[184] Tiger vs Tiger; Metal vs Ice

Chapter 184: Tiger vs Tiger; Metal vs Ice

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Baihu, the White Tiger, was a very powerful heavenly beast. His body would be too much to absorb for a Gold Ascension; it'd kill Tsubasa. That's one of the reasons I'm willing to choose some weaker tiger.

After explaining the situation to him, he grumbled and nodded in understanding. He truly did seem threatened when I patted his head and said those words, but after hearing me out, he didn't hesitate to help me.

With a roar, he summoned the top executives of his heavenly mountain, and they bowed before us. "Ancestor," he looked at me and said, "these five are the greatest of my descendants in this mountain, each an Ultimate-Class entity as you can sense. You can choose whoever you want... but I have a little condition."

Hearing his words, the newly arrived tigers flinched and looked up in shock, surely confused and curious about what their lord was giving themselves to me for. I too was surprised, but for something else. He had the audacity?

I looked up at him too, with my eyebrow raised. "Oh?"

"...No matter the case, they're still warriors. To just sacrifice them would be an insult to the years they spent under me. So..." he hesitated, closing his eyes and hesitating. "Why not a duel between that girl and one of the tigers here? She has white tiger blood in her veins; even if she's a descendant of the Shinra Clan, something like that has never happened before. So she's a tiger of her own, she should hunt her own food and not have it served on a platter."

"Uh..." Tsubasa rubbed the back of her head while I shrugged.

"Here I was wondering if your condition will be something outrageous. Sure thing, she will fight it out," I said. Tsubasa was just at Jade, while each of those tigers was Ultimate-Class, so the matching was disadvantageous for her, but I trusted in her.

The tiger grinned, "Let us prepare a duel then."

Baihu explained the situation to his five confused descendants, while I invited the others inside. The Shinra clan head, Byakko Shinra, Rias, and Tsubaki were allowed to spectate this scene. It wouldn't hurt to let them watch.

****

"Whoa, insane..."

The devil girls had wildly fascinated expressions as they entered the bamboo forest, littered with maple trees here and there. Rias' eyes darted around, having never seen heaven before she must be excited. Tsubaki looked quite enchanted as well, although a sense of bitterness remained in her expression.

The clan head and Byakko's expression remained neutral. We circled an empty spot in the bamboo forest, and Tsubasa stood before five tigers, waiting to be chosen. She had taken off her hoodie for this, showing off her muscles.

[Image Here]

"Is she going to be alright?" the Clan head asked as if he was worried.

"We'll have to wait and see. Ah, and no she's not going against all five of them at once," I cleared up the possible misunderstanding.

"Oh, I was worried about that." Tsubaki said, "They're all strong beasts. I'll barely be able to defeat one of them, and that's if I prepare traps from beforehand."

"Yeah, she has some tricks up her sleeves. She too can't take all five of them at once, at least not yet." Tsubasa was still Jade, after all. I plan to raise her to Archlord in the next few months. Then, if she's able to connect to the Tiger Icon and become a Sage, then maybe....

Haah, let's not get my hopes up too high. I closed my eyes and sighed in my head. I then looked at Tsubasa. "Have you made a choice, Tsubasa?"

She shook her head. "Please choose for me. Which one do you think is suitable?"

"Hm," I rubbed my chin and had my Jade Perception scan the five tigers thoroughly. They're all the size of a two-story house, and they seemed to focus on Metal Elements for the most part. However, one of them had an additional element of fire. I guess I'll go with that guy since reaching Gold will grant her firestorm powers too; absorbing his spirit will help her more than others.

"You," I pointed at the one in the middle, a ferocious beast just like the others. "You stay in the arena, the other four of you scatter off," I said, keeping eye contact with the tiger who looked at me with restrained anger. He had sensed the Tiger Icon that I used a while ago, so he knew I was a big shot, yet his survival instinct didn't want to give up so easily. "Don't give me that look. I'll make it fair, fine. You'll get to live if you can defeat her. If you win, I'll just find someone else. So give it your all, alright?"

The tiger looked at me in silence before letting out a gruff breath. A moment later, as it closed its eyes and reopened, the entire area was filled with bloodlust; that beast did not wish to die. Good, this would be good training for her.

"Hey, good luck~!" Rias waved at Tsubasa, which seemed to surprise the girl from the way she blinked. She nodded and smiled, before focusing on her opponent.

The two combatants squared off, stepping around in a circle, neither attacking. Tsubasa and the tiger assessed each other. The air crackled with anticipation. I stood with my arms crossed, beside Rias and Tsubaki, and watched it unfold. The tiger made the first move, lunging forward with a speed that betrayed its size, its claws aiming for Tsubasa's throat. She met the charge head-on, her fists glowing with icy blue energy.

– Boom!

Their clash was thunderous, a shockwave rippling through the bamboo forest. From the impact, explosions blasted out at the same time, and due to the ice energy that was in her hand from beforehand, shards of ice blasted around the area. Rias waved her hand, and the ice shards that were about to hit us vanished from existence.

My eyes remained focused on the fighters. For a moment, they seemed evenly matched, but the tiger's strength started to show. I narrowed my eyes as it swiped at Tsubasa with razor-sharp claws, and she barely managed to dodge, her cheek grazed and bleeding.

"Shit..." She cursed and then retaliated with a flurry of punches, each one planting shards of ice inside and outside the tiger. The beast growled, stomping on the ground as metal jumped out of it, wrapping around itself. The beast's fur bristled as it formed a metallic sheen over its body, all the shards on its body broke down as if they were not attached to him in the first place.

With a mighty roar, it slammed its paw into the ground, sending a wave of metal spikes erupting towards her. Tsubasa leaped into the air, but one of the spikes grazed her leg, drawing blood as she landed.

The tiger pressed its advantage, launching itself at her with renewed ferocity. This time, its claws burned with fire as it swiped at her, cutting through the air. Tsubasa was on the defensive, her movements growing slower as her wounds took their toll. She ducked and weaved, but the tiger's claws found their mark again and again, her blood staining the ground beneath her.

Desperation flickered in her eyes, but she gritted her teeth and summoned her icy powers once more. She encased her fists in thick layers of ice, her breath visible in the chilling air. She managed to land a solid hit on the tiger's jaw, forming explosions and sending it stumbling back.

But it wasn't enough.

"Grrgh...!" The tiger shook off the blow, its eyes burning with the determination to live. It charged again, and Tsubasa knew she was running out of options.

"Uh, will she be okay...?" Tsubaki asked, looking at me. The Shinra Clan head was looking at me as well.

"She will be fine," I said. Typically, it'd take an Underlord to fight such a beast, but Tsubasa had powers that a typical Underlord didn't have. "Tsubasa, use that."

Tsubasa's eyes shot toward me for a moment and she nodded. In a last-ditch effort, she tapped into her hidden power. The tiger rushed at her, while she felt the vampire blood within her responding; this would be the first time she'd be using that side of her body in a battle. The temperature around her plummeted, and she could see her breath fogging in the air.

"Roarrgh!" The tiger roared at her, its claws clad in long metal that was orange in color from how heated it was. With a fierce cry, she unleashed her new technique; the two tigers clashed.

"White Tiger," Tons of blood crept out of her, swirling in the sky to form spears that froze from her ice attribute; crystallized blood spears formed over her head, and she hurled them at the tiger with all her might. "Meteorite Shower!"

It was far from the real thing, but it wasn't a bad alternative. The spear struck true, piercing the tiger's side and freezing its blood from within just before it was about to severe Tsubasa's head. The beast roared in pain, its movements growing sluggish as the ice Qi spread through its veins.

Tsubasa didn't stop with just that. She conjured another dozen spears, which turned her body pale from the lack of blood and hurled them forward. Each spear found its mark and drove the tiger to its knees. The spectators gasped in shock, unable to believe what they were witnessing, and she rushed to shock them more, punching the tiger in the face with her explosive fists.

"N-no way..." Byakko Shinra frowned in shock.

A mighty Ultimate-Class tiger was being brought low by a girl at High-Class? When the gap between the two classes was wider than heaven and earth? How?!

With one final effort, Tsubasa gathered all her remaining strength and summoned a massive spear, larger and more powerful than any before. She held it above her head with telekinetic Qi, her eyes blazing with determination.

"This ends now!" She brought the spear down with a mighty thrust, driving it into the tiger's heart. The beast let out a final, anguished roar before collapsing to the ground. Bloody red ice spread through its body and encased it in a frozen tomb.

The silence that followed was deafening. The spectators were stunned, Rias' eyes were wide with disbelief. Tsubasa stood over her fallen opponent, her chest heaving with exertion, but her eyes were fierce. She had won, which made me grin.

Baihu, the White Tiger, stepped forward. "You have proven yourself, Tsubasa Shinra. The victory is yours. You may continue with your ritual."

"It's... Tsubasa Saito, thanks." Tsubasa corrected him, panting, her body trembling from the exertion, but she stood tall, knowing she had earned her place.

****

With a soft moan, she withdrew her head from my neck and smiled. "Thanks," even though blood was tickling down her lips, she looked like a goddess. How nostalgically gorgeous she is, in more ways than one.

"You'll be able to draw more blood than there is in your body, by infusing your Qi into it, once you reach Gold and higher. You won't run out of blood then," I let her know, patting her back and nudging my chin toward the tiger. "Absorb it's spirit like I instructed you to," I said. "It's not going to be painful, so rest easy."

"Mhm, alright," she nodded, wiping her blood against my shirt. Normally she would never do that, to dirty my shirt instead of her own, but when her vampire side is high, she gets a little tipsy. That was her way of marking me.

"Excuse me," before she could approach the tiger's dead body, the clan head called. "Are you... Hanekawa's daughter?" He asked, which made Tsubasa pause.

A moment later, her lips formed a smirk, her purple eyes turned golden, and her hair went white. "Ah, father?" A seductive voice asked, "You still remember my name?"

"W-what..." The clan head took a step back, and Hanekawa scoffed.

"Rest assured, I've given up my revenge plan. The world is... too big for those petty feelings, it turns out." She shot me a look as if to imply something. "Just don't make this difficult for this girl, you'll end up dead."

She returned control to Tsubasa, who shrugged and walked over to the dead body. We all watched her, the others in awe and shock, and me with a smile.

"...What's up with her?" Rias whispered when Tsubasa closed her eyes and began to cultivate. "She's a vampire too? And what was that? A yokai?"

"She's half human half vampire, and her human blood also contains white tiger blood due to her clan. Ah, and yes she has a yokai spirit sealed inside her too," I explained, shrugging easily while receiving odd glances.

"...." Rias didn't hide her shock, neither did Tsubaki.

We soon shifted our focus to Tsubasa, who was sitting cross-legged, drawing the Qi of this realm to push herself into advancement. She'd done this three times before, so it came to her easily. Baihu and the other four tigers weren't here anymore. I sent them away earlier since I didn't want them to see a member of their family get absorbed. Yet I felt the big tiger's gaze as he was curious to see what was going on.

After about ten minutes, I pointed my chin at Tsubasa, explaining to Rias, "I did just say that, but watch, her white tiger blood is about to grow more prominent just now. She'll be a hybrid between human, white tiger, and vampire; perfectly balanced."

We watched as a surge of Qi leaped out of Tsubasa, causing the wind to explode. The Qi wrapped around the dead body of the tiger. The body began to burn with invisible fire, and parts of it rushed to swirl into Tsubasa's body. Her Qi fed her. Patches of the tiger's burnt and ghostly body submerged inside her, and over the next few minutes, strange features began to flash on her body.

Her nails grew sharp, her pale skin painted in black stripes, while white fur covered her from part to part. "Grghh..." her breathing sounded like a grumble now, which I found cute.

After half an hour, the tiger's tail burned and entered Tsubasa, as a tail of her own finished forming behind her.

The procedure was done. It was a success.

In less than a week, Tsubasa has reached [Gold].

She remained in her position for a bit more, before her surviving Qi lowered and she opened her eyes. She let out a sigh and looked down at her hands. They were covered in a very thin layer of fur; her skin itself was white, so the fur was even less apparent on her than it would have been on a normal skin-shade.

"Great job. Stand up," I approached her and she looked up at me. Tsubasa grinned seeing me, and I noticed her fangs were a lot sharper than before. She leaped at me, but she seemed to have miscalculated her strength. She headbutted me in the chest, and I flew off into the bamboo forest.

I should have been more careful.

"A-aqua!" She quickly rushed through the forest to find me, her silver eyes filled with worry. She crouched down over my body, her eyes trembling. "I didn't mean to, I-"

"It's alright," I raised a hand, ruffling her white hair. She really... did look like Nyoxdanra right now. My hand let out a burst of Qi to scan her body. "Looks like the advancement went perfectly." She would grow powerful like a broken dam.

"Ah..." she watched me look into her eyes, smiling. A soft shade of red formed over her face; her face didn't have fur, and she looked like her usual self, but with chalk-like skin. She did have two black stripes on either side of her cheek, it looked cute.

I stood up, dusting myself off, and by then the others rushed in too.

"Hey, are you alright, Aqua?!" Rias asked in worry and I nodded. I pulled her by the waist and kissed her on the forehead; I did that to not make her jealous about what I was about to do next.

"Then, we must return immediately," I turned back to Tsubasa and took her in my arms. She blinked, smoothly locking her arms around my neck. "I need to teach you how to switch from your human form to hybrid form."

"Oh?"

I didn't care to say goodbye to the Shinra Clan head. I ignored him and his son, and with a slash of my hand, I split spacetime and stepped to the other side. I looked at Rias and Tsubaki, who exchanged glances before stepping behind me.

We arrived at our house, and I dragged Tsubasa to my room for a long night of... training sessions.

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Author Note: This is how Tsubasa looks in hybrid form, but with stripes around her body ? reminds me of someone.

(We fr need a Black Tortoise character in the future, in my 4 years of writing only that heavenly beast has remained alone.)

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