Salvation

(Kiba "Isaiah" Yuto)

The blade of the aspect and I met, sparks flying and singing a discordant symphony around us.

I could feel my bones shaking due to the collision. The aspect was strong but I guessed that this was expected from a war deity.

I moved the surface of my blade off the side making his blade move on the side and leaving him unguarded.

Another blade, one that looked fragile appeared in my left hand. This blade was one I had created with just one simple concept, the concept of Cutting.

It didn't matter that the skin of the being was tougher than a mountain, capable of tanking something world-destroying. I wanted for the blade to cut so cut it will.

The pointed end of the blade flew toward his left eye. I knew that he could see the weapon coming at him but he didn't move probably thinking it wouldn't do anything to him. This is why surprise erupted in his eyes when the bade punctured the flesh.

I was unfortunately stopped from doing further, by ending this fight when the aspect screamed.

It felt more like a wave of force than anything. It hit me in the chest like a punch and sent me flying away from the aspect.

In the time I took to blink, the being had appeared over my still flying form sword and posed to bisect me in two at the level of my hips.

The sword in my left hand shifted growing like a mass of liquid iron propagating and covering me.

His sword fell and hit my sword shield. The shield held saving me from being cut into two different pieces but the force of the attack sent me like a ragdoll deep in the ground.

Pain erupted in me as my body went through layer and layer of Earth. I looked over at him. The aspect had jumped in the hole he had made me fall into.

I acted by summoning a sword under me and using it as a platform to stop myself from falling.

I didn't stop here. I inscribed in it the concept of release. The sword absorbed the kinetic energy of my fall and at my signal sent me flying back toward the aspect at speeds that I wouldn't have been able to attain normally even with being a knight.

A katana appeared in my right hand to replace the blade that I had probably dropped when I was sent flying by the aspect.

I had already in the past created a weapon capable of teleporting. I had made another one to cut. What would happen if I fused those two concepts? The katana was the answer and I could not wait to see it.

I moved my right hand and cut through the space separating us. I reappeared just before his eyes.

As proof of his warlike nature, he didn't panic. He sent a beheading strike with his sword at me.

Unfortunately for him, I had panned this. Just before his sword could hack into the flesh of my neck, I activated my sword and reappeared over him standing on his gigantic falling back.

I shifted the grip that I had on the sword directing it to the back of the head of my opponent.

In a movement that could only be called divine, he blocked the tip of the katana from being stopped by the flat surface of his blade that he had thrown in an arc.

Of course, it wouldn't be easy. It was a war god I was fighting against or at least an aspect of one.

I jumped away from his back. Not a second after his sword continued its arc in the air slashing where my heels were.

The aspect turned completely catching his sword with his right hand, a cocky smile etched on his face as if asking as if it was everything.

I thrust my sword in the air as if I were saluting or asking for the blessing of a higher being. "Don't worry," I spoke. "I'm just getting started"

My sword following my will broke. I watched how incomprehension appeared in the eyes of the aspect.

The sword may have been broken but it wasn't because something was broken that it couldn't be useful, that it could not be glorious.

The sword fragments continued to break until they were microscopic even invisible to my demonic eyes. The only telltale of their existence was the control I had over them.

"I hope you know how to dance or maybe don't. It'll only make things more enjoyable for me," and with my words, they fell like a rain of stardust.

One shard faster than the others reached the god and bit through his flesh, the concepts St the origin of its creation making sure that the god would bleed and suffer.

The shard exited from his back in a shower of Ichor. I had made him, a war god the first to bleed. That was Good.

Unfortunately, the other shards were not as lucky as the first one. As if he could sense them, he moved to his right cutting a path through the earth.

My shards gave chase and I followed after them, my demonic eyes allowing me easily to see through the darkness, to see in a more comfortable way than I did at the surface.

One shard flew toward his head. The god's body bent backwards as if he were a contortionist, his body keeping its balance on one hand.

I chose to rush at him at that moment at the same time as my shards. A new sword appeared in my hand.

I plunged sword first toward where he stood. He pirouetted like an athlete on his hand, the shards missing him, his sword ready to strike like a coiling viper.

It was something beautiful I had to admit, something that was too quick and well-executed to miss.

At least, that's how it should have been. He would have stroked true against me if it wasn't for my sword meeting his.

I knew that my sacred gear and my magic were the only things giving me a chance to win. Saying or thinking the contrary would be a delusion.

Speed-wise, I wasn't faster than a mid-class devil. Sure mid-class devils were capable of being as fast as sports cars but it was nothing in the supernatural world I was living in.

I was fighting a god, a war god I knew without a doubt had better parameters physically than me at every level so as to not fail, as to not lose, I cheated.

I was a devil after all and this is where my new sword came. I had chosen to name it John Doe because of one thing, its ability capable of making someone unordinary, weak able to fight against stronger and faster beings by using them as templates.

My primary goal when breaking my Katana hadn't been to defeat the god with them even if I wouldn't say that I didn't want such a thing to happen.

Creating weapons with stronger concepts required me to put conditions on them, like a spell or more accurately a ritual. It's not that I could not do the same without it but I knew deep down in my soul that doing such a thing without a ritual would only take more energy.

The moment I made him bleed the first time, the ritual had begun. The second strike had been what was needed to complete it.

Now, things were more equal, something that made it possible for me to punch the aspect in the face and feel the satisfaction as I felt his nose crack under my fist before he was sent barreling in the dirt creating another pathway.

I ran after him feeling my shards following me behind. I saw a distortion, like a flash of something that could have been. Without thinking, I ducked.

Earth and dirt exploded over me as if a bomb had imploded. "I won't take such disrespect from a devil!" the aspect yelled talking for the first time since the beginning of the fight.

"So show you might O powerful god!" mocked. by yelling back.

We met our swords encountering each other again and again. The earth around us was annihilated and erased due to the speed and strength of our strikes.

I sidestepped a thrust of his sword, glided on his side and sent a slash toward his head. He caught the blade between his teeth and stopped it with it.

My shards shone like flying stars, the speed they were moving made them appear like molten flying crystals. They ganged up on him.

The aspect used his sword to deflect one shard in one strike. With another one, he cut through two others. With another one, he deviated three of them on the flat surface of his blade.

Unfortunately for him, my shards became more and more dangerous the more they were reduced.

I didn't stay idle. With my other hand, I summoned another sword. "Mystletain," he whispered the name of the new blade.

"Do you think that I wouldn't create others?" I moved him before infusing my limbs with demonic energy strengthening them even more.

In a swift movement, I tore the John Doe from his mouth removing some of his teeth in the process and with my two blades, I joined the onslaught of my shards.

My blades met his and he was pushed away. I jumped after him, my objective to strike into his flesh.

My shards followed suit. The fact that he was an aspect of a war god gave him flawless technique.

He should have been overwhelmed but only with one blade, he was partying or deflecting my shards and my swords.

It didn't matter. It just meant that I had to be faster, stronger, greater! I pushed more than I've ever done.

Our forms dug through the underground as he tried to defend himself and I tried to strike him. We fell and fell without an end in the darkness, the sparks of our blades the only light in the darkness we were plunged in.

Little by little, I began to take some ground. His strikes became less attacking ones and more defending ones.

I was putting him in a corner but I needed something more. 'You can do everything if you want to. You can do everything you wish if you have enough demonic energy.'

I remembered the words of the president 'You aren't human. You are a devil,' she had told me.

Then why was I still fighting like one? I summoned a sword over his shoulder, just at the level of one of his ears and detonated it as if it were a bomb and even if it was for less than a microsecond, that made him stagger and this is all I needed.

Mystletain cut on his cheek just under his right eye a shallow line. At this moment, the aspect slowed down as if in shock at what happened.

I didn't unfortunately for him. With a movement of my right arm, the John Doe cut through the air its target, an opening, the neck of the aspect.

This is why I was surprised when something stopped my sword. "Is it lightning?" I could not stop myself from saying before I was proven right and watched how the aspect began shining before lightning struck me.

It was burning like the hottest fire. It was the greatest physical agony that I had ever felt. The only reason why I was still alive was that I had instinctually used all my blades as a makeshift shield.

The lightning bolt pushed me upward as if I were a fly stuck in a hurricane. The earth and dirt around me melted turning into magma and lava.

My vision was assaulted by light and clouds. 'He has pushed me to the surface,' I realized. Without thinking, I moved out of the way of his attack. The lightning bolt had continued its path toward the atmosphere lighting the night as if a second sun had taken existence in Kuoh.

I fell on the top of one of the remaining school buildings of Kuoh. My wings erupted from my back to transform my uncontrolled fall into one more controlled one.

I fell on my back and slid on the ground until I met something sturdy enough to stop me. My swords had been destroyed but they at least allowed me to survive his lightning strike.

I guessed that it would have been too easy to win. I had never seen something as grandiose, as breathtaking, as terrifying as this lightning bolt.

Even then, due to my demonic senses, I could see it rising like a spear, as if it was the babel tower challenging the gods.

Akeno had never created such a thing. This was something from a completely different level.

Well, it's not as if there were any chances of me losing. I had been cursed with living after all and I needed to protect the others.

I rose painfully, my limbs shaking. It seemed that the lightning had affected my muscles. Fortunately, It was now possible for me to heal myself.

My body without my input jumped from the top of the building into the void as if I were a manipulated puppet.

Before me, the building I had been standing on was consumed by a pillar of lightning. "It seems I made him angry," I spoke to myself.

As if to prove my words, he reappeared before me, anger and hatred marring his face, covered in lightning, falling with his sword toward my head.

I knew that I needed to do something, that if I wasn't able to, this would be without a doubt my end.

I wouldn't have time to strike with a sword if I summoned one in one of my hands or even one covering in the air.

The name of the sword that could have me appeared in my head and I uttered it into existence. His blade met the flat side of another one, centimetres away from my forefront.

The strength of the strike made the air around us explode in a shockwave but unlike the other times, something different appeared.

As if time was rewinding, the shockwave came back and was sucked into the sword. It didn't stop there. His lightning was swallowed by the sword. The god was looking at me in shock and fear.

He tried to move away probably expecting and fearing what the new sword I had created would do. As if I would let him. "Graphite crow," I uttered. "Release".

With my word, all the energy that had been absorbed by the sword when the god attacked me was released two times stronger than it originally was.

Another sun appeared in the sky of Kuoh as the attack of the god was turned against him. He opened his palm trying to contain it, the attack tearing through space on both his sides and burning his head in a blackened mess.

I needed to strike now! Mystletain reappeared in my grip. I rushed at the god my form breaking through the sound barrier and plunging into my own attack.

I ignored the pain, the feeling of my flesh burning and melting and I appeared just at his side my arms in the air holding my sword with my two hands and with a downward slash, my blade fell at the level of his wrist.

I saw anger and hatred in his eyes. Lighting appeared like a shell at the level of his wrist as if he already knew where I would strike.

Unfortunately for him, my blades were like mould to me and followed my orders and my will as if I were god.

"I thought you would have learnt," I told him before the blade of my sword broke into billions of minuscule shards. "Silver," I called the shards and they answered propagating on all of his right arm like a cancer.

He has tried just to protect one place and in doing such had made an error. He could not attack me because his countered attack was still trying to consume him.

He still tried to defend himself by shielding all of his right arm in lightning but Silver drank it, penetrated the flesh and shredded it from the inside making it explode in a shower of gore.

The simple sword that I had first created when the president made me teleport all the peerage appeared in my right hand.

With a quick throw, the blade cut space and time behind me, a gap in space opening for me to allow me to escape.

I began falling toward it. The aspect saw this and rushed toward me with his other extended toward me "Not even in your dreams," I whispered to him.

An odachi appeared between us. "I told you that you would not see the sun of tomorrow," I spoke.

The odachi was a simple-looking one. It could even be called fragile but that was alright. I had created with the concept, of always striking my enemies.

I'm sure that a higher being would have probably been able to bypass this effect through their own manipulation of the world but the aspect was already weakened and was before all the aspect of something greater.

"Erandor," I spoke the name of the blade. "Strike," I commanded it and it did piercing through the extended arm of the god by entering the flesh through the aspect's palm.

The portal closed around me and I reappeared at the side of Gasper falling on my back. Over us, the sky shone and exploded.