88 A clash of sorcerers 1/2

Author note:

I just want to say how much I hate the nonsense in the nasuverse. I already said it before, but I don't think I will get tired of it. I mean, why would the author create true magic and then proceed to explain absolutely nothing about it! Anyway, volume 3 focuses a lot on the more 'unknown' and complicated parts of the nasuverse so bear with me for a while.

*

*

*

[ Dio pov ]

For a second I felt time stop as I found myself wondering how on Earth this was happening. As much as I hated to admit it... I was getting completely trashed by this b*tch.

My increased perception vanished and I found myself crash-landing, hitting dozens of trees and breaking them in the process with my body.

"You dare..." I muttered while standing up from the ground once the impulse of her hit was no longer throwing me into the forest.

The pair of gloves Medea gifted me where still on my hands, and as the good Mystic Code they were, they proved to be resilient to having me being thrown around.

I was having a bit of trouble understanding her magic, for some reason she could do a lot of things that shouldn't have belonged to the same category, so classifying the powers that her true magic gave her was extremely hard.

For one, her speed sometimes increased when she attacked to a level I couldn't match, then was the fact that my own attacks vanished before hitting her, turning to nothingness in the process.

"You have been very quiet." she said, appearing in front of me and kicking me in the side of the body before I could react, which once again caused me to fly into the forest, breaking more trees with my body in the process.

"Now tell me, where did that arrogance go to?" she asked as she once again vanished from her spot and appeared in front of me.

Her taunting where blatantly obvious, yet effective. It was unbearable to be loosing a fight after mocking her.

I snapped my fingers, which caused a trail of fire to leave my fingers and head in her direction, exploding right in front of her.

The fire got me as well, as the explosion happened right between us, but I already knew it wouldn't hurt me, though it was annoying that this too might be the case for her.

As the cloud of smoke vanished, I found myself staring at the woman, who remained in front of me without any trouble or injuries.

I felt my eyebrow twitch as she smugly looked at me before her entire arm was covered in blue and pink light. Knowing what was coming, I raised my arms to block her hit, and once again I found myself flying, hitting everything in the forest.

"Well, this is getting annoying..." I muttered while standing up.

I was truly in a hard spot here, trapped between my instincts and my pride.

Every part of my body and mind told me to leave, yet my pride kept me chained to the fight.

It was clear that this battle wasn't in my favour, unlike her own powers, my true magic isn't exactly focused on combat. The only ability that was really helpful in a fight was my nigh-infinite amounts of magical energy, however my soul manipulation and my summoning of heroic spirits wasn't all that great right now.

Sure I could summon Gilgamesh, who might be able to annihilate this woman with EA, however I would have no means to control him or to order him to actually kill her, and basically the same thing happens with all heroic spirits strong enough to actually help me now.

Then was my soul manipulation, which gave me amazing things like memory manipulation and magic circuit manipulation, but this wasn't exactly viable for combat.

My instincts and logic understood this, hence why every part of my body said that leaving was the smart thing to do, on the other hand however was my pride.

Some random woman appears out fo nowhere, punches and kicks me around as she pleases, destroys my experiment, insults me, and I am suppose dot just run away with my tail tucked between my legs?!

I gritted my teeth in anger as the sorcerer appeared in front of me once again, her fist glowing in beautiful colours as she got in position to strike me.

"You lowly bug..." I muttered, snapping my fingers once again.

This time, the fire didn't even get to explode. The woman simply raised her hand in the fire's direction and my attack disappeared.

A small smile formed on my face as I finally noticed something. "It didn't disappear... you simply stole its time, didn't you?" I asked with a growing smile, which made her stop for a second.

Taking advantage of her monetary pause, I raised my left foot and kicked her in the chest, making her crash into the tree behind her.

"Well well, how the turntables huh." I said with a smile.

I understood it didn't make sense to insult her, especially when my attack didn't even hurt her, but still... it felt kind of good watching the annoyed expression on her face.

Before letting her understand my great reference or my sense of humour, I immediately clapped my hands and placed them on the ground, and from the very earth, countless spikes arose, all headed in her direction.

A blue circle glowed around her arm as she began quickly chanting something and, in an instant, rays of light and magic energy destroyed my attack, along with the area that surrounded us.

"Tsch. You really don't understand your place, do you?" I asked her, not really expecting an answer.

Launching herself forward, Touko's sister tried attacking me again, though this time I successfully dodged her punch and used her own attack against her, grabbing her arm and slamming her into the floor.

Slowly, I began noticing certain patterns and preferences in her attacks and movements.

"Well then, how about we get serious?" I asked her with an amused smirk.

It is indeed true that she had basically owned me throughout the fight, and the amount of times she had punched me or kicked me into the trees was way higher than the meagre two times I have managed to land a hit on her, however I ignored my pride for a moment and recognised it was my fault.

Aoko suddenly appeared in front of me and the cycle began again, however this time I could see better what she was doing.

"I don't need to be arrogant to be better than you." I said in a low tone as my body was once again thrown into the air by one of her punches. "Nor do I have anything to prove anyone."

Aoko appeared above me, her leg raised up and ready to be brought down on my body.

A smile grew on my face despite the incoming attack, which overflowed with magical energy and promised to hurt my immortal body.

"I just need to win in the end." I muttered, my arms blocking part of her blow as her leg hit my chest and forced me back to the ground.

A small crater formed where I landed and I found myself staring at the sky, ignoring the sorcerer that was coming down in my direction with a glowing fist.

"Regardless of the method... regardless of how low I need to go, despite how many I have to manipulate or betray... as long as I get my hands on everything that exists, as long as I conquer the stars, everything will be worth it." I muttered happily while Aoko's fist hit my face.

I felt my nose break, my head began hurting and my body, which I thought as invulnerable because of its state as a soul, began aching from the countless attacks she had managed to land, still... there was something refreshing about this, I would go as far as to call it cleansing.

Opining my eyes, which shut down for a second, I found Aoko looking down on me, standing up above me with a glowing aura around her body.

Instead of looking at her, I focused on the sky. A single question flowed my mind and despite my instincts warning me of the danger the sorcerer posed, I could only wonder...

'When did I stop staring at the stars with greed and began looking at the earth with arrogance?'

My origin, which I had been sort of restraining with my soul manipulation ever since I became a sorcerer in order to avoid overly dangerous and impulsive decisions to instead focus on planning carefully my steps, began pounding against my magic circuits as if begging to be released.

"Any final words?" she asked while bringing her hand down and placing it on my forehead.

'Final words?' I asked to myself.

For a moment, I felt my pride growing once again as the woman looked at me like some random bug ready to be stepped on, however I simply placed my pride aside for a moment and smiled instead.

There was something funny about the situation, and for a moment I felt like a complete idiot.

I had been going at it completely wrong.

It wasn't a matter of proving the world I was its rightful king, nor was it a matter of surviving forever, so both my pride and my instincts were wrong.

"Final words?" I asked, this time aloud as a smile grew on my face. "Aoko... this battle has barely started."

Aoko's eyes widened and she immediately jumped back as countless spikes came out of the ground and stabbed the place she was standing just an instant ago. This spikes however where glowing as magical energy overflowed for them.

So far, despite having good long range attacks, Aoko had been constantly coming close and hitting me. At first I thought she was just angry, but I was wrong...

"You suck at long range spells, don't you?" I asked her. "Or at the very least, you are not as good at long range fights as you are at close ranged ones."

Aoko stared at me angrily for a moment, getting into her stance once again.

"That's alright..." I muttered while closing my eyes and breathing deeply. "I too am quite good at close range fights myself."

Aoko's eyes widened slightly, however I ignored her reaction and instead focused on my chanting.

"I am the spark of all desires,

life is my body and death is my soul,

I am the corruption of all idealistic people

the owner of all treasures, given to me by those who bent the knee

and so, as I pray to God...

Bless my crown and give me the right to use what is already mine...

CROWN OF GOD!"

As always, a golden crown appeared on my head and I simply moved my hand into my chest, pulling out two spears, one golden and the other one red.

Diarmuid's Noble Phantasms were perfect for this type of fight, one was able to cut through magical energy, which is a sorcerer's important assets, and the other one left wounds which can never be healed, which means she will have to either fight in long range, where I am better than her, or she will have to fight with extreme carefulness.

There was also something quite interesting about her ability to steal time, and it's that for some reason... she was trying not to use it.

"Well then..." I said, staring at her. "Let's dance."