Blacklight: The Independent

"Are you sure letting the two of them go alone was a good idea?", Kuzan asked.

Soyuz replied,

"No. Well... I at least know he won't kill him. Xander will defiantly hold back, but if Akira can't even handle that much, then I guess inviting him was a mistake."

Suddenly Min-Su got up and began to leave. He hadn't done any work that day and yet he felt extremely exhausted. Soyuz called him back, but he just walked off.

"Asshole."

**

Akira slowly followed behind Xander as he led him away somewhere. It was dark, late and he kept bickering that he wanted to go home, but every time Xander would say the same thing.

"You can go home, but don't bother coming back to the Café."

Eventually they arrived at some kind of large abandoned factory in a desolate site. It was a mineral processing factory that was shut down due to poor health conditions, and despite that it was never dismantled. At the top of the building, there was a destroyed sign which resembled that of XCOMMS.

Once the two entered, the inside was largely empty. There was a dusty couch and a couple walls as well as collapsed debris from windows and the ceiling.

Akira suddenly stopped as Xander walked a good distance away from him.

"It's to my knowledge that you don't fight using Aether, correct?"

Akira flinched.

"Honestly, if any skilled Borrower laid their eyes on you, they'd consider you strange. Every organism has some level of Aether with Borrowers just having more then average. You on the other hand, have almost none. If a Borrower was a 10, and humans are 5, you'd be a 0.1."

He didn't know if he should take that as a compliment or an insult, but now that Syn was in his body, it was fair to say that he shouldn't be viewed with human standards anymore.

"Anyhow, if our opponents are going to not just be Borrowers, but Returners, then you'll have to learn how they fight. Of course we could just do it by the book, but that wouldn't be fun!"

Syn suddenly screamed at Akira to block. Once he did, Xander quickly disappeared and tried to punch him in the torso, but thanks to Syn's warning, Akira was largely unharmed.

Largely.

"Oh? Your more durable then I thought."

With a little more force, Akira was suddenly sent flying across the factory and through a wall. Once he came out the other end, he crashed into the floor, stumbling for a bit before getting back up, and quickly taking a fighting stance.

'What the hell!?? My body should be more powerful than a normal humans, but I still got slapped around with ease??'

Xander followed him by creating a second whole which he walked through.

"Aether comes from the zero dimension, and enters the body of a Borrower through their miracle. There's a max capacity that the body can handle, and the Aether flows through certain pathways. By modifying the way Aether flows, a Borrower can achieve superhuman strength. This is called Enhancement!"

He jumped high into the air, blocking out the sun and casting his now giant shadow over Akira. He started to run away as Xander raised his leg preparing a flying axe kick.

Xander started to rocket towards to the ground, hitting it with the heel of his foot creating a giant crater from the impact. The shockwaves reached Akira making him trip and fall as he bounced off the ground.

He quickly regained his footing and continued to run.

'There was no way he could beat this guy! I'll just keep running until he gets exhausted!'

Xander just watched him run while pointing a finger towards Akira.

"Aether is just another form of energy, and so it can escape everywhere and anywhere. It can be manifested outside the body to create constructs and attacks. This kind of Aether control, is called projection."

From his finger tips, a concentrated ball of Aether began to form. It slowly grew bigger into the size of a football before he fired it. Syn screamed at Akira to duck. The second he did, a laser flew above his head, crashing into a different warehouse in front of him.

"ARE YOU TRYING TO TAKE MY HEAD OFF!?"

Suddenly the warehouse began to shake as it the exploded and the entire thing collapsed into a giant pile of debris and rubble. Akira just made a face of shock at the chaos before looking back at Xander. He had a devilish smile on his face.

If it wasn't obvious already, Xander was no ordinary Borrower. Where the hell did Soyuz find someone like him?

"How much Aether can be released, is dependent on ones Aether output. If you have an Aether capacity of 100 but you can only release 1 at a time, then your no good in projection. Of course, if you can release 50, you can split it up and give 5 simultaneous blasts a power of 10."

5 more orbs of Aether appeared behind Xander, seemingly a 5th of the power each that he had released before. They all fired simultaneously at Akira making him scream several more slurs.

He was able to dodged all five of them in just one dive, but one of them curved and turned right back around towards Akira. He quickly summoned the Talon from his black beast manifestation, and used it to block the attack.

"Oh? it really does have no Aether.", Xander said with interest.

Akira then pointed the talon at Xander as he declared,

"I'm not letting you push me around anymore. Let's go on the offensive, Syn."

Not even 2 seconds later, a crack began to spread around the part of the talon he had defended with, before it quickly split in two. Xander bursted out laughing while Akira just looked at the broken Talon with exhaustion. Syn then said,

"It can break????."

A new thing Akira just learned about the [Black Beast manifestation] Talent, was that the power and durability of Syn's body parts would change depending on Akira current body rank. This meant that his only weapon, was just as vulnerable as he was.

'Why the hell is this an S rank Talent??'

Akira then began to charge at Xander anyway. As he let out a battle cry, the broken part of the Talon grew the dark shadows that it was made from, before repairing itself rather quickly, and transforming back into a pristine white sharp blade. It appeared that the body parts also shared his [Curing] Talent.

Xander was surprised so he too responded in kind. A nearby steel poll rolled next to his foot, so he quickly kicked it up into the air and caught it. Holding it as if it was a sword.

Akira was only moments away as he then slashed the Talon towards Xander's neck, but with a swift strike from the poll, the Black Beasts Talon was destroyed once more.

"Much like how Aether can flow through living beings, it can also be infused in objects to increase it's durability and power. This is called Refinement." 

Xander then slashed Akira with the Steel pipe, and cut off his head in one strike. The second Akira noticed he had been decapitated, he quickly grabbed his neck only to still feel his head attached to his body.

"What the heck? Was that an hallucination?

That wasn't an ability related to Aether, but just his sheer pressure and presence being exerted. It was one of the many scenarios that could've happened if Xander went serious.

"Akira, those 3 are the most basic for all Borrowers. There are 2 other styles, but you can worry about that later. For now, I'm going to whip you into shape until you can Handle Borrowers at this level!"

He desperately screamed at him, "Wait—! WAIT!"

Despite 'holding back' he was very merciless in the training. When Akira slowed down, Xander instantly caught up and punished him for it. If he tried to fight back, he would be overwhelmed before being knocked out. And when he quickly recovered thanks to [Curing], the vicious cycle would repeat once more.

This was a painful process Akira would endure for the next 5 hours.

**

The sun slowly began to rise as Akira laid on the floor, covered in dirt and other particles. He tried to get up but he could feel every bone in his body screaming at him to rest. The second he saw Xander standing in front of him however, that feeling disappeared as he began to cower.

"You can stop, we're down now. It's already 5 in the morning."

He still had school today, yet he was stuck in the middle of nowhere. Once again his routine was shattered at the cost of this madness. Despite that, he exerted an abnormal amount of willpower as he got up,

"I have to get home... I can't miss a lecture..."

Xander just looked at him strangely. What a weird thing to be this dedicated towards. Akira didn't get very far until he quickly collapsed, but Xander caught him before he hit the floor while holding a smile on his face.

"It's time for you to rest. If I knew you were a school boy, then I wouldn't have gone this long. I'll make sure not to do it this late again. Education is important after all!"