District 7. The Commercial Streets.
Suzushina Yuriko and Kakine Teitoku were locked in a fierce, high-speed aerial battle. In the short term, it seemed impossible for either to defeat the other without fully understanding and calculating their opponent's underlying physical laws.
Even with Yuriko's freakish, supercomputer-level processing power, it took her time to calculate the constantly shifting vectors of Kakine's impossible matter. More importantly, she had to dedicate a massive portion of her calculation capacity to ensuring the aftermath of their clashes didn't harm the innocent bystanders fleeing the area.
Yuriko was fighting the Number Two while actively protecting civilians.
The battle spilled from the stadium into the surrounding commercial district, leaving the streets in ruins. Windows in high-rise office buildings were shattered, traffic lights were bent backward onto the sidewalks, and trees were uprooted, some embedding themselves deep into concrete walls.
The two Level 5s finally landed on a recently evacuated street, the asphalt cracking beneath their feet.
"Heh. Is that it? In the end, this is all you've got."
Yuriko sneered, resting one hand on her hip. She looked at her opponent—who was already sweating profusely—with a gloomy, disdainful gaze.
"No wonder you're just Aleister's Spare."
"You boast so much about your abilities, but don't forget the fundamentals," Yuriko continued, her voice dripping with mockery. "Regardless of whether your Dark Matter is a substance that naturally exists in this universe or not... the moment it enters this world and interacts with it, it exerts physical force. As long as it exerts physical force, it possesses magnitude and direction. It undoubtedly carries vectors."
"An unknown vector is still a vector."
Yuriko's red eyes flashed with murderous malice.
"I can completely control your Dark Matter by simply updating my calculation formulas. In the end, you don't even understand this basic common sense, yet you dare to talk big and provoke me. You have absolutely no idea what your own worth is."
She had initially thought the Number Two would be a genuine threat. But in the end, he was no different from the thugs she crushed every day. He was just another stepping stone, easily trampled after a few hundred exchanges.
"You manipulated my Dark Matter with your vectors?!" Kakine roared, cold sweat dripping down his face. His breathing was completely disordered. "What a joke, you bastard! Do you really think Vector Manipulation is omnipotent?!"
At first, he thought he could suppress her. But after a few clashes, his Dark Matter had absolutely no effect on her shield. Worse, she had begun actively hijacking his attacks and turning them against him.
"Hehehe... HAHAHA! You get angry over something like this?"
Yuriko was genuinely amused. She rubbed her forehead, laughing mockingly to her heart's content.
"You're truly a third-rate villain. It seems there's a very good reason Aleister only made you the Spare Plan."
She took a slow step forward.
"You dare to lecture me about the Darkness? How could a small-time thug like you understand true evil? 'As long as there is a good reason to fight, it doesn't matter if innocent people are dragged into it'? Only a pathetic street thug would use such a childish excuse to justify their collateral damage. Your clown-like appearance after being defeated is making me laugh out loud."
"Tch! What right do you have to lecture me?!" Kakine spat back. "I didn't want to drag ordinary people into this either, but I wasn't going to miss this hard-won opportunity! Besides, you dragged thousands of ordinary people into that stadium fight just now, didn't you?!"
"Heh. Only a filthy rat from the sewers would make an excuse like that."
Yuriko disdainfully shoved her hands into her pockets. At that exact moment, a massive sheet of shattered glass from the skyscraper above rained down on the street like a torrential downpour.
CRASH! SHATTER!
The deafening sound of the glass hitting the pavement immediately drew Kakine's attention. He looked up, and then he looked around the street.
"H-How could this be? How could this happen...?"
Kakine's voice went hoarse. For the first time, a spike of genuine, icy fear pierced his heart. His eyes trembled as he stared at the nonchalant girl standing amidst the falling debris.
Even with tons of glass falling, billboards crashing down, and steel girders twisting, all of the hazardous debris was miraculously deflecting away from the fleeing civilians down the block. Not a single innocent person had so much as a scratch on them.
"You bastard..." Kakine's face turned deathly pale. "Could it be... were you distracted this entire time? Were you actively protecting all these ordinary people while fighting me?!"
He hadn't held back at all; he was fighting with the absolute intent to kill. But in such a high-stakes deathmatch, not only had she effortlessly pushed him to the losing end, but she had done so while dedicating a massive amount of her brainpower to shielding strangers she had never even met.
"That's why I called you a small-time thug," Yuriko smiled coldly. "That is the insurmountable chasm between you and me. Even if all the other Level 5s came at me together, they wouldn't be a match for me in the end. Do you understand now?"
The air around her grew heavy.
"So, what are you going to do now? Say goodbye to this world, or slink away like a beaten dog?"
She took another step toward him. Kakine instinctively stepped back. Then, his face flushed with extreme humiliation. 'I stepped back! I was actually afraid! I finally got my chance to claim the Number One spot, and I'm cowering in fear!'
"You bastard! Do you really think you've completely defeated me?!"
"Hehehe... hahaha! Is this the impotent rage of a dying dog? It's hilarious," Yuriko laughed, her eyes filling with absolute ferocity. "It's about time you paid the price for provoking me! No one gets to walk away intact after picking a fight with me."
"Bastard! Do you think you can kill me?!"
Consumed by fear and extreme rage, Kakine snapped. The three pairs of blazing white wings behind him instantly expanded, transforming into six giant, razor-sharp blades slashing directly at Accelerator.
This was matter that did not exist in this universe. It could slice through the strongest alloy on Earth like warm butter. Yuriko simply raised her hand.
The moment the leading wing touched her pale fingers, its vectors were violently twisted and shattered.
BOOM!
A powerful burst of kinetic energy erupted, sending shockwaves scattering in all directions. The nearest trees were uprooted. The reversed vectors traveled straight up the wings and directly into Kakine's body, throwing him violently against the corner of a concrete building.
"Haaah... haaah..."
Kakine knelt on the cracked pavement, panting heavily. He coughed up a mouthful of blood, then clutched his head, screaming in agony. 'She actually reversed the vectors directly into my internal organs! That bastard is really trying to kill me!'
"How could I possibly let you kill me?!" Kakine roared in a final, frenzied surge of desperation.
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