As she performed a series of hops to avoid several streams of toxic petals, Olivia mentally estimated the distance between her and the assassin to be less than twenty meters. She could cross it without much difficulty to blitz the bastard, but doing so while avoiding these damn things would be all but impossible. She knew how smart this bastard was. There was no way he would not be able to tell what her plan was the moment she made that move.   A mad dash in his direction, discounting any and every other thing would also allow her to reach him quickly enough. But that would only further increase the strain on her mind as she would undoubtedly suffer immense damage, which would be healed by her ability at the cost of more of her mind slipping out of her control.   'God I hate this so much! But it doesn't look like there's another way. Dodging these things isn't getting me any where. I'll just keep taking damage and healing until I lose it. Looks

  The subtle pressure on the back of Ryusuke's mind since the moment he had seen the Hunter unharmed by his attack suddenly intensified to unbelievable levels and he found himself leaping back as the Hunter suddenly appeared before and slashed down. His feet had not even touched the earth when the platinum blonde boy vanished again and reappeared right above him, bringing both of his swords down in a surely fatal strike that Ryusuke immediately brought his own katana up to block.  The blow nearly knocked his sword out of his hands.   'What is this?! This strength... It's almost on par with Hatoshi at his maximum output!!'  The Hunter grinned wildly at him, having noticed the instant change in his formerly expressionless face. Up close, Ryusuke could see that his hair was no longer snow white as it had been previously. Now there were a few locks of vermilion colored hair among the still predominantly white mane. But he did not have much

As Hatoshi stared at the of rubble that covered the downed Hunter, he could not help but wonder if he had ended up using too much power by accident. It was not something that had not happened before. He was often used to forgetting just how much more stronger he was compared to other people, even among the supernatural. A side effect of such was the fact that his battles tended to end up finishing far sooner than he would have preferred. Hatoshi knew he was a battle maniac. That was perhaps the best and most accurate way to describe his true nature. He loved the thrill of battle, lived for it even. That was the actual reason why he had ended up joining Rin's assassin squad. Like the others, his clan was part of a long standing coalition of hidden clans that had existed unnoticed for centuries following the decline of the Edo period of Japan. The clans had existed mainly to ensure that the true way of the shinobi did not die out completely. Every generation that passed by, the clans el

The two halves of a cracked button fell to the ground, destroyed by the the tip of the silver sword that had been brought to an abrupt stop less than a centimeter from piercing the chest of the alpha Hunter. Michael's left hand was clenched tightly around the middle of the blade, preventing it from moving any further as he glared at the shorter assassin who simply grinned at him and ripped her sword from his grip. He let go the moment she did so to avoid her blade drawing blood and she leapt back to put some distance between them. 'What was that?' Michael wondered silently. 'She just pointed her sword at me and said that word and it was like some of the strength in my right hand just disappeared.' ‘'Fūjiru'... that's a Japanese term for seal,’ the voice of his predecessor supplied helpfully in his mind.. 'Seal? Is she sealing away my strength?' ‘No, rather I think she's removing your speed instead. But with situation-dependent Variant abilities like this, one can never truly know

The attack came out of nowhere. One second she was mere seconds away from beheading her target for assassination, the next saw a mysterious sword-like weapon moving to impede her own slash. At first Rin had felt terribly insulted when she had extended her senses towards the Hunter as soon as he began moving to accurately detect when and where his block or counter was coming from. Since he had somehow managed to create a way to completely negate her ability's sealing power, Rin could definitely not risk this fight going on any longer than it already had. But then she had realized that something was off with the way his hand was moving. No matter how skilled a swordsman was, there was a minimum amount of force required to back every single sword swing at the very least. But this guy... Everything was just so off! First there was the lackadaisical grip he had on the sword's handle, as if he was just asking for it to get knocked right out of his hand. And considering that the weapon w