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Chapter 41: Cthulhu, Come Forth IV
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Kurayami in hand, now back in blade form, he whispered gently, "I just wanted to be left alone is what I would've said a while ago, but I'm having so so much fun."
A chuckle echoed from one of the nobles.
"Pitiful. Do you think you can scare us with that childish talk, or are you finally surrendering?"
Akashi spit blood at the ground.
"No," He said, voice sharp, "You gave me something to enjoy, and for that, I'm thankful."
He knew he was outmatched. They were coordinated, powerful, and worse; trained.
Each one bore the signs of battle-hardened age. He had fought his way up through desperation and obsession, but he lacked what they had, Time.
Still… that didn't matter.
He stood. He smiled, "Let's continue."
Akashi stood amidst the dust, his breath ragged, and his side bleeding freely.
The copper scent filled his nose. His pale hands were slick with it, fingertips coated in his own life essence.
But his grip on Kurayami never loosened. The blade form trembled faintly, as if resonating with his frenzied emotions, emotions he hadn't experienced before.
Across from him, the six nobles re-formed their circle.
Four of them now bore injuries: the one he shocked with the warped Tsuzuri Raiden; his shoulder still smoking; and the three others were either from his blade or his arrows.
Neither seemed critically wounded, but Akashi took small satisfaction in that.
"Can I put him half a step from death? I feel like he thinks we're taking him seriously," One of them said, his voice low, oily with contempt and vexation, the one whose should was still smoking.
"Can you afford to make a mistake?" The commander asked back.
The response made the man flinch, fear flashing in his eyes as if he remembering the most horrific of horrors... Tokinada has trained them well.
"Remember Master's orders, but... You can use any means to quickly knock him unconscious. We've delayed long enough." The commander continued.
Akashi narrowed his eyes. He let Kurayami dissolve in his hand again, the long blade vanishing into tendrils of black that coiled into the orb once more.
This time, he summoned it into a bow. Every moment with it in this form sharpened his archery.
He didn't train it as much as Zanjutsu, but it was enough for as far as he could see, the commander of the enemy wasn't interfering much, 'His Shikai is destructive... Is he afraid of killing me?'
Each and every one of them seems to have a deep-seated fear of Tokinada... Just what had he done to them?
The nobles quickly scattered.
Akashi aimed at one of them, the arrow in his bow growing darker by the moment, darkness converging into it.
It may be a waste of darkness to use it like this, but the plan required it, just like the plan required him to quickly switch his aim to the enemy's commander and release the string.
What he released was not a simple arrow, but a flood of darkness that swept by.
Caught off guard by the unusual signature, the commanding noble was forced to guard, the wind around him acting as a first line of defense.
The element of surprise, however, was effective as he was left slightly wounded.
Soul battles are, after all, battles of Reiatsu, and the commanding noble was especially powerful.
However, that didn't matter. The point of the attack was never the arrow, but the darkness within and around it.
The commanding noble must've realized something as he looked at the wound, confused, feeling something weird yet unable to understand what it was.
Akashi couldn't focus on him any longer as felt a cluster of malice appear by his side, and he instinctively swung his bow, the weapon reforming into a long Katana mid-swing.
But the second noble sidestepped mid-flash, his form twisting as he seemingly dove into Akashi's shadow only to appear behind him.
His blade sang through the air and carved downward toward Akashi's shoulder.
Clang!
Akashi met the strike with the sword's hilt, using Ikkaku's technique to deflect; his arms trembled under the impact.
The force shot through his bones like a tremor as Kurayami transformed into a staff. He twisted the staff and activated:
"Hado #54.Haien!"
The dark-purple flame erupted point-blank, engulfing both him and the attacker in swirling fire.
The noble vanished into the blast, arms raised, body arching away. But Akashi didn't escape unscathed.
The backlash from the Kidō, enhanced by Kurayami's chaotic influence, burned the edge of his own arm.
His skin blistered and split at the forearm, sizzling from his own spell.
Akashi couldn't help but lick his lips, feeling exhilarated like never before. He was enjoying it way too much. The voices were definitely to blame.
Shunpo.
He vanished from the crater of his spell, swinging his shield to barely deflect a heavy blow from one of the nobles, yet he was still wounded, albeit slightly.
Pain, so much pain as if the pain felt from a simple wound has been magnified dozens of times.
He couldn't lose himself in pain now as he side-stepped to emerge beside the attacker.
Kurayami once again morphed in an instant, now into a sword; a downward arc already slicing toward the noble's back.
No, something was wrong... Very wrong.
A spiritual pulse to his right. A burst of malice emerged out of nowhere.
The sixth noble, the commanding noble; uninjured and perhaps the fastest; was already there, intercepting mid-swing.
Their blades collided, and Akashi's eyes widened.
Not from surprise; he had expected an interception.
From the wind blades that followed after the confrontation, shredding his clothes to pieces, and leaving several injuries on his body.
Had he not morphed Kurayami into a shield quickly enough, he would've been left in a much worse state. He could only flash backward to avoid the still incoming danger.
WHAM!
Only to feel another burst of malice. Helplessly, he lifted his shield to face the destructive force that fell upon him.
Akashi flew through the air like a puppet cut from its strings, smashing through a stack of broken bricks and sliding across the ground until he slammed into a stone wall with a dull thud.
Blood ran freely from his mouth now.
He didn't rise immediately.
His vision swam, but he was more focused than ever before, 'I see... Their commander is indeed too dangerous, but the older one, why are the Voices telling me he's more dangerous?'
They may not have realized it, but every time they've been injured by Kurayami; bit by bit; their darkness gets devoured.
Akashi sometimes sees that darkness in the form of images, emotions, and most of all, Voices.
The Voices whisper to him the darkness within people's hearts, driving him insane, but sometimes, they tell him some interesting stuff.
'It's done... Now, I just need an opportunity,' So, he moved.
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