System Purge

"Another one of your illusions? Real complex. Nobody could fake that Tower, I know what I hit, you're just coping with the damage," I told her. Ultima seemed solidified and shrugged.

"How many Rubeki do you think you can kill?" She asked me.

She struck something inside of me that scared me... how could she have possibly known about them? Those beasts I grew up killing...

"It is curious, isn't it? How I know so much about your past... Shike Asterio? An alias bestowed to you by Sky Asterio, who is your leader," She said. Boo looked at Ultima with a confused look on her face, and Ultima could tell it was there. She didn't look, but she acknowledged our confusion.

"All White Stones have a power. Xian, your predecessor, held onto your Kineticism ability you treasure to this day, but you haven't even begun to access the same power he had. You're a shell of that ability. My White Stone, however? It's to pull all potential from any abilities. To do that, there are a lot of steps... but one of them is to obtain the memories and powers from White Stones. You waltzed into my city and gave me the power to move at the speed of light..." Ultima said, looking at her own stone.

This was bad... if that was true, then we had a formidable opponent now... one we couldn't beat...

"That's... a lie..." Boo said. Ultima looked at her with a straight face, in contrast to her previously devious face.

"No... you're just guessing... you have no idea if we know Sky, or what your ability is... I can tell..." Boo said. Ultima still looked annoyed but wasn't countering her point.

"One of our friends... before somebody killed him... could harbor illusions to any way they wanted. They could create images, but all was revealed in the grand scheme, whether that be strands constructing an image or hiding an object in plain view. You have that ability, that's the illusion we keep seeing. That's why it's so familiar to me. You have our friend's ability..." Boo mumbled.

I wasn't sure where she was going with this, but it felt like a fight was about to break out. I stayed on alert.

"You think I stole your friend's ability? How do you suppose that I did that?" Ultima asked. She was egging Boo on, but never arguing against her points. I was starting to believe Ultima was behind the scenes that entire time.

"Naomi wasn't Naomi... Fico was Naomi... it's not impossible that you were in The First Trial. I'll tell you the truth about Sky Asterio, if you tell me who you were in that world," Boo offered Ultima. She was enticed by this offer and revealed something to both of us.

"I wasn't in that world. Wouldn't I have killed Sky Asterio if I was? It makes no sense that I would leave him alive. He was at his weakest in that world... right? I wasn't in The First Trial," Ultima told us.

"So be it... then, I'll tell you what I know. Sky Asterio? I wanted to kill him as well. I was raised from birth knowing that all Asterios were bad, and I trained just to kill one. However, as I continued to learn about him, I realized that he's probably one of the best people that could've led us. I look up to him, and if you have a problem with that, we can fight about it," Boo bravely said.

"An Asterio has corrupted another I see... all Asterios will be nothing but the filth of this world, only good at betrayal, killing, and ruining everybody else's life. I will fix you, Boo," Ultima told her.

She flicked her staff out and held her left palm up.

"System Purge" Ultima muttered.

She ran at Boo with an incredible amount of speed. I could see Boo trying to use her ability... but nothing happened.

And the staff connected to her stomach.

It hit Boo so hard, but she didn't go flying like she normally would've. She just fell backward, hitting the ground violently. She was unconscious upon impact.

"You're not scared yet, Shike?" Ultima asked me, turning around with her staff and palm raised once more.

Was she going to do it to me? All she's doing is getting rid of my ability... this should be easy to deal with.

"System Purge" Ultima said once more.

She ran at me and I held my sword up, blocking the first hit with her staff.

She slid it against the sword and created sparks with the speed alone. Using that momentum, she flipped her body and went for another quick strike, aimed toward the right side of my body.

I grabbed onto the staff with a tight grip and pulled forward. Instead of landing a hit, Ultima did the same with my sword, chipping the top of it with just her fingers, and aiming for my eyes with her fingers.

I leaned my head back and tried to kick her in the stomach, but she used those two fingers to hold back my entire leg, and then kicked me in the chest.

I slid on the floor, moving dust all around me as I held up my chipped sword.

Her strength... her speed... everything about her was just so much more powerful than anything I could muster, especially since I couldn't absorb anything with my ability.

Was I really this useless without it? All of my strength... just going to waste like this?

"You're an experienced fighter... I'm surprised you're so good against a human opponent, considering your ability was really meant to take out the Rubeki," Ultima told me.

"My ability wasn't meant for that. It was meant to take overpower opponents and reduce their advantage. When you take that away, I can't reduce their strength... but I'd like to believe that without my ability, this just makes an even fight for the both of us. So, what do you say? If I lose, I'll go wherever you want me to... but if I win, you have to let my friends out of that Tower," I told Ultima.

"Heh... sure, I promise, I'll let them out of the Tower. If I win, you both are going in though," Ultima said.

Just as I wanted...