind funnel hit him in the side, and the force behind it was strong enough to knock through the ring of fire Rakka had created earlier to trap it. Due to the battle bond, I could feel Rakka's pain in the places he got hit. I felt the stinging pain of the wind technique in my side and the feeling of fire burns on my back. Thankfully it was all in my head and my body was physically unaffected,it still stung though.
A look with my Dragon's Eye revealed that Rakka was hit with a Bluster technique, but the Agustus had empowered with some of its internal aether. That explains why it was strong enough to hurt and knock Rakka out of the fire ring.
To make matters worst, the fire ring I had Rakka establish went from being a cage to trap the Agustus to a defensive wall that would hurt anyone crossing it...is what I would've said if the fires hadn't died out after the Agustus knocked Rakka through them.
The fire trail left by the Fire Stride technique only lasts for a few seconds at most, a lesson I learned the hard way when I tried to use it once to entrap my mother's Karatsune in a practice match. My mother said that wasn't a bad plan, but such a thing works best on wild majimonsters or when you're being chased. An experienced binder knows that when it happens, the smart plan is to keep their monsters still and defend, start using ranged techniques, or use another movement technique to move over the flames.
Regardless, I could feel Rakka was rightly annoyed by this short exchange of techniques and was ready for another round to knock this arrogant pile of leaves into the dirt.
Rakka rushed towards the Agustus once more with Freezing Horns at the ready, but this time I decided to give Rakka a helping hand. Using my bond with Rakka, I channeled some of my internal aether to strengthen Rakka's technique. I wanted to make sure this next attack hurt.
Rakka swung his head low in order to slash his horns upward for maximum contact...and missed! The Agustus managed to maneuver it's shaky body in such a way that it narrowly avoided the ice horns. How infuriating!
After avoiding the attack, my Dragon's eye reacted to yet another technique, this one named Photosynthesis. The Agustus glowed once more but with a green light this time. Several of the torn leaves within the tornado began repairing themselves or began defrosting, it's swirling body moving faster than before. It somehow managed to heal a good chunk of the damage it had suffered so far...great...
A wave of frustration flooded into me at that moment, it appeared Rakka was just annoyed at the situation as I was.
I commanded Rakka to use Freezing Horns again, but instead of using my aether to strengthen the blow, I used it to strengthen his reaction and thinking speed. I could feel that Rakka now had a better sense of how the Agustus was moving and instead of just flailing his horns wildly, he adjusted them so that when the Agusti tried to dodge one antler, it would land him dead center into the other antler.
A mere few seconds after Rakka had readjusted his antlers, the exact thing I foresaw happened beautifully. Rakka had swung his antlers in such a way that the Agustus had to move to the left, but it had failed to see that Rakka's intial headswing was a feint! When the Agustus was far enough to the left, Rakka swung his head hard right in order to hit it with his Freezing Horns. The damage this time was almost as brutal as the first hit, but more importantly, it had froze the Agustus solid. Victory!
All that's left to do is to bind this suck-wait... something's wrong.
(Rakka dodge to the left! Now!)
Rakka quickly jumped to the left as a mysterious green figure jumped down from the tree tops and slammed what sounded like blades into the ground!