(New Leaf) Canicular 10 (Patreon)

AN: I'm a day late with this one, but it's infinitely better as-is than if I'd rushed it out yesterday, 1.5k words smaller and with a shit stopping point.

... It was hard to get this chapter to the right closing point, lol.

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Koneko

“Hahahah! Eat lead, Devil whore!”

The Excalibur Mimic machine pistol spat a bright barrage of bullets at me, barely more than tiny dots of glowing white Light that were all but impossible to individually track from my head-on perspective.

I didn’t bother trying to track them as I launched myself at the psycho. I just thrust a knife-hand forward at a slight angle and let the stream of projectiles deflect up off of my chakra claws to fly over my head and shoulders, my hand kept in line with the gun barrel I had my eyes on. His own steady aim and good recoil control worked against him, making it easy-mode for me to deal with the quick salvo.

Freed didn’t stay still, dashing to the side in the moment between the last shot of the burst leaving his gun and me deflecting it. He wasn’t quite a blur to my eyes, but he was definitely faster than Kiba just then.

Proving its usefulness yet again, I planted a foot with the tree-walking technique, stopping and twisting left on a dime to swing my claws around behind me. My backhanding claw sweep met the flat of Excalibur Rapidly’s blade mid-downwards slash, knocking the swing further inside to miss me. Even as it harmlessly cut past me and left his main sword arm out of position across his torso, Excalibur Mimic was swung across at me in the shape of a golden claymore.

The sword, not the “FRONT TOWARD ENEMY” kind.

I continued my sweep with my whole body, swinging my second arm’s set of claws directly at the blade to pit my full, chakra-enhanced [Rook] strength against his augmented-human strength.

I whiffed.

Freed’s grin widened in my peripherals as Mimic’s blade shrunk and thickened, my claws passing right through where it used to be and exposing the back of my shoulder to him. In a moment, there was a mostly-formed sawed-off double barrel shotgun pointing at the back of my center-mass.

“Dumbass!” He stuck his tongue out while cackling as he pulled the trigger.

The Holy buckshot blasted over my shoulder with a loud explosion, my tail having slipped past perception to bash the underside of Mimic with a burst of chakra and knock it violently out of his grasp.

“Fucking bitch!” He howled, his trigger finger clearly broken. Having his arm unexpectedly and forcefully jerked off course when Mimic was thrown to the side also threw Freed heavily off balance and staggering back, the human not having a way to fully withstand the sheer force I could use despite Rapidly boosting his speed.

Speaking of–

“Mrrraaaaow!!!”

Sharp, searing pain shot up my spine, making me jerk away off-balanced.

–While his stagger took me mostly out of his reach, Rapidly still boosted his speed and perception enough to nick my tail before I could fully retract it. I managed to disarm him of the more difficult to deal with Excalibur though, so it wasn’t the worst possible trade.

I fought through the pain and ache, diverting some more chakra to shoot down my appendage and blast away the Holy energy trying to tear through my tail, and spun to face Freed fully again with my arms outstretched.

He was already dashing towards me with Rapidly at the ready, but I already had my claws chambered wide to attack–

“May the Lord grant me thy strength, Durandal!” There was a massive burst of terrifyingly potent Holy power to the side, the aura radiating the promise of destruction ironically reassuring me despite the aura of the legendary sword making my fur stand on end with existential dread.

His head turned slightly and he blurred back just in time to avoid being turned into red mist, as a wave of destructive Holy power passed through his intended path, practically shattering the air itself with a deafening bang, the shockwave alone cracking the roof surface. “Too slow, haha!”

Ignoring the muffled sound of panicked cries from the humans living in the building below, I kept my eyes on Freed during his instant of distraction and finished swinging my arms across my chest, firing all ten of my claws at him as thin beams of sharpened chakra.

“What the- fuck!” His eyes widened, and he barely managed to twist away from one set, catching the other on the flat of Rapidly’s blade. The force of my attack slammed into his hasty guard with enough power to send him skidding back a few feet, before he swung his sword up and all five were deflected up into the sky to harmlessly dissipate. He juked forward as Xenovia came at him from the side swinging a massive blue and gold blade down at him, dodging her by a wide margin.

The tip of the sword barely touched the roof in front of her as she halted her swing, but even that slight contact shattered the structure, sending a dozen square meters of the roof crashing down into the lower floors.

I was instantly annoyed at Xenovia, though it wasn’t entirely her fault. Freed was just too fast with Rapidly for me to land a clean punch or kick, but there was a reason I hadn’t just punched the ground to destroy his footing and even the odds.

If this weren’t an apartment building, I wouldn’t have cared about the property damage, but there were people living here. Assuming a few didn’t immediately think to evacuate after being woken up in the middle of the night by loud explosions and the building shaking and vibrating, a bunch of them were likely gonna get injured or killed at this rate.

“And now you’re open, retard!” Freed darted in around her to punish her attempt to kill him, but she was already spinning, pulling the hilt around to block his swift strike with her semi-circular golden handguard.

I let a set of chakra threads trail from one of my hands as I dashed towards the fallen Excalibur Mimic, the other reaching up to my earpiece. “Akeno-senpai.”

“Fool,” Xenovia said to our opponent calmly, spinning in place as she continued to predict and either block or deflect his attacks as he sped circles around her, though he made sure her blade itself never made contact with Rapidly. “Even while I was unsealing my Durandal, I was watching you fight.” Her foot suddenly shot out behind her in a kick, grazing his hip right as he tried to catch her blind spot and sending him twisting. “You’re not that special, just a failed exorcist with a powerful stolen weapon.”

She said that, but even as she swiped Durandal at the opening he was already recovered and speeding around, staying ahead of her swing. He was the one landing shallow cuts on her with the few slashes he’d gotten through her defense, leaving bloody tears across her body-suit. He was just too fast for her to properly keep up, and it wasn’t like she was trying to destroy the building or willing to bring it down on innocents. It seemed, based on her aura fluctuating in its containment of Durandal’s, that she didn’t have perfect control of the sword, and just made a slight miscalculation in her inexperience. A miscalculation that resulted in part of the roof falling on someone’s kitchen.

Even with my own high speed, we were both primarily power-type fighters and he was a speed-type, so this environment and the restrictions it placed on us favored him. The scent of blood in the air was growing more potent.

“What is it, Koneko?” Akeno’s voice buzzed in my ear.

My ears suddenly picked something else up though, reminding me of someone I’d lost track of.

‘Oh, right. She’s been training with Akeno.’

Despite Naruto being the ninja, Akeno was actually better at slipping past my senses than him, and it seemed she was passing a little bit of that skill onto the former nun. We wouldn’t have to worry about collateral soon with Asia helping with evacuations, though we’d definitely need a round of memory altering to cover this up.

“Delivery for you from the north,” I informed my [Queen].

I sprinted past the Mimic-shotgun and latched onto it with my threads, carrying it behind me– and well out of contact with my Devil body. I didn’t want to risk touching it with my bare hands.

Then I twisted my momentum, pivoting on my feet to spin around once in a full circle. Twice.

I released my strings on the third rotation, right as Mimic reached the perfect moment in its arc, whipping the Excalibur around and into the air, sending it flying towards the general area of the city center with a sonic boom.

“Excalibur Mimic in flight and incoming; it’s a sawed-off shotgun right now.”

“I sense it coming, intercepting now.”

There was another wild surge of holy energy followed by a loud crash somewhere behind me as another section of the building crumbled, but neither Freed nor Xenovia’s auras had lowered.

My tail twitched reflexively, the end half completely numb, and I felt aching pain flare out from my wounds. I hadn’t had time to heal myself during the fight, but between Asia’s initial help and my continued efforts with my chakra, I’d at least managed to keep the bullet holes from bleeding. They still hurt like hell though, especially when I was moving around like an acrobat. 

Drip.

I made a split-second decision, now that my mind had a brief opening to think about stuff outside the immediate heat of combat. “Could use a little backup. We’re fighting Freed and he’s got Rapidly too, difficult to pin down.”

Even without Rapidly, Freed was skilled enough to survive and escape me and Kiba when he was slower than the [Knight]. We’d both gotten stronger and faster since then, but Rapidly closed the gap and then some. Getting Mimic away from Freed made this fight more doable since he no longer had the option of keeping distance and taking free potshots at us if we pushed him too hard in close quarters, but it would still be difficult to catch him with just me and Xenovia if he decided he was better off cutting his losses and running, needing multiple teams to intercept him.

“Alright, I’ll be right-”

I bent my knees, Akeno’s voice slipping from my focus as I ducked and spun around the thrust of Rapidly aimed at my back, and threw a backhand towards his extended elbow with the hope of breaking it.

He reacted in time and swayed out of reach as expected, continuing past and circling around with his higher speed to stay behind me, slashing at my back. I sprung forward and away from him, twisting mid-air and swinging my curled fingers around to shoot another set of claw-beams at him in a spread instead of a focused cluster, doing the same with my other hand a split second later, repeating the process again and again with alternating swings as I continued kipping away in an erratic zig-zag.

“Hahaha, that’s more like it!!” Freed cackled as he weaved through the barrage of glowing claw-beams in his pursuit. “The other one was so boring, not even flinching, but you’re actually scared of getting cut! I’ll make sure to cut you up lots for stealing my favorite toy!”

He chased me around the rooftop, gaining on me every time I had to change directions to avoid a ledge or the collapsed section Xenovia had created earlier. As he got closer and closer, he began having to react faster and move earlier, anticipating my claw-beams’ paths in order to have time to dodge or deflect.

Xenovia wasn’t on the roof anymore, and the smell of her blood was stronger near said hole, but I knew she was alive.

We clashed over a dozen separate times while bouncing around the building, Freed’s skill letting him adapt rapidly to my ninja-influenced style of focused power and constant motion, while I got better and better at predicting his actions and anticipating his speed through getting a better grasp of his aura.

It was basically an arms race.

Our game of cat and mouse came to an end a couple minutes later when Freed was just about to enter melee range with me again, his forward foot mid-step and on its way down. My hand was raised above my head to swing down at him one last time, the telltale dim haze of chakra around my fingers signaling the imminent formation of another set of claws. His running posture had shifted and he began moving Rapidly into an upwards-sweeping guard; a type of smooth, flourishing movement I’d seen Kiba make in plenty of spars, which could seamlessly transition into a counter-attack with a flick of the wrist.

Except, my hand was the bait.

The roof below his feet and a dozen meters all around him exploded down and back when I stomped forward with an unrestrained blast of chakra, shattering multiple levels more of the building than was strictly necessary.

His eyes widened in what seemed like slow motion. With the rubble dropping faster than gravity could pull him down, his foot passed through the air. Even as his momentum still carried him closer to me, he was left helpless  without even a single roof tile to kick off of.

I swung my arm down with enough force to create a gust of wind, my fingers splayed wide.

Instead of focusing all the power in a tight cluster, my claws shot down in a spread all around his torso, making sure that he couldn’t just block them all.

Freed twisted his hips midair, letting one claw pierce through his coat to graze his pelvis, while another punched through his right shoulder without any real resistance. Rapidly was angled diagonally up his torso, blocking the other three flying towards his liver, heart, and left shoulder.

Without the leverage of solid footing to deflect them away, the force behind the three blocked projectiles stopped his forward momentum and threw him several floors down into the new hole in the building, along with the rest of the crumbling roof.

I stood at the edge, staring down coldly. Snapped wood, shattered concrete, bent rebar, and broken furniture and appliances filled the darkened pit. Emergency services sirens were beginning to sound out in the distance.

Drip.

Meh, insurance would cover it.

Probably.

Freed was moving through a sub-floor at an erratic pace, possibly implying he landed badly and took a leg injury or something. His aura had shifted from all but screaming “I really really want to murder you–” with a creepy sexual undertone, disgustingly enough– to more of an annoyed “I should probably get out of here” type of vibe.

I tapped my earpiece, my internal sense of disdain for the vile, cowardly rogue multiplying.

“Xenovia, he’s in the basement thirty meters to your left. All civvies are evac’d, so go wild.”

A thunderclap of force shook through my feet from the building even as the sounds of material destruction filled my ears.

Wow. It didn’t even take a second after I said it for her to recklessly send a massive wave of wild destruction to tear through a good portion of the first floor at a downwards angle.

I felt the building begin to shift under my feet.

‘... Uh oh.’ I looked around and saw that a part of the roof we hadn’t even damaged was beginning to sag. ‘I hope it can stand for a little bit long–’

Drip.

My brain stalled like a record scratch.

I caught a glimpse of something I hadn’t even really registered until just now, something that unsettled my head more than even being able to sense what a terrible human Freed was.

“I think you just took out the supports,” I warned Xenovia distractedly as I dashed over to the roof tiles her first attack had cracked with its passing. “Don’t get crushed if the building collapses.”

“Understood, I’ll defeat Freed Sellzen before that happens.” Even with just the past couple hours together, I could already picture Xenovia’s overly serious expression giving me a single nod with her reply, even though neither of us could see each other.

Blood; drops and smears of blood scattered all across the roof.

I bent down, and picked up the severed half of my tail. The scent of iron intensified.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Blood trickled across broken tiles just behind me, leaking from my shortened appendage.

It was really freaky and a bit nauseating, gripping the thin, limp piece of my body like it was a length of rope. It was as long as my forearm from my elbow to my fingertips, still warm, and parts of its carefully-groomed white fur– my fur– were stained red and black, a mixture of my blood and the grime accumulated by the roof surface it had fallen on.

My tail twitched painfully while I stared at my severed tail in what was probably shock. Holding a part of my body limp in my hands was surreal in a way I couldn’t describe, even weirder than sleeping on your arm and waking up with it being all floppy.

I wasn’t even sure if it could be saved and reattached. Could Akeno or I do it? Could Asia do it? As far as I was aware, even Phoenix Tears struggled with reattaching limbs, needing immediate care and optimal conditions for a guaranteed success. Could she replicate that?

I’d never been injured to the point of existential introspection like this until now, even in the Rating Game there’d been the expectation that no matter how hurt we got, the worst case would be needing a few nights of rest to fully recover.

A part of me was idly surprised it hadn’t been dissolved or something by Rapidly’s leftover Holy Power. Instead, the furry flesh still had some of the chakra from my enhancement filling it, while the remnants of Holy energy had already faded.

Another rumble shook me back to my senses, sidelining the sense of wrongness brought on by my morbid observations.

‘Right, still have a job to do.’

I crouched, released my wings, and jumped into the sky, hovering above the battlefield.

“I’m on overwatch in the air, and Akeno-senpai’s on her way.” I informed Xenovia, stuffing the length of my tail down my shirt for lack of a better place to free up my hands. I secured it to my chest with chakra, frowning at the weirdly icky feeling– Ugh, I hope my bra doesn’t stain- wait, gunshot wound, never mind– before creating another dozen of my finger-gauntlet claw-projectile things. “He won’t escape topside, so don’t wait for the building to fall on you if you can’t pin him.”

Xenovia grunted her acknowledgment across the team comms channel, the continued thumping of muffled Holy-based explosions shaking the apartment complex’s foundations.

“Asia, any trouble?” 

“Um! An elderly man fell while evacuating and a couple others were hurt too, so I took them to the other side of the block to heal any injuries.”

“Mm. Good job.” 

“Eheheh~”

I cracked a small smile. Asia being a golden retriever in human form restored enough of my mental balance to lock in.

The glow of my claws lighting up my body probably made me stick out like a target in the night sky, but until Freed emerged, that wouldn’t matter. Anyone or anything else that might attack me right now would either be a Fallen or a Devil-chimera-thing, and neither would need my chakra acting as a light source to see me clear as day.

‘I still need to come up with my own name for these things.’ I idly noted, while tracking the battle that was more of a chase as Freed fought for his life against Xenovia. The entire structure visibly began collapsing in their wake, Durandal’s rampage tearing the place apart from the inside as Xenovia menaced the psycho.

‘Looks like he’s hurt after all.’ I thought. He’d slowed down enough that Xenovia could practically dominate the battle now; especially after she stopped holding back for the sake of limiting innocent casualties. He still managed a couple bursts at those higher speeds to dodge another wave of Durandal’s destruction or gain distance, and even tried to flank her for a backstab, but since she stopped giving a fuck about the building, he nearly died on the spot when she managed to predict and attempt to counter him with the full power of her sword. Only his absurd talent and his sword let him recognize the danger and pull away before the consequences of his mistake could catch him.

The two times Xenovia lost track of him, I aimed her in his direction over the radio, and she let her sword do the rest to clear a path for her. I wasn’t good enough to sense their aura’s in any major detail with the overbearing presence of two holy swords clouding things, but their general position and the vibe of their immediate intentions were easy enough to read.

With the much slower pace being set ever since the fight went indoors and Freed left my sight, it took nearly a minute for the running battle to pass through the entirety of the sub-level, heading towards one of the last standing open-air stairwells on the edge of the building. I used that time to get ready and position myself for the right moment, touching down to crouch horizontally on the side of an adjacent building, with a clear sightline on the metal access door.

‘Four, three-’ 

Something like anticipation colored Freed’s aura as he raced towards the exit, a spiteful sort of amusement tinged with rage.

‘-two… Now!’

The metal door burst open, Freed jumping out with Rapidly’s handle clenched between his teeth and his white exorcist coat covered in tears and drywall powder. A wave of force passed just over his head and blew apart the rest of the exposed stairwell above him.

I kicked off the building, ignoring any uneasiness in my chest, launching myself at him like a missile with a hand cocked back.

His uninjured arm was already raised, and with a self-satisfied malicious grin on his face, he adjusted to aim at me the moment he saw me move.

My eyes widened as I stared down the barrel.

I panicked for just an instant, reflexively covering my head and bracing myself, recognizing the revolver in his outstretched hand.

Boom!

Even though I logically knew the weapon couldn’t realistically hurt me without the power of an Excalibur backing it, I still flinched when the blessed but otherwise normal bullet flattened against my arm with a sharp sting, all because the gun model was the same one he’d shot me with while using Mimic.

I didn’t see his other hand throw a smoke bomb onto the ground at that same moment, but I definitely noticed it when I plunged into the sudden smoke cloud a moment later in a crouch, my hand knifed into the concrete sidewalk down to my forearm and the bastard nowhere to be found. I felt my heart pounding in my chest in a mixture of spiking adrenaline and anger as I just barely sensed the shifting air from him running away, just quiet enough to be dampened by the smoke and practically invisible in the haze.

I grit my teeth, my expression twisting. ‘I won’t let you!!’

Freed Sellzen almost killed me earlier, then cut off my tail. Just now, he made me flinch at nothing special.

For a moment, he made me fear for my life, just like everyone else he’d ever killed and more.

My chakra swirled violently through my body with my emotions and I dragged in more of the surrounding natural energy, taking a risk and tapping further into Senjutsu than I ever have before, sharpening the most reliable sense I had.

His aura became more defined in my mind’s eye, showing him dashing towards an alleyway at high speed while favoring one side, one of his ankles noticeably mangled and twisted with dislocated bones and torn calf muscle. In a straight line with no walls or other obstacles, he was able to use most of Rapidly’s speed by pushing himself forward with his good foot while only minimally using the other to keep himself upright, but changing direction would slow him down to a halt for a moment, since he only had one effective leg to stop himself, turn, and push off of.

He can’t escape…

I pulled my hand out of the sidewalk with a spray of concrete right as Xenovia burst through the hole in the wall herself. My legs tensed. I ignored her, ignored the ache in my arms and tail, ignored the pain of breathing with a punctured lung, and exploded in Freed’s direction, leaving the collapsing building behind me. Thoughts of his wrongdoings fueled my anger as I flew into the mouth of the alley at full speed.

He killed one of our clients, a lonely man who just wanted someone to play videogames with. He’s tried to kill members of my peerage three times now.

He should just die already…

Freed had just sliced through the lock of a business’s side door and shouldered it open when my foot slammed into the stone wall. We locked eyes for that split second that he was dashing into the building while my momentum kept me glued to the wall, no chakra needed. I kicked off the wall to catch up, shattering the thin facade beneath my foot.

“Fuck off, you rabid whore! I’ll kill you later!” He called back from deeper inside as the intruder alarm began blaring.

I cleared the door a moment later and flew through a small storage area and into an electronics store. Freed had made it to a set of stairs and was quickly rising up, using his good leg to kick off the walls without putting weight on the other, so I turned and flew through the storefront, smashing through the large windows out onto the next street over from the apartment, before kicking off the ground and launching myself up to hover at the fourth floor.

He was helping Raynare sacrifice Asia, bragged to Hyoudou about threatening to rape Asia on the night he attacked him.

But he’s just the worst, he deserves to suffer first…

I swung my arms, firing my claws.

Through a window, through a corridor wall, through his shocked, hasty guard that he began putting up at the sound of breaking glass. Four missed, his reaction messing up the lead I put on him, three pierced through his body, putting new holes through his good leg and both arms, and the last three crashed into Rapidly with enough force to plow him through the drywall and into the next room over. He tumbled head over heels into a room full of computer parts and repair equipment that scattered all over the floor as a table was knocked over.

I didn’t care, all of my focus put into ramming my fist into the flat of Rapidly as hard as I could, smashing through another hasty guard and blowing Freed back and out through the windows on the other side, sending him falling four stories back to the street the chase started on.

I stepped out onto the windowsill and stared down at my enemy, trying to push himself up while crawling towards Rapidly a few feet away, but dropping onto his hands and knees to cough up globs of blood.

He tried to kill Naruto-kun. Without sheer, dumb luck, without a random unknown sage refilling his life force, Naruto-kun would be dead because of Freed.

Letting go of all restraint and tearing him apart, showing him what it’s like on the other side… It’s fine, right?

I jumped down, and walked over to the downed man.

“F-fucking- khh-!” I stepped on Freed’s broken ankle and crouched down, and a dark, purplish glow washed over him. My chakra claws re-formed at some point without me even noticing, the chakra within them much denser than usual, and I pushed one of them straight into his forearm until I pierced the road. “-gaahhh!!!” Damn…! Cunt! I’ll k- hagghh- kill you slowly!” I stepped over the body and pushed another deep purple claw through its other forearm, giving it wounds that matched what it gave me. The dead man bit out another string of curses and insults after hacking up more blood.

The color change to my claws was new, but I didn’t give it even a single thought as I positioned another claw to pierce through the shoulder blade, focused entirely on my objective.

I paused.

‘Right... I’m on a mission right now.’ I blinked a couple times. ‘Why am I torturing him? Why am I wasting time on him when I can end it?’ An odd desire to drop the line of thought rang through my skull.

I stared down, ignoring the scum struggling weakly beneath my heel to really focus on the chakra making up my claws, pumping through my body and empowering me. When Freed was moving in a straight line, with almost the full speed of Rapidly… I wasn’t that fast. How did I manage to catch up?

Senjutsu.

The answer was as obvious as it was chilling, like a bucket of ice water poured on my head when I realized just how close I’d come to losing it.

With the clarity that came with it, the line between my own thoughts and the dark negativity of natural energy became clear, but that line was blurring at the edges as I kept unconsciously drawing in more.

I immediately put a stop to it, and actively began trying to purge what I’d already absorbed.

It… was a lot easier said than done, having already mixed thoroughly into my own.

Footsteps approached, and I felt my hackles raise as a familiarly potent Holy energy washed over me, overshadowing the already powerful aura from Rapidly nearby.

“You managed to capture him alive for questioning.” Xenovia asked, though it was more of a statement. We both ignored the vulgar insults Freed threw our way between the time he spent coughing up blood from his cracked ribs and punctured lung, though it took a supreme effort on my part to not just stomp his skull into mush to shut him up, every word out of his mouth filling my head with rage.

Xenovia had no compunctions and kicked him in the temple, knocking him out in an instant.

She nodded once my way, not acknowledging her violent act. “Good job.”

“No,” I shook my head, denying the accomplishment even as I felt my disappointment in myself become amplified into self-loathing. I just needed to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t really me. “I lost control of myself, and almost became a bigger threat to everyone than him. I just wanted him to hurt first, that’s the only reason I didn’t pulp him the moment I was able to.”

“It was still your power that defeated him in the end,” she declared simply, before moving on. “We should get him to Asia Argento, if we don’t want him to bleed out before we can get the location of the other Excaliburs from him. Before that though-” She stepped over to stand above Rapidly and brought Durandal up. “-I’ll destroy this one quickly.”

It was only because I hadn’t managed to get rid of much natural energy in my body that I was able to sense it and react the way I did.

Solid, dark purple chakra claws liquified and lashed out in an instant with instinctual control I didn’t have, wrapping around Xenovia’s waist, limbs, and sword hilt in the form of threads, and pulled her with me as I jumped away.

A barrage of powerful blood-red Light spears ripped through the spaces we both had just occupied, and most of the street as well.

Unlike with Freed’s ambush on her, this time there was no way Xenovia would’ve been able to survive the sudden attack without my interference.

A moment later, thunderous bangs rang out as they impacted buildings at the far end of the street with small explosions, collapsing a pair of homes within seconds.

There were still people in there!!

My rage spiked against my control as we turned to face the culprit.

Six wings, blacker than the night sky and full-feathered. Basic black cloak with a raised hood. White-porcelain mask covering the whole face. The same energy signature from the attack on our mansion not even twelve hours ago.

“I’m getting really fucking sick of dealing with you pieces of shit,” I spat at the Fallen, fiery claws of purple chakra extending backwards towards my elbows. Xenovia settled into a stance beside me, the flat of Durandal’s massive blade acting as a full-body shield for her to use for closing distance.

“Really?” The Fallen hovering in the sky fucking chuckled. “Because for us-”

Another crimson Light spear formed in his hands with a flash.

“-the fun’s only just begun.”

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