"Ah...my bad." Fatera said, jumping off the chariot before it touches the ground before slamming down onto the plains that's covered by snow.
"I would have disqualified you for being late, Fatera." Principal Khan said through the projections, "But you have earned your special treatment given your history. So we will give you a chance here."
"Not my history, but my strength."
Fatera smiled before playfully bowing to the crowd. Then, she reached her hand out as the Chariot reformed around her wrist as the bracelet. As evident by the first match between Ver and Matty, the bracelet has just become a proxy to a high level of damage to the Wave user. Though when Ver slammed the two massive pieces of ice together, the bracelet wasn't the only thing that she shattered.
For the other matches, it either ended when one of the students submitted or was severely injured and became unconscious. The bracelet didn't play much of a role there, and it is unlikely that it will play any role here either.
"Now that the two fighters had arrived, let the battle begin!" Principal Khan declared, his voice echoing through the battlefield as Fatera scanned the environment seriously for the first time. This particular battlefield is filled to the brim with massive spiking rocks that created great cover and made the terrain incredibly tricky to navigate.
She leapt forward onto her feet before lightly landing on the tip of the nearest rock when the shadowy figures of Braka suddenly emerged from behind and got in close to her.
As Fatera's head slowly turned towards Braka, he swung his fist and landed a punch squarely on her jaw.
"HUH?!" Lera and Ver's jaws both dropped in surprise. Fatera had reacted to attacks far quicker than what Braka had just delivered, yet for some reason...she didn't even move? Was there some sort of a trick?
"Hey." Fatera said, the fist still sticking to her jaw as Braka's eyes sharpened and he pulled back, "Are ya serious?"
"What are you saying?" Braka asked, crounching down and back on the slope of the rock as Fatera exercised her chin muscles.
"If ya want me to fight seriously, ya better come at me seriously, and harder." Fatera said, straightening up before she dug her feet down onto the ground and scoop up a handful of tiny rocks around her feet, "Your punch lacks conviction!"
Then, her body twisted around like a screw before her feet spun and sent the tiny rocks raining down towards Braka. He crossed his bare arms and shielded himself from the impact as the rocks splattered all over his body. The flying pieces carried so much momentum that it easily tore through the flesh on Braka's arms and legs.
With blood streaming down from his elbows to his hands, Braka surged forward yet again, this time carrying far more speed and power. Fatera sensed his approach through the wave and face him head-on.
"Now that's more like it!" She commented, her arms out to the side as she called on even more of a fraction of power within her. Then, as Braka rapidly tapped his foot along the ground, dashing in a zig-zag fashion to close in the distance, he clapped both hands together before the streaming blood came alive with the Wave running through it.
"Blood blade! Rise!" Braka called, a two meter long blade made from his blood and reinforced with the Wave materializing and hardening in his hands. The appearance of the weapon rapidly changed the geometry of the battleground as Fatera now have to respond to the vastly improved attack range of Braka.
She could back out and reset, or...she could go in, all the way in. Before Braka even swung his blade, Fatera already knew what she's going to do. With her knees flexed and hips lowered, Fatera launched herself forward, the rocks she stepped off shattering with impulse before fully collasping. Then, before Braka can get his blade up to full speed, Fatera formed a Wave-glove around her right hand and slammedit horizontally against his body.
"Don't look down on me!" Braka said, spinning his blade and turning the sharp edge towards Fatera's hands as he rapidly sliced across.
"I was about to say the same." Fatera laughed before accelerating her hands towards the blade as if she had been waiting for Braka to use the sharp side on her.
Her Wave-glove easily snapped through Braka's Blood Blade, and the momentum carrying on let her finger tips slash right into the chest of Braka, creating a gaping wound that revealed the muscle fibers and the ribcage beneath his skin before a waterfall of blood poured out.
Carrying on the momentum of her attack, Fatera spun around before delivering a stomach puncturing back kick that sent Braka flying through rows of rocks as an explosive shockwave went off around them at the moment of impact.
"...She's an absolute monster..." A few of the other students back at the Resort restaurant said, "What kind of a crazy person accelerates towards the blade when they see it coming...?"
The sort of person that will not be stopped by anything on their path to victory. That's the sort of person Fatera is. In her pursuit of strength, there is no room for fear, and no room for avoidance. Ver thought, remembering to their months of training when Fatera sharpened her concentration of the Wave by clashing it repeatedly against the Sky-Splitting Sword.
Ever since her hands were cut open by the legendary sword, Fatera had been training her Wave-gloves to at least match the Sky-Splitting Sword in its durability. In comparison, the Blood Blade felt like nothing more than a dried tree-branch.
When you confront your weaknesses instead of running away from them...this is the result.
"ARGHHH!" Fatera shouted, raising her fist in the air with the semi-transparent crimson Wave-glove surrounding it, "The victory is mine!"
"Not yet, Fatera." The voice of Principal Khan came through, and Fatera turned to look at the trail of blood left behind by Braka before the man covered in blood stood up stiffly like a zombie, his heels digging in and scooping his body forward. His black clothes were completely covered in blood, and as he walked closer and closer towards Fatera, he started creating more and more scars over his entire body.
With tiny Blood Blades forming sharp spikes his hand, he carved up his face, cut through his wrist, tore open his stomach, and diced up his throat. However, as more and more blood poured out of from his body, the aura of the Wave coming out of him seemed to be getting...stronger and stronger?
Fatera had known something felt off about her opponent, and as his power became increasingly stronger as he approached while becoming progressively more injured, Fatera finally looked at him seriously.
"Tell me...why did you clash head-on with my blade?" Braka asked, leaving behind reddened footprints as he hurdled over a piece of rock.
"Cause the strong don't run away." Fatera said, putting her right hand up, "This hand was once split open by a blade, but it will not happen again."
Braka nodded knowingly with a bloody smile, "This is me confronting you, Fatera. This is me without holding back. This is me not running away."
"I welcome it." Fatera said, dropping into a split stance as the smile on her face went away, replaced by a look of anticipation. Then, Braka stopped five meters away from Fatera as the Blood Blades returned back into his streaming blood.
"My name is Braka Suki, and I was born in the Kingdom of the Eastern Sun. My power is Scar Casting." Braka declared, his hands outreached as he stretched and tore open the gaping wounds all over his body, "I wanted to surprise you with my enhanced attack despite the appearance of my injuries, but then, I realised something.
"I realized that I was afraid of your true strength, and I hoped that I could avoid confronting you straight on in this battle, somehow. But that will no longer be the case, Fatera. Even in defeat, I will fight you with all my power, all at the same time."
"I WELCOME IT!" Fatera shoutede excitedly as her voice echoed in the entire battlefield, "I WELCOME IT!"
"Let's have a battle of a lifetime." Braka said, a pulse of purple light connecting all of the Scars over his body before the Wave within his body synchronized with the Wave in the air around him. Then, the trails of blood left behind by him also roared in response to his calling, "Blood Red Prison Dance!"
A darkened red aura immediately bathed the entire battlefield as Fatera looked around before clashing her fists together, conjuring up her Wave-gloves and Wave-boots before channeling her power further and coating her skin with the Wave, "Red? What a great color."
There she is, the girl with crimson red eyes bathed in a slight red-tinted Wave armor, surrounded by a sea of dark red.
Then, as the flow of the Wave besides her shifted by an infinitesimal amount as if a little girl had gently brushed it aside, Fatera spun around rapidly, stirring up the air before she clashed fists with Braka, now transformed into a demon dressed in thickened black fluid.
They exchanged blows rapidly, each of the strike sounding like a cannon fire as Braka matched Fatera's attack speeds strike for strike. As Braka slashed with a shorter yet thicker version of the Blood Blade, Fatera knocked it aside with one hand before countering with a punch straight towards his stomach.
However, before that hit could land, Braka summoned yet another blade form his chest before letting go of the previous one, closing the tiniest opening in his defenses and slicing straight down, knocking Fatera's punch off course.
Fatera smiled at his quick movements as she folded up her arms, stepping in even further and elbowing him in the stomach before shoving him away with both hands against his chest. Though before he was sent flying, Braka reached both hands out and slashed Fatera across in the abdomen with his blades.
The blades bounced off the thin layer of Wave around her body and didn't do a hint of damage. Braka cursed from under his breath before landing hard on his legs, falling back and rolling away. But before he could re-engage, Fatera had already closed in the gap between them with both of her hands curving towards the midline of her body in a clap.
A tsunami of air pressure exploded right in front of Braka's face before the surge of wind sent him flying further back through the rows of rocks as his body bounced from one bedrock to another.
Then, without giving him a single moment to breathe, Fatera hovered over Braka's body with her fist up high.
"Thanks for the workout, Braka." She said, "But this workout is over. Punchy...PUNCH!"