18 - Abyssal Frostbite

Ichika Hanasaki was brimming with voltage. She felt the thrill of the predicament, finally able to enjoy her own company, and be confident in her prowess.

At the same time, Aizawa’s three most loyal soldiers, for the first time in a great while, felt true fear. They felt the intensity of the battle, and under Ichika’s deadly confident gaze, they began to doubt their odds of survival.

Reiner pushed himself forward and escaped Nightseer’s blade, quickly acknowledging his friend’s actions that saved his life. But in his mind, a different question arose. Would it have been better to just die and disallow the already monstrously strong opponent from becoming even stronger?

Nightseer stared at Ichika, holding onto his blade as if it was his only lifeline, the rope that prevented him from plummeting down a mountain range. He finally decided to make a move, sending a flying slash of raw soul prowess at Ichika's direction. She simply held her arm out and blocked it.

Now, it was Ichika’s turn to attack.

She rushed down at the three, and with one swipe, conjured a blast of ice strong enough to completely destroy the building and launch them all away! Before Reiner could even react, he found himself being chased by an Ichika that was not only tremendously faster, but also stronger. Another such swipe slammed him into the roof of a two-story building.

Ichika was going to chase him down, but was intercepted by Katya. LV1-S struck her with a heavy right overhand and followed it up with a kick to the head, knocking Ichika away. She rushed at her, but her seemingly unstoppable charge was halted by Ichika. They swung at each other without an ounce of hesitation on their minds, and Ichika was slowly but surely getting the upper hand. It slowly transformed from an equal fight to a merciless beatdown, as Ichika forced her way into landing more and more heavy strikes, all of which significantly damaged LV1-S.

Towards the end of their exchange, Ichika, taking a step to the side and narrowly avoiding a powerful jab, put all her strength into one single uppercut. Katya protected herself, but the strike was strong enough to start breaking through LV1-S’s arms.

“What the...fuck...”

“Our only advantage of physically overwhelming her is completely gone...” Nightseer thought, rushing to the scene. “But it’s not just that.”

“It’s as if every single strike of hers is imbued with the instant freeze!”

Ichika continued pummeling LV1-S with a fury of strikes, each of them bending and freezing the hardened mech’s arms more and more. Nightseer was detected during his approach, and Ichika politely told him to not get any closer. She conjured a frozen spear that appeared much more dangerous and lethal than usual, and chucked it at Nightseer at full speed.

“Soul Interpretation.”

“Deflection!”

The spear was deflected, but Ichika dodged it with ease. In fact, it almost hit Katya herself.

Katya, whose mech was on the back foot, was saved by his comrades’ interference. Reiner too approached the scene, albeit he had a rather bloodied face.

“The parry artist is the most annoying one.”

“The mech is the one I want dead the most.”

“And the tough-skinned guy...”

Ichika took a while to think. Reiner threw a small dagger at her, and she gently stepped aside to avoid it.

“I guess he’s my first target.”

Ichika rushed at Reiner at full speed, and the latter had barely enough time to focus all his efforts into protecting himself.

“Katya!” Nightseer yelled. “Don’t let them separate from us!”

While those two were trying to catch up to them, Ichika brutalized Reiner. She grabbed him by his clothes and shoved him head first into the ground, dragging him across the street before eventually flinging him into the sky. She jumped up and, with a swiping motion, not only knocked him down but also ripped out a chunk of his stomach.

Katya finally got to the place, and while Nightseer was trying to fight off a threat that seemed borderline impossible to contain, Katya took a moment to check up on Reiner.

“The hell is up with you?!” Katya asked, in shock seeing her friend so bruised and battered. “She did this to you?”

“I had quite a bit of toughness too.” Reiner said, wiping some blood off of his mouth. “What the hell do we even do against this?!”

“The same as we were trying to do before.” Katya said, turning to face the threat. “Find a killshot and kill that crazy bitch.”

“Right. Come on, let’s go.” Reiner said, stepping forward. “Let’s not let Night get overwhelmed.”

“Both you and Nighty...”

“Hm?”

“Don’t die on me, okay?!” Katya said.

Nightseer was miraculously keeping up with Ichika, courtesy of Ichika still being a little unsure as to how to counter his parrying. She tried to fire cluster-like projectiles, she tried multiple ice blasts at different angles. She realized that what needed to strike Nightseer was either a combination of attacks from multiple attacks, or an attack with such great destructive potency that it would be borderline impossible to parry.

At that moment, Ichika had a plan.

Katya and Reiner rushed in, taking turns trading blows with Ichika before realizing it was utterly useless. Despite being in a three-on-one, Ichika was the one with the unfair advantage.

The true essence of that advantage being...

“This feels so nice.”

“I feel...warm. And calm too.”

“It’s like I’m next to someone that loves me.”

She struck the ground with all her might, creating another powerful ice blast which knocked her opponents off balance. She swiped at Katya a few times, and LV1-S was quite heavily damaged, way more than Katya would anticipate. She kicked the mech away and prepared to launch herself at it, finishing it off.

“No way, Katya’s too weak to tank this!”

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“My toughness reached its maximum!” Reiner thought, dashing between them and preparing to take the full force of the attack himself. “If she’s not careful enough, I’ll cut her down with ease!”

“There he is, there’s Night! Come on, make her turn around!”

“We fucking got this!!!”

Ichika struck Reiner with all her force and momentum, and the latter was in great pain. A moment later, Nightseer rushed at Ichika from behind. But instead of turning around on the spot, she dodged to the side, forcing Nightseer to miss. As she faced the two, she saw Katya get into the distance too.

“It’s still a three-on-one...”

“And all of them have some type of defensive mechanism. So annoying.”

She took a moment to look at her own arms and body, noticing quite a lot of small cuts and bruises.

“They’ll keep chipping at me until I make a fatal mistake. I can’t let that happen.”

Katya led the spearhead, and the three of them rushed Ichika down. Despite her tremendous force, the danger of having her attacks deflected and the circumstance of fighting three powerful targets at once forced her to keep retreating. She hopped from one rooftop to another, dodging barrages of flying slashes and the occasional daggers and throwing stars. Until she found an opening to strike.

One of her backwards jumps covered a larger distance than the others. She took the few seconds she gained to break into the building from above, and from there, she broke out of the window, jumping into the window of another building - that one closer to where the three enemies would be. Sensing that all three of them were above and headed for her, she climbed out of the window and lunged at Reiner - grabbing him once and rushing away. Katya and Nightseer attempted to chase her down, but she unleashed a hailstorm of ice daggers, spears, and any kind of weapon there was. Not only did they chip away at her targets, but also acted as a smokescreen.

Ichika dropped Reiner onto the roof of one of the buildings and punched him in the guts with all her strength. Reiner barely withstood it.

“No, not yet...she can still react if I attack her...”

“I need them to create an opening for me!”

“Ah, damn it! If she uses whatever she used to kill LV1, it’s gonna kill me anyways even if I have maximum toughness!”

“Your toughness... it’s only physical, isn’t it?” Ichika asked, before unloading another such punch. She dug her claws into Reiner’s stomach.

“Flash Freeze.”

The flash freeze lasted a few seconds, and already managed to severely damage him. He, as a last resort, converted all of his accumulated toughness into an exceptionally sharp blade. What was supposed to be a surprise attack to end the battle turned out to only do half of what it was intended to do. Ichika stepped back and tried to block and hold onto it with her left hand, but got her hand chopped off.

“So that’s how the weapon manifestation works, huh?” Ichika asked. Reiner swung the blade again, but Ichika avoided it and was now up close. “Too bad you didn’t do shit with it!!!”

She struck Reiner hard enough to knock him far away, onto another rooftop. Then, she pointed a finger gun at him.

“ ✦ Befall ✦ ”

" ✦ Abyssal Frostbite ✦ "

No matter his toughness or preparations, Reiner’s situation was unsalvageable. His body was destroyed from the inside, erupting into an icy mess, killing him in an instant. Ichika slowly turned around, and there they were, Katya and Nightseer, who just bore witness to that gruesome fate.

“Who’s next?” She said, glaring at them.

“My hand’s gone...” Ichika said, looking at her wound. “It’s okay, I can fix it pretty easily.”

She quickly regenerated her hand, as if it was a scar or a cut. The claws looked sharper than before, and ready to tear down all in their paths.

“I can’t blame Sakuto for trying to look cool with his stupid shadow manipulation when I’m saying corny stuff like ‘who’s next’ in a battle...”

“But it feels awesome.”

“Everything just feels so nice.

“She...she killed him...” Katya said with a shaky voice.

“Katya...” Nightseer said, even his face looked disturbed, he gritted his teeth but deep down he knew there was little he could do against the monster. “We have to leave. Right now.”

“To hell with it, I’m not leaving until that bitch is dead!!!” Katya yelled, charging at Ichika.

Ichika, at the same time, was calm, collected, and determined. Her eyes looked so...calm, like a sea in an alternate world where the wind was impeached. In a moment’s notice, the battlefield of Krakow would once again be struck by abyssal frostbite, except this time, on a scale never seen before.

“An unparryable attack strong enough to defeat both of them...”

“An abyssal frostbite aimed at whatever has the most ice...”

“Then let’s end this with a bang.”

Katya rushed at Ichika, who greeted that advance with a punch and shut it down completely. LV1-S tried to punch and kick its way to victory, but was promptly outstruck by the far more agile and dangerous frozen soulful.

Nightseer, who was at first rather hesitant about engaging again, found himself forced to fight as to not let his ally die. He closed the distance rather fast, and while Katya was stunned, he took the burden of fighting Ichika on his shoulders. He swung his blade and threw precise striking combinations, but Ichika’s hand-to-hand prowess was too much. She jabbed him, following it up with a vicious kick to the liver and a kick to the head. She knocked him towards Katya with a powerful strike.

As she rushed in to finish him off...

“Flash Freeze.”

Katya’s quick reaction time arguably saved Nightseer’s life. LV1-S embraced him and blocked the attack with its arms, losing both of its forearms due to the lethal freezing. Ichika struck them again, knocking both of them into the distance. And she stared at them. She stared at them with such concentration that had her eyes been a beam of light it would’ve melted both of them.

“Whatever fuckery happened as a result of her eating her own attack was probably a one-time event. I don’t want to believe that she’s immune to her own ice.”

Nightseer looked back at her, also concentrated, but in his case, he was simply trying to survive.

“I can’t flee because of Katya’s stubbornness, and I can’t flee. I’m not gonna leave her alone.”

“Just think.”

“She knows I can parry.”

“She’ll try focusing on killing Katya, won’t she?”

“But if she did, why would she just stand there? Why wouldn’t she chase Katya down?”

“What if...”

Katya rushed at her. And quickly, Nightseer understood the inner workings of Ichika’s mind, and her dangerous intentions.

“Katya!!!” He yelled, almost ripping his vocal cords.

Ichika wasn’t even fighting back, and if she was, those attacks were limited to just small jabs and minimal ice blasts. She was focusing. Her soul presence was growing more and more. Slowly, she made her way towards the clock tower once again, the same clock tower that she awakened her true power on.

“That time felt really nice.”

“I wanna embrace you again. This time, out of my own free will.”

“Then do it.”

“I’ll fucking kill you!” Katya screeched, desperately rushing at Ichika, trying to not give her even a second to breathe. Nightseer followed her, and following one of Katya’s up-close attacks, Ichika launched herself on the clock tower once more. She bowed down and touched the roof with her palm.

Roots of ice spread down, breaking not only parts of the clock tower building, but also sections of the ground. The ground suddenly erupted, launching Nightseer and Katya to the roof of the building, closer to her. And above them, Ichika would finish her spectacle.

“The best target...”

“...is me.”

Nightseer glared at the spark on Ichika’s chest in fear. Katya looked at it in confusion. And amidst her indescribably high soul presence flaring to its fullest, the pale blue lightning struck that spark, and the two felt cold.

“ ✦ Befall ✦ ”

“ ✦ Abyssal Frostbite ✦ ”

With Ichika as its inviolable epicenter, an uncontainable explosion of ice destroyed the entire battlefield, thrashing that part of the city beyond recognition...