Yu hovered in front of the giant’s chest. In its heart skulked Leo Makishima.
“Now we fight on my terms!” Yu shouted.
Leo scoffed. “Go ahead and try! Your attacks can’t break Agni!”
“Don’t need them to!”
Yu touched both of his palms to the avatar’s chest, but nothing more. And then, he switched on the ultrasonic oscillator. Next, the incapacitative paralytic sound propagator activated directionally. Sound waves penetrated the otherwise unyielding fortress and vibrated throughout the giant’s body, into the Devicer’s own.
Leo’s shriek shook Yu’s eardrums. The white-haired Devicer struggled to endure the assault, and for a moment, Yu thought that was it. But only for a moment.
“Agni!” Leo barked. The pain in his voice vanished like it had been an illusion. “Enhance mobility!”
The forty-meter leviathan suddenly shrank, all the way down to a tenth of its original size, until its stature only slightly dwarfed the Full-Armored Mark III.
“No physical form,” Yu murmured thoughtfully. “It can control its size.”
“I’ve gotta hand it to you, Three! I haven’t felt this alive in ages!”
The winged being darted behind Yu with the speed and fluidity of a comet streaking through the blackness of space. Yu then reacted by rolling behind Leo, as quick as a gale. And so a battle of aerial superiority began between light and wind, a supersonic dogfight, each competing for the advantage behind or above the other.
The Mark VII bolted straight and true like a flash of lightning.
The Mark III flitted and danced like the nimble breeze.
In terms of speed and agility, they were evenly matched.
“Looks like I’ll have to pull out all the stops, just for you!” Leo howled. “Agni! Start the Doomsday Book!”
“Ready ours, Rudra! Ein, the Gospel Code!”
At his request, her dulcet voice resounded in Yu’s ears.
—The mortal knows not what he does. The mortal knows not of the flames of hell.
—The mortal knows not of good and evil, nor of the atrocities he commits.
—The mortal is bound by illusory chains of proud ideology, and wherefore might he be freed.
Ein’s voice, carried through Avalo, reached him all the way from the control tower on Earth, and it was filled with emotion, hope, and love for Yu. But it was soon followed by the exact same yet entirely different voice.
“What?!” blurted Yu.
It came from within the Mark VII’s titanic incarnation. It was Ein. Except this recital was robotic, completely devoid of any feeling.
—The trailokya knows no peace.
—The wanderers of the world ail, suffer, and return to ash.
—And the flame of righteousness is ever kindled.
“Yu, he must have compelled me to upload this Gospel in my sleep!” Ein exclaimed.
“He’s good at keeping backups, then,” muttered Yu.
The two Doomsday Books promptly clashed. Sparks and electricity arced off of the Mark III’s armor as the Mark VII started to burn and luminesce. The King of the Storm became one with lightning itself, bolts smiting the enemy one after the other, and the King of Flashfire transformed into a scorching star, condensing into pure, unbridled heat. Enough to potentially melt his opponent’s nano-armor and subsequently boil it into gas.
Again, they were evenly matched. At first.
“He’s getting stronger!” Yu groaned.
The two Asura Frames guarded their Devicers from the supernatural destruction of the Doomsday Books with their anti-magic shells, but Agni’s mana continued to rise with no end in sight.
“Be careful, Yu!” Ein called out. “You’re still holding him off for now, but it won’t last. If you’re overpowered, you and Rudra might not make it!”
“Yeah, it’s looking a little dicey,” Yu said sorely. Sweat poured down his back. “I guess this means Leo’s the better Devicer.”
He couldn’t think of any other explanation. His defeat was literally creeping closer with every second, and with it his own demise. As well as the horrible truth that he wasn’t strong enough to protect everyone.
But right when the despair was about to consume him, Ein was there.
“No!” she declared. “You and Leo may have begun as equals, but in this moment I believe you to be the superior chosen. I would stake my royal blood on it!”
“You really think that?” Yu replied, unsure.
“I do. There’s more here than meets the eye.” Ein’s gasp came through the transmission. “Look at this, Yu. Rudra’s detected a strange kind of magic. But who cast it? And when?”
“You’re right.” A window appeared in the corner of his vision, presumably through Ein’s doing. She moved it to a more visible location. “‘Geas Curse’?”
“It’s a coercion spell. It allows the caster to force another to do, or not to do, anything the user wants,” Ein explained. “The target loses control of their emotions, sometimes falling into a comatose state, as they’re compelled to act against their own thoughts. It is a forbidden and highly taboo technique.”
“Wait, you don’t think...” Yu suddenly realized something. “Do you think that by making the Devicer’s emotions go berserk, the Asura Frame would start to go haywire too?”
“It’s plausible. Man and Asura are bound at a deeply fundamental level.”
Yu took a deep breath. A lot of things immediately made a lot of sense. Why Leo had gone crazy out of nowhere. All of Quldald’s suggestive comments.
“Either way, we can’t afford to lose here,” he stated with renewed vigor. “Rudra, we’re not going along with this tantrum anymore. Cut the Doomsday Book and channel all power to the shell. Everything to defense!”
“Is that a plan I hear you concocting?”
“It’s more of a gamble than a plan, but I’ve got to try something or it’s over. Figured I might trust you and give that confidence of yours a go!”
He would have never had the strength to make it through this on his own. But Devicer Three wasn’t alone. Together with his friends and the goddess of victory herself, Yu Ichinose prepared for the ultimate climax.