Leaders VS Kire

As I was stuck fearing for some part of the past I never healed from, both Ruby and Umbra jumped in toward Kire.

Kire ducked under Umbra's punch and kicked at Ruby's shield, before twisting his body into a weird flip and colliding with Umbra's side.

She grabbed onto his leg, and Kire took hold of the shield in Ruby's hands. This action caused Umbra to hesitate, and Kire took advantage by twisting her arm out of socket and then kicking her in the jaw.

"You Asterios should know... you're not the only ones with your unique abilities!" Kire shouted out.

His hair lit up in flames and caused each of his punches to have a stream of flaming hot red strands that connected with Umbra.

It very obviously hurt, as it burned a clean hole through her clothing.

Ruby, using her shield as a unique weapon, slammed the side into Kire's elbow, then the base of it into his face, and then pushed him back into Umbra's strike.

She punched him in the back, but before her ability could trigger, he burned the tips of her fingers so her punch was weakened, and then grabbed a hold of her gauntlet, surging heat through it.

It looked like red-hot metal when he did so, and it seared a pattern into Umbra's arm. She retaliated by falling onto her hand like a handstand and then kicked Kire in the face with an excruciating snapping noise that launched him into a building.

The building collapsed, and the ground started to crack near it as the cement melted around him.

"How about a part of my Incarnation that you haven't seen before?! How does that sound, Asterio?!" Kire shouted out.

A ball of fire made of strands in his right hand started to expand until it was covering his entire body, and he didn't let Umbra get a break.

It turned into a chase as he melted his surroundings running for her. When Umbra's boot got caught in the ball, it incinerated before she could push away with the strands.

Her look of surprise went away as she punched toward the ground, rupturing the flow and speed of Kire's chase, and waited for Ruby to get close.

Umbra flipped her body and flicked her finger, which Ruby deflected into Kire.

The wind pressure interacted with the flaming ball of strands, and it started to melt the ground as it fell off of the origin point.

"What the hell?!" Ruby yelled out. I didn't see it until it was too late, but the strands hit me in the leg. It burned a hole straight to the bone. It didn't bother me until I saw it, but moving my bone up and down caused an intense surge of pain that stole my breath away. I wanted to scream... but as I felt that pain, I was reminded of Orion yet again.

Why now?!

Ruby started to block hits as they were thrown at her from Kire. The flaming hot strikes were melting the shield bit by bit as she deflected. Umbra ran up from behind with her fist charged back, and struck with such an overwhelming force, that Kire was blown toward Ruby with just the shockwave that came from Umbra's punch.

When Kire was blown over, the ball of heat around him started to scorch the air around him. It was turning to fog, and the ground was turning into lava. He walked with a purpose so sinister it was emitting more evil than heat, and he turned toward me.

Red eyes... that was System Corruption in its finest form.

That's why I was starting to remember Orion. It was all connected... I remembered Orion because I remembered the way Sky looked at me. The fear that came from Orion was only heightened because I was backed into a corner by Sky's threats.

I launched off the ground, with a speed so unnatural to me that it felt like I was performing with Dani's speed.

I was fast, faster than ever before. My life has never felt so feeble since I locked eyes with the Corrupt System.

Still a widely unexplained mystery to me, I had to shut off my brain, to shut off the part that thinks in order to strike.

Kire held up his right arm toward me and a steady stream of red-hot strands came out, directly for my head.

I quickly slid underneath them, put the needle in the ground to stop my momentum, and launched eight feet in the air as it snapped from the strength I exerted.

Purple strands shot out of my forearms and tightened as much as possible, enhancing the strength of my strikes.

The dagger hit the flaming-hot ball of strands around him and almost infected his strands with the spread of purple strands.

He cooled down for just a second, and Umbra snuck up from underneath him, cocking her fist back, and planting it into his stomach.

The reverberation from the punch Umbra threw was so much that it cracked the floor underneath him, putting a small crater in the ground, and blowing all leaves off of the trees. I could feel buildings shake and glass panes vibrate from the force exerted, and her eyes turned a blistering orange color as her right arm was covered in those hot strands, melting down to the bone.

"Lia Danafall... you were able to summon Purple Strands out of your arms... and not just any Purple Strands, but Purple Asterio Strands... you have those in your arsenal?" Umbra asked me.

"They can't be Asterio, I can only use Essence Strands. Are there Purple Essence Strands?" I asked Umbra, but she shook her head as she regenerated her arm. That reminded me... I stopped feeling pain in my leg.

I took a look down at it, and it was perfectly repaired... like nothing happened.

"You didn't heal that on purpose?" Ruby asked, slipping the shield on her back as she restrained Kire.

"You know with that Incarnation, I highly doubt that rope will stop him. We might have to kill him," Umbra said to us.