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Return of the Fallen Volume 7 Chapter 69

*CRACK KA-BOOOOOM!*

A chain of thick lightning cracked out and buried itself into Kazuki’s chest.

The moment Kazuki told Danny to strike him with lightning, Danny did just that.

The lightning was powerful and it knocked Kazuki backward. Kazuki though endured and slid on his feet for several feet until he dug down with his toes and stopped in place.

He could feel the burning electricity drill thousands of different paths through his body before it found its way to the soles of his feet and disappeared into the ground. Several internal wounds were opened in his body and he could feel a numbing sensation all throughout his torso and legs.

*Cough cough*

Kazuki hacked out a mouthful of blood and spit it on the ground. Wiping his mouth he noticed Danny preparing another bolt of lightning.

“That’s enough. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were actually trying to kill me, what with the no hesitation and all.”

Danny’s large metallic arm curled up and he inspected his metal hand for a moment, sensing the power within circulating.

A cold voice stuck between artificial and human came out as he spoke.

“Kill you, no. You asked me to hit you with lightning and so I did. I knew you wouldn’t die. Have you already forgotten that I was observing you from inside your soul world? During the battle with the Motozu, you took its strange beam attack of water and lightning. That ability completely obliterated your arm all the way up to the shoulder. However, after the battle, you consumed the Motozu’s body, along with other Ancient beast’s bodies. Your body has evolved beyond what a human is and therefore I am quite aware of how much you can take before things become too serious. From my estimates just now, you sustained mild injuries, maybe some rudimentary numbness but seeing as how you only coughed up that much blood, you must have already healed by now as well.”

Kazuki rolled his eyes. Danny was smart, maybe a little too smart sometimes. He had been with Kazuki for a while now and had observed Kazuki all this time. He watched his many fights and battles. He witnessed Kazuki’s evolution so to speak and understood Kazuki and his body at a different level. He knew how fast Kazuki could heal and after watching him all this time he knew most of the limits Kazuki could endure. It was not a joke to say Danny knew Kazuki’s strengths as well as his weaknesses.

“The way you say it and that lack of hesitation is somewhat annoying.”

Danny rubbed his chin in thought.

“You’re not used to someone telling you how things are unless you ask about it yourself.”

“That that right there. Stop analyzing. You just got a body again, you’re in the outside world. Don’t think about that shit right now and just test out your body for a bit, let loose already!”

Danny thought for a moment but Kazuki yelled at him.

“You’re doing it again! Just let loose!”

…

“Maybe your right. I’ve been stuck inside a cage for more than a hundred years.”

Danny lifted his right foot and then his left, checking his own balance. Making a fist a few times he shook his limbs out as though he were literally loosening up. He put his hand at his waist as if he was about to grip a sword but then he remembered he no longer had one of Kazuki’s branches from his soul tree to use.

“Kazuki, I want to get a better feel for this body and let loose as you said but I feel somewhat naked without a weapon. Help me out and give me a sword.”

Kazuki opened his ring and shaped some god metal, matching its size with Danny’s proportions, he tossed it over.

As soon as he caught the sword, Danny could feel a change in his new foreign body.

(This feeling of a weapon in my hand, even though I’ve never held this sword in my life, it feels as if it’s always belonged in my grasp.)

Danny gave the sword a few normal swings, yet these normal slashes cut apart the air with ease.

(This is the feeling. Just like when I was in Kazuki’s soul world.)

Danny took a stance. His metallic back as straight as an arrow with his right foot slightly behind him and his left foot slightly in front of him. He lowered his waist a few inches and held the sword at his side.

“Kazuki, do you mind if I try and cut you?”

Danny’s eyes glowed with a silver light when he said this. Kazuki in return had a fire in his eyes as well.

“You can try but with that big fat body of yours, I doubt you can. Give it a go anyway if you wish.”

Kazuki held out a hand and waved Danny over almost tauntingly so.

The inscriptions lighting up along his body, Danny shouted and swung the blade forward with a powerful slash.

“FIRST FORM! BLADE OF WIND! HOWL FOR ME!”

The wind tore and made a strange haunting whistling-like noise as his sword accelerated forward. It moved so fast it seemed to split from one to two and then three. Not only that, now that Danny had the element of wind from the Motozu core, several blades of wind sliced out, threatening to divide Kazuki into multiple chunks of flesh.

Kazuki’s expectations weren’t too far off but with this much, he could handle it.

Kazuki smiled before taking a single step forward. It looked like the blades of wind cut right through his form but a fraction of a second later the blades of wind appeared to go through him. The very next moment Kazuki’s body blurred and he left a few afterimages as he appeared at Danny’s back.

“Danny, you’ve watched me all this time. You should know by now to never call out an attack beforehand. It gives everything away.”

Danny smirked.

“Your right.”

Danny’s arm spun completely around. Without real joints, his limbs could move completely independently in any direction. His arm twisted around and slashed behind, right at Kazuki’s neck. The air shrieked and several blades came racing toward Kazuki.

Kazuki’s fist though moved even faster.

*Bang bang clank bang!*

With precise movement, Kazuki accurately hit the flat side of the blade and knocked it away repeatedly without cutting himself.

When he saw an opening he curled up his fist. Using aura strengthening, every muscle fiber in his arm along with his ki, Kazuki punched Danny square in the chest.

*BAM!*

Danny was knocked backward and tumbled in the air but using wind aura he recovered in almost an instant.

Kazuki stared at the spot he punched and could see not even the slightest hint of damage. He knew this would be the case. He understood perfectly well just how strong god metal was but at the same time, he felt slightly bitter. After all the strength he had gained, all the life and death battles, the near deaths, the starvation, imprisonment, killings. After all of this, he could leave a single mark on Danny’s body. At the same time, Danny had basically gone from the third stage when he had been alive, to immediately what was essentially the equivalent of the 6th stage in one leap. The world was not a fair place, this solidified that fact in Kazuki’s mind.

Although he felt some bitterness, he wouldn’t trade Danny’s experience for his own. To die and be trapped in someone’s soul world for over a hundred years, only to come back in a fake body. A body that couldn’t eat, fuck or enjoy a good drink. Even for all of that strength, Kazuki felt it wasn’t worth it. Still, there was jealousy over the abundance of durability and magic affinity.

Kazuki took a step forward and flew into the air a blue fireball in his hand.

Danny swung his sword once more. This time several blades shot forward along with a hundred-foot wall of water.

“Not enough Danny!”

The fire hovering Kazuki’s hand increased in size almost a hundredfold as he threw it forward. The blades of wind distorted and were devoured by his fire before the fire continued on and collided with the wall of water.

The fire burned at several thousand degrees and turned most of the wall of water to steam in an instant. Steam expanded outward in every direction blocking everyone’s sight but both Kazuki and Danny used their aura to sense the other person’s presence.

Kazuki slapped his hands together with a terrifying force which pushed all the steam away in an instant. As soon as he saw Danny’s body he threw another fireball toward him. Danny slashed downward and cut Kazukis fireball. In the sky, hundreds of sword images came flying down like a hail of death.

The hail of swords turned into spears of frozen ice as Danny turned the leftover steam into more water and then ice.

Kazuki simply swatted the ice shards away, not a scratch on him.

“Not bad for the opening moves Danny, but let’s take it up a notch shall we.”