6 - Blood And Ice, p1

“What in the world was that...?”

Ichika was separated from the rest of the group, acting alone and trying to hunt for whatever presence she could sense. She had already stumbled upon multiple soulfuls, but those were mostly harmless minions that Aizawa created to act as bait. She just froze them to death and moved on.

However, she did have her sights on a bigger target, a presence that not only felt much more powerful than the rest, but also strangely familiar, as if she’s felt something like that before, but not exactly. She went towards it, not suspecting anything, and her ear piece conveyed a message.

“Okay, that’s good...”

She had just received the news regarding Ichigo’s and Jian’s battle results.

“But still, should they stay here or should they retreat? And most importantly, should I go back to them?”

“They’re incapable of fighting back if one of the other big targets gets to them. But then again, I need to scout it beforehand. If I fight them while they’re nearby, they might-”

She felt a soul presence spark behind her, and thankfully, managed to dodge just in time. A blood red spear swooshed through the air right past her, penetrating the atmosphere as if it were made of polyethylene. Ichika sharply turned around, and her opponent presented herself by launching another such spear, which looked more like an arrow. Ichika barely dodged it too, but the appearance was better timed so it managed to scratch her on the cheek a little.

What Ichika found more amusing regarding Nachtvessel Gamma was the fact that there were small and strange white...things on her wrists. It also acted as a clue to what her soul expression was.

“I guess there’s neither a need nor a way to get to them now. I have to deal with this first.”

Ichika calmly crouched down and touched the ground with her palm.

“Soul Interpretation.”

“Flash Freeze!”

The ground erupted, and Ichika, using it as a smokescreen and a distraction, quickly advanced. Before Gamma could counter-attack, she touched the ground right before her and launched an ice blast her way, knocking her high into the sky. But it looked as if Gamma didn’t lose its composure at all.

Ichika chucked a pair of ice spears at Gamma, but the latter managed to slice them away by quickly conjuring a pair of similarly colored blood red blades. Blood poured out of her wrist and was used to conjure a saw blade, which, when thrown at the ice formation, sliced it in half and headed straight towards Ichika. Ichika dodged to the side and quickly closed the distance. By the time Gamma landed back on the ground, they were in close proximity to each other once more.

“I saw the blood.”

“Her soul expression is something like blood manipulation’. It lets her do whatever she wants with her blood. And she probably has super strong regeneration to be able to afford that much blood in the first place...”

Ichika created two daggers made out of ice, and Gamma - two made out of blood. They swung at each other a little and managed to land a few small slashing blows, before ultimately backing away and opening up the distance. Ichika charged in again, striking with all of her ferocity, and suddenly extending one of the daggers’ size to become that of a proper sword, using the unexpected weapon to land a deep slashing attack on Gamma. She, instead of continuing with the sword, unsummoned it and charged back in, touching Gamma’s chest.

“Flash Free-”

Her flash freeze was interrupted by something piercing her leg. Gamma wasn’t slacking all that time, she launched a pair of blood arrows into Ichika’s leg, both of them piercing right through. What was worse, however, was that the arrows dissolved into pure blood and were almost absorbed by Ichika.

Ichika quickly kicked her away and sent her even further away with an ice blast. She tried to heal her injuries, but suddenly felt something much, much worse.

“W-what? What is this?”

Her leg suddenly cramped, and it felt very, very painful. She couldn’t move it properly. Gamma instantly rushed in, and Ichika, while trying to fight back, had to deal with the pain that not only almost crippled her, but also started climbing upwards. She felt as if something entered her body that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Gamma charged in, swinging her blades, and Ichika missed an opportunity to strike her with an ice blast. She threw a few punches, but Gamma was gaining the upper hand now - landing more and more slashes. Gamma, with well timed attacks, finally managed to shove one of the daggers into her stomach. She expected Ichika to fall back and try to escape, but Ichika grabbed her hand and landed a hook aimed directly at her jaw. She reached for her again, but Gamma could foresee the spike in her soul presence, and instantly cut her own hand off to escape the deadly grasp of flash freeze.

“Her fists...just like I imbue my fists with ice, she does so with hardened blood, strengthening her attacks to their maximum physical capability.”

She tried to attack again, but this time, Ichika landed the ice blast. Gigantic shards of ice emerged from the ground and punched Gamma away.

“But it’s not just blood...”

Ichika knew that Gamma wouldn’t stop her assault, she knew she had to increase her voltage to keep up with her, but first, she needed to deal with the more dangerous issue at hand. The pain got better over time, but now, she started to feel nausea, and a moment later she threw up blood. She felt dizzy and had a rising fever.

“It’s...poison.”

“Fuck...basic soul regeneration wouldn’t work against a blood poisoning. When Rin was talking about this stuff, she said that if poison wasn’t healed in time, the person would go into septic shock and die.”

She slit her own wrists and the artery in her neck open, and blood started to rapidly gush out. She sat down as her dizziness started to slowly get worse.

“But soul regeneration can create new blood. I’ll just need to get the bad stuff out, and replace it with my own stuff.”

“While somehow...”

She glared at Gamma rushing at her, throwing a pair of saw blades and jumping high into the air - preemptively avoiding a potential ice blast.

“Dealing with this.”

Ichika launched herself back with an ice blast and made a rather hard landing further away. Multiple arrows and spears of blood came flying at her, but despite her crippled condition, she managed to evade most of them. One of them pierced her left hand, and she quickly froze it and destroyed it, praying on her regeneration to fix it later once the more serious infection was dealt with. In fact, it was even helping her lose more blood.

“Feels like the infection is slowly going away. This shit is straining to do and probably messes up my health, but it’s what I gotta do to survive.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on NovelBin.

“Does this bitch...”

“Really think she’s gonna kill me?!”

She saw Gamma approach her, and she stood back up. She sealed her wounds shut and regenerated her hand as fast as she could. Gamma, on the other hand, seemed surprised to see Ichika recover. So she decided to take a much stronger measure.

“ ✦ Divine Acclamation ✦ ”

A blood red and rather thick ring appeared behind her, with three similarly colored claw-like ‘wings’ stuck out from the left and the right; they appeared like rings, but their demonic appearance conveyed the presence of a much darker force. Above Gamma’s head, a blood red halo appeared, and using those wings that would theoretically be impossible to fly with, she took off into the air.

“ ✦ Crimson Ascension ✦ "

“This is just great...” Ichika thought, looking at the creature in front of her.

Suddenly, the ground beneath her shook. She took a step back, only to see a giant wave of liquid blood emerge from the asphalt beneath her and attempt to drown her in its poison. Ichika sharply launched herself back with ice blast after ice blast, but the way kept chasing her down, at times, parts of the wave turned into sharp blood formations like tentacles to chase her down. Eventually, she got sick of it, and with a well-time ace blast she launched herself exactly at Gamma.

She grabbed onto her, and during freefall...

“Soul Interpretation...”

A scar opened up on Gamma’s body as soon as they were close, and blood squirted out of it, with enough pressure to pierce a hole through Ichika’s stomach. Ichika was forced to let go of the hold and fall down, and Gamma kicked her down with all her might. She crashed into the ground. As Gamma went down, Ichika tried to fight back, but her movements appeared to be limited. Gamma easily overpowered her and with a flurry of strikes, she knocked him into a nearby building. Inside, she chased her down, and after they exchanged more blows, Gamma knocked her into the floor above with a powerful uppercut. Ichika tried to set up a trap with flash freeze, but Gamma emerged from outside instead of inside - using her flight - and unleashed a barrage of bloody tentacles to chase her down. One of them managed to pierce her chest, after which, Gamma knocked her into another building through the window.

She chased her down this time, and upon seeing Ichika almost defenseless on the ground, she kicked her out of the building. She conjured a giant hammer and used it to send Ichika flying through another set of buildings. She summoned hundreds of bloodied spears and rained them down from the sky, some of them sure must have hit her. Once she saw Ichika barely standing in the distance, she charged, with a well-timed attack, and managed to strike her in the throat with a bloodborne tentacle.

Ichika had taken an absolute beating, and allowed a lot of blood attacks to connect, which should have resulted in her dying from the excessive amounts of poison in her body. But Ichika still stood there. Gamma, despite her inability to feel emotions, expressed anger and confusion which were completely natural.

“What? You don’t know what happened?” Ichika asked, looking both furious and excited. She slowly removed the frozen bits of the blood from her throat. “Can’t make up your mind?”

“Even if it’s poison, it’s still a liquid, or at least something that can be frozen in time. The piercing wounds were a small price to pay for making sure I freeze the blood in time before it leaks into my circulatory system.”

“You’ve made life hell for us, you bitch.” Ichika said. “You and whoever took Oskar away from us. Hey, you don’t even comprehend what I’m saying right now, are you?”

“ ✦ Divine Acclamation. ✦ ”

“ ✦ Abyssal Frostbite! ✦ ”

With a gust of force, everything near Ichika was frozen, transformed into the very ice she was so prominent at manipulating. She instantly took on her ice fox appearance, and it seemed like most of her injuries had faded away, except for her exhaustion. But her resolve would take care of that for now.

“Now it’s an even playing field.” Ichika said, cracking her knuckles and walking towards Gamma.

Before Gamma could even realize it, Ichika was already right next to her, grabbing onto her face.

She pushed him into a nearby building with enough force to break the wall completely, and as the building started to slowly crumble down, Ichika made sure Gamma was buried underneath it completely. Gamma, in panic, flew high into the sky, but all Ichika had to do was jump up towards her and knock her down with a swiping motion. Upon landing, Ichika chased her down even more, with constant swiping attacks.

Normally, such haphazard attacks would be easy to block for anyone with expertise in martial arts, but they wielded so much danger that Gamma’s only option was to retreat. In addition to that, Gamma began taking notes. Her own body started to get more and more reinforced with blood as a desperate attempt to withstand more of Ichika’s powerful strikes.

Ichika chased Gamma down the street. One of her attacks missed on purpose, as she touched the ground, and it resulted in the conjuring of an ice shard so large it appeared like a skyscraper amidst the town. Matter of fact, it appeared as a sort of signal for the rest of the Heisei that Ichika was fighting, if it hadn’t been made obvious enough from the rapid increases in soul presences. Sakuto thought of rushing over and helping her, and even wanted to do it, but after remembering his own mission and convincing himself that she’ll be fine, he chose not to intervene.

Ichika chased Gamma down, and after catching up to her, failed to land any significant strikes. Gamma was now completely on the backfoot, relying on long-range blood attacks to try and score any type of damage. She fired off arrows, spears, daggers, tentacles, saws, whatever she could think of at the moment, but Ichika, whose body had effectively become one with ice, was too fast to predict and strike. She had to rely on setting up a trap.

So she did just that. She waited for Ichika to jump up to her again, and finish the job. Ichika did just that, and upon coming into contact, managed to rip her arm off. But Gamma, taking advantage of the moment, reversed the situation before Ichika ripped her heart out altogether. Her arm, which still had some blood in it, was brought back to her and reunited with Gamma - what was unfortunate for Ichika, though, was that her own left arm was caught in between. It was destroyed, and an abundance of poisonous blood was injected into it.

Ichika reacted quickly and froze everything starting from her left shoulder, destroying the limb completely before the poison entered her body. While Gamma was trying to attack again, Ichika grabbed her with right hand, let go, and kicked her into the wall of a building right next to her.

There, she calmly walked her down. The room they found themselves in was a kitchen, so Ichika grabbed a frying pan. As Gamma got up to fight back, Ichika banged her on the head with it, before sending her flying out of the building with a backhanded blow. Outside, she found herself on the ground, weakened, and out of options. Oh and also surrounded by large balls of ice.

“Soul Interpretation.”

“Cluster!”

The frozen cluster bombs exploded, leaving shrapnel everywhere, including Gamma’s own butchered body. She saw Ichika getting closer again, at that point, Ichika had already regenerated her lost arm. All while housing a confident smile on her face.

Gamma tried to soar high into the sky, and she did - somewhat surprised by Ichika’s lack of action. Albeit the incredible damage she took, Gamma was still ready to fight. But Ichika knew that the fight was already over. More blood poured out of Gamma’s wrists and formed a large amalgamation of blood around her, likely to reinforce her.

“Ah, right...” Ichika thought. “She can probably feel my presence rising while I do this.”

“It must be scary...”

All that was left for Ichika to do was to point a finger gun at Gamma’s direction.

“ ✦ Befall ✦ ”

“ ✦ Abyssal Frostbite ✦ ”

The lightning-like string connected to Gamma’s soul itself, and in a moment, Gamma’s body was broken apart. Sharpened shards of ice emerged out of it and ripped her into pieces, her head, torso and limbs were now no longer her body but completely different and separate objects that just happened to be in the same place.

Her remnants fell back down on the ground, forming a pool of blood. Ichika, seeing the conclusive result, felt...alert. Extremely alert, in fact. She felt Gamma’s soul presence not decrease, but increase, to an all-time high, in fact.

“No way...”

“No amount of reinforcement can protect against Abyssal Frostbite. None at all.”

Upon taking a closer look, she understood the severity of the situation.

“No, this...this isn’t reinforcement.”

The blood that was spilled on the ground almost acted as a sentient being. It glued Gamma’s body parts back together, using itself to fill in whatever gaps there were. Her body looked like a doll, destroyed and stitched back up together. The bloody stitches further reinforced her body, with her ‘wings’ growing even more in size and becoming even sharper. She took off from the ground a little, now, there were six more wing-like extensions, this time stemming from her own body and being much shorter. Her arms began to grow sharp bloody claws.

“ ✦ Divine Acclamation Release ✦ ”

“ ✦ Reverend Blood Angel ✦ ”

Gamma lingered in the air a little longer, before chucking a large spear of blood at Ichika. She dodged it, but a few moments later, the spear erupted into pieces and small loads of blood. Just then, Gamma looked like an angel sent from the depths of hell to follow the devil’s most cruel orders...that wasn’t too far away from reality, to be honest.