Back in the expanses between layers of realities, the rune-powered motorcycle hurtled forward. Sakuya, despite her immense physical and mental discipline, found herself overwhelmed. The G-forces threatened to tear her from the seat, and she was forced to wrap her arms tightly around Nowa's torso to maintain her grip, her cheek pressed against his blood-stained back, her given coat violently moved with the force behind her.
Nowa glanced at the side mirror, taking in her struggle. 'Right. She wasn't built for this. Isn't she? If I push any closer to the speed of light, the physics alone will tear her apart.' His gaze returned to the chaotic path ahead. 'Then how about this,'
He let go of the handlebar with his left hand and tapped a specific sequence on the gas tank. A panel slid open, revealing a glowing rune slot. From his pouch, he retrieved a handful of pre-made rune gems.
"Radiation shielding. Space breather. Reality anchor. Reduce G-drag," he stated, slotting each one in with a sharp click.
As the final gem locked into place, he pushed the rune-filled slot back to the tank. The violent shuddering of their passage smoothed into a controlled, powerful hum. The crushing pressure on Sakuya's body vanished, replaced by a stable, breathable pocket of normalized physics. The scream of the void became a distant roar.
Sakuya opened her eyes, the tension leaving her shoulders. She adjusted her grip, one hand still securing the rune revolver, her focus returning.
"I appreciated what you did, Mr. Beckitzer," Sakuya said, her voice calm, though she did not let go of her hold.
"Don't mention it. Can't have my backup shooter turning into paste on the interdimensional highway," he replied, his attention locked ahead. "We're closing in. The trail is getting hotter!"
A sharp click of the clutch sounded. "Brace for impact! We're bursting through its wormhole."
Sakuya tightened her grip. The motorcycle moved forward and shattered the plane of existence in front of them, bursting through into a tunnel of streaking, corrupted light. The horizon revealed their prey: the humanoid general flying under its own domain, Reimu clutched in its grasp, kicking, thrashing, smacking at its arm with her bound, clasped hands, refusing to be a cargo even in her helplessness.
Nowa's hand spun a cog on the gas tank. "Initiating manual to automatic." He let go of the throttle, and the motorcycle continued its relentless pursuit, the engine seeming to growl with a life of its own, locked onto its target.
He stood up on the seat, balancing perfectly on the speeding vehicle, not even glancing back at Sakuya. "Don't worry about the steering. It will chase that son of a bitch down. You stay there and shoot. Got it?"
Sakuya gave a single, sharp nod. "Affirmative."
Without another beat, Nowa leapt forward, propelling himself off the bike. The general, sensing the pursuit within its own private corridor of space-time, glanced back. Its eyes widened in pure horror. Nowa was flying with black flame, the space forward was constantly erased and kept him being flung forward, closing the distance with impossible speed.
"Impossible!" it hissed, a snarl of disbelief.
Nowa's form blurred, both of his forearms and feet burning forward, erasing with voidflame. This is his real version of flight.
"REIMU!" he roared.
Reimu's head snapped up. Through her terror, she saw him, a blood-soaked avenger blasting through hell itself to reach her. A spark of defiant hope flared in her eyes.
"Nowa! Help!" she cried. A tear ran down her cheek.
The general, recovering from its shock, swung its free hand backward. A wave of distorted space, designed to tear matter apart, rippled toward Nowa. He slammed both voidflame-imbued fists together, creating a shield of nothingness that erased the attack instantly on contact. The wormhole's observable colors stuttered. Then he burst, black fire erupting into two wings behind him, spanning the entire corridor, covering Sakuya and the motorcycle for a surprise attack as the general's focus locked onto Nowa. This black fire was different. It wasn't passively attacking the fabric of reality.
The general snarled in frustration, still dragged forward by the wormhole's current, Reimu slung over its shoulder like a sack. It raised its free arm; flesh morphed into a cannon. A vaporizing blast streaked toward Nowa.
Nowa's right voidflame fist aimed at the blast, the fist that erases reality. It absorbed the vaporizing energy, unwriting it completely. His left hand, its voidflame extinguished, reached into his rune pouch and emerged already wearing a finger rune ring. The rune flared to life; a complex white circle bloomed behind him, covering his full wingspan.
"Fallen Mimicry Valkyrie!"
From the black-flame wings, a telegraphic barrage of live ammunition bullets stampeded toward the general. Each shot streaked past as the general dodged, one grazing its shoulder.
Reimu gasped in alarm as the general shoved her toward the barrage. She closed her eyes, expecting to be torn apart. But the bullets passed through her like ghosts.
"Illusion attacks…?" the general muttered, watching the bullets fly past. It refocused on Nowa. "To think the Great Flame Noah would use illusio—"
It didn't finish.
What the general saw was no longer a man. A gigantic dragon loomed, its mouth split into two jaws, dozens of bulging eyes ringing its head, wings spreading impossibly wide, two massive arms already hovering over the general. A dark, flaming, biblical dragonic form overshadowed Reimu and her captor.
"Get back!" The general felt true fear. It yanked Reimu back onto its shoulder. Its free hand, transformed back to humanoid form, swatted toward the dragon. A burst of distortion blasted both general and Reimu away, widening the distance.
Nowa's voice boomed from within the dragon. "I'm not stupid. I fight with restraint. Illusion is my best ally, I am a specialist combatant!"
The dragon's head reeled back. Between its two jaws, a coalescing black flame gathered. Then it lunged forward, unleashing a lanced, gigantic beam of voidfire straight at the general.
"WHAT KIND OF SPECIALIST IS THIS TO OBLITERATE YOUR SUPPOSED TO RESCUED PRINCESS BITCH?!" the general shrieked, its composure cracking.
Reimu shut her eyes. Three heartbeats passed. No pain. No erasure. The flame flickered out.
The biblical dragon dissolved, revealing Nowa standing in its place, the runic ring vanished, its purpose fulfilled. "That flame was a runic mimic, nothing more than a shadow of what I can truly do." His gaze was cold. "Bobo(Stupid)! The real attack isn't me, dipshit!"
"Sakuya, shoot!"
On the automated motorcycle bursting from the fading flames, Sakuya Izayoi stood, braced against the wind. She raised Nowa's rune revolver, her aim as steady as if on solid ground. She aimed directly at the general's center mass.
She pulled the trigger.
BOOM. The sound was not of a gunshot, but of a cannon, echoing monstrously in the wormhole. The shock of the recoil through her injured body was immense, a physical blow that made Sakuya off-balance. She gritted her teeth, fighting to steady her posture atop the speeding bike. The shot went wide, streaking past the general's shoulder.
The general let out a laugh. "HAH! You missed! All those set ups for this? HAHAHA! You think you can follow me here? You two aren't even moving at the speed of light! I, and my package, are the only ones safe from its effects within my domain!"
Nowa's response was a predatory grin. "Who said you were safe from me?" He raised a hand, two fingers forming a seal. "Rune arts: Bullet Invert!"
The "missed" bullet, which had flown harmlessly past, suddenly warped. It reversed its trajectory in an impossible bent-turn, not governed by physics, but by Nowa's Framework runes command. It slammed into the general's back, tearing through its gut in an explosion of shimmering, bloodied essence.
The general's laugh choked into a gurgle of shock and agony. It stumbled, its flight faltering, its grip on Reimu loosening for a critical second. "Gah! You... you cheater! You break the rules of reality! What kind of monster are you?"
"Rules doesn't apply to me. I write the rules, moron." Nowa snarled. His flame extinguished fist, from it shot a web of Liquid Nano Armament, aiming to snag Reimu and pull her to safety. "And the first rule is: you don't get to take what's theirs."
The web was a split-second from connecting to Reimu's reaching hands, fingers spread out, grasping toward salvation, when the general grunted, twisting its body in a painful-looking contortion to dodge the strands. Simultaneously, it ripped a new, smaller portal into existence beside it.
"No, you won't!" Nowa swiped the web to the side, but it was too late. The general had already plunged through the new opening, dragging Reimu, her palm still spread, still reaching. Her terrified gasp, then the scream of "HELP!" echoed in the empty wormhole for a moment before being cut off by the portal's closure.
Nowa growled in sheer frustration. "Damn it!" He reeled back the web.
"Izayoi!" he yelled, glancing back at the pursuing motorcycle. "Time for the backup plan! Get the Spell Deny card ready for Reimu! The motor will follow the scent; just ride it and be ready!" Sakuya gave a sharp nod, and took out the hidden spell deny card Nowa gave her and steadied it in her hands.
His fist flared with Voidflame once more. He punched forward, his flame piercing through and tearing a new, unstable path through the fabric of the wormhole itself, unmaking the barriers the general had tried to hide behind. Both he and the motorcycle surged through the newly forged breach.
They emerged into another shimmering, hostile corridor. The fleeing general was ahead, Reimu still in its grasp. It glanced back, hissing in fury and in pain despite its grievous wound. Reimu, seeing them burst through once more, could only whimper, her spirit crumbling.
'Why am I so useless? Nowa… Please… ' she begged silently.
Sakuya, perfectly balanced on the now-shuddering motorcycle, already had the rune card held between her fingers. Her eyes were locked on Reimu, calculating distance, wind shear, and the general's erratic flight path.
"Beckitzer, I have a clear line of sight, but the target is too mobile!" she reported, her voice cutting cleanly through the chaos. "I cannot guarantee the card will attach!"
Nowa glanced back. She was meters behind him. He looked forward at Reimu and the general, so agonizingly close. 'Bwiset(Bullshit)! I can't use the 50ms Author! I will be depleted before this mission is over, but they're too close! I can't use the Voidflame either to erase a large part of space between us, they'll get erased too! Illusion runic base won't work twice on an enemy!'
He gritted his teeth, his mind racing for a solution his own power couldn't provide. Then, a memory surfaced, not of grief, but of a technique. A memory of Bion, the hot-headed brawler of their group,
"Hey Wankers! Now that you've learned the mana footwork detonation technique, this is a secret move. But it's time for the close fighters to learn an ace mobility," he then proceeded to use his explosive power not to destroy, but to propel himself that breaks the law of physics turning time into irrelevance and space matters.
The memory snapped into focus, a ghost of a lesson from a fallen brother. 'Bion... sorry, you damn hot-head. I need this technique now.'
His Voidflame-engulfed foot flared with intense concentration. The nature of the energy shifted, compressing into absolute combustion. A violation of physics, learned from a brother, now wielded in the name of salvation.