Authors note:
Speaking: "…"
Thinking: '…'
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Oni's POV
Standing on the roof of the building where his objective was located, Oni quickly scanned the area and used an item known as the Shadowspike, an advanced tool capable of cracking almost any lock without breaking it, to open the door and let himself in.
With his aura constantly concealed and his movements meticulously trained to remain unnoticed even when in plain sight, he moved past the few guards and employees still working without drawing attention. Soon, he found himself standing behind the door to the security room, where all the camera monitors were located.
'Mask, you're up,' he mentally signaled to his still-dormant manifestation before silently opening the door. Inside, the security guard sat with his legs kicked up, a donut in hand. Signaling that it was time, the construct formed itself from Oni's black aura, silently flew above the man, and then swooped down, startling him before settling onto his face.
The man instinctively covered his face with both hands as horns sprouted from his forehead, a second pair of misty black energy arms formed on his lower torso, and his skin turned jet black.
"I'm in the game, baby. Alright, let's do this," the possessed man said, clenching his fists before sitting back down.
"Remember, delete all footage immediately. No one needs to know I've been here," Oni remarked before quickly leaving the room, maintaining a mental connection to the mask.
Moving through the building, the mask informed him whenever a guard or employee approached, ensuring he could avoid detection. He reached the door to the boss's office without issue.
"How's it looking in there?" the chain-user asked through the mental link.
"It's empty; you can enter without any problems. Oh, and I took the liberty of hacking the system in the meantime, so the main PC should be free to use as well," the possessing mask reported nonchalantly.
"Great work. I'm moving in. Keep me updated," Oni replied before carefully opening the door and stepping inside.
'It's huge... you could fit a freaking football field in here,' he thought, shocked by the sheer size of the office.
Approaching the computer, he found the PC unlocked, just as the mask had predicted. At first glance, everything seemed normal, no obvious connections to the support gear distribution. Digging deeper, however, he unearthed hidden files and encrypted chats.
The files confirmed his suspicions: the head of this branch, Selene Crowley, was operating independently from the company in distributing the gear. Oni copied all relevant documents onto a USB stick and turned his attention to the encrypted chats. One was with Hawks, another with a person called Nerius, and the third with a Markus Steel.
Just as he was about to decrypt the text, a dangerous presence rushed toward him. From the right, a purple crescent-shaped aura attack hurtled in his direction. Prepared for such situations,thanks to Sensei Bakugo's rigorous training, Oni acted without hesitation. He drew both of his weapons, slicing the attack with one blade while hurling the second toward the attacker's aura signature.
The blade struck into a wall, and the other nullifying the aura attack. A slow, deliberate clapping sound began to echo through the room.
"What a surprise. You have outstanding reflexes and sensory abilities," a female voice spoke, her presence still hidden within a looming shadow.
Annoyed that she remained out of sight, Oni twisted the chain still embedded in the wall and twirled the other around himself before unleashing an elongated slash aimed directly at her torso. She blocked the attack but failed to notice the other chain's movement. Before she could react, the chain ensnared her, and Oni pulled her close, revealing a young woman.
She had dark purple hair tied in a loose braid and deep violet eyes that seemed to pierce through any facade. Her attire consisted of black formal pants, high heels, and a dark purple high-collared blouse. A pendant shaped like a raven's claw hung from her neck, and both hands were covered in jet-black gloves.
"Well, that's a nice compliment, Mrs. Crowley, though I can't say the same about you," the masked man teased, unimpressed.
"Don't think it's going to be—" she began, her aura starting to radiate, but it quickly vanished as her eyes turned grey and she stared blankly ahead.
'She fell for it,' Oni thought, quickly issuing a command. "Tell me your real name, allegiances, motives for the weapon distribution, and how you can use aura."
The woman stood stiffly, her voice mechanical as she began: "My name is Noctra, the Shadow Warden, a seventh-generation member of the Aegis, and—"
Before she could finish, a burst of dark purple aura, accompanied by a raven of the same color, exploded outward, breaking the chain's hold and pushing Oni back.
Panting slightly, she glared at him, her violet eyes burning with rage. Oni spun his chain blades defensively, creating a temporary barrier as he thought, 'I figured it wouldn't hold her for long. Bakugo and Midoriya can break free in less than a second, after all.'
'Mask, release the security guard and get back here now. We're leaving as fast as possible. We got what we came for.'
The dark raven curled protectively around the enraged woman. "You think you're slick, using such a dirty trick on me? Think again, because you just made me mad. So congratulations on your funeral!" she yelled.
Dark energy swirled around her hand, forming a scythe that seemed to absorb all light. The weapon's handle was wrapped in dark leather, and the blade was etched with glowing runes. Its aura was malevolent, as though it carried the echoes of every soul it had claimed.
Her aura began to fluctuate violently, the dark purple energy now interwoven with jet-black streaks. Suddenly, the aura spread from her feet, engulfing the entire room in pitch-black darkness. Oni could see nothing as her form began to vanish into the veil.
Desperately trying to use the comm link Midoriya had given him, Oni cursed when he realized the signal was blocked due to the darkness. 'Shit,' he cursed inwardly, sensing her presence behind him just in time to narrowly dodge a fatal strike from the scythe.
Defending with his chains proved challenging; the battle quickly turned into a game of cut and dodge, with Oni on the receiving end dodging attacks from both the woman and her manifestation, though getting better at it by the second.
'How the hell is he still sensing me and dodging my attacks? While his offensive power is laughable, a rookie like him shouldn't be this good at sensing skills... unless...' she thought, easily avoiding one of his poorly-placed strikes.
'Seems like all those times I "died" during Sensei Bakugo's training sessions weren't for nothing. God, I still shiver at the thought of those days,' Oni mused, his mind flashing back to the grueling training with his master.
________________
At the Start of Their Training
Aincrad
Floor 5: Royal Treehouse
Standing in a circular wooden room with tatami floor mats were two individuals. One was a young man with spiked silver hair and blue eyes, dressed in a light blue yukata. The other was a younger teen boy with purple hair and dull, grayish-purple eyes that looked perpetually sleepy. He wore a similar outfit, but his was black with purple accents.
"Alright, let's move on. I've shown you everything you need to know. The rest is for you to figure out on your own. Come on, I'm going to show you something," the silver-haired man said as they exited the room, stepping outside where Midoriya was waiting, leaning against a wall. Midoriya was also wearing a yukata, green with subtle white accents, and the right side was draped over his obi, revealing ocean-like tribal markings covering the right side of his torso.
"Ready!" Bakugo commanded as a black-and-green ethereal portal of mist appeared before them. Gesturing for Shinso to follow, they stepped through. On the other side was an expansive plain with an outrageously large mountain dominating the center.
"Welcome to Floor 50: The Sensory Peak," Bakugo announced, crossing his arms with a small smirk.
Taking in the atmosphere, Shinso felt as though something was missing from his body. After a moment of pondering, he realized his sense of taste was gone.
"I see you're already noticing the beauty of this place. The higher you climb the mountain, the more of your five senses will be blocked out. At the summit, the only thing you'll have left to perceive the world is your aura. And that brings me to your next training." Bakugo's smirk grew more devious with each word.
Feeling a cold shiver run down his spine, Shinso watched as Bakugo's blade seemed to appear out of nowhere. In an instant, Bakugo stabbed it into the ground, and the ticking of a clock echoed around them. Moments later, Bakugo pulled the blade free and, faster than Shinso could react, lightly cut his cheek. The wound healed almost instantly.
"Good, we're all set now. I've trapped this floor in a time void with a decrease in temporal activity, and I've frozen your bodily functions. From now on, for about three years, you'll be stuck here. Your goal is to climb to the summit as fast as possible and stay there, refining your sensory abilities until I return to fetch you. Don't worry about anyone noticing you're gone, you told them you had a week off and were hanging out with friends. I've synchronized the three years here to match that week," the master of time explained, sporting a devilish grin.
"But I never told them that! And I have school tomorrow!" Shinso protested.
"You're right; you didn't. I did. And you wouldn't believe how easily they believed me," a female voice chimed in.
Bakugo's tiger-striped tattoo began glowing red, and Shira appeared in her humanoid form.
"Mind manipulation truly is a blessing, don't you think, Katsuki?" she added in a devilish tone. The lycanthrope king quickly agreed before the two left Shinso alone. Thus began his first time-distortion training.
After completing this training, Bakugo gave Shinso a week's reprieve before pulling him into another session, this time on Floor 55, Mandalor.
Floor 55 was a vast yellow space desert with a single, extremely futuristic city. However, that wasn't their destination. Instead, Sensei Bakugo dragged Shinso into a cave on the outskirts of the floor. The cave was home to a monster known as the Death Sniffer. As its name suggested, it was nearly blind but extraordinarily adept at sensing aura.
"This time, I'm putting you in another time loop, only in this cave. Your goal? Don't die. The Death Sniffer has no sense of sight, hearing or smell, but it's incredibly skilled at sniffing out even the faintest aura. Good luck," Bakugo said with a sadistic grin before vanishing.
As expected, Shinso was eaten by the monster over twenty times. Each time, the time loop resurrected him. After finally managing to deceive the creature momentarily, he released his aura in a brief moment of happiness, only to die again.
Having spent an immeasurable amount of time in the cave, Shinso's aura became nearly undetectable to anyone except masters, even without him trying. When he was finally freed from the loops, Bakugo didn't subject him to more. Instead, he had Shinso spar daily against himself and Todoroki.
One day, after an intense sparring session, Shinso and Todoroki lay on their backs, gasping for air, while Sensei Bakugo looked as though he'd just finished a light warm-up.
"God, why don't you ever go easy on us?" Shinso complained, sitting up straight and still panting heavily.
Turning to leave, Bakugo paused as the question caught his ear.
"Because the world won't go easy on you."
"Strength is forged in struggle, not comfort."
"I don't give you easy training because I'm preparing you for what's ahead," he said before walking away, leaving the two exhausted boys behind.
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Back to the Fight
‚Thank God I listened to him. Now I see how true those words were,' the mask bearer thought as he exchanged deadly blows with his opponent's scythe, narrowly dodging a claw strike from the crow. Backing off slightly, the form of his opponent vanished again. However, even without sight or sound, he could still see Noctra as clearly as the night sky.
‚If this keeps up, my endurance is probably going to run out before hers. I need to try something different!' Oni thought, starting to spin both his chain blades rapidly around him.
"I hope you can forgive me, Mrs. Noctra, but I'm going to have to rearrange your office a bit," the chain user taunted.
‚What the hell is he talking about?' the shadow user wondered, observing her enemy closely.
After his comment, Oni began throwing both blades through the room, carefully aiming them to bounce and ricochet off surfaces, forming a web of constantly moving chains and blades.
‚Damn, what kind of attack is this supposed to be? These chains aren't even hard to dodge. Is he trying to create a shield to keep me away?' the purple-haired woman thought, lazily dodging the occasional incoming blade. As she drew closer, Shinso kept a keen eye on her, waiting for the right moment to spring his trap.
‚Now.'
He vanished, completely erasing his presence. Selene tensed, ready to search for him, but before she could react, the chains in the room shifted patterns. Two of them phased through her scythe, ghost-like, and bound her hands.
Momentarily immobilized, the remaining chains disappeared. When she turned her head, her eyes widened in shock. Oni had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, both blades in hand, on a crash course with her neck.
‚Shit,' she thought.
‚Got her,'he thought as time seemed to slow for both of them.
Frantically searching for a solution, Selene's face betrayed her struggle, until it shifted into a gentle smile.
"Release: Recollection," she muttered just before the blade made contact with her skin.
A massive burst of energy erupted from her, accompanied by a techno-magic circle forming beneath her feet. Purple aura enveloped her, knocking her aggressor away. Stepping out of the swirling aura, her appearance had completely transformed.
She now had black hair and a sleek, dark armor that clung to her form, made from a material that absorbed light, rendering her almost invisible in shadows. Raven feathers adorned the armor, shifting as if alive, and her glowing violet eyes pierced through the darkness.
"To think I'd have to resort to this form. It's utterly unacceptable that you forced me into this," she said calmly, her eyes fixed on Oni. "So, are you ready for round two?"
In awe of the shadow warden's new form, Oni almost didn't know whether to find her breathtakingly attractive or to panic at how much harder the fight had just become. A familiar presence drew his attention to the side, and a smile crept onto his face.
From his left, the black mask formed from his aura entered the room, floating beside its conjuror.
"I got here as fast as I could, Oni. So, where's our... oh, hello there, young lady. Oni, would you mind introducing me to this prime specimen of a woman?" the mask said in a lustful tone, eyeing the perplexed Noctra.
"Not now, Mask!" Shinso snapped, grabbing the aura construct with his hand. "Remember this, Noctra. What comes next is the beast you've awakened," he said as he placed the aura mask over his own.