Baccano! and Durarara!! Upgrades.

[-BANLK-]

before I start talking about the upgrades I will appreciate it if the admins allow cross scaling between baccano and durarara. they are both set in the same universe and there are soo much interaction between both the series and their charecters(eg:Celty being an old friend of Ronny Schiatto) that they are practically the same. and we are already doing cross scaling between series like within nasuverse so not allowing cross scaling between baccano and durarara would be unfair. the auther has even made a tier list including both the series lol.

1. So i will start off with Shizuo speed upgrade. According to the Author Shizuo has defeated Nile (he is from baccano. one of the surviving immortals from adenna avis. this guy had also previously defeated christopher who is inturn more powerful than both ladd and graham. he is also one of the swiftest characters in the series.) so if shizuo only had superhuman combat speed then he can forget about even touching nile. even in light novel it is noted that izaya tries his darn best to avoid getting hit by a pissed off shizuo. its the anime's fault that they show him to be as fast as a tortoise . Shizuo is a casual bullet timmer in the novels heck he even had the luxury to contemplate between dodging or not dodging a bunch of rifle bullets in the end he decided to dodge because he thought lead poisoning would be annoying. so I would suggest his speed be at least superhuman travel speed subsonic (at short burst moved faster than varona could track) with at least transonic combat speed (likely higher) and at least supersonic reaction speed (can keep up with izaya.)

P.S. as much as I love shizuo I think his tier should be changed to at least 9A (room level). I dont think he has any feats above that. also can somebody clean up the durarara profiles they are mostly inaccurate.

2. In the baccano light novel after getting a metal arm ladd shook an entire section of Alcatraz prison (building) with a single strike with his metal arm(his metal arm cannot take much pressure other wise it will break so it is highly possible that he held back on that strike). I think he should be 9A with class MJ striking strength for that well it can boost the baccano verse as a whole it can also help the durarara verse if cross scaling is allowed.

3. claire speed should be supersonic+ combat speed and reaction instead of just supersonic because christopher a character who is stronger and faster than ladd and graham could not keep up with his movements. claire also blitzed him in combat.

thats all also if the 9A for ladd is approved the I can make the adjustments for other characters

also can someone make a naritaverse page like nasuverse page they can also make pages for other works of narita.

 

[LazyHunter]

I was going to go over the novels once I finished the anime to search for the feats that are being used in the durarara pages, as most seem fishy going by what I saw in the anime. Unfortunately the series was licensed and they removed the novels from Bakatsuki, so I only got to read the first one (which was enought to solve one of my doubts about Celty, but since it wasn't something that was listed in the pages, pretty much useless).

I agree that the pages need revision. However, it would be best if you could post the parts with the feats of the novels and from where they are taken from (Number of volume and chapter) for others to check them and judge them. I also agree with the scaling between Baccano and Durarara, as they are stories in the same verse and some characters have showed up or being mentioned in the other series.

For the Durarara pages, the MCB for Celty is ridiculous. Not only is it using a range feat for AP, the best feat for Celty in the anime would be Wall level in her shadow ball form, and she has admitted to being much weaker than Shizuo. So Celty should be Wall level AP and Durability, as she's still a superhuman fairy.

I leave speed aside, since I don't see any problem with what the verse currently has. Though it would be nice to see the statements from Izaya's speed from the novels and the part where Shizuo dodges gunfire, as from the anime Shizuo dodging Varona's bullets seemed aimdodging.

Simon's Wall to Small Building level.

Izaya should be Wall level, as he's much weaker than Simon and Shizuo. The bomb part should likely be removed, as it apparently comes from what it seems a non-canon game, and it's not standard equipment.

Then comes the biggest problem, Shizuo. I agree that AP he should be changed to Small Building level fro being physically strongr than anyone else. His durability should also be downgradd to Small Building level, as while very tough and incapable of feeling pain, normal knives, normal guns and normal guys consistently hurt him, so it's not like he would survive if a dozen soldiers started filling him with bullets. His notable attacks/techniques also needs to be fixed, as Saika's mind control can be fought by willpower and the blade-proof gloves was a one-time thing Celty made for him.

I can't help you with the naritaverse page since I've only seen Durarara and read a few of the Durarara novels.

 

[CrossverseCrisis]

Hmm. If the bomb part is true, then that should be taken out then.

 

[LazyHunter]

The bomb part never happened in the anime, Izaya's plan to kill Shizuo there was much simpler (Tire him out with traps, asphyxiate him with Co2 then use a match to cause an explosion). The anime covered all the first series, and from what I've heard, Izaya hasn't appeared in the second series so far. No bomb or dynamite in the anime. Durarara Relay is a psp game, a visual novel with various routes that have original events apparently not canon to the anime or novels.

The user who added the bomb part to his Durability also previously used the same game to scale Shizuo to Level 6 Shift Mikoto. He also increased the bomb's strength, from 8-C to High 8-C, to suddenly Town level when the Low 6-C Shizuo was removed.

 

[CrossverseCrisis]

Mmm, fair enough. I can remove that right atm.

The other parts noted here thus far? I'll leave that alone for now until it gets sorted more properly....

 

[-BANLK-]

Sorry for the late reply but what do you guys think about the baccano upgrades I listed.

 

[LazyHunter]

I haven't read Baccano, so I don't know if what you mentioned is valid. As I mentioned, you'd have to post the parts of the novels that have those feats so that other people can judge them and see if we have to upgrade those characters. It would be better if you could also do so for the parts that would upgrade Shizuo's speed and put Izaya as supersonic.

Leaving Baccano aside, are you okay with the changes I mentioned for the Durarara profiles? Besides Shizuo, since we both agree he should be downgraded.

 

[-BANLK-]

I would love to post the parts of the novel but all of them have been taken down due to baccano being officially translated now. about the changes for durarara I think shizuo should be at least 9A room level/small building level likely higher and celty should probably be a solid tier 9A (she does have feats of deflecting a missile and containing an explotion.) other than that all the profiles look nice. if crossscaling was allowed it could also help improve the baccano profiles.

 

[-BANLK-]

also can you mention it in celty's profile that she can subdue a person by cutting their soul (it also seems to ignores durability.)

 

[-BANLK-]

I agree with the changes you mentioned (other than celty.she may not be a powerhouse physically but she does have a very strong shadow manuplation atleast for durarara standards and she has more than wall level feats like i said in the above post.) Also I think the speed of shizuo and simon can be upgraded a bit.

 

[LazyHunter]

also can you mention it in celty's profile that she can subdue a person by cutting their soul (it also seems to ignores durability.)

You see, that's what I meant when I mentioned that reading Volume 1 solved one of my doubts. Those scenes in the first season when Celty slashes someone with her scythe and they fall to the ground without suffering physical harm are anime-only. In the first novel Celty just knocks people out by beating them with her scythe. So unless you can find an excerpt in later novels that supports the anime's depiction of her scythe we can't add that to her profile.

And the end-result was her getting hit by a car. To avenge herself, Celty had used the huge scythe made of shadows to teach them a lesson they wouldn't forget in a hurry and beat them to an inch of their lives.

Celty's body was continuously 'wreathed in shadow'. The shadow sometimes took the form of armour and, whenever she wanted to, could will it to become the biker suit or a simple weapon.

Although it was rather strange to talk about the shadows having mass, but they were in fact very light and thus could do extraordinary things that only appeared in movies. On the flipside, because it was practically weightless, the strength of the weapons formed from it depended totally on Celty.

But if it was in the form of a blade, its sharpness was not inferior to real weapons; its hardness was never measured in detail, but Celty could never remember a time when her 'shadow' had failed her. If she were to describe her blade, she would say that it was like a box cutter which had a blade which would never dull and blown up to about the same size as Japanese sword and weighed exactly the same. The shadow wasn't useful as a blunt weapon, but as a blade, its strength was unparalleled.

But Celty had never meant to slash those hoodlums, and had only used the scythe to deliver a blow to their necks and knock them out.

And the problem with Celty is that she's much weaker than Shizuo, something that she has admitted herself. Durability on her own is Wall level tops, since her body is as easily hurt as a normal human's, and we have people like Chikage who show Wall level humans are a thing in Durarara, but she's clearly not at Shizuo's level where knives only penetrate his skin a little or Shinra ruins his scalpels by operating on him. It could be written as "Small Building level durability with shadows", but I'd need to see the part with the missile again to judge, and I can't seem to find it. Do you remember which episode it was? This shadow durability wouldn't necessarily mean her AP is small building level, but we could put it as a "likely 9-A" if we can find it in the novels.

 

[-BANLK-]

https://gfycat.com/ThisBountifulAmazonparrot

 

[-BANLK-]

also during izaya and shizuo's final confrontation in the anime Izaya said that "since you are invulnerable to bullets and physical attacks I figured the best way to kill you is by choking you to death" well later shizuo still got scratches from Izaya's blades so.....it might mean Izaya's blades can do more damage than bullets I think....

 

[LazyHunter]

So I was remembering right. The problem with that feat (besides still needing to check the novel, as an anime-only feat wouldn't be usable) is that Celty is not deflecting the rpg and containing/tanking its explosion, she stops its movement with her shadows and throws it away. I think stopping a rpg from moving like that won't get Small Building level, it would probably be about Wall level.

As for your Izaya's comment, once again anime-only until we find a quote from the novels, and even then that's just an statement from Izaya who has already been proved wrong, since Shizuo has been harmed by normal bullets and knives before. Even Varona thought her pistols wouldn't be able to kill Shizuo due to her surprise at his abilities, while Celty, who's more familiar with him, thought he was in danger and we know a normal pistol can injure him. I agree with you about Izaya probably being stronger than normal bullets, that's why I said he should be Wall level for being able to injure Shizuo more than Varona's ballistic knife, not to mention he should be comparable to Chikage and Ran Izumii.

However, I tried looking around a bit more and found some of the other Durarara novels, so now I have access to volumes 1,4-10 and 13, so if there's a feat you want to use for Durarara in those volumes, you can tell me which novel and I can try looking for them. So far I've found Celty creating a shadow wall to stop a .50 cal Russian anti-materiel rifle from blowing her up, so I think we can use this for Small Building level shadow durability. Durarara Volume 5:

[Well...I don't know either...she made a move to shoot me...so I made this super thick wall with my shadow, but ended up being blasted all the way back here anyway...um...I don't know if 'blasted' is the right way to put it...hm...it was still dangerous...probably. Shooter...could have been blown to pieces.]

Also found the scene you mentioned about Shizuo and Varona. Unfortunately, it's a case of aimdodging, plus Varona is using subsonic bullets. Durarara Vol 06:


The woman wearing the helmet was holding a rifle that was only seen in movies.


He saw it in the exact second she held it up and was about to aim it at him.


But what caught his attention was something behind the woman's back: the figure of a little girl, tied up and gagged, near the front of the bed of the truck.


…Huh?


He happened to have become more familiar with the girl's face and clothes than he would have cared to be.


It was the girl whom he had met in a whispered "Die!" and a sparkling electric shock.


Akane!?


Why is she here…


In the second he stiffened with shock and doubt, his opponent had aimed the rifle at him.


Damn.


This is gonna give me lead poisoning!


With such completely out of ordinary concerns upon being aimed at by a rifle, Shizuo ran towards the unstaffed parking lot opposite the Second Ground. Several lead bullets pierced the air where he had been standing only a second ago. The shots were almost noiseless, presumably thanks to the use of suppressors and subsonic bullets.

 

[-BANLK-]

Thank you very much dude. if I can find any other feats for the characters on the net I will inform on it and I can help u in improving the profiles. Now I just need an approval from an admin for cross scaling between durarara and baccano so that I can improve the character profiles for both the series.

 

[CrossverseCrisis]

Hmm. Well the thing here is that i'm not into LN/VN's(whatever is being used here) and i barely even know one of the verses here because of the anime.

So i'm not much of help here, BANLK. Sorry. I can only maybe go by what Lazyhunter can help you out with but beyond that, there's next to none that i can help here.

 

[LazyHunter]

About that crossseries scaling. I think it should be allowed when the series are confirmed to be in the same universe and even share some characters. This should be a similar case to the Nasuverse, which has several series happening in the same universe, except simpler and easier to use for scaling since to my knowledge there's no alternate timelines/worlds like the Nasuverse has, there's a single canon timeline.

The Durarara wiki has a page that lists some of the connections that other works of the Naritaverse have with Durarara (and references to Yozakura Quartet, a manga by the Durarara LN artist, but that's not part of the Naritaverse and are just friendly references). Unfortunately, they don't use references so searching for all of them may be hard. But I've confirmed some of them.

Charon Walken, a Baccano character, is mentioned in volume 8. I also found the part where Shizuo apparently mentions his fight with Nile, a Baccano character, when talking about how tought Chikage was. However, his opponent is never named. The translation I have access to also has a note saying that's probably Nile, but since I don't read Baccano I don't know why this assumption is made. Volume 5 of Durarara:

"Yeah. When I was about to punch him a fifth time he said 'Ah, and I have girls willing to tend to me when I'm in the hospital bed. Are you jealous now?'...Something like that. His tooth broke so I wasn't able to hear very well. After that he just fell to the ground with a thud."

"...I heard he was pretty tough, but I never thought..."

"There are actually quite a few guys out there who are like that. That foreigner I got into a fight with a while ago took me quite some time as well."

Connections with Vamp: Geissendorfer, a Vamp! character, is mentioned in volume 7 multiple times and once in volume 9. From Volume 9:

"You think you can justify anything by saying 'You should be ready at any given time of the day'!? What are you going to say next, that it's OK to fire a sniper rifle to kill your opponent since 'This is not just a match, it's real, haven't you heard? So of course firearms are allowed'!? Next thing we know the elementary school kid who sets fire to Master Traugott's home while he's sleeping will be calling himself the next martial art champion! At any given time of the day my ass! And aren't we already off-topic!?"

"That person can survive any fires and dodge any bullets, I think. But your sophistry doesn't explain why you were lame enough to have let me catch you off-guard. Neither does it explain why you felt it necessary to insult me with those words."

TN note: Master Traugott is Traugott Geissendörfer, a highly regarded martial artist in the Naritaverse. He comes from the German island that is the setting of the Vamp! series. He teaches martial art throughout the world via a chain of gyms to which the Rakuei Gym belongs. In Vol.7 it is mentioned that Heiwajima Shizuo is a huge fan of Geissendörfer.

So I think there's enough evidence that Baccano, Durarara, Vamp and Etsusa Bridge are in the same universe.

To the important part of this thread, the Durarara revision. I've read the last fight between Izaya and Shizuo, and I change my opinion on Izaya. There's no way Izaya's is a Wall level fighter, as he has the same problems cutting Shizuo with his knife that Vorona had with her ballistic knife, and he needs several strikes to cause any meaningful injuries. The concrete part seems to be taken from the first season's OVA, and that'd be an anime-only feat.

As for Durability, he managed to survive Shizuo hitting him by using a metal frame like a baseball bat due to reacting in time to move with the blow. That hurted him a lot, but he powered through the pain and injuries because of his will to kill Shizuo,a "monster". Later a punch from Shizuo that only grazes him spins him around, and is forced to sacrifice his arms to not be killed by a full punch of Shizuo. So I'm thinking Izaya should be Street level, especially when there's several other Wall level characters who can easily beat him, like Simon, who can knock him down in one punch, and Wall level characters who are more durable than he is like Chikage. More or less in terms of AP/Durability the verse tier would be like this IMO.

God Tier - Small Building level: Shizuo. Superhuman movement speed and possibly Subsonic combat speed.

Top Tier - Wall level: Celty, Chikage, Kujiragi, Simon, Ruri Hijiribe and Egor. Likely Akabayashi

High Tier- Street level: Izaya, Varona, Kisuke Adabashi, Kadota Kyouhei, Izumii Ran, Sloan, Mikage Sharaku, Sonohara Anri, Haruna Niekawa, Eijirou Sharaku

Middle Tier - Athlete level: Kida, the Orihara Twins

Low Tier - Human level: Mikado

That'd be AP and Durability. The next thing would be the speed. We need quotes or novel feats that can support Izaya's feats in his profile and to check if Celty cutting bullets is in the novel, otherwise it can't be used. Shizuo dodging Varona's bullets is aim dodging Subsonic bullets. I may have found a scene with Celty using her shadow to block bullets and what may be a feat for her AP with shadows, but I'm not sure.

At this time, a man in the helicopter held a machine gun in his hand, aimed it at the motorbike and immediately started shooting repeatedly. The man who held the machine gun didn't look like a serviceman, his hand on the trigger aiming at the rider appeared very stiff, then ―

The sickle that the rider had been holding transformed into a giant black shadow umbrella and stopped the hail of bullets, the bullets didn't even bounce off but was swallowed into the thick shadow. Several rounds of bullets that didn't hit the motorbike had hit several of the doors and tires of the surrounding cars, the entire motorcade of cars immediately started scattering in all directions panic-stricken. On the helicopter the gunman saw the stopped attack, took out a high explosive hand grenade and threw it down to the black motorbike below. When the rider realized what was coming, the motorbike began adding layer after layer of shadow around itself, but ―

The grenade detonated before the rider had the time, the black motorbike was thrown by the shockwave into the sea next the warehouse.

[...]

The shadow extended like a black dragon into the air and headed towards the helicopter, from that shadow the black motorbike leapt out.

In front of where the black motorbike had fallen into the sea was a shadow that had changed into a tunnel shaped path, the motorbike along the inside of this path sneakily broke from the water surface.

Facing this incredible scene, the helicopter gunman yelled out and started to fire at the motorbike again ― but the bullets quickly ran out, while flustered he tried to replace the cartridge.

However, the time needed was enough for the rider. A shadow extended toward the leading car of the motorcade, it transformed into a large black wave and wrapped entirely around the car. With the shadow covering the car's front window, the car started to swerve and lose direction, the driver hurriedly tried to turn the steering wheel away ― but the shadow entered through a window and clung to the wheel forcefully stopping the march of the vehicles.

But that was only the beginning.

The shadow enveloping the car gradually inflated, morphing into a large tree ― it used the tree branches to extend and capture the helicopter that happened to be flying above the car.

The shadow winded around the helicopters propellers until it gently slowed down the velocity of its whirl. The helicopter swerved fiercely, just when the crew thought it would turn in a circle and crash ― The tree-form shadow twined around the helicopter with innumerable branches effectively stilling it, the end result looked like a giant sculpture in front of the warehouses.

 

[-BANLK-]

About Izaya I know it is a little difficult to put him in a solid tier but here is the official tier list by the auther himself. 1.No 37564"mob combatant" 2.Hawking(a black hole which communicates via telepathy) Tier1.claire stanfield,ronnie,shizuo heiwajima. Tier1.5.Nile(he is in this awkward position because he lost to shizuo but defeated christopher) Tier2.christopher shouldered,ladd,graham,simon,celty. Tier3.chane,adele,izaya(word of god states they can fight tier 1 and 2 for sometime but thats not what they really do type of characters.) So ya izaya is defenatly more powerfull than the likes of chikage. Also against chikage shizuo was very casual that why he survived for so long but against izaya shizuo was bloodlusted so naturally he would punch way harder. Also I can see another god tier being added in durarara there is a guy called shishizaki who can compete with izaya in terms of raw agility and also has enough strength to stop shizuo during his rampage. Apperently he can also send people flying in the sky with his punches like shizuo. He has still to make an actual appearance in the series. Well baccano has two godtiers so why not durarara. But for now lets wait and see how this shishizaki guy turns out.

 

[LazyHunter]

As I've mentioned before, I've seen this supposed "tier list" before (apparently coming from a Narita Q&A here), but this is the first time I see this many characters in it. All the other times I've seen it are:

1. No 37564 Mob Combatant. Since this character comes from a novel not part of the Naritaverse, it doesn't really count, it's just the strongest character Narita has made for his own books.

2. Hawking from Vamp!, so actually the strongest Naritaverse character.

3. Shizuo (Durarara), Ronnie and Claire (Baccano)

And here when talking about the ranking people mention another ranking by anni fiesta (translator of the series) that's mostly especulation and has several other Durarara and Baccano characters, including Ladd, Celty and Izaya, which is the one you've just used. Its fan-especulation status is kind of proven when the only characters from outside Durarara and Baccano (Narita's most famous works), are Hawking and Mob Combatant, probably because they were taken from the presumed official ranking given by Narita. I find it unlikely there aren't other stong fighters in Vamp! that'd be part of a full on ranking given by Narita.

Only the five characters I listed are part of the ranking supposedly given by Narita of the strongest characters' in his stories. Even if a translation of the actual ranking could be provided and checked for its veracity, it'd only be valid for powerscaling between Shizuo, Ronnie, Claire and Hawking. So unless you can provide a source, I'll have to go by the novel feats, which have Izaya barely managing to hurt Shizuo. Maybe Wall level Durability, but from what I've read I don't see a justification for Wall level AP and Supersonic Izaya.

I've alrady taken into account the difference between the situations of Shizuo vs Chikage and Shizuo vs Izaya. Izaya still lost to a good punch from Shizuo and Chikage took 4 before fainting and was up and able to fight Kadota and stop Varona and Anri from fighting each other shortly afterwards.

Shishizaki would probably have to make an appearance before adding him, though if you can point me to a source to confirm his status you could use powerscaling for him. Though he'd likely be Wall level like Simon, who can also challenge Shizuo in strength when he's not super angry.

 

[-BANLK-]

Ok I found some feats of Ladd


"Leeza recognizes Ladd as the man who attacked her before, and sends one of her falcons to carve out his eye.

Ladd, however, bites right through the falcon's throat. Leeza didn't even have time to cut her consciousness from the falcon.

Having experienced death firsthand, Leeza realizes she's trembling in fear. She tosses all her chakrams at Ladd, but he stomps down on one as he knocks away the rest with his metal arm. Leeza screams.

Ladd points out that, despite her screaming, Leeza probably feels safe just because she's unreachable on the rooftop. He then slams his metal fist into the outer section of the prison building. Leeza loses her balance due to the shock of the punch and loses her footing, falling to the ground. She sees Ladd prepare for yet another punch, this time to slam her body against the wall."

 

[-BANLK-]

Here is another paragraph descibing it "Ladd arrives on the scene; when he notices that Firo is under attack he decides to kill Leeza - and it turns out that she is his favorite "type" to kill. He destroys the building Leeza is standing on, making her lose her balance; Leeza falls to the ground where Ladd is waiting to kill her. As she falls, Hilton sobs in fear of the vessel (Leeza) dying - which would sever her special connection to Huey."

^ its from

1934 - Alice in Jails/Peter Pan in Chains

 

[Legion350]

Bump

 

[-BANLK-]

Guys since Ladd has a metal arm he cannot use his full strength without killing himself by the pressure so the punch he used to make Leeza fall of the rooftop was extremely held back so it is atleast Class MJ striking strength which would make Ladd tier 9-A.

 

[Reppuzan]

1) Assuming all your statements are true, then this seems at least somewhat legitimate. However, I'm a little iffy on the speed without a calc, as there are characters who can casually parry rifle bullets who only end up as Subsonic.

2) This one seems okay.

3) Once again, bullet timing is not necessarily Supersonic, especially since old-timey rifles from that time period fire rounds under the speed of sound.

 

[-BANLK-]

@Reppuzan 1) To be honest I am not that knowledgeable about Durarara so I am not trying to upgrade Shizuo currently (I have barely read 2 volumes of it but have seen the entire anime.)

2) Ladd's feat is casually Class MJ so he is tier 9-A thats for sure yup.

3) Even in the earlier volumes Ladd's punches were described as fast as bullets, he also defeated Graham specter who can do this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZZU-Mlzv3o, Graham can also do this skip to 1:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKiOpv0-pPc (Keep in mind he dismantled the car perfectly in mid air. Also will this affect his lifting strength?) and there are many other feats in the light novel like Claire deflecting bullets at point blank range with a spear etc. Another thing is that both Ladd and Graham are mere strong humans in Baccanoverse where as Claire is considered as a monster/superhuman by many he is also superior to all the supernatural entities (Except Ronny their fight would be a stalemate.) in the entire series.

 

[-BANLK-]

Some feats of Claire/Vino.

Just then, the windows beneath them suddenly burst outwards, followed by a billowing cloud of orange-red flame.

A moment later, the boom reached their ears and the metal they stood on shuddered.

"What was that...?"

Christopher looked down at the still expanding fireball curiously, but Vino seemed to find it more familiar than surprising.

"Ah."

That's the stuff that was being smuggled on the Flying Pussyfoot... The two of them quietly watched the explosion dissipate, their fight temporarily forgotten. Chane, too, paused to look down for a moment, but the chakram that came spinning at her a second later told her in no uncertain terms that it wasn't the time for sightseeing.

Vino stared thoughtfully downward, and at length muttered, "Chane, sorry about this, but could you go down and make sure everyone's alright down there?"

Chane nodded and ran so quickly down the pyramid it almost looked like she was falling, deftly deflecting chakram as she went.

"Oh? Are you that confident in your skills? You think you can face both me and Liza alone?"

Christopher shook his head in mock despair at his opponent's foolishness, but Vino paid it no mind, stretching lightly before standing straight. The look in his eyes seemed a little different from what it had been a moment before.

"All right, then. Since the sun's shining and everything... I guess it's time to get serious." "Ahahahaha! How droll! I applaud your wit, sir," Christopher said, watching several chakram close in on Vino's back.

It seemed Liza had given up on Chane and had instead decided to devote her energies entirely into helping Christopher.

"Okay," Claire said, "here I come!"

And the next instant, six silver rings should have buried themselves deep into Vino's body.

But instead, Christopher beheld something that he could hardly believe.

"What...?"

"Heh. These're pretty nice."

One moment, Vino's hands had been empty. The next, they held six chakram.

They had come from different angles, all completely outside his field of vision, and Vino hadn't even turned around. "What just happ-"

Vino hefted the bladed rings and sent them all spinning toward Christopher before he could finish.

"-ened?"

Each chakram drew a beautiful arc through the air, coming together toward where Christopher currently stood.

By the time conscious thought reached Christopher's mind his body was already leaping away, and he looked back to see six rings bury themselves in the ground just behind where he'd been standing.

"How-"

He straightened, taking just an instant to get his footing, but it was long enough. He looked up to see Vino already there in front of him.

"Checkmate."

Vino grinned, his right hand closing around Christopher's throat.

"I was going easy on you 'cause I wanted to fight together with Chane for as long as I could, but it looks like things're getting messy down there."

"Wha..." Christopher gasped, utterly defeated before he could resist or even surrender. Vino's strength had caught him completely off guard.

"Impossible... How did you catch Liza's chakram...?"

Another ring came spinning through the rain, flashing in the sunlight as it sped toward the back of Vino's head.

But the hitman merely reached back with one arm, not even bothering to break eye contact with Christopher, and plucked the chakram clean out of the air.

[1]"You... you didn't even look..."

"I did, actually. Oh, don't worry. I don't have eyes in the back of my head or anything. I'm still human, y'know."

"Then what the hell did you see?!" Christopher gasped. "There isn't even anything that you could have used as a mirro..."

He trailed off as Vino raised two fingers and poked Christopher lightly just below the eyes.

It can't be. "You just thought, 'it can't be', right?"

Christopher couldn't reply.

"Didn't think I'd see them coming reflected in your eyes, did you?"

That's impossible... what kind of eyesight would it take to do something like that?

Is he... Is he really human?

Christopher realized that he was sweating heavily.

"Truly... the strongest human on the planet..."

"Aww, you're embarrassing me."

Christopher fell silent for a moment, then smirked. It looked like he was laughing at himself.

"You truly are blessed by God."

"God doesn't exist in this world. He's only in my head. To you, he's in yours. You get what I mean?" Vino said quietly, and something that looked to Christopher like anger began to seep into his eyes.

"You know what really pisses me off? It's when people think that my power is some sorta miracle, or a gift from God. D'you really think that I just sat there and had this strength handed to me on a silver platter?"

His grip tightened, slowly blocking off Christopher's airway.

"I call up the God in my mind and make him do what I say. That's what's called effort. I do that every day, every week, every month, every year. That's all. So. You admit defeat, right?"

The sudden question came completely out of left field, and in reply Christopher only smiled and grabbed one of his guns, swinging the blade on the end toward the side of Vino's head.

"Fine, then."

Vino lifted Christopher off the floor and swung his entire body around in a half-circle through the air, bringing him down headfirst onto the white cement that made up the pyramid of the Mist Wall.

"Gah..."

Just before he lost consciousness, Christopher was able to make out Vino speaking to him in a low voice.

"Don't worry. Compared to me, you're about as close to natural as it gets."

Christopher tried to reply, but if he said anything at all, it was so quiet that not even Vino could hear it.

---

 

[Creaturemaster971]

Did this discussion ever get concluded?

Just scanning around for Naritaverse threads since there was a potential revision a long time ago that I suddenly remembered, and this one came up.