Ten's laughter rips across the area in response to Dumnorix, and as the golden flowers fall towards Dumnorix, he brings out his sword, and lets it drink his blood, dying it red, and says, "Beast blood battle arts; Fas."
Soon, the flowers that fall from Manis grow large, and Dumnorix shouts, "PROTECT THE PEOPLE FROM THEMSELVES!"
Φ I quickly form all of my giant flowers into far larger bodies, and crash them down, then start moving them towards the different battlefield, as I fly higher up to get a better view of the area.
In mere moments, did he grasp my ability? What kind of instinct or knowledge would he need to understand such things? While a part of my mind feels that leaving him to engage Ten is dangerous, my body is telling me there are no more worries to be had here.
Φ Staring forward, Dumnorix says, "Are you done or are you ready to answer my question?"
Twirling around like a princess as she manifests new features on her face, Ten says, "Why so tense, don't you know today is the day of rebirth for our people. Or maybe a foreign Nightmare like you can't appreciate the beauty of our will. What a regretful existence."
"Oh, I am full of regrets right now. My blade has been stained with blood it should never have had, and to rectify, I am going to make sure it gets a taste of your." Holding his sword up, Dumnorix prepares himself before saying, "Red branch battle arts; Star Flower!"
He lunges forward, and the twirls from Ten's body speed up, releasing slashes all around the area, and meeting them head on, Dumnorix lets out 7 strikes in front of him, bursting through 7 different slices before having to evade the rest.
"If 7 attacks are all you can release in a single moment, I have nothing to fear."
Through the web of attacks Dumnorix dodges as Ten increases the intensity and complexity of her dance, slicing through the entire area nd even the ground beneath herself.
Yet as his large tail tries to move with him, a series of slashes hit it, knocking him backwards, and then he says, "Red branch battle arts; Tulip."
And begins to dodges across the entire area, trying to push closer and closer towards Ten's assault, yet despite his patterns being unable to be captured by her eyes the accuracy of her attacks only increases strike Dumnorix more and more until his speed comes to a halt, and seeing this moment of weakness she releases a giant slash towards his torso sending him flying backwards into the sky.
Not letting up, Ten runs forward and jumps into the air whilst spinning, letting out even more slashes towards Dumnorix, so he says, "Red branch battle arts; Sky flower," and kicks himself away from the attack, landing on a rooftop.
His eyes move across his body, and she sees marks across his tail, and says, "I am not reinforcing my spirit energy well enough; my body must be too tired to be operating at full force."
Slashes rain down from above onto Dumnorix, and he lunges away before he starts running from rooftop to rooftop, avoiding the slashes coming after him. "At this rate, conserving spirit energy to go fight whatever that thing is up there by the castle might be a bad idea. I need to finish this, and search for a weak sp-."
As Dumnorix speaks, a slash strikes him in his left foot, causing his motion to halt for a moment. Then he hears, "No matter where you run, I know what you are going to do before you even do it. For fate no longer binds me."
"No fate can bind me."
"But it can, as it has for all of us for so long."
Jumping up towards the tallest building in the area, Ten starts to spin and dance again as she says, "We have no freedom. Our entire lives have been predestined towards us all, as it is our fate to be lesser than the human race. I have known this since my curses first manifested. Whenever I interacted with a human, any future in which I wanted a pleasant interaction always required me to be lower; it always required me to hold my head down compared to the arrogance they leak from every single orifice of their existence. And that arrogance, that evil, that overwhelming pride binds every aspect of our lives."
Her dance increased in intensity, making Dumnorix run around faster than before. "They bind our behaviour, they bind our movement, they bind our thoughts, they bind our anger, and they bind our beauty or uniqueness or appreciation of our lives. Even in this country, far removed from them, I'm still binded to have a face like this, to look like this."
"And that gives you the right to rampage and enforce your perspective on all the citizens in this country!"
With her dance reaching such an extreme that everything around her gets diced up by the endless slashes that roar out of her body, she says, "SILENCE OUTSIDER! You look almost indistinguishable from a human; you could never know, you could never understand the pain we feel and the madness that emanates from each action they take against us.
If you want someone to blame, attack the humans who entrapped us 2000 years ago, blame the people for sitting by and allowing this chaos to continue, blame my parents for giving birth to me in this fucked up world that looks down on me because of it. They deserve this, I deserve my freedom from them all, NOW DIE!"
The slashes increase in intensity all towards Dumnorix, and he stops for a moment as the slashes all reign towards him before walking forward and saying, "Do you know what it is to see a land where the idea of personal space ceases to exist?"
He deflects some of the slashes with his sword and tail before the next volley makes it to him, and he does it again, and again. "Do you have any idea what it's like to know that loving someone and having kids will one day lead them to fight for a single square inch? Do you know how it feels to be powerless as an idiot who cannot get past the hatred and pain inflicted on them before I was even born, rip your country apart? Do you know how it feels to watch here every single day at school, how one day you will be forced to rip your best friend to shreds simply because of how he was born?
Do you know how it feels to hear that there is not enough food to go around for all the people within the country you live in? Do you know the anxiety the looks and words cause from the idea that each and every citizen in your country now is an enemy? Do you know how it feels to see a war where every little bit of land is fought over again, and again? Do you even know how it feels to see more bodies than there are flowers through the green pastures? Do you know what it feels like to wake up every day as a child and clean through the mass of corpses scattered about everywhere, hoping to identify them and bring some people some form of comfort? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MY PEOPLE HAVE LIVED!"
With one swing after the next, he deflects all of the strikes sent towards him, and as they fade, his eyes stare right past them all into Ten's eyes, freezing her for a moment, and causing her to shout, "Yet you're capable of standing there and talking about all of that crap without the madness leaking out. So keep your lies to yourself!"
"Is that the delusion you have spread to yourself, to justify this childish tantrum. I do fall to madness because I choose not to! In the face of all these struggles, I only have one wish, not to seek revenge, not to rampage like a child, not to curse my ancestors, but to end it, the pain, the suffering, the fear that makes the young look up and feel not hope for the future, it shall cease with me.
Who cares if it is unfair? Who cares if my life is one of trials and tribulations? It will all be worth it if I don't betray that boy, the boy who sat in his ravaged home all alone, wishing for a hero, a God to come save him from these horrors."
Dumnorix stops for a minute and slaps both of his cheeks, squashing his face together, then points his finger towards the sky as light shines down upon him from the sky. "I am the one who walks the path of victory and prosperity, to guide all who see me to the future. For I am the greatest in all creation, Dumnorix Rogha Dé!"
A smile reappears on Dumnorix's face, and he activates his legacy on both his tail and his sword, before surging spirit energy throughout the critical areas of his body, and says, "Now let's end this."
Ten, full of rage, jumps up and spins rapidly again, and again sending a series of slashes towards him, and in that same moment, Dumnorix stabs himself with his tail, then rushes forward.
And though the flurry of attacks he constantly swats them away with his sword and tail, but the mass of them is far too much for him to keep up with, and they hit his body over and over again.
Φ With the way Ten can see the future, dodging is pointless, especially as she gets better at reading it as she dances. She will hit me, and I don't feel like exhausting my energy by using my ultimate art. So I must just take all of the pain, whilst using my sword and tail to make sure none of my critical organs are damaged or destroyed. If I keep fighting like this, I will be able to overcome this and survive the flurry of attacks. It hurts like hell, but I am sure the pain those civilians felt was worse, so fight through it move forward!
Φ Dumnorix rushes and smashes his sword and tail in front of the doubling the force of each strike, allowing him to reach and surpass the level of strength spirit energy reinforcement gives him.
As the blows continues the waves and force made by each of his strikes start shaking the air around them, and knocking more of the slashes off target with each blow.
Φ What's wrong with that Nightmare? My slashes must be overwhelming him, yet he just continues forward. The pain must be utterly and completely beyond what he could handle, yet he doesn't even flinch as if his body has gone completely numb. But worse than that is the fact that my attacks aren't hitting his critical spots, even though I know where he is going to move before he does. Wait, do I.
As my eyes gleam over my blades, in the seconds I remove my eyes from them and fire off the attack, the future changes. How is this possible? Am I going insane? No, is he is reacting so fast that the moment I fire off an attack, he responds to it in kind. He is moving according to my movements, making it so that his future is decided by if I choose to read the future. If so, there is no way I can catch him.
Φ With her lunge reaching the peak of their volume, she shouts, "DIE!"
Yet Dumnorix bursts through it all, and continues forward building up more multipliers in his attacks, until he moves right in front of her, and says, "Red branch battle arts; Sonic thrust." And in a split second, he slams the side of his thin sword right into Ten's stomach, and the force sends her flying backwards right into the sky and through a series of buildings as Dumnorix stands on the highest building in the area.