Mind Lock

Takako smirked a little and suddenly began to laugh at Yuki. That wasn’t the reaction that he expected to get out of her when he told her that he stopped her. ‘What’s wrong with her? I don’t need her to have a breakdown now because she’s lost.’ Unfortunately, Yuki’s gut was telling him something else. There was something wrong with the situation that didn’t feel right.

She wasn’t laughing because she felt that she had lost. In fact, it seemed like she still had something left to play. And it left Yuki feeling very unsettled. He didn’t know what it was, but he had to finish things with her. ‘I just need to neutralize her powers… There’s nothing that she has left that can stop me.’

A quick shift of his powers off and on, he already arranged a new set of rules to deal with most of the threatening aspects of her power and abilities. He just needed to bring everything to an end now. “It’s over now.” Materializing massive weights, they snapped onto Takako’s wrists and ankles restricting her movements.

Glancing down at the balls and chain that he made, she didn’t seem very bothered by all of it. “This is rather mundane for being a junky for the fantastical.”

“Practicality over complexity. You understand very simply what it is without my explanation.”

“True enough. I know this is pointless.” She lifted her arms up a little still within the range of the chains. The confidence in her expression still hadn’t dropped.

The look he got from Takako only worried him more. ‘What’s she planning? She’s acting like she can still fight…’ Yuki didn’t know what she had planned, but he quickly shortened the length of the chains restricting her movements.

“Still hung up on this idea that you can keep me restricted.”

“It’s time for you to surrender, Takako.”

“I haven’t lost yet.”

“I’m willing to listen. Put everyone back to normal and we can talk. We can find an answer to this that doesn’t have to involve any more bloodshed.”

She sharply changed her expression. Harsh lines drew over her face as she became very serious with Yuki’s bargaining. “That’s an unacceptable term. I won’t give anyone back. Because I won’t, you must die. Otherwise this never ends.”

“That’s not the only way. There’s always a solution.”

“Not here. This is my solution and because your morals won’t allow you to accept it, we will never see eye to eye.”

Yuki felt like he touched into a rather important piece of missing information. ‘There’s something there. Something she’s implying. I feel like this is the reason for all of this! But she’s still holding back on a full explanation!’ It seemed Takako was set on a death fight between them. He could see it in her eyes with how resolved she was while she talked now. “I can’t understand your situation if you don’t explain things to me.”

“It’s a pointless discussion. I already know how it will turn out. This is the only way things will be settled.”

“Dammit! Things don’t have to continue like this!”

“You’re right about that.” Takako pulled her arms up, tensing the chains further. “I’m going to end this farce. You seem to be under the false impression that you’ve got the upper hand now that you don’t have to worry about my device. Allow me to show you how wrong you are!” She suddenly lifted her arms up, taking the solid black metal balls in the air with her.

Grinding his teeth together, he started to understand that the fight was far from over. He didn’t understand how she was doing. But he knew what this appeared to mean. “Those are five hundred kilos each.”

“Is that all? No wonder they’re so light. You must not think much of me.” He quickly changed the mass in the material, doubling the weight and it did very little to change her reaction. Doubling it again and again, he finally started to see a little struggling out of her. “Now you’re making me work a little.”

“I took away all of your superhuman attributes. What are you doing?”

Bored with the demonstration, she snapped the metal bindings around her wrists. She quickly did the same to the ones on her ankle. Now freed, she met Yuki with a very confident gaze once more. “Is that what you tried to do? Afraid that it doesn’t work on me like that.”

“I see…” It would seem that the fight wasn’t over as Takako had decreed. Though it was a strange situation where it seemed that neither could do something to the other to end the fight. ‘This can’t end in a stalemate. No, she’s already planning on winning. She’s going to try to outlast me… I can’t fight with the same sort of stamina as her. I’m going to have to get a little more aggressive with my tactics.’

Chapter 358 – Mind Lock

Takako took the opportunity to charge at him to force him to use his powers up. Like Yuki assumed, she planned on doing the exact same thing that Saki did in one of her fights. She was going to burn through all of his power until he ran dry. However, to her annoyance she hit a wall. Attempting to break it, it did nothing. An invisible wall stood before her that didn’t even make a slightest indication that she could damage it. “Going back to cheating powers.”

“I did say I wasn’t going to be fair.”

“You can’t stop me.” She walked around feeling the surface of the wall looking for the edge. However, she came to a corner. Checking the other side, there was a corner as well. Takako jumped over to the side behind her and found a wall there. Stretching her hands up, she felt the ceiling as well like she expected. “You forgot one thing.” She wound up her fist and rammed it into the ground to create a crater.

Or she thought she was going to that. All that happened was a dull echo bouncing through the chamber. She glanced up at Yuki with annoyance. “You really think I’d forget the bottom?” he questioned.

“So your plan is to bore me to death?” She sat down seeing that she had no other options at the moment.

“Hardly. I’m ending this like I said before. Even with superhuman abilities, you’re still a human. Nothing I’ve done has altered that. Which means you need air to live.”

Takako threw up her hand against the surface of the wall. It took her a little by surprise. “You’re going to suffocate me? Thought you said you weren’t going to kill me.”

“I just need you unconscious. I should be able to figure out a way to keep you in an artificial coma until I undo everything you’ve done. Then I can deal with you again and you will explain everything.”

Her fingers pressed tightly against the invisible wall. “I’m not going back! The only way out of this I will accept is death! I’m not going back to a living death ever again!” Some genuine fear slipped through into Takako’s face as she understood the extent that Yuki was willing to go against her.

The sight that Yuki saw made him even more curious about what made her so afraid. It wasn’t as simple as she seemed to imply from her words. There was something deeper that he saw behind her eyes. Something that sat at the core of everything. He just didn’t know what it was. “You’re out of choices, Takako. I already gave you the conditions for your surrender.”

“And I already gave you my answer.”

“Then this is the only outcome.”

Grinding her teeth together, Yuki had pushed her into a corner that she didn’t think that she would have been put into. She looked around her invisible chamber quickly. And then looked down at the floor again that she sat upon. “There’s a benefit to having a thousand abilities.”

“You can’t escape, Takako. I’ve made it completely invulnerable to any forms of damage.”

“Is that right?” she taunted, calling his claim as though it was bluff. Even though it wasn’t a bluff he made, she still stood up preparing to take action. “I’ll show you that there is still a way out!” Wiping off the blood from her face from the punch that Yuki made, she wound up her fist.

‘What is she trying now? What ability could she have that I haven’t accounted for?’ Yuki didn’t feel like he was being confident for no reason. Yet, he could see that Takako felt assured of her success. There was a fear driving her to keep fighting and never give up. One that he wasn’t going to be able to beat with simple half-hearted attempts.

Throwing her fist down against the floor again, there was a very slight delay, but suddenly the entire chamber filled with dust from the earth. Takako had somehow managed to break free again. She defied the expectations that Yuki had and made him question if he could actually stop her anymore.

Out of the crater filled with dust clouds, Takako emerged with a slightly bloody looking fist for her troubles.

Yuki still had trouble understanding what she did. He knew it was power that Takako possessed, just not what power could do that. “No amount of brute force could have broken that.”

“No prison is inescapable.”

“It would seem that way.” Yuki threw up more invisible barriers that should have been unbreakable to hold back Takako. Yet, she smashed through them with her bloody fist. She kept getting closer to Yuki. It was becoming dangerous once again to fight her. The methods that he thought would work on bringing her to a stop failed.

She met him with her speed with all of his other defenses down. The only thing that protected him still was his mist. Her fist ripped through it, rocketing Yuki across the ground.

The impact alone made him cough off blood. His mist had done a lot to mitigate the damage, but he couldn’t avoid all of it. Most of it was the sheer force coming through the displaced air around her fist rather than physical hit, which didn’t actually make contact. Had it, he would have died immediately.

Once he understood what happened to his body, he could stop himself with the mist before it got too harmful for him. He hovered over the ground seeing Takako in the distance coming after him. ‘There’s one last trick she’s playing. Unfortunately, I can’t do anything about it, since I don’t know what it is. So the only option I’ve got is to just hit her with enough power to knock her unconscious. I just don’t know how much power that is…’

Yuki prepared to receive Takako as she came after him. She destroyed more of his barriers to reach him. It became clear to her that her punch worked on him, even if he still stood. She just needed to keep it up now. A forced exhaustion like Saki was no longer needed. Takako could just kill him out right.

Yet her fist went right through Yuki and he disappeared into a puff of smoke.

She looked around for Yuki, surprised to see him so close to her. And he had already gathered up the power of something. “Let’s see if I can avoid looking like a copycat with this!” A massive beam of pink energy shot out of his hands straight up into Takako. It completely engulfed her with not even a silhouette appearing.

As the light from Yuki’s attack faded away, he could see Takako falling in the distance. He panted heavily, feeling that straining his body and mind. It was hitting him harder than he expected. “Hopefully, I didn’t kill her.”

Flying over to Takako, he checked out the effects. However, even before he finished making it over signs of movement could be seen. Takako staggered to her feet, making Yuki stop early. He then tried to avert his eyes away from her.

The blast completely destroyed her clothes and underwear, but also something else a little more important and critical to the mystery. Apart from severe burn and wound marks from the blast on her skin, it seemed that there was skin peeling off her skin. She had an outer layer of skin that was nearly completely vaporized from the attack.

Under that on her own skin, Yuki found something shockingly familiar. Across her entire body, she had scars, but they weren’t battle scars or just accidents from growing up. They were recent and most definitely intentional. “You didn’t?! That’s why my powers aren’t working on you!”

Takako smirked despite the fact that her secret had been revealed. “That's right. I figured you might be able to do something with the device or it just couldn’t work. So I needed a back-up plan.”

“And that plan was carving the array straight into your skin?!”

“Your powers can’t penetrate me to alter me anymore. I’m immune to your powers!”