Sutaro felt it immediately. A giant invisible sphere of pure primordial energy exploded outwards until it reached 250 meters in all directions. The air itself compressed and released in rhythmic pulses. Reality bent. Physics became suggestions.
Sutaro shifted his weight, grinning. "Wow, cool technique you got there. Onnnnnne thing tho, can you only do 250 meters? That seems, ineffective~"
Alcor didn't respond.
FLASH!
He became a white streak. Vector manipulation combined with gravity control propelled him forward with the velocity of a guided missile. In just the blink of an eye he closed the distance between himself and Sutaro. His fist raised, carrying all the momentum and potential energy of everything in the environment.
He swung.
Sutaro raised both hands. The impact connected.
BOOM!
The shockwave alone shattered windows for three blocks. Sutaro's feet carved trenches through pavement as he flew backward, crashing through multiple buildings. Concrete exploded. Steel beams twisted. Glass rained down like deadly snow.
Alcor landed, his coat settling perfectly around him. "See that~? That's vector manipulation combined with gravity manipulation, a pretty neat trick that—"
He didn't have time to finish.
Sutaro was already there.
Hyper Acceleration. The Speed Yokai had crossed the distance in a fraction of a heartbeat. His fists pressed together. He crouched low, purple and black yokai energy crackling around his body like a storm given form.
"You're simply not fast enough~"
He shot upward.
CRACK!
The uppercut connected with Alcor's chin. The vector shield that should have reflected the attack, that should have made Sutaro's own force destroy him, shattered like glass. The sound was wrong. Reality itself seemed to protest as the impossible happened.
Alcor's eyes widened in shock as he flew into the air, his body spinning uncontrollably.
As he tumbled through the sky, a single thought burned through his mind:
Impossible! How did this mortal get through my vector shield!
Alcor twisted midair, using gravity manipulation to right himself. His face contorted with rage. "You insignificant rat! You DARE to violate the rules of reality!?"
He spread his arms wide. The air around him shimmered. Atomic structures reorganized at his command. Ten massive spikes of concrete materialized from nothing, each one the size of a telephone pole, hovering in the air like the fingers of some vengeful god.
[CUT TO:]
Sutaro looked up at the spikes. His eyes glowed deeper purple. The purple streaks in his hair ignited with light. Purple and black yokai energy lightning crackled across his entire body, arcing between his fingers, dancing along his arms.
"Wow, bringing out the big guns huh?" His smirk widened. "Either way, you're dead\~"
Alcor released the spikes.
They screamed through the air, each one carrying enough kinetic energy to level a building.
To Sutaro, they moved in slow motion.
He activated Hyper Acceleration and jumped. The world slowed to a crawl around him. He weaved between the first spike. Ducked under the second. Twisted past the third. His body moved like water, like lightning, like something that existed between moments.
Sutaro (Thoughts):
Should probably take care of those.
He used his own speed and momentum to turn midair, arms raised toward the pillars, palms open. "Hopefully I don't destroy this city with this. Judgment Spiral!"
The air around him began to shimmer. Space and time twisted. Reality bent. A vortex of purple energy materialized in front of him, spinning faster and faster, growing larger with each rotation. The sound it made was wrong. Like the universe screaming.
Alcor watched from above, hovering through gravity manipulation. His crimson eyes tracked the vortex with growing concern.
Sutaro threw the vortex.
It consumed everything in its path. The spikes. The air. The light itself. Matter simply ceased to exist where the vortex touched. The destruction was absolute. Clinical. Terrifying.
Sutaro didn't dwell on it. He looked down and spotted multiple telephone cables running along the street below.
Alcor's voice cut through the air, sharp with frustration. "I'm getting tired of you.... Why won't you just stay down!"
Sutaro replied without looking up, his grin audible in his voice. "Because you forgot you were fighting the Yokai Hybrid of War!"
He dove.
Alcor followed, white coat streaming behind him like wings.
In an instant, Sutaro's body transformed into pure purple electricity and vanished into the cables.
Alcor stopped midair, scanning the area. "Running so soon? I didn't even get to draw blood."
Sutaro began zipping through Japan's telephone cables. The electrical grid became his highway. He moved faster. And faster. And faster. Building speed with each jump between power lines. Mach 1. Mach 3. Mach 5. Civilians across the city saw flashes of purple lightning streaking through the sky, heard the thunder of his passage.
Mach 8.
He launched himself out of the grid, trailing electricity like a comet. His body materialized midair, leg extended, purple yokai lightning wreathing his entire form.
The drop kick connected with Alcor's chest.
BOOM!
The explosion of yokai electricity lit up the sky. The shockwave shattered every window within a mile. The sound was deafening. Alcor's vector shield tried to activate, tried to redirect the force, but the speed was too much. The angle was wrong. The power was overwhelming.
Alcor flew backward like a missile, his pristine white coat finally showing damage as he crashed through the sound barrier. He disappeared over the horizon, his trajectory carrying him toward the Sea of Japan. The sonic boom of his passage rattled buildings and set off car alarms across the entire district.
Sutaro landed on a rooftop, purple electricity still crackling around his body. He straightened, brushed off his jacket, and smirked.
"Class dismissed."
Alcor's body tore through the atmosphere like a meteor in reverse. The coastline blurred beneath him. Mountains. Cities. Forests. All reduced to streaks of color as his vector shield struggled to compensate for the impossible velocity Sutaro had imparted.
The Sea of Japan appeared on the horizon.
Then he was over it.
Then he was in it.
CRASH!
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The impact sent a column of water erupting skyward, visible from the mainland. A temporary crater formed in the ocean's surface before physics reasserted itself and the sea came rushing back. Alcor plummeted through the depths, his body spinning, tumbling, descending into darkness.
Fifty meters.
One hundred.
Two hundred.
The pressure should have been crushing. The cold should have been lethal. But around Alcor's form, reality bent. His vector manipulation shield operated on pure instinct now, redirecting the crushing force of the ocean away from his body. The water pressure vectors inverted, creating a perfect sphere of air around him. Not a single drop touched his pristine white coat. The mathematical precision of his ability calculated and recalculated thousands of force vectors per second, maintaining the bubble even as he sank deeper into the abyss.
Three hundred meters down.
The light from above had faded to nothing. Only darkness and pressure and the distant sounds of the deep.
Alcor's crimson eyes snapped open.
Fury.
Pure, incandescent fury burned in those blood-red depths. His perfectly composed expression shattered, replaced by something primal and terrible. The veins in his neck stood out. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth should have cracked.
"That... PEST!"
His voice echoed strangely in the air bubble, distorted by the surrounding water. He raised both hands toward the surface, fingers splayed, palms open to the distant sky he could no longer see. The water around his protective sphere began to tremble. Then shake. Then convulse.
The ocean itself responded to his rage.
Alcor's Absolute Dominion flared to life. The 250-meter sphere of his god-like control expanded from his position, and within that space, he became the arbiter of all physical law. Every water molecule, every pressure gradient, every thermal current. All of it bent to his will.
The vectors of the surrounding ocean twisted.
Millions of gallons of seawater began to move in ways that defied nature. Currents reversed. Pressure equalized impossibly. The molecular bonds of H2O strained under the force of his manipulation as he seized control of the sea itself.
[CUT TO:]
Sutaro stood on the rooftop, purple electricity still dancing across his shoulders. He was about to dash off, ready to help his teammates with the cleanup, when he felt it.
A buildup of energy.
Massive.
Concentrated.
Coming from the Sea of Japan.
His eyes widened slightly. The yokai energy in the air shifted, responding to the surge of power emanating from the ocean. The atmospheric pressure changed. Birds that had been circling fled in panic.
"Daaaaaaamn," Sutaro muttered, rolling his shoulders. His smirk returned, sharper now. More dangerous. "I forgot this is the second strongest archbishop."
He cracked his neck. Once to the left. Once to the right.
Purple lightning began to coil around his legs.
"Round two it is."
[CUT TO:]
The ocean exploded.
BOOOOOOM!
A geyser of water erupted skyward, reaching hundreds of meters into the air. At its center, rising like a vengeful god, was Alcor. His hands remained raised, palms open, fingers spread in a gesture of absolute command. His white coat billowed around him, still impossibly dry despite the maelstrom of water surrounding him. The golden buttons caught the light. The infinity symbol on his collar gleamed.
His crimson eyes blazed with barely contained wrath.
"You PEST!" His voice carried across the water, amplified by his manipulation of air pressure and sound vectors. "I don't give a FUCK if you're the yokai hybrid of war! You should know better than to challenge ME! You should understand that I am PERFECTION!"
The water behind him began to coalesce. Millions of gallons drawn together by his vector manipulation, the molecular structure compressed and reorganized according to his will. The mass of liquid twisted and bent, defying gravity as it rose higher and higher.
"I am nothing more and nothing less than PERFECT!" Alcor's voice rose to a roar. "The sheer fact that you penetrated my vector reflection shield means you are VIOLATING the very RULES of REALITY! You are an ABERRATION! An INSULT to the natural order! A MISTAKE that needs to be CORRECTED!"
The water formed a massive sphere above his raised hands. Ten meters in diameter. Twenty. Thirty. The surface rippled and churned as he continued to compress it, increasing the density, manipulating the vectors of every molecule to create something that shouldn't exist.
Hardened water. Denser than steel. More lethal than any blade.
"Do you understand what you've DONE?!" Alcor's rant continued, his usual composure completely shattered. "My vector reflection operates on FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES! It redirects force, negates momentum, inverts kinetic energy! It is MATHEMATICALLY PERFECT! PHYSICALLY ABSOLUTE! And yet you... YOU... with your PRIMITIVE yokai lightning and your BARBARIC speed... you TOUCHED me!"
His fingers twitched. The sphere of water above him pulsed with contained power.
"It's IMPOSSIBLE! It's WRONG! It's an AFFRONT to everything I AM! I am the Archbishop of Greed! The Horseman of Famine! The Hollow Sovereign of Deprivation! I am HER's right hand! I am the SECOND STRONGEST! And you... you DARE to make me BLEED?!"
Alcor's eyes widened further, the crimson irises seeming to glow with inner fire.
"No. NO. This cannot stand. This WILL not stand. You need to learn your PLACE in the cosmic hierarchy! You need to understand that there are LEVELS to this existence, and you... you are SO far beneath me that you shouldn't even be able to PERCEIVE my true form!"
He pointed the massive sphere of compressed water directly at Sutaro's position on the distant rooftop.
"It's time you learned who you're TRULY messing with!"
The sphere's surface began to ripple. Then bulge. Then distort as Alcor manipulated the internal vectors, creating pockets of hyper-compressed water within the larger mass. Each pocket was a bullet waiting to be fired. Each droplet was reorganized at the molecular level, the hydrogen bonds reinforced and restructured to create a substance harder than diamond.
He released his control.
SHHHHHHHHHHHH!
The sound was like a thousand jets taking off simultaneously. The sphere didn't just shoot projectiles. It became projectiles. One thousand two hundred and forty-five hardened water bullets, each one traveling at supersonic speeds, each one carrying enough kinetic energy to punch through reinforced concrete.
The air itself screamed as the barrage tore through it.
Sutaro's eyes tracked every single one.
Time seemed to slow. His hyper-acceleration kicked in, his perception of reality shifting as his consciousness operated at speeds that made the world freeze. The water bullets moved in slow motion from his perspective. He could see the spiral patterns in their trajectory. Could calculate the vectors. Could identify the gaps.
He moved.
FLASH!
Purple lightning exploded from his position. He wasn't running. He was existing in multiple places simultaneously, his speed so great that he left afterimages that persisted for full seconds. Each water bullet passed through empty air where he had been a microsecond before.
Duck. Weave. Sidestep. Twist.
His body flowed like liquid, like electricity given form. The water bullets shattered buildings behind him. Tore through steel. Cratered pavement. But none of them touched him.
One bullet came close. Too close.
Sutaro's hand snapped out. His fingers closed around the hardened water projectile. For a fraction of a second, he held it. Felt its weight. Analyzed its composition.
Then he threw it back.
The projectile reversed course, moving even faster than when Alcor had fired it. Sutaro's throw added his own kinetic energy to the existing momentum, multiplying the force exponentially.
The water bullet struck the massive sphere Alcor was still holding.
CRACK!
The sphere shattered. Millions of gallons of compressed water exploded outward in a chaotic spray, the carefully maintained molecular structure collapsing as the vector manipulation holding it together failed.
"Tsk."
Alcor's expression twisted further. His perfect control had been broken. His mathematically precise attack had been countered. By a thrown projectile. By his own weapon turned against him.
Unacceptable.
He raised his hands again, preparing to reshape the scattered water, to create an even more devastating attack. His Dominion pulsed with power. The 250-meter sphere of his absolute control extended around him, still active, still granting him near-omnipotence within its bounds.
But he never got the chance.
BOOM!
Sutaro appeared in the sky above him. Not through teleportation. Through pure speed. He had covered the distance from the rooftop to Alcor's position over the ocean in less than a second, his body trailing purple lightning like a comet's tail.
But he wasn't alone.
Sutaro had launched himself from a different angle, his fist already cocked back, already wreathed in the same purple yokai energy that had allowed Sutaro to bypass the vector shield. The energy crackled and sparked, reality itself seeming to flinch away from its touch.
This was the upscale. The proof of power. Sutaro could do what should have been impossible. He could touch the untouchable.
Alcor's eyes widened. His vector reflection shield activated automatically, the mathematical calculations running at the speed of thought. Redirect the force. Invert the momentum. Negate the impact.
But the yokai energy didn't care about mathematics.
It didn't follow the rules.
It violated them.
Sutaro’s fist connected with Alcor's face.
CRACK!
The sound of the impact echoed across the water. The vector shield shattered like glass. The carefully maintained equations collapsed. The perfect defense failed.
Alcor's head snapped back. Blood. Actual blood. It sprayed from his nose, from his lip. The crimson droplets hung in the air for a moment, suspended by the residual vector manipulation, before falling.
The Archbishop of Greed, the Horseman of Famine, the second strongest member of the Sect of Her Shadows, had been struck. Had been damaged. Had been made to bleed.
Again.
The force of Sutaro’s punch sent Alcor hurtling backward. Not through the air. Through reality itself. His body ragdolled, all grace and control abandoned as the kinetic energy overwhelmed his ability to compensate. He crashed into the ocean surface once. Bounced. The water exploded upward from the impact.
Then he hit the distant shoreline.
BOOM!
His body tore through the beach. Through the road beyond. Through the first building. The second. The third. Each impact created a new explosion of debris. Concrete shattered. Steel bent. Glass rained down like deadly snow.
He finally came to rest half-buried in the wall of a parking structure, his pristine white coat now torn and stained. His perfect appearance ruined. His absolute control shattered.
Still within his 250-meter Dominion. Still technically at full power.
And still utterly dominated.
Sutaro landed on a piece of floating debris, purple electricity still crackling around his body. He watched Alcor's trajectory with satisfaction, watched the archbishop's humiliating flight through building after building.
"Second strongest, they say," he muttered, his smirk widening into a full grin.
The implication was clear. If this was the second strongest, then the Sect had seriously overestimated their own power. Or seriously underestimated the yokai hybrid of war.
Either way, the message had been sent.
Class was definitely dismissed.
To be continued….
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