The Promise of Tomorrow

Chapter 28

As Origami had caught Kurumi at the palm of the hand, Shido and Haruka had crashed onto an abandoned warehouse where they continued to fight. Haruka was fast and agile, using the surroundings to her advantage as well as her exosuit's ability to camouflage leaving Shido to focus on blocking and guarding attacks as he based Haruka's location on sounds. As he looked around, he saw Haruka drop down from a support beam of the ceiling and then started to speak.

"Why don't you just do as what Kurumi says? Everything will just be better if we do as she says," Haruka asked, and was secretly aiming her gun at Shido. "Do you really think all of this is worth it? You're going to kill me for a new beginning that we're not sure is guaranteed," Shido asked, not wanting to fight this out as much as possible. "Who cares about that? If all goes to plan, nothing will matter. Your death won't matter, and everyone will be happier in the new life, even you!" Haruka argued, wanting Shido to sacrifice himself. He sighed, knowing that his opponent won't be convinced no matter what and said:

"Well, I guess we won't see each other eye to eye. I guess... 

I'll have to knock you down."

"I'll make your defeat painful, you selfish bastard." Haruka replied and started to become silent again and a mask with an oni's face etched onto it covered half of her face. The Ghost exosuit seemed like a normal exosuit plated with lightweight metal, barring the fact that it could camouflage as well as wielding an assortment of tools and weapons. However, despite that, especially with Haruka's speed, taking her down was not an easy task.

Raising up his arms to fight. Implementing the fundamentals taught by Y/n, Shido positioned himself in orthodox form, with his left arm and leg on the lead. However, unlike the former, Shido's stance was more of a defensive style rather than an offensive one. As he did, purple armored gauntlets and greaves served as both protection and a weapon. After that, Shido stomped his foot, and purple Reiryoku scanned the area, and gave an outlier of where Haruka would be. 

Using that to his advantage, Shido used a small burst of Reiryoku to dash forward and unleash a compact and fast hook which was barely evaded due to the surprise of how fast he could be. As Haruka stepped back, Shido was about to throw a right straight.. 'What the hell are you doing?! You're far away from me, do you think you can hit me at this distance-' Haruka's thoughts were then interrupted as her head was thrown back by the force of the 'punch'. Shido immediately dashed in, aiming for a body shot but stopped midway to focus on defending when Haruka took out a dagger with an attempt to either counterattack or aim for an exchange of hits by aiming for his body also.

Shido swiped it away, and used another small burst of Reiryoku to boost his attack and speed and aimed to keep her away. Suddenly, the blue haired fighter hardened his guard, as if he was on a defensive state again. Immediately, the outline of Haruka's body then disappeared; making her invisible once more. 

Immediately, Haruka knew what Shido's fight plan was. He was going to be on defensive almost all the time, and would build up Reiryoku and would make small and sudden moves, using short bursts of Reiryoku. Now knowing this, Haruka could be heard removing a pin, and chucked something at Shido. Immediately, a flashbang exploded right in Shido's face, causing for him to be unable to hear the footsteps due to the loud ringing in his ears.

Taking this opportunity, Haruka rushed in and mixed in close range and middle range combat. This left Shido to defend himself and was given no time to even interrupt her by any means without using Reiryoku. Shido tried to move left, but he could feel wind slice past him. Moving right caused him to get shot and forced him to use Camael to heal himself. Stepping backwards made him bump into an abandoned container, and that's where he realized that he was cornered.