10 - Bomb And Voltage

Both soulfuls had unleashed their divine acclamations.

Ausra’s phase-type acclamation was different from others. For most other acclamations, the progression of phases implied a change in the ability’s function, or a greater enhancement. Diego’s acclamation progressed through various stages, each one delivering special attacks, ending with an incredible release of firepower. Gamma’s acclamation release, which triggered once she was dead, assured her body would recover and be reshaped in a form that was the height of her power. Rin’s acclamation was based on chemistry lessons, which progressed under set conditions and in the end, if the progression isn’t halted, would result in an almost definitely lethal attack.

But Ausra’s was different. The second phase, which was the complete detonation, was triggered manually and ended the divine acclamation altogether.

Oskar’s acclamation was the opposite. It enhanced his abilities, pushing his toolkit to its maximum.

The battle between them was reduced to a race. Would Ausra manage to pull off a sufficiently strong enough final detonation before Oskar’s enhanced form was able to kill her?

“I remember all those moments with him...”

“Not with you, but with him...”

Ausra looked down for a second, and a small tear streamed down her face.

“Hey, divine acclamations are different, right? If your soul is still in there somewhere, can you feel it? Can you feel the dimming of my acclamation touch and caress it? Can you feel me?”

“Can you recognize me, Oskar?”

“Ah...why am I even saying this...”

Oskar healed his lost hand. With their soul presences at their maximum, their confrontation would enter its final phase...

“I just need to accept that I might have lost you.”

“But still...”

“It won’t stop me from trying to save you.”

Ausra, imbuing an explosion beneath her feet with incredible power, launched herself into the air. From there, she relentlessly bombarded the ground with fireworks. Oskar’s only method of protecting himself against them was to try and keep them at a distance using enhanced repulsive fields, but the sheer volume of the bombardment overwhelmed him. As Oskar got knocked away by a series of such explosions, Ausra quickly blitzed in and destroyed the ground. Her voltage was at an all time high.

It knocked Oskar away, but Ausra quickly used more explosions to close the distance, and kept pressuring and knocking Oskar around. Oskar occasionally blocked the strikes with the fields and went for counterattacks, but thanks to sharp movements with the explosives, Ausra was effectively an airborne threat. By faking such an advance, she landed a devastating kick on Oskar, with enough power behind it to toss him into a building. Oskar fired back with two giant electrifying arrows, but Ausra blitzed right back in.

Oskar was ready this time, quickly repelling her. The move granted him the chance to deal good damage, but Ausra quickly jumped to the side and forwards under an angle - sketching a triangle around Oskar. From there, she fired off a multiple of fireworks at him, obliterating the buildings Oskar was ragdolled into. She chased him down, constantly beating him down with one explosive barrage after another. Turns out, the knockback wasn’t an issue anymore.

Oskar, coming to his senses, used the repulsion again, except this time he combined it with a strong attractive force - stunning and pulling Ausra towards her. Ausra tried to swing at him, but Oskar’s field halted that attack and allowed him to counterattack. The nasty electrifying kick burnt and scarred Ausra badly, knocking her down. Ausra tried to jump back at him, but Oskar, maximizing the repulsive force, slammed her hard into the ground from a distance. He tried to chase her down, but a well-timed firework hit him head on, blasting away parts of his torso and ripping his legs off completely!

Ausra propelled herself again and went in for another blitz, but Oskar anticipated the advance. Instead of playing it defensively, he clasped his hands and fired off a bolt of electricity, hitting Ausra right in her stomach. Now she was the one who needed a break. Despite the heavy bleeding, Oskar saw the opportunity to kill and decided to go for it. He rushed in and Ausra aimed the fireworks...not at Oskar, but at herself. Pouring most of her soul prowess into it, Oskar’s idea to attack backfired awfully. The detonation was strong enough to destroy everything in a roughly fifty meter radius. It bought Ausra enough time to heal her wound.

“All of the training I did with the Captain...”

“It’s all paying off.”

Oskar, on the other hand, went for a more different, ranged offensive this time. He broke off bits of whatever had metal in it and launched them at Ausra. Some of them struck her, but the more dangerous ones were the ones that missed. Oskar, now having recovered his legs, clasped his hands again. But instead of aiming for Ausra, he aimed for the metal.

The result was a lethal rope of electricity that, to Ausra’s bad luck, touched her. It burnt off the side of her body and paralyzed her for a moment. She noticed Oskar manifest another electric bident in his hand, ready to throw it at her. She detonated the ground, removing the source of the electricity and launching her upwards. The bident missed, but its remnants, paired with whatever electricity was left in the thread, combined and launched a volley of sharp electric arrows at Ausra’s back. Most of them struck the target.

Oskar dragged himself up towards her.. Instead of meeting him head on, Ausra shot a firework right behind him - which knocked back down into the ground. There, Ausra followed up by two more fireworks and destroyed the buildings he crashed into completely. In a moment, Ausra was the one being dragged towards Oskar, into the ruins. The rapid explosions signified that the rubble was no more, and the two were locked into yet another deadly one-on-one. Not only on the ground, but also in the air. They clashed against one another, constantly breaking off and coming back together...it almost looked like a dance. Despite Ausra’s impressive destructive skills and her ability to blitz and move Oskar around - dragging him through buildings and destroying the terrain completely, Oskar had the advantage. The electrifying attacks were simply too dangerous.

However, Ausra’s own condition of victory was beginning to shine.

“Just a bit more...and it’ll be enough.”

“It’ll put him to sleep for sure. And I’ll figure out a way to keep him asleep until the evil bitch is dead.”

Ausra kicked Oskar down after a series of aerial engagements, shooting off one more firework at him. The impact was insane. But Oskar, using the magnetism, dragged her not towards himself this time, but into the ground...and kept her pinned down. He began manifesting a smaller, but still extremely dangerous electric weapon in his other hand.

Ausra, having no other option, touched the ground and focused. Soon, parts of the asphalt and concrete began breaking apart. Like a beast breaking out of its egg’s shell, the ground broke apart, with series of explosions not only threatening to hurt Oskar, but also acting as a smokescreen. Oskar chucked the weapon anyways, but by that time, Ausra had evaded its danger. She looked at Oskar from a distance, and her presence was elevated once more.

“That should be enough...”

“Destroy all there is...”

The dust that lingered around the battlefield began to spark, and gained its own rather profound soul presence. Ausra noticed Oskar attempting to attack her with an EMP beam again. She dodged to the side, avoiding the beam, and tried to fire off one last firework to immobilize him.

But the beam was retracted, almost as if it was sucked back into Oskar’s hands. On its way, it destroyed the surroundings, breaking apart the buildings and causing Ausra to duck so as to not have her head destroyed, and reshaped itself into something...strangely recognizable. It transformed into another bident, but this one had an exceptionally strong presence.

Ausra shot the firework. Oskar threw the bident. The two projectiles clashed against one another, trying to push each other away, entering a brutal tug of war of sorts. Their forces were strong enough to create a strong shockwave upon contact, and the presences of the two were growing rapidly. Suddenly, and unfortunately for Ausra, the firework was broken apart. Ausra barely had any time to react, but the little time she had likely saved her life. Only the right part of her torso was destroyed.

“F-fuck...can I...”

“Can I even regenerate this?”

“I feel dizzy already...fuck...not yet...”

Soul determination was a unique phenomenon that allowed souls to persist for longer when the physical body was in great peril. Essentially, it allowed the soulful to ‘pull through’ something if they were determined enough. Unless directly modified by a soul expression, soul determination had its limits. In Ausra’s case, it was enough to keep her going despite the many injuries and her growing exhaustion.

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Oskar, who had previously expected the bident to finish her off, quickly and calmly changed his strategy. He dragged her closer to him while at the same time utilizing the magnetic field. She was effectively stuck in one position.

But she didn’t mind it. While this was a viable strategy of locking her down, it was a mistake. One that Oskar would pay for dearly.

“I’ve accepted your situation already, Oskar.”

“But as long as I’m here, you won’t go away.”

Her soul presence reached its apotheosis. The explosive dust in the environment was recalled and collected in one spot, that being...

“Destroy all there is.”

“Leave nothing but ruin and devastation.”

“Make sure that the destruction...”

“Delivers my will.”

Oskar quickly sprung back, trying to let go. Instead of dragging him towards her, he launched her away. But Ausra knocked herself back towards Oskar through a strong explosion. The only thing left between them was Oskar’s own magnetic field.

Ausra, taking a step towards him, destroyed a chunk of the terrain by detonating parts of the ground. Most importantly, the impact knocked Oskar upwards, as his feet weren’t protected by the field.

Ausra propelled herself up into the air once more. The two briefly clashed, but Ausra was much more open now. All she needed to do was to grab him or to somehow cancel out his field, but Oskar, now much more careful, retained it as hard as he could. Until Ausra not only threw herself at him, but also kept trying to push through.

At this point, her body was exposed enough to allow Oskar to strike. He rapidly let the field down and instead focused an immense amount of electricity around him, shocking Ausra and charring her body. A follow-up uppercut to her stomach destroyed a chunk of it. By all means, she should’ve been dead by now. But she still kept going. In fact, she smiled...

“Haah...”

“You let your barrier down...”

It would take more seconds for Oskar to reactivate it than for Ausra to go for it. So instead, he tried to quickly repel her away, as quickly as possible. But it was too late. Ausra, suspended in the air, just a little higher than Oskar, unleashed her soul...

“ ✦ Divine Acclamation Release ✦ ”

“ ✦ Full Detonation!!! ✦ ”

The entire part of the city was destroyed, pulverized, shredded to pieces and forgotten about. The explosion was large enough and even beautiful enough to convey to the Heisei about what took place. The shockwave was brutal enough to sweep across many parts of the city, breaking apart glass windows like they were nothing, destroying the terrain like a child would destroy its first toy creation. It had the enchantment of love, and almost the power of certain tactical warheads...

A small quake took place, and once the fireball calmed down, the dust began to settle. Dozens of pieces of debris were thrown across the city, some even landing close to the Heisei’s soldiers. The explosion was even felt from the ruins of the castle itself.

And most importantly, it was a colorful explosion. It was incredibly colorfully dark, the same color as her beautiful eyes, but even more colorful - filled with a vibrance, as if the whole spectrum was thrown on top of it, but in such a subtle way that only Ausra herself could see it.

Once the dust settled, Ausra coughed and got up.

She was laying on the ground, her wounds were still dangerous, but at least she had enough time to try and heal them back up. It was no longer a matter of capability, but a matter of her simply concentrating on healing herself back up.

She sat up a little, and while trying to patch herself up, remembered her main objective.

“Oskar...?” She called out, not realizing that the recipient of that message wouldn’t even know what it was his name. “Oskar!”

She looked around, panicking a little. Maybe she overdid it. Maybe he was still out there, somewhere. But once more of the dust came to terms with being on the ground, he noticed something laying down in the distance, a bit motionless. Even though it was motionless, she felt its soul presence.

“Ah...”

“He’s right there. He seems like he’s out of it completely.”

She slowly stood up. A chunk of flesh was still missing from her stomach, but she healed up the organs first, the rest could wait a little bit while she checked up on Oskar. The more she approached him, the more she could see the color of blood beneath him. She was a dozen meters away from him now.

“The blood...I don’t think there’s enough there to cause him to bleed to death. He’s still breathing, albeit slowly. He’s out of it.”

“The explosion knocked him out. He’s too tired too. Too exhausted.”

“I guess I’ll finally speak to you. Maybe I’ll even scold you for going out and getting yourself into this.” Ausra thought, approaching him more.

“Next time, get yourself together. You’ll be the one saving me-”

An electric arrow pierced her heart.

Her eyes were wide open, and she was shaking a little. She tried to extract the arrow, but couldn’t, courtesy of the arrow shocking her. Her eyes were getting even more dizzy. The stomach injury was one thing, but a piercing wound in the heart on top of that was extremely dangerous.

She looked up and saw Oskar stand up, with his weapon in his hands. He, without even batting an eye, prepared to fire another arrow at her.

“But I thought...”

The second arrow pierced her right shoulder, almost paralyzing her limb. Oskar approached her. He looked like a half-butchered corpse himself. The explosion severely damaged his body and limbs, he was bleeding out of every wound, and his face was awfully scarred.

He approached her and pushed her down, and took the mount position on the ground.

“You...you should’ve been out...”

“Oskar...”

Oskar punched Ausra in the face. He punched her again, and this one resulted in her nose breaking.

“Why are you doing this?!” Ausra yelled.

“I can’t fight...”

“No...there’s...there’s only one option left!!!”

With her left arm, that was miraculously still intact, and with a final surge of determination, she reached into her clothes and grabbed the soul crystal she held onto. She stabbed Oskar in the chest with it. The latter coughed up a little blood, but he seemed...unfazed.

Ausra stared at it, shocked and scared. Oskar looked at it with confusion and brushed it off as a last ditch effort, pulling it out of himself and tossing it away.

This is where the issue with the nature of the Nachtvessels came in. The soul crystal was designed as a way to help those with a troubled soul. The help was a bit ruthless, but it was efficient, as proven in Sakuto’s case. But a Nachtvessel was not any soulful. It wielded no memories, it felt no emotions...from the crystal’s perspective, Oskar, despite being a Nachtvessel, was a perfectly untroubled individual. In a wicked way, there was nothing wrong with him. There was nothing to fix.

The daydream sequence could not be constructed, and the crystal was rendered useless.

Oskar punched Asura again.

“Oskar, please...” Ausra teared up. She tried to reach his face with her hand, but Oskar took notice of the slow motion and broke her hand.

“Please...”

“Why...didn't it work?!” Ausra asked.

Oskar struck her again, and with this punch he managed to heavily damage her eye. Instead of just throwing punches, he now threw elbow strikes, which fractured the defenseless Ausra’s skull and jaw and cut her badly.

Ausra, seeing Oskar mounted on her, didn’t even think about the present anymore. She instead saw the Oskar that was like that with her earlier, in perhaps the sweetest moment of her life. She remembered the kiss, and she felt the power of Oskar’s strikes on her defenseless face.

“You’re in there!” Ausra yelled. “So talk to me!”

Oskar shifted his target to Ausra’s most serious injury - the hole in her heart. He started pummeling her chest with viscous strikes, breaking her ribs and crushing her lungs. Ausra remembered the Oskar that was before, and cried in disbelief.

“Oskar...”

“Don’t you remember me?!?!”

He landed a strike strong enough to crush her heart. No amount of determination could save Ausra from that. That is, if there even was an ounce of determination left in her. The loss of hope destroyed her mentally.

The worst part was that Oskar looked as if he wasn’t even doing anything the whole time. Not a word, not a facial expression, not a feeling of humanity. He wasn’t even somewhere in there, deep inside of the Nachtvessel’s mind or soul. He wasn’t even Oskar, technically. He was Nachtvessel Omega. Ausra Alekna was killed by Nachtvessel Omega.

Oskar climbed off of her corpse, and suddenly, he puked blood. He himself was barely alive, closer to death than its door. He slowly collapsed on the ground and started to crawl, his destination being the castle, to report back to the heartless savior. Almost all of his internal organs were severely damaged by the explosion, and getting stabbed by the crystal didn’t help him much either since it pierced rather deep into him. He was oozing blood, and most of all, he was deathly exhausted. But he was still alive.

If his existence as a Nachtvessel could even be called that.

10.5

[PRAGUE]

[01:20 AM; 20 MINUTES AFTER THE START OF THE EURA STRONGHOLD RAID]

THE HEISEI AND THE EURA STRONGHOLD HAVE ENGAGED IN A SERIES OF BRUTAL BATTLES.

LIST OF SOULFULS UNABLE TO FURTHER ENGAGE IN COMBAT:

ICHIGO SADAMITSU

JIAN FANG

ICHIKA HANASAKI

NACHTVESSEL OMEGA

LIST OF SOULFULS THAT FELL IN BATTLE:

NACHTVESSEL BETA

NACHTVESSEL ZETTA

NIGHTSEER

NACHTVESSEL GAMMA

AUSRA ALEKNA

LIST OF ACTIVE SOULFULS IN THE AREA:

YUUKA HOSHIKAWA (SUPPORTING ALLY RECOVERY)

ZAWADSKI (SUPPORTING ALLY RECOVERY)

LIST OF COMBAT READY SOULFULS IN THE AREA:

SAKUTO HITORI

LADY AIZAWA

...

[01:21]

SAKUTO HITORI ENTERS THE HEART OF THE EURA STRONGHOLD