Shike VS Ultima

The battle began once more. The crowd around us was starting to form again, which meant that it was a bare-bones fight. Ultima versus me... I had no idea if I could actually beat her, but I wanted to give it my best shot.

I charged in first with my sword down at my hip, almost scraping against the patterned cement bricks underneath our feet.

I swung up with my sword first, to which Ultima angled her staff to create more sparks going upward. While they were flying, and before the cool temperature of the air disintegrated them, I grabbed onto the staff again and pulled backward.

She flicked me off of her staff and slammed the butt-end close to my throat. Luckily, I moved before it could hit and I was able to continue the fight.

"I don't know why you keep trying to grab it. You can't beat me in a measure of pure strength, I overlap you by miles," She stated, swinging the staff around to threaten me.

It was moving so fast that it swished through the wind and even made a weird noise every time she changed direction.

I threw my sword at her and charged in aimlessly. I didn't want to harm Ultima. Even if I did somehow manage to beat her, all she had to do was get her soldiers on me... and I would certainly be killed very easily.

"You idiot," She said, preparing her staff after countering the thrown sword.

I ran in and she swung the staff downward toward my head. I let it get as close as possible before ducking while leaning to the right, letting the staff bounce off of the ground.

I put my foot on it and kicked the center of it. Ultima was forced to lean forward while holding onto her staff and I threw a punch toward her leaned-in face.

She let go of the staff and dodged the punch easily, but while she let go, I grabbed tightly onto the center and pulled backward.

I didn't even see when Ultima dodged, but she grabbed the end of the staff with her teeth and forced me inward toward her old position.

She pulled so hard with her teeth that I almost flipped forward, but I was able to brace my feet and let go of the staff.

She flipped it around and held onto it again with her palm up, looking at me with a confused stare.

"You're obsessed with this thing... do you think I can't beat you without it?" Ultima asked me. She was breathing heavily... so at the very least, she wasn't using strands to repair her exhausted stamina. There was still something about her that made her human... and it was that staff.

The whole fight, she had been holding onto it tightly, and I tried to disrupt that flow she kept kicking into it. It was a memento at least, but I sensed a much more important purpose to it. It was almost like Ultima's true strength hid behind that staff...

She wasn't an insane fighter either, I could easily dodge the things she threw at me, but some of her followed-up combos weren't able to be blocked. I took hits to my forearms with each and every one.

It was about six hits into my arms that they started to feel fractured and broken... but I noticed something after the seventh hit.

It didn't hurt.

I absorbed the damage completely!

I took every last bit of damage to absorb and grabbed her staff again, releasing it all while doubling it, and cracking the wood that formed the staff.

After it cracked, Ultima was visibly shaken, flipping it, and slamming it into the back of my head.

She moved so fast I couldn't see... and even bypassed my absorption...

Unfortunately for her, I turned my body and grabbed onto her arm, doubling the power again, and causing her elbow to invert before she retreated.

She slid on the ground just as I did when she hit me the first time, holding in the pain of a broken bone.

Ruby and Umbra both said they couldn't damage her, but I was able to pull it off... which meant that she wasn't invincible.

"Queen Ultima! Please, let me fight this heathen!" I heard one of her soldiers shout out.

"Shut up. Let Shike think he has the upper hand. It might be all that's keeping him going," She said. She pushed her staff's butt-end into the ground and it was stuck in the cement. She walked past it and held up her fist, blocking her face, and slightly bouncing around.

"I don't need the staff, I have no problem kicking your ass with my bare hand," Ultima said, slowly closing the distance while blocking.

I held my hands up, matching her energy, before she ditched the fists, dropped her body, and performed an upwards kick right at my face.

The speed caused a shockwave to emit from her heel, and it even disturbed me. She moved faster than humanely possible for a moment there, and I was only able to keep my footing because I absorbed the force of her strike.

While she was down on the ground, she kicked the cement, launched bricks up in the air, and flipped behind me.

I reinforced my body with the strands inside of my body and felt each of the rocks slam into me as her palm was held upright above my head.

Right after, she smiled and shouted something else.

"WEAPON RECALL!" She screamed.

I ducked after my sixth sense alerted me and watched the blade of my sword scrape the side of my head, cutting some hair off in the process.

How the hell did she do that...? Wasn't that ability exclusive to Sky?

The more I looked at Ultima and observed her move set it was reminiscent of the reckless way Sky fought.

Even with Providence, he still had a hint of monster fighting instead of it really depending on his own skill. Sure, he beat her with intelligence, but leading up to that? That wasn't Sky... and this isn't Ultima.

She can't even read my mind, or else she could block my attacks.

Why was she like this all of a sudden?

As the sword finally moved toward her body, she flipped her arm around and smiled once more.

"ULTIMATE DEFLECT!" She screamed.

The tip of the sword hit her stone and a bright light ensued. I couldn't reinforce any specific part of my body, so I spread it all over to hope for the best.

And instead, what I got was terrible.

My right eye was cut out of my head after the impact of the sword. The shrapnel of steel that made up my sword exploded in my face and ripped me apart before I could absorb everything, and I fell to the ground with severe pain on the right side of my face.