Despite Jason's quickness, he was no match for the speed of the Incarnated Requiem Artifact—darting around every room at breakneck speeds that almost shattered the sound barrier.
"Jeez…" groaned the swordsman, reddened pupils attempting to track Alex's movements.
"How'd he get so fast?!" Kima loudly asked.
"I can see him." Both of her allies turned toward June. "I CAN SEE HIM!!" she cried.
She leaped from the throne room floor and punched him right through the ceiling, continuously striking every part of his face with Orderly Thunder coursing through her knuckles. Unfortunately, she was too slow to realize that what she was attacking was none other than the impenetrable Unlimited barrier surrounding every inch of her former mentor's body. Once her arm soared toward him another time, he easily caught it and backhanded her with his open fist.
The strike sent her flying through the walls of the ceiling, eventually crashing into an open corridor with multiple halls leading in various directions. June threw herself back onto her feet, spitting out blood from the corner of her mouth and watching as Alex reappeared before her. Without even saying anything, he raised his right hand and beckoned her with his moving fingers.
"Vita energy manipulation was the only thing capable of breaking through Unlimited in the past. That was even more apparent with the Living Technique your father wielded and Chrollo's Puppet Master. Luckily, strengthening my barrier with Requiem energy solved that issue flawlessly. And now, you possess Requiem energy. June… I hope you know this isn't personal," Alex said.
The way she looked into his snowy eyes sent a shocked expression to taint his face. Removing herself from the crouched posture against the ground, she stood tall and gazed directly into her old mentor's eyes.
"When I first obtained Convergence, I slaughtered the scientists that recovered me. I didn't remember until today, because of what Jason told me. But you… YOU KNEW! And you let me parade around with my ignorance, knowing how wrong I was all along! Why did you let me do such a thing? Didn't you care about us at all?!" June cried.
"Don't ask me that again."
She was taken aback by the sudden seriousness of his tone. His foot slammed downward—forming a crater beneath his outfit's sole.
"You already know the answer to that question."
Alex dashed ahead, throwing a punch at her face. She reacted instantly, jumping into the air and spinning around, allowing the side of her foot to connect with his head. To her surprise, he was thrown by the strike, June watching as he fell from the ground and sat on his back. Staring at her through his long hair; his lip bloody, he smirked.
"Very good. Now, let's continue."
Back with the other two, Jason prevented Kima from following the dueling Requiems with his hand grabbing her shoulder. Her purple eyes noticed his uncaring face, swatting his hand away and turning toward him.
"Why're you stopping me?!"
"Don't be stupid. She and Alex stand on a different level as fighters than we do. The way we are now… we might as well give up and wait," he advised her.
"Like hell! I'm not just leaving her to fight him alone!" She objected.
Rubbing his temples, Jason sighed. "Do ya have to be so loud about it…?" he muttered.
Kima looked at Jeff's unconscious body and knelt beside him, digging through his pockets to find that trusty injection he'd been keeping on him ever since the Retlyian invasion.
Jason immediately recognized it—widening his eyes and extending his hand. "Hey! Are you sure you wanna do that?" he questioned.
"No. I don't know why Jefferson didn't take it when he had the chance but… this is the end. If I don't do this here and help June right now—" Kima glanced over her shoulder, staring straight into Jason's bloody eyes. "I won't be able to say I've lived a life with no regrets," she declared.
"Nobody lives a life without regrets. You're not special."
Kim sighed. Rolling up her right sleeve, her breath hitched, holding the injection just barely over her skin.
"I know. Better than anyone. Even still, I'm… tired of being helpless."
Alex ran around the corner, hearing Orderly Thunder obliterate the structures surrounding him. Turning around, he watched June chase after him, a small smirk spreading over his lips. The Wilder sister swatted her arm along with the air, throwing a wave of emerald lightning toward her foe. Seeing as how it was infused with Requiem energy, he couldn't defend with Unlimited so, his hand raised and he easily deflected the imminent projectile.
Pieces of the walls began detaching, hovering alongside his idle build—hands pocketed. Lunging the chunks at his enemy, he watched as she flipped between them both and twisted herself around mid-air, aiming both feet toward Alex's chest. Grabbing her legs before she could land the dropkick, he spun her around the hall and threw her down the corridor, just watching her tumble onto her side.
June used her palms to flip back onto her feet, barely dodging the fist urging her to smash her skull into the ground. After punching the ground, Alex walked toward her, however slowly.
"Done already?" he taunted.
"Like hell. I'm just getting started…"
She punched the ground below her, surging Orderly Thunder's green energy through the ground and watching it course toward her older opponent. Alex vanished from where he stood, running forward and entangling the Judge's whip around his fist. Punching at her face once getting close enough, she easily caught his knuckles and uppercut him following the catch.
Watching the blood fly from his mouth once his head flew back, June jumped right into the air, spinning around and connecting her foot with his open chest. He slid back only temporarily, sprinting right ahead and rapidly striking at her face, watching as she giggled while prancing away from him.
'She's fast. Her petite shape doesn't make this any easier, too… looks like I'll have to resort to moving seriously against her,' Alex concluded.
Alex punched at her face once more, just watching as she released her knees, preparing a manji kick from against the Tower floor. Watching her leg soar toward his face, the Judge smirked and vanished right before the attack could hit—leaving June with widened eyes, immediately turning around.
The second she spun her head, the fist had already started soaring through the air; knuckles surrounded by white Requiem energy. Just in the nick of time, Eternal Sight managed to activate for her. Swatting the punch away by his incoming wrist, June kicked his knee and watched him fall to the other undamaged one.
Interlocking all of her fingers together, an emerald aura surrounding her hands, she dove them downward—smashing both hands onto the crown of the Judge's skull. Before she could even land the attack, though, her hands were sliced clean off by an invisible blade.
Eyes staring at her handless arms in shock, she muttered but one thing, continuing to stare while Alex recuperated.
"Huh…?"
She was struck in the throat, punched in the gut, and kicked across the face. Despite the multiple attacks she was enduring, everything seemed blurry to her—for she was unaware her back slammed into a wall while blood poured from her face. Al wasted no time. He kicked her through the wall and watched as she flew out the hole, descending from the atmosphere above the planet; toward the earth from beyond the heavens.
Just at the last second, he saved her, extending the Judge whip through the hole in the wall and wrapping it around June's ankle. Yanking it back with all his strength, he pulled her through the hole and stepped aside, allowing Wilder's back to smashing against the wall behind him.
His fist spun around—striving to punch her face into the wall even further, his arm spontaneously getting sliced off. He instantly regenerated, vanishing from the range of the unknown assailant's sharpened weapon and reappearing behind the attacker, rubbing his chin.
"June…" Kima rest her staff over her shoulder and removed June's body from the wall.
"Don't worry. I won't kill her." Alex smirked, raising the torn clothing over his new left arm. "Rejuvenation techniques aren't difficult to use, especially when you have Requiem blood. As long as you believe you can do it, using Vita to heal is easier than—"
Before he could even finish speaking, Kima leaped forward and threw her staff ahead. As expected, the Judge stepped aside, long hair was thrown into the air while white eyes shone against her face.
"You two have always been the weaker bunch…"
Despite missing her initial attack, she swung the staff two more times, striving to attack him upside the head. Unfortunately, only him leaning back the tiniest amount was enough for him to dodge those follow-ups, swinging his arm back and slamming his fist against her cheek. Alex watched her face hit the wall beside her, blood leaking from the wound across her face.
Snapping her broken nose back into shape, Kima sighed and pointed her staff forward. Infusing it with newly-found Requiem energy, she managed to instinctively alter its shape—adding an edge to the back of the weapon.
'I see. So, she's able to innately manipulate the flow of Requiem energy to mimic other weapons' shapes. That's a handy ability. But, she hasn't used her Beasts yet. I haven't sustained any heavy hits but depending on the Beasts she uses, I could be backed into a corner, especially considering I don't know Jason's whereabouts. Using my Territory isn't out of the equation, but invoking a domain in this narrow space is impossible. Meaning… I have to crush her here without using my Territory and keeping watch for Jason. All for the sake of my justice.'
Kima wasted no time sliding her foot apart, creating a shadow along her leg to allow innumerable Beasts to emerge from the darkness. Most of them were mere fodder, for the real threats lay in the monsters summoned behind their Requiem master. Alex clicked his teeth, zipping through each of the fodder Beasts, slicing them apart in the process. When he reached Kima, his fist, entangled within the Judge whip, collided against the staff she raised almost instantaneously. Locked into a clash, Alex watched as a celestial dragon's head peered over her shoulder and breathed fire onto his face.
'All of her attacks are likely infused with Requiem energy. It's no use keeping up Unlimited,' he deduced.
After coming to that conclusion, the Beast spat ice onto its target's face and watched his head become encased by solid frost. Kima kicked him away by slamming her foot against his chest, witnessing him fly onto his back and the cold imprisoning him shatter. His face drenched, he sat upright, staring through wetted strands at Kim's idle stance. Spinning the staff around her body at speeds that made the weapon incomprehensible, she smirked at the strength her former mentor weakly displayed.
'That attack wasn't infused with Requiem energy. Heh. I suspected she'd use her newly-obtained Requiem reserves to amplify her attacks, but considering she just injected herself with angelic blood–it's likely she doesn't know how to properly use it yet. Meaning she can only properly infuse her weapon with Requiem energy and use her Beasts normally.'
By the time Al had finished standing upright, Kima had already dashed ahead, spinning her staff around all the while she stepped forward—closing the distance between the both of them. Throwing it over her shoulders, she gripped the middle tightly with both hands, attempting to slice his chin with it from below.
He jumped back, cracking the Judge whip around to detonate the surrounding air. With her momentarily disoriented from the light show, he took this opportunity to dart ahead, preparing a punch that would eventually shatter her cheek. Right when he got close enough to her feet, another of the dangerous Beasts released behind Kim activated its ability in the form of a sandstorm, fitted with an unnatural face within.
Despite his efforts to block this attack with Unlimited, he was thrown through the ceiling and came out from the roof; uncontrollably flailing throughout the sky. Leaping from the pillar he was perched on, Jason summoned the extent of his banished Requiem power corrupted by the demonic blood within him… and spread it across the blood-red Ketsueki blade.
Throwing one odd stroke from his deadly sword, the Hunter had cleaved Alex's back and sent him into the root's platform. Landing beyond the smoke the Judge's crash formed, Jason grinned—allowing the spatial airs to flow through his blackened strands.
"Welp. I always knew this was never gonna be easy."
The cloud surrounding Alex gradually dissipated, long hair newly swaying with the air while staring ahead, blood leaking from his facial wounds. Regardless of the damage, he'd sustained during their bout, the grin on the Judge's lips remained. After emerging from the hole in the ground sat atop one of her many Beasts capable of flight, Kima jumped from its back and landed beside the vampiric Hunter.
"I guess you're right."
With that, Jason and Kim disappeared simultaneously, surprised at the idle stance Alex took despite their ongoing battle. Mere seconds away from their attacks reaching him, the Judge's lips quickly parted, the moonlight radiating the space above his gleaming white eyes.
"Territory Envelopment: Unlimited Judgment."
To Be Continued.