(Ten Years Ago)
[In Amazon Forest]
Beside them stood Arashi with a wound in his chest laughing madly while holding a worn-out book.
Seeing the scene made Diego's blood boil.
"You, did you do this?" Diego asked Arashi in a shaky voice. His mind had gone numb. He wasn't able to tell whether it was a dream or reality.
Tears kept trickling down his eyes as his legs finally gave in and he fell on the ground.
Seeing Diego's reaction, Arashi chuckled a bit. He walked towards the dead body of Hina and stomped upon her head.
Her head started to shake a bit before getting squashed into smithereens.
"Why, you son of a bitch, why?" shouted Diego as he launched himself towards Arashi. Two black gloves with purple patterns printed all over them appeared on Diego's hands.
"Why are you asking why I did this? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter," replied Arashi with an emotionless face.
There was no kind of remorse on his face. He was enjoying it. He was enjoying Diego's expression.
"Come fight me. I'll send you where I sent the girl you loved," said Arashi and dashed towards Diego.
Thick red chains broke through the ground and appeared beside Arashi. They had sharp thorns all over them which looked extremely vile.
"Infinite Bind," cried Arashi.
The chains started to swirl and form a cluster. Their length increased and so did their width.
They launched themselves towards Diego trying to restrict his movement. He tried to evade them by sending a forceful punch but it didn't work.
"Pathetic. You aren't even using your armament. Has your anger dulled your sense of reasoning? You won't even be able to touch a strand of my hair like this," declared Arashi with a calm look on his face.
He moved his index finger to the right. The chains followed the finger's direction and threw Diego towards the giant trees covering the area.
'Can I even defeat him? He's already a Zenin rank while I just became an A-rank exorcist,' Diego thought while crashing into trees.
He was losing hope. His best friend killed his lover. The guy who was always calm and collected was laughing madly while stomping on Hina's body.
"I can't believe I took you as my best friend," Diego said while standing up.
He picked a small pebble from the ground and said, "Earth's touch," while throwing it towards Arashi.
The pebble travelled at great speed with a lot of force. The mass and the density of the pebble increased manifold. It turned into a small meteor.
"Your gravity control can't beat my Huran," Arashi said while a chain appeared before the pebble decimating it. It broke into many pieces and scattered all over the place.
One of these pieces hit the wound that was on Arashi's chest. It pierced through his chest while leaving a small hole in his chest.
Arashi flinched because of the wound and stumbled back causing him to drop the book he was holding.
As soon as the book fell on the ground, his expression darkened. The calm and cool face of his was no longer present.
He was behaving as if he had dropped his own life. For him, that book mattered more than the wound present on his chest.
Diego noticed the change in Arashi's expression and looked towards the book. He dashed towards it without thinking twice.
"Where do you think you are going?" Arashi said while throwing chains at Diego once again.
"Heaven's Objection," shouted Diego as a gravitational force field formed around him.
The chains clashed at the forcefield but none were able to break through it.
Seeing this, Arashi got even more agitated.
'No, no, no. He can't have that book. I worked so hard to find it. It's mine only mine,' he thought while holding his head with both his hands.
He called upon the chains as he surfed on them towards the book as well.
But it was too late, Diego had already got his hand on the book.
"Give it back to me and I'll let you live," said Arashi to Diego while holding his hands out.
"What's in this book? Did you kill Hina for this piece of paper?" questioned Diego.
"It's none of your business,"
"Why don't you come and get it back yourself," said Deigo as he threw multiple gravity-enhanced stones towards Arashi which were blocked and easily torn apart by Arashi's Huran.
'I can't win like this. The power gap is too much. Since he's hurt, all I need to do is find an opening,' Diego thought while blocking Huran (chains of Arashi).
"Eternal Prison," shouted Arashi as the amount of chains increased, destroying the whole surrounding.
The trees got uprooted while the earth started to shake. The chains surrounded Diego and started to form a prison-like structure.
"You want to end this? Then let's do it. Black Hole," said Diego as a small dark orb started to form on the tip of Diego's finger.
Because of the orb, the gravity of the surrounding area increased. For Arashi, it felt as if he was being squashed by a horde of elephants.
"More, more, I need more power. I'll make you pay for what you did to Hina," shouted Diego as the orb got even bigger.
It had become the size of a mini elephant but Diego didn't stop there. He had already run out of ki and was now using his own life force for fueling the orb.
On the other side, the chains have turned pitch black and have formed a cage around Diego with little space to see through.
Arashi's Eternal prison was hailed as the best defence technique in all of Japan and now he was going to use it for offence.
Bringing his hand in front of his face, he started to form a fist. The closer he got to forming a fist, the more the prison shrunk.
A metre long red thorns started to emerge out of the chains ready to make several holes in Diego.
"Best defence vs my life force fueled attack. Let's see who wins," shouted Diego as he finally finished forming the black hole.
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How was the chapter? Hope you guys like it.
[Edited by OtakuSumit]