Holders

011: Battle Horn

Charging his blade, aiming for a frontal strike, Kazuto's legs began running directly towards Rine. The burning tip could be seen piercing the atmosphere alone, thrusted it's sharpness as he moves.

At the middle of the rush, Akari went ahead of the two. "I won't let you do so!"

With both of her arms raised up in the air and soon slammed into the concrete road, the ground beneath quakes apart in front of them as she yell the word. "Rupture!"

As the name implies, A rupture was made, leading the lands severed by a massive crack. Being able to be set up a predicament and force him to leap at the middle of the split, they thought it was an easy way to trap him up as Akari placed has a surprise underneath the rocks.

Letting himself be thrown away from the trap, Kazuto himself anticipated all along. While mid air, a genesis of a huge Earth Spike emerges to bust a hole into his stomach which positions to be expected in the same spot. Reaching him from the under, he clutched the edge of his blade to the tip of the spike and bounced used its recoiled to bounce forward beforehand.

"What?"

Suprised by his given move, Akari charged at his direction with her arms augmented with a gauntlet of pebbles to be strik through the opponent before he could react. Yet between the crushing situations, a sharp smirk could seen at the matrix together with his left arm swinging powerful blow that even Akari did not noticed.

Due to the impact of two heavy objects with both offensive forces, the massive clash blasted Akari on the infrastructures on sight.

"Hm. To think that you could lay your hands on me with those cheap tricks is impossible." Kazuto said in wry expression.

Because of the following occurrences, everyone was focused on the fight and left a little boy noticed alongside with the debris. He was trembling profusely, enough for him to not percieve a building behind crashing down.

Inside the smoke and debris, Akari dashed through. "Look out!"

She was fortunate enough to catch the child beforehand. Thought, it kept crying and clinging onto the girl while she pats his head gently.

"Shh... It's alright now. I'll take you to a safe place okay?"

Getting a clear sight at the battlefield, the bird like monster runs amok behind Kazuto's stead. Sending forth a flurry of flames from its mouth until uneglufing the whole plaza into a city of flames.

She ran fast and was about to leave the two."Reika! Take Rine into a safe place while I'm away!" she yelled. "I will be

On the other side, Reika which steeled herself ready replied. "But how about you?"

Akari then shouted back. "Don't worry about me! You should focus on yourself and Rine!" and so she departed leaping through chunks of wreckage ahead, hence approached the giant creature head on.

"Poor you, She made you a tool for avoiding death itself. Haha." Kazuto chuckled while he readies his blade for another assault. "The weak never cease to entertain me with those."

Able to dash for another attack, Kazuto's speed became slight faster as he gets near. Embedding his blade with flames by his hand, a wide slash threw a searing Arc of fires towards the two. Even so able to dodge a sudden death by crouching, Reika was incapable to evade a swift low kick onto her shin that caused a short moment of downfall.

Rolling over the right side, Reika was nearly struck by the scorching brand of blaze from the tip of Kazuto's blade, and so giving her the chance to counter and attack as her left palm generates dark spheres floating and flings it against Kazuto's chest. Nonetheless, he fastly bolts in advance, thus unscathed by none.

By the same jiffy, a small opportunity of running away opened before Reika's eyes as he pulls Rine's arms. Together with him, the foothold under their foot turned pitch black by Reika's Procure. and so with that, they managed to gain much distance from the opposition.

Kazuto which is out for a pause was able to snap out.

"That spheres. She must be..."

Being unable to continue as they gets more farther, a blast of flames gave him a headstart for catching up. The road underneath is feet became full of embers from his trail, destruction everything on its path regardless of its kind that brought another spoon of chaos from the bittersweet blend of events at the present time.

Meanwhile, the two which still being chased by the menace strides through the streets and croossroads ahead of them. With the debris falling behind during their glide, the more they thought of it slowing down the foe in his tracks.

"Tsk. I shouldn't have let my guard down before!" yelled Reika; disappointed while steering through.

Rine was beside her being the lookout from behind. Though, he wasn't able to know more of the details, this time became a great chance to ask for it.

"Hey, you said back then, that you know before, right?" Rine asked out of the blue.

Reika combed her hair by the hands. "Yeah." she said. "He's such a pain on the ass, to be blunt."

"---Ehh? Why so? Have you already encountered that guy?"

"Way back then, when we are on for an objective to retrieve another shard before it fall off the Crimson's hands. But by the time we were almost there to take it, he appeared before us and diminished our numbers alone." she replied. "Even both of us siblings fought hard to fight back, but that guy just reach another level unlike our abilities."

Reika looked down, fretting profusely, "Even though I had this Procure, I don't think myself could stand a single chance. He obtained a third degree mana variation after all."

Despite giving that bitter expression, Reika tried to hid her negativity with a smile.

"But Don't worry, even if we got that big gap of power, I will give my all just to pretect you." she said.

Though, he couldn't admit it, Rine was about to frown after seeing her worried expression as she smirks. Being a weakling whose unable to even fight back, nor safeguard his friends really hits him a lot while thinking of it, yet he doesn't have a choice to take, and escape because of his fragility.

Amidst of their stride, another crossroads Was ahead, but was occupied by a couple of persons that can be seen even far away. Having a quite clearer look, Reika was able to scan every appearance and it turns out that the man at center was Matsuo struggling from crystallized arms.

Attempting to break through the restraints, Matsuo slammed his arms to the ground which turned the solidity into shattering pieces.

Now unprohibited to strike again, Matsuo rushes through with his body emitting a thick aqua blue aura and charged towards two opponents on his front. Being successful from the bashing, the persons beside blew winds and wooden ruptures of spiky balls from different directions, and so left him the opportunity to do an upward kick from the ones behind and made him the foothold for a somersault.

However, as time moves on, his aura starts to waver slowly unnoticed and his footwork and stances was going by the same cause. Matsuo's breath started to be ragged while he moves much faster by evading their attacks. The fallen enemies began standing up too, which made the situation more difficult as it looks.

With his lips bleeding from an earlier hook, his strength gradually wavers. "Damn... Things doesn't look good now.

Seeing the harsh situations crushing his brother from both sides, Reika stepped away from Rine's stead.

"Brother!" she shouted from a distance.

Though While Reika runs towards the direction, he called Rine behind. "Go ahead first, Rin! I will come for you later on."

Rine shouted back. "But how am I supposed to mobilize this dark-square thingy? Isn't it's power comes through yours?"

"Not anymore!" she replied. "Just give it a small amount of your mana, and it'll overwrite my control."

And so she completely disappeared with the mist of smokes, hence their mount continued to go forward.

Being left behind, Rine tried the thing Reika Instructing him to do.

He wiped of the sweat out of his forehead. "Arghh! This is better than nothing!"

As it touches through the thing, it drowned in light, blocking his vision completely and gradually disappeared as it fails to commit with him, thus dropped him into the hollow ground.

Dismayed, but without saying a word, he ran with his own feet and climbed into the catacombs of infrastructures lying in front until arriving into a stable building effective to be a hiding spot.

Intruding the insides of the area, it appears to be a paper factory with its mechanisms left open because of the sudden panic. Some stopped working because of a malfunction, but most of them still works fine.

"A paper factory huh... This will stall me for a while." he talked to himself.

Exploring deeper inside, a staircase which leads into the control room resides into the rightmost side of the factory. It turns out to be not just a single pathway, yet also leads into several rooms of stockpile kinds of the same product.

Examining through every part of it, Rine took think of taking the open space on one of the rooms. However, it was already too late for him.

"Peek-a-boo!"

And so by the time he gazes behind, a swift slash echoed into the empty spaces of building.

"Guess you're having quite a rest for the past days eh? Ishida!"

Their eyes met right at the same point. He is not Kazuto, but another person that seemed he had encountered before. He is familiar enough to throw Rine's realization to conclude.

"Hasegawa!" He surprisingly Yelled.

Both of their hands were stucked into the edges of a sharp weapon with its blade shaped an arc as the two fought with opposing forces.

Having the pair of his hands parrying the blade while dripping blood, he threw over blade aside as he tries to release the grip and threw a heavy jab which successfully connected into Ryuunosuke's snout with his lips bled from the intensity the same time he pushed away by the fist alone.

Wiping out the stain, Ryuunosuke spits the blood out of the mouth. "Ah yes, you're always delibate as always. No wonder you became a model figure of the school."

Scornful as ever, a grin slit out of his face.

"To think that I let my guard down that moment feels so satisfying." he continued. "Now I'll have a chance to enjoy tormenting you without holding back!"

And so it goes, Leeches grew aside his arms, hence edges sharpened as it aimed at Rine.

"Tick Tock~ Your time's up."