“The elders have spoken!” Echoes a voice that Raika recognizes as Elder Ren of the medical hall. What he’s doing presiding over a combat challenge she doesn’t know, but his voice carries wonderfully in the colosseum stands and down to the arena. “For the crime of assaulting an outer sect disciple, the cripple known as Raika is to be put to the Purple Flame Burning Lotus sect’s absolute justice!”
There’s an accompanying roar from the stands, many of them seeming surprised by the amount of pageantry to this that Elder Ren’s voice brings to the proceedings. He’s truly got a voice for oration, and it carries through into his words and Qi magnification.
“Yet in our mercy and respect for this one’s former journey as a cultivator, the Lord Judge of our grand sect has granted leniency!” he continues. “They shall be allowed to fight in a final battle, here on the holy grounds upon which the greatest of glories may be gained! The honorable Shin Ren has volunteered to deliver this criminal’s final moments, that we might all benefit from the sight of his prowess, so recently returned to us from the Imperial Academies!”
Ren, huh. A relation of the elder, maybe? Doesn’t matter, really, but it might explain why he’s been forced here despite whatever advantages he clearly has.
“The accused stands at this final trial; to experience one final, glorious moment of combat as their execution. So speaks the mercy of the Lord Judge, and so stands the judgment of the Purple Flame Burning Lotus sect!”
At this final proclamation, the arena erupts into applause and cheers, some stomping their feet and shooting off bursts of Qi that have Raika, even all the way down in the arena, snorting to clear her airways (it doesn’t work like that, unfortunately, but might as well). Whoever this “young master” Shi Ren is, he’s clearly hot shit, enough that the thought of seeing him in action seems to be enough to get the crowd riled no matter who he’s fighting against.
The man in question, however, doesn’t seem to be joining in the festive, eager atmosphere. He looks at her with that piercing glare, with those gorgeous eyes… and he just seems disappointed. Maybe a bit sad, but mostly disappointed, like he doesn’t want to be here and can’t help but be disheartened that he’s been made to be here.
She can empathize, though her disappointment is manifesting more as rage and an incredible rush of adrenaline running through her system.
“To all those watching,” booms out Elder Ren, “look closely at the talent and mercy of our sect. To those participating in the final moments; begin.”
Shin Ren doesn’t move first.
She expected him to. She didn’t hear his cultivation, so she figured this would be a bit of a one-sided show, some incredible speed followed up by a flashy technique or two to show off to the crowd.
Instead, he looks her in the eyes, and bows.
She blinks. Shakes her head a bit and blinks again.
“Servant Raika,” Shin Ren whispers, the sound carried to her artfully on a cushion of Qi and kept from the audience; “I honor your death and your struggle in these moments to come. I ask forgiveness that such a show has been made of your final moments. I promise to make it as quick and honorable as I can.”
She blinks a third time, and takes in a very small breath. His scent hits her, then, and it is not the complicated mess of concepts or mish-mash of flavors that so many tend to have. His power smells of berries and honey, cooking over an old and well-tended firepit, one that has been built to last. It is sweet, and reminds her of warm memories, and the fire beneath it, no matter how hot, only enhances that which it molds with.
That, with his words, is almost enough to let something in her slip. For all she thinks of the parts that scream bloody murder and wrestle the world, and the parts that remind her of when she shouldn’t, there is more than a bit of her that is in pain.
She has been in pain for some time. And he goes and says something like that.
She sighs, letting the feeling drift, slowly covering it back up and focusing, on the arena, on the crowd, on the stone beneath her feet and the blade in his hand. She gives him a smile, which she meant to be feral and intimidating and as free as she tries to be, but it comes out a bit too sad for all that.
“Hardly fair you’re that hot and considerate,” she whispers back to him, certain he’ll be able to hear. “Don’t worry, you romantic bastard. I don’t plan to die here.”
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He blinks at her in turn, but smiles back at her, sincere and small. “Very well, Raika the Accused,” he says, now loud enough to be heard if people strain. “Then let us begin, and see whose vision shall emerge true.”
He moves so fast that she’s ducking before she’s even noticed where he ended up, reacting the instant she realizes he’s not where she was looking anymore.
A whistle of compressed air shaves off a bit of her hair, less than a centimeter from her scalp, the blade behind it moving with a speed and weight it’s like its passing almost pulls her off balance.
Almost.
No holds barred. Everything on the line. Everything she is against whatever he decides to throw at her, for as long as she can last. Familiar territory at last.
She can feel herself moving, muscle memory abandoned for the enhanced speed in her outer body which reacts nearly the instant she can think, swinging her arm back and up against where he should be standing. The remaining manacle, open and heavy and edged in sharp corners, whistles through empty air, but she’s already moving, throwing herself forward in a roll that she forces her body to come out of much faster than she should be able to.
Her heart beats, pumping hard, pumping violent, her blood cycling in her body like a tornado of fear and survival instinct. She is ALIVE, damnit, and she refuses to let go of it. She uses the heartbeat, how it carries her will and her focus, and forces her body to adjust, the Qi trapped and forcibly bound to her skin and outer flesh adjusting with her will so her spine straightens and her left leg holds firm when she puts all her weight on it, even reaching out and making a tremendous series of popping noises as her right knee is forced to move just enough that she can plant the foot and its stance.
All that effort, the universe seems to laugh, for barely being able to stand proper.
In the time it takes to force her body into shape, he’s moved again. Not blitzing her, not angry, if anything his expression looks curious in the instant she glimpses it and has to physically yank her own body back and onto the ground to avoid the swipe he casually sends at her.
From half the arena away.
The cut still carves into the pillars, almost fifty feet past the edge of the arena.
She knows why they didn’t announce his realm, now. They probably didn’t need to, but it would be improper to mention how improper this matchup was out loud.
Nascent Soul realm. The very start of it, perhaps, or maybe just a very talented Core Formation disciple with a good spear, but the cut smelled only of him, the air ringing with a purity she’s only smelled in the presence of the elders. Equivalent to low level Nascent Soul, maybe.
Whoever the fuck Shin Ren is, Imperial Academy seems to have served him well.
She sprints at him, throwing herself forward as hard as she can, bones creaking and leaving behind a flash of dust as she uses everything to move towards him, to get in range and take any initiative. His eyes follow her movement, taking careful note, neither underestimating her nor losing track of her. She can’t hear the audience anymore, it’s a waste of processing power, but she can imagine the fucking silence as she survives a second cut from him, and then charges him like a mad bull.
He vanishes again, but this time she’s more ready, every nerve singing, every beat of her heart burning, and swings at the space to her right, twisting her body in a pattern that should not be physically possible to avoid the counter swing coming down at her. Her spine is going to scream at her later, probably a rib or two as well, but she twists even as she strikes.
He dodges, effortlessly, looking like he just decided to not be where the swing hit. She grabs the chain, shortening it and swinging faster, in shorter arcs, pretending it’s a broken nunchuk, pretending that her body can move as it used to. She takes one step, two, jumps almost five feet into the air to avoid another cut and trying to land a kick on him as she falls.
He sidesteps, and the thing she knew would happen the instant she got airborn hits a quarter-second later, impaling her through the chest and slamming her down into the stone floor that she feels the spear go all the way through her and then deeper, into the stone, stabbing it in a detonation that can be heard through the entire colosseum.
The arena itself issues a “crack”, the stone shifting ever so slightly, the blade going all the way in and through her chest and out the back, pinning her like a fly. A flood of blood spits out of her mouth, splattering all down her front as one of her lungs collapses on impact. The instant she couldn’t maneuver, he hit her with a graceful, tactful, precise maneuver, and she feels things that should not move shifting, feels something that is more panic than pain as her brain tries desperately to understand the level of damage that has been done to it.
Shin Ren is there, above her. Natural light flows down from the top of the colosseum, whispers of powdered stone and misted blood floating around him like a halo as he looks down at her. He has slowed, moving at normal speed, and she watches him, her body shivering and juddering against the blade, looking up at his face, trembling as he shifts the blade just enough to disconnect it from the stone, that she might not be so immobile.
“You fought well,” he whispers, just between the two of them.
She raises her arm, feebly. The entire limb trembles, shock and pain and blood loss leaving it a juddering mess, like a faulty doll. She reaches towards him, like a supplicant, like someone asking for help.
“G- pl-” she gurgles.
He takes her hand, in one of the kindest moments she’s ever experienced in a cultivator.
And then she flicks her wrist, the shortened chain of the manacles moving in a twitch made perfect with what control she still has, and locks the heavy, mechanical, Qi-warded and heavily runed manacle made to limit cultivators around his wrist.
“Gotcha,” she snarls past the blood.