Chapter XXXIV (34)- Blood and Burns

Harvey was dazed as he walked back into the competitor box. A trickle of blood dripped down from his cheek, and there was an ugly bruise on the arm where the first strike had grazed him, but aside from that he was unharmed.

Lucas followed after Harvey, still chuckling with mad glee in his eyes.

“You lost more than just the match,” Lucas told him. “Every single person out there violently despises you now.”

Harvey continued staring at the wall and shrugged. “They came to watch me get pummeled for entertainment.”

“And you unleashed torment on them instead.” Lucas didn’t reprimand him. In fact, it sounded like Lucas was admiring his work.

The scrawny student in the pointed hat poked his head in. His voice quivered slightly as he called over Kizu and his opponent. Kizu had expected to have some reservations about leaving Harvey behind with Lucas, but it seemed to be a nonissue. Whatever malice Lucas had for his friend, it was gone now.

Instead, Kizu decided it was time to worry about himself.

His opponent hardly seemed as pleasant as Harvey’s, for all that Lucas had been a monster. It seemed like making him miss an opportunity to fight his friend had somehow translated into an even worse insult than Harvey’s conflict with the younger brother. Just the idea of fighting Kizu seemed to be an insult to the brute. Every time the older student looked at him, his expression grew more wrathful still.

They separated and took their places at opposite ends of the courtyard. The scrawny student glanced over to Arclight, then decided to retreat. Their professor stood shouting at the Hon man who’d kept her from interfering with the previous match. Kizu approached until he stood just under them.

“An absolute farce!” she yelled at him. “I’m not doing this. That last match broke half a hundred rules. Do you think you can just pick and choose which rules need to be followed? You stopped me from saving my students from undue pain. And now this. You think this is an even match? There’s nothing for the students to even learn from this. It’s cruel. I didn’t join this academy to put my students in the ground.”

“Then leave,” the man said, a slight smile touching the edge of his lips. “I found that last match very educational.”

She threw a punch then, aimed straight for his face. Before she made contact, her body seized, freezing her in place with her arm extended. A brilliant red handprint shown on her shoulder where he had touched her earlier. Kizu recognized it immediately as a hex.

“Now, now. Temper,” the man chided. “What kind of example would you be to your precious students if you started exchanging blows with your superiors?”

“Fight me,” she growled at him.

“No. I am in this position because I have a brain.”

“Every wound inflicted on these students, I will return to you,” she promised venomously.

“Just do your job. Or I’ll be forced to advocate for your removal.”

Kizu glanced around. Despite Arclight’s volume, nobody else appeared to notice the exchange. The few remaining students in the audience had positioned themselves in the far back of the stadium, as far away from the pit as possible. The walls to either side of the referee box blocked the adults from their view.

The man looked down at Kizu. Despite his Hon heritage, the man had brilliant blue eyes, their color exacerbated by his parted dark hair. A scar carved up from his larynx up the side of his face to his ear. He smiled at Kizu, his lips pressed together and stretched across his face as his eyes drilled into Kizu. He forgot how to breathe.

Arclight spat on the man. Annoyed, he broke eye contact with Kizu while the saliva sizzled and evaporated off his cheek. He snapped his fingers and a gong appeared beside him, blocking Arclight from view. He slammed a fist into it. It vibrated with a bummm, shaking the stadium. The walls around the referee box went transparent, but Arclight remained obscured. All eyes turned to him.

“Hello all, I am Warlord Inari Kusatta. That last match was certainly a powerful display. Your good teacher, Professor Arclight, stepped aside to take care of a few small issues. But I offered to continue facilitating the next match. I act with the authority of the Hon Empire and am qualified to preside over duels. Please, contestants step forward where we can all see you.”

For a second, Kizu debated backing out. But an icy look from Inari forced his feet to move unbidden. Kizu was uncertain if it was sorcery, or just terrified fear that made him step into the center of the arena.

Medical staff ran across the stadium ground, clearing the area. Some carried students away on stretchers while others were on the sidelines bandaging and creating splints. He spotted Edgar from the medical wing pressing a block of ice against a student’s black eye. Kizu wondered if he should say something about Arclight to one of them. But what could he say? That she was attacked? Would anyone believe him? They’d likely think he was just trying to find a way out of the match.

Kizu decided to focus on the obstacle before him. He eyed his opponent. Fully human, at the very least, he wasn’t quite as tall as Lucas, but easily twice as broad as Kizu. His shoulders were nearly a meter wide, and his arms were like tree trunks. Definitely not someone Kizu would choose to pick a fight with if he had the choice. Kizu had no spells to beguile others to his aid like Harvey. And even if he did, the remaining spectators looked far more cautious in their seats. Several of them had even found wax to cram into their ears. They knew he was Harvey’s friend and expected similar tricks from him. Which was hardly a fair judgment.

“Keep things civil,” Inari said as Kizu approached his opponent to shake hands. “The match is to first blood. You must stay within the perimeter of the courtyard. And you may verbally forfeit at any time.”

Inari continued on with more rules, but Kizu lost focus when his opponent snarled, “I can break every bone in your body without shedding a drop of blood.”

Kizu felt the malice was more than a bit unreasonable. But he said nothing and listened to Inari. He resolved to put in the best performance possible, and if it wasn’t enough, he’d forfeit.

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As they stepped back from one another, Kizu reached into his jacket and withdrew a vial he had prepared a few days earlier. The recipe implied the best results would come after letting it sit and separate for a week, but three days would have to do. It was mostly for the user’s comfort that it demanded so much time to settle before use. He bit the cork and spit it out on the courtyard dirt.

The crowd watched as he guzzled the contents down in three gulps. The concoction caused his throat to burn. It felt like thousands of ants crawling down the back of his tongue and nesting in his esophagus. His eyes watered, but he didn’t dare wipe them, afraid of getting the potion’s residue in them.

Before Inari announced their start, he looked over his shoulder behind the gong and smiled. He raised three fingers. Then two. Then one. A shrill whistle rang across the arena.

His opponent leapt forward, his right-hand morphing into a monstrous paw with talon-like claws. He cleared the distance between them in a moment.

But Kizu was ready. In fact, he felt more than ready. He let the building gas out of his body in a painful burp. The moment the gas met the air, it ignited. Flames seared Kizu’s lips, and he had to close his eyes to avoid burning them. The pressure released knocked him completely off his feet.

He gasped for breath as soon as the stream of fire ended. To his dismay, his opponent was barely singed from the attack. Kizu supposed he must have leapt back just in time to dodge the worst of it. Only his unibrow had been singed, in the end. The fourth year eyed him cautiously, obviously not convinced the flames were fully out of his system. And wisely so. Kizu buckled over and heaved out more fire, attempting to spew it in his opponent’s direction.

It took several minutes before Kizu finally felt the fire settle in his stomach. He was grateful for the fact he’d never had to use one of these potions against the bloodspawn. It probably would have felt even worse to use it a day earlier.

Kizu crouched on all fours, panting wildly while staring down at the dirt. He felt absolutely horrible.

But the battle wasn’t over. Not even close. His opponent circled around him, wary but unharmed. The clawed arm he had created clenched and unclenched with obvious irritation.

While he stood behind Kizu, Kizu uncorked another vial and drained it. All hopes it might go down easier the second time were in vain. If anything, the second vial felt worse, his throat still raw from the first dose.

But it also yielded results far quicker than the first vial. And Kizu was grateful for that fact as his opponent descended on him from behind.

Kizu flipped himself around to face the sky right as his opponent struck. The fire physically lifted Kizu’s opponent into the air as it blasted him backward.

Not nearly far enough, though. He had hoped to force the older boy out of the courtyard to disqualify him from the test. The angry red burns on his skin weren’t actually anything serious. Somehow, the boy had raised an antimagic shield up to block Kizu’s attack the moment it hit. And now the hulking student was back to cautiously prowling around him. He growled like an irritated ocelot.

When Kizu felt the potion wearing off, he decided to try another ploy. This time he uncorked a potion while in full view of the older student. He didn’t hide the vial as he gulped its contents down. However, what he did do was cover the second vial with an illusion, camouflaging it with skin color, effectively making it invisible. He did his best to drain them straight down his throat, though every taste bud on his tongue was likely already burned off. It took a surprising amount of focus to keep the illusion up as he palmed the empty second vial. His vision blurred as his eyes burned. Tears streamed down his face. He blinked rapidly to try to better see. The flames seared not only his lips this time but seemed to trail down his throat to burn the inside of his lungs as well. Even if he wanted to drink more, his body wouldn’t be able to handle another potion. He was at his limit.

Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one about to be hurt by the fire’s effects. Expecting the same results as his previous two fire breathing potions, his opponent had stood just outside of that previous range. But completely within range for the effects of two vials. The fire engulfed his opponent. The older student screamed, but it sounded like pure rage, not pain. Kizu lost his vision and blacked out for a moment while his insides throbbed in agony.

When Kizu finally collapsed to the ground, it took all his effort to look up at his results. His opponent was far more than singed as he crouched on the ground a stone’s throw away. He looked even worse than Kizu felt. His entire body was covered in burns, his eyelashes and unibrow completely scoured from his face. The hair he did still have was blackened and curled, sparse across his raw red scalp. His opponent’s uniform had even melted around his red skin. He had enhanced his skin. He still took burns, but not to the degree that Kizu needed. There wasn’t any sign of actual blood.

Kizu glanced over to Inari. The warlord stood watching the match with interest. There was no blood. The match continued.

Then his opponent heaved himself up to his feet. His arms swung like pendulums as he approached Kizu. Kizu opened his mouth to voice his forfeit. No air came in. No words came out. His opponent was using an elemental spell to remove the air from his lungs. But no, that wasn’t right, Ulric showed no sign of channeling elemental spells. Kizu’s eyes flickered up to the stands where Inari stood, smiling. It was him. Kizu trembled and tried to create an antimagic shield, but he’d never attempted one inside his mouth before. Horror filled him when he realized that no bystander would notice. Their spellsense wouldn’t be able to penetrate his body. In a panic, Kizu looked over to the boundary line. He attempted to camouflage himself with illusions as he scrambled in that direction, but they flickered, as he struggled for air.

The kick his opponent landed on his head sent the world spinning. But the kick was only the beginning. Kizu tried to curl into a ball, but the next kick cracked him open like an egg, his opponent’s foot slamming into his forehead. Air returned to him in brief moments, but not enough to let him cry out his defeat. He tried to create illusionary afterimages, to roll away to the edge of the arena. It caused a couple strikes to miss, but not enough to get him an escape. The older student unleashed all his anger on Kizu in a flurry of blows. Despite his charred body, he appeared to have plenty of energy left to burn. Strike after strike landed all across Kizu’s crumpled body. Whenever he attempted to reposition to cover a tender spot, his opponent created a new opening through brute force.

Kizu heard a deep crack from his leg as the older student brought down his full weight on it. The pain followed the noise after a split-second delay. Horrible pain. He wanted to bend over and clutch the broken limb, but his body protested as he squirmed. The older student grabbed the shattered leg with both hands and twisted. He wrung out Kizu’s leg like a soaked rag. Kizu lost all ability to function, agony paralyzing him. He felt the tendons and muscle tearing. He blacked out for the second time in the match. And then, as a wakeup call, his opponent bent over and punched him between the eyes. Kizu welcomed that new pain. It helped distract him from his leg. Then another punch, this time at his mouth. He felt one of his teeth break.

“First blood,” Inari said calmly, sounding disappointed. “Separate.”

His opponent landed one last kick to the back of his head before stepping back. Kizu flopped over, senseless with pain. Unable to comply with the warlord’s command, he just stared up at the sky. His vision swam. The sun bobbed above his head. Every bit of him hurt. He wanted to just stay there until the darkness claimed him. He wondered with a dark, hysterical sort of humor which part of him had finally started bleeding. Bruises and broken bones didn’t bleed any more than burns. Maybe one of the bones had pierced through his leg. That would make sense. An iron taste dribbled into his mouth. Blood.

He raised a bruised arm, and his hand touched the slightly wet patch of skin on his forehead where his opponent had punched him.

“Lay still,” someone directed him. Her face swam in Kizu’s vision. It looked familiar. He stretched his memory for a name.

“Raygen,” he finally said, satisfied by his memory. The girl he’d offended with the dictionaries.

“Yes,” she snapped. “Now lay still. I am going to fix this.”

“Of course.” Kizu tried to sound rational, but he felt like he was floating. The pain was so bad that nothing felt real. “Wait. Where’s Kateshi?”

Raygen tore off his pant leg and Kizu heard the medical student suck on her teeth as she glanced fearfully around. Then she slammed her hand down. There was a brief sensation of warmth, right before the overwhelming pain rocked him to sleep.