-Break-
Φ Moving through the passage in the mountain at full speed, I breathe in and out rapidly, trying to calm the fear growing in my heart. My mind flashes through all of the words ever released from her mouth towards me.
"Adrian, you got to watch what you eat?"
"Adrian, you need to make sure to stand up every now and then."
"Adrian, you don't need to brush my teeth for me; it's just a cold."
"Adrian, you were rather flirty with her."
"Adrian, you don't have to dress so intensely when you're just going out."
"Adrian, did you cook this? It's amazing."
"Adrian, I don't know if your words are the best for your readers."
"Adrian, you should try to talk to your parents every now and then."
"Adrian, so is what I wrote good? I am asking for your opinion."
"Adrian, you can't just go around saying I love you like that; my virgin heart can't take things like that."
Her words, her face, her mind, her soul existed in every single one of her actions as she rushed towards her goal, and the more I think about her, the more I see it: all the instances I couldn't help her, all the times I failed her.
The path narrows as I move forward, and sending Spirit Energy into my fists, I strike everything in my way, breaking the skin on my fists as I blow forward towards my goal.
The pain I feel is nothing compared to the pain I've dealt. She wasn't perfect, but she had a heart that was willing to grow together, and I saw myself as one who didn't need to do such a thing. And now, due to my actions, my words, my thoughts, I have put you back in this situation. So please, Messiah, if you exist, help me today against my foe who stands against me.
Breaking through the walls in front of me, I take a deep breath as I look at the room covered in bookshelves from top to bottom, and staring in front of myself I see pinned to s chair, Ai with blood scattered al over the gown she wears, and with his hand on her head a man with curly hair stares at me and says, "So your Captivant?"
"AI! LET HER GO, YOU BASTARD!"
Rubbing her cheek, the man says, "I would've done so, but she has decided on a path for herself, and no man should have the right to change that, isn't that right, Ai?"
Raising her head, she stares at me and says, "W-W-Why did you come here, you fool?"
Walking forward, I say, "To save you."
"ARE YOU SO ARROGANT THAT YOU SOMEHOW THINK YOUR LIFE WOULDN'T BE FORFEIT!"
As her words end, she starts coughing up blood, causing the man to rub her back and say, "You should be careful not to overexert yourself; if you continue with such behaviour, it can have disastrous effects in your current state. Though I do assure you if you change your tune we can still save you."
"Fucking kill yourself," she says as I lunge forward.
With the same lifeless expression he has had since I entered, he flings his hand backwards, and from it some object flies, causing a large rattling sound to move through my ears, and from above a series of objects crash down, which I jump back to avoid.
Taking a moment to look at the dust which they create, I see a large series of chains that connect to the unseeable roof of the room, and attached to each can only be described as a strange stitching of a series of human bodies together.
I stop in horror, yet some of the vessels' screams burst outwards, sending a chill through my spine, yet I lunge past them towards Ai, and feel a boot slam into my face, sending me backwards.
Clapping his hands, he says, "I am impressed; I would've thought such a sight would've frozen your mind, but you seem unbothered."
"If you read the legends of heroes, you learn of the atrocities they had to deal with on a daily basis."
"You see yourself a hero?"
I grit my teeth, causing him to rub their bodies as he says, "I see myself as one. All these bodies here are those who have committed evils. Such as failing to pay their debts, trying to destroy the familia, or even treachery against us, along with a gaggle of our rivals and there family's. All stitched together while still alive by me. It's a rather difficult process to keep them all alive without a single one of them dying, but not an impossibility like one would think. Though they barely last 2 days. Still, in those 2 days they can serve the familia."
He runs his hands through his black hair and raises it, and there I see the roots of his hair are red. My focus quickly moves to his eyes were I notice his two purple irises are actually lavender and violet.
I surge Spirit Energy through my body and lunge forward, and on his coat he activates his legacy, and soon one of the bodies that tied to the chain mutates and transforms into a giant blob with goat-like legs, two powerful fists, and one giant claw against its back that breaks free from the chain and lunges directly at me, clashing its fist against my own.
As the impact from our blows smacks against one another, I am blown back as its bouncy body takes the force of my strike whole. Yet I quickly regain myself and fall on my legs, yet its attack keeps going constantly, as the man says, "Giuseppe Greco, my Legacy, a man of great courage and responsibility who would do whatever it took for the sake of the Familia, even ending the lives of scum in ways that suited him, and such a will manifested a Legacy just as intense. Little Shoe, a Regalia that grants me the ability to materialise someone's pain and puppet their body using said pain, a blessing given from my ancestor to me, from Giuseppe to Paura."
Looking at the creature in front of me, I jerk around, trying to get a hold of my situation. It barely has any form of eyes, so I doubt it can see me; that means it must be looking at me through that bastard.
I quickly smash my foot into the ground, then kick it up, breaking a large piece off it into the air before I slam my other foot into it, sending it flying over to Paura. Then, in the moment his eyes are blocked, I quickly grab one of the stones and send Spirit Energy through it as I rush towards the beast at full speed.
My fist swings the stone toward it at full speed, yet it jumps and quickly slams its body into the ground, sending a shockwave that knocks me away as it shakes all of the bookshelves, causing them to fall throughout the room.
Using a wide-range attack to clear me while also removing the rumble from his path. As long as he can do that, I stand no chance of breaking through that thing; if this continues on, I am going to die.
A sensation moves through my skin under my clothes, forcing me to rip a tear through it, and there I see a blob against my skin similar in shape to that of the monster in front of me, causing a surge of terror to move through my body.
Paura, wringing his chains, says, "My ability seems to be growing on you; if you don't control yourself, our fun might end up ending unceremoniously. And wouldn't that be an awful way for the story between a hero and a demon to end?"
Standing up, I say, "Demon? Your eyes need to be changed, because in this room there are two demons."
Tilting his head, he says, "Then let's have you fight one for each."
Another body drops down and turns into a monster, though instead of two arms and one giant claw, it has two pincers and one fleshly cannon attached to it. "Don't die yet, Captivant."
Location: Abundant Kingdom, Varage;Chronicle Nimbus Hideout 892; Outside
Φ Jumping backwards as I skip through the ravine, Lorenzo continues to chase me; his fists slam against the different walls of the ravine over and over again, as I use my sword to redirect his blows, gently feeling the tremors of each failed counter through my body.
And as we fight, the air, the earth, the very light that shines upon me constantly changes into different forms to try and strike at my body. Making an ever-changing arena in which the two of us fight.
So far, I think the Regalia of that Reina is something that allows her to reconstruct the world around her. The abilities she has are far too varied to be some simple type of psychokinesis, and she seems to be able to alter the principles of the world as well, though she isn't creating any mass out of nothing, so it must be altering the world that currently exists instead of fully dominating it in every way.
I suspect that she is capable of halting spiritual effects within an area, which is cancelling my unstoppable. Though its effects don't seem to fall onto me, it seems that while she can reconstruct the environment, anything directly covered in my Spirit Energy is untargetable. I should be able to kill her if I can get close enough. But then the other issue appears.
As I dodge Lorenzo's blows, Reina snaps her fingers, and suddenly the space around the area starts to change and quickly a giant ball of water and wind is formed around Lorenzo and me.
We both steady our feet on the hard but invisible flow, and he charges at me, and in that same instant I release eight slashes across his body, yet he continues forward unabated by them all raising his fist in the sky to smash against my body, which I dodge as he continues his assault.
Lorenzo seems invulnerable to attacks, not matter how much I cut him, hit him or smash him into anything, it's like it never happened. I can feel my blade going through him, yet reality pretends as if it never did, and combined with those Spirit Metal gauntlets that are making his Spirit Energy flow through them better than his own body, I can barely ward off the damage.
At this rate, I don't know if I will be able to beat those two. Both of their abilities seem to be Regalia, so if I use Unstoppable well enough, I should be able to wait till one of them drains themselves completely, or I could just keep throwing attacks at them till they exhaust themselves. Still, I don't know if the alterations made by Reina return to normal when she is exhausted or are bound by a time limit that needs to be re-entered.
But do I have that time to waste when Captivant could be killed? Beyond that, did they really only send these two after they learned I killed 3 Miracles? They must have a bunch of other people who can jump in when I am exhausted. These Mafia bastards have no issues throwing their lives away for the Familia, so I wouldn't put it past any of them to have a plan like that.
Though even more than that, is winning in such a way something I want to do. No, I know that there is an oddity in the way they fight; even if I can't pin it down, my soul feels the strange inefficiencies that don't make sense if their abilities should work the way I think they should. I know I can overcome them both and win this, so Siegrund, don't be a pathetic master right now.