"How did he even copy my Sorcery? Was it a part of the experiments? How does one copy sorceries?!" He kept mumbling to himself, getting lost in his own thoughts.
"Watch out!" She grabbed him and yanked him away from Imito's dash.
"Copy or not, we're going to have to fight him!" She helped him stand up.
"She's right. We can't just call for help. They will ask what we were even doing in here." He got his attention back in the fight. He firmly gripped his blade once more and continued his pursuit, then swung his blade.
"Hah. Your sorcery is innately incompatible with my body. I had to tweak it a bit for it to work on a Magiborn." Imito's voice was surprisingly calm. But then his head snapped at him, his grin only growing bigger. "But hers is."
The blade phased through Imito, his body turning into soot.
"He can copy Treasures too?!" Pablo stepped back in shock.
"I have endless tricks up my sleeve!" Imito swung his forearm blades in rapid fashion, not giving him room to breathe. Then all of a sudden, he released soot to blind Pablo in the eye, causing him to drop his guard and get impaled in the stomach.
"Pablo!" She yelled, waiting for the moment to intervene. "Caitlyn, leave and find a way to photograph this. I'll hold him off!"
"You will?!" Imito took it as a challenge and repeatedly stabbed Pablo in the stomach, causing him unimaginable pain. No matter how hard he tried to push him away, Imito just found another way to pierce holes into his body. "Heal, heal, heal my little piggy!"
"Fuck off!" With pent-up frustration, he just unleashed his mana to knock him away. "Ahahaha!" Imito's feet hit the wall and launched him flying at Pablo again.
Suddenly, Imito disappeared into thin air, but Pablo recognised what it was almost instantly. "No way–" He instantly closed his eyes and defended himself against the countless silhouettes made out of shadows, with the real Imito hiding inside them. "This is Ayato's Sorcery! Just who the hell is this motherfucker?!"
He grabbed the real Imito and slit his neck; that was all he could do in the short window. The Magiblood spilled from the wound started glowing, then each drop combusted into a giant explosion.
The blast hit him hard, knocking him back through countless shelves and ringing his ears. "I can only assume that's another copy…" He pushed through the pain and stood up. "I don't know how many abilities he has. It's so fucking annoying!"
"Education at your age is important, really important!" Imito grasped every book he could get his hands on and threw them towards Pablo at dangerous speeds. "LEARN! ADAPT! IMPROVISE! FURTHER YOUR EDUCATION! MAKE UNCLE PROUD!"
Pablo manifested a giant mouth within his torso and ate every book. His ring glowed. Then out of the mouth in his torso a mixture of leather and paper flew. They weren't fast enough or hard enough to cause any harm, but there were so many of them that it acted as a sort of smokescreen. "Integrating your Treasure into your Sorcery…" Imito scratched his skin; his hands started shaking out of excitement. "...You're fucking amazing…"
"He's a Magiborn, so I can't tell his age. If he has Ayato's sorcery copied, he may be from the golden age. If he is, then he definitely has countless more copies he hasn't revealed yet!" After running the simulation in his mind, he concluded that staying on the defensive was the best move until he gathered more data. "At the end of the day, all he can do is imitate."
"Caitlyn can't realise the potential her magic has. Each soot particle carries heat like it just escaped from fire. If you compress it enough and cause friction." He released soot from both of his hands and closed his hands together; the particles got compressed into each other inside. "This happens."
He opened his hands and sent a burning sphere. Pablo avoided the direct impact, but the fire and heat it released hit the shelf behind him instead. "You missed!" Pablo used this opportunity to dash in and counter-attack.
"Nah, you just don't know what I tried to hit, piggy." The man's grin grew bigger.
Pablo felt the scorching flames behind him, causing him to turn around and look at the source of it. The entire library was catching on fire. "He is destroying the evidence!"
"AHAHAHAHAHAH!" Unable to contain his laughter, Imito began sprinting towards Pablo while swinging his forearm blades around. "This guy isn't just a nutcase. He is smart as hell!" Pablo jumped in the air to avoid his pursuit, then looked around to see if there was anything to stop the fire. "I need to find the water pipe. I can create a mouth on my palm to drink it and shoot it out of another mouth to stop the fire!"
"You want to cure yourself, don't you? Then you better hurry, little piggy!" Imito started to charge another flaming sphere inside his palms using the soot.
Suddenly, Pablo's eyes, the same eyes desperately searching for a source of water, are locked onto Imito instead.
The flames inside Imito's hands… are just little embers compared to the arson building up within Pablo's soul–within his eyes.
He appears in front of Imito and slices both of his hands off before Imito can even react. "You should've said that from the start." Pablo growled. "I'd rather die before I let you destroy my chance of living."
Imito cried out in pain and tears fell out of his eyes. Pablo didn't care–not one bit. He sliced off Imito's legs as well and struck his chest for the finishing blow, amplifying his sword with mana. The movements were identical to the frenzy Imito directed at Pablo, except these were driven by resolve and not by sadism.
"Copy this, you cheap imitator." Pablo pulled his blade out of his chest and struck Imito's neck and sliced it off.
He then kicked the dismembered head away and redirected his attention to the fire. "Now, I need to-"
"I didn't say you could tap into True Resolve yet, little piggy." Imito grabbed him by the shoulder, seemingly unaffected.
With quick movements mixed with panic and desperation all at once, he stepped back and created a safe distance between himself and Imito. "How is he alive?! No Magiborn should be able to sustain that much injury!"
Imito's Sorcery wasn't copying, nor was it related to copying in any way. His Sorcery grants him an unnatural amount of control over mana.
This mana control is at levels one cannot reach with natural training; not even Nasaki Ryuko can. This allows him to control his mana structure better as well, rendering him effectively unkillable.
But just like Pablo, Imito is a genius.
He can see the magic flow of others and bend his own mana to be identical to that flow, allowing him to copy the way it works.
After just seeing it once, Imito can use any form of Sorcery. And using his talent, he can even improve upon the design.
"You can fight me all you want! But I know where you bastards are keeping the Magiborns!" Pablo raised his blade. "I sensed mana from this castle, and it was distinct from yours. You're keeping it somewhere here, and I told Caitlyn about it!"
"Ahah." Imito grinned. "What the hell are you talking about? You really think we'd be that stupid? No hidden Magiborns here, piggy."
"You're lying. I told you I sensed the mana."
"Now that I think about it, there are hidden Magiborns here. You were so distracted by the Magiborns that you failed to take something into account." Imito took a step forward.
Pablo didn't just chat. He looked all around the room for anything that would help him put out the fire. "And what's that?"
"The mana you sensed came from The Caedis." He couldn't contain his sadistic laughter. "The Caedis are Magiborns, you dumbass!"
Pablo gasped, his eyes widened as he took a step back. This wasn't impossible; he did think about that possibility. But he just… dismissed it.
Surely they wouldn't do it to their own kind, right?
"Caitlyn would've told me…" He tried to justify it or even find an excuse for it. Anything. Anything that could help him prove Imito was lying.
"Why would she tell you her biggest shame? That her family is killing her own kind? You overestimated her, Pablo. At the end of the day, she's just a teenager."
Pablo dashed around the room and hopped from shelf to shelf. He had enough of Imito's lies; he just wanted a way to stop the fire and secure the books. "I won't let you get into my head!"
"I'm already in there!" Imito matched Pablo's speed and caught his ankle. He then raised his blade to cut it off.
The door of the library was flying through the air; it hit Imito and protected him from Pablo. "Who-" As Pablo turned around to see who it was, he exhaled in relief.
"You dumbass." Otoru stood tall, his hands in his pockets, his right leg raised up in the air. "Why are you oppressing minorities without me?" He grinned.