Hiroshi and Tatsuya both turo look where Yuki disappeared into the night. her knew if he was alive after taking such a kibsp; Unfortunately, they didn’t really have much time to think about it. Saki made her stance clear. She held the line keeping anyone from advang past her.

  They stared a little awkwardly at each other, not pletely sure what they were going to do. But Saki made their decision for them. She saw them both as threats, naturally. So she turned her attention to them. Her body disappeared and then popped up iween them. Spinning out, she took them both out with a kick to Tatsuya’s stomad punch to Hiroshi’s face.

  Being more resilient than Yuki, they only flew bato the pced s. Tatsuya saw it ing a little better than Hiroshi. He recovered quickly in mid-air and nded on top of a desk, though his force did cause it to slide backwards. When it came to a stop, he heard a strange moan pop up from behind him. The thought that he might be surrounded by more of Takako’s army put him on edge.

  Such a thought immediately left his mind once he took in the . “What…the hell?!” A strange odor wafted through the air. He quickly tried to shut his eyes, but he still heard the sounds of all of the different voices ing from around him. ‘What did Takako do to them…to make them do THAT?!’ He really started to believe in Yuki’s theory that it was mind trol. It was the only way to expin something so impossible.

  Tatsuya jumped off the desk wanting to return to the hallway immediately. He couldn’t take all of the sounds ing from the room any longer. Saki stood waiting for him, likely knowing that it wasn’t enough to take him down. She already had another fist ready for him. But he slipped around it with very little effort.

  Saki gred over at him, her left arm still fully extended. “Tatsuya…you won’t escape me this time.”

  “I’m going to have to be a little more serious this time around if I’m expeg to live through this.” He pulled up his shirt a little after it had been pulled down from all of the rough treatment. Their fight resumed.

  “Your death is assured this time.”

  Roughly adjusting his position, he shifted his weight around on his feet getting prepped for the fight. “I’m not really a fan of assured death,” he joked awkwardly, “I prefer the more certain life sort of thing.”

  Annoyed with his clearly ck of serious itment to their fight, Saki spun around to kick him. Unfortunately, all that she hit was the air with a disappearing image of Tatsuya. She groueeth with the bone nearly audible. “You coward! You won’t fight, you just run away!”

  Deeper in the hall, Tatsuya surfaced out of reach of Saki. He stroked his shirt with a little uer the near miss. “Death isly the sort of motivator for me.” All his joking, he khe gravity of his situation. ‘Hiroshi’s not really well suited to this sort of fight. His things need preparation and they restrict him to the rules along with anyone else. He ’t exclude people. So all it would do is create a stalemate and we o get to Takako before anyone else.’

  He gnced around the hall trying to find Hiroshi anywhere. After the opening attack by Saki, they lost each other and he didn’t need Hiroshi doing anything stupid. ‘I was better prepared for the attack than him. But he’s not dead from just that I know.’

  The hesitation was all that Saki o make atabsp; She grew more cautious of Tatsuya and his strange ability to dodge her unlike anyone else had been able to do. However, she ected with him that time. From the force of the attack alone, she pounded him backwards and through the floor partially. His body might have been able to take her attacks, but the building wasn’t made of such materials.

  Splinters and shards of wood jumped around his legs as he fought for a hold. He quickly lost his ground in a very literal sense. ‘Crap…this isn’t going to work…’ Just as the ground gave way he jumped away, disappearing from Saki’s sights for a moment.

  He saw the way things were going with Saki. ‘If I’m going to do this I’m going to o get out of the school.’ While he started trying to think of ways to get Saki out of the school, a crash from a neighb distracted the two of them. ‘Is that…’

  More noises came from the room. It became pretty clear who it was. Saki reacted soohan Tatsuya, being a blur. Tatsuya was half a sed te on his rea. “Damn it!” She was after Hiroshi to finish what she started. He pushed all of his speed to get into the . ‘I thought she wanted me… I don’t need her to have a short attention span!’

  The sound of desks breaking along with two fighters g echoed from the room as Tatsuya broke through the wall. He used everything he had in his speed to throw it behind his fist. It ected with Saki’s cheek shootihrough the room and windows out into the neighborhood in a rge explosion of dirt and debris.

  Tatsuya slid to a stop just before falling out of the school. He looked back at Hiroshi befng over at his work. A pilr of smoke in the distance showed him how far he had actually sent her flying. Sweat dripped down the back of his head realizing he overdid it. “Damn, I didn’t know I’d hit her that hard. I haven’t a clue what I hit into her.” He cpped his hands together praying that no one had been injured from what happened.

  “Tatsuya! What do you think you’re doing?!”

  Turning back to Hiroshi, he could see that he was uandably upset. “Hey man, it wasn’t part of the pn.”

  “What art of the pn then?”

  “I was trying to save you!”

  “And what about those that you might have killed!”

  “I wasn’t thinking about that at the moment.”

  “We’re in our own city! We’re supposed to be proteg the people here!”

  “I know that! But this sort of battle isn’t going to be !”

  Hiroshi rushed over to Tatsuya and grabbed him up his colr. It mostly just pulled at his shirt than anything else. “Tatsuya! We—“

  There was no ce to try to yell at him anymore as Saki burst through the wall with a very pissed off look in her eyes. During the entire argument, Tatsuya had been cheg on Saki knowing that she was no more harmed by the attack than the first punch she got on him. He pushed Hiroshi back as Saki’s collision with Tatsuya ripped them through the .

  The initial impact alo out a shockwave that rattled the entire room. As Saki’s propelled force sent Tatsuya back they decimated the floor and walls crashing into the oher side of the school.

  Tatsuya’s whole world felt like it had been turned upside down and shaken up in a blender and then poured out. He y prone in the amongst the bodies of other cssmates. It was the room that he waet. Kig her off of him, Tatsuya grabbed a couple of desks and spun them around him whag Saki with them. The metal and wood splintered into dust nearly, but they still dropped Saki into a different part of the school.

  Across the room and hallway, he saw Hiroshi hurrying to his side. “Don’t!” he shouted, holding up his hand towards his friend. “This is my fight. I’ve got her attention, you go where you o be!”

  “You ’t beat Saki alone!”

  “Hey, have a little fiden your friend!”

  “She’s been proteg Yuki from bullies since school started, she’s better in a fight than you are!”

  Coughing, Tatsuya just felt in his body what Saki had doo him. “I’m fully aware of that. But someone has to stop Takako and that should be you! Only you know what must be done, what has to be done! I ’t do it!”

  Grimag, Hiroshi’s face betrayed his distaste for what Tatsuya said. But his expression twisted and ged uanding of the situation. He put himself on the course and he knew what he o do as Tatsuya told him. As all the thoughts ran through his face, he finished reg things with his fate. “Fine, just stay alive until I kill Takako! If Yuki’s right, Saki should e back to her senses!”

  “Of course! I’ve got no pns on dying today!” He watched Hiroshi run off in the dire of Takako. O of sight, he turo look ba the dire of Saki and the cloud that covered her. She walked out of it shortly still looking pretty pissed and with her clothes a little torn up for the trouble. “No pns by me. I ’t speak for her pns…”

  Chapter 342 – The Reverse Mirror

  Walking out of the , Tatsuya met Saki out in the hall again. He gnced around at the dition of the school. In the distance, he heard fmes going off from Haruo’s fight that they left him to handle. “It’s a miracle that this school is holding together with everything we’re doing to it. Yuki’s going to be pretty pissed that we’ve wrecked all of his work.”

  “He’s already dead.”

  “Now you’re just making assumptions.”

  “He couldn’t have survived my kick.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.” Pretending that he knew what he was doing, Tatsuya tried to imitate something that he saw in a martial arts movie for a fighting stance.

  Saki gred at him like she was insulted in his efforts. “You’re full of openings.”

  “Then try me.”

  Taking the bait, she charged after Tatsuya without a thought to what he was capable of doing. He moved around her as she pletely missed once more. However, it was something that she had gotteo seeing and stopped. She spun around with her leg destroying the wall of the hall to toss a storm of debris at him.

  Some of the debris hit and a lot of missed. It staggered him out of his evasion and she closed the distanbsp; He k was ing, but could do nothing to stop her. Saki pummeled him into the ground, crashing him down to the first floor in a rain of debris.

  It took Tatsuya a moment, but he emerged from the debris and crater he formed. A bit of blood dripped down from his forehead where he smacked into the ground and foundation of the school. He examihe rest of his dition to be sure of no other injuries. While looking around he saw his shirt torn up from the fall. “You ripped one of my favorite shirts, Saki,” he shouted back up to the sed floor. “Hope you pn on repg this!”

  All he got for his troubles was some debris she shot down at him. He batted it away with it not having strength enough actually to harm him. Before he went back up, he looked around to find Miyako. He could see her further down near where they st saw her. She had her hands full with all of the students and others attag. ‘She’s still kig…I’m gd.’ As he began to jump, he felt the school shudder from all of their fighting.

  Just as he leapt back up to the sed floor, the third floor colpsed down near where Yuki inally fell. The damage spread quickly and colpsed the sed floor as well. Tatsuya paused, realizing that everything falling was on top of Miyako. ‘She’ll be fihat wouldn’t even harm her anymore…’

  Thinking about someone else other than his own wellbeing was a bad idea as he remembered. Saki didn’t give him much time to do nothing. He thankfully saw her ing and mao evade her attabsp; She improved her rea time against him and followed up with a sed swing. It required a lot of corre, whi the steps between seds was ay.

  He could dodge it as well, but not the third that she had. She was already on top of him and the amount of corre was almost ent. Tatsuya knew he couldn’t do anything to evade the attabsp; Putting up his arms, he did everything to fortify his position to her attabsp; The force of the hit knocked him back, but he mao stay on his feet.

  Shockwaves ripped through the hallway tearing up the fragile walls. The school shook a little as each hit it took made it less safe to remain within. More of the third floor came raining down around him. None of that stopped Saki from charging through. Since his defense mostly held, she didn’t pn to stop until he went flying.

  Each blow she left on him pushed him back further and further. While he didn’t have a good sense of space, he khat he was going to run out of floor soon. Behind him was the destroyed part of the school that Yori wrecked in his opening atta Yumi. ‘If I fall, she’s going to take full advantage of me being off banbsp; I o do something, pying defense isn’t helping me here…’

  Tatsuya tried to dodge Saki's punch, but it opened up his defenses. He ended up taking part of the power from her fist to his shoulder. It knocked him a little off bance, but it did at least put him into a better position against her. Taking her extended arm, he grabbed her and threw her down the hall the way she sent Yuki. “At least we’ll be out of the school now.”

  Following Saki, he jumped through the school on what remained until he came out to the night air. Saki had already nded safely, not giving him a ce to keep his momentum. He nded on top of a house that still somehow remaianding after Saki crashed through it. “I’ll be able to utilize the full extent of my powers out here.” Tatsuya suddenly became blurry to Saki’s eyes until she started to see two of him. “This is something new I figured out my power do. Let’s see how much trouble this causes you.”