The Full Moon

“So that’s what you’ve settled upon.”

“Yes! I’m going to kick your butt and drag you out of my sister!”

“I guess I’ll give you a point of consistency if nothing else.”

“You going to fight or talk?”

Many of the shards from her barrier still hovered around her. A few of them stopped to angle their positions in his direction. “Oh I can fight, since that seems to be all you’re willing to do. But you won’t find the answers you want and you won’t be able to defeat me.”

Yori had enough of her posturing. He drew in more of the black energy into his blades to grow their size. “I’m not wanting answers from you! I’m wanting my sister!” Charging in after the woman once more, he seemed to have completely forgotten about how the fight played out before.

She sighed in disappointment watching him. “And that’s why you’re weak.” A glow charged up behind her surrounding her in a purple outline. “It seems my more subtle attempts to show our differences have failed to reach you.”

“I don’t care about whatever difference you claim to have! It won’t stop me from getting my sister back!”

“As you are, you won’t ever see your sister again.” The build-up drew to completion as the intensity of the light made it difficult to even see the face of the woman. “So let’s show you why you can’t beat me.”

The light behind her suddenly disappeared and then flashed over the whole area. In an instant, there was purple light coming from all directions. Yori saw nothing, but beams of energy. None of them had the same intensity from some of the ones that he had seen tossed around before, but their count exceeded any sort of expectations he had for what she might have been capable of. “Too many…”

Chapter 338 – The Full Moon

Dodging was a meaningless effort. The attacks came from so many different sides and angles that he had no hope of being able to evade. Even if he had the speed of Saki, he doubted his ability to be able to come out unscathed. It was only made worse by the fact that he had enough reaction and reflexes to see it come and think about the imminent situation while still feeling hopeless.

He lowered his arms accepting his fate. ‘I really am just all talk. I’m so out of my element doing any of this. I’m no hero or even a wish to be one. I don’t dream of fighting aliens or monsters like that bastard probably does. All of this just proves my thinking… I’m normal, just someone wanting a peaceful life, yet unable to do even that.’

“Giving up already” barked Athene, “We’ve barely even gotten started.” Her Field of needles disappeared.

“I’m tired. It’s already been ten minutes.” Yori complained, wiping away the sweat from his brow.

“Ten minutes? The battle has only started in ten minutes.”

“Yeah, but I’m not built like you. You’re soldiers, I’m not used to this.”

Athene walked over and forcibly picked him up off the ground. “You’re right, you’re not built like us. You’re built better.”

“What are you talking about? I’m just a regular guy, a normal person.”

She poked him in the forehead with a quick flick of the finger. It did more to hurt her than him, which was why she made sure not to do it very hard. “Normal? You’re not like us or the King, but you aren’t normal either. You and your friends have different bodies now with attributes that far exceed anything I could hope to do.”

“I’ve seen the way you’re able to move. I could never do that.”

“Everything I do is within the rules and limits that I create. The one thing I can’t change is my body. I’ll never have the natural reflexes or speed that you can have.”

“There’s nothing natural about what Saki or them can do.” He looked around the wide open field. It had been the site of the battle between the Titans and them. All of their destruction wrought upon the land had already been mostly cleaned up. They had made a mess of the entire area, which as he learned after the fighting, was one of the major trade routes in and out of the capital. So the clean-up ended up getting prioritized for the sake of stability. Even Yuki helped out, despite a lot of protesting from the court.

He looked back towards the massive walls of the capital. The ridiculous holes punched in it still seemed impossible to believe. He knew most of the damage was from Saki. “I’ll agree no normal human can do that, but I can’t do that either. It’s a little scary knowing that she can do something like that.”

“She had a reason. And often that’s all you need to go beyond your limits and do something scary.”

Yori looked back at Athene. He caught the glimpses of her walking there with her own memories. Her words weren’t pointed just at their topic, that much he understood. “But now we can move on past that. It’s peace now.”

Athene gave him a bit of a smirk. “You don’t strike me as someone that naïve.”

“No, I guess not. Not anymore at least…”

“Somewhere inside of you, you could be capable of something like that. You demonstrated that during our fight.”

“Yes, but it was all just rage and anger. I wasn’t in control of what was happening.”

“Fights are rarely going to be emotionless. But having control during the rage is important and that’s why you’re here.”

He nodded a little hesitantly for her. “I did ask you to train me to be able to use my power so that the next time I needed it I wouldn’t be mindlessly throwing it around, but I didn’t ask you to make me into a soldier either.”

“Do you not have self-defense training in Japan?”

“Well yeah, I guess so…” “Do you think of that as a soldier’s training?”

“I guess not when you put it like that.”

“Now let’s continue.” She turned her Field back on, bringing out all of her weapons for him to dodge.

A bit of sweat dripped down his face seeing everything and the seriousness on her face. “I’m still pretty tired from our last practice.”

“That’s something we need to work on. Your mind needs work. Your body can handle so much more. You have the potential stamina, but you’ve convinced yourself you don’t. You need to believe in yourself. You’ll lose the fight before it even begins if you can’t believe in yourself.”

‘I thought I had gained that confidence from the month-long of training that Athene gave me. I guess that was fake too…’ Yori clenched up his hands around the blades frustrated with himself. Everything that Athene taught him went to waste. ‘Dammit! I just wanted to protect Yumi! That’s my only reason!’

Pulling up his swords, Yori prepared himself for the onslaught. ‘No matter what happens this is going to hurt. Fatigue or pain… I’m not going to like it. This isn’t me… But I’ve got no choice… I jumped in!’ There was no chance that he had even deflecting everything. That much he knew. Dodging, deflecting, whatever there was beyond that, none of it was going to be enough. It was going to hurt, but he had to try anyway.

Countless beams arced towards him. He wanted to try to dodge what he could, but it was a saturation style attack. He had no hope of even dodging the first wave. He could only pick where they landed. He spun around his blades taking off some of the worst beams, but others went through as he expected.

The pain wasn’t as bad as he thought. It was more of the force of the impact than anything that he felt. All of it still was a losing effort on his side. And eventually, he could not keep up with the volume. Everything that remained broke through his weak defense.

As a last effort, he remembered his barrier after it was nearly too late. He cursed himself for failing to remember to use it. But even that shattered as he wasn’t prepared and the bombardment couldn’t be stopped.

What remained blasted against him casting him down to the earth. Around him the ground riddled with some holes reminded him of the power that hit him. “Ugh…that hurts…a lot…”

“I’m a little impressed you survived as long as you did.” She glanced down at Yori, still unmoved from her spot, after he knocked her out of the school. “That training of yours amounted to something it seemed.”

Yori coughed trying to get himself back on his feet. While he didn’t have holes in his body like he pictured, his clothes were torn and blood streamed from too many small wounds for him to count. “Not enough…”

“No, as I said you can’t beat me.”

Forcing himself back to his feet, he pulled out his swords once more. His body felt weird and his head didn’t seem to be seeing straight, but he knew that he was standing. Standing counted for something at this point for him. ‘Barely a couple of minutes into this fight and it already feels like I can’t go on… damn how am I going to save Yumi like this? However…’ The energy in his blades pulsed weakly trying to keep their form.

He aimed one of his blades at her directly as though he attempted to bait out a challenge from her. “I’m still going to save my sister. It doesn’t matter if I can’t beat you.”

“So you still refuse to see the truth.”

“Seems that I’ll have to borrow a page from Tsuji’s playbook.”

“That’s unwise.”

“Yup, it wouldn’t be one of his moves if it was wise,” grinned Yori. He sort of refused to admit that he had been doing very Seiji-like things the entire time, but no need to focus on the denial. More important matters confronted him.

Black energy appeared around Yori in large orbs. As each orb appeared, his body started to shake more. He struggled to keep his body together while summoning up the energy. The stress upon him was more than he expected. It went past his practice, but that was the point. “I can’t be holding myself back anymore.”

“Anything that you try I’ve already foreseen.”

“Is that right? Then you foresaw this?!” All of the orbs hovering around Yori suddenly took form and became swords as well. They all gathered around his sides ready to strike. “You’re not the only one that can set up a barrage!”