66 A Deadly Party - Part 2

He turns towards me.

-Claim my life? Do you even have the ability to?

He's not wrong, I totally can't do it. Alone, that is.

My intervention was the signal for Kawaii 1 to act as well.

Her base abilities are clearly inferior to Kawaii 2, but she has a shrewdness that the naive Kawaii 1 seems unable to ever reach.

I let out several forces to disturb his ability to sense his surroundings. Once he let out this trump card, we were sure to imitate him sooner or later.

I tense up. We only have one opportunity. I must time it right.

I continue with my straightforward act:

-Take this!

I send a strong soul force using all my soul strength in his direction.

[Anna]

The numerous forces around are blocking me from using my seed to sense around, but it doesn't stop me from using my eyes.

I see Sofia's friend stretching his hand.

The seed does not require one to move his body. The sole use of that is to reduce the distance and thus the consumption of a powerful force.

He's not aiming straight at the enemy.

If he takes a side, I'll certainly take the other. But is he truly sending a strong force or is he just doing so to bait the enemy?

At the same moment, Sofia sent a very obvious attack straight at him.

I'll send one just in case, he'll be hit whether he moves or not. I'll send one full strength!

[DarkSasuke]

I was about to sidestep, but then notice the two others are sending strong forces as well to hit me after my sidestep.

-Did you think such a simple ploy would work against me?

The most energy-efficient solution is to just block the straight one.

I try to gauge the strength of the force through the curtain of weak forces, and send an approximately equal opposite force. Even if I'm off by a small difference, it'll be enough to cancel out most of it, and putting it up again wouldn't be cost-efficient for her, she'll be forced to cancel it.

After the collision, she does as I expected and cancels the force. I cancel mine and sends a batch of small soul forces to sense for other attacks.

I then feel my chest starting to compress under a powerful pressure.

-When

Without letting me time to speak or use a counterforce, my chest gets crushed as I get repelled straight through the wall behind me.

As soon as I go through the wall, I notice what I should have noticed much earlier.

Where did the fourth person behind the wall go? I am out of the range of the disruptive net of small forces, and so use my own to feel around where she was supposed to be.

I do feel a resistance matching her body, what is happening?

Does she have some way to become invisible?

[Kawaii 2]

Hehe, you trust your seed too much!

As for hiding my own body, I just need to subject my own body to opposite forces matching my body's resistance. It doesn't cause much pain as it is slight, but it does feel as if ants were crawling throughout your body.

Master Sofia understood it easily. This is why she is my master and you aren't!

[Sofia]

I feel an increase in faith coming from Kawaii 2, it was already close to the limit with my brainwashing, but it seems to have increased even further.

As her god, I can easily know the source of this faith.

I actually don't know what method she used to hide her presence, but I saw her close to the entrance before entering, and so designed this plan. If I don't get stronger quickly, I'm going to be overpowered by my followers. I have a bitter smile at that thought.

[DarkSasuke]

I decide to shake the question off my mind. I'll just assume she can hide either her appearance or presence.

Before even landing to the ground, I straighten my chest.

Without our laws and soul strength to strengthen them, we are actually in weakened bodies, we can die easily.

And as such, I must make sure to quickly tend to my wounds.

Even if my chest is unneeded [1], it would be problematic if it caused me a loss of other vital functions.

I start by using a force to inflate my flattened chest. Then, through the wave of pain that finally starts to invade my mind, I put each part in their original position one by one.

I break precisely some parts of the broken bones to make sure to stick them together solidly enough.

As for the flesh, I use the broken parts to pierce the parts and piece them together.

My chest did get smaller than before the events due to the size reduction of several bones implied by my method, but a few seconds after landing on the ground, I was ready to fight again. I can't allow myself to take a hit in the chest again, but as long as I sustain the pain, my chest is solid enough to handle a walk.

[Anna]

Now that things ended...

-So you had a seed?

I know the answer to this, but what interests me is the way she will answer, it'll give me information about how I will be treated now that she holds a piece of my soul.

-Yes, more or less. Let's not talk about it here, we'll talk about it later.

From her answer, I can get that she is pretty friendly, and doesn't hide her mood very well.

Then, who is the mastermind?

I then only notice her other friend. she is smiling meaningfully towards me.

So it's her.

[Sofia]

It isn't necessary to pass Kawaii 2 as the mastermind, but it is a precaution among many others, we never know what she might try. I already took the soul piece. But if she tries to ambush Kawaii 2 to recover the soul piece without suffering any consequences, then she will be disappointed to know she killed the wrong person, and she could still be alive to make her regret it.

-Anyway, let's go.

I say, but a voice interrupts me:

-Wait a second. Did you think I would die from such a thing? You made me angry now.

We already displayed all of our strengths and are at our limit, but I need to act as if we still have several trump cards we didn't play already.

I take a confident yet lazy tone.

-You're tiring, you know. But you're quite good. Let's do this: We help each other until we take over the school, then we can fight all you want once we made sure no one else has a seed.

-You really think you can even equal me with-

He stopped in the middle of his monologue.

After a second, he says:

-OK, let's do this.

The way he agreed feels wrong. As if he thought about something. But as long as we're careful about not getting ambushed later on, it's fine.

-We'll talk about the details another time.

We leave, on guard, leaving him alone.

[DarkSasuke]

They left. The reason I stopped talking when I was ready to resume the fight is that I felt a presence.

-Why force my hand in such a fashion?

[Moar]

-I didn't force anything upon you.

-You let your presence known just when I was about to refuse. It was an evident threat.

-Of course not, I'm not threatening you.

I lightly smile.

Though it wouldn't be any fun if someone won so early, of course.

[DarkSasuke]

I shiver.

That smile is dangerous.

It's both full of meaning and meaningless, I can't pierce the intentions behind this smile.

Something about that smile makes all the hairs of my body stand on end.

[1] They have a body of law (thought with the laws inactive, so they don't breath remember? They need to breathe only to talk since they are unable to use soul waves.