Chapter 53: 52 - Replication And Modification

Hm, should I use Save to give me the option of a do-over? No, I'll avoid using my Anomaly powers, if she's dragged back in time along with me, she'd be confused and suspicious, I still don't fully know exactly how it works when two Anomaly's clash with their X-Abilities...therefore, I'll just have to use my own natural abilities and weapons. 

It doesn't look like she plans to rest for any less than fifteen to twenty minutes, so let's analyze what we know so far...she's created multiple different manifestations, and one of them closely resembled Kilella's X-Ability...assuming her Anomaly isn't something weird like Johan's is, then I can draw one of two conclusions...she can either create any manifestations that she can imagine, or...she can copy manifestations. 

And either way, the stronger the manifestation, the greater the toll it takes on her. Hm, since she's an Anomaly like me, her XFE capacity is below the Threshold, which means that she has less XFE than Prodigies do. Taking that into consideration, it makes sense that she dissipated the manifestations as soon as they served their purpose, she didn't maintain them for more than a few seconds at a time. 

"Hey, did you think of something? You've been staring at her really intensely," Remarked Suri, nudging me and getting my attention. 

"Yeah, maybe...," I replied, before standing up, "I think I'll go see if I can confirm something."

I walked over to Sakura with an innocent smile...I almost forgot that this is a class, so asking questions, no matter how direct, shouldn't be a problem, right? 

"Oh, hi, you're the guy who asked me about my name. What's up?" She greeted me in a friendly tone. 

"Well, my team's up next, so I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about what you're capable of...you can be vague or refuse if I ask something you don't want to answer."

"I appreciate that, I definitely would prefer to keep certain ascepts of my powers to myself. But go ahead, ask away, uh..."

"It's Kilzachs."

"Right, Kilz-...wait, you're the guy who discovered the XFE Takeover technique, right!? That's so cool, it's not everyday you meet someone who's done something like that! Can I shake your hand?" She requested eagerly...huh, that's an unexpected reaction. 

Also, that's not-...wait, she's wearing gloves that cover her entire hands, so it won't be direct physical contact. 

"Uh...I guess I don't mind, but I'm really not someone worth shaking hands with," I replied with an awkward smile, as I shook her hand, "It's really no big deal, just something I happened to come across by chance." 

"Heh, you don't need to be modest! You're also the younger brother of the Ace, Kilella Floence, right?" She continued with a grin. 

"Mhm, that's right...speaking of her, one of the questions I had for you actually concerns her...tell me, have you ever seen her X-Ability in action?" I inquired with a faint smirk, narrowing my eyes at her slightly. 

As I asked that, just for an instant, she stiffened slightly. Well, now, I just might have hit the nail on the head. 

"Y-yeah, in one of those inter-high tournaments, I think. Why do you ask?" 

She's trying to play it cool... 

"Oh, no reason...I was just thinking, when I used the XFE Takeover on her, that Primary Manifestation sure was draining! I bet if someone could, say, copy it, it'd take a pretty heavy toll on them, wouldn't you agree?" I remarked in a light-hearted tone, while watching her face closely to spot any changes in expression. 

"How do you-...you saw?" She asked with a gulp. 

"Hm? Saw what?" I inquired with an innocent tilt of my head. 

"You're way too sharp...I don't know how you saw that manifestation in that split second, but thanks to that, it looks like you've figured out my ability..."

Guess I don't need to play dumb anymore. 

"What can I say, I've got really good glasses. And yeah, I figured out...one of your powers. Well, that's all I wanted to ask you, so I'll be off...thanks for sparing some of your time!" I said in a cheerful tone. 

"S-sure, no problem..."

Hm...I think I handled that really well. I walked back over to the others, who looked up at me expectantly. 

"Well? Did you find out whatever it is you wanted to confirm?" Inquired Suri curiously. 

"Yeah, I did. And I've got a plan for how we might be able to beat her...," I replied, before explaining what I had in mind. 

"That sounds like a lot of work," Sighed Kiran, though he didn't object. 

"Well, yeah, we're up against an Anomaly, one of only four in the world, of course beating her won't be easy," Remarked Suri objectively. 

"Fair enough," He relented half-heartedly. 

The break ended soon after that, and the three of us headed into the Duel Field along with Sakura. She averted her gaze as I glanced at her...good, looks like I got to her earlier. Even if all it did was slightly shake her confidence, every little factor in our favor was worth its weight in gold. 

We took our positions as the countdown started ticking down, the other two were about ten meters away from her on either side, while I was about thirty-five meters in front of her. I switched my X-Blasters to maximum output at long-range, I may be within mid-range of her, but I decided to go for the more penetrative option. 

My Square Blaster is fully charged, and a key part of my plan, so timing will be important, since it has a fairly lengthy cooldown time. And if she closes the distance between us, I'll switch to my X-Blades...XFE Takeover is another option up my sleeve, and it should work on her...after all, it isn't a power from my Anomaly X-Ability, so she shouldn't be immune to it. 

Wait, crap, I've overlooked something...if she attacks me with an XFE attack, it won't hurt me...an Anomaly's X-Ability can't directly affect another Anomaly...like if she used it to pick up and throw something at me, yeah, I wouldn't be immune to that...but if she tried to hit me using her XFE manifestations...well, I'm not sure exactly what would happen, but one way or another, it just wouldn't work. 

I'll have to be careful not to let her get too close, it's too risky. Already too many people know about me, I don't want anyone else to know that I'm an Anomaly. Now, then...ten seconds left, time to get this started. I raised my arms and aimed them at Sakura, lining my X-Blasters to her head and chest. 

"<Primary Manifestation: Chainsaw>!" 

<Primary Manifestation: Expansive Swatter>."

Sakura formed those large XFE arms and braced herself...as the countdown reached zero. In the blink of an eye, I fired a couple of shots at her, she brought up her arms defensively in response, forming a shield as well. My shots pierced through the shield and through the manifested arms, she let out a hiss of pain as they reached her skin. 

Her XFE absorbed most of the impact though, I had inflicted little more than a couple of scratches on her forearms. But that's fine. Kiran then rapidly expanded his swatter and swung it straight down at her left, she quickly crossed her arms above herself to block it, her knees buckling slightly as it slammed down onto her defense, cracking the XFE severely. 

He then shrunk it to slip it past her defense and swing it down further, before expanding it and swinging it up again with a rapid flick of his wrist. She quickly leapt back to narrowly avoid it, right as Suri sprang up to her right and swung her chainsaw at Sakura's neck. 

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Before she could connect, XFE manifested out the bottom of Sakura's feet, like a pair of stilts, narrowly avoiding the spinning blade, as one of her stilts got slashed in half instead. As she began plummet, I quickly fired off a barrage of six shots at her, when suddenly, she formed my sister's armor and fired out blasts of XFE from either hand and the tip of her tail, at the others and me. 

Suri jumped back and blocked the blast with her chainsaw, but it wasn't enough...the chainsaw shattered and she got teleported out before the blast could strike her. Meanwhile, Kiran had evaded by forming his Secondary Manifestation and getting some upward height. The blast struck the middle of his pedestal, he quickly jumped off and used his swatter as a sort of spring to soften his landing. 

Sakura's copy of my sister's manifestation then faded, and she winced as she leapt away to get some distance, her eyes glossing slightly. Now's my chance, I've got her! I shot forward at top speed as I took out my Square Blaster, activated it and pointed it at her, with the output set to maximum...with the recoil of using a manifestation as powerful as my sister's, there's no way she can conjure up a manifestation strong enough to block this... 

The instant my scope locked onto her, I pulled the trigger, firing out the hundreds upon hundreds of black XFE streaks, all blasting out of my weapon and converging onto her position rapidly. She began to jump away but was too slow, as XFE faintly coated her arms but failed to fully manifest, my attack reaching her before she could get away...or so I thought. 

At the last possible second, she formed an XFE stilt from the bottom of her foot at an angle, swiftly pushing herself away to the right and narrowly evading getting caught up in my blast, the bottom of her left foot taking a bit of damage. 

She then got back on her feet with a wince of pain, her foot was badly hurt but not out of commission, and she shot towards Kiran, making sure that he was between me and her so that I couldn't shoot...she's a fair bit slower with that damaged foot, but still fairly quick. He got his swatter ready to counter her, when suddenly, she formed a new manifestation...a thorn whip with a chainsaw at the end of it? Huh? 

It swung across towards Kiran, who was unable to block in time, getting teleported out before he could get slashed in half. What was that...it looked like a mix of Bytra's whip and Suri's chainsaw. Can she...also combine her copied manifestations? 

"I'll admit, you really had me scared there for a moment. But it's over now," She remarked, letting out a sigh of relief as she walked towards me with a thick XFE wall manifested in front of her. 

Yeah, she's right, this is over now...since the other two were teleported out...I no longer have to worry about using a particular weapon of mine... 

"I agree, it's over...I win," I remarked with a smirk, before triggering and flinging three of my smoke bombs at her. 

The instant they struck her XFE wall, they exploded and the smoke burst out in a thick cloud that rapidly expanded. 

"What the-!?" She exclaimed in alarm. 

"I wouldn't inhale that if I were you...not that you can avoid it, it's filling up the Duel Field pretty quickly."

As the smoke began to close in on her, she started to form another manifestation, but before she could, she got teleported out. Huh, I didn't expect that. Then again, this smoke was pretty potent poison, and I'd just used three against one person...yeah, she'd have died in a matter of a couple of minutes, maybe even less, if she'd inhaled a significant amount of it. 

Well, that's that...the Duel Field drone suddenly activated a powerful vacuum, sucking up the dark smoke rapidly, before the barrier faded and I was able to exit. Huh, that's pretty convenient, I might have been stuck in the barrier for a while if there hadn't been a way to clear the smoke quickly. 

"Nice work, you did it," Remarked Suri, as I walked out and rejoined them. 

"I'm not just saying this, but I couldn't have done it without you two," I replied honestly. 

"You could have, if you'd just used those bombs right away," Pointed out Kiran with a yawn. 

"Oh...huh, you're right, I guess I could have done it alone."

Sakura took another break before the final bout, she'd definitely used up a fair bit of XFE against us. She looked like she was deep in thought. 

"That was pretty awesome, Kilzachs, I wanna duel you after watching that!" Exclaimed Taayin, walking over with a grin as he smacked my shoulder. 

Yeah, no thanks, I don't want to deal with crazy... 

"Uh...yeah, maybe some other time."

Oh, looks like I need to go to the bathroom. I excused myself and began heading for the door, thinking over that fight...could I have actually beaten her in a one on one fight if I'd used my bombs? Does she have a manifestation that can blow away or protect her from the smoke? I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn't hear her calling me and chasing after me...until it was too late... 

"Hey, earth to Kilzachs, can you hear m-...?" She remarked as she caught up with me, and grabbed my wrist...with her glove removed. 

Static burst into my head, and then... 

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<Anomaly Recognized, Category: Manifestation Replication and Modification >

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Uh-oh. Damn it, here we go again... 

" <Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Pause>." 

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