At that moment, I feel the deer’s presence recede into me. I look at the Majin, it is still frozen in the place it had been when the deer helped me dodge its attack. As dozens of expressions cross its face, I realize what the deer meant when it said his host struggles against him. The person the Majin is possessing must have somehow gained control at the moment its attack was about to land and stopped it.

I take a deep breath, remembering the deer’s words. I can do this. If not for myself, then at least for my sister. The deer said it is weak, and if the person it possesses keeps interfering like this I just might be able to survive long enough for the deer to accomplish whatever it has in mind. I activate D-three and then wait, warily watching the Majin.

Even after stating that it was weak, the deer had only instructed me to survive as long as possible. For it not to say anything about defeating the Majin meant that even in its weakened state, it is still too strong for us to defeat. In that case, attacking it now that it is in some sort of stalemate with the person it is possessing would just be foolish. What if I broke the stalemate?

A few seconds later, the Majin’s presence flares, and then it stands straight. It is back in control. I focus on it, expecting it to rush me as it did before, but it doesn’t. Instead, it opens its mouth and speaks a word. I feel my muscles lock and panic grips me once more as I realize that I can’t move. The Majin takes advantage of this opportunity to launch another attack. As I watch it come closer my mind goes blank once more as I struggle desperately to move any part of my body. Nothing works and I watch helplessly as the Majin gets closer. Just as it is about to reach me the deer takes control of my body once more and communicates a noer to me. I quickly outline and activate the noer and a second later my limbs become free. But by then the Majin has already reached me.

It still doesn’t punch, opting instead to open its mouth wide. The air around me begins to vibrate just as the deer uses Hilla’s Barrier, but instead of the usual dome shape, this one is shaped like a wedge, with the point directly facing the Majin. A moment later a loud sound comes out of the Majin’s mouth, followed immediately by a shockwave. The shockwave slams into the barrier, but instead of breaking it as I expected, it just shifts to either side of the wedge.

My hand clenches and the barrier shoots forward toward the Majin t breakneck speed, forcing the Majin to dodge and giving me yet another brief moment of respite.

“Listen, Ian,” the deer says, “I can’t keep coming back like this else it won’t work. You have to fight the Majin, not just passively wait. If you do that you’ll quickly fall to a disadvantage. And know this, it knows I’m in here. If you give it a chance, it’ll unleash an attack that even I might not be able to stop. Please, Ian, I know you can do this. Fight!”

The deer’s presence recedes once more, leaving me alone with the Majin. Since this fight began, I have been making nothing but mistakes. They were mainly caused by my fear of the Majin, but still, that is no excuse. If the deer were not with me, I would already be dead. I think over the deer’s words. It is right. I have nothing to gain by just standing and giving the Majin all the time it needs to think up something that can end me and the deer once and for all. In fact, I have everything to lose by doing that. In the Lands, Drew taught me that a good offense is the best defense. It’s about time I put what I learned to good use.

I take a deep breath. If I lose this battle, then my sister is going to die. And not just her, but many others too. It’s about time I stopped making silly mistakes. The Majin rushes me once more, but this time I also rush to meet him.

Not wanting to give him a chance to attack I puff up my mouth and spit out a Roe. This one is ten times more powerful than what I used in the Lands when sparring against Drew. The Majin begins to dodge the attack, then all of a sudden its body freezes. The Roe lands head-on, and a massive explosion follows as the Uua within it is unleashed. I am dumbfounded.

Even in the Lands when I had been training, Drew and his team was able to counter something as simple as a lone Roe in a myriad of ways. Because of that, I hadn’t expected the attack to land, but then it did. It seems like whosoever the Majin is possessing is still resisting. Still, I can’t pass this opportunity up. I create several more Roes and launch them at him.

The Majin regains quickly regains control of the body and summons a barrier to block the barrage of Roes. When he drops the barrier I am within arm's reach. Clenching my fist, I gather a lot of Uua and telekinetic energy there and then throw a punch. The Majin catches my fist before releasing a pulse of energy that neutralizes all the power in it, leaving me stunned. I try to pull my hand away but he grips it tighter, pulling me closer he makes a fist of his own.

The deer’s urgent voice rings in my head, “Make your telekinesis sharp.” He then shows an image to me, enabling me to immediately grasp his meaning. Telekinesis is force, but so far anytime I have used it I did so by spreading it over a relatively large area, making it feel like a blunt object when it lands. By compressing the area of telekinesis into one less than a millimeter, when it finally lands it’ll be more like I slashed at something with a sword and less like I hit something with a hammer.

Once again I gather telekinesis in my hand, but this time I reduce the width to something akin to that of paper before unleashing it at the hand the Majin is grabbing me with. He immediately let's go, as expected. If he had stubbornly held on then his fingers would have been cut.

Moving back a bit, I create two blades out of telekinetic energy and then slice at the Majin. He stretches out his hand and releases a chaotic wave of telekinesis. The moment they slam into my blades they quickly distort its shape, rendering it useless. The next moment he freezes. It takes my brain a second to realize that his body must be acting up again.

I dash forward, quickly closing in when the Majin starts moving again. Unsurprised, I jump, making sure to point my feet at his face, then I use Burst, pushing myself away from him while at the same time blasting his face with Uua. A moment later I hear a gut-wrenching scream. I look at the Majin - the source of the sound - and see a terrifying sight. The face of the body the Majin is possessing is badly burnt, with part of the hair still burning and the mouth wide open as it lets out a scream expressing the terrible pain it is currently in. It is then I come to a realization. The Majin is possessing someone.

Even though it is the Majin I am currently fighting, it is not his body that will suffer the effects of my attacks. Instead, it is the poor soul who he is possessing that will bear the full brunt of it. And since Fasurus are immortal, this just ends up being a pointless fight where the only person who loses is the person being possessed. Knowing this, I can’t help but hesitate. After all, my attacks will only harm someone whose only sin was being the person the Majin chose to possess.