Maki twirled Playful Cloud, deflecting a wave of stars before she grabbed one of the end sections and clashed with the man himself. His fist glowed with a white aura as he smiled at her. She dodged his second hand and then blocked his follow-up kick. Maki parried two more attacks before she mounted one of her own. Playful cloud smashed into the man, who blocked with both arms raised in a boxing stance.
Instead of being blasted back with two broken arms like Maki half expected, his stance split open with one of his hands grabbing playful cloud's end. His other hand lashed out, which Maki ducked. She kept one hand on Playful Cloud as her other hand grabbed his extended wrist. Maki fell backwards, pulling the man with her. Planting a foot on his chest, Maki tossed him over her as a sharp pain shot through her hand.
Looking at the hand that had grabbed the man's arm, she found multiple small lacerations. Did he use the stars surrounding his wrist to shred up Maki's palm? It'd definitely make things more annoying.
Turning to look at the man, Maki found a giant cloud of dust with the star sorcerer casually pushing away a slab of rock twice his size. He was tough, that was for sure. Though Maki got the impression it wasn't because his body wasn't particularly durable. It reminded her of Yuta and, more recently, Isamu in a way.
Hitting someone possessing large amounts of cursed energy felt like knocking around a water tank. With the clan killer in front of her, it was more like punching a cliff face. Those stars were a pain to get through. A plan circulated in her mind as the stranger laughed.
"I'm Hoshino. It's nice to see a fellow warrior. One that doesn't die in an instant at least." The newly named Hoshino made a fist as his entire body glowed. "I'm not here to play patty-cake. Enough warming up. Let's enjoy ourselves 'til we die."
With those words, the man disappeared in a flash of white. The ground cracked as Maki, too, vanished. No one who might look on from outside could see them until they clashed a few hundred feet from where they were. Maki thrust using the end of Playful Cloud, which was met by Hoshino's open palm. He pulled it toward him, but Maki blocked his counterattacking fist with the other end. His chest glowed, but before the gathering stars could shoot out, Maki jumped and, using Playful Cloud, which Hoshino still gripped as leverage, drove her foot into the top of his skull. He seemed to fall with the blow as he did a front flip. He lifted his hand toward Maki with a yell of glee. His stars cut through the ground below before they shot up towards her. Dust trailed with them as Maki blocked as many as she could.
Her defense wasn't perfect, however. A few got through and pierced her body in multiple places. She tsked as the pain, somewhat muted, shot through her body. Her eyes strained to see through the cloud of dust as more and more stars advanced. She eventually dashed out of the cloud, but as soon as she saw any hint of the bright blue sky, she saw a shining white fist.
Getting Playful Cloud's middle section in front of it, she brought her legs up to wrap around the man's waist. Straightening herself, she brought up a red end staff and slammed it into the man's face. He seemed unfazed, the staff diameter too large to slip past the stars surrounding him. Maki smiled to match his as she ignored the pain of being shredded apart by the stars surrounding his midsection. With no fanfare, she slammed her left fist into the man's face as hard as she could. The stars weren't enough to stop it.
Hoshino's head snapped to the right as blood spilled from his newly opened cheek. Confusion momentarily overtook him before he smiled again. The stars stopped their orbiting to blast Maki off their bearer. Maki slid across the destroyed earth as blood dripped from her entire body, but her smile was ever-present. Isamu's words echoed through her mind as she repeated them to her opponent.
"Every technique has a weakness. Yours is quantity. Each star is potent, but you only have enough to protect two parts of your body well enough either to fully block playful cloud or to shred my skin." Maki said as her wounds slowly but visibly healed. Her new body was shaping up to be the perfect weapon. Has her heavenly restriction grown?
"You're tricky. No cursed energy or anything. Must be some kind of born-in binding vow, right? Fun," Hoshino said, rubbing his bruised and bleeding face. "Your weapon's several times more powerful than your regular blows, a special grade cursed tool, probably. Without it, I don't see victory in your future."
Not long after those words left his lips, the man blasted toward Maki. Meeting the glowing white fist, a shock wave ran through Playful Cloud from the sheer impact. He was putting more stars behind each blow now. Was he trying to break it? A special-grade cursed tool? Maki met several more blows with the same end of Playful Cloud before whipping the other end up, trying to go on the offensive. He blocked the blow with one hand and carelessly threw out another attack. Maki was forced onto the defensive as he hammered punch after punch into Playful Cloud.
His aim was clear, and each blow was so powerful that another blow slammed into the weapon by the time she recovered from the vibrations sent through Playful Cloud and the short distance she was pushed back.
Maki didn't think the man would punch her, even if playful cloud wasn't in the way. A soldier's weapon was their soul, and he was clearly trying to shatter hers. Maki's smile never left her face though, her focus dedicated to blocking the blows in just the right way. It didn't take more than twenty mighty blows for playful cloud to crack for the first time in its life. Another handful of strikes was all it took for it to break and fragment. The end section split in half diagonally, creating a sharpened point.
Maki reconciled at the turn of events as Hoshino brought back both fists, ready to shatter the weapon completely. He summoned every star to his fists and slammed them forward. Blood spurted as something cracked sickeningly.
Maki's left hand shot up just in time to catch Hoshino's left fist, but his right drove into her forearm and snapped it completely. With a smile on her face, Maki pulled the shocked ancient warrior towards her as she plunged the sharpened edge of Playful Cloud into his stomach. She dragged it across his abdomen, spilling his intestines with little difficulty. He had focused so much on refining his technique that she cut him down easily once she bypassed it. Maki dropped his hand as she sighed in pain.
The broken arm didn't hurt as much as she thought, and assuming her mystery regeneration worked, it would heal soon. But damn did he pack a punch.
Maki turned from the dead sorcerer and toward the destroyed estate, which they'd traveled a few thousand feet from during their relatively brief battle. She didn't make it more than a dozen steps before she felt heat from behind her. Turning slowly, she found a woman with tanned skin and blonde hair kneeling down to the sorcerer's corpse. The most surprising part was that the man had been set ablaze.
Standing and facing Maki was a pale man with medium-length black hair, a long braid hanging down over his face and ending just above his left cheekbone. The woman was accompanied by a flaming bird, which perched on her shoulder, likely a Shikigami. Similarly, a large black shadow surrounded the man. It was in the rough shape of a large man but undoubtedly a shikigami.
"Oh Hoshino. I figured you'd gotten into some trouble when you were unusually late." The woman said as the flames fizzled out. The smoke, or rather steam, cleared to reveal a nearly fresh Hoshino. His guts were no longer ripped open, and his face was no longer bruised. Reverse Cursed Technique converted into output? She was like Yuta. Maki blasted forward, Playful Cloud cutting through the air towards the back of the woman's skull. The dark-haired man moved faster than Maki thought possible, appearing in front of the woman and grabbing Playful Cloud.
He pushed the spike to the side with one hand and threw an elbow towards Maki with the opposite arm. Maki blocked it with her palm before flicking her other wrist, Playful Cloud's other sections snapping up with it. The man's free hand came down to block the blow before, both hands on Playful Cloud, wrenching it to the side so quickly he brought Maki with him.
Maki spun in the air before the shadow behind him seemed to morph. A giant black fist slammed into Maki, sending her flying. The flaming woman hadn't flinched, acknowledged, or given any sign she was worried by Maki's attack. The man straightened as Maki recovered, Hoshino slowly getting up behind him.
"Thanks for the save, Sol, really. Did you need to bring your brother though?" Hoshino asked, eyeing the back of the man's head, not out of anger but more out of annoyance. Like a kid's 'one more game' being refused by a parent.
"Mani comes with me everywhere, you know that. Besides, it's been a while since he got a good workout. I'm sure you're no more impressed with this era than he is." Sol said, also getting up from her kneeling position.
"Doesn't mean he gets to take my fight from me!" Hoshino shouted over her shoulder and towards Mani. Sol smiled in response as Mani rolled his eyes.
"You got your chance, and she slaughtered you. It's not your fight anymore." Mani grabbed his wrist as he stretched the tendon. He moved his neck from side to side as he slowly loosened up for the first time in one thousand years. Sol giggled at her twin's remark before sighing gladly.
"How 'bout we fight together? We've been gone for a millennium, so I think the name of the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad needs to be reestablished." They all turned to Maki after her words, their intent clear. Maki exhaled in annoyance. Taking them all would be a pain. The black-haired sorcerer seemed to be on the same level as Hoshino, and with that healer around, it'd be tough to put any of them down.
Maki felt a strange chilling sensation on her cheek. Looking down, she found what looked like a small black flame. Her eyes widened as the black-haired man, Mani, appeared in front of her. The cold sensation disappeared as his fist sped towards Maki. She brought her hand up but couldn't get her palm in front of the blow in time. The blow rocked her face and nearly snapped her fingers. Playful Cloud snapped up to smack away the shikigami flying toward her as her hand grabbed onto the man's wrist.
She pulled him toward her as she thrust playful cloud towards his throat. He disappeared suddenly, revealing Hoshino right behind where he had stood. Maki raised Playful Cloud to block his star-infused punch before maneuvering another of the staff's sections into the path of his kick. She let go of the section blocking the fist as he pulled it back and delivered an elbow to his chin before flicking Playful Cloud up to slash apart his midsection.
He didn't seem to care about the fatal wound and lunged at Maki. Unprepared, Maki wasn't able to block in time and took a powerful blow to the shoulder, blasting her back. On the star's shoulder was a black flame, which flared briefly before he, too, disappeared. Maki looked back to where the girl had first appeared to find both men standing in front of her, Hoshino's wounds flaming with reddish-orange fire.
Maki used this brief respite both to let her wounds heal and to consider the techniques of her opponents. Hoshino's was straightforward mostly and already well considered by Maki. The woman's had some kind of flame-based technique revolving around healing others. It was bad for two reasons. Maki no longer had an advantage in prolonged combat; she wasn't the only one who could heal. Two, it gave the two men much bigger balls. If they know non-immediate fatal wounds mean nothing, they can trade serious damage for even a scratch on Maki, and it'll be worth it. That's of course assuming the healer has infinite cursed energy reserves. But Maki wasn't confident in surviving until she ran out because they were definitely landing more than a scratch.
Ultimately, Maki would need to kill the girl first, but with her brother protecting her, it was easier said than done. That one's technique seemed based around the black flames. They seemed to serve as marks to which the man could teleport or use to teleport the marked target. It reminded her a lot of Todo's technique, giving her a headache already. With a teleportation technique, pinning down the healer would be near impossible. She'd have to kill her so quickly, her brother doesn't have the chance to activate his technique.
Alternatively, she must have him burn the black flame and kill her before another one could be created. There were also the two shikigami. The man's was likely a vessel to mark a target while the man himself was the real threat. The flaming bird seemed more menacing. But if Maki had to bathe in its fire to kill the woman, she would. Maki ran a hand along the blade tucked in her waist, grateful for the boon Isamu had given upon her. It was exactly what she needed in this situation.
As if on cue, the woman's shikigami flared to ten times its size as the two men advanced. Lines of flame shot out of the birds' wings, as if rivers of fire were streaming through the air. Mani's shikigami advanced as Hoshino circled around to flank Maki. Maki, in a split-second decision, pulled Playful Cloud's sharpened section away from its two blunted ends, snapping the chain.
The new Playful nunchucks snapped up to punch the shikigami away as the sharpened end swung behind her and redirected the punch from Hoshino into the ground. Dust exploded upward, covering them all. Maki felt a faint movement in the surrounding dust. She leaped off the ground and high into the sky as the many rivers of fire crashed down. She landed in short order to see the two unaffected by the flames. How unfair, flames that hurt her but healed them.
Racing back in, Maki struck Hoshino with a flying knee. Hoshino put a hand in front of the knee, but it still knocked him away. Mani met her as she turned. She stabbed out with Playful Cloud which was met by a palm strike. The sharpened end pierced his hand, but he simply grabbed hold of her hand and reached the arm to the side. Maki blocked his other hand with hers, but the shikigami behind Mani rose above them both and punched down at Maki.
She whipped her hand, the one holding the sharpened end, up to block the shikigami with its master's own arm. The shikigami seemed to turn intangible as its fist passed right through the arm and Maki herself. Small tongues of black flames covered the path it traveled. They all flared to life, disorienting Maki. She teleported mere feet but the sensation of the move made it impossible to prevent Mani's fist from slamming into her face. Her head snapped to the left before a star-covered fist rocked it in the opposite direction.
She was blasted away by that one, only to be disoriented again. Maki sped up as soon as she felt the sensation, Playful Cloud coming up to stab Mani's arm as she received another blow to the face. She punctured his forearm as he pulled it back, and the other end of Playful Cloud slammed into him, shoving him to the side.
Playful Cloud was ripped down his arm and through his palm as he was. A wave of flame passed over them all. It did minor damage to Maki, but the fist that slammed into her side didn't. Mani pressed his slight advantage and pushed her back, right into a shower of stars. Her skin was shredded and flesh pierced as she continued her back and forth with the dark-haired man.
Maki roared, pushed through a wave of flames with dozens of stars mixed in. Her skin was red, and cloths reduced to tatters as she slammed Playful Cloud into Mani with all her might. He was blasted away, and the arm he used to block was completely broken off. Maki, eyes red and thoroughly over with all the bullshit, dash toward the woman. She was barely detectable to the flame wielder as Playful Cloud zoned in on the base of her skull. A black flame planted on her flared to life as Mani appeared in a flash of fire. Maki tossed aside the two sections of Playful Cloud that weren't broken and pulled Isamu's dagger from her belt.
She planted it in Mani's side, blasting him away. The flaming shikigami expanded and wrapped its wings around the woman. Playful Cloud pierced right through it as Maki endured the flames. She felt Playful Cloud sink into flesh as the unmistakable squelch of a fatal wound fell upon her ears. The flames died down, revealing Sol with her heart skewered.
She heard a roar of anger from behind her as Hoshino rushed her from the side. She blocked his full power kick with Playful Cloud, gripping each end with a hand. The broken and battered cursed tool finally gave out as it split into two handfuls of splintered wooden ends. She pushed off the ground like a sumo wrestler and, taking Hoshino by surprise, drove each end into his neck. She twisted the ends before pushing and pulling the ends around, cutting around his neck as she pulled with primal rage.
Maki's burnt and tattered flesh was covered in bloody gore, as the head was ripped from his shoulders. Her pants were nearly destroyed, and the fire and tearing completely ruined her jacket and shirt. The only thing covering her chest was left over bandages from Shoko's treatment.
Maki turned to Mani, expecting to clean this fight up without too much trouble, and found quite a tremendous surprise.
"A sorcerer approached us a millennium ago. Able to raise the dead, he said. Before we went into battle… He offered a contingency. Should we die, he could bring us back, rebirth us as cursed objects to be revived in eras to come. I was the first to die among our group, Sol gained immense power in return. Twins, they're one person as far as the universe is concerned. So when one of us died, the other gained their power." Mani's pitch-black shikigami moved from behind him to exist over his right shoulder as a bright orange phoenix appeared over his left. "To die, with me still holding her back… that's it, you're dead."
Mani's left eye exploded into flame as his right flared with black fire. His broken arm and bleeding side snapped back together and healed fully. Maki's eyes were laser focused. She was thirsting for blood, no signs of mercy were detectable as her primal instincts, the ones dampened by what she now realized was her own twin, came flooding back. She clenched her bare fists, determined to rip his heart from his chest.