Story: I'm a Daemon, so what?
Disclaimer: I do not own the original setting.
Chapter 71: Plus Ultra!
There are up to 15 chapters ahead at p@treon.com/theogbasilisk
__________________________________________________________________________
- Felix -
I smirked in Hinata's direction. "Maybe we should have a spar while these two go at it? I am curious to see how much you have progressed. It would be a shame if my student was still weak. Though if you are hesitant about your chances of victory, you may graciously decline my offer." I taunted sarcastically.
Hinata glared at me before huffing. "I know you are baiting me, but fine."
I laughed in victory. "That always works on you. It's adorable how you still haven't changed after all this time. I'm glad."
Time can often be the cruelest force of nature. Enough time can cause spouses to drift apart and friendships to be severed. Time was especially a cruel force of nature to immortals like me.
After all, how will one feel as their friends begin to pass away? As everything they cared about slowly ages and withers away, I'm not sure how I would take something like that. Hopefully, I'll never have to understand what those immortals feel in the first place.
Most of the people I care for are practically immortal themselves.
Hinata's face flushed. "A-Adorable?!"
I ignored her words and gestured for her to follow me. I already had admin access to The Dungeon, and with my newfound Authority over Small World, I was able to manipulate Ramiris' Labyrinth in ways I was incapable of before.
I snapped my finger, splitting Veldora's Floor in half, giving us an isolated Floor to have our fun in.
I turned around to face Hinata. "The damage should be contained, so feel free to go all out. I'm curious to see what you have learned."
Hinata nodded before taking out a Unique Grade rapier from her Spatial Storage.
Ah, right, I haven't given her the bracelet yet. The rapier she had wasn't bad and had the potential to grow, but it would take ages for it to ever become something that would actually benefit Hinata. Not to mention that it would eventually shatter against my own blade.
"You won't be using that." I said as I swapped Space around a bit causing the rapier to appear in my hand.
Hinata glared. "I do need a weapon if I am to face you, Felix. For all my growth, I still know I must go all out in a fight between us."
"Pfft, haha!"
"What are you laughing at?" Hinata questioned.
I shook my head. "Nothing, nothing." I guess I'll let her see for herself if she will be able to reach me with her blade.
For all her growth, I still do not believe Hinata is capable of harming me. I quite literally held her Soul in the palm of my hands. I had a very good idea of what she was capable of, but I won't underestimate her. She may have some trump card I don't know about.
"As for your weapon, here." I said as I held my palm out; a pitch-black bracelet appeared.
With this Hinata will make for a significant threat, she has Usurper, Mathematician, and some top-tier God Grade Equipment.
Hinata's eyes widened. "Th-That's!"
I nodded. "This is a perfect replica of your old Equipment, it's all at the God Grade as well so it won't hold you back, and since it was yours, it should recognize you as its master."
Brahma, Lord of Creation could do some wondrous things.
Hinata stared at me, an odd emotion in her eyes. "I do not know what to say, Felix."
I rolled my eyes. "Then don't say anything, here." I said as I tossed her the bracelet.
Hinata's eyes widened in alarm as she quickly caught the bracelet and latched it onto her wrist. "Do not throw something so valuable Felix!"
"Yeah yeah. Anyways, are we going to fight or not?"
Hinata looked at me with a smug smirk as her Divine Armaments enveloped her form. The Divine Armaments were quite powerful; they strengthened Hinata's EP significantly due to the amount of Energy within it, and they also strengthened Elemental Magic, that's not even counting just how durable the Armaments are.
Hinata then held her hand out, a beautiful rapier with a pitch-black hilt and a shining silver blade.
That rapier was something even I would be wary of in the right hands.
She looked down at the rapier with a fond smile. "It feels the same…. Chloe already has Moon Mistress, so you will be Divine Moonlight." Hinata declared.
"It seems that it accepted you as its master fairly quickly. That's good. I don't want to hear you making excuses about how your Equipment wasn't at its full potential."
Hinata huffed. "I would not do such a dishonorable thing to you, Felix!" Pausing for a few moments before adding. "Probably."
I held in my laugh at Hinata's words. "It seems you've acquired a sense of humor during your journey. At least you're a hag with a sense of humor and not just a plain ol' hag."
Hinata gritted her teeth as her Hero's Haki began leaking from her in waves. "I am not a hag!" I could feel the effects of Hinata's Hero's Haki weighing down on me. It was attempting to subjugate me and bend me to Hinata's will. I scoffed and lightly released some of my Aura to contest against her Hero's Haki causing the pressure I felt earlier to fade away.
I shrugged my shoulders. "Whatever you say, but we can talk about your delusions later, now I want to fight!" I was rather eager to see how much stronger Hinata got.
Hinata scoffed but nodded nonetheless.
She then got in her stance and looked at me warily. "You will not be using your blade?" She asked in annoyance.
"I will, I was just trying to annoy you." I openly admitted as I held my hand out, Yamato materializing in my grip.
'Othinus, don't assist me in this fight other than your analysis.'
'I see. Do you wish for Hinata to have a chance at harming you?'
'That's right, if you were to help me as my player 2, there is no way Hinata will manage to even touch me.'
'That is true, I would cover your back 100% and make sure no harm comes to you from any unexpected attacks. Very well then, I will only analyze Hinata's abilities in this fight and should her swordsmanship be good enough I will incorporate elements of it into your own style Master. Though should a threat to your well-being appear I will take action.'
'Sounds good.'
Since I wouldn't be relying on Othinus at all, that also included all of Othinus' predictive abilities that could calculate what my opponent would do ahead of time. I was going to be raw dogging this fight if you will.
Hinata looked at my katana cautiously. "It feels stronger than before."
"That's because it is." Yamato had a couple of million EP, and it was always getting stronger due to sucking up the Energy in my Infinity Space.
"Let's see how much you have grown, Hinata." I said, a smile spreading across my face.
Hinata nodded, determination lighting up her eyes.
Before she could make the first move, I dashed forwards. The air around me shattered, causing a series of sonic booms to erupt behind me.
I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to see how capable she was now.
I appeared in front of her, my katana descending from above in a swift, deadly arc. Hinata's eyes widened slightly before she reacted, coating her rapier with a layer of Fighting Spirit and raising it defensively to meet my attack.
My katana clanged against her rapier, sparks flying as the two blades collided, Hinata smirked confidently as she began to push me back.
"Don't get cocky Hinata." I warned as I began using a little more of my strength.
Ever since I had acquired the Star King Factor, the Frost Factor, and the Storm Factor I have not fought much using pure physical strength. In the first place I didn't fight primarily with raw physical power at all, but in the past at least I had a good idea of just how physically strong I was.
But with my new power up I wasn't entirely certain just where my limits laid when it came to raw strength. I didn't want to accidentally use too much even if Hinata could probably handle it. My fight with Chronoa wasn't very helpful in this regard since Chronoa was damn durable, so I didn't have to hold back much of my physical strength, which while fun did not help me get my power under control.
I had purposefully used less strength than normal in this fight so far before I would ramp it up as I got more used to my physical strength.
Hinata gritted her teeth as I began to slowly push her back, her rapier straining against my own katana. Of course it wouldn't break.
With each second that passed, I added a bit more power, testing her limits. Hinata eventually retreated by dashing backward, something I allowed her to do.
She looked at me with a calculating look in her eyes. "You have gotten stronger, I could not feel it before because you always conceal your Aura, but it is far easier to see now."
I nodded. "I did get a bit of a power-up recently." I replied honestly.
"You had not even coated your blade in your Aura, that was all physical strength and the power of your katana." She observed as she looked right at Yamato.
"That's right."
Hinata sighed with a mix of frustration and resignation. "Just when I felt I was beginning to catch up you got even further away." She whispered to herself.
I didn't respond to her words. This was a mental barrier she would have to overcome on her own. She was always comparing her own power to me, to Luminous, to Rimuru, and that was holding her back.
She shouldn't want to be as strong as Felix White. She should want to be the best Hinata Sakaguchi she can possibly be.
I had my own style, and she had hers. My style consisted of cheating, while Hinata thrived on natural talent and unwavering determination. Though she also cheated a bit with Usurper, I was just the better cheater between us two.
Once she breached her mental barrier, I had no doubt she would grow much stronger.
Hinata looked back at me, determination shining in her violet eyes.
Seeing that she had regained her composure, I took a defensive stance, ready to see how much her offense had improved.
Hinata's Hero's Haki blazed around her rapier, and Fighting Spirit rampaged around her, reinforcing her capabilities.
I could feel her Unique Skill: Mathematician attempt to get a read on me, the waves that her Skill released to analyze me simply didn't reach me due to Infinity's effects.
Hinata didn't look disturbed whatsoever that her analysis was blocked, this wasn't the first time she had tried to do so after all. I'd give her something, she was damn persistent.
"I am still incapable of analyzing you, hmm?" Hinata shook her head. "Nevermind, it does not matter how long it takes, but I will reach you." She promised.
"That's the spirit."
As soon as I finished speaking, Hinata dashed forwards leaving behind a sonic explosion that The Dungeon absorbed.
She seemed to be going for a jab, so I angled my sword to intercept her. The tip of her rapier met the flat of my katana, harmlessly bouncing off. I felt the effects of Usurper attempting to weaken my weapon, but with a flex of my Aura, I easily mitigated it. It wasn't always able to weaken things, originally it could only weaken some Skills and Arts if Hinata pushed it but it seems she managed to evolve its capabilities in the past.
Weakening my weapon was a pretty good tactic since she couldn't weaken me directly with Usurper.
Hinata wasn't bothered by the failure and continued to strike at me with renewed ferocity. As I blocked her strikes, I spoke up. "That was pretty good. Something like that would work on many people, perhaps even Luminous."
I knew Hinata's original goal was to grow strong enough to slay Luminous if she turned out to be an enemy of Humanity, and she was well on her way. Though I wouldn't let Hinata do such a thing if it came to that, but at this point that was practically impossible with their relationship.
"But not enough to affect you!" Hinata gritted out as a wave of fire erupted from her blade.
I lightly blew some air out of my mouth, disrupting the energy in the fire and causing it to fade into nothingness. Magic Disruption was a rather neat ability that I enjoyed using from time to time, if only to flex.
"You'll need to try harder than that if you want to reach me, but you're making progress."
Hinata ignored my words and began silently casting various spells. Within a millisecond multiple magic circles surrounded me. At least her casting time has improved, with Thought Acceleration her casting time was already damn fast but it was even faster now. I looked around, there was Fire, Ice, Water, and most of all, Earth Magic, the element said to be strongest against Space. They were all basic elemental spells but they could still be powerful in the right hands.
I wasn't surprised that Hinata could expertly cast Magic while she was dueling me with her rapier.
I smirked as I felt Hinata begin to call on her Holy Magic, using her Holy Magic and Faith in Luminous as a crutch she began to circulate spiritrons wildly around the spells she had cast. It seems she was still incapable of manipulating spiritrons on her own, but she had learned to manipulate them to a certain extent using faith as a crutch.
It seems she was aiming to use Spiritrons to breach through my Infinity, not a bad plan, if Infinity was still weak to spiritrons. Previously, she wouldn't have been able to manipulate spiritrons like this at all, very impressive.
A moment later, all the Spells were released towards me, their speeds were blinding and even my Daemon Duke self would fail to keep track of the spells.
I watched with a smirk as the spells immediately closed in on me, yet the closer they got, the slower they moved until in Hinata's perception it looked like her spells weren't even moving.
She dashed backward, a curious and upset expression on her face.
"Heh, what a cute expression." I teased.
My words broke Hinata out of whatever it was that she was thinking. She blushed crimson as she sputtered. "Sh-Shut up! Now, can you tell me how your stupid barrier managed to block my Spells? I remember Melt Slash broke through your Infinity even if I didn't manage to harm you with it. I don't see any other barrier that is covering your Infinity either."
I had told Hinata about Infinity's weakness when she had asked why her Melt Slash managed to breach through it when everything else she used had failed. I had no reason to really hide it, so I answered, Infinity was just my first line of defense, it most certainly was not my last.
"Just like you are always growing stronger and improving yourself, I am doing the same."
More like Othinus is doing the same, but Othinus' Soul is inside my own, so we are basically the same person so that counts…. Probably.
'I do believe your logic was flawless, Master.'
If a Manas of all people is agreeing with me then I must be right.
"Tsk. Of course, after months of slacking you finally decide to improve yourself now." Hinata muttered.
I looked at her offended. "I haven't been slacking for months!"
Hinata looked at me suspiciously. "I have not seen you practice your abilities once, and some of your subordinates go on about how you do not train due to your so-called overwhelming power being more than enough to cow your foes into submission."
Damn it! Betrayed by my closest companions!
I smirked as a fun idea came to mind. I dramatically held my left palm over my chest. "Well, what can I say? After losing my precious student, I quickly went into a training frenzy!"
Hinata's eyes widened. "Is that so? Very well then, I can forgive you for improving your abilities just this once then." Hinata said as she laughed haughtily.
I couldn't contain my laugh. "Pfft, right." I shook my head. "Anyways, since you've begun using Magic, I think it's fair game that I do so as well." I said as I snapped my fingers.
Hinata instantly raised her sword into a defensive position. "You still snap your fingers?" She said with a sigh.
I shrugged as all around her, spheres of compressed Space appeared. "It adds to the presence."
Hinata looked around warily. I felt the effects of Usurper attempting to latch onto my spells, and for once, I allowed it to work. I was curious to see how Usurper would affect an individual Spell. Before, Hinata always attempted to weaken me and, by extension, my Magic Power, which would result in weaker Spells if her Skill worked on me.
She had seriously explored her options with Usurper, which was good. It was a powerful skill that allowed the user to Copy Skills and Arts, a trump card that, if used properly, could elevate Hinata to the peak of this world.
The only restriction was that it worked best the stronger she was. As she was now, she couldn't hope to weaken me or copy any of my Skills and Arts unless I let her. If she were stronger, she still wouldn't be capable of doing so, thanks to Othinus. But I'm a special case. Others won't have a Manas or Ultimate Skill blocking analysis attempts.
I felt my Spell grow weaker, it just lacked a lot of the oomph it had previously.
I held my left pointer finger upwards before pointing at Hinata. "Archangel Shootdown." I chanted. I didn't need to say the name, but it added to the cool factor. Probably.
I was sure that this wouldn't cause Hinata any issues, in fact, I was fairly certain that I knew how she would defend against my Spell. This was just to confirm a suspicion of mine.
Hinata closed her eyes for a moment, I felt Space warp around her, enveloping Hinata in a spatial distortion, separating the Space around her from the natural world.
Each sphere of compressed Space disintegrated harmlessly once they got within range of Hinata.
"It seems you've mastered Distortion Field fairly well, Hinata."
Hinata preened under my praise. "I had spent decades mastering this Art, it was incredibly difficult to learn, but thanks to your Blessing amplifying my affinity with Space I managed to do it."
I nodded. "It's a very difficult Art, I would even say it is at the Ultimate level, that's another Ultimate level Art in your arsenal, you are someone of relevance in this world now." I said, shooting her a thumbs up from my free hand.
Hinata scoffed. "I'd be upset at your implications if I wasn't well aware of how much room I still have to grow."
I nodded. "That's good. Getting a big head may get you killed."
She rolled her eyes. "Getting a big head may get me killed? Have you seen yourself, Felix? You have the biggest head I've ever seen."
I shrugged my shoulders. "That may be true, but I have someone who can bring me back down to earth when I need a good slap."
"Oh? Have I met this person?" Hinata asked curiously.
I shook my head. "No, you haven't." I don't think anyone knows of Othinus's existence except for probably Raphael and, by extension, Rimuru. Plus I still knew I wasn't unbeatable, not when Milim roamed the lands. She was so overpowered it wasn't even funny. Even if I had a chance against her now I wouldn't underestimate her.
Hinata waited a few moments as if she expected me to say something. When I didn't speak, Hinata began… pouting? "Fine then, if you do not wish to tell me then let us finish chatting. You wanted to see how much I've grown? Well, I'll show you!"
Holy Power began leaking off of her in waves. She really is just a reactor of Holy Power.
The amount of Holy Power she was releasing would cause even Arcueid, Lalatina, and Megumin to raise an eyebrow, it would harm them after all. It seems Hinata was finally done playing around.
Six yellow wings made out of pure Holy Power appeared behind Hinata. She ascended to the skies, breaking the sound barrier in the process. "Rahhh!" She roared as she dived down towards me.
I noticed her rapier was now coated in copious amounts of Holy Power, but along with that she was drawing on the power of an Earth Elemental, imbuing her rapier with its properties.
Hinata was trying to take advantage of my elemental weakness to Earth, though sadly for her, that just wouldn't be enough.
I bent my knees slightly before jumping upwards. Our blades met in a fiery clash. If we were to have done this somewhere else, the surroundings would be torn apart and scorched down to bedrock.
Hinata gritted her teeth as she attempted to knee me in the hip, but my Infinity blocked her attempt.
Hinata was doomed to lose this battle if she couldn't come up with a way to bypass Infinity. That was the minimum required of her if she wanted to one day reach me with her attacks. Then she would have to worry about Multi-Dimensional Barrier, I'm sure that'll drive her crazy, but baby steps.
Without wasting another moment, Hinata instantly jumped back into action. She was searching for a way to get past my Infinity, searching for a small way or opening left for her Spiritrons to get past my Infinity.
With one swift movement, she began her dance, each attack flowing into the next without a moment of delay. From thrusts to swings, each of them flowed naturally and she even used the momentum of my own blocks and parries to set herself up for her next attack.
No stroke was out of place, and with each movement, she looked as if she were dancing.
'I will begin incorporating elements of Hinata Sakahuchi's Swordsmanship style into your own.'
I suppose that alone was a compliment from Othinus.
Othinus instantly copied and analyzed Hinata's movements, though she hadn't modified my swordsmanship style as I didn't want her to actively help me in this fight.
Our sword battle turned into a pure dance between the two of us, with each of us searching for any openings in each other's attacks.
Though I wasn't going all out, I could see Hinata's expression become more and more strained as each second passed. Her eyes narrowed as she began pushing herself even further.
Her footsteps became lighter, her balance never wavering. If there was one thing that Hinata was, it was stubbornness. So she continued to push her body past her limits. Gritting her teeth as her seamless dance changed into a different, more aggressive tempo.
As time went on, Hinata was put more and more on the back foot even though I wasn't even using 5% of my power, though it wasn't like I would have gone all out on Hinata in the first place, she wouldn't stand a chance if I did. It may be arrogant of me to think so, but with my recent upgrades, it was nigh-impossible for Hinata to even react before I had my blade to her neck if I was going all out, there would be no point in us sparring if I did that.
Now if one were to look at our battle from an outside point of view, they would just see Hinata and I appear at different points, shockwaves cascading around the room and our blades clashing before vanishing and appearing in a different point in space.
- Hinata Sakaguchi -
Hinata kneeled on the floor, exhausted and drained of a large chunk of her Energy. After her original attempt of piercing through Felix's stupid Barrier using Spiritrons failed, she was stuck in a stalemate of sorts. Perhaps Felix could have taken her out at any point in time, but he seemed to be content to continue the spar, but it wasn't like he went easy on her.
He had used what he called one of the Mysteries of the Hazy Style on her, which she managed to defend against, though Felix had said he still had more in store for her later.
She looked down at the rapier that was held within her palm and did all she could to stop herself from leaping at Felix and hugging him. She had not expected to get her precious blade back after passing it on to Chloe; she had accepted that fact, but that did not mean she would not miss her partner.
It was quite ironic that her Moonlight Saber and Holy Armaments were created to be imitations of the Masked Hero's Equipment, and yet they would go on to become that very same Masked Hero's Equipment.
Time truly worked in odd ways.
While the Equipment Felix had given her was obviously not the same, it was a perfect replica. She could not tell the difference between it and the original. It was just as powerful as Moon Mistress, and thankfully, it had promptly accepted her as its wielder.
Then there was the armor which was in the same boat as Divine Moonlight, it suited her perfectly.
She could only smile fondly, Felix really was a softy. Her eyes hardened as she shifted her gaze to Felix who was standing 20 feet away, his katana held in his right hand casually. She had failed to cut him once over a period of 12 hours. Throughout the 12 hours their spar had taken place, she had continuously attempted to pierce through Felix's defenses, but no matter what she tried, all her attempts failed.
Sometimes, Felix even seemed to know what she would do before she did it. It reminded her of her Mathematician which had a sub-skill that allowed her to calculate the odds of certain things and predict movement through it.
Even Melt Slash now failed to breach through his stupid Barrier, Holy Power failed, Elemental Magic failed, Battlewill failed, she had tried practically everything in her arsenal, and even her Unique Skills failed to assist her in her endeavor.
She gritted her teeth at how helpless she felt. Even after all this time, after all the hardship she went through, she still failed to reach her goal. She still failed to make Felix proud of what she was capable of.
Felix had praised her multiple times throughout their spar, but that was not enough for Hinata. No, she needed to breach his Barrier just once to prove that everything she had been through had been worth it, that after all this time she had made progress. She knew it was a deluded line of thinking, she was the Masked Hero, a person worshiped by Humanity, yet she felt she just had to do this.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
No, she would not give up now, no matter how hopeless things seemed. If there was one thing Hinata Sakaguchi knew about herself, it was that when she set her mind on something, she would stubbornly cling to her beliefs and goals. She grit her teeth as she once again went through each of her abilities, trying to think of anything that would work.
She would hold a Vendetta against Felix for all this, that she swore.
All of a sudden, she heard an emotionless voice resound in her head.
The Unique Skill: Vendetta has been acquired.
Hinata could feel her eyes widening as she felt the birth of something within her soul. She felt her overall energy be drained slightly as it was used in the creation of this new Skill.
She quickly took in all the information on her new Unique Skill.
She had not acquired a new Unique Skill on her own since she was first Summoned to this world. Infinity Prison and Absolute End were acquired with the help of Chloe so she did not count those.
But this… this could work. It embodied the desires she felt at that exact moment. She wanted to breach Felix's stupid Barrier and make him eat his words; she wanted to blow his mind.
Felix squinted at her suspiciously before smiling. "A new Unique Skill, huh? Well, I'll be nice and not analyze it just yet. Let's see what you got."
Hinata rolled her eyes. She did not believe that Felix could analyze her Skill when she herself had never used it before. What was he going to do, scan her entire Soul from his position?
Yeah right. Even if he could do that she would sense it… probably.
She smirked as she rose from her position. Most of her reserves were exhausted, but if she pushed herself, she could last a little longer.
Felix and her came to a silent understanding as he raised his katana in preparation for her assault. Her gaze wandered to the katana which had changed quite a bit since she last saw it. Now the Aura it emanated was even more devastating than her own rapier's.
She did not use any of the sub-skills available to her from her new Unique Skill, she did not want Felix to analyze the ability and through his absurd ability to Copy her Skill and quickly understand what she was going to attempt.
Felix's abilities were incredibly enraging, so it matched him perfectly, Hinata thought with amusement.
She narrowed her eyes and activated Thought Acceleration. She would only have one shot at this before Felix understood what her Skill did, she would have to make that one chance count, even if she had to play dirty.
All of her leaking Holy Power was constricted to her body and sword. Now that she was running low on Energy she could not afford to wastefully utilize it anymore.
She circulated her Holy Power internally, strengthening her body and rapier. All of a sudden, an idea came to her mind.
Melt Slash, paired with her new ability, would work quite well, but she was hesitant to use it on Felix. Melt Slash was an Ultimate tier ability. If she truly managed to reach Felix with it, she feared she may harm him grievously, which she didn't want, so she decided to hold off on using Melt Slash.
It didn't matter because, in the end, Hinata's goal for this fight was to land one solid hit on Felix. She did not need Melt Slash to do that.
But she needed a plan to take Felix off guard. Even if she managed to penetrate through his Barrier he would just block her strike with his katana and then counterattack, just as he always did. Breaking through his Barrier wouldn't be enough to reach him, but she had a plan.
She lowered her Thought Acceleration. Felix hadn't moved an inch.
She intensified the amount of Holy Power she was imbuing within her rapier, her rapier was now glowing almost as bright as the sun. If all the Energy in her rapier was released at once it would cause Kingdom ending levels of destruction.
Predictive Calculation failed to inform her of the likelihood of success, but Hinata was used to that when dealing with Felix.
All of a sudden, the silence ended. She dashed forward as sonic explosions erupted behind her.
Felix kept his eyes firmly on her, his pupils tracking her movements even at her astronomical speeds.
A moment later, she appeared in front of Felix, her blade aimed for his chest, and as predicted, Felix blocked her strike, his katana blazing with Fighting Spirit and, along with one other energy, Divinity.
Before she traveled back in time with Chloe, she had no idea what Divinity was, she recalled vividly when Felix had beaten her to the ground with a branch he found on the ground.
Hinata remembered being flabbergasted and enraged that a mere stick was able to best her, but she also knew there was something she was missing. Back then, she had sensed a mysterious, almost ethereal energy on the branch, and when she asked Felix about it, he did not give her a clear answer, seemingly trying to play the mysterious wise old master.
Now she knew.
Divinity was a very powerful force. Felix had not used it in their spar so far for some reason, but it seemed he was taking her a bit more seriously due to the unknown nature of her new Unique Skill.
She winced as her rapier strained against Felix's katana. Felix had stopped increasing the amount of raw strength he was using against her, purposefully using just a little more than she was to strain her.
She did not bother to discharge any of the Holy Power she had stored in her rapier yet, as his Barrier would just stop it from reaching him. No, Hinata had a different plan in mind. Some would call it a suicidal plan, but it was her best chance at bypassing Felix's Barrier, and she would not let that chance slip away from her.
She could use one of Vendetta's sub-skills now, but she did not. Felix Copying her Skill and, by extension, learning about it would ruin everything.
Felix was looking at her curiously as their blades were locked together. She scoffed; she wished to knee him in the groin, but that would be a pointless waste of her already dwindling Energy.
"Tsk tsk. Is this all you have, Hinata? I was curious about that Unique Skill you just developed, but it seems it has some conditions to use if you have not used it yet, or you are planning something."
She smirked. "You'll find out soon enough."
The world went silent to Hinata as the two of them continued to clash for what felt like an eternity. She was waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, to use the trump card of her new Unique skill.
She was focusing on every single movement, on every single opening. She held the urge to use the few openings Felix intentionally left open as traps, they looked so enticing right now. But gritting her teeth she continued their swords dance.
All of a sudden, Hinata saw it. Felix was going on the offense. He appeared in front of her, his katana held out in a jabbing motion.
That was when she did something she would ordinarily never do: she ignored Felix's jab and focused on her own blade, which was still bursting with Holy Power.
Pain erupted inside of her as Felix's katana stabbed through her armor and almost skewered her through her breast. Felix's eyes widened in surprise and slight horror as he was likely wondering why she hadn't moved to block. Despite Felix's blow bypassing her Pain Nullification the pain was minimal as she had already built up a pain tolerance.
Hinata ignored the pain and activated one of Vendetta's sub-skills as her blade continued forward. Her blade gained a mysterious new property as it ignored the annoying barrier Felix always kept up. Much to her surprise, after piercing through the first barrier, she felt her rapier begin to clash with another barrier.
Hinata's eyes widened. Did Felix seriously have multiple defensive barriers up at all times?! That's not fair!
Damn it! Was she going to fail now?! After all this?! After developing a Unique Skill just to beat Felix she would fail now?!
No… she refused, she began to pour even more energy into her skill, even if she used up everything she had, she would get one hit in. Despite knowing it could be fatal if a Spiritual Lifeform like her ran out of energy she still continued forth.
A few moments later, something clicked, she used her very Soul Energy to reinforce her attack, something even more foolish than what she was already doing, and yet finally her rapier passed through the barrier, which, oddly enough, reminded her of Distortion Field.
Thankfully, Guaranteed Strike was uniquely suited to bypass barriers. It allowed her to penetrate almost any barrier as long as she had the equivalent energy.
She had practically drained herself of all of her energy with this one attack.
Of course, an ability as powerful as Guaranteed Strike had conditions. She had to choose a point to strike beforehand, and once the strike was in motion, she could not stop her attack no matter what. Even if someone appeared behind her and was about to kill her, she could do nothing to defend against it in that scenario.
Guaranteed Strike was very much a trump card that should be saved as a final resort, as using it could easily result in her death.
Her blade pierced through all of Felix's barriers. Her rapier forced its way through Felix's skin, which was somehow as hard as diamonds. Her rapier didn't manage to get far, only drawing minuscule amounts of blood.
But she did it. She hadn't wasted all her time. She managed to reach Felix.
Even as blood erupted from her mouth, she couldn't stop smiling.
"You stupid strong-headed girl!"
She gave Felix a bloody grin. "I-I did it."
- Felix -
Hinata smiled at me as blood leaked out of her lips. "I-I did it."
I pulled my katana out of her breast, I managed to stop myself before I actually skewered her so the physical damage to Hinata wasn't that bad. I could have stopped myself sooner but the bulk of my computational power is through Othinus who I was restricting myself from using.
What did cause a significant amount of damage to her was the Fighting Spirit and Divinity I had coating my sword, but I could take care of that.
"My apologies, Master." Othinus began with what I could tell was genuine remorse.
"I was aware that perhaps you would have not wished to continue with your action yet I felt that Hinata needed this moment to truly progress. As this was a safe environment I opted to let things play out."
'It's fine, Othinus. Hinata isn't seriously hurt.'
I looked down at my chest, Hinata's rapier was still stabbed into me, but barely any blood was flowing out and I only felt minor amounts of pain due to the Holy Power she had imbued within her blade.
She really is an idiot isn't she? Going through all that to just cause a flesh wound.
Normally I'd be able to catch her practically suicidal tactic with Future Attack Prediction. Future Attack Prediction possesses the ability to forecast the potential movements of an opponent and then seeing the movement the opponent will make with 100% accuracy, all this is done through calculations.
This ability feels like another one of their senses, each possible movement and their trajectory clearly visible to them like streaks of light.
Black streaks indicate a more unpredictable movement such as a feint or trap while glowing streaks indicate that the movement is guaranteed to happen. It's not guaranteed to forecast for every attack, but those that it does forecast in the form of the glowing streaks are guaranteed to happen.
However, since this ability's routes lie in calculations and I told Othinus not to assist me to give Hinata a fighting chance, I had to rely on my own computation ability, which was far inferior to that of Othinus', a Manas. Of course I still managed to predict a decent chunk of Hinata's attacks, just not that last one due to just how out of the ordinary it was. It just wasn't like her normally composed self to do something that reckless, but it did work. I'd give her that.
I just didn't have enough information to come up with an accurate calculation, I didn't know the nature of Hinata's Unique Skill.
I shook my head, she was taking this spar way too seriously. A suicide tactic to just reach me was pretty foolish.
'I disagree, Master. This spar itself was not important to Hinata, but it was the meaning behind it. According to my analysis, Hinata Sakaguchi wished to prove something to herself and perhaps to you. This spar was simply the medium that she chose to do so. Now that she has done so, I believe she has likely broken through a mental block of sorts.'
Huh, well, that's good then. Now just what could she have been trying to prove to herself?
I likely wasn't going to get an answer to that question on my own, so I focused on taking care of Hinata.
Hinata was now leaning against my chest.
"S-Sorry for ruining your clothes Felix." Hinata mumbled against my chest.
I gently stroked her hair. "It's fine." It was easy to get rid of any stains on clothing with Magic.
I gripped my katana tightly, slowly pulling it out of Hinata's breast. Hinata's armor rapidly began repairing the hole in it and improving itself.
Normally, her armor would have protected her from an attack like mine, but my Divinity was too powerful for her armor to counteract and so it allowed my blade through and focused on protecting the rest of Hinata's body, isolating the Divinity as much as it could.
God Grade Equipment could be considered to have wills of their own, Hinata's armor sensed the incoming danger and realized it wasn't equipped to handle my power, so it focused its Energy on holding off the Divinity within my blade.
Thanks to that, my Divinity didn't cause much damage to Hinata, my Fighting Spirit however, did.
I easily dispersed my Divinity due to how intertwined it was with my nature. For my Fighting Spirit, I had to try a little though.
I focused on controlling my Fighting Spirit that was within Hinata's body and began dispersing it.
Though my Fighting Spirit was in Hinata's body, I still retained some level of control over my Fighting Spirit. It originates from my Aura after all.
Now that my Divinity was no longer counteracting Hinata's natural healing as a Saint, it was rapidly healing her internal wounds.
'I have analyzed the Unique Skill: Vendetta now that the spar is over.'
My mind quickly went over the Unique Skill, and I was shocked at just how busted it was.
What the fuck is this, Hinata?!
I have a feeling pure spite is what caused Hinata to develop this Unique Skill, literally all of its sub-skills can be used to directly counter me.
She managed to use pure willpower to temporarily push the Skill to the Ultimate level, allowing one of its sub-skills to successfully pierce through Infinity, and not just that but also the Multi-Dimensional Barrier as well. Though I wasn't focusing much of my energy on my Multi-Dimensional Barrier, I was a bit distracted with my blade piercing through Hinata's chest. If I wanted, I could have reinforced it and completely neutralized Hinata's attack, but no need to spoil Hinata's mood with that tidbit now.
Her Unique Skill: Vendetta had a few sub-skills, the first of which was very very similar to the move of a certain Demon.
Full Counter allowed Hinata to reflect any sort of Magical, Physical, or Spiritual attack back at her opponent with double the power, and it can be used through a weapon or through her bare fists.
How the hell did Hinata get a Skill like this?
No, seriously, how? Is the Voice of the World stealing things from other worlds or something? Copyright laws can even affect multiversal abstract systems!
I pushed past my disbelief as I focused on the next sub-skill.
Sword Flow, which causes each connecting strike of Hinata's to become twice as powerful as the last; everything about the attack is amplified, Magic Power, Aura, Holy Power, etc. which allows her to deal much more damage over time.
A useful ability but not one that I'm all that worried about since the odds of Hinata managing to reach a high enough level in Sword Flow in an actual fight with me were astronomically low unless I sandbag… a lot.
Then there was Hunter, which allowed her to find weak spots in her opponents and flaws in their form.
Preemptive Strike allows Hinata to perceive and react to attacks before they occur, giving them a brief window of enhanced speed and precision to counterattack. So this was similar to Laplace's Unique Skill: Seer, if to a lesser degree than Seer. In combination with Mathematician Preemptive Strike will be a rather powerful ability.
All of those sub-skills made for a fearsome Skill. I was kinda proud that I made someone spiteful enough to develop a Unique Skill. Honestly, that has to be a record.
I focused back on Hinata. "That's one hell of a Unique Skill you got."
It's pushing the boundaries of what a Unique Skill should be capable of, no this was a cut above the rest of the Unique Skills, similar to how Gluttony was also a cut above the rest.
Hinata sighed in relief as her wound closed. "Thanks for healing me." She mumbled against my chest.
"No problem. Just don't do something that foolish again."
"It was your fault." She protested as she tucked herself into the crook of my neck. This position was getting weird really quickly, but I wasn't going to protest against having a woman as hot as Hinata pressed against me.
"It's not my fault that you had to resort to suicidal tactics to actually wound me." I retorted.
Hinata giggled almost drunkenly. This was totally getting weird. "I actually did it, didn't I? I cut you."
"That you did, I'm proud of you." I don't know why, but I felt like Hinata needed to hear that.
Hinata sighed in relief as she trembled for a moment before regaining control of herself.
I lowered us down to the floor and took a seat, Hinata didn't resist and fell to the floor with me. Seeing as she didn't seem to want to move anytime soon I decided to just relax.
That was a good fight.
___________________________________________________________________
I am highly motivated by your guys' reviews and likes, so do that! I'll probably keep writing or something.
I have a discord server, come hang out if you want! https://discord.gg/VxR5Gn72Fp I also have a channel in Shiro's Gaming Omniverse.
Links: patreon.com/theogbasilisk
Author's Note:
Sup everyone, we get another fight scene, wooooo! This entire chapter was basically just the fight scene, but I hope y'all don't mind that. I've been enjoying writing these recently and can feel I've improved a ton. This fight was more about Hinata then it was Felix, she had basically overcome her limits and had accomplished something that was impossible for her to do previously, hell what she did was impossible for 99.9% of the world to do!
Let me know what you all think about this chapter.
Anyways, thanks for reading, peace!
Thanks to @Salante and @Flowerman for beta'ing this chapter. Also, thanks to the Bold yet Buff @BonVoyage for adding a cool sword-fighting scene.
Also, you guys should check out @BonVoyage Tensura fic, it's pretty damn good.