Chapter 36 - 35

Soma grumbled as he continued this fight, hating this shit way too much.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?

Having heard about Sairaorg's general 'style' of fighting being a direct hand-to-hand style, Soma for a moment, thought about doing the exact same thing. He was, after all, confident in his own physical prowess and had more experience in direct fighting than most could dream off.

However, he decided to play it 'smart' and instead not face his enemy where their strength is. Soma was a 'jack of all trades', his advantage was exactly in being able to adapt to all sorts of situations, not in being a one-trick pony like most fighters.

As such, from the start of the match, Soma did exactly that, using distance and spells instead of hand to hand. However-

'But seriously, what the hell is wrong with this fucker?'

From the get-go, Soma could tell that things were not going well. Every spell that hit Sairaorg, which most did considering the guy was not fast enough to avoid Soma's speed and prediction, were weakened and bated away with great ease.

All Soma could compare it to was if Sairaorg had some form of Magic Resistance. However, Riser had given no indications of that when explaining to Soma about Sairaorg previously. If anything, Riser himself said that overflowing Sairaorg with magic might be the best way to deal with him in a fight.

But, all of Soma's attacks weakened on contact. It was infuriating for Soma who practiced so hard to master those spells just to have them batted away with such ease... and also extremely interested.

This was a form of energy that Soma did not recognize, and he wanted to learn more about it, to assimilate it into his own arsenal.

Putting reasons for the match in the back of his mind, since Soma honestly didn't care about it, as neither did Raiser, he advanced towards Sairaorg. He wanted to experience what sort of power this was and try to figure it out.

Truly, a madman in many aspects even if well hidden.

Meanwhile, Sairaorg was not having the best of times either.

After seeing the fight/execution of Issei in the previous match Sairaorg was not mad or angry about it like his cousin, he was glad. Glad to have found someone who was clearly a physical hand-to-hand fighter like himself and he wanted to experience fighting him.

Instead, he was facing the exact same shit that he had with every other devil. Fighting from a distance and using spell after spell, he couldn't get his blood pumping nearly as much on this sort of fighting. Not only that, Soma's spells were much weaker than he expected, not being as threatening as they appeared and seemingly more show than substance.

Sairaorg was very disappointed even if he couldn't get close enough to Soma as the human moved just as fast as himself to escape. That was, until Soma advanced towards him.

'Yes, this is what I wanted!' Sairaorg gave a great and predatorial smile as he advanced even faster, as the two met their fists collided.

BOOM

The impact sent a shockwave throughout the area as the two were sent flying back with Soma being sent further away than Sairaorg, but he was not displeased by it as his mind was busy analyzing what exactly was going on during the clash.

"This energy, it is really weird." Soma muttered before moving again towards Sairaorg, his mind focused on understanding the energy that Sairaorg just used instead of actually winning the match by dismantling Sairaorg. Soma was mostly relying on instinct and prediction instead of pure logic.

If it was put in Servant terms, it was Soma's own mix of Eyes of the Mind True and False versions, a very powerful combination born out of the sheer number of times he battled to improve himself and just one or the other not being good enough.

Soma and Sairaorg entered a brawl and just threw attack after attack at each other. Sairaorg had a clear advantage even with Soma's body modifications since Sairaorg's Touki worked like an armor that shielded him from most impact and amplified his own strikes. However, even if Sairaorg had a clear advantage there was no true end in sight since Soma was not to be underestimated, amongst the various rings he had prepared for any eventuality, he had a new mystic code based on Twilight Healing, but this one being even stronger than the previous one.

In the viewing stands, shock colored all those watching as they could see the terrifying combat strength of both sides, the slug fest of fists and kicks growing more and more powerful and savage. Kuisha Abadon, the Queen of Sairaorg, saw something that brought pure joy to her.

Sairaorg was improving.

In the devil race, there were far too few people who knew anything about hand-to-hand combat, and even fewer people who could match or surpass Sairaorg. There was hardly anyone that he could fight with that could help him improve his skills or push his body further, making him stagnate much to his displeasure.

Soma was a damn perfect whetstone to sharpen and improve Sairaorg. As Soma was not focusing as much on offense and instead was more defensive right now Sairaorg could practice much better, his mind focusing on attack, attack, attack, and his movements improving and correcting themselves as he tried, again and again, to find holes in Soma's defense.

Not that Sairaorg wasn't also pushing Soma forward, the young human magus/hero in training had already understood what 'touki' was by this point, as absurd as it truly was for Soma.

Touki, the representation, and control of life force of the user and their immediate surroundings, was damn close to what a Marble Phantasm was.

Soma wanted to curse Riser for getting him into a fight with someone who had anything even resembling a Marble Phantasm! That damn thing is cheating of the highest level!

Marble Phantasm is the ability to connect the will of the user to nature, as a means of interfering with probabilities, and transfiguring the surrounding world at will, in accordance with their vision of the world. As the user is a part of nature, he or she can change the world as desired.

Basically, it was turning reality into what the user desired of it. Touki was the utilization of one's life energy in tandem with nature to actualize the will of the user in their surroundings, the will being that of survival that all living organisms carry instinctively.

Thankfully it was not a full Marble Phantasm as the control of what it is doing seems to be mostly defensive like an armor and could not go much further than a few centimeters from the user. But still, if the laws of nature don't work the same when entering Touki range of course magecraft would be weakened by a lot.

Wanting some breathing room to recompose himself Soma used his hair to draw several runes all over the floor before activating the runes that created a large gust of wind below upwards, making both Sairaorg and Soma disengage.

Soma put his hand to his side, and brought out the hammer he had produced a while back to help in forging. Thankfully he had put most of his equipment on his person using a ring he managed to craft that had a small pocket space to hold some items including this hammer.

Sairaorg just smirked as he saw the hammer.

"And here I was thinking you would fight me at hand to hand after not managing with magic." Sairaorg said.

"Well, sadly for you I never agreed to such a restriction. Even if the rules restrain me quite a bit, I have no intentions of losing as I am a rather bad loser, and do not try to hold your punches, I can't improve my fighting against weak shit." Soma said in response, causing Sairaorg to give a single chuckle.

"After what happened just now? I wouldn't dare to go easy on you." Sairaorg said as his Touki was released to cover all his body making him take a golden hue. Sairaorg then used his touki to boost himself much more than before. His speed was now hard to follow as he approached Soma and delivered a punch at Soma's face.

Soma moved back in time and moved the hammer, aiming it at the hand that Sairaorg attacked with. The two items collided and the hammer was pushed back but instead of Soma being thrown away by the impact he used the impact to accelerate his body in a circle to try and hit Sairaorg on the other side.

Sairaorg was slightly surprised by the move, but hit it away again only for Soma to do the same thing, but this time it was even faster.

This was a technique taught to Soma by Scáthach. She had learned it when she was part of an organization called Chaldea, having a lot of time to spare, she spent her time reading many things for inspiration. She was easily one of the greatest monsters in the entire Throne of Heroes, being able to actually develop a functional technique out of what amounted to a fantasy novel idea.

With every hit the hammer got faster and stronger, after 22 strikes Sairaorg finally wanted to back down, but would it be so easy to do so when the strikes kept coming faster and faster.

'You want to try it like this? Well, I won't back down then.' Sairaorg thought as he did something that would seem almost stupid for most people.

He stopped fighting back.

When no more additional force was used to face the 23rd strike, the power declined for the next one as the acceleration was no longer aided by Sairaorg's own strike. Due to this slight slowing down, Sairaorg managed to use his strength to hit the floor strongly with a stomp, breaking the ground and disrupting the place where Soma was standing.

As the ground broke, Soma's balance was disrupted and he could only use this final 24th strike before he had to restart or just not use this technique anymore.

But, would a technique made by Scáthach truly have such a glaring weakness?

Of course not!

When the 24th strike was about to hit, Soma activated the runes in the hammer, increasing its durability, weight, and impact.

As the strike came down on Sairaorg the devil was sent flying and his touki broke for a second there due to the sheer strength of the impact. Soma took notice of it and added to his mental notes that Touki was not unbeatable, even if it was damn hard to break it.

After a moment with broken Touki Sairarog quickly activated it again, it was not as vigorous as before but it was still a powerful threat and Soma could not take it lightly. Sairaorg was unrelenting as he moved back to the fight and shouted.

"Is this the best you got?!"

Soma, hearing this, barked a laugh, pulled his hammer back, and darted forward while saying.

"Not even close!"

///---///

In the booths watching the match, Sona didn't know exactly what to think of this whole ordeal. She had known that Mr. Hanakai was powerful, but she didn't know that it was to this degree.

He was fighting on equal footing against Sairaorg, the undisputed strongest devil of their generation. And that was while not using any of his holy items or other unique powers she knew he had.

Licking the corner of her lips she felt a certain thrill over trying to 'conquer' him.

"That man is really quite interesting, Kaichou." Tsubaki said to Sona who nodded her head while not taking her eyes away from the screen.

Seeing her chance, Tsubaki spoke.

"At least your babies would not just be pretty but also quite strong."

Sona spluttered as she heard her queen and blushed at the insinuation. She might be a devil and all that, but she was also very much a virgin who had absolutely no actual experience with males or sex. She might like to think about 'dominating' others, but she honestly had no idea where to even start.

"... At least I am not nearly as bad as her." Sona said as she eyed Momo, who was staring at the fight with so much intensity that Sona actually feared the screen would catch on fire.

That had been the norm since the previous match where Soma faced Issei. To say that Momo was worried then would be a giant understatement, but not for fear of her cousin facing the Boosted Gear, but of what Soma would do.

And she was proven right, many times over. Soma has always been overprotective of those he cared for and Momo still remembers how he once broke the nose of one of their cousins when he mistreated a maid he liked back in the mansion of the old family patriarch.

Soma was only 8 and the cousin was 13, and Soma still broke his nose and beat him up for what he did to what the family patriarch called a 'tool', ending up in a brawl that saw him more injured than the other side but still rearing to go and punch the older kid even if he got the worse of it by comparison. And Momo was quite confident that Soma would do as much, if not more, for her if the need arrives. Hells, he almost killed the younger sister of one of the Satans by just the possibility of her being cheated into becoming a devil.

As Momo stared at the scene with the rest of the devils and admired a fight that many were thinking should well be televised from how intense it was, in one of the special booths destined for the VIP one could find Sirzechs, Grayfia, and Serafal there.

Sirzechs was seeing this fight with a hint of displeasure, even if not too much. On one side Soma was in the way of Ria-tan's freedom and he had decimated the Sekiryūtei which gave his family prestige just by being in the Gremory family. On the other hand, he was helping Sirzechs' cousin improve and had helped previously during the attack on Kuoh and provided vial support in making that disaster have no casualties even with the numbers involved.

... Oh, who was he kidding, he disliked the kid due to him troubling Rias, and that was that.

Besides, he did not think much of the match he was watching. Sure, the two were powerful but it was just physical strength and most martial arts, Sirzechs is more of a mage type and naturally didn't much care about hand-to-hand combat. Sure, he knew that it was strong, but he still was confident that his own way of fighting was the superior one and this brawl was not to his tastes.

Not that his feelings were reciprocated by his wife who quite admired the fight happening in various ways (especially since she actually liked men who were not just skin and bones... unfortunately that including those like her husband who was very much lacking in the muscle department beneath all those robes, thankfully he was strong enough to be a turn on regardless of his lacking physical aspects for Grayfia).

Truthfully speaking Grayfia thought that Rias should just accept her role and be done with it. Grayfia had done that to help with the peace of the devil society after the civil war and she knew much about the internal politics of devil society, having to complete and fix plenty of Sirzechs' paperwork (thinking someone strong would necessarily be a good administrator is laughable and stupid, after all), which led Grayfia to have a keen understanding of their society internal structure and conditions.

Unless Rias could find someone strong enough to shut up all the others who could protest and whose bloodline and potential would certainly create a superior offspring, then she would be married off by her parents even IF she could escape marrying Riser, and the other candidates were much more chauvinistic and worst by most any standards, there was even one that looked like a fat fish amongst them for satan's sake!

Grayfia even mused that, should the Red Dragon Emperor fully transform his body into a dragon and actually win against Riser while claiming Rias for himself, then maybe it would be enough. It WOULD be the bloodline of a Heavenly Dragon and the gear user would have shown himself the superior fighter, but instead little Mr pervert lost in such a humiliating way that Rias even kissing him in public now would be a scandal.

For Grayfia she would just have Rias marry Riser and find herself a select few lovers to accompany her when she felt the need if that is what she wanted, Satans (not her husband) know that many devil ladies do that and even Grayfia had done the same at times. And the less said about Venelana and her harem of males that was bigger than her husband's harem, the better. That woman was quite 'passionate' indeed.

As for Serafall, she was the one most torn amongst all of them. But not because of the fight or because of the image of a human being equal to their strongest young devil, but because she was torn over something much more important.

'Should I go look for that Mahou Shoujo and ask her to join my Peerage, ask her where she got that stick, or ask to study under her in the ways of the unlimited power of Mahou Shoujo of love and justice? Oh Satans, why can't this be as simple a question as those political discussions that could lead to the potential war of extermination of the race? That would make it so much simpler.'

... You gotta know your priorities.

///---///

Back in the field Soma and Sairaorg were on the ground breathing hard, their fight has been quite exhausting and their faces and bodies were full of bruises from the fight until now.

The first to get up was Soma who couldn't help but speak.

"Damn, you are one tough bastard."

"Hehe, thanks. And you are not bad yourself." Sairaorg said, slowly getting up too.

The two were quite battered but neither wanted to admit defeat, this was just a breather before the restart of the match.

Soma, not being able to resist it, asked.

"Hey, your weird power. How the fuck did you got it and, more importantly, can I get it too?"

Sairaorg, hearing this, actually laughed boisterously even as he felt his ribs hurting from one too many strikes he tanked there from that several tons heavy hammer.

"I just trained my body until I broke through the limit. Simple as that, I trained until I did it. Anyone can do it as far as I know even if Youkai and elemental spirits seem to be able to do it easier."

As Soma heard this he gave a small smile as he remembered how he reached a plateau in his training and couldn't advance past it, while back in the Throne, there was no such bottleneck.

Thinking he might not be too far away from breaking through and obtaining a similar power, Soma became much more relaxed. Not only would it make him much harder to defeat, but because this would mean he would then have his own initial stage of a Marble Phantasm.

It might take a while to break through this bottleneck, but Soma didn't mind considering the rewards on the other side.

Feeling grateful towards Sairaorg for what he had shown this day, Soma spoke.

"How about this, we each give our all on this final strike and whoever wins in the clash is the winner?"

Sairaorg just smirked and nodded, being already tired he accepted this deal easily enough.

Sairaorg started focusing all the touki he had on his hand, the energy glowing as he cut off the energy from the rest of his body to focus it all into his hand. Meanwhile, Soma started to spin with the hammer, doing the same movements he had done previously, even without a target to hit, it was still possible to increase the speed with each swing.

As the number of spins increased the energy that Sairaorg was putting on his hand also increased. The competitive spirit of both sides ignited as neither wanted to lose, both pushing themselves further and further to dangerous points. Sairaorg's hand began to actually be damaged from the excess of energy in it while Soma's body screamed at him with every extra swing as he reached what should be his limit, and pushed beyond that.

Finally, as if by an invisible signal only they could see, both unleashed their attacks with all their strength at one another.

A great explosion erupted, dust covering everywhere from the huge impact.

All devils watching were shocked that physical strength could actually create damage like that, not really having a seem much in the way of extreme physical attacks before.

As the dust settled two figures could be seen in the midst of it. One arm was raised and a yell was heard that sent shivers down the spines of the devils present.

"VICTORY!"