113 Sonic

Right... How did one approach someone that had complete power over sound?

"HAH!"

*BOOM!*

Another scream, another sonic boom created as Riku was quick to try and dampen its impact. Flailing his whip around in front of him, he put in a lot more power and speed into its spin, resulting in his makeshift barrier to become sturdier. Still, that didn't stop his arm from buckling as the sonic wave washed over him. The barrier whip quickly disintegrated, but only after it had done its job, which was already good enough for the former assassin.

With his surroundings currently devoid of shooting stars because of the sonic wave, Riku was free to reposition once more as he did his best to close the gap. Making sure to keep his guard up, he had his whip at the ready for a defense just in case the woman decided to scream at him again. The closer he got, the more powerful her attacks would become.

He had to time his attack right. He really didn't want to get disintegrated by a resonance wave.

"STOP MOVING!"

Another set of screams erupted from the woman. At his current distance, each word came out more like a stream of concentrated sound aimed at pulverizing his head to a pulp. It was so strong that the very air around the projectiles warped just enough to be visible despite their current backdrop, allowing him to react fast enough to duck down and avoid the attacks.

"HAH!"

His eyes widened as another all-encompassing sonic wave bloomed from the enemy Champion's lips. Still low on the ground, Riku didn't have enough time to deploy his whip barrier. Instead, he dove down into the empty space, his hands clamped down tightly on his ears as he braced himself for the eventual pain.

*BOOMM!!*

"N-Nghh...."

Riku gritted his teeth as the sonic wave washed over him. His very bones rattled against the onslaught, his increased defense thankfully preventing him from getting outright turned into a pulp. Still, it was far from ideal as he weakly picked himself up, his skin blistering open as he fought through the pain.

He had been through worse... He could still do this.

"You still stand?" the woman taunted, her words dripping with hateful malice.

"It'll take a lot more than that to stop me," he scoffed despite the unending pain he was feeling. "I'm not going to go down from just a single attack."

Indeed, he could probably still go for a while until he gets hit with another bad attack. From there, there was no telling if he'll still be able to continue fighting. Still, he could tell that he only needed one attack to get rid of this woman, assuming he could get in. She fought from range, even if her method of attacks practically guaranteed her defense so long as she kept up her upkeep on her sonic barrier. And with his current setup...

Clearly, he stood no chance breaking through her guard at the moment. The amount of damage he sustained wouldn't allow him to Overclock, and that's on top of having just promised Nyx that he wouldn't do it unless he was on the verge of catastrophic defeat. He just had to stall for Shizu then. Now that, he could do.

Letting out a hitched breath, Riku prepared himself to switch strategies. There was no chance that he'd survive getting into melee range with this woman at the moment, so he might as well give himself enough time to dodge and brace himself whenever the enemy screamed at him.

***

{SHIZU POV}

"Where in the world is it?"

Shizu was on the verge of panic as she heard another volley of screams echo from behind her. Her barrier was holding up, thankfully, and she was pretty sure that she had just found what was probably the center of the entire planetarium. Riku had given her all the hints she could need to solve this, and surprisingly, there was actually something that could be considered as a target based on Nyx's first hint.

'A target on the floor,' she thought to herself as she stared at the supposed target. 'This must be it, right?'

Staring at what looked like a massive spiral galaxy beneath her, the fortune teller couldn't help but think that she had finally found what they were looking for. For one, the galaxy was much larger than anything they've ever seen. And second, it was practically screaming that it was different based on how colorful it looked.

Like seriously, it was pretty much polychromatic.

"Okay... So I found the target... Now what?"

Shizu narrowed her eyes as she thought about the hints again. In summary, they all talked about the centerpoint of the entire planetarium. Well, two of them at least. Surprisingly, Nyx's first hint was the only odd one out of the bunch with how random it sounded. Talking about targets on the floor and hitting it...

Well, was that just the case here then?

Blinking, she drew a bunch of cards and aimed right at the center of the galaxy below her.

"Here goes nothing..."

She threw out a few random shots, not really expecting much as she watched her cards fly down past her feet. Unsurprisingly, her cards disappeared into the center of the galaxy, as would anything else really if what she read about galaxies having black holes in the center of them were true.

"Come on... Riku's dying back there..."

For a full agonizing minute, Shizu watched as nothing happened, her ears picking up the constant screams from the background as she imagined Riku having a hard time against their attacker. She could only assume that he was having trouble right now. After all, he should've been done by now if it was any other Champion.

Then again, they haven't even met all the Champions yet.

*WHOOSH*

Her eyes widened as the galaxy below her suddenly opened up. Immediately, hope bloomed within her chest as she turned to Riku, fully intent with screaming at him that they could leave now.

"Riku! We're- AHH!"

However, she was cut off by her feet suddenly losing their footing, causing her to fall into the galaxy that she had just unlocked.