Chapter 11: Ebb And Flow

Chapter 11: Ebb And Flow
I
Junshin clenched his hands into fists, his mouth parched. Hina was trapped in the water sphere, which whirled and eddied around her, though she was saved through her pink psionic construct scuba suit. Yet was this what all his fortitude came down to? To be a bystander? To watch while suffering was happening and he couldn’t do anything about it? Nagisa evidently enjoyed all the torment in Junshin’s expression, as Hina shouted telepathically to Junshin to run away and spare himself. Though Junshin found himself rooted into place, his feet planted into the concrete, as water geysers shot up and frothed while the beginnings of a storm started to drizzle on the ground below like pelting bullets on the concrete and rooftops and fallen structures. The Hydro concentrated his attack on keeping Hina subdued in the water sphere, though they were now at a standstill here. Junshin could attack, though the Hydro could use water pressure against Hina and crush her in the water sphere’s depths and pressure when she wore out, though Junshin wanted to be a hero this time. Not a bystander. But a hero.

Come on, Junshin thought desperately. Think, Fujimoto! He has mastery over water and he has your friend trapped in the water sphere. Hina can take care of herself, though is it really right to abandon a friend? Or would I Simply be in her way?

Junshin knew he had to make a choice here. And Nagisa seemed to enjoy this special kind of torment as he said, “Well, Junshin Fujimoto, it seems that you’re in quite a dilemma here! But I’ll give you an option here, because I am generous.”

Junshin swallowed, mouth dry. It did not help.

“I either fight you and kill you, or you run away and abandon your friend to save yourself. You would be in her way, you know.”

Junshin’s fists squeezed again until his knuckled bled. He chewed his lip, bowing his head as his bangs shadowed his eyes from view. “I’ve changed since then. I won’t abandon a friend. Or my principles.”

“You’ll fight, then?’ the Hydro said, grinning. “But you’re only getting in her way, you know.”

“I won’t abandon a friend!” Junshin snapped, before softening. “I can’t. My cowardice from before led to deaths. And I can’t atone or forgive myself for it. But if I can save one life, with my own hands, with my own power, then it will be worth it.”

The Hydro clapped. “Oh, this is too rich! Trying to play the hero now, aren’t we?”

Junshin used his telekinetic vectors to gather up several of the rubble and concrete from before, scooping them like he would scoop them in his physical hands with the arm shaped vectors with spectral hands, before he flung the multiple objects at once at the Hydrokinetic. The Hydrokinetic laughed, still imprisoning Hina in his water sphere forming a protective Aura of psi with his vectors to form a perfectly rounded force field around his body. Junshin continued to fling objects at the Hydrokinetic to see how long his calculations and concentration can fold, though this only seemed to amuse the Hydrokinetic some more as he said, “You cannot win, Fujimoto. Can’t you see that you’re only getting in the way by trying to play hero?”

“I’ve got to try!” Junshin said as he attempted to break the Hydrokinetic’s force field by suffocating him with heat inside his own barrier, to which the Hydrokinetic counteracted by leaving some gaps to let steam and hot air out. Though the Hydrokinetic taunted him and said he couldn’t win, there were some moments that he could exploit to his advantage, though first he must test his limits and see what exactly it was that the Hydrokinetic could do. Hina started to fling several objects as well at the Hydrokinetic with her pink spectral vectors, her Aura created the pink psi construct scuba suit to breathe underwater and to survive the sphere though the Hydrokinetic was crushing and pinching her in with his own telekinetic strength, to which she needed to work fast and discover a way to exploit his distraction.

Junshin got an idea, and lifted a mostly intact building that was tumbled on the ground and lifted it with his vectors. He hovered it over the Hydrokinetic, whose eyes widened, and crushed bits of the building into giant flying pieces of rubble and concrete like meteorites to counteract the force field that Hydrokinetic set up. The Hydrokinetic turned into his water construct form underground, boring into the earth, and Junshin smirked in satisfaction as he thought about the weakness that he was trying to exploit. Though the Hydrokinetic was experienced in battling and was more experienced in life or death situations, he still had psychological blind spots and that was concentrating on two opponents at once.

Hina immediately went to work and detected the Hydrokinetic underground with atomokinesis, softening the ground into mud and sloshing his water construct form into a slurry of water and wet debris and silt. Junshin sensed through her eyes and mind that Hydro released the water sphere on her when he retreated underground, to which she immediately went to work on her own part of the fight. She forced the Hydrokinetic to come up from underground again, trying to run away from their merciless onslaught, and when he did, Junshin took a big chunk of a wall of a building and chucked it at the Hydrokinetic while Hina broke down the building into smaller pieces and attempted to plug in Hydro’s nose and mouth and ears with dirt and silt to incapacitate him. Even if he were to turn into a water construct, Hina would have him filled into mud and Junshin would bake the man into clay.

While the Hydro struggle trying to get out of his water construct form, Hina calculated the trajectory and slope and math behind a water landslide that the Hydro used of his own making and swept the mud and water over him in a torrential rush that burled him underneath it. A few moments passed, and Hina and Junshin looked at the carnage that was set before them, all to trap one target. Before they could say a word, a hand came bursting out of the mudslide, and then the Hydro flew up from the mudslide and glared down at them all.

“You little brats!’ he shouted. “Don’t think you’ve outsmarted me because you’ve know a few fancy tricks with your powers! When I’m through with you, you’re both gonna regret it!”

"If you would relent,” Hina said while cracking her knuckles. “I would happily heal you, but I will still put you into jail for disturbing the peace.”

“Forget that,” the Hydrokinetic said as he scattered himself off into a water construct that sent several bullets in different locations, probably to relocate somewhere else at a safer distance to escape.

“He got us,” Junshin said, while Hina shook her head. “He’ll need time to lick and recover his wounds. For now we need to return the barrier back to regular Tokyo again so that everything is recovered back to its original state.”

“Okay,” Junshin said, as Hina activated her atomokinetic powers to reverse the barrier that had the destruction and mayhem of the broken rubble and concrete and shattered buildings and water slogged ground to become a nice, picturesque city again bustling with people. Junshin felt tense, wondering if he was being watched despite the picturesque scene, feeling his heart thump against his ribs in a pulsating rhythm that made it hard to breathe.

“How was your first fight, Junshin-kun?” Hina said serenely.

“Honestly,” Junshin said in a soft tone. “Quite rough. If you weren’t there.”

Hina smiled.

“You saved all these people. Isn’t that enough?”

Junshin scratched the back of his head, before looking off into the distance and glancing through the rays of sunshine that pierced his neon green eyes, trying to find signs of the criminal disappearing somewhere though he’s probably been long since gone traveling in underground reservoirs with his water construct form. Though Hina and Junshin both mutually decided not to pursue him, only to subdue him, and they needed to gather information anyway on the person that he worked underneath so that they could plan and coordinate a proper attack against them and the organization they he set up. So if there was a Mastermind or ringleader behind the criminals that were in Tokyo, the ANGeLS would be on the case.

First they had to examine their environment and listen to the goings ons of the people and their conversations. Sometimes idle gossip when people didn’t notice they were being observed was very revealing, and clandestine meetings among the rooftop meant that the ANGeLS group could talk about something that the rest needed to hear. In the meantime, the others were engaged within their own battles, and Junshin and Hina at the moment were currently strategically placing themselves into position to help or recruit more help.

—x—

“Think you’re so tough?” the Force Field Generator said, cracking his neck. “Heard you’re pretty good. It will be a fun time taking you down!”

“Don’t push your luck, buddy,” Shizuya said with a manic grin as he floated up in the air with his Cosmokinesis then flipped an arcing kick downward over the head to make the Force Field Generator slam his entire body into the concrete several layers (and break several floors of his ego) from his heel connecting to the Force Field Generator’s head, though, naturally, a force field surrounded the the Psion and Shizuya let out a frustrated ‘tch’ and spat to the side.

“Think you’ve got the ultimate defense?” Shizuya said as his astral projection tethered to his natural body and came from an embryonic soul cord and reached out to the Psion with force field generators, wrapping around the force field and swallowing it whole and trying to crush the Psion in his own Force Field and see if that attempt worked. The Force Field didn’t budge, which immediately indicated to Shizuya that this Force Field Psion was a Rank 5 Calamity Force Field Generator. It might be a tough match-up, sure, but with some guts, will, and determination, Shizuya could overcome anything. That’s how he did with everything in life, mostly. “Don’t hide behind your barriers like a coward. Fight me like a man, unless if you fear getting crushed by me!”

“I choose not to fight,” the Force Field Generator said. “And technically I am doing no wrong, I am merely defending myself. You are the aggressor.”

“You come under the pretext of invading my precious Tokyo as a criminal,” Shizuya said through narrowed eyes. “Talk, or I’ll find way to crush your double barrier of Force Field and psi Barrier all at once. Must suck to not have air in there, huh?”

“Indeed, I do not have much time left, but will you hear me out, at least?”

Shizuya scoffed, before saying. “I’m not a brute, I will let some air in. But talk. Who do you work for?”

“I’m afraid I cannot answer that.”

“Tch, useless! Will you at least tell me why they’re sending goons after Fujimoto then? And what’s in the white truck and container?”

“I cannot say.”

“Is that all you CAN say? Do you not have the brainpower or willpower to say anything else or are you say empty headed that you just don’t have knowledge?”

“No, the problem is, I’m ‘compelled’ to not say these things, especially to an ANGeLS member like you,” the Force Field Generator said.

“’Compelled’? The hell you mean by that? Like someone invoked a ‘command’ on you.”

Force Field Generator remained silent, while Shizuya narrowed his eyes again. “I’m gonna plug in the air holes if you don’t talk to me. Why does whoever you work for use a compellation on you to do his dirty work? Does he have no authority himself otherwise?”

“It is his own power and will, his grand vision, that we follow!” the Force Field Generator said as he raised his voice, before saying. “The compellation is to make sure that we do not betray him or his cause.”

“You’re kinda fucked on that, huh, buddy?”

“Don’t be so sure,” the Force Field guy said, rippling out his force field, causing it to spiral and gyrate and disperse the Cosmokinetic aura that Shizuya had surrounding the Force Field. “Not only can my Force Fields be used for defensive measures but also for offensive measures as well. Because of this, I will overcome whatever you may have.”

“Don’t get cocky now!” Shizuya said as he rematerialized his astral energy and brought a meteorite crashing down onto earth from the skies, raining down in pelting chunks of frozen rock and ice on the Force Field Generator’s Field, which spun and gyrated and chipped away the meteorite chunks into smaller pieces, flying off and chipping off buildings like speeding bullets. “You’re not gonna like what’s coming next.

“I don’t have to stay in one place, you know,” the Force Field Generator guy said, making a Force Field Orb around himself that contained him within like a giant hamster ball that followed his body at the center, still spinning and churning. “You said you wanted me to face you like a man? Fine. I’m a pacifist, but when pressed, I will show you my true powers.”

“Lame,” Shizuya said as he stuck his tongue out and form spectral vectors that turned into snatching hands and arms that clench around the ‘ball’ and swing it like a basketball through the hurtling hoops of destroyed buildings. “Even if you’re stuck inside that thing, you gotta feel like tossing up your lunch when you’re thrown around in that thing…huh?”

The Force Field Generator created an Energy Halo field around himself of pure plasma to destroy the rest of the meteors that came chunking down at him from above, incinerating them int vaporized shards. Shizuya concentrated his vectors on certain points of hamster wheel ball barrier, trying to find a weak point where the Psion concentration wasn’t as strongly fixated, using his vectors to rotate and probe around the ball for that spot to get his ‘hand’ inside.

“You will not find a weak point,” the Force Field Generator said. “My concentration is immaculate and impenetrable.”

“Oh yeah? I’m the Number 2 ANGeLS member at SeRAPH, second only to Kobayashi Rika! I will make you submit to me, whether you like it or not, asshole!”

“Your attempts are futile,” Force Field Generator said.

“Oh yeah, chuckle fuck smooth brain? You think that you can beat me by hiding behind your lameass barriers? Please, no matter which one you try on like changing underwear, I’ll bypass it!”

"I will make myself invisible to you and your senses then,” the Force Field Generator said, suddenly shutting off his psi signals and turning his appearance and barrier completely invisible to Shizuya, leaving him blind and groping for the criminal that was just in sight moment ago.

“Shit!” Shizuya cried out in frustration while he hovered above the cityscape and looked for possible angles to dive and find where the Force Field Generator would attack from next.

Then without warning, Shizuya felt a solid punch against his solar plexus as he flipped in the air, floating and whirling and stopping himself by expanding two Cosmokinetic vectors and grabbing two building points like a bungee cord, swinging back and righting himself again from the impact of Force Field Generator’s attack. He didn’t see the attack coming, and even worse, he still couldn’t sense or see an invisible opponent even now.

“Man, if only I could grab Rika as my partner and she could blast this fucker with pyromania,” Shizuya said. “I would love to see that guy burning to a crisp.”

Shizuya snapped his fingers, before saying, “Fuck luckily, I’ve got some Fire Elements to my Psi…so maybe if I last the city with fire and flush him out of its force field generator and render his invisibility useless, he will come out and fight me! I don’t have all day to play around with this jerk!”

He created a construct from the astral plane, summoning several denizens of spirits of the dead that he commanded. One of the summoned spectral units, a samurai wielding a katana in full Bushido armor, readied and poised his sword while the other swordsmen rallied their blades, blazing fire eyes searing with blood-lust and war.

“Or maybe I could create conditions so that it’s risky for him to attack. So if you’re gonna use some trick parlor tricks to best me, ass fuck, I’m gonna god-mode you and knock you down till you buried several feet under the earth…and stay there. I’ve had enough of you!”

Silence.

The ghost sentries patrolled the city, looking for the invisible opponent that Shizuya forced them to seek, and one of the sentries caught something amiss as it phased a hand through something that rippled in the air where nothing visible was seen. Shizuya honed in on that point, launched a crippling punch on the Force Field Generator guy, though it was only one layer out of three barriers that he broke, as the Force Field Generator Guy formed a triple layer protection barrier to defend himself.

“Nice try,” Force Field Generator Guy said with a cool, aloof smile, before he used a power-enhanced force field generator fist against Shizuya’s face, sending him flying back and spitting out blood from his pretty face. He felt a tooth jar loose from the impact, though Shizuya was pretty sure his bones and head were rattled too, with his brain still shaking in a fizzled confusion among the cerebral fluid in his skull.

“I almost felt that,” Shizuya said, grinning manically again as he postured himself aggressively and charged forth again, sending his whole legions of ghosts rushing toward the Force Field Generator Guy in a barrage of warrior mayhem with spectral flames and swords slashing and jabbing and thrusting while Shizuya himself was honing in on Force Field Generator Guy’s face, pummeling blasts with his fists and reaching out vectors to snatch and grasp and hurl objects like shrapnel and debris and broken meteorite that his last force field deflected off of him.

“Didn’t I tell you that was futile?” the Force Field Generator Guy said. "I will discipline you and your unruly demeanor. Shouldn’t you do more than run amok causing vast waves of destruction among your wake?”

“I’m free to rampage and blow stuff up because I can cause a time dilation that resets things back to normal once I’m done kicking your ass!” Shizuya said as his grin stretched further on his face. “So suck on that, loser!”

“I think the overconfident and arrogant one here is you,” the Force Field Generator person said. “Would you shut your mouth and stop barking like a dog?”

“Hahaha!” Shizuya said as his grin still stood frozen in place on his face while a hint of madness gleamed in his crimson eyes. “We got a comedian with the one-liners! If I’m a dog, then that makes you a little bitch with your tail curled between your legs!”

"Mm?” The Force Field Barrier man said. “I think not. I only play when the cards are right. I know when to fold. Ever play poker? Perhaps you should try it.”

“Hey, I’m not like Rika, I wear my emotions on my sleeve,” Shizuya said as he shrugged. “Nothin’ wrong with that. But you’re right, I’ve never won a game of Texas Hold ‘Em against her. Sucks. But you know the one thing that I beat her at?”

“The Walking Calamity?” Force Field Barrier said.

“Don’t call her that,” Shizuya said with a frown, before he said. “Rika has all that power that could bring a world ruining event on the world, but her luck hasn’t been the best. She never wins lotteries. She never gets the chocolate gateau cake that she’s been craving as the cafeteria prize in the school. And she only has a bunch of goons and delinquents who come after her looking for a fight to test her to prove their strength or somethin’. But you know what, the one thing that I’ll never do, is this. I’ll never have anyone make her sad. People say she has no emotions. But she does. I can tell. I just know her that well. And you doing this pathetic scene to the precious place we call home—none of us ain’t havin’ that.”

“Hm,” The Force Field Generator said, silently floating around in his triple tiered force generator orb. “This girl that you’re talking about. The one that you refuse to call that moniker. Why do you follow her? What made you stop following your father?’

Shizuya’s frown darkened. “You know, you’re getting awfully personal there, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps,” Force Field Generator said. “Though perhaps you need to do a little psychological digging, if you will, to understand the psyche of a criminal. You perhaps, know it better than any one of your ANGeLS friends.”

Shizuya clenched his hands into fists, his frown shadowing and deepening. “You know what, you’re really startin’ to piss me off! Man, I was having a good time letting loose on a brawl that I normally don’t get to have, but you’re seriously killing the vibes, man.”

“Am I really, though?” The Force Field Generator said. “Or is it because you know it to be truth that you don’t have the willpower or mind-power to deal with your own frustration and helplessness?”

“Trying to psyche me out, huh?” Shizuya said as he held a manic grin to hide his true feelings of exasperation and hate toward the Force Field Generator. “Unlike you, I don’t need to attack innocent people and exploit them for my self-gain. In the past, I might’ve done that, once.”

“Then that makes you a hypocrite,” the Force Field Generator said. “You were against the ANGeLS before that heiress took you in. And then they could abandon you when convenient because of the dark mark on your past.”

Shizuya grinned, though his heart clenched. He summoned astral power to his hands, summoning great balls of energy into his hands and causing it to surge it with purple, gravitational power and flexed his might at the other Psion user. “My team would never do that to me. SHE would never do that to me.”

“Oh?” Force Field Generator said, looking somewhat intrigued. “If you’re so sure…then you’re willing to die for her?”

“I’m willing to fight for her,” Shizuya amended. “Though I don’t intend on dying yet. I still have to fulfill a promise I made to her, after all.”

“A promise?” The Force Field Generator said, before he chuckled. “I see. So you’re one of those types.”

“What’s so funny about that?” Shizuya said while raising a brow.

“You think that vows and promises are something to make so lightly…” Force Field Generator said. “I made a promise to my master that I would spread his influence around, perhaps cause a little chaos for his sake and revolutionize Tokyo from the ground up. A schoolboy crush on a little girl is something that does not compare to my own vow!”

Shizuya postured, before he hurled the twin energy balls at the Force Field Generator’s Aura fields, smashing through the protective layers and getting through toward the vulnerable person underneath, catching him by surprise and smashing him in the face.

“If you think that the vow that Rika and I made is so superficial as a simple schoolboy/schoolgirl crush, you’re dead wrong,” Shizuya said seriously, the grin gone from his face now. “She wants to genuinely make the world a better place for everyone, and I will make her wish come true, with our powers and abilities, to fight off those that pick on the innocent and weak.”

“Typical hero spiel,” Force Field Psion said. “Playing the hero does not suit you, Shizuya. Nor does it do your father honor.”

Shizuya was no more grins now, his expression serious. “If you think this is naive optimism, then you don’t know Rika and my crew. Sure, Rika may be a little unhinged at times but she’ll make the impossible possible and somehow make things happen. I trust in her.”

“Hm,” Force Field Psion said. “Is your faith in her stronger than my conviction in my leader, the prophet who talked about the Doomsday of the world? Armageddon, World War III?”

“Bawh, who cares?” Shizuya said while waving a land. “Your leader isn’t the visionary that you think he is.”

“What makes you put trust in a schoolgirl?” Force Field Psion said. “It does not matter. When my master’s plan comes to fruition, everyone will be playing according to his whim on the chessboard. You do not get see the negative spaces between his master plan, the moves ahead he has conjectured and maneuvered.”

“Well, we just gotta stop him,” Shizuya said with a shrug. “Simple. He’s not omnipotent or omniscient.”

The Force Field Psion’s eyes darkened. “If only you knew.”

“Let’s drop the formalities and get to the ass-kicking!” Shizuya said as he held up his manic grin again, arcing forward with a sweeping kick aimed toward the Force Field Psion’s head.

“Get fucked!” Shizuya shouted, as the Force Field Psion raised his barriers again. “You’re just a cheap one trick pony!”

“At least I’m not shouting hot air all the time,” Force Field Generator said. “Really, the son of Chikara Kawasaki can do better than this.”

“I’m not gonna inherit my father’s criminal empire!” Shizuya said as his crimson eyes narrowed, hurling his vectors toward the Force Field Generator’s layered body, then remolding his vectors so that they made it into a sphere around the Force Field Generator and compressing him into a dilation of space. “Well, what’re you gonna do about that? You’re in a pocket of space now, so unless if you don’t wanna get crushed, I suggest you leave.”

“Hm, quite a dilemma,” the Force Field Generator spoke. “You did have it in you after all. Coming at me with the will to kill.”

“I could kill you,” Shizuya said as his eyes flashed. “But I won’t. I’m not like my father.”

“But aren’t you?” the Force Field Guy said. “You are of his ilk. Like father like son, after all.”

Shizuya staggered backward, though he kept his gravitational pull over the Force Field Generator warily. “I’m not going to fall for your cheap psyche-out tricks. Your jokes are not funny despite you being a rodeo clone who does the same old routine. Use barrier. Run away. Mouth off. It gets boring, yanno?”

“I am not here for your entertainment,” the Force Field Generator said. “Rather, I came here to deliver a message.”

Shizuya raised a brow.

“What’re you going to do about that, I wonder?”

“The message I wanted to deliver is this,” the man said as he meditated in the small compression space, still in his barrier skin which allowed him to breathe at all. “You are only a small pawn to play in this chessboard that my grandmaster has set up. You don’t see the pieces, the alignments, the trajectories…all the possible moves that are ahead. You do not have vision. But that is also because you are young.”

“What do ya mean I have no vision?” Shizuya said as he spat to the side and spat. “I really might crush you and we’ll see who has no vision then.”

“Your jests are not amusing, merely juvenile,” the Force Field Generator said lightly. “I, however, know you do not have the guts to crush me.”

“Oh yeah? Try me!”

“Why do I know this? Because you would’ve done it by now.”

Shizuya considered for a moment, his blood boiling, seething, before he turned to the meditating Force Field Generator. “I’m not my father. I don’t kill. So come with me quietly and I’ll put you in the slammer. But if you think about escaping or mouthing off at me, I’ll make your experience in there very unpleasant. Because while I may not crush or kill you and you can breathe in space through your barriers—you can’t exactly escape, can you?”

“…This is true. However, you are a liar, Shizuya Kawasaki.”

Shizuya’s heart clenched.

“You are more like your father than you know,” the Force Field Generator said.

“Take that back!” Shizuya said, before he calmed down and steadied himself. “Never mind. Rika always said I got too emotional at times, and I shouldn’t let people exploit that. So you know what, fuck you, fuck you very much, and I’m gonna put you in the jail-house where you belong.”

“But I believe you were the one who caused more destruction than I…”

“You’re on the wanted list. Deal with it. Once we scratch your name out of the Bingo Book as one of the S-Rank Criminals that we’ve been wanting to catch, we’ll have one less scumbag out on the streets.”

“I am a pacifist, nothing more. I only fight when necessary. But you see…”

Shizuya paused, cocking his head to the side and spitting.

“Here’s what I think of that.”

Force Field Generator Guy frowned.

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“Course not. Nothing you say is of significance. You just prattle on about your master and how great he is and what vision he has for reforming Tokyo into a better version of its ‘soulless hollow husk of apathy’ that it embodies. Ha! Come on, man, we’re in times of peace, not warfare and crime and destruction!”

“But sometimes out of war the greatest innovations are made,” Force Field Generator said. “Ever wonder how Psions were created?”

“Uh, we were born that way? Duh!”

“Nothing but insults out of your mouth, but I will entertain you. When a Psion and a Psion, or a Natural and a Psion, or even a Natural and a Natural, come together in a culmination of love, a child is born. Sometimes that child is a Psion, sometimes they’re human, though it’s not always guaranteed that a Psion will be born.”

“So what? We all knew this from basic biology!”

“We have a means of engineering more fighting forces,” Force Field Generator said.

Shizuya’s eyes darkened into a deeper darker shade, almost like blood-lust, before he grinned as he ‘carried’ the astral ball with his vectors. “Keep them coming.”