Shinji POV
Uro's grin widened as she stared down at the grey-haired youth. She grabbed at the sky in front of her and pulled.
Space warped and she moved.
She was fast.
She was before me by the time I put up my guard, launching a straight left at my head. I rolled my head to the outside dodging her initial punch.
I noticed her lashing out with her right hand open palmed to my stomach. I parried the blow with my left hand, redirecting it away from my body. She twisted her outstretched left hand grabing the back of my head and pulling me into a knee.
I blocked it with my right hand, palming the knee and using it as a pivot point to launch off of and turn mid-air. I used my rotation to send a devastating kick at her head.
She grinned and pulled the sky. My leg twisted, but it felt like it was still moving in a straight line. That left me wide open, and her right hand came back up to backhand me in the chest.
Space compressed and fractured at the point of contact. I was launched through a building and bounced off the concrete. 'That's gonna leave a bruise,' Her technique could force space into a solid plane and then break that plane.
On paper, it seemed close to my own, but as I was hit by that move I realized that wasn't the case at all.
My technique forced vibrations onto a single point in space, so much so that the space "fractures" and then explodes outwards in devastating vibrational shockwaves.
In short, my attack power was vastly superior.
I grinned and Aerostepped back through the building I was sent through. Uro had tried to follow me through the hole, she didn't expect me to recover so fast.
Her eyes widened a hair and she grabbed the space in front of her, pulling it over herself like a security blanket. I moved in a straight line, through curved space, and instead of intercepting her, I moved under and behind her.
She turned and grabbed my ankle, twirling in the sky, before throwing me upwards and through the rest of the building.
I flew through the roof and cocked my fist back as I sensed her following me up. I punched forward, using my technique at full blast before she could even see me throw the blow.
BOOM
The force was unyielding, the building was flattened in an instant, the bottom floor exploding outwards with dust and debris. Uro was similarly flattened and caught off guard by the punch.
She coughed out, her chest compressed by the force.
I threw my hands into the air above my head and used a quake, shooting me down into a double knee drop trying to get there before she could recover.
She glared and grabbed the sky, throwing it over herself once more.
My knees slammed into the ground and I activated ground break.
The ground rippled and exploded upwards, throwing Uro into the air spinning slightly. She tried to right herself, but I aerostepped first and lashed out a jab to her chest.
It connected squarely, but I held back on activating my technique. I launched a left straight into her chest, but her outfit stretched, and my arm bent away from her.
I pushed onwards, kicking behind me in an Aerostep and catapulting my knee at her, this time unleashing my technique as it impacted her stomach.
Spit flew from her mouth and she was sent tumbling skywards, a ring of displaced air resounding around her.
I aerostepped after her, that earlier exchange told me that her reinforcement still surpassed my own, else I wouldn't have been hit with that thin ice breaker. I needed to keep her off guard, bully her with shockwaves, and knockback.
I was too slow, she gripped the air with both hands and it stretched like a slingshot. She shot at me like a bullet with both feet, and I rotated, tapping the side of her leg and redirecting her and myself away from her.
She flew down and past me before flipping, grabbing the space in front of her, and bending the space moving through it herself this time. She kept all of her momentum, but was flying straight at me once more.
I smiled, gave her a one-handed two-finger salute, before pointing my palm skywards and using Quake. I smashed into the ground and activated ground break, watching in amusement as Uro flew overhead.
She grabbed the sky and used it to kill her momentum, turning to glare at me, before smiling veins popping on the side of her head. "You're quite annoying, you know that?"
I grinned, walking forward, and grabbed a small piece of debris off the ground. "Aww thank you, I try." I exploded forward towards her in an Aerostep.
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Uro POV
'This boy… something's off about him' I thought considering the fight so far.
Every instinct in me told me that he was hiding something.
But I couldn't fathom what.
His cursed energy was large, and weirdly vibrating, but it wasn't a concerning amount…
That's what I thought before that exchange.
When I made contact with him, I noticed it instantly. It was like his cursed energy was stopping at the skin, and layered over itself within him.
I couldn't describe it, but one thing was clear.
I had no idea how much cursed energy this boy had, and with that ridiculous output with his technique…
I shook my head slightly. It didn't matter much, the boy had pissed me off, and he was going to die all the same.
I saw the boy rush at me with those weird spatial cracks that reminded me of my own.
'How… interesting,' I thought with a small grin, this fight was going to be fun.
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Shinji POV
I threw the rock with a delayed pulse of cursed energy, pulverizing it mid-air and sending dust particles straight at Uro's face.
Her eyes narrowed and she moved space to intercept the dust, which was curving around her harmlessly.
But my intention was never to permanently blind her, it was to break the line of sight for just one moment. I used Quake up and behind me, launching me just below Uro at bullet speeds.
I gripped her ankle this time as I flew by, twisted and threw her downwards through a corner of a building.
The building started to collapse around it, crumbling before the rubble exploded upwards and Uro flew from the smoke cloud. I used her "Thin Ice breaker" as an inspiration. Activating my technique at my feet cracking the air. But stopping just short of detonation resulting in a flat plane of cracked space that I could stand on.
"Your technique, how are you breaking the sky?" She asked ignorant of what I was actually breaking.
I smiled and used the revealing one's hand binding vow, "My technique 'Fault Line' works in conjunction with my unique cursed energy attribute." I began thinking of how to make the explanation as convoluted as possible.
"By filling one specific area with increasingly intense vibrations that compound on each other and amplify. This results in a violent shockwave of vibrations once they overcome what space can hold." I felt my output rise slightly, it was probably the most confusing way to describe my technique, but I need a baseline for what triggers the vow.
"…Huh?" She said lamely, her mouth open slightly in complete bewilderment. I smiled thankful for the Hiean era's lack of scientific information.
"It just works," I said allowing my technique to complete its detonation and Propelling myself at her. She smirked and pulled space over herself again.
This time I was smarter, flipping myself as I moved through the curved space. As I came out the other end I completed my rotation and she turned to strike me.
Her eyes flew open and my leg slammed down in an axe kick. She put her arm up blocking it, but I activated my technique.
I punted her to the ground. She tried to grab space to slow her fall, but was traveling too fast only slowing slightly. A plume of dust obscured her from sight, and I stood on another platform of cracked space.
It wasn't draining to maintain, the vibrations were self-sufficient when they were strong enough to crack space. The smoke cleared in a violent release of cursed energy, and Uro stood glaring her arm bent slightly.
Her cursed energy pulsed strangely, and she righted herself.
Reverse Cursed Technique.
I clicked my tongue, I was too far and too distracted to get a grasp on how the energy felt or how she made it. But that did confirm she had it, Gege had only heavily implied that she did.
She smiled at me with a row of perfectly white teeth, "I'm going to enjoy killing you. Only I should fly and crack the sky, it's mine not yours."
'…uhh yeah for sure—whatever you say bro.' I sweat dropped, people of the Hiean era sure speak weird. It was weird to read it and stranger still to hear it.
My gaze caught something strange, she wasn't standing on the ground. Despite it being completely pointless and a waste of energy, she was hovering maybe half a meter above the road.
Standing on cracked space staring at her floating form, it all clicked now: how I would get her to teach me; how I would bind someone whose entire new life was running from the fact that she spent her whole last life bound.
I smiled back at her and called out to her, "What's your name?"
She blinked caught off guard for a moment, before looking at me skeptically, "…why do you want to know?" She asked in return.
"Because—" She rushed at me taking my moment of distraction as an advantage, pulling the sky closer to her. "You're interesting," I finished before she leveled a left elbow at my head, and I caught it with the palm of my left hand.
She tried to use her Thin-Ice breaker, but I had an idea. Changing the activation of my technique slightly, I propagated my cursed energy vibrations through space instead of at one point in space.
The result?
Her elbow impacted strongly against my hand, the force reverberating up my arm. But no cracks in space.
I smiled devilishly, she wasn't used to controlling a space that was actively vibrating out of her control.
It was a gamble, but given how much my vibrations destabilized solid structures, I was banking on it doing a hell of a lot worse to open space.
Her pupils shrank and her eyes widened to unbelievable proportions, looking at me akin to how a dead soul might look at the devil. I capitalized on her shock, my right hand sending a devastating upper cut to her stomach.
"Sorry," I said backhanding her with my left hand, "But the sky likes me more." I used another Aerostep to launch a roundhouse to her side.
She pulled at the air with her left hand, and I was just a hair too slow to activate my new counter technique.
My leg stretched from my point of view, up and away from her, leaving me open once again. She, enraged, threw a right straight across my body at my chin.
I just barely intercepted it with my right hand, activating my counter. No spatial cracks, but I was still sent flying meters back.
My back skidded along the road, but I channeled my cursed energy into the ground, a path of pulverized decimated road trailing me.
"You…" She growled out and I looked at her, "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO!" She screamed at me.
"Your idea of the sky, is flawed." I said calmly getting to my feet, "You never answered my question, what's your name?"
"Takako," she growled out through gritted teeth, "Uro Takako… NOW TELL ME WHAT YOU JUST DID TO THE SKY" she ended in a scream.
I gave her a smug smile, "My name is Shinji, Newgate Shinji, it's nice to meet you." She screamed again, pulling herself down at me.
I backpedaled, and she threw a roundhouse at me and I rocked back letting the kick pass over me. She used the force to complete a spin and used the momentum to throw a right straight at me.
I pushed it out of the way of my head with my right hand and landed a right jab to her chin. She fell for it and moved her left hand to her chin to block, but I dropped my center of gravity and flicked my left arm out in a delayed jab to her ribs.
She was still able to deflect my jab, still just barely faster than me in closed quarters. That still however left her open for a counter with my right arm.
I stepped in with a right elbow and she moved her head back slightly, just outside my range. I used my left hand to grab her right arm in a vice grip. I was punished with a knee to my gut, spit flying from my mouth, but I held on.
I knocked her left hand away with the back of my right hand. I pivoted my fist clenching and slammed my right arm into her chest and activated my technique.
I held her in place as spit was vomited out of her mouth. I felt that pulse again, this time analyzing it due to my proximity.
It felt like two distinct sources of cursed energy in her, overlapping and compounding on each other. 'Almost like two overlapping and compounding frequencies.'
I was broken from my analysis by the now healed Uro, who sent her right hand at me. I activated my counter, but space cracked before she made contact.
My hand was sent away, the counter dying before I could send it out. She grinned once more and completed her punch to my chin, cracking space at the impact.
My head rang like a church bell, and I was catapulted away bouncing off the top of one of the smaller buildings and skipping into the floor of another. I rolled to a stop in the cubicles.
I put my palm in the air in front of me and pushed.
The portion of the building in front of me and above me was reduced to rubble and debris, windows exploding outwards.
My eyes locked onto Uro's through the falling pieces of the building and despite her clear rage at my interference with her technique, we both smiled.
After all, this was the best fight either of us has had since waking up.
The building under me shattered and I exploded from my standing position.
I jumped from debris to debris using ground break to make impossibly sharp turns at ludicrous speeds. Her eyes darted to keep up, but my speed Aerostepping far exceeded my hand-to-hand speed.
I was beside her, but she had already pulled the curtain that was space in the way. But it cleared a moment later and she was nowhere to be seen.
My eyes widened and my head swiveled left and right, but she wasn't in either direction.
I felt her two hands slam down on me, space fracturing at the contact. I was lucky that her technique didn't do any internal damage, like mine did. If it did my brain might just look closer to liquid than solid.
I cratered the road with my impact, parts of the building falling on top of me. I got to my feet slowly, my vision swimming slightly as I pushed the rumble off me.
I stood and let out an omnidirectional vibrational pulse to clear the dust. I looked up at her, and she was wary to close the distance.
I wiped a bit of blood that dribbled from the side of my lips and called out to her, "Why are you so mad?"
She snarled, "Because it's MINE. To fly in, to own, to crack—it's all fucking MINE. And you—" she pointed at me, "YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH MY SKY!"
Holy shit I didn't think she would get that mad. I wonder what would happen if I—
"The sky isn't yours you know? It doesn't belong to any one person."
The veins around her eyes bulged and she shrieked.
She charged in, throwing her earlier caution to the wind. She landed in front of me and I threw the first punch having anticipated her charge.
What I did not anticipate was that she would let the blow connect. I didn't activate my technique, big mistake. She threw a mean haymaker at my chin and it barely clipped me as I moved back.
She followed up with a left jab to my shoulder, which connected squarely. I thought she would have used a thin ice breaker, but she didn't.
Instead, she drew her arm back before slamming both palms at my chest. I rushed to activate my counter, but she cracked space in front of me instead of at the contact.
The air vanished from my lungs and I was sent hurdling backwards. I did a backwards roll into a back handspring, landing on my feet. I collapsed to my knees because fuck that hurt.
"The sky isn't mine huh?" She said menacingly before throwing me a sadistic grin, "Let me show you just how wrong you really are." She crossed her arms in front of her.
My pupils shrank time slowed, and I dashed in no matter how damaged I was I could not let her—
"Domain expansion: Solitary Sky"
Fuck
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A/N
Aaaaand done, okay a couple things I want to clarify, Uro not feeling the fullest of Shinji's energy is a consequence of him plugging that leak from earlier by locking his vibrations into his body and empowering them. This of course came at a cost, that being that he lost that untrackable effect he had in early chapters.
Uro tweaking about the sky, is something deeply tied to her character and what the sky symbolizes to her. If ykyk so no spoilers.
Yes Uro is the love interest if you were questioning that after this character interaction. Trust the prosess both Uro and Shinji need to break before they can be rebuilt and changed. And be honest would a relationship with Uro be nonviolent? Hate and love are very close emotions.
Anyways I hope you enjoyed the chapter, have a great night.