Chapter 16

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(General P.O.V)

Loops remaining 33/35

From the second Ash spawned and fell to the floor of the house, a look of surprise was etched onto his face. He rubbed his neck. The phantom pain of having your head severed from its position on top of your shoulders was something he did not want to feel again.

That was not what had him shocked. What had him shocked was the fact that for a split second, he had done it. Under the promise of death, Ash had managed to reinforce a small part of his body by pushing his quirk factor to the extreme and negating every other part of his body. His skin had changed from its jagged hard shape to a reinforced smooth gray material that was highly resistant to piercing damage.

Could there be more to Kirishima's quirk than Ash had thought? What else could he do with it. He stared at his palms as a growing sense of excitement grew inside him.

"Clang!!!"

The loud sound of two metallic objects clashing against each other roused him from his state of shock.

"Snap out of it!"

Shiro shouted at the new arrival. He had no idea where the boy who seemed to be about his age only taller, had appeared from.

"Who are you?"

Shiro wasn't the only one curious. Lancer lowered his spear and watched the new arrival, waiting for a response.

He didn't get any. The teen was crouching on the ground, looking at his open palm in fascination. Cú chullain was an easy going guy. This time, seeing the blatant way he was ignored, his anger got the better of him.

"Tch. Die."

One second Shiro was reinforcing his pipe, ready to face Lancer and then the next he was lunging forward to intercept the almost lazy blow Lancer threw at the unresponsive boy on the floor between them.

He called out to Ash, hoping he would snap out of whatever state he was in. Meanwhile, Shiro resolved to fight Lancer and hold him off as the other teen made his escape.

"You're defending him when you can't even defend yourself?!"

Lancer stepped to Shiro's side and knocked his feet from under him faster than the red haired boy could react.

Shiro slammed onto the ground with his back, rolling away while trying to breath. He got to his knees, right infront of Ash with his back to him and pipe held out in his hands. His arms were shaking.

"Don't kid yourself."

Lancer's leg swiped out and planted a kick on Shiro's chest, knocking him backwards towards Ash. The blue eyed teen was now recalling just where he was and who he was facing. This time, the good thing was that he had a way to fight Lancer. Determination and hope surged up from within him.

He saw Shiro defend him only to get a kick to the chest that threw him back towards his position. Ash's body was stronger than before, so leaping over Shiro to jump at Lancer was easy. Landing a blow was very much different.

Lancer swiped out his weapon and the shaft mercilessly smacked onto Ash's hasty guard. His forearms were pushed into his chest and he was sent flying back onto the wall of the Japanese home. Ash knocked over a few vases before landing on a drawer and breaking the furniture under his hardened body.

"Interesting. Is that a modern application of magecraft? No, I sense no mana fluctuations."

Lancer wondered out loud, walking forward. He knelt before Ash with an impassive look on his face, roughly grabbing the boy by his hair. 'it feels like stone.' Lancer observed.

"Answer a few of my questions and I will let you live. You are not the one I am after."

"How about you..."

Bam! Ash's face was slammed onto the floor. The floor boards broke.

"I have a feeling that you were not about to say something nice."

Lancer snickered, looking into the defiant glare the young boy sent his way.

"You're right. I was about to tell you to fuck off."

Ash replied heatedly.

Lancer's fist and Ash's face met in a collision course. This time, Ash's face broke. Blood spewed out of his smashed in nose as a tooth flew out of his mouth.

"You won't tell me what I want to know? Fine. I'll find it out myself through trial..."

Lancer tightened his hold on Ash's face and smacked it onto the ground again.

"...And error!"

He spun and dragged the teen through the ground face first, then he lifted him up and threw him to the side. Ash's body was headed to the wall when Lancer blurred ahead of him and slammed a knee onto the boy's back. A breath of air escaped Ash's mouth along with blood. 2 of his ribs snapped.

Multiple internal organs were raptured from the blow as well. Ash fell onto the floor, leaving an uneven groove from where his body dragged along. Lancer twirled his spear and walked forward.

"Time to end this. Any last words?"

"Basta...ooof!" Ash coughed, covering his mouth while dragging himself up. The spare t shirt, jeans, boots and jacket he had managed to snag from a clothes store after the Chitauri attack were now in a mess. The blue t-shirt was torn in places, the jeans were covered in his own blood and the jacket was mere dregs, destroyed as much by his hardening quirk as the ass kicking he was receiving.

"You can still talk huh?" Lancer mused.

"I must be getting rusty. Let's change that shall we?"

He lowered his body, holding his lance pointed at the ground. Before he could move a single step, something sped towards his face from the side.

Lancer's hand stretched out and grabbed the offending object which turned out to be Shiro's pipe.

"What is this?"

Lancer asked the boy, shifting his footing to look at him. The pipe in his hands was glowing with circuit lines.

"I won't let you hurt him."

Shiro ran to Ash's side and stood before him protectively. His own uniform was torn up and Shiro had a trail of blood coming out of his nose. The nose healed itself almost instantly.

"Are you okay?"

He asked the injured teen.

"No. Obviously not." Ash huffed, dragging himself to a standing position.

"You overloaded the pipe with more mana than it could handle."

Lancer observed, turning the pipe in his hands.

"Then I hope you're ready for what happens next."

Shiro warned before whispering to Ash,

"Get ready to make a break for it."

"Only if you're coming with."

Ash countered.

Shiro's response was cut off by a sudden explosion from their front. Just like Lancer had observed, the pipe had too much mana and eventually exploded from the energy.

Seeing this, Ash wasted no time in grabbing Shiro and running outside of the house and towards the Workshop.

"Wait that's not the way to the gate!"

Shiro complained.

"We're not going to the gate. We can't escape him, so we have to fight!"

Ash tugged on the other boy's hand, his feet slapping through the yard as fast as he could go, which was abnormally fast now. Yet, Shiro was able to keep up with him.

"Hey listen, you need to use your blood on the magic cir..."

"Where do you think you're going?! Stand and fight me!"

The building behind them exploded from a sonic boom. Fuck.

Ash's senses were going haywire from the eruption of Lancer's power. Knowing he would try to face them directly, Ash stepped in the way of Lancer's thrust.

By a stroke of luck, he raised his forearms at just the right angle needed to deflect the attack. The spear ground against his rough skin, producing sparks in the air. Lancer blinked, not expecting that the kid would survive the fast attack.

Ash did not get enough time to celebrate the tiny victory as with a skillful comeback, Lancer pulled his weapon back, spun and threw the same thrust as before.

'I can't block, evade or deflect this!' Ash realized. He couldn't see it. But that didn't mean he couldn't feel it.

So the moment the Spear's pointed end landed on his body, Ash decided he would use every piece of will in him to make sure he reinforced his body at that specific point of impact, just like before.

Before it could land on his left side of the chest, the former's body was pushed to the side and the Spear's head penetrated Shiro's side.

"No..."

Ash muttered at the scene. Shiro had saved him at the cost of his own...the boy managed to grab onto Lancer's spear, preventing him from pulling it out on the first trial. Shiro looked up with a pained expression on his face.

"Now! run!"

He...wants me to run? He wants me to leave him to face someone he cannot defeat by himself?

"Don't be dumb! You idiot!"

Shiro shouted in desperation when Ash instead of taking the chance to escape rushed forward to shoulder check Lancer.

The legendary warrior chuckled, letting go of the weapon.

"Fine, I Will allow you to keep it for now. I don't need my weapon to handle the likes of him."

Ash's anger exploded from within him at the casual disregard and he used that to fuel his actions.

"Aaargghh die!"

Upon closing in on Lancer, Ash threw a fist with the knuckles shaped into hard sharp knobs. Lancer slapped the hand away and threw a fist onto Ash's broken face. The teen stumbled back in pain. He shook his head and clawed out with sharp finger nails at Lancer.

The servant laughed as he dodged the blow merely by leaning out of the way. To him, there was no difference between Ash and a slow moving snail.

"Let me show you the gap between us, boy."

Over a 10th of a second, blows to his face, chest, sides and limbs landed.

Ash felt a strange feeling take over him. The feeling was familiar. This was the feeling of death beckoning. All Shiro could see was the hundreds of shockwaves that exploded out of Ash's body everytime a blow landed. Time resumed for Shiro and he watched, horrified as Ash's body fell to the ground, limbs facing every which way and blood soaking the floor under him.

Ash struggled to raise his head as he heard footsteps come his way. He coughed out blood, blinking hazily as he could feel the darkness inching closer. Surprisingly, a glint of respect was in Lancer's eyes.

"You go into a worthy death."

Cú chullain encouraged, perfectly poised, not a hair out of place or a ruffle on his clothes. Somehow Ash hated that.

"Next time...next time I'm putting a scratch on you if it's the last thing I do."

He promised and then died.

Loops remaining 32/35.