14 - Heartless Savior

Their divine acclamations were never closed.

They were always active, but the best way to imagine it was that they knocked each other out. They didn’t die, they just needed to wake up again. But this amount of taxation on the body...

Opening a divine acclamation already requires a ton of effort and concentration. But opening it, clashing with another acclamation so hard that both of them seemingly collapse, fighting for your life with full utilization of all of your abilities, and then reopening it...the Heisei and the Eura were already considered the unnaturally strong soulfuls. These two were the exceptions of the exceptions.

Sakuto quickly jumped back. He tried to avoid the area of light, its dimming was a game changer. He already felt the many shadows he used to close up and stitch various parts of his body together start failing, as he needed to allocate more and more of his efforts into protecting his own soul against the dimming effect.

Aizawa’s halo shone even brighter, re-sparking with a dark determination. Her nose started bleeding, and she probably felt a very awful headache. Any other soulful would have passed out. Even with Aizawa’s supercomputer-like brain, she was subject to exhaustion.

Sakuto tried to fling some shadow spears and daggers at Aizawa, but the dimming was making it difficult to manifest strong enough weapons. He just had one option left - running, and that wouldn’t work against an opponent whose blades worked like starving hunting dogs. They chased him down, and stabbed him pretty badly in his liver.

“Fuck...”

“She got me bad, I need to...”

He tried to grow a pair of wings and fly away, but failed, as the blades stabbed him again, this time in the shoulders. Sakuto backed away even more, internally raging at the fact that he was on the backfoot this badly.

“There’s genuinely nothing I can fucking do. With this much dimming, even if she collapses, she’s gonna get me before that.”

“Do I use this to bait her up close and adapt further? No, she can just piece me up from a distance.”

She looked at Aizawa’s insane smile, and her glowing green and purple eyes and halo. He thought of her, he thought of what she did and what she was going to do. He thought of all of that and it made him filled with so much anger, grief, and ultimately hatred.

His eyes began seeing things foggy.

“No...”

“There’s just no way this is how it ends.”

“All of the shit I’ve done, all of the things that happened to me and the things I’ve gone through, all lost because of this...”

“This evil bitch...”

“...”

“Oskar, I told you I was gonna get you back, right? Ichika, I told you I was gonna try coming back from this, right?”

“Then all I need to do is to think about it.”

“Think about what I think of you, you evil bitch, and about how much those people matter to me, and how much I fucking hate you, and the things you did to them and want to do to me.”

“All that’s left for me is to gather all that hatred...”

“And spew it all out.”

“Just like Kouta did. Just like Jackal did. Just like I did.”

"And just like Oskar would do."

“ ✦ Divine Acclamation. ✦ ”

Aizawa’s eyes were wide open in pure shock. Sakuto, with two blades stuck in him and a collapsing body, with blood squirting out of his nose and eyes, and a headache bad enough to make him scream and shove painkillers up his mouth. His presence sparked in its hurt but incredible glory.

“ ✦ Regretless Soulscape. ✦ ”

His own halo shone, even brighter than before, and the colorful gray around them was all concentrated in Sakuto’s eye and halo. Aizawa, shocked at the development, for a split second, despite her genius, didn’t know what to do. He was caught off guard badly, and the most she could do was to stall a little while she came up with a game plan.

“Now that’s more like it.” Aizawa said, smirking more. She unsummoned her blades and held onto them tightly, wiping some of the blood streaming out of her nose.

Suddenly, she felt something hit her. It was strong enough to carve a deep wound on her right wrist. There was no flying slash, there were no shadows. But something happened, something that left the colorful gray around, letting it linger as if to help Aizawa realize the situation.

“What...?”

“This has to be a joke, right? There is no way...”

“How did he manage to-”

Another such attack struck her in her other wrist. The third one hit her in the neck. She patched herself up, but the grueling realization doomed her to at least a few seconds worth of confusion, during which many other critical parts of her body were struck.

Sakuto was barely standing straight up, but what he had just accomplished was even greater than what Aizawa did. Not only did he reopen his divine acclamation, but he also had enough in him to give it an energy drink. The green and purple light was broken apart, Aizawa’s domain was destroyed, scrambled as if a cloud was broken apart by an almighty force. With his unstoppable resolve...

Regretless Soulscape overpowered Mindless Vortex, knocking it out!!!

The Regretless Soulscape that was left was weakened, but it was there. Not just sleeping, but awake, and strong enough to give Sakuto a tremendous advantage.

Sakuto used this specific aspect of his acclamation once, and that was during his very first activation of it during the Soul-bound War, but it wasn’t really a concentrated effort. He had experience using the perception factor to locate Nacht. He had experience using Soul Breaker on multiple occasions. And the accelerated adaptation was one a must-utilize. But this...

This was the time for the destructive factor to shine.

Everything in a two hundred meter radius around him was destroyed. The powerful gusts of pure destructive prowess decimated everything in their way, turning the rubble into even more rubble. Aizawa was struck hard by it, parts of her body being ripped out and needing immediate replacement.

Now that he had the advantage, he pushed forward without sparing any of his strength. He rushed at Aizawa, and while the destructive factor did its job at keeping her on the backfoot and constantly focusing on her regeneration, the dimming made it even harder for her to fight back and heal at the same time. He kept pressuring her with his sword, which even Aizawa herself found very odd. Sakuto swung his blade like a madman, constantly trying to cut Aizawa in half completely.

Sakuto chased Aizawa down deeper into the city, where constructions still...existed. And there, his destructive factor wreaked even more havoc. Aizawa’s own prowess was dangerous too, her wild blade swings allowed her to break the environment apart even more, scarring Sakuto in the process. But suddenly, amidst the unhinged clashes, the destruction stopped. Aizawa, who had no option but to protect herself with her blades at that point, courtesy of Sakuto’s insane pressure, was exposed to an attack that could end the fight right there.

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“Divine Acclamation Release...”

Aizawa quickly unsummoned her weapons. But...nothing happened. Instead, Sakuto launched a set of shadow tentacles at her, hoping to dismember her alive, electrocute her, freeze her all at the same time. Aizawa was the one scared of the killing shot now.

A blast of ice knocked Aizawa back and managed to deal great damage to her. Aizawa quickly stood back up, only to be flanked by Sakuto stepping out of her shadow. She tried to kick him away, but was met with another blast of ice. And now, as she tumbled back and barely managed to remain on her feet, she saw Sakuto charge at her.

“Shatter it apiece...”

“Separate the soul and mind...”

“Break it open and let it fade away!”

Aizawa held out her blades to block the incoming strike. And Sakuto had the perfect chance...

“Soul Breaker!!!”

He hit Blossom Reaper as hard as he could with Withering Strelitzia.

It should’ve been completely broken. But all that happened was a few cracks emerged on the blades, and some parts of them were chipped away. It was still an extremely impressive feat, but...

Aizawa smiled, her ferocious and lethal eyes gazing upon a target she managed to outsmart, an enemy the deadly blow of which she managed to evade. Sakuto was confused, even his heart sank for a few seconds, anticipating that not even Soul Breaker was enough to do the job...

“No fucking way...this thing broke Otto Richter’s sword in one swing!!!”

“All of my soul prowess went into protecting my soul.” Aizawa said, holding out the weapons. Sakuto wasn’t just shocked now, he looked genuinely angry. “Absolutely all of it. Did you forget who I was?”

“Nevertheless, Soul Breaker did make contact with me. It did strike me.”

“Even with all of my soul prowess poured towards defending myself against it, I feel...weaker. Strangely weaker. I feel as if I’m not listening to myself. I feel like something forced me out of this, like I zoned out and am unable tp really get back into it.”

“But I have to. Because he should be...”

Sakuto launched a pair of shadow tentacles at her, and they did extremely severe damage to her. None of the body parts that were struck were imbued with the normal amount of soul prowess yet. But while she did manage to regenerate her wounds a bit later, Sakuto...

“Fuck...”

“My head hurts.”

“It’s as bad as it was during the school incident...fucking hell, it’s because of the exhaustion...”

“Are you maneuvers finally catching up to you?” Aizawa asked. She had issues of her own, her regeneration started slowing down a significant amount. Oh and also her eyes were bleeding.

Sakuto was forced to put his divine acclamation back to sleep, just so the headache and other similar problems stopped. His shadows felt much more difficult to control, and he felt tired and in pain.

“Really...? She’s still fucking standing?”

“At least the big problem is gone. She looks just as fucked up as I am.”

The moonlight was as bright as ever.

“There’s even a chance that she can’t use her killshot right now.”

“But nah, I can’t rely on that chance. I’ll use the same strategy...fucking hell, how’s Oskar doing right now? I hope he’s asleep under a blanket while waiting for me.”

Sakuto took a deep breath and took a stance. Aizawa, in response, did the same. Both had to be more calculating, they had to rely on carefully executed attacks to achieve their goal. Both of them had already broken their limits, both of them needed to play it safe.

However, neither of them gave a shit.

Aizawa and Sakuto rushed at each other. Sakuto wildly swung his fist and landed a powerful hook to Aizawa’s chin, stinging her pretty well. Aizawa dodged the follow-up overhand and landed a quick jab, going for a body shot with her other hand. She tried to finish things off with a kick, but Sakuto dodged to the side and threw a kick of his own.

It landed right on Aizawa’s liver and hurt her pretty badly. He went in with his fists again, but Aizawa caught his right hand. The same happened to his left. Sakuto utilized the moment and headbutted her, strong enough to crack her skull.

Aizawa quickly pulled back and launched a front-kick to keep him away. She summoned her blades and swung them rapidly, constantly landing small slashing attacks on Sakuto. The issue wasn’t their power, it was their sheer speed and quantity. Sakuto walked through the storm and summoned his blade, launching a tremendously powerful slash at Aizawa’s feet. She had to jump up to dodge them.

A pair of shadow spikes appeared beneath her, but Aizawa didn’t lose her composure. She used her blade as a grappling hook again, bailing herself out. Sakuto shadow stepped right behind her and slashed her back. Aizawa turned around to try and parry, but Sakuto had already done his deed. Paired with the sword strikes, he also mixed in punches - not just with his fists, but also shadow fists that were much more flexible and dangerous. Constantly poking tentacles, blades, miniature projectiles, they all overwhelmed Aizawa to the point of being on the retreat. Now, she was the one that realized she needed to fight at a distance.

She tried to evade and threw her blades at Sakuto, but Sakuto almost instantly dipped into the shadows. And at that moment, his head hurt. And more blood dripped down his eyes.

Aizawa caught the moment and almost cut his head off. The slashing attack ripped his jaw off. Sakuto tried to replace it with a shadowy one, but the harder he tried, the more he felt the intensity of his headache increase. He was left with a half-destroyed face, with his upper set of teeth showing and blood pouring all over the scene.

“This is what Hayk felt like, huh?”

“My shadows...they don’t feel right anymore...”

“Shadow regeneration is different. It’s impossible for me to accurately manually pull it off. It strains my subconscious a lot...”

“It’s all because I reopened my divine acclamation, and used so much power. Fucking hell, Takechi-sensei always told me to watch my gas tank...”

Aizawa was ecstatic upon seeing that sight. She quickly launched her blades at him again, carving a deep x-shaped wound on his chest. The third attack was a piercing one. Sakuto dodged it just in time, but it did manage to scar his already lost eye and open up the eyepatch. It was bleeding pretty badly. He decided to not use shadow regeneration on things that weren’t absolutely vital for his survival. His shadow manipulation was significantly weaker. Hell, even the electricity and ice seemed difficult to use now. It was just him left.

“You don’t appear to look good.” Aizawa said, instantly rushing in. Sakuto propelled himself with a pair of shadow wings, dodging a pair of deadly blade attacks. He, instead of falling back, rushed straight at Aizawa - catching her off guard. He pierced Aizawa’s stomach with his blade. Once he saw Aizawa’s hand reaching for his head, he quickly went ahead and tried to stab it - but he missed. It was a feint. Aizawa approached her other hand.

For a second, contact was made.

“ ✦ Complete memo-”

And it was broken apart that instant. A small shadowy blade was hovering over Sakuto’s exposed skull. He came up with the same solution to the memory manipulation problem as Elena Thomas did. Slicing off the part of the head that was made contact with, disrupting the conditions for the ability’s activation. Aizawa recognized the trick, and it made her smile. And get distracted.

Sakuto countered with his blade and sliced her left hand off. As Aizawa sharply pulled back, she saw Sakuto bleed even more from his eyes as he quickly used his regeneration to heal his head. To be fair, it was an important decision, his brain was almost exposed.

“So that’s it, that’s your limit.” Aizawa grinned. “With that much exhaustion, you won’t keep up with me at all.”

Sakuto wanted to tell her whatever was on his mind, but couldn’t due to his missing jaw. Blood continuously poured down his wounds.

“Now then, since you cannot object, I will obtain the key to my cause. The solution of the Kaito Kamiki problem.” Aizawa’s smile widened. She tried to regenerate her missing hand, but a soon as the flesh started forming again, he had a horrible headache. Blood squirted out of her eyes and nose, and she felt nauseous.

“Impossible...”

“But my condition was good a few seconds ago...?”

Aizawa had been feeling the intensity of the battle for quite some time, but this was the first time actual concern invaded her mind. She made a mistake. She, the genius and one of the strongest soulfuls ever, made a grave miscalculation. She lacked the strength.

“Now! While she can’t regenerate!”

“I’ll rip that stupid weapon of hers apart!!!”

Sakuto charged in at insane speeds, quickly landing a deep slashing cut on Aizawa. Aizawa tried to pull back, and almost in panic, she threw her weapons at him. They did their job expertly, ripping through his body and cutting and scarring it, but Sakuto kept on pushing forwards. She failed to notice that one of her blades remained stuck in Sakuto’s body for a suspiciously long time.

After a dozen more close-up engagements, she felt it. She tried to attack with her other blade, but Sakuto caught it...not with his hands, but his shadows.

“Impossible...”

“He should be exhausted...”

Aizawa made another mistake. After seeing shadow healing slow down, she assumed shadow manipulation was gone altogether. That’s what kept her blade trapped inside Sakuto for so long too, a grip made out of shadows. It took a few moments to realize the situation, and in those moments, all Sakuto had to do was to strike.

Before Aizawa managed to unsummon Blossom Reaper...

“ ✦ Divine Acclamation Release... ✦ ”

“ ✦ Soul Breaker!!! ✦ ”

With one decisive strike, the wire that connected the two blades was broken apart.

It’s unknown yet how long it takes to recover from the effects of Soul Breaker. With her weapon’s main gimmick effectively annihilated, Aizawa only had one option left.