Ultima Shield

Key: Fash
Character: Ultima
Application for: Shield

Ultima had been contending since he was a young boy, sparring with his sitter Meran, Arvonas his best friend, Shin the kai and several demons. Though his strength had improved over the many years they all spent together, he knew that he was falling behind some. Meran's punches were devastating, Arvonas' kicks were picking up in speed and becoming harder to dodge, Shin's ki techniques always seemed to hit their mark with sheer force and the demons could ultimately perform feats of both great strength as well as prowess.

Ultima didn't have any fancy techniques, no finesse or style per-say. He spent most of his time just getting angry and punching whatever it was that stood in his way. He was always vulnerable; open to attack at almost every angle even when he was focused. His stance and methods of fighting were both sluggish and unorthodox, his trait specific to him is that he could ignore most of the damage done to his body until a certain point, a sort of pain threshold that surpassed some others the he had met.

His teachers all had their own way of being the best they were, or ultimately being biased to a certain form of fighting. Ultima was not however restricted or conformed to any particular form given he did not really have one. But with what he did know; the ability to take a hit; made him ponder if there was another way he could go about it. The others threw their ki around, used it to make themselves stronger and invigorated, some even used it to speak to others or like he had learned but a year or so ago, make sparring partners. What if there was some way to separate himself from the others even more so than he already was? A way to make himself special, a way to make himself able to do what none of the others could?

Ultima sat and pondered for days, unable to come up with anything. He meditated and focused on what new technique he could come up with. His training was lacking with Shin and the other Kai's knew things that Ultima was not really interested in. His mind trailed off from the topic of being good at fighting, being good at taking hits, or being good at anything. He began wondering about his weaknesses and faults. His doubts came to fruition manifesting themselves within his mind. He was rather reckless when fighting, so what if he could take hits up to a certain point? Was this really a strong point, or nothing more than a weakness in disguise?

His eyes opened and widened when he came to the sudden realization that all this time he was leaving himself open all the time and regardless of how he handled taking hits it was nothing more than something he was proving to himself that carried no weight with the others. He must have been looking like a fool the entire time he thought. As if being the most bloodied made him the victor at the end of a fight which was obviously not the case. He felt like an idiot and continued to think on ways to improve himself now that he thought he had isolated the issue.

Ultima thought about changing his stance, the way he performed in battle, the way he thought during a fight and most importantly, keeping his anger in check in addition to keeping his mind focused. He was growing into a young man now and there was no more need to hang on to his childish ways. Having been separated from Arvonas was a good start, as if to remove himself from a bad influence. Now all that was left was to focus on what was becoming more important to him.

His mind fixated back to the many styles of the fighters he had encountered in checkpoint. Shins, Merans, even the demon Flauros. All were rather vicious and less conserved save for maybe Shin but even that was questionable. Ultima knew how to make ki into a solid form after being able to create copies of himself using his own divine powers and energy. He knew how to empower himself with it so he could move faster, hit harder. But now he wanted more than anything to be able to take hits and the question still remained...how?

Healing himself would not work, as it took a lot out of him to perform, there had to be another way to reduce damage done to him other than this. His aura only made him faster and somewhat stronger, it didn't make him take less hits to his body but did help with the pain slightly. He mostly used it to keep up with the adults whom all held greater powers than himself. Thinking on it harder he remembered diving behind a rock once to stop a beam from hitting him while training with Shin. The rock stopped the beam for a moment, not long, but a moment. Ultima knew how to make rocks out of his divine magic, or at least magic that looked like rocks. He started developing the idea of putting a rock between himself and a target, using a copy as a guinea pig.

A day or two passed and the best he could come up with was a slight barrier moulded from divine magic and ki. It was only thin and for Ultima it was rather draining to keep up. The result was achieved while training with Ekibio after he fired off his special pun cannon at him. With no time to move out of the way and not really knowing how great the impact would be he put up his arms and like a reflex put the same kind of energy in front of him that was emitted from the kai. The barrier shattered as it was hit and Ultima was still struck to the ground. From then on he practiced it only against his split forms, attempting to develop it in such a way that it didn't break. After a long duration of trial and error did he find out that with a little bit of spin, he could knock away the odd attack. He then focused on putting more energy into the barrier itself changing it from a singular point in front of him into a full sized bubble for optimal positioning. Now if he was attacked from any angle it would deflect attacks, at least as long as he had his focus on it.

It was still draining and made him quite tired no matter what ended up hitting it. Each hit was like a direct hit to his will driven supply of energy itself but at least his body would be kept safe. He had to develop a method now of when and how to use it so that he could optimise it's potential due to his limited supply of energy and will power. Perhaps it was best only to use this against things he was not fast enough to avoid himself, moments of absolute need rather than something to use all the time. His splits weren't a good enough partner to test the theory so he'd have to find Shin or Ekibio, beings of great power to stave off greater attacks of talent and audacity. Though he was proud of the technique he was losing time with his friends and those he felt like family to, but he knew that in the end he'd be better to protect them from that which might come to take them away. He was going to strive to make sure he could keep them safe, from whatever was in his power to do so.