From Another World

38. Protect Those Dear to You

"Shall we begin the battle for the armbands?"

Tsuna walked down the stairs at the side, heading to where Adelheid and Kyoya were. I followed after him, Gokudera looking at us.

"Tenth? Where are you going!?" He shouted at us.

"Hibari-san said to watch his fight," Tsuna answered. "I have to get closer."

As we descended, Gokudera in tow, Reborn caught up to us and hopped on my shoulder. Kyoya and Adel were talking and I could barely hear them from the sound of the waterfall next to us. But Kyoya made the first move, swinging his tonfa at her. She dodged and jumped into the waterfall, activating her flames.

The intensity of the flames pushed Kyoya back and the area around her exploded into ice. We were now close enough that we could hear her. I looked at Tsuna and saw how dull his eyes looked, making my heart squeeze.

"I hope you learn something from this fight, Tsuna." I softly say. Reborn obviously heard me say it from his position on my shoulder and patted my head.

"This is the immaculate fortress; the complete castle of ice!" She announced. "The diamond castle has a calcified coating from the flame and the glacier. It's completely impervious to any physical or natural attack. And, in the face of flames, its 'freezing' power can handle any flame attack. For example, it can repel even an attack on the level of Sawada Tsunayoshi's X-Burner."

"Even the Tenth's X-Burner?!" Gokudera asked incredulously.

Tsuna looked worried and I wanted to hug him and tell him that everything will be alright but... I can't. I can kind of remember this fight and I know that he learns something valuable from Kyoya, especially since this is a fight for pride.

Kyoya was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of ice clones of Adel. And by a bunch... the number seemed to be almost in the five hundreds...

"Your opponent will be those girls," Adel said, looking down at the puppets. "From the start, you never had any chance of winning."

The fight continued; Kyoya fought his way through the puppets, making his way to Adelheid. He jumped when he was close enough and swung his tonfa, hitting the ice as hard as he could.

From first glance, there was no damage done to the glacier, but as the puppets rose back up, my eyes were searching the clear domain for a very small object.

"The diamond castle cannot be shattered. And on top of that, the Blizzardroids will continue to be reborn," said Adel. "It is only a matter of time before I confiscate that armband of yours."

Kyoya was starting to pant, getting exhausted from defeating the puppets one by one.

"Yikes," commented Reborn, "at this rate, Hibari is going to run out of stamina."

Kyoya landed in the middle of a group of puppets. "You're misunderstanding something." He dashed forward, knocking down the puppets once more. "In some cases, small animals aren't weaklings. Otherwise they would have all been eradicated from the Earth by now. Small animals have their own way of surviving."

Everyone perked up at that statement. Kyoya held his hand up, revealing Roll. "For example, it's not my tonfa that will destroy your ice castle, but this little one here. Your prized castle seems to blow away any kind of flame attack from the outside, but can it withstand attacks from within?"

The ice encasing Adelheid started to crack from different points, shocking the ice guardian.

"Impossible!" Adel shouted. "How could it come from the inside?!"

"Needle Sphere Form."

The small spheres expanded, breaking the ice further and shattering Adel's ice castle instantly. She fell on her knees and Kyoya came up behind her, bringing a tonfa to her cheek.