Chapter 51

I fired my manifestation over and over as Kirin dodged around the room. He swiftly dove backwards on my initial shot and he skittered around the room, moving like a snake as he created distance between us. He then raised his hand and all of the tempest clouds in the room converged toward the middle, where I was standing. I held my hand up, creating a barrier around me, just as the lightning bolts all struck it, destroying it instantly. I ripped off the Apostle robes and tossed them in the air, the tempest clouds striking the cloth and vaporizing it. I dove backward out of the clouds and started to fire at Kirin again as I conjured my second manifestation. He dodged each shot of them, but one bullet hit him, pushing him back. His mana shield easily contained the shot and blocked all damage, but he force of the shot still pushed him across the ground.

“Impressive! Impressive, impressive, impressive!” Kirin shouted in a maniacal tone.

I said nothing, charging toward him as I continued my barrage of gunfire. I avoided the raging tempest that was following me around the room as I continued to pressure Kirin. He was on the defensive with just the tempest being his only offense right now, and I tried to keep it that way. Outside the room I heard the shouting of Apostles and the maniacal cackling of Tsuki, followed by splattering of blood. Off in the distance I heard explosive gunshots and blood curdling screams. Everyone was now defending me and causing a riot inside the Secular compound. I had to make their efforts worth it.

“Come, come Ryuki the dragon! Face me, the Kirin, as we are meant to be!” Kirin shouted, his hand crackling with electricity.

I continued to avoid the tempest around me as I kept an eye on his hand firing at him as best I could. Kirin managed to avoid each shot with minimal movement as the lightning in his hand started to arc to each of his fingers and crawling up his arm. Then with a loud bang, the electricity shot from his hand like a cannon, the electricity shooting in a straight line. I narrowly avoided it by sliding underneath of it, but my mouth was open wide in astonishment.

“You might be well attuned with fire, but lightning is even more volatile than that. Most mages avoid it as it is too unpredictable to use strong spells, but me, I use it as it is meant to be, to its fullest extent, and with total control.”

Kirin shot out several more beams of electricity, the sparks from it arcing out and leaving residual ‘puddles’ of electricity on the ground. The more he shot; the less room I had to dodge him. I decided to change my strategy and dispersed my guns, conjured my flame shroud, and manifested the naginata.

“Oho! So the reports of you having a wreath were true! Well, then, I won’t let you have all the fun.”

Kirin snapped his fingers and his body erupted in a swarm of lightning as it swirled around him, eventually wrapping around his shoulders and head. The crackling lightning around his shoulders looked like tufts of fur and feathers and crowning his head was the skull of the mythical Kirin with a jagged horn and spiky antlers. While seeing it in person was intimidating, we had discussed the possibility that he possessed similar, if not the same, magical abilities as me. Kirin then launched more and more lightning strikes at me and conjured more Tempests around the room. It was like a bullet hell of lightning. There were more dangerous spots in the room than safe, and Kirin was cornering me. I dodged swiftly to the side as he shot out another arc of lightning and I threw the naginata, enhancing the speed as it left my hand. It sailed through the air faster than a bullet, but as it was just about to impale Kirin’s head, he moved his head to the side. I recalled the weapon to me, but Kirin grabbed it in the air, the orange weapon turning blue.

“Oh, this is that Yukino’s weapon, is it not? You killed her, right? Something about revenge for your family? You know, the family that isn’t even yours?” Kirin said, a smug smile crossing his face.

My blood boiled and the flames of the dragon wreath, as Kirin called it, around me roared as the flames intensified. I conjured my guns again and unleashed another onslaught of bullets.

“Oh, struck a nerve, did I?” Kirin laughed as he either easily blocked the bullets, being pushed back by the force, or dodged them. “I don’t understand it. By now you must know what you are! A fake! You shouldn’t even be alive! The real, perfect version is right here. And You can never kill me. You’re just a weak imitation.”

I dispersed my manifestations again and started to throw all sorts of spells at him. Fire spears, water torrents, earth shards, lava streams, everything I had in my arsenal that was quick and fast and kept its power from this distance. He blocked them all, except for the lava stream and earth shards, opting to dodge them instead.

“What a mastery of the elements! I’m sure mom and dad would be proud of you. Oh, except they’re not even yours. They’re mine.”

“Shut up.” I muttered.

“He speaks again! Oh happy time, we can have a real conversation!”

Kirin threw his hands up in the air before throwing them back down. The ceiling opened with a light show of lightning bolts as they crashed down around me, destroying the ground beneath me, leaving rubble in my wake as I dodged them, along with the traps along the ground.

“Tell me, how did it feel when you discovered that mom and dad didn’t actually love you? They loved who they thought you were, they loved what you replaced. They loved me, not some fake made of mana, blood and clay!”

“Shut your mouth.” I said in a low voice.

Kirin thrusted his hand out, several arcs of lightning shooting out from each of his fingertips. From a quick glance you would think that the arcs of electricity were going in random directions, but it was obvious what he was doing. He was controlling each arc to block off possible paths for me while simultaneously trying to attack me.

“Oh, I do like to see you dance. I bet you danced with your fake family. They gave you fake love, too. Fake sympathy, a fake life. A fake name.”

“Shut up! You don’t know them! You never did!” I screamed out.

My blood felt like it ignited. The dragon wreath roared in an inferno of heat as the flames became a deep violet. I conjured Theseus’ manifestation and kicked off the ground at a blistering speed. Kirin let out a small sound of surprise as I essentially appeared right next to him, my fist slamming into his face, sending him spiraling across the ground. Kirin quickly got to his feet, but I was already next to him. Again, I slammed my fist into his face and he toppled across the floor, into one of his own tempest traps. Of course, the lightning didn’t hurt him, but it at least removed a trap for me. Kirin leapt to his feet and held out his hand to try to fire a lightning attack again, but I sped up to him, grabbed his arm and threw him over my head, slamming him into the ground. I twisted his arm around, got on top of him and pummeled my fist into his face over and over. I got a sense of deja vu as I remembered the fight against Theseus and ending up in the same situation. The nature of pankration, Theseus would probably say.

Kirin struggled in my grip, his spells fizzling out every time I smashed his face into the floor. My blood raged with intense hate for this person. For this imitation of me. He was all that I despised manifested into a human being. Everything I feared to be, he relished in doing. As my dragon wreath roared, so too did his Kirin wreath. He screamed out and an explosion of sparks sent my flying across the room as I slammed into the wall.

“ENOUGH! Get your filthy, replica hands off of me. I am the one who rules, I am the one who leads, and I am the one who guides this world!”