With a grunt, I crashed into the entrance of the room, the weak wooden door immediately splintering open. My back stung, but I was used to the pain now, boxing and shelving it in my mind to make sure it didn’t distract me. I quickly shot to my feet as Owen lumbered into the hallway, raising my fists again.
Owen was unrecognizable now, his face painted black and blue. His nose bled a little, and one eye had visibly begun to swell. He was holding off on Reviving though, and I didn’t blame him for it. The kind of pain that Reviving put you through was something anyone would want to avoid as much as possible. Although any thoughts of finishing this fight without a Revive had surely left his head, he was probably still gathering the courage to go through it.
Knowing this, I taunted him for it. “Come on Owen, this is getting embarrassing. At this point, it looks like I’m just bullying you.” And it was true. Although I was the one mostly being thrown around, after three Revives I looked as fresh as a peach compared to Owen, who looked more like a bullied schoolboy who had just lost a fight.
“I’ll Revive when I need to,” grunted Owen, before rushing at me. The hallway didn’t give me a lot of room to work with, and Owen’s large frame took up much of the meager space available. Still, I could make do with what I had.
I turned and kicked against the wall as hard as I could, using the boost it gave me to get my knees on the same level as Owen’s face. However, Owen was used to this by now, and instantly reacted by crossing his arms in front of his face. My knee crashed into his forearms with the entire weight of my body behind it, but that wasn’t my actual attack. With my knee stopped my momentum carried me into a rollover Owen’s head, allowing me to swing both my fists into the base of his spine like clubs. As he stumbled forward, I completed my roll and landed on my feet, my back facing Owen’s. Immediately, I dropped into a crouch and swept my foot behind me, knocking his feet out from under him.
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Owen fell with a thud and rolled a bit. With how short this final hallway was, he had already reached its edge. I grinned, already knowing what my next move was.
Owen slowly rose to his feet, his bruises no doubt aching after taking another fall. Mere moments after he had stood up, my feet came flying at his chest. The poor man had no time to react. With a thud, he fell backwards onto the carpeted stairs and rolled down almost a quarter of the way before he could stop himself. I heard no commotion, which meant that no one had seen the old man rolling down the stairs, but I knew that it wouldn’t be long before everyone found out now that we were out of the room.
Relishing the pain that Owen was currently in, I let my smugness show as I leisurely walked down the stairs, making sure to thump against them so that Owen could tell that I was coming, much like he had. However, by the time I stood in front of him, Owen himself was also standing, his face completely restored to its original state. Of course, his clothing and hair were still ragged, just like mine, but his body was emanating a powerful strength – like he had just returned from a vacation, not rolled down a flight of stairs.
I smiled to cover up my irritation. “So, you finally found the nerve, huh?”
Owen matched my smile, but his was actually real. “I had forgotten how painful that was. But I thank you, Ruby. You were right, all those years without a challenge had left me soft.”
Immediately he jumped towards me, fierce and faster than ever before. Acting as quickly as I could, I still just barely managed to sidestep his fist, the gust of wind it created buffeting my clothes. Following up his attack, Owen spun on his foot, the other extended out as it came for my head like a scythe.
Acting more on instinct than conscious decision, I ducked underneath his foot and rolled forwards, landing more than five steps lower than Owen. This is just great, I thought tiredly as I readied myself to fight again. As if this fight wasn’t already hard enough.