It bounced on the hard floor before crashing on a spike. Blood poured out of its mouth. It laid a hand on the spot where he was punched and directed a glare at us, its glare passed over us all before it settled on Tifa who had broken out of her stupor and raised her guard.
It took a moment before it got up looking like new, its lips peeled back bearing the fangs hidden behind them. In a 'wakanda forever' way its arm crossed and the claws were coated in blood.
Sun Breathing First Form: Dance
Hoping Mary cast her regen spell on me I rushed and performed a downward swing blocking a vertical blood slash coming for Tifa. Moguzo blocked its claws but had to let go of his sword as the claws started chewing through it. "uh guys?"
"Fall back Mugzo, leave him to..." Ranta looked around and spotted me ready for whatever came next. "To use us! C'mon fire sword dude!" We both closed the distance between it and us, Ranta slashed at its neck first and shot back evading a claw with a skill or some really honed instinct.
It turned to me and pierced my neck with its hand in a spearhead copy. The smile on its head froze when it realized something was wrong and the world spun in its vision.
My sword made a clean cut through its neck. My illusion with the claws still pricing the neck slowly faded like a rainbow.
I stood there, my sword still up in case the fight was not over. I didn't know if it would burn away like in the manga by just cutting its head or if it had to be with a Nichirin blade considering there was magic in this world and probably some kind of mixed magic and curse energy thingy, which did appear to hurt him before. Rushing footsteps came from behind me, "Don't move! I'm not sure it's dead so keep your guard up."
A tsk came from its severed head and the body walked over to it before picking it up and placing it back to where it was cut off from. "You spoiled the surprise. How did you know anyway?"
I could say my parents warned me about your kind, but it wouldn't come back to bite me in the ass since the people here did not know my parent but hey let's say it is something that has no chance of turning back to burn me and hope it lands on nat20. "A hunch."
"Heh" It clearly did not believe me. It raised a hand and swiped downwards and three recent moonshaped slashes rushed towards me, they had a blood-red color and were easily cutting rock in their way.
Not willing to test the durability of my sword with this I decided to dodge to the side. It must have foreseen that and ran in the direction of where I would be when I dodged the attacks. My eyes followed the magic slashes until I was sure they would pass leaving me unharmed. Its claws came into my view, coming to pierce my face when I turned to look back at him. Fake Rainbow helped me evade the deadly attack again.
Tifa rushing towards us informed me of the direction I should cut in. With a vertical slash, my blade bit deeply into the left side of his lower back. Her punch landed on the right side of its face helping my blade cut it in half easier with the opposing force. I noticed her body enveloped in the white glow from before.
We took some distance from it while it stopped playing dead and stuck its 2 halves back together. "What's with the glow?" I asked.
"Hmm? Oh!!" She looked at the glow around her hands, surprise showing on her face. "Wow you're right they are glowing." She turned something off because the glow stopped and after a moment turned it back on. "It looks like magic enhancement is the cause, I am using it in full output. I know you warned us bout using it like that but I left spots for it to leak out and I guess that is making the aura."
A 'Tsk' brought our attention back to our opponent, "You two lovebirds done talking?" It was back in one piece, stretching its back to either kill time and look bored or maybe it was getting ready for something.
From what I knew, that could lead to Soul Zero a lot faster than using the enhancement the way I was taught however it would allow one to fight at full cylinders for the duration of one's magic, and also might be the reason why she could perform a Black Flash.
"Fight for as long as you feel fine, but when you feel nausea pull back." My posture lowered but I raised my sword over my head.
"And leave you alone to fight it?" She took the stance of the sonic punch from a few days back.
"I'm not alone." I launched myself towards it engaging in back and forth between us, parrying and evading its claws chewed away at my concentration, and left me in a trance. My instinct was taking over leaving my conscious mind to concentrate on the sound of a flame disrupting a total silence.
A lack of air brought my mind back to the current moment. A swipe coming to my face, I raised my blade to be in the way, its flat side facing the claw and one of my forearms on the other side to help absorb the force. Being weakened already thanks to my lungs being overworked the claw swipe sent me flying.
Tifa was there to catch me and bring me to the closest healer. With a glance to check who took my place in the fight, I spotted the party of the now dead Brutus fighting against it, or more like buying time, magic wind blades and wind arrows were back. They had stopped an hour ago, Jessie probably ran out of arrows and switched to magic which with her low amount of magic must have run out forcing her to take a break or pass out but considering how fast the arrows started coming she must have taken a rest. The mages must have done the same however the one who focuses on wind got back on his feet faster than the fire or darkness mage.
It took me a full minute to settle down and get my breathing under control which was enough for the former Brutus party to be ripped apart by the vampires' claws even with the backup of Ranta, Hruhiro, Donny, and Briggs.
A quick look at the brightening sky confirmed that dawn was upon us. "Mary, cast regen on me one more time. Tifa I'm going to jump into the fight and have everyone pull back when I do ask for their weapons and be ready to throw them at me when you feel is right."
She gave me a small nod and I shot forward flooding my body with magic but leaving ways for it to leak out hoping the nausea wouldn't hit me too bad or too fast.
Water Breathing: Tenth Form Constant Flux
I planned to make this the final rush, not to stop and keep it from running into the darkness as long as I could.
My first strike pushed him back a meter, not relenting I kept rushing him. The others fell back to heal and rest before the next turn for them to fight.
Claws and swords kept mashing in parries, both of us not minding our defenses much. Besides protecting vital points that would end my life or disrupt our exchange we didn't pay attention to the wound inflicted on each other. Our fight lasted until the sun peeked over the horizon making it hard for him to be distracted from it. It started to evade my sword slashes and his eyes darted around in search of a place to hide from the sun. The cave it had come out from last night became his focus and he ran towards it.
My legs refused to follow him at high speed allowing him to run away, I noticed a lot of small wounds on my thighs more than my upper body. "Dammit!"
The vampire turned back to see me fall behind and the others a fair distance away. "I'll see you all again!!" In its elation of getting away, it did not notice one of the hyumans was missing. In its moment of elation at having survived Haruhiro jumped on his back as he muttered 'backstab' and plunged his coated dagger into its left shoulder blade. Surprised, it stopped its run, turned, and tried to remove the passenger from its back. Its eyes focused on the spear with the illusory flame trail a meter away from skewering him, the weight on his back disappeared from his back and he tried to dodge to one side, half failing as his shoulder got skewered and got pinned to the arch of the cave entrance followed by a single edge saber used by Ranta on his other shoulder and finally a long sword to the center of the chest.
"Well... shit." A bloody smile etched on its face and its eyes glinting with both denial and acceptance. My wounds healed as we got closer thanks to the healers with us. Its eyes leveling with mine, "My mission is done anyway."
"What mission!?" Ranta asked for all of us yet its eyes never left mine.
It closed them and gave us an even bigger smile. The sun reached its shoulder burning it to ash. When its eyes opened again they gave me the feeling of looking at a totally different being, and overwhelming pressure fell on all of us. "Yoriichi, I have been waiting for you." The fact it knew that name, its calm manner of speaking, and the pressure it emitted left no doubt who this being was. "The name of- Who are you?" He squinted his eyes at me making a shiver run through me and a feeling of someone looking intently at my soul. Before it could say anything else the sun shined on the rest of him, burning to ash.
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Word Count 1730
If there are any grammatical errors let me know with a comment on the paragraph.
Thank you guys. I appreciate your reading so far.