Instantly, Night Raid rushed him from every direction.
Akame reached him first. She brought her blade down in a clean arc.
Tsutsumi lifted his left hand and caught the strike on his arm, the cursed edge stopping right there. He lightly exhaled and drove his fist forward into her stomach. It wasn't full force, but enough to push her back, her feet scraping over the ground.
Sheele's shadow appeared over him right after.
He rolled to the side, the huge pair of scissors biting into the ground where he'd just stood. A beam from Mine cut across his view, close enough that he felt the heat brush past his cheek.
Leone dropped in from the side, fists already swinging. A short series of punches and kicks came at him, fast but predictable. He stepped back, leaned aside, then pivoted and spun, his heel connecting with her jaw. She slid across the ground before stopping, rubbing her face with an annoyed glare.
"That one's going to bruise," she muttered.
Mine raised Pumpkin and fired again, energy bullets streaking toward him. Tsutsumi went to jump back, only to feel his arm jerk to a stop. He looked down. Thin metallic threads were wrapped tight around his left hand.
He glanced over to Lubbock.
"Got you," Lubbock said, forcing a smile. "Don't take it personally."
Tsutsumi didn't bother answering.
Attack Ride: Hardening!
The left half of his body hardened and toughened. Mine's shots slamming into him, and unable to break through his defense. At the same time, he slid another card between his fingers.
Attack Ride: Electrification!
Magenta sparks crawled over him like snakes before racing straight into the wires. They traveled back toward their owner in an instant.
"W–wait, hold on!" Lubbock didn't finish. The shock hit him and he yelled out, body locking up as the current ran through his gloves, arms, and body.
"Lubbock!" Kuuga shouted.
Sheele reacted immediately, moving in front of him and snapping the threads with Extase. Lubbock dropped to the ground, coughing, smoke faintly rising from his sleeves. His hands were burned badly, his voice shaky.
"I'm… fine… probably…" he muttered, not sounding convincing at all.
A bright shot flashed toward Tsutsumi's head. He tilted slightly. It passed right by where his head had been a second earlier.
Electricity still danced across him, tinting him in a soft magenta glow and pushing his hair slightly upward. Bulat thrust his spear forward. Leone lunged again from the other side. To Tsutsumi, their movements looked slowed down, like slow motion, as he calmly avoided their assault.
He looked past them and locked eyes with Mine.
She stiffened.
"H-hey, don't look at me like that!" she shouted, gripping Pumpkin tighter.
Pumpkin reacted right away to her rising nerves, its power climbing. She fired. This shot moved much faster than the earlier one, humming through the air.
Again, Tsutsumi simply shifted his head out of the way, the bullet flying past him. He stepped back a small distance, avoiding Akame's next swing like he was just moving out of someone's walking path.
Kuuga rushed in with a punch.
Attack Ride: Emperor's Eye!
His pupils sharpened, his gaze focusing like a lens being adjusted. He turned that look directly on Kuuga.
Their eyes met.
Tatsumi felt something tighten in his chest. His whole body reacted before his mind did, the armor didn't move, his legs wouldn't listen, and the punch he'd thrown lost all of its strength, stopping awkwardly in front of its target.
Tsutsumi spoke like he was giving a simple instruction.
"Fall."
Kuuga collapsed right in front of Tsutsumi like someone had cut his strings.
"Hey, Tatsumi! Why did you stop!?" Mine called out, startled.
Tsutsumi was already using another card.
Final Attack Ride: A-A-A-Agito!
A glowing emblem formed under his feet. He kicked Kuuga in the chest while he was still on the ground, sending him flying straight back toward the others like a tossed toy.
Leone and Bulat both moved at the same time.
"I've got him!"
"Careful!"
They managed to catch him between them, dragging him back before he hit the dirt again. Tatsumi groaned inside the armor, clearly dazed with a few broken bones.
Tsutsumi didn't pause.
Final Attack Ride: O-O-O-Ouja!
A large purple serpent materialized behind him, looming ominously as it stared at them. He just broke into a run, the Venosnaker sliding behind him as if attached.
He jumped.
The serpent spat a burst of venom upward, pushing Tsutsumi forward like a booster. His posture shifted into a flying bicycle kick aimed right at the cluster of Night Raid members.
Bulat stepped forward automatically.
"Behind me!"
He didn't hesitate. Spear in hand, he braced himself. The armor even gave off a faint rumble, like it approved of the decision.
Attack Ride: Invisible!
"Huh!?" Bulat lost sight of him mid-air.
He vanished. Tsutsumi simply wasn't there anymore.
The venom, however, didn't disappear. It splashed straight into Bulat before he could react, spreading across the white armor. The liquid hissed and steam rose as it started eating into both metal and skin.
He clenched his teeth as pain hit him. "Tch! Dammit!"
"Bulat! Move back!" Mine shouted, already lifting Pumpkin again.
He didn't get the chance. Tsutsumi reappeared right behind him, their backs almost touching.
Final Attack Ride: De-De-De-Decade!
Tsutsumi ran his palm along his blade out of habit and spun cleanly. The slash cut through Incursio in a single motion.
The armored body split, pieces dropping with a heavy thud onto the ground.
The forest went quiet for a second. With only the sound of metal and armor coming apart as what remained of Bulat hit the dirt.
Tsutsumi crouched without ceremony and picked up the card that appeared from the broken Teigu. He looked it over briefly, then lifted it slightly so they could all see.
"Henshin."
Form Ride: Incursio!
White armor wrapped around him piece by piece, fitting like it had always belonged there. The familiar roar that accompanied its activation rolled across the forest. The shape was the same, only the wearer had changed.
Tsutsumi tested the weight of the armor by flexing his hands once. It responded smoothly.
He then pulled out Neuntote.
Sheele, Akame, and Leone rushed in to meet him, spreading to different angles without needing to discuss it. Mine stayed farther back, providing cover fire, staying close to the still down Lubbock and Tatsumi, who was trying to get up again.
"Interesting..." Tsutsumi murmurs underneath his breath, realizing the armor has an almost identical ability to his Agito Form, Adaptation and Evolution.
By now, he is already used to abilities that let him evolve, adapt, and alter his form at will. Like back in the Miyabi AR world, he used the Seed of Agito to adapt to the Ether-filled world and unlocked the Agito Ether Form.
He hopped back a step, parried a slash from Akame with the shaft of Neuntote, tilted his head to avoid Leone's punch, and turned sideways as Sheele's scissors cut past him. A few attacks he didn't bother dodging on purpose, letting the armor take it. Cracks spread along the plates as pieces chipped away.
Instead of exposing skin, something else was under it, darker, tougher, like the armor decided it didn't trust metal anymore and switched to something closer to scales.
Leone drove her fist into his face. The white mask shattered and clattered onto the ground in pieces. Under it wasn't his normal face, only a black mask-like layer, smooth and expressionless, with the gold lenses gone and his purple eyes visible through the gaps.
Tsutsumi opened his hand. The claws looked like they'd always been there. He stabbed forward in a simple, straight thrust. Leone's breath hitched, and she gripped his hand on instinct, more surprised than anything, before going limp as he pulled his hand free, exposing the massive hole in her stomach.
He body dropped on the ground.
More light bullets rained against his armor, breaking more of it away. Revealing a reptile-like design, segmented with more exposed joints and sharper lines. He turned his head toward Mine slowly.
Akame rushed in again. Murasame cut down toward him, and Tsutsumi caught the blade in his palm. The edge bit into the toughened layer but stopped there. He flicked his arm and punched her in the chest, not full strength, just enough to knock her away.
Mine kept firing. He didn't dodge at all now. The bullets hit, but the armor didn't react much beyond absorbing the impacts. Pumpkin hummed louder in her hands as her anxiety rose.
Sheele rushed back in, Extase held firmly.
Extase could cut what shouldn't be cut. Tsutsumi didn't mind tanking it slash attack, but he wasn't dumb enough to let it cut him. So he avoided letting the scissors close around him, moving just out of the snapping range.
"Mine! Take Tatsumi and Lubbock and go!" Sheele said, keeping her eyes forward. "Just move!"
Lubbock groaned from the ground. "No… Leave without me… I'll only slow you down..."
Mine hesitated only a second before nodding. "Tatsumi, can you walk?"
"I'll try…" he answered, voice strained inside his armor.
A flash of light burst from Extase as Sheele triggered its Trump Card. Tsutsumi's vision washed white for a moment, and he closed his eyes on reflex.
Sheele didn't waste the opening. She stepped in, opened the blades wide, and snapped them toward his neck.
Attack Ride: Lizard Tail Splitter.
The scissors closed cleanly, his head separated, flying off his shoulders and rolling through the air.
Seeing Tsutsumi's head fly off his body, Sheele breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the fight was over.
"Hey, I'm not dead yet." Tsutsumi's deadpan voice rang out, causing her and everyone else to tense up. Sheele lifted her gaze, seeing that indeed, Tsutsumi's head and body were separated.
But his head was hovering in the air, fully detached from his body, but the head seemed to defy gravity and was floating in the air.
Then the body moved, its clawed hand swung out, snatching Sheele up by the neck, lifting her off her feet as she struggled to breathe.
"You let your guard down too quickly. And that is your biggest mistake." Tsutsumi said calmly, as his head reattached to his body.
Then, in one motion, he turns around using Sheele as a human shield, blocking the backstab from Akame. The cursed blade pierced into Sheele's body, and the poison quickly spread through her, ending her life at the blade of her own ally.
Tsutsumi kicked Sheele's corpse, sending the body flying directly at the still stunned Akame.
He then tilted his head just in time to see Mine, unleash Pumpkin's Trump Card on him, releasing a powerful energy blast.
Attack Ride: Invisible!
The beam tore through where he'd just been and carved a clean line through the trees behind him instead. He reappeared next to her, hand already closing around her neck as he lifted her off the ground.
"The Mad Dog doesn't… doesn't have this kind of power… Who are you…?" Mine uttered, her slender hand clenched tightly on his wrist like it was going to do anything.
He looked at her without much interest.
"Decade."
He gave her neck a quick twist. The resistance stopped. He let her fall and looked at the new card now between his fingers without any comment.
"Decade…" Tatsumi muttered, forcing his body upright even though everything hurt. "I… I won't forgive you."
Tsutsumi tilted his head. "Finally done cosplaying Tachibana-san?"
Kuuga didn't answer. White lightning crawled up the armor, flickering across the cracks. Black smoke poured off his body like heat haze.
The ground trembled slightly as the energy built up.
Kuuga shifted forms without hesitation, straight into Ultimate.
His black armor with golden lines stood before Tsutsumi; his eyes were black, signalling that he had lost control completely, and his instinct was the one in control now.
Rain began to fall from the sky, slowly, then heavily.
The black armor Ultimate Kuuga stares directly at the white armor Incursio.
They walked toward each other in the heavy rain.
Kuuga lifted his hand first. Flames wrapped around Incursio's armor, spreading fast. Incursio didn't seem bothered. The armor adapted again, evolved from the fire.
Tsutsumi raised his own hand in response. Kuuga's armor caught fire too.
The two walk in the heavy rain, despite being on fire. They both charged as the fire on their body disappeared, and punched each other in the chest at almost the exact same time. Both went sliding back and hit the ground.
The two quickly got back up and continued fighting. Throwing punches and kicks that created a miniature shockwave upon impact, each blow was devastating, intending to kill.
Tsutsumi's punch slammed right into Kuuga's Driver. Visible cracks formed across it.
Kuuga responded the same way, driving his fist toward Tsutsumi's belt. The impact made Tsutsumi's form flicker for a second before breaking entirely. The Incursio armor shattered away, leaving him back in Form Ride: Decade.
He blinked and looked down at his own hand. "Huh. Since when did this become a feature?"
Kuuga rushed toward Tsutsumi again, intending to finish him off. Tsutsumi just clenched his right fist, emitting an ominous magenta glow, as he stepped forward and met Kuuga's fist.
Their fists collided.
Creating a massive explosion that shocked the entire forest.