The False Mirror

“Is that all you can do?”

“Eh?” That wasn’t the sort of response he expected to get from Saki. She didn’t even look worried about it. He wasn’t thinking she would be surprised, but a little bit of concern or annoyance at something that would give her trouble. Yet she looked disappointed.

“All you make is two?”

Tatsuya leaned forward on the roof a little, finding that he was more surprised and shocked, which should have been on her face. “A-all! It took me two weeks to figure out how to do this! I like to see you do better!”

As requested, Saki began to become blurry until she separated into two copies and then another. She stopped at creating six copies of her through her speed. “And I figured this out in the middle of combat.”

“Now you’re just showing off,” he joked, trying to hide his insecurity. ‘Damn, this is bad. She can do all that and doesn’t even look like she’s trying still. How am I supposed to even get a draw with her? Hurry up, man. I’m not going to be able to hold out for as long as I thought against her.’

Chapter 343 – The False Mirror

Saki didn’t wait long before making her move against Tatsuya. She was confident, but not one to showboat. There was no need for her to be dramatic about her fight. None of that had changed since joining Takako.

All six copies of Saki leapt to the roof after Tatsuya. It was only thanks to his ability that kept him from being completely destroyed in the first second. She once again missed him. While he was already airborne, she crushed the roof that he stood upon a moment before. It all happened in a blur, but he saw multiple streaks from Saki for each of her copies.

As he came to a rest, he watched the house collapse into pieces as Saki stood on the debris pile. Though he noticed as she stood on it, the debris was moving quickly. Eventually, she stood on a flat surface of the floor.

It took him a moment, but he realized what had to be happening. ‘It’s like in those anime…’ The moment he thought that he became a little depressed with himself that he was thinking like Yuki would. But it made sense. ‘This all did come from his mind, so it’s not surprising that these sorts of things would work this way.’

Little time remained for him as Saki returned to the offense again, but armed with what he figured out he could dodge her again. It took a few more attempts for him to be sure. ‘I was right. She didn’t actually copy or clone herself. They don’t have independent movement. It is just her moving so fast and intentionally taking pauses in her movement. They’re all just after-images. There is still only one Saki.’

The discovery made him grin a little. Learning such a piece of information didn’t make her as threatening as she seemed. It was still frightening to ponder the fact that she could move so fast as to create six after-images. But Tatsuya could take such a thing.

He kept dodging her using his two copies to throw her off. She quickly realized as she managed to land a punch on what she thought was him, that it wasn’t actually real. Her fist went right through him. It left her to pause in surprise. This opened her up to a counterattack.

Tatsuya immediately took advantage of it by attacking from his real self. He didn’t have any speed behind his punch, so it didn’t have the same sending power as before. But he still connected with her cheek. The power behind it knocked her back off her feet. She had no defense up, not expecting it. So he got the full advantage of his strike.

Tumbling end over end for a good fifty meters before she managed to come to a stop, Saki crashed through two homes. Columns of smoke spread out from all of the destruction she wrought from the attack. But she didn’t stay down for long.

Saki nearly seemed to be flying back the way she was covering the ground. If he hadn’t seen her coming from so far away, he probably could have been knocked out by the sheer speed she approached. However, since he could see her coming so easily, it gave him plenty of setup. He tripped her and flipped her all in the same motion sending her sliding into the earth.

The force behind her body was enough to carve out the earth across the street and into a house. It buried her about a meter below the ground in a tunnel she created. Tatsuya could hear her screaming curses at him, unfortunately through the earth her voice didn’t carry very well. ‘Seems her overconfidence is working out in my favor. But I don’t know how long I can keep this up. She doesn’t seem to be even breaking a sweat and I can already feel my body getting tired. I’m not used to such an intense fight.’

He kept his movement limited knowing his poor stamina. None of this was his sort of life. All his school life consisted of before these dark days was hanging out with friends and trying to do the least amount of work possible. He was content with being lazy. Unfortunately, the new life he led didn’t allow for such luxuries anymore.

While he tried to preserve his energy, Saki worked on getting out of her hole. The tunnel she dug with her body left her stuck firmly behind a meter of earth. It didn’t take long for her to get enough room made for her to free herself. When she did, a column of earth exploded into the air as she punched her way out.

As she walked out of the cloud, it looked like she had her own that she generated from her fuming emotions towards Tatsuya. She was dirt caked and a little bruised from everything. Not nearly as worse for wear as Tatsuya, but it actually looked like he managed to do something to her.

Unfortunately, the anger in her eyes made him sweat a little in worry. She looked even more pissed than before, which seemed impossible. Yet it was true and it was all going to be taken out on him. ‘And suddenly, I want to swap out with Hiroshi…’

He noticed that she wasn’t trying her after-images anymore. It wasn’t giving her an advantage against him. ‘I had hoped that she’d keep it up for a while longer. It would have drained her energy faster…’ Once he figured out how it worked, he knew he could use it against her. Sadly, it didn’t last longer for him.

Saki charged after him, quickly closing the distance, but stopped just before him. He was already in the act of dodging when she raked her foot through the earth spitting up debris in an arc at him. Debris shot through both of the copies of Tatsuya leaving Saki confused. She paused, not sure where he went. “Come out you bastard!”

“Alright.” He popped out behind her getting another hit on her. It knocked her forward, but didn’t send nearly as far. Tatsuya felt something a little off about the impact. ‘Did she block me or am I getting more tired than I thought?’ Whichever was the case, Saki jumped back on her feet almost the instant she tumbled over. She jumped back after Tatsuya before he had much of a chance for anything. His attempt to dodge changed a direct hit into a glance blow, but it still sent him flying backwards into the ruins of the house Saki destroyed earlier.

Somehow, it actually felt worse than before even though he was certain she didn’t hit him as hard. “Urgh…” Tatsuya tried to get up, but Saki didn’t want to lose her advantage on him. She landed with a sharp kick to his stomach as he was pretty sure the sound of ribs breaking echoed out through his body. Blood shot up out of his mouth along with the air knocked out of his lungs.

Following up with a kick in the side of his ribs, Saki assuredly broke several. The force sent him up in the air and she leapt forward slamming her elbow into his chest shooting him back into the earth. His impact shattered the earth and dented it.

Another stream of blood escaped his lips as he coughed and nearly choked on the blood. He frantically manipulated his copy and threw up some of the dirt to temporarily blind Saki.

“You bastard!” she screamed as she tried to rub out the tiny particles of dirt. She still roughly knew where Tatsuya was and spun around her leg to try to take him out. It only caught a small piece of him. “Get back here!”

Tatsuya escaped quickly to get out of sight of Saki. There were plenty of houses in the neighborhood, all abandoned. So it gave him the options that he needed. Putting some distance between her, he stopped up against the wall and nearly crumpled over. ‘Damn…I didn’t think she’d wreck me so fast. The difference in our power is too great… I don’t know how much longer I can keep her busy.’

The screaming of Saki’s anger and pain ripped through the neighborhood. It only made Tatsuya try to hide even more. His body didn’t want to go back out there against her again. He cleaned up a little bit of the blood, but it was already everywhere. ‘How bad did she mess me up?’

“Tatsuya, you bastard! Get out here!”

‘No, I need to keep buying time for Hiroshi.’ He peeked around the house trying to get an idea of where Saki was. Unfortunately, there was just too much still. Tatsuya hugged his stomach trying to work through the pain. ‘This isn’t going so well…’

In what was likely enough time for Saki to get the dirt out of her eyes, the ominous sound of things breaking lowly echoed around the empty neighborhood. ‘She sounds really pissed off…’ Odd noises from the distance started to give him an uneasy feeling about things. She couldn’t find him clearly. ‘What’s she doing? Trashing the place in anger? There’s nobody living here at least.’

Before long though, a strange sound screamed towards him. He didn’t have enough time to react to the explosion that leveled half of the house nearby him. ‘The hell!?’ Tatsuya tried to lean out to see if he could figure out what happened, but another explosion went off on the opposite side.

“You can’t hide from me!”

It began to come to him. Another explosion further in the distance destroyed what remained of a house. ‘Is she throwing things around trying to level the place until she finds me?’ As he watched another house blow up, he paid more attention to what happened. He saw a large chunk of earth colliding with the house moments before it collapsed. ‘I’m right… Damn, this isn’t going to take nearly as long as I hoped for her to find me. I’m running out of hiding spots fast and I can’t hide in areas that would draw her fire towards living areas.’

Precious seconds drained away as Tatsuya tried to think of something to do. Stress and pressure didn’t help him think faster. His mind drew a blank on anything that he could do. ‘…dammit…wish Yuki built me better…then I could hold my own against Saki better. She’s just too strong…’ He had no options, save for one.

His house was the last one still standing in the area. It made it pretty easy for her to figure out. Saki leapt through the air landing on the roof of the house. A few of the clay tiles slid off falling at Tatsuya’s feet. “So this is where you are.”

“Damn! Out of time.”

“That’s right.”

Tatsuya stood up to face Saki directly. The pain from his ribs seemed to have disappeared. He wasn’t sure why, but it helped him if he was going to fight. ‘I’ll have to make the first move otherwise things will play out the same as before.’ This was his only option.

Flinging a couple of the mostly whole roof tiles back at Saki, he used it as a screen. She cut them down with her arms leaving her completely open for Tatsuya to punch her into the house. Everything shook from the impact, but the house remained standing, somehow. Keeping up his attack, he pulled out pieces from the ruined roof to throw at her. The smoke made it difficult for him to locate her, so he listened for the different sound when it hit her.

Once he heard the right sound, he jumped down swinging with a large chunk of wood he found. It shattered immediately on impact against Saki with the force that he brought upon it. Saki still staggered back as the blow created a gust that cleared out the clouds. He picked up anything nearby to keep swinging at Saki, anything to keep her off balance.

In the middle of a swing, Saki caught the latest thing he was swinging, part of a sink. “That’s enough of that!” Tatsuya received a good look at Saki, his attacks left her bloodied in the face and arms. Her pissed look reached a new peak as she wound up her punch. He tried to back away and dodge her, but Saki grabbed a hold of his arm. “You’re not getting away from me this time!” Her fist slammed into his stomach shattering the house’s floor and foundation as his body carved out a crater to lie in.