The Breaking Point

Darian immediately lunges forward and uses a palm strike. He thrusts his palm deep into Ciel's stomach, the impact sends Ciel flying back at the mountain near the casino. 

With the shock of Ciel suddenly disappearing from his side, Kou acts quick and tries to hit Darian in the head with his ice staff. However, Darian acts quicker and throws a spinning roundhouse kick right at Kou's face. Kou tries to block the kick with his staff, but Darian's kick shatters through the ice staff and sends Kou flying.

"I tried to talk you out of this situation, guys. You can't blame me if I'm a bit harsh, you know?" Darian starts to talk, standing alone, in front of the doors of the casino.

Ciel, quickly recovers and starts rushing towards Darian. "Since talking didn't work, I figured I had to punch some sense into you two!" Darian said, after throwing a right hook at Ciel's face as he was running at him. The punch drives Ciel down to the ground. Darian continues with a stomp.

Ciel grabs Darian's foot, gritting his teeth and narrowing his eyebrows. Darian looks down on Ciel. "Don't be so mad. This is what you wanted." Ciel pulls Darian down to the ground and puts him in Achilles ankle lock. 

Darian rotates his body towards the direction of the ankle lock and gets out. He then delivers a left hook aimed right at Ciel's face, not losing a second. Ciel protects his face by covering it up with his elbow. He then tries to hit Darian in the face with a kick, using his left foot. 

Darian grabs Ciel's kick and forcefully puts his foot down, then pulls him towards himself. He then headbutts Ciel right in the nose. 

But right as Darian has Ciel vulnerable, Kou strikes back with the perfect timing. He slams a solid ice hammer right on Darian's face. Another solid ice structure, a pillar of ice follows the hammer's trail and hits Darian in the chest, dragging him along and pushing Darian away. 

Kou drops his hammer, as soon as he does so, the hammer melts away. "Ciel, are you okay?" Ciel rubs his nose, then wipes away the blood. He also wipes away a drop of tear. "Why does everyone keep targeting my nose?" 

Kou pulls Ciel up from the ground. "So, what's our plan, Charcoal?" Ciel eyed Kou up and down, his eyebrows narrowing. He then looked at the horizon, watching as Darian threw aside his jacket and tore apart his clothes. "Don't call me that." he said, looking back at Kou.

Kou chuckled. "You still haven't answered me, you know." Ciel sighed, rotating his shoulder. "This guy's clearly advanced in physical combat. So what we need to do is overwhelm him, don't go in alone. I'll try blasting his face, you should stay back and try to freeze him."

"So I'm supporting now? That's the thanks I get for saving your ass?" Ciel rolled his eyes in response to Kou. "I'm more capable than you in combat. Or did you want to switch roles, take all hits from him? I can be supportive, if you want."

Kou cracked his neck and confidently smirked. "Just you watch and learn, coal boy. You won't need to support me, but it's appreciated regardless!" Kou creates another ice staff, this one seems thicker than the previous one that broke. He then starts to rush in towards the approaching target, Darian.

As he ran towards Darian, Kou froze over the ground he walked on, sliding on the ice and gaining more momentum. He then went into slam the staff on Darian's head, but Darian ducked down and dodged the attack. Darian then uppercut Kou in the chin. 

Kou threw his staff up into the air right as he got hit by the uppercut, he froze over his chin to block the punch. Darian's uppercut shattered the ice on Kou's chin, but Kou seemed to be fine. He grabbed his staff and pommeled Darian in the head. 

However, the strike just seemingly never made contact with Darian. He brushed it off and knocked Kou away with a left hook. He didn't stop there, grabbed Kou by the back of his head and pulled him in, slammed his knee into Kou's face.

From the background, Ciel yelled out. "You can do this Kou! I believe in you!!" 

Darian threw out multiple jabs into Kou's face, then knocked him flying with a final right hook. 

Kou coughed up, his face covered in blood. A single tear ran down his eye, as he yelled out to Ciel. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Kou tried to wipe away the blood from his face. "I'm being supportive!" Ciel yelled back.

Ciel then walked over to Kou and grabbed his ice staff, swinging it around to shake the blood off of it. "Okay, brain freeze. Do you want to teach me anything else, or should we execute my plan?" 

Kou punched the ground, annoyed by Ciel. He then got up from the ground and wiped off his blood from his face. "You want me to support you? Fine. I'll support you." 

Darian raised one eyebrow. "Hey, are we playing tag here? You guys keep switching up." Ciel slammed the staff down on the ground, a small smirk curved up to his lips. "Don't worry, this is the last time." 

"It better be." Darian said, before starting to walk towards Ciel. Kou instantly froze the ground Darian stands on, and also freezed his shoes as well. Ciel took the opportunity and rushed at Darian. 

Darian, after failing to get his feet out of the ice, tries to punch Ciel as he comes at him. Ciel ducked under Darian's arm and slammed the back of the staff into Darian's chest. "Wow, you work out quite often, don't you?" Ciel remarked, after hitting Darian in the chest. He felt as if he couldn't hit him with the staff quite hard enough.

Ciel then turned back around and hit Darian in the face with the staff. The tip of the staff broke away. He created a burst of wind beneath his feet and blasted himself away from Darian. 

Darian broke free from the ice and rushed towards Ciel.

Ciel held his staff sideways, the tip of the staff facing towards Darian. He then channeled his spell through the staff, and a burst of dark flames blasted Darian in the face.

When the flames extinguished, Darian spat out. He seemed unharmed. When he continued to walk towards Ciel, Ciel channeled another spell through staff, blasting Darian in the face. Ciel used the same spell three more times, but in the end, Darian was undamaged. 

Darian grabbed Ciel's staff and threw it away, then punched Ciel right in the face. Ciel took the punch, but he fought through the pain. His nose started to bleed again. 

Ciel threw out a couple jabs, a burst of wind would brush over Darian with each strike. He then, unexpectedly, slammed his left elbow right in Darian's face, then kicked him right in the shins.

Darian, however, doubled down and slammed his foot on Ciel's kneecap. But right as he was about to deliver a punch to Ciel's ribs, an ice pillar raised from the ground and blocked Darian's blow. A few more ice pillars raised from the ground, creating a wall in front of Ciel. 

Ciel coughed up blood. He was breathing heavily, but he still took in the opportunity given to him by Kou, walked around the ice pillars. 

Sparks started to form around Ciel. And in the blink of an eye, Ciel punched Darian right under the eye, a trail of pure black lightning followed his punch. Ciel didn't stop there. He chopped at Darian's neck, the same lightning still following his hands. 

Ciel then delivered a back kick right on Darian's ribs, this time, the lightning surged through his leg and smote Darian, sending him flying. After the surge of lightning striked, Ciel collapsed on his knees, panted heavily. Kou ran up to him.

"Dude, are you okay?" Kou grabbed Ciel's shoulder, trying to pull him up. "Yeah, I just need to recover for a second..." Ciel responded, while holding his knee in pain. "The guy just blowed my knee into pieces." 

Kou crouched down and placed his right hand on Ciel's knee. He then created multiple layers of ice all around Ciel's knee. "Did you break any bones or anything?" To which, Ciel simply responded with: "Not any that I'm aware of... Though he might have broke my nose, I don't know." 

"How romantic," Darian speaks out of the smoke caused from his body slamming against the mountain. "Sorry to interrupt, ladies. But this is no place to make out." 

Ciel's eye twitched in annoyance, he looked back at Kou, but Kou didn't look at him. A drop of sweat ran down Kou's cheek down to his neck. "How is this guy unharmed, after all of what you just did?!" 

Ciel swallowed hard. He held onto Kou's shoulder and got up silently. "Same plan." He said. "Hey Sunshine! You mind explaining what's up with you? You're like indestructible."

Darian chuckled in response. "What are you talking about? I'm not indestructible. I'm just doing the most basic stuff. Don't tell me you can't coat your body with your mana?" He grinned, looking straight at Ciel.

"Don't bullshit me! That's no mana coating!" Ciel yelled out in defiance, however he wasn't sure if Darian was lying at all. Darian could deceive him, but his eyes weren't mistaken. Still, he continued to deny. "I just smote your ass hard enough to hit you into the mountain and leave a crater the size of your body. And you just shrugged it off like nothing happened. You're telling me that's just a coat of mana?"

Kou nudged Ciel on the shoulder. "Hey, Arthur called him the Mana guy, remember? What if he isn't lying?" Ciel looked back at Kou, then forward at Darian who walked towards them. "The Mana Weaver. You might be right... Speaking of, where's Whiskers?"

"You kicked him in the guts!" Kou yelled out, clearly angry. "He's a cat, did you expect him to spring back up and brush it away like it was nothing?" Ciel shrugs, a blank expression over his face. "He's a king, isn't he? I'm sure he's been through worse."

"I'm getting bored from all of this talking..." When Ciel turned back around to look at Darian, he was face to face with him. Darian's fist glowed with blue light as he delivered a right hook so strong on Ciel's jaw, Ciel was sent flying.

Kou instantly covered his entire arm with ice and lunged towards Darian. However, Darian ignored him and appeared right in Ciel's tracks as he was flying in the air. With another punch, Darian smashed Ciel into the ground. 

"You're not even worthy of me to use anything beyond simple techniques, ashy brain." Darian loaded up his lead leg and stomped Ciel right in the face. He then stomped him again, and again, until he drew blood from Ciel's face.

But he wasn't done. He loaded up another kick, his entire leg glowing with a blue light as he stomped Ciel on the body again. Ciel curled up into a ball, lying on his side in pain. 

"If I'm correct, there's 192 more bones in your body that I can break. Brace yourself, because I plan to break all of them." Darian said, smiling as he loaded up another kick.

However, the ground they all stood on froze up. Pillars started to rise up from the ground, fast as bullets and even stronger than bullets. A trail of pillars started to rise up and move towards Darian. 

Darian had no choice but to back away. He started to leap around the ground, avoiding the pillars. Kou looked up at Darian as both his hands rested on the frozen ground. Pillars from all directions moved towards Darian, locking him up.

With nowhere to go, Darian coated all of his body with mana, his body glowing blue. He used one of the pillars as leverage and launched himself towards another corner, full of ice pillars, curling up into a ball and he smashed through the pillars.

When Darian got through the prison of pillars, Kou created a thick wall of ice in his track which Darian also smashed through. When all else failed, Kou created a chunk of ice beneath his feet and raised himself from the ground. He ran on the chunk of ice to gain momentum, his right arm was fully frozen still. He leaped towards Darian who was also still on the air.

Darian coated his entire arm with mana much like Kou and went in to punch him. Kou also threw out a punch.

Both their hits clashed mid-air, sending shockwaves. Same shockwaves sent Kou flying into the ground, breaking his ice structures and the ice on his arm. However, Darian was unaffected and he hit the ground just fine.

He walked towards Kou. "I have to tell you this, kid, you're already pretty hurt. And none of your injuries are caused by me." Darian continued to walk, before instantly appearing right in front of Kou, ready to throw out another punch.

Kou stands up and he tries to cover his body in ice to block the punch, but he fails to do it in time. Darian's fist glows as he punches Kou in the shoulder. Kou takes up a stance as he tries to fight back. 

"Wait, that didn't do any damage. It didn't even... hurt?" Kou questions, looking up at Ciel as he feels his legs shaking... eventually he realizes that he's fell right on his back onto the ground. "What did you... do to me?!" 

Darian smiles and leans down to get a better look on Kou's face. "Oh, nothing much. I only pushed you far enough to make you structurally vulnerable. But I have to say, you were already pretty vulnerable before. You were damaged."

"S-Structurally vulnerable? Damaged? What are you talking about?" Kou said as he tried desperately hard to move. But he couldn't.

Ciel, from the background, tried to get up as he coughed up blood. "You... You can hit someone in their mana structures?" 

Darian turned around with a grin on his face. "You're still standing? I wasn't expecting that..." 

Ciel held his shoulder in pain, as he stumbled on his way towards Kou and Darian. "Kou... I'm sorry. This is my fault." Sparks of electricity started to form around Ciel. 

Darian chuckled in response, as he was about to speak. But he was interrupted by Kou, who lies flat on the ground. "Ciel, what the hell are you talking about?!"

Ciel let go of his shoulder and wiped the blood on his mouth. "Remember when I made you and that red haired guy collapse your spells? This must be it. Your mana structure was already weakened by that."

Darian tapped his chin and he spoke in a friendly manner. "Oh, I get it. This blue haired freezer collapsed his spell before. That's why he was so vulnerable. And when I hit him in his mana structure, that was his breaking point and now he's in this state, correct?"

Ciel exhaled, electricity was sparkling all around his body now. He melted the ground he stood on. He stood in a way that made him appear like he was going to lunge at Darian any second. "Yeah. And now I'll have to kick your ass on my own."