The two of us were in a bit of a deadlock as much as I didn’t want to admit it. Kanou was now hanging back and avoiding direct attacks now that I had a weapon that did more than cosmetic damage for a little bit, and I was straining much harder than I appeared to keep the damn thing manifested.

The Noble Phantasm was...slippery...for lack of a better word that I hadn’t experienced since my early days learning to project weapons. Past experience told me this would quickly go away, but it was time I both didn’t have and wouldn’t get anytime soon.

I had enough control that it wouldn’t just shatter randomly but nearly anything beyond basic mana control wasn’t possible if I wanted to keep it that way.

Still I could hurt the bastard now. And I might be feeling a little giddy about finally managing to use the main aspect of one of my powers that made it so well known.

The sword felt warm in my hand.

Not physically warm.

It felt like holding an embodiment of fire and worthiness.

Dyrnwyn wasn’t the most famous sword nowadays. It had been overshadowed by swords like Excalibur, Gram, and Durandal to the point that not many would recognize the famous welsh sword. Which was a little ironic considering it was practically the original story for the ‘only the worthy may wield’ trait that had been tacked onto Mjolnir’s legend recently.

Especially since rather than sit there as an immovable object, if Dyrnwyn judged your cause unworthy it would set you on fire.

You would think more people would remember a sword that could do that.

Still a sword that set what it cut on fire that couldn’t be quenched until whatever taint was burned away was the perfect counter to a regenerating slime monster who was basically the textbook example of evil mad scientist. I didn’t need to be faster than Kanou. I just needed to be able to get close enough to hit him and I was skilled enough to not get hit in return.

Neither one of us seemed to have much to say to each other at the moment.

Kanou was the first to resume attacking. He rammed a hand into the floor, ripping up a chunk of concrete and metal and tossing it at me.

I dodged around the debris, letting it slam into the wall behind me, only to be forced to jump over another projectile as Kanou ripped up more of the floor. Considering he wasn’t falling through a hole it looked like we were on the bottom level. So unless this facility just had really thick floors, he wasn’t going to run out of material to throw at me any time soon.

Another chunk of rock landed in front of me and I had to sprint to the side to avoid the rolling boulder. From there I ran as quickly as I could towards him, feinting left and right to avoid any last minute throws. Kanou was smart enough not to open himself up too much, so rather than throw his latest handful and potentially leave himself defenseless against my sword he tried to punch me with the rock.

Again I jumped over his attack, but this time I twisted myself in midair to swing at his hand as it passed by. Dyrnwyn bit deep into the rock as Kanou’s own attack forced his hand through the blade. Enchanted steel sliced through metal, rock, and flesh and then all of them burst into flame.

The debris in Kanou’s hand didn’t burn for long. Maybe a few seconds total. But the cut on the side of Kanou’s index finger was slowly spreading to the rest of his hand.

The doctor roared in frustration at the sight and tried extinguishing the fire by shoving his hand underground. He used his free hand to throw a handful of crushed rocks to keep me from getting closer.

I lowered my hand from my eyes after I felt no more shards of rock bouncing off of it. The scattershot attack wouldn’t damage me but being blinded might have been enough to ensure my defeat. Kanou pulled his other hand out of the ground to see that not only had the cut not stopped burning, the fire had spread to engulf the rest of his hand as well and was slowly making its way up his wrist.

“What devilry is this?!” Kanou screamed at me. He grabbed his burning arm mid-forearm and tore the burning limb free. His entire body shrunk down some as he shifted whatever slime covered him to remake the removed limb.

“Dyrnwyn doesn’t like evil things Kanou!” I mocked. “It might not be death by a thousand cuts, but I figure slowly burning you to ash works just as well!”

“Impudent whore!”

For some reason Kanou slammed his feet into the hole he had been digging while throwing things at me and planted himself there like a tree.

I didn’t know what his plan was and I wasn’t going to wait to find out.

I dashed forward again and sliced into his leg. Without pausing I jumped off using his knee as a springboard to get some slashes across his chest and land on his shoulder. Kanou tried to swat me off but all that did was allow me to land some hits on his arm before jumping free.

Once I was safely out of reach I turned to look at the Doctor.

He was doing a wonderful recreation of a Burning Man tribute and now it was just a matter of time before I either smoked out his true body or he burned to ash.

Kanou must have seen my satisfied smile because he did not calm down.

“You think you’ve won you wretch?” He screamed. “I’ll grind you into paste! And when I’m done I’ll clone you again and make you scream until you’ve repaid me for this insolence!”

I was about to mock him some more when what I saw froze the smile on my face.

He was getting bigger again.

He ripped chunks out of himself until all the fire had been removed. But unlike before he continued to regenerate until he was the same size. Then he got even bigger.

I realised very quickly that whatever Kanou was doing, it was going to get me killed if burning him down to size wasn’t an option.

I gave Dyrnwyn a nervous look. I had managed to project a Noble Phantasm alright. Now the question was could I invoke one with what I had left?

Raising Dyrnwyn above my head with both hands I funneled as much mana into the blade as I could. It wasn’t easy. I could practically feel my blood boiling trying to force the energy to move quick enough.

Suddenly the sword glowed blue-white as flames danced around the blade and I instinctively knew it was now or never.

”Dyrnwyn!!” I intoned, feeling as all the mana I had pushed into the blade rush out as I brought the sword down.

A giant pillar of fire consumed the Doctor’s grotesque shape.

There was no roar of defiance. No screams of pain. No promises of revenge.

Anything unworthy touched by Dyrnwyn’s flame was reduced to ash on the wind.

I managed to keep on my feet for a few seconds, but couldn’t keep myself from collapsing to my knees from exhaustion.

“Hoo boy, that takes a lot out of you.” I muttered.

I was down to maybe a tenth of my reserves. My limbs felt lethargic and twinged from too much mana. But Kanou was dead, Natsumi should be handling Kiba by now, and Kimura hopefully hadn’t screwed up. So I could probably leave the rest to the Soul Reapers for a bit.

Then the walls started shaking.

Murphy, you vicious bastard.

Cracks formed along the walls and ceiling.

Occasionally chunks of them falling off when the cracks became too big. One of them came very close to hitting me, but I didn’t pay it much attention.

I was too busy being horrified by what was oozing through those cracks.

Slime.

The same reddish slime that Kanou covered himself with to be precise.

I had a vague understanding of what the Doctor had been digging for. There was a reservoir of that slime under the room. The clever bastard had made it seem he was simply using the floor as an improvised weapon but in actuality he was using it to escape.

A tentacle slowly descended from the ceiling before shifting to a vaguely mouthlike shape. “Understand now, wretch? I see you do. My core is safe from whatever weapon you managed to use against me, and now I will just grind you into the ground until you are too tired to resist.”

More tentacles burst out of the walls, floor, and ceiling. I took in the sight of the writhing slime constructs coming for me and did the only reasonable thing.

I turned tail and fled as fast as I could!