“I’m calling for help, too. It’s only fair.”
The substance quickly expanded above his head into a black tentacled life form that unsettlingly looked somewhere between an octopus and a tree. Its very existence seemed to mock the world’s natural laws. The creature contained multiple distortions and was so blasphemous that the very air seemed to scream and shy away at the sight of it.
It reached sharp tentacles toward Karamori and Archive as it constructed its body.
“I know what that is,” Archive said. She dodged the tentacles and traced a finger in the air. The finger left a trail of light, which she used to spell the name “Gulorton.”
Ting! Blond hair turned to ash brown as she switched to Hitsugi Fujinaka, who placed a hand on Untitled. The letters spelling “Gulorton” disappeared, and the black monster immediately turned into a large cluster of letters. Powerless to resist, the letters were sucked into Untitled, where they vanished from existence.
There was no defense for that move. Pyrovault was shocked, leaving him vulnerable for a moment.
Karamori rushed at him like the wind and swept Tyrfing fast enough to shake off his afterimage. The sword could cut through reason itself, and Pyrovault had no chance of stopping it. Karamori swung it one, two, three times and successfully cut off his metal right arm.
Next, he swung the azure blade at the man’s neck. Archive chose that time to spawn multiple golden spears and send them at their opponent from behind. It was a malicious pincer attack born from the duo’s—no, the trio’s—polished coordination.
But Pyrovault’s smile didn’t falter.
“This has gotten fun!”
He stomped the floor again, shattering the concrete within a ten-meter radius. A large number of shadow needles flew out of the cracks.
“Damn…!”
The needles were spawned so close to Karamori and at such a wide range that not even he could dodge them all, and a few pierced his arms and stomach. Archive quickly put up a clear barrier to protect him.
The impact of the stomp and the presence of the holes the shadow needles punched through the walls caused a section of the workshop to noisily collapse. Rubble landed directly on Pyrovault, but he didn’t even flinch.
Karamori retreated and stood next to Archive. He was wounded all over and his left arm—his non-sword arm—hung limply. He left a trail of blood as he moved.
“Archive. Can you still fight?” he asked while keeping his eyes on Pyrovault.
“Of course…Mr. Karamori. We should assume he can no longer be harmed by ordinary means,” Archive said.
“I know. That’s what I’ve got this for.”
He readied Tyrfing, its blue sword dully reflecting the sunlight. The cursed sword that could cut through reason itself. Even after all these years of fighting, the blade didn’t have a single nick or scratch. It floated above the most chaotic of situations.
Karamori and Pyrovault ran at each other simultaneously. Swordplay met explosive flames met nets made of text as the fight increased in intensity. The distortions came rapid fire, spawning flaming giants, raining meteors, and beasts of fire, all of which were cut down by one sword.
Violent explosions rocked the workshop, causing rubble to fall as it collapsed piece by piece. Three fighters navigated this mad reality, each seeking to kill.
Karamori and Archive protected each other as they searched for gaps in the relentless storm through which to attack. Archive occasionally switched to Fujinaka, who dealt with the letters that appeared on Pyrovault’s coat—
“Charge!”
—by summoning Sir Penny to help them fight. She only spawned him and his penguin companions, perhaps because they were easy for her to control, but true to the manga, they were formidable fighters. While they didn’t come close to matching Pyrovault’s strength, they could defend Karamori and Fujinaka and also split up to create diversions and give their opponent more targets to focus on.
As Pyrovault wielded the many distortions he had applied to his coat using Force, Karamori noticed a pattern. There was a visible sign before the man activated each distortion: a red geometric pattern that traveled down his coat. Without fail, the distortions manifested briefly after that pattern appeared. That delay gave Karamori just enough warning to avoid attacks that should have instantly finished him.
Unfortunately, there was one attack he still couldn’t handle.
Karamori and Sir Penny closed in on Pyrovault from opposite sides, who responded by stomping on the floor. Cracks raced down the concrete and needles shot out of them.
This stomp is the only attack that’s too fast for me!
Karamori only faltered for a moment, but that was enough to instantly turn a perfect chance into a deadly pinch. Before he knew it, the fire sword was racing at him along with an onslaught of fireballs.
Sir Penny jumped in front of him with a fierce look and allowed himself to be torn up by the fiery attacks. Fujinaka had spawned him from Untitled to act as Karamori’s shield. The penguin honked sadly, his eyes turned to Xs, and he vanished.
Karamori backed up, gnashing his teeth. That move prevented his approach entirely. He wouldn’t be able to kill Pyrovault without finding a way to catch him completely off guard. But he couldn’t hope for that against an opponent as formidable as him.
Oxygen deficiency due to blood loss, fatigue, and the never-ending string of rapid movements had Karamori’s mind hazy. The combat sense implanted within him by Tyrfing was essentially the only reason he could still move. He had lost a significant amount of blood, and adrenaline could only do so much to mask pain.
He needed one more move.
“Hey, don’t think you’re the only one puttin’ your brain to work,” Pyrovault said.
A swarm of fire dragons flew out of his coat and rushed directly at Archive. She created a net of text, and Sir Penny and his comrades tried to defend her, but the dragons were too numerous.
“Unprepared Distortionists are hopeless in close combat,” Pyrovault said.
“Archive!” Karamori yelled.
He ran toward her, but Pyrovault stood in his way with his sword at the ready. Karamori swept Tyrfing in a horizontal line, but the larger man didn’t dodge. Instead, STOP appeared on his coat and halted the blue sword. Pyrovault countered by swinging his fire sword, which grazed the young man’s cheek.
Karamori looked at Archive. She couldn’t switch to the defenseless Fujinaka while under assault. And if she couldn’t switch to Fujinaka, Karamori had no way to harm Pyrovault.
That gave them almost no chance of winning. But as Karamori swung his sword, his eyes still blazed fiercely.
Clear images appeared within his hazy mind.
He saw Archive following a fate set in stone…
…Fujinaka crying after killing all those people in her town…
…and Sakura’s smiling face, which he hadn’t been able to see for years.
Defeat was not an option.
“I’m severing that distortion if it’s the last thing I do!” Karamori yelled, gripping the sword’s handle hard enough for the bones in his arm to creak.
He attacked Pyrovault with renewed vigor, but no matter what he tried, he couldn’t harm the man. Eventually, Pyrovault repelled one of his sword strikes hard enough to knock him off balance, and with Karamori unable to move out of the way, he spawned multiple fireballs around himself and shot them forward like arrows.
A white blur passed between the two of them.
Just before the fireballs hit Karamori, they were swallowed by a long white object. The object passed beside him and circled behind Pyrovault, and Karamori noticed that it was a long arm of white hair. The hair expanded and surrounded them both like a cage.
Pyrovault looked behind him at where Archive should have been standing. A different small girl was standing there instead, smiling boldly at him. It was Third.
She stuck out her tongue and laughed.
“Got you, loser!” she yelled.
Pyrovault’s eyes darted to where he had thrown Third through the workshop wall. There was no sign of her body. There was only one explanation: Fujinaka had also absorbed the dying Third into Untitled. It was probably the white-haired girl who eliminated the fire dragons.
It took Pyrovault only a moment to figure that out, but that brief hesitation was what Karamori had been waiting for. He stepped forward within the cage of hair, driven by strong determination, and whipped Tyrfing above his head fast enough to slice wind.
Unfortunately, Pyrovault was ready. He elected not to try to block the sword, instead turning to attack Third. He knew that she would switch to Fujinaka just as Karamori’s blade reached his skin; without her help, the strike would stop short.
One moment dragged into infinity. Their moves and schemes intertwined, seeming to increase the density of time.
Just as Pyrovault predicted, Third switched to Fujinaka. The hair around them turned from white to ash brown.
His grin widened. He made STOP appear on his coat before the sword’s tip and aimed a long-range attack at Fujinaka. To his surprise, the hair around him quickly turned blond. Fujinaka switched to Archive.
Pyrovault had failed to realize something. The giant cage of hair around him was shaped into a complex cat’s cradle formation.
And he was in the center of it.
“Exorcism.”
Archive’s hair glowed. Many bands of light spawned from her hair and wrapped around Pyrovault. He was momentarily stunned by the restraints; he could probably break out of them quickly, but that brief period of immobility would place him in mortal danger.
Ting!
The hair around him turned ash brown. Archive had turned into Hitsugi Fujinaka. She was holding Untitled, the vanit that ate writing.
The book tore STOP off his coat.
“Gaaah!”
Fury on his face, Pyrovault stomped his foot. That move was his fastest weapon and his only way out of this trap.
Nothing happened. He looked down in shock and saw that Karamori had wedged his feet between Pyrovault’s feet and the floor. The stomp was strong enough to smash concrete, so naturally, it crushed Karamori’s feet into fleshy messes. However, the maneuver successfully stopped Pyrovault’s feet from touching the floor.
Pyrovault’s eyes went wide as Tyrfing raced toward him.
It looked like a flash of lightning.
The azure blade sliced through Pyrovault’s body. It also tore into his coat, slaying Force and the numerous distortions of reality that had been applied to it.