A violent gust of wind blew in all directions the moment the dark metallic Ebony clashed against the Shield of Athena. Intending to block Jax, who charged at Satsuki with one full swing of his axe, Seijurou instinctively got in the way. However, the power of the blow was very evident with him being flung a few yards away.
"Crap.. that was pretty strong..", whispered Seijurou as he staggered to get back to his partner's aid. "Even if it was a clean block.. it still cost me some HPs.."
Satsuki was able to hold Jax off though. With every swing of the axe, she simply evaded. A chop to the right only meant her side stepping quickly to the left. One fell swoop just made her flip backwards. Jax kept hitting nothing but air while Satsuki remained untouched. Their fight seemed like a child who hopelessly tried to follow a dance with an erratic spinning top.
"Not good. This illusion spell completely alters the reality of the ones under it..", pointed Seijurou out as he rushed towards their opponent. "Jax would usually hesitate to attack a girl.. especially Kinjou."
"Out of the way, weakling!..", yelled Jax as he took another fell swoop at Seijurou, knocking him farther away. He brought his focus back to Satsuki again before preparing for another attack. "Are you just going to keep dodging, or you're going to show me what you've got soon?"
"I don't want to do this.. but it's time to wake up, Xi-kun..", answered Satsuki while holding the hilt of her sheathed katana and scabbard. Right after that, she dashed towards Jax and unsheathed her sword at the same time, hitting him with the blunt side of her weapon. But it only dropped him to his knee.
"That's not going to do it, Kinjou..", said Seijurou as he clumsily stood up dazed. "His vitality's too big.. we're going to have to do more to knock the lights out of him."
Satsuki raised her sword as she watched Jax stand up again. "Any suggestions? The only way to that is to slice him apart.. we can't do that, Erida-kun."
Seijurou glanced at Saiki, Eimi and Shoutou, who were having a world of trouble themselves against Keigo and Gin. He then tapped his partner's shoulder and stepped in front of her. "Your talents are being wasted here. Go help the others.. when it comes to just holding something off, I'm the one for the job."
Satsuki gave her partner a worried look. "Are you sure? You got hurled by him twice already.."
"It's fine. I've seen his moves many times already..", replied Seijurou as he raised his shield for another incoming attack. "Now, go!"
As Satsuki nodded reluctantly and headed off towards the others' position, Jax chased after her. However, Seijurou got in the way in time to let his partner make an escape.
Jax growled while he shoved Seijurou aside. "Where're you going? We're not done yet!"
Seijurou got in the way again right before Jax went after Satsuki. "Where are you looking at, saru-san? I'm your opponent."
"I only know of another person who calls me that, and it pisses me off..", sneered Jax while he gripped his axe handle tighter. "Very well.. looks like I'll have to deal with you first."
As soon as Jax attacked Seijurou, a resounding clang was heard throughout the area. But this time, Seijurou held his ground and was not flung away by the impact. Jax took another swing at him but upward this time. And once again, Seijurou stepped back and led the axe blade away.
"Nice footwork..", praised Jax while swinging his axe to be absorbed by his opponent once more. "You think you've already figured me out?"
"Diagonal step backs are fundamentals if going against two handed weapons..", shot Seijurou back as he stepped back to lead his opponent's weapon to the ground with his shield. "Didn't your sensei teach you some basics?"
With a single spin, Jax countered with a horizontal slash. However, Seijurou just jumped and positioned his shield underneath him. It therefore led Jax to only graze metal after that. Both took a pace backwards to recollect themselves in position.
"I underestimated you. You're good..", said Jax with a smirk as he took a wider stance with his battle axe to prepare for another offensive. "I'm starting to like you."
A droplet of sweat rolled over Seijurou's head as he thought of Jax's uncharacteristic comments. "For some reason.. I prefer this version of that ape."
Meanwhile, as Seijurou and Jax carried on with their skirmish, Shoutou landed a surprise kick on Keigo just in time before the young berserker touched Eimi with his two handed war hammer. However, it barely nudged Keigo resulting in Shoutou being caught and thrown away. Eimi back flipped to avoid another brutal swing and threw some tranquilizing shuriken but was ineffective.
Saiki was also having trouble in diverting Gin away with his earth spells. Being almost depleted of MPs because of his massive "earth dome" earlier, he was only left with using smaller spells to block out Gin's path. His twin hand axes only made short work of Saiki's miniscule walls.
"They're quite stubborn..", said Shoutou as he struggled to stand after being slammed to the ground. "Eimi-chan, Shizune-chan was with you right? We could use a hand from her, you know.."
Eimi barely avoided another hammer crushing after rolling towards one of Saiki's walls. "She's as useless as ever.. she's still recovering from her jutsu."
"Well, you're as harsh as ever to your sister..", said Saiki as he narrowly avoided Gin's axes with another earth wall. "But anyway.. we need to come up with something. We're three and they're two.. but we're still being overwhelmed."
"How about four against two?..", a very familiar perky voice asked from behind the ash clouds Saiki's spells caused. Satsuki revealed herself as she calmly walked forward. "Sound good?"
Saiki smiled and let out a long sigh of relief. "Hmm.. how about you take them both out, Heiress?"
With her usual eye closing smile, Satsuki gripped her sword's hilt. "Okay!"
The two berserkers immediately noticed the difference in power and charged at the newcomer. Satsuki may have looked like everyone's girl next door crush, but her presence in battle was enough to relay the message that she would be the one to bring the end of it all. And both Keigo and Gin learned it the hard way when they simultaneously attacked her.
With a single spin, Satsuki dealt a powerful blow on Keigo's midsection with her sword's blunt side and left a roundhouse kick towards Gin's chin, knocking both down to the ground. The two glanced at her in disbelief as they thought they had landed a clean strike.
Shoutou shook his head wide eyed in awe. "That's the Swordmaiden's strength for you."
"They're still standing up though..", said Eimi as she watched Keigo and Gin rise up clumsily.
"At least we can breath a little..", argued Saiki while he caught his breath. "For now.."
"Says who?..", another familiar voice asked from behind the cloud of smoke.
Two shadowy figures emerged from the dust, revealing themselves to be acquaintances from the same class as soon as their silhouettes transformed into real and heavily armed individuals. One was carrying a glowing greatsword over his shoulders while the other was clad in a steel plated knight's armor.
"Aokishi.. Morisaki!..", called Saiki in both relief and reluctance. "Please tell me you guys are on our side.."
Renji stepped forward while raising his shield and sword. "I don't know how you know our names.. but you're all going to pay for what you've done."
Drawing her kunai with one hand and raising a shuriken with the other, Eimi stood up to prepare for a fight. "Looks like that breather's going to wait a little longer."
The open area dedicated for the concert grounds has now turned into a battlefield reminiscent of the Octagon during the preliminaries. It seemed like the first years were going for a second round of duels similar to the ones they had in the beginning of summer as they all prepared in anticipation to bite each other's throats.
However, the situation in the audience's area was not necessarily all the same in the venue of the supposed concert. The panicked clunking of equipment inside the backstage dressing rooms was considered rather peaceful compared to the world outside. Kasumi was in her usual frightful way of preparing for battle, gracelessly knocking everything to the ground, while Kanae restlessly double checked her weapons one last time. Even Kaguya, who usually had a cool disposition, hurriedly braided her hair in front of the mirror. It was evident General Yoshiki was able to dispel the illusion spell on them in time.
After a short while, Kanae turned to her commander and cracked her neck from side to side. "You hit us pretty hard, sensei.. my nape still hurts."
"It's the only way to knock all of you unconscious quickly.. we don't have much time..", said Yoshiki to her girls before peeking outside the door to see if the coast was clear. "I have to go to the source of this vile magic and apprehend the perpetrators myself. After all.. I cannot let mere students do all the work. Go make yourselves useful outside, got it?"
All three girls stood up in salute before their sensei left for the ruined mansion. "Hai, Yoshiki-taichou!"
After a short while, 3K nodded and gave each other faint smirks as if understanding each other without a single word. They all went out to the backstage hall, walking side by side. Kanae unsheathed her sword while Kaguya cocked her crossbow to load up ammunition. Kasumi fell behind a little to tap the base of her staff on the floor, making it glow white.
"You know the drill, girls..", said Kanae as they continue to press forward towards the wings of the backstage. "I'll help out our classmates in crowd control while you, Kasumi, stay behind me and cast your aura."
Kasumi steeled herself with a less hesitant but serious look. "I'll do my best.."
Kanae arrived first in front of the double doors leading to the stage and stopped to give one more instruction. "Kaguya, find the nearest high point and choose your shots wisely.. your precious Taneda Chizuru is most likely waiting for you there."
"Gladly!..", with Kanae's comment, Kaguya snickered creepily and raced towards the door. However, the moment Kaguya excitedly smashed the wings open, a giant wall of ground soil just adjacent to the stage greeted them. She squinted upwards to see how far the massive dome climbed earlier. "Well.. looks like I don't have to search for a place to perch."
"Indeed..", said Kanae as she stared in awe at the gigantic earth spell in front of them. "This is impressive!"
While the two bewilderedly inspected the massive object in front of them, Kasumi searched for the nearest possible path leading to their classmates. Her face crumpled into fear as soon as she felt the nature of the magic enveloping the entire area. "We're going to have to go around this thing, Kanae-tan.. and we must hurry.. I sense a foul energy eating everyone up."
All of a sudden, a tall figure of a female ranger clad in a brown cloak stood up from underneath the edge of the stage. A strong sensation of hesitance made all three members of 3K take a step backwards as they recognized the person in front of them. She was something they knew all too well, an omen telling of the last living soul they would see before they die.
"And where do you think you girls are going?..", the woman asked with an eerily low toned voice.
No one could make out of her expression when the towering figure spoke since her face was under the shadow of her hood. However, it was clearer to Kaguya, compared to her teammates, who they were talking to. She was the one individual she had been obsessing about. "Ch.. Chizuru-sama..?"
Problem after problem arose as the continued clash of metal resounded from the other side of the dome. It was indeed terrible news when the mind controlled "Paladin Build", Aokishi Nagato, arrived in the scene and completely nullified all offensive magic towards him. The "Holy Arts", as displayed during the preliminaries, was the trump card against magic users like Saiki and Shoutou. And to make things worse, Nagato wielded a two handed blade and was clad in heavy armor enough to absorb a ninja's physical attacks.
"Shoutou, why don't you go invisible and ambush him?..", asked Saiki while narrowly dodging a decapitating slash from Nagato's claymore.
Shoutou stabbed the very angry looking Nagato with his dagger but only dented the thick armor. "No good. My invisibility dispels immediately after I come within striking range."
"Does he have the same ability as Kasumi-chan's?..", asked Saiki as he slashed their opponent with his ninjato but was parried. He tried again but was bashed backwards instead.
"It's much weaker..", pointed out Shoutou while throwing twin shuriken, just denting the armor again. "..but enough to prevent us from using ninjutsu."
The two young shinobi continued their relentless assault on Nagato. With projectiles flying all over the place and swords clashing with each other, it seemed Saiki and Shoutou overwhelmed their opponent. But even when Shoutou joined the melee skirmish from time to time, they only managed to make dents out of the hulking Paladin's armor. It was a stalemate.
"You think we should go for the head?..", asked Shoutou as he readied his ninjato this time since he was running out of sharp objects to throw.
With his partner stepping back for a moment, Saiki had to block a rare attack from their enemy and locked swords with him. "We can't do that.. we have to keep them alive. We're not Kinjou-chan who can readily use the blunt side of her sword anytime."
Seeing an opening, Shoutou dashed for a strike. However, Nagato immediately broke the clinch at the last second, effectively avoiding the sharp end of the ninja's blade. And almost at the same time, he left a knee towards Shoutou's gut, momentarily disabling him to a stagger. But as soon as Saiki composed himself, he quickly went for another slash.
Hitting the side of the young shinobi's ninjato with his massive claymore, Nagato broke Saiki's sword in half and almost immediately grabbed him by the neck with his huge hand. He lifted his much smaller classmate while choking him before slamming him hard on the ground. "I'm sorry for the treatment.. but that's one down.. one more to go."
Shoutou helplessly watched his teammate taken down while he struggled to stand up. He desperately thought for other alternatives. "This is bad.. I can't beat him alone.. this giant's a preliminary winner after all.. I wonder how Eimi is doing against Morisaki.."
Not far from her teammates' duel with Nagato, Eimi crawled helplessly to grab Renji's leg, trying to prevent him from moving towards her sister who was barely standing up as well. Since Shizune was still in a state of recovery from using much of her energy, it was Eimi who engaged the sword and shield tank. It was evident that their efforts were in vain due to the bad match of their builds. And Eimi, being a kunoichi, learned the hard way going against an efficiently mobile but heavily armed knight.
Renji kicked the young ninja's hand away and sneered at her. "What're you doing? Your turn's over.. just drop dead!"
Tears began to drop like rain on Shizune's face as her "Trinity teammate" approached with a lot of killing intent. "Renji, stop it! You don't know what you're doing.. snap out of it! It's me.. Shizune!"
"I don't know you, cultist.. so stop calling me by my name!..", said Renji scornfully while carefully walking towards his pleading teammate. "And don't you dare use Shizune-chan's name against me! Is this some kind of attempt to put me under a spell?! I'm not buying it."
Once again, Eimi grabbed onto Renji's foot. She snickered in between some coughs. "Not buying it, huh? You have no idea you're about to kill your girlfriend."
Renji kicked Eimi's hand again and growled. "Shut up! Don't mock me!"
Suddenly, Eimi stood up stealthily and held two fingers up near her chest in a square stance, surprising her sister. "Onee-chan, cover your eyes.."
"Eh?..", Renji reacted obliviously as a Kanji pattern began to glow on his lower leg. It all went white for him the moment the text exploded with light. He screamed in agony as both his eyes and leg were affected by the conjured up flash bomb.
With all her strength left, Eimi ran towards her sister in a mad but quiet dash. She carried Shizune on her shoulders and went straight to safety under some boulders.
"You were acting to give yourself time to write a summoning enchantment on his leg..", whispered Shizune to her sister. "That's impressive.. but did you really have to hurt Renji like that?"
"Your taste in men makes me want to vomit, onee-chan..", sneered Eimi while she laid her sister to the ground. She then held a bleeding wound on her midsection. "To be honest.. I was half acting. I'm quite hurt.. and that was a last ditch tactic."
"Then stay here and stop fighting.."
"No. He'll find us soon.. I'm going to divert him.."
"I will fight when I've recovered a little.."
Eimi shook her head and sighed before shooting a glare towards her twin. "Will you stop being a hero for once? It's making me puke.. You're as useless as the dirt under my foot right now."
"Are you feeling sick, Eimi?..", asked Shizune sarcastically as she too glared at her sister. "Because all you've been talking about is regurgitating something.."
The constant bickering with Shizune made Eimi swallow the next words she was about to spit out. All throughout their lives, she knew for a fact her sister would never stop until she gets the final world because she was like that as well. To end their little debate, she just stood up and turned her back on her twin sister.
"Oi.. you're really doing this?..", defeated, Shizune asked in a stuttering voice.
Eimi exhaled a long breath before she spoke. "I'm simply fulfilling what must be done."
"Fine.. just take care and do your best.."
"That goes without saying."
Shizune smiled faintly. "And don't hurt Renji much.."
Eimi shook her head before trailing off. "That's exactly why I must be the one to face him."
Translation Notes:
Ninjato – a type of single edged sword commonly used by the ninja.
Monogatari Concepts:
Arts and Spells – techniques requiring magical intervention. The origins of these may have come from a single general concept but is left unknown due to the fact these were probably invented during the blank century. Both require the manipulation of magic from the natural world or from one's innate life force, or both. When the two said techniques branched out separately as distinct practices in battle is still unknown.
At present day, the only difference of the two techniques is how they are utilized by builds. Spells are readily available for anyone to learn but mastered by mages through the magic schools of elements, conjuration, healing, telepathy, and crafts. Arts on the other hand are only mastered through training painstakingly for specific builds. Some examples are holy arts, weapon arts, witchcraft, arts of the bow, and ninjutsu.
Character Description:
Takenori Shizune – the elder twin of Eimi. I wrote about Eimi last time, so it makes sense if we dwell on Shizune this time, right? But don't get me wrong. She is not a character I created based on a whim. I really intended her to be someone as one of the class favorites as seen in the previous chapters when she was regularly called for recitations. And yes, many consider her as the more pleasant of the two because of her charming and approachable personality. A true people person, mostly everyone in the class consider her as a friend. Her smile is merely a reflection of her genuine willingness to reach out for others. In fact, if the class had to elect a class president, they would probably have a hard time in choosing between her and Kanae.
If Eimi thinks her sister is better, Shizune on the other hand thinks of her twin as someone having more potential than hers. Contrary to Eimi as well, her care for her sister is very out in the open. Not only that, she is extremely protective of her. It is very obvious in the way she always tells Eimi to do her best at all times, even though they usually begin a conversation with an argument.
A very talented kunoichi herself, all of it is a result of hard work from all the years Shizune trained under the guidance of her predecessors. A very decent student with impressive marks, she is considered as one of the better ones in class 2022. Her formidable phantom clone jutsu is a result of her resourcefulness.
When not in ninja armor or in a school uniform, Shizune is usually seen in trendy clothing or exercise outfits (she likes to be comfortable). Just like her twin, she is considered to be pretty (most especially by Renji's standards). But she wears her hair down at shoulder length unlike Eimi's short one. Her height and weight is exactly the same as Eimi's, and her favorite things are her boyfriend, Renji, and of course, her twin sister, Eimi.