Chapter 56.1 - Darkened Steel

Darkened Steel
Meiling and Remilia were following Rulia from behind as they rocketed through the air. While Rulia was slightly faster than Meiling, she was not as fast as Remilia.

Remilia flapped her wings strongly, boosting towards Rulia for a first strike. Rulia quickly turned round, swinging Frostmourne. Remilia dodged over the blue flames with a spin just as Jingu Bang shot through the fire towards Rulia. With the Black Blade in her right hand, Rulia swung out, the Blade deflecting Bang upwards, only to be kicked firmly in the back of the shoulder by Remilia. Rulia could feel her bones vibrate from the force, causing almost intolerable strain. As she attempted to face Remilia, Rulia was suddenly slammed into from the front, shooting downwards at speed, the aggressor holding her tightly round the neck and right arm.

"Kazami Yuuka," mouthed Rulia, as Yuuka grinned back. Determined not to lose, Rulia pushed back, the two flying back upwards. She spun round in circles, trying to shake Yuuka off but she was far too strong. With her right arm pinned, she was unable to use The Black Blade, so she lunged out with Frostmourne instead. Yuuka let go of Rulia's neck to dodge, kicking Rulia's right wrist, to force her to drop the Black Blade.

Remilia rose an arm with Gungnir and threw it at the falling Blade, hitting with a loud clang, the Blade rapidly descending to the Atlantic waters below but not before a black chain from Frostmourne caught the handle. Rulia, a blue flame flickered over her left eye, swung Frostmoune and the Blade in a wide arc, forcing Remilia to dive out the way. Not letting up, Rulia headbutted Yuuka in the face, drawing blood. Distracted, Yuuka was then kicked in the knee and tossed over Rulia's head, her grip lost. She recovered enough to roll out the way of the Blade, still spinning round Rulia.

The deflected Bang curved round and again shot towards Rulia. With Yuuka off her arm, Rulia caught The Black Blade and with a single upwards slash, cut clean through Bang, each half dropping down towards the ocean as the midday sky began to darken.

Just then, white lines shot through the air at the fight. Yuuka quickly pulled out and extracted her umbrella to block one. They curved around Remilia, most likely due to her power over fate. No lines were in a position to strike Rulia. Meiling, however, had to dodge all incoming lines and hid behind Yuuka. Following the lines back to their source, Nagato Yuki could be seen, floating in the air.

Rulia took this time to quickly look up. Something was blocking the sun and stars had become visible. However, out of the darkness, came a huge blue hand descending from space. With all five digits pointing towards the fight, each finger fired blue beams, opposing the white ones, cancelling them out. The blue beams not only missed Rulia but also did not aim at Yuuka, Remilia and Meiling, seemingly aiming only towards Yuki.

A moment later, a yellow light, bigger than Earth shone down, illuminating the right side of Galactus, of which the hand belonged to. Galactus was enraged and turned round to confront another planet eater behind him, the light being its mouth, Unicron.

It was at this point, Rulia realised what was happening. Skynet and Yggdrasil were fighting over her.

As grey clouds began to set in above them, more white lines shot through the air. Remilia and Yuuka once again blocked but Meiling made the odd decision to dive down to distant Atlantic Ocean below. The rain started, Rulia quietly observing what was going on. Yggdrasil was clearly an aggressor but that did not automatically make Skynet an ally.

"Rulia!" called out Yuki, desperately, in an out-of-character fashion, "You need to get to sea level! I can defend you better down there!"

Rulia suddenly felt a shiver down her spine and looked over her shoulder to see Haruhi hovering opposite Yuki. Yuki's attacks were useless against her, fading away before they could reach half the distance between them. No matter whether Skynet was an enemy or not, Rulia did not want to have to deal with Haruhi. She dove as fast as she could, only to be grabbed round the leg by a white chain. As she was slowed down suddenly, another chain wrapped itself round her neck and then her body, securing her arms behind her back. When a growl, Rulia looked up to see White, holding a riot shield as a platform for her chains to shoot from. Haruhi was holding onto one of the chains, specifically the one round her leg. White was clearly injured, her earlier fight with Black proved to be damaging. With a strong tug, Haruhi attempted to pull Rulia back up towards them but Rulia resisted, matching Haruhi's power, straining the chain. As several of the chain links groaned as they were pulled out of shape, Rulia realised she could cancel Haruhi's powers just like Sasaki could.

There was a low hum as a red laser beam crossed the chains, cleanly cutting through all of them. Clearly annoyed, Haruhi glanced towards the firer. Nearby, Luka was hovering, her right eye glowing red. She made eye contact with Rulia but before she could talk, Gungnir was thrust through her chest from behind by Remilia. This did no damage to Luka, who also possessed the mimetic polyalloy. Luka attempted to coat Remilia with the liquid metal but was frozen in place by the nearby Haruhi. From behind Yuki, the Trick Master spacecraft soared past, followed by many squid-like machines known as Sentinels, the three cannons shooting at Haruhi. White blocked the cannon shots with her riot shield and summoned her own ★rock Cannon, charging up for a power shot at the Trick Master. She pulled the trigger, letting loose a massive magenta laser beam but before it could hit the Trick Master, Yuki flew between them, bending the laser downwards with her reality bending powers. Yuki reacted quickly to deflect another incoming yellow laser from Yuuka. But Haruhi teleported next to Yuki, Hand Canon drawn to the alien's head.

However, a black chain wrapped itself round Haruhi's wrist and pulled her downwards. This was what Haruhi had wanted. She dived down at Rulia, who had launched the chain. Rulia had expected Haruhi to resist the pull, instead of following it, and could not react fast enough to stop Haruhi slamming into her.

Haruhi flipped around in the air and pushed Rulia straight up, through the rainclouds above and into clearer air. She was seemingly unable to teleport with Rulia at such close proximity. Rulia, with her hands free, grabbed Haruhi's arm and attempted to twist it but it would not yield.

But then she remembered something she had picked up but a moment ago. Summoning Sasaki's Super Driver onto herself, she twisted Haruhi's arm again, who cried out in pain, unable to resist Rulia's strength when blessed with Sasaki's power.

Haruhi let go of Rulia who immediately tried to dive again but stopped a moment later as she realised the clouds below were not getting any closer.

Quickly glancing around, Rulia spotted red lines floating in the air, forming the edges of a box, in which she and Haruhi were inside. "The Loop," she growled. The Loop was a Sakura Card, a being capable of warping space with a box. Anything that went out one way would just come back the other way. But The Loop was weak against one thing, sharp edges. Rulia drew back The Black Blade to cut one of the edges of The Loop.

However, the sword suddenly felt a lot lighter as she swung it. To her horror, The Black Blade was missing its blade, which had been cut off at the hilt. The blade was in Haruhi's hands, who took a look at it before snapping it in half and disintegrated it into the air.

There was a sudden roar as a double-jawed red dragon rose up through the clouds. Slifer the Sky Dragon dove at Haruhi, its main mouth wide open.

"Chaos Control!" called a male voice, as Super Shadow smashed into Slifer's face, causing the dragon to recoil. Sentinels came up through the clouds, with high pitched shrieks. Cheeky laughs followed as The Monkey King and his many copies approached from the north, engaging a Sentinel each.

"All Delete!" Several of the Monkey King copies were vaporised as Omegamon flew from above with a sword strike. He was struck in the chest by a Dual Spark from below the clouds, that disappeared with the shrill of laser fire. Behind Rulia, something fell from space, violently shaking their surroundings. One of Unicron's huge fangs had been snapped off and fallen to earth, embedding itself upright and towering over the nearby fight, occurring tens of thousands of metres over sea level. It was safe to assume the fang was at least double the height.

"Rulia," spoke Haruhi, who was ignoring what was going on outside the box, "You do not have the power to end this senseless conflict. You are not a goddess, yet."

"Why are you talking to me?" responded Rulia, in minor strain. In this brief moment of calm, she realised how tired she felt. While the Super Driver had cleared her head, Frostmourne and the One Ring were sucking the energy out of her, especially out of her left arm.

"Because you have the potential-" Before Rulia let Haruhi finish her sentence, she jerked her head towards one of the red lines of The Loop, her ponytail blade shooting towards it. But it fell short, and fell off. The box tilted slightly as her ponytail fell through the bottom face and back through the top face into Haruhi's hands. "-and the determination to see things through." The ponytail disintegrated into fine particles. "You just need a little persuasion." Rulia gritted her teeth. She had seen a glimpse of what Haruhi had done to her hair and she should have expected it. Haruhi was capable of using The Hakurei Barrier, the ultimate cutting device. Then she heard a male voice in her head.

"Let me deal with her."

"You've been enough trouble as it is," mentally answered Rulia.

"You are not immune to her powers like I am," argued back the voice, "I can help you."

"With what? Murderous killing sprees?"

"I'm being serious here. If you die, I die. And what are you going to do? You can't even think straight and you have a sword and ring superglued to your hand. You've already been abusing my powers, how about you let the expert use them?"

"... Fine. I can supply you with any extra energy you need. But you do anything bad, I will destroy you from the inside. Understand?"

"Thanks for the encouragement." Rulia's familiar arm armour extracted upwards up her right arm but was unable to go up her left arm since she was holding Frostmourne. Similar dark armour clacked up her legs, abdomen and chest before finally folding a double horned helmet over her head. Red eyes began to shine through the visor.

Haruhi was unamused, "I think I know you."

"I'd be surprised if you didn't," said the armour calmly. Apart from the left arm, Rulia could not be seen or heard.

"Hmm," thought Haruhi out loud, putting a finger to her temple, "Qrull Zyling. Immune to godlike powers. Can smash through The Hakurei Barrier. Capable of invisibility, regeneration, faux teleportation. I also hear your weakness is hot water."

"Where did you learn that?"

"You can learn a lot from the internet, you know," smiled Haruhi, summoning a ball of steaming hot water in her right hand.

"You shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet," responded Zyling.