Chapter Twenty-Two; Sibling Rivalry; Part One

I brought up my arm to block his fist just in time, the collision causing a light shockwave. I didn't even flinch at his fast approach, nor his attack. He had his other fist pulled back and I predicted he was about to start pummeling me with his fists, but I wasn't about to allow him to continuously overwhelm me again like before. I blocked his other fist with my other arm, then quickly ducked as he pulled his other fist back, a lightning bolt shooting out of my foot as I kneed him in the gut and sent him flying. It was nice seeing him being the one sent flying over and over again unlike before. However, we hadn't even entered our Element Drives yet and the battle was already rather intense.

He quickly flipped and caught himself, looking even more pissed off somehow. He fired a barrage of plasma beams at me and I flashed away, doing my best to dodge them and the explosions they caused. I fired dozens of lightning bolts at him in return as I flew, hoping to throw him off a little, but he flew as well to avoid them. We both flew through the sky, avoiding and blasting one another with our elements, dodging, deflecting, and sometimes our elements collided. I followed my instincts as we fought, all the while watching Raito as closely as I could.

I recalled the first time I had seen Atiyama and Akari fight, memorizing their movements as I watched them. I decided to do the same to Raito in that moment. I watched all of his movements as we fought and flashed back and forth, from way he punched and kicked, the way he fired his plasma, absolutely everything. The more I watched, the more I noticed. "I knew it... There's no way someone like Raito wouldn't have a pattern to these sorts of things..." I thought. Raito continuously flashed either toward me or away from me. When near, he'd attack me with a barrage of punches and kicks, and when far, he'd attack me with a barrage of plasma blasts. Whenever he'd land a hit or make me stumble is when he'd switch between the two, and it was always a barrage he'd hit me with.

I started to evade him and his blasts more, soon enough avoiding him perfectly. I punched and kicked him rapidly and he landed a couple hits as well, but I was expecting him to do it soon enough. As soon as he landed a hard hit, he moved away. The moment I saw him start to move away, I fired dozens of lightning bolts in the direction he flashed in, predicting where he'd stop. Each one hit him one after another the moment he stopped, the shockwaves knocking him back and forth. When the last bolt hit him, I flashed right above him with my fist encased in lightning, and I punched him down to the ground, a lightning bolt following afterward and striking him after he crashed. I could tell I had done a decent amount of damage from the shout of pain Raito emitted, but Raito wasn't one to stick with a strategy that didn't work out.

Raito stood up, panting heavily. I could tell how angry he was even from where I was floating. His skin began glowing mint green and his entire body became surrounded in a glowing, mint green outline. I noticed Raito take a deep breath before glaring up at me, eyes glowing as he entered his Element Drive. "I'm going to fucking kill you... I swear it."

I looked down at him, staring at him with the same cold glare I'd been wearing the entire fight. "Just come and try it..." My hair spiked up more and my entire body sparked heavily as I entered my Element Drive. I landed on the ground slowly and the two of us stared one another down. In an instant, we both flashed to one another at the same time, punching the other in perfect sync and our fists collided, causing yet another shockwave. I could tell he was holding back, testing me it seemed. I figured his technique was about to change, and that it did.

His technique got much more complex when fighting hand to hand, having perfected Atiyama's style of fighting. Unluckily for him, I had trained with the same moves Akari used herself repeatedly until I had them mastered. I blocked, parried, and dodged his chops and kicks, and he dodged mine just the same. Even if we dodged, we could still feel the force of each other's attacks. It seemed we were evenly matched at that point. His fists and my palms began colliding here and there, each clash causing a small shockwave around us. Noticing his pattern, I ducked quickly as he punched, palming his gut. He coughed, but I could practically feel the smirk on his face.

My instincts told me to move away, but he held my arm in place and kneed me in the gut. I gasped and grunted in pain, and he began doing it repeatedly, kneeing me about ten times and hitting me hard each time, to the point he almost broke something. Having had enough, I brought a lightning bolt down on us both, shocking him and hardly affecting myself. As he yelled in pain, I slipped from his hold and headbutted his chin, palming his gut and chest a few times as my lightning kept him paralyzed for a moment. I hit him as hard as I could one last time in the chest with my palm, firing a bolt of lightning point blank and sending him flying into a small hill.

Hearing the loud yelp of pain that came from him was quite satisfying. I was doing damage that was for sure, but just how much was something I wasn't sure of. I waited, looking at the rubble of the hill. "There's no way he's dead or knocked out, so what's he up to..?" I wondered internally. Suddenly, a barrage of plasma blasts shot out from the rubble and into the sky. I watched the plasma beams, waiting to see when they would come toward me. However, they didn't, and that's when it hit me. "Distrac-" I looked and saw that I was too late in noticing.

Raito had flashed to me and was holding his palm against my gut. "Here, let me return the favor!" He smirked wildly. Before I knew it, I was feeling pain all over, especially in my gut. There was a hole in my shirt and the spot he touched was steaming and red. I coughed, panting as I laid in a pile of rubble. He had fired a powerful beam of plasma at me at point blank, and the state I was in was the result. The beam he had fired had shot me across the wasteland and through a few hills, leaving me in the rubble of the last one.

I panted heavily, groaning heavily from the pain as I tried to stand. I had never felt so much pain in my life. My body was covered in bruises and the burn on my gut felt unreal, but I had to get up. If I didn't, he was going to kill me then and there. As I stood up, my vision blurred and my legs started falling asleep. "Shit... No... Not like this... Not this soon..." I fell back, my legs refusing to work. I could feel myself falling unconscious. I thought that that was it for me, that my brother was going to find me and I'd be done for.

Time seemed to slow down around me suddenly, the dust from my impact rising more slowly, almost looking frozen. I heard a voice, but there was no one around me, nor was it the vile voice I heard in my head a while ago. This voice was warm and gentle, soft even. It didn't take me long to recognize that that was the voice of my brother, uncorrupted by the hatred he had for me. "Stand up..." His voice was sad, and there was something else off about it. His voice sounded much younger, as if he was a child. "Please get up..." I heard the sound of dripping water as well. I couldn't see anything, just darkness, but my vision was slowly starting to return to me for some reason. I heard Raito's rage filled screams as he flashed to me, starting to accept my death before I heard the younger Raito's voice one more time. "You have to get up Sanda! Please!" The voice cried out, filled with sadness and anguish.

My eyes widened as my vision returned. I saw a crying, child version of Raito right next to the murderous and rage filled Raito as he flashed to me, a ball of plasma in his hand. Both of them were reaching out to me. A memory suddenly flashed through my mind: my vision red, a young Raito crying, an ambulance, other children screaming and crying. I don't know what was going on, but my brother was crying out for help, so I couldn't give up. I stood up and held my hand toward the sky, screaming a battle cry myself as I brought it down, several bolts of lightning striking the ground and blocking Raito's path to me, forcing him to stop and try to go around them, but I continued, more lightning bolts striking the ground all around me until it went full circle.

Raito growled, annoyed and enraged. He encased himself in plasma and charged through my lightning, flashing right to me. I looked at him, anger in my eyes as well as my sense of purpose returned to me. The reason I was there was to save my brother, not to kill him, and I wasn't going to let some stupid voice change that. Suddenly, a massive lightning bolt came down and struck me just as Raito reached me, the force of the shockwave blowing him back, and he flipped in the air a few times before skidding on the ground and catching himself. He glared at me as he watched my sudden change.

My hair spiked up even more than it already was, my body violently sparking as the lightning encasing me became even fiercer, sparks coming from the edge of my eyes as well. I looked at my brother, my gaze serious rather than cold, but this made him smirk for some reason. "Well...if we're gonna go all out..!" Raito suddenly began glowing even brighter. Every feature of his gained a mint green hue and began glowing, even his clothing, plasma like energy coming out of the edge of his eyes as well. "Let's see how you do at level two!" He smirked wildly as he flashed to me.