At that mont, Tsumiko's pupils trembled uncontrollably.
"…ra."
But before she could utter another word, ra surged forward in silence, her steps resolute.
Flas roared around her hands and feet, licking at a body marred with wounds and exhaustion. A third of her reiatsu had already been sapped away.
The light had vanished from the red-haired girl's eyes.
She moved as if marching to her death.
Makoto raised his blade toward her. "An attack of this caliber won't even graze ."
The instant his voice fell, those words solidified into an immutable law within this world.
[From lies forged into truth.]
[Fixing Falsehood]
ra's voice rasped, a guttural roar tearing from her throat. Her fla-wreathed fists and feet whipped through the air with a fierce howl, sharp and unrelenting.
Yet Makoto standing still followed an almost instinctual pull. With effortless sidesteps and subtle shifts and movents so minute they were nearly imperceptible, he evaded her every strike.
Such deft dodges rendered ra's onslaught utterly futile.
The vast gulf in reiatsu between them nearly double hers allowed Makoto to wield Fixing Falsehood with minimal effort, dominating the exchange with crushing ease.
Their clash unfolded like a farcical puppet show.
Until, at last, Makoto's blade swept down in a casual arc, tracing ra's montum to carve a long, jagged mark across the red-haired blade maiden's body.
Her knees buckled, and with a dull thud, she collapsed to the ground. Blood stread from the wound's edges.
"What's wrong?" Makoto asked, his tone tinged with mock confusion. "Are you so unable to accept the truth that you'd resort to this, begging to finish you off?"
"You… liar!"
ra propped herself up on trembling hands, her voice a strained, guttural hiss.
"Still refusing to believe?"
Makoto sighed, a faint note of helplessness in his breath.
Dragging his blade, he approached the red-haired girl with asured steps.
As he had gleaned from the 'wooden plaques' himself...
Sokushinteigi was an ability that wove reality and illusion into one another.
But at its core, its full effect demanded a vast disparity in reiatsu.
Within the realm of Playlife x World of Revelry, this power's spiritual demands lessened considerably. Yet the mont he left that world, many of the 'truths' he crafted would unravel entirely.
To carry those 'truths' into reality required specific conditions.
First, an overwhelming gap in reiatsu between both parties.
Second, when a gap existed, breaking the opponent's spirit to the brink of collapse forcing them to acknowledge the 'truth' from the depths of their soul.
This intricate maneuver struggled to alter the physical or biological turning stone to gold or a burly man into a curvaceous maiden would dissolve upon returning to reality.
In Makoto's still-nascent state, the ability's truest potential lay in manipulating the intangible like mind and will.
A simple demand.
Or a subtle betrayal.
To test whether this theory could bear fruit, Makoto needed a subject soone straightforward, impulsive, with a heart sharply divided between love and hate.
ra was perfect.
Yet just as he advanced, blade in hand, closing the distance to heighten the pressure...
"Get... AWAY!"
Tsumiko equally battered let out a shrill cry from beneath her mask. The jet-black hamr in her hands swelled to its utmost limit its weight and density pushed to the peak of her crafting ability.
With a thunderous crash, the hamr struck the earth, unleashing a devastating imprint akin to a lightning bolt's fury. The shockwave rippled outward, accompanied by a deafening explosion.
Makoto retreated a few steps, steadying himself.
He gazed at the masked figure standing before ra like a she-wolf guarding her cub.
Tsumiko's body could no longer sustain such an attack. Her mask was soaked with crimson threads, the color dim and foreboding.
Her back to ra, she dared not turn around.
Her voice quivered. "I-I didn't an…"
"ra."
ra lifted her head with effort, her near-extinguished eyes reflecting Tsumiko's silhouette.
Her lips parted, trembling as if to speak.
But the mory of what had just transpired stilled her, uncertainty warring with disbelief. Her head drooped limply, leaving only a silence heavy with near-death stillness.
"…"
"Damn it!"
Tsumiko cursed under her breath. Clutching a long hamr in one hand and a short one in the other, she prepared to charge Makoto.
However…
"Too slow."
Makoto's voice cut through, his reiatsu now at [5] elevating his speed, strength, and reflexes far beyond the pair. His flickering Shunpo outpaced Tsumiko's vision entirely.
The mont his words reached her, Makoto's form materialized before the grim, masked girl.
Her eyes caught the glint of his radiant blade.
Instinctively, her twin hamrs rose to parry the descending strike.
But as Makoto had said...
Too slow.
Shrrk!
A sharp, rending sound pierced Tsumiko's ears. Agony lanced from her left shoulder to her lower right abdon, blood and reiatsu draining with her fading vitality. Weakness consud her, swift and ruinous.
In truth, Tsumiko as the most analytical of the trio had known it all along.
The mont Hasuka fell, their defeat was sealed.
Everything since had been re survival.
Yet in the instant the blade struck, a revelation flickered through her. Her gaze, wide with dread, fixed on Makoto's unrelenting edge as she whispered, "N-No…"
Before she could finish, the blade plunged ruthlessly through her heart.
A vital strike.
[Pact: Once I strike your vitals, you must learn to obey my commands.]
A pink radiance flared in the depths of both Makoto's and Tsumiko's pupils, mirroring one another.
With the last vestiges of her strength, Tsumiko cried out to ra, her voice breaking.
"N-No, don't believe…"
Before she could finish, Makoto's blade slid free from the girl's heart, a vivid spray of crimson blooming in its wake.
ra stared blankly at the scene unfolding before her.
Had both Hasuka and Tsumiko been dispatched so effortlessly?
If so, then the next…
It would be her, wouldn't it?
The mont that thought struck, an inexplicable sense of relief inexplicably welled within ra's chest.
She knew.
Of course she knew!
Her mind wasn't built for grappling with such convoluted matters!
Who betrayed whom, who seized the chance for revenge…
She couldn't make sense of any of it!
Being defeated might be for the best.
After all, Zanpakuto couldn't die.
Once she slipped into unconsciousness, it wouldn't be long before Oetsu ca to their rescue, right?
With Oetsu's strength, he'd dispatch a small fry like this in an instant. Then they could erase this day from mory, and return to their old ways, bickering, laughing, living as if nothing had ever happened.
After today, her bond with Tsumiko and Hasuka could go back to how it once was, couldn't it?
At that thought, a flicker of courage to face reality stirred within ra.
Kneeling on the ground, her upper body swaying with exhaustion, she shouted toward Makoto with all her might.
"Bastard! Idiot! Scum!"
"Co!"
"Kill !"
"A guy like you isn't anything special!"
Her diminutive fra belied the sheer volu of her voice.
Yet as he watched her defiant fury, Makoto grew ever calr.
Like a hunter observing prey bleeding out, fleeing until its strength waned to nothing.
His flat and explanatory voice rose.
"My apologies."
"I lied earlier."
"?"
ra froze lifting her head in bewildernt to et his gaze.
Unperturbed, Makoto continued, "In this space, beyond the basic manipulation of rules, I possess another distinct ability."
"The power… to turn falsehood into truth."
At those words, ra's expression stiffened.
Realization dawned.
Like a mastermind savoring a successful sche, Makoto offered a gentle smile as he elaborated, "In truth, every choice your comrades made was correct, whether probing the rules' loopholes or feigning compliance to evade them."
"The sudden enforcent of my commands? That was rely the result of this ability's demands."
"You… you…"
ra's body trembled.
From so unknown reserve, strength surged into her battered fra. She staggered to her feet and lurched toward Makoto, flas flaring across her back.
Yet within her, guilt gnawed born of the doubts she'd harbored against Tsumiko and Hasuka monts ago.
That filthy remorse threatened to shred her spirit.
Makoto's voice pressed on, serene and relentless, "The only one who truly doubted them… was you."
"From start to finish, Hasuka and Tsumiko trusted the friends at their side. It was my enforced power alone that puppeted them before your eyes."
"Stop it!"
Flas blazed in ra's eyes as if they'd consud her from within.
But Makoto continued undeterred, "You alone, ra."
"You're the only fool who fell for my clumsy ploy like a clown jerked by a single thread, instantly suspecting the friends who trusted you. Here, in this wretched arena, you perford a farce worthy of a jester."
"I told you... SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
Her entire body ablaze, ra roared, charging at Makoto with a speed she herself couldn't fathom. Her fist, heavy with explosive force, aid straight for his face.
Yet Makoto's voice refused to relent.
"Until the very end…"
"Tsumiko still trusted you."
"BASTARD!"
Her emotions and flas peaked in tandem the mont his words landed, pushing her body to its absolute limit.
Intricate, serpentine patterns coiled across her skin.
"But."
"Those betrayed by your doubt…"
"…How disappointed must they have been?"
Makoto's final words fell like the first raindrop in a firestorm, piercing straight through ra's core.
And in that fleeting instant, they birthed…
Fear.
Her blazing fist, a re breath from his face...
Countless golden tendrils erupted behind Makoto, weaving into a complex web. In a blink, they shot toward the fla-clad ra, ensnaring her limbs with frenzied precision.
The clash of montum and recoil suspended her midair, her body wracked by a montary tearing sensation as if her limbs might rip apart.
Before the inferno within her could erupt...
Hasuka's face appeared before her.
The golden-haired woman's lovely features were etched with resolve and coldness.
That expression alone halted ra's fist mid-swing.
Then, a whip of woven hair lashed down, striking her with brutal force. Already gravely wounded, ra spun through the air, crashing to the ground in a series of explosive thuds.
She didn't dare retaliate.
Gazing at Hasuka's once-irritating face, an irrepressible wave of apology surged within her.
And with it, the mory of Hasuka's chest pierced by that blade.
The searing guilt eclipsed even her pain.
Sliding to her knees, ra struggled to rise.
But before her hands could brace her weight, a familiar long hamr traced an elegant arc through the air, descending toward her back with cold, silent intent.
Boom!
Her body slamd fully into the earth.
In the corner of her vision, she glimpsed Tsumiko's unfamiliar gaze.
That piercing guilt stabbed through her chest, her mind helplessly replaying the mont of doubt and anger she'd felt toward Tsumiko.
Beneath the weight of such tangled, ferocious emotions...
The flas on ra's back flickered and died.
That last blow had drained her final reserves of reiatsu.
Only her consciousness lingered.
Prostrate in the crater, her eyes dull, she murmured, "It's all my fault…"
"Indeed."
Makoto's calm yet infuriating voice sounded once more in her ear.
"It's all your fault."
"…"
ra fell silent, her eyes dimming completely.
No longer did she lash out in furious defiance as before.
Her reiatsu, stamina, and ntal defenses had all plumted to their nadir.
Makoto's feet entered her blurred vision.
A hand seized her collar, hoisting her into the air, forcing her to et his gaze.
"But, fortunately…"
"You now have a chance to make so ands."
Her drooping eyelids snapped up at those words, straining to look at him.
Makoto smiled. "It's simple."
"All you need to do is return to reality and follow a few small requests of mine."
"Not many, just three or five will suffice."
"You'll do it, won't you?"
"ra-san."
As his words settled...
Their eyes locked.
In the depths of their gazes, twin hearts overlapped and burned.
[From lies forged into truth.]
[Fixing Falsehood]
***
[1] By the way, Sokushinteigi and Yuseiboushi are not the nas of his shikai, but the abilities possessed by his shikai.
Yuseiboushi ca from his pervert gremlin who gave him domain-type abilities with many scenarios and rules like when he fought Nel (Playlife x World of Revelry).
Sokushinteigi cos from his mature female spirit, which gives him the ability to transform illusions into reality and reality into illusions.
***
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