White-hot pain radiated from the gashes across their bodies, halting their movements. Val was slow to her stand, gripping her sheathed bade tightly.
Cora, however, didn't move at all.
"Cora-"
"I know," Cora muttered.
Despite her heart's will to fight, her body was reluctant and numbed by pain.
Through gritted teeth, she said, "I'm not an elite like you, a god like Raijah, or a devil like Teo. My body doesn't heal or handle damage that well."
The picture of Cora's state made Val reminisce about a similar sight several years ago.
She could almost feel the sensation of the warm blood, her own and her mother's, that smeared her body.
She shook her mother's deadened body desperately. Being a child in her first life or death situation, she was a stranger to the adrenaline that pumped through her body.
"Stay with me, mom," Val pleaded through teary eyes.
She kept her head on a swivel, turning back and forth from her mother to the strange humanoid creature behind them.
Although unconscious, the creature's arms and legs twitched, indicating its returning strength.
"I can sense dad and the others getting closer," she said encouragingly, "please, stick with me a little longer."
Her mother's warmth and color depleted rapidly, and her eyelids fluttered as darkness descended on her vision.
Val's lips trembled, "You can't hear me, can you."
She bit her lip, "I-I'm so sorry.
"I-It's my fault," she sobbed.
The tears wet her mother's corpse.
"I'm supposed to be our family's crown jewel, but I'm nothing like Saku. She mastered doragonken at my age, and I can't even get the basics.
"Even then, I thought my prana would be enough, but I can't even defend my family. I ran headfirst into this fight like an idiot, thinking I'd somehow be able to fight like Saku.
"I'm not a crown jewel," she wept.
She lay her head on her mother's chest as tears welled up in her eyes.
There was no pulse.
"I-I'm a failure," she trembled, her voice heavy with sadness and shame.
Val's eyes flashed back to the present.
She knelt and placed her hand on Cora's forehead.
"Sealing Prana: Chained Sorrow!"
Purple markings appeared over Val and Cora's injuries. As the markings vanished, so did their wounds.
"As for you," Val turned to Nezumi.
"Sealing Prana: Opened Sorrow!"
Purple markings appeared over Nezumi's injuries, which had already begun to heal. The markings disappeared, and his wounds returned to their previous state.
Val helped Cora up, and they locked gazes with Nezumi.
Val explained, "I've temporarily sealed our injuries while at the same time using a reverse seal to keep his open and prevent further healing.
"The effects will only last a few minutes, so that's all the time we have to take him down."
"So your last attack wasn't just an offensive assault," Nezumi realized, "You also used it to mark me with your prana so you could use a reverse seal at long range.
"You're both quite skilled."
Nezumi stretched his arms outward, "Unfortunately, you're not skilled enough."
Green prana swirled around his hands.
"Valerie, Cora, allow me to introduce you to the second stage of doragonken. A level of mastery so prestigious that there are no recorded users in the lengthy history of the art.
"Doragonken: Twin Dragon Fists!"
Nezumi changed the shape of his prana into large dragon-shaped shrouds.
Twin dragon fists is a technique in which the user manipulates attributeless prana into their hands to maximize range and destructive power.
This technique requires precise prana manipulation to construct and sustain, as the user must provide the dragons with a steady stream of prana in conjunction with performing basic doragonken skills.
Nezumi assumed his stance, his fists surging with prana in the shape of dragons.
Val unsheathed her blade and held it horizontally in front of her face.
"I failed back then," her katana's markings turned purple, "but no matter what you throw at me, I won't fail again."
"Don't flatter yourself," Nezumi darted toward her, "this fight is all but over."
He punched. Instead of his fist meeting flesh, he slammed into a wall of crystals.
"Her crystals are tough," he muttered.
"You're in better shape than me," Cora said from behind the wall, "focus entirely on offense. I'll back you up and create openings."
Nezumi slammed through the crystals, causing them to disassemble into shards. To his surprise, the girls were no longer behind the wall.
Nezumi let his sensory skills take over. He felt the girls nearby, the closest of the two being Val.
Before Val could react, his fist collided. The impact split the ground below them as his fist sunk deeper into her face, sending her tumbling across the valley.
He sprinted after her, intending to follow up with a series of attacks.
The ground below him rumbled, knocking him off balance for a moment.
Val recovered quickly and capitalized by cutting at Nezumi.
Nezumi regained his footing and jerked his head back, narrowly turning Val's decapitating slice into a thin gash across his face.
Giving Val no time to retaliate, he punched her into the air.
"Doragonken: Twin Dragons' Blitz!"
Nezumi jumped into the air. Despite being distanced from Val, he delivered a series of swift punches, hurling several prana dragons from his fists.
The projectiles approached Val, but Cora intercepted their trajectory.
"Crystal Prana: Earth Golem!"
By manipulating the ground below, Cora formed an enormous golem, durable enough to withstand multiple explosions caused by Nezumi's attacks.
Cora and Val landed behind the golem. Despite its size, it rushed at Nezumi at tremendous speeds.
Nezumi interlocked his fingers, combining his twin dragon fists into one large dragon head.
"Doragonken: Twin Dragons' Ketsugō!"
He vaulted into the air and delivered a devastating blow to the golem's chest, shattering it into small fragments.
As the fragments fell, they reassembled into hundreds of miniature golems, encircling Nezumi.
Surrounded by golems in every direction, Nezumi sprung into action.
Although outnumbered, he maintained his ground. With every swing, he eradicated numerous golems. Within seconds, their numbers dwindled from hundreds to tens to one sole golem.
When he swung at the golem, to his dismay, it parried. It punched, Nezumi weaved, it kicked, and he swerved.
Nezumi dodged another hit and lunged. He blindsided the golem, slamming it into the ground and causing its rock-composed body to crumble.
Unlike the other golems, each pulverized by a single blow, this one endured despite being knocked to the ground. Rocks fell from its body, exposing ash-blonde hair within.
"She disguised herself within the golems," Nezumi noted, "it was a decoy."
His head snapped rearward, "that means-"
Val rammed her fist into his nose, flattening his face and making his ears buzz.
Her punch sent him flipping through the air until he finally rolled to a stop and landed on his feet.
"Talk about a sucker punch," Nezumi muttered, his head throbbing from the impact.
Offering Nezumi no time to recuperate, Val and Cora followed through by rushing at Nezumi from opposite directions.
Sandwiched between Val and Cora, Nezumi had virtually no time to react.
He instinctively bumped his twin dragon fists together, creating a shockwave that decimated the environment and launched him and the girls into the distance.
Nezumi landed several miles away, still on adequately flat grass terrain.
His arm was limp, but he looked around, readying himself to continue his clash with Val and Cora.
"That was reckless," Nezumi whispered, his breaths heavy, "I was able to evade them, but it cost me my arm. My entire shoulder blew out, and thanks to Val, my healing factor is still sealed.
"I'm down to one dragon fist."
He saw no sign of Cora and Val when the ground abruptly grumbled.
Mountains and hills shifted toward Nezumi from every direction. Their earthly rumble caused abrasions in the ground as they propelled forward.
"Shifting plates," Nezumi murmured, "give me a break."
He sped into the distance, adeptly sidestepping and evading the landforms, inducing them to smash into one another.
As he flew through the lands, he scoured for Val and Cora using his eyes and sensory capabilities.
He maneuvered around a mountain when he felt Cora's aura reemerge. He turned to the source and saw Cora blast through a mountain, aiming straight for his position in the air.
"Crystal Prana: Crystal Gauntlet!"
She swung a crystal-enhanced fist at Nezumi.
He threw his functional arm up to block, but the loss of his right arm significantly weakened his brace.
Cora shredded his defenses, sending him crashing through several mountains and hills.
Nezumi slammed into the ground. Despite landing on his toes, he slid backward on his feet, carving trails until he came to a stop.
His last dragon fist dispersed as both his arms were limp.
"There goes my second arm," Nezumi whispered.
"Val!" Cora shouted to the left of Nezumi.
"On it!" Val responded from Nezumi's right.
They raced toward the helpless Nezumi from opposite directions.
He tried to run for it, but his feet fastened to the ground.
"Shit," he mumbled.
"She must've marked me with her prana when she landed that punch earlier. That allowed her to seal my feet to the ground regardless of being at long range.
"My arms destroyed, and my feet hitched to the ground. They've rendered all my limbs useless."
As Val and Cora neared Nezumi, they unconsciously whispered the same thing, "we've immobilized him.
"Now, we can end this by hitting him with everything we've got!"
"Sealing Prana: Quadrinity Burst!"
"Crystal Prana: Crystalline Saber!"
An eruption of light pink and violet auras ensued as the pranas condensed into their respective blades.
The pink prana streamed into Cora's blade, forged by her crystals, and the violet aura poured into Ame-no-Ohabari.
With their blades brimming with prana, Cora and Val swung simultaneously, aiming for Nezumi's neck.
Their bodies throbbed just before their blades pierced him. Their injuries returned, followed by pain so great that their bodies stiffened.
Cora's blade dissipated, and Val dropped Ame-no-Ohabari. It clattered to the ground between her and Nezumi.
"Just my luck," Nezumi grinned.
His feet left the ground as he floated above his two opponents.
"I applaud you two," he said as he gazed down at their stationary standing bodies.
He smiled as the sensation in his arms returned.
"Thankfully, the effects of Val's techniques faded. And thanks to that, your body was too weak to sustain the seal you placed on my feet."
He glanced down again, and his smile withered into a frown.
"Now," he struck his arm down.
"Be crushed by your family's own spirit animal!"
"Wood Prana: Wood Dragon!"
An enormous serpentine dragon appeared above Val and Cora, its tail reaching the clouds. The dragon plummeted down, targeting both women.
As the dragons descended upon them, Val could only muster, "Shit. I failed..."
"Again."
The dragons slammed into the girls, creating a sound that echoed throughout the mountains.
The wooden dragon dispersed, revealing the devastating crater created by its impact.
Val and Cora lay side by side, battered, bruised, and unconscious in the crater.
He dropped to his feet, standing between the bodies.
Despite being unconscious, Val gripped the hilt of her blade tightly.
Nezumi snatched the blade from her hand and placed it in its sheath.
Using his free hand, he created a dragon fist, never seizing his intense glare at Val's thrashed body.
Nezumi froze for a moment, and his dragon fist dissolved.
"The agreement was never that I had to kill her," he turned, "I was tasked with retrieving Ame-no-Ohabari..."
He walked into the distance, leaving their bodies to bleed.
"And I succeeded."