/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>46396448
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Separating from Meiling was a terrible mistake. I float haphazardly, one eye on the nigh-infinite number of lines and words on the light tomes, deciphering them through manual and automated magic. I need to understand the barrier if I want to destroy it, after all. Would've been much easier with a study—! Almost desperately, I open my arms in an arc above me, air dissolving into layer upon layer of metal, thick as a sequoia's trunk… Fakeling's fist buckles it to a breaking point as if a papyrus, my body splintering into three before I float away again, the two copies lunging onto Meiling’s copy. I watched intently as Fakeling, drawing her fist from amidst the shattered metal, chopped the first copy's head and then grabbed the second, lifted it above her head and pulled on each side… It was quite horrifying seeing yourself being ripped into two and then exploding, but I gulped it, the ground beneath me blossoming with sigils of multitude colorings and significance, one eye never leaving the tomes.

The magical minefield, though, was powerless against her—barely impacted by the double suicide bombing—effortlessly avoiding ice spikes, the lotus of rot, and even thunderbolts. Before I could even begin assembling a teleport, she was bearing down on me.

Defenses won't work, and though magic inflicts damage, it's draining me faster than it's hurting her. And I need time.

… So I duck under a thick magic shield, my eyes widening as a whoosh of pressurized air strong enough to rip diamonds happens right above my head, strands of hair fluttering together with a small line of blood, the shield shattering. But that's good!

Hands on the ground, well of magic depleting fast, I yell, equanimity hard to sustain at the prospect of death—no, that's not happening! Sekai needs our help. “Névoa!” The spellword uttered; it took a fraction of a second before the thin space underneath my palms exploded into a mass of white, ever-expanding and just as freezing as the Himalayas, covering a massive area.

“Tricks? That's what you're resorting to, Lady Patchouli?” The nebula-eyed copy says, though nothing happens. I'm already away from where she's standing. I dreaded an explosion of ki similar to Meiling's, or maybe using it to find me… It never came, and my theory finds itself true: the copies cannot use ki as Meiling can. Hidden in a small crevice and covered by miles upon miles of white mist, I breathed heavily, body trembling.

So much effort…

Doing this alone is impossible.

… Ki, the energy of those alive. Sekai can't use it.

Of course Sekai wouldn't have access to it; she's not alive yet! She's a persona, a too-powerful soul inside a nurturing womb…

… All this turmoil started immediately after Meiling found out why she couldn't connect her ki with Anon's.

Eyes wide, I almost laugh. Almost.

Sekai needs Meiling to use her ki for something with precise timing—though that doesn't answer how predetermined this mini-war is. Did Sekai fumble something? Is her plan coming together…?

What's she waiting for?

Still, why hasn't she used any of her other powers yet? This almost feels like a cat playing with its prey—

—My body stiffened at the sound of a sudden punt and whistling projectiles, as if one of those human machine guns had fired thousands of shots in a second. Hidden in the mist, I could only see my opponent through enhanced magical vision, yet whatever happened was almost innocuous; Fakeling had kicked the ground and the sounds happened. She did it again, then again and…

It dawned on me and, instinctually, I raised the strongest magical shield I could at the moment, reserves drained from creating the mist and the fight up until now… And it was just barely enough to withstand the utter onslaught of rocks that came flying in my direction, peppering and cracking the shield with such ferocity as if it were to down a titan—

—In a second, Fakeling had crossed the augmented distance created by Sakuya's power; she stood above me, her fist pulled back, the shield shattered…

0.4 seconds to react.

“Ferrea pellis—”

She hits me square in the jaw; my body sent flying like that of a stringless doll, hitting several times the soil.

My head spun, tomes dispersing in golden dust and, when I had stopped whirling like an intoxicated tumbleweed, all I could do was groan, eyes on the sky, body sprawled like a blanket.

It hurt… It hurt a lot.

I try feeling my nose, but all I can feel is a burning sensation as blood bubbles, mouth tasting copper.

… Sekai held back.

I’m still alive.

“Of course I held back, Mother Patchouli.” Sekai, it seems, says to my side, softly squatting to my side. There's sadness in her next words. “… One punch, and you're on the ground bleeding. If not for that spell, you'll be a blood stain.”

“You already… knew it wouldn't happen. You know what the future entails, don't you? You need me.” She doesn't answer immediately, but I wouldn't have heard it anyway…

Abruptly, I began coughing. Terribly.