Mind Tricks

Hiroshi tried to lift his arm up to guard against all of the dust and debris thrown around the room, but it failed to move well for him. The cloud completely engulfed him along with the two fighters. Only in the split seconds before the chaos happened could he see what happened.

The multitude of Takakos gave Yuki’s clones trouble. Initial dodging proved to only go so far. Her speed increased dramatically making the old speed that Yuki’s clones worked at ineffective. She destroyed the clones quickly. The pace that she took made it look like she would find the real Yuki in time.

All the clouds kicked up were from the speed at which Takako moved. The illusion that she held on the room seemed to be weakening as the dirty parts began to seep through piece by piece. Yuki chipped away at her, but it was still far from a victory for either.

Yuki remained hidden from her sights and she had plenty of fight left in her. Neither were ending any time soon. ‘Now that Yuki showed her that he’s serious in fighting her, she meeting him head on. This is where things heat up now. Will you be able to still keep the advantage Yuki, now that she’s started to play her cards? The same cards that defeated me with ease…’

Chapter 354 – Mind Tricks

Moving at such speed seemed like it should have started to affect Takako, but she showed no signs of weakness. She dealt with the Yuki clones as fast as they popped up. However, since none of them were real and what she did really didn’t destroy them it was a completely pointless exercise by her. Not that she seemed to be willing to listen to such arguments.

Takako finished off the remaining clones with signs of no more appearing. She turned around seeking out Yuki in any part of the room. He was nowhere to be seen. “Going to stop hiding?!”

“Seems that I’ll have to take you on directly,” answered Yuki, materializing out of thin air to her right. He threw out his fist while he was appearing leaving her little time to react. Though with her reflexes and superhuman speed it was still plenty of time for her.

Intercepting his punch with her right hand, she looked ready to counter, but was suddenly hit from a completely different direction. The blow knocked her off her feet and against the wall of the classroom. It lacked the same sort of power, but it still left a mark.

Rubbing her cheek, Takako looked on confused at Yuki. ‘I know I saw a hand hit me. But I didn’t see anyone. It wasn’t him, but who hit me? There another person with him?’ She tried to figure out what happened, but her sight hadn’t been focused on it.

Hiroshi stared on a little stunned at what he saw. It left him a little unnerved having seen it. ‘It’s frightening all of things that I see him do…’

“I might be normal, but don’t think it’ll be easy.”

“Damn you…” Takako stood back on her feet. “All you’ve got is tricks.”

“Did you really think that I would give you a fair fight? With everything on the line I’m not going to be nice.” Yuki rammed his fist into her face while he finished talking, not waiting on her to take the action.

Her head smacked into the wall cracking the dry-erase board. The next couple of hits knocked her head through the wall completely with her shoulders denting the board as she dangled there. She still breathed and more intensely than before, likely angered.

‘Is he going to be able to win?’ There was some uncertain hope stirring around in Hiroshi’s mind. He still couldn’t count Takako out of the fight. She still had plenty left in her. But he started to understand how committed he was to the fight. ‘Come on, Yuki…’

Dragging Takako out of the wall, he threw her down to the floor across the room. All the while, he rained down attacks on her, this time not hiding that they weren’t his actual hand this time. There was no need for tricks at the moment. “I would have just suffocated you from the start if it wasn’t for your array.”

Laughing, a slightly bruised, though not bloodied from all of the recent attacks, Takako woke back up. As to be expected, she wasn’t injured from all the attacks. She only looked in a little disrepair from the fighting. “So heartless of you.” Standing up, Takako carried a dark shadow over her face concealing an uncertain intent. “You’d make Saki cry to hear you talking about killing me.”

“It’s the fastest way to knock you out so I could undo all of your deeds. I already made myself clear that I don’t plan on killing you, just ending this as fast as I can.”

“Ending this as fast as you can?” The atmosphere in the room suddenly changed as she spoke. It felt like they were in the desert. A strange glow came off Takako introducing a new killing intent not present before. “How far is that confidence going to take you when faced with this?”

Flames erupted up around Takako bathing her in the red-orange hue. Both of her arms transformed into flames along with the ground. Circular arrays began to appear in the air building up. Takako’s powers completely changed, no longer making any sense to Yuki.

Off to the side, Hiroshi understood well what he was seeing. ‘This is where it begins. They’re both using tricks, but I still don’t know what Takako’s trick is… I failed to figure it out. Yuki…’

“You think that’s going to worry me?” scoffed Yuki maintaining a stonewalled expression when faced with something new. ‘That’s troubling…it looks like she’s got control of Fumiko’s flame judging from the magic array’s I’m seeing. I think I’m starting to get a picture of the whole now…’

Magic threads channeled into the arrays building up several fireballs before Yuki. The speed that Takako worked at now made it easier for Yuki to manage things on his own. Physical speeds weren’t something he could handle unaided. So he prepared his own Field for the incoming attack. ‘Law Switch, rule set #1!’

Mist returned around Yuki as he made the switch in his powers. ‘This is already getting more complicated than I want. Thankfully, I’m somehow able to remember all of this. I guess it’s part of the power.’ Filling out the space around him, he had his normal protection back.

“You think that’s going to be able to protect you?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

She took the challenge and finished the build-up of magic. Flames shot out at Yuki in a barrage. There was no holding back or easing into the battle. Takako pushed up the intensity of the battle quickly. “Handle these flames then!”

Guiding the mist in front, the flames clashed, blowing out parts of the mist, but it still held strong against the attack. Behind his mist, he caught flashes of orange from the magic exploding. He saw it poking holes through, but only the heat so far had penetrated through. ‘I’ll need to make it thicker for the next round. I held back too much.’

The next round however wasn’t so simple. Takako looked ill pleased by the lack of results from her attack. She immediately went to the bigger guns. Larger and more complex arrays appeared around her and on the ground. “Don’t get cocky now!”

“Oh hell…” Yuki jumped out of the way knowing that his mist didn’t have the strength to block such an attack. Several thick streams of flames roared just over him. What mist hung around him still as he moved was completely obliterated by the attack.

Takako could tell that her attack was far more successful and something that Yuki feared. She grinned a little, moving her arms around to alter the flames’ course. “I’ve got full control over this! Don’t think you can escape me!”

Yuki took cover in the hall that he punched through with his mist. He had to stay on the move as Takako didn’t stop searching for him in the most brute force way possible. ‘Damn it… It’s still not ready! I’m using so much of my power right now on the mist… The heat alone would have roasted me already without it…’

He wasn’t liking his current situation with Takako. ‘I’ve let her take control of the battle now. I can’t allow her to maintain the pace. If I don’t control the pace then I lose my only advantage in this fight. It’s already an uphill battle against someone that my powers won’t work on directly.’

A slight glow came off his mist that surrounded his body. It protected him from the bulk of Takako’s flame. It wasn’t perfect, but it did what he needed to remain in the fight. Sweat still dripped down his face from the flame attacks narrowly missing him. He jumped down the dirty hall feeling his skin nearly boiling from it just passing over his leg.

It was only for a second, but it felt like it had been an hour. His leg screamed at him from the stinging. The burn was bad, but he was going to have to live with it. Yuki threw himself into the classroom, thankful that it was actually empty. His mist returned to his side not needing to protect anyone.

Panting a little from the effort, Yuki could tell that he was finally getting warmed up from all of the dodging. Up until that point, he remained fairly stationary using other things to fight for him. He did what he could to ignore the burned skin. It felt worse than it actually was he knew. And he had been through far worse than some burn.

He dodged and tested trying to deflect the flames with his mists. The flames burned straight through the angled wall he created proving that it was still not enough. ‘The intensity of the flames and force is too much for my mist to handle. It’s not a very strong power against something real…’

Yuki kept ahead of Takako’s attacks, no longer feeling the pain in his leg. The adrenaline began pumping through his body. But her attacks came in stronger and more focused as each minute passed. He had trouble staying out of the way. ‘I can’t believe I heard that Fumiko supposedly has an even more powerful flame than this…if this is truly her power Takako’s wielding…’

Manipulating his mist in the hall away from him, he flung some debris into the classroom at Takako. It gave him enough of a distraction for him to jump back into the room. Though it didn’t take long for her to immediately return to attacking him directly. Skating around on his mist, he pulled it around to guide his body around the room to keep dodging her attacks.

Annoyed that Yuki remained out of her grasp, she covered much of the floor in flames trying to limit his area to dodge. “You’re fast on your feet. Can you still keep up?” The flames became more streams and columns than fireballs anymore. She stopped using any of the small attacks.

Out of room, Yuki ran up the side of the wall and to the ceiling hanging upside down. “There’s always somewhere to go. Unless you fill the entire room with fire you’re not going to be able to stop me.”

“Is that right?” A smirk came across her face hinting at something new in store.

The unsettling feeling coming off Takako made Yuki worry a little. ‘She’s already shown herself to be fast and control fire magic on top of her mind control powers. This is way too many powers to be normal. I’m really worried about where my theories are headed. If I’m right, this is going to be even worse than I imagined…’

Suddenly, Takako’s right arm transformed into water leaving the flame on her left. Soft blue magic arrays appeared in the air next to the fire. The two different elements mixed together spreading steam into the entire room.

Yuki slid back over the ceiling wanting space for reacting. ‘I don’t like this. She’s blocked off my ability to see her attacks. I don’t have anything useful for clearing it away. The mist isn’t suited for that purpose.’ He built up the mist into a thick wall with multiple layers extending outward as early warning for attacks. It was not much, but it was all he could prepare on short notice.

However, he was getting a strange feeling from his mist. Something was bumping into them, but it was not a normal sort of attack. ‘What’s this feeling? What is Takako doing?’ Then he suddenly felt the whole school shaking. It reminded him of the earthquake that split the school. Though it didn’t have the same sort of feeling. Everything about it felt strange, but still violent.

Something bumped into him against his back. He immediately whipped around and sliced through it with his mist only to find that it was a branch. “A tree? Huh?”

Then the mist started to clear away and more branches pushed into his personal space. He had to float in the air as the ceiling no longer was available. Parts of the schools rained down in chunks of debris as a massive tree ripped through what remained of the school.

No longer contained in the room, the steam dispersed and faded away. It wasn’t just one tree around him. Yuki suddenly found himself inside a forest. He couldn’t even really see the school anymore. It laid in a pile of awkward debris and half of the neighborhood went with it. “What’s going on?”

Takako appeared walking out from the shadows of a thick trunk. She had the confident look back, no longer looking like she was playing Yuki’s game, but her own now. “Thanks to my power I can bring out the full mastery that even they don’t know yet! Think you can stop me now, a master of all powers!”