Chpt. 35) Momento Mori
“And now! The last fight of the day! We bring you team Fiery Heart! Verses the ever-beautiful team Evergarden!” Felix announced to the gathered crowd as we exited the corridor and walked to the center of the arena. The crowd roared with applause and celebration as though they were excited to finish this tournament section.
I waved to everyone in the crowd, not showing a hint of my nervous energy or excitement at the match to come. The rest of my team ignored the crowd as though they didn’t exist. “Will you stop waving!? You look like an idiot!! Dumbass!!” Shiro snapped at me.
“Why should I?” I asked, “They love me. Unlike you.”
“HEY! They love watching my fights!”
I sniffed and looked at him with big puppy eyes, “Y-you meany! You don’t love me!!”
Shiro stumbled and sputtered, “Wha- I- uh- What!?”
I sniffed and turned away from him, “It’s fine … I understand.” Then I glanced to my right and gave a little smirk to Scarlet, who was trying very hard not to blush.
“Don’t worry, Zeana!” Cami exclaimed, wrapping her arm around my shoulder, “I still love you!” Then added under her breath, “Even if you took my money.”
“I love you too, Cami!” I said, wrapping my arm around her shoulder as we stopped in the center of the arena, then added under my breath, “Even if you’re a competitive alcoholic.”
Then I noticed the team we were up against. Six people were on their team, all girls and all human. The young woman in the middle was the only person that looked unique. She wore a red gi with a black belt, and her shirt had its sleeves torn off, revealing her slightly muscled arms. On her forearms were hundreds of white strings tied together tightly. Some were dirty and covered in mud, while some were new and bright white. Her brown hair was cut short like a buzz cut, and her eyes were obscured with a black blindfold, although she walked like she wasn’t wearing anything over her eyes.
The same young woman bowed and said, “Hello, Fiery Heart. I am Katherine Green. Leader of team Evergarden from the Buddha Religiosa empire. It is a pleasure to meet you.” Her voice sounded sweet and melodic.
Scarlet bowed to her, “Hello, I am Scarlet. Leader of team Fiery Heart from the Fusang empire. The pleasure is mine.”
Katherine chuckled, “How polite of you. I honestly wasn’t expecting that from monsters, but it is refreshing. After defeating that Drake woman, what was her name again?”
“Drakara,” one of the other girls on Katherine’s team answered.
“Ah, yes, that’s the name. Drakara. She was so disappointed she couldn’t make it this far in the team tournament. She was looking forward to fighting the one called Zeana. Where is she?”
“I’m right here!” I exclaimed happily.
“AND LET’S SEE WHAT THE ENVIRONMENTS ARE FOR THIS FINAL BOUT!” Felix exclaimed as the central platform began to rise.
Katherine looked down and smiled, “Ah, there you are. Would you mind if it’s just a one-on-one between us?”
“HELL NO!” Shiro yelled.
“Sure!” I exclaimed at the same time. Then looked at Shiro and asked, “Why not?”
“AND FOR THE FIRST ENVIRONMENT, WE HAVE MOUNTAINS!”
“Because we’re supposed to fight as a team! We can’t do that if you brake off for a one-on-one fight!” Shiro yelled.
I turned back to Team Evergarden and looked at their belts. Each of them wore a green belt, except for Katherine. In contrast, we had two greens as the lowest of us, while Cami, Shiro, and Scarlet all had red belts. “AND FOR THE SECOND ENVIRONMENT, WE HAVE FOREST!”
I turned to Shiro, “Look, they are all level three ruby ranks, with Katherine being the only one with a black belt. Out of all of us, I have the most power. Therefore I am the best choice to occupy her long enough for you to finish with everyone else or even defeat her outright. It’s the best path to victory we have.”
“AND FOR THE THIRD ENVIRONMENT, WE HAVE CRASHED SHIP!”
“She has a point, Shiro,” Xiao agreed.
“NO ONE ASKED YOU!” Shiro snapped, then looked thoughtful.
“AND FOR THE FOURTH AND FINAL ENVIRONMENT, WE HAVE THE OCEAN!”
“Please,” I pleaded as the four environments connected with the central platform, the mountain and forest behind Evergarden, and the crashed ship and ocean behind us.
Shiro huffed and yelled, “Fine! Do what you want!”
“TEN!”
“Yes!” I whooped.
“NINE!”
“It’s sweet that your team is so worried about you,” Katherine commented.
“EIGHT!”
“Yeah, well. I always get into trouble. So It’s only natural,” I said, blushing a little.
“SEVEN!”
“THERE’S NOTHING NATURAL ABOUT THE TROUBLE YOU CAUSE!” everyone yelled at me, making me cringe.
“SIX!”
Katherine laughed, “Be that as it may, I look forward to a good fight.”
“FIVE!”
“Me too!” I said, a vicious smile crossing my face.
“FOUR!” I dropped to a crouch, ready to charge, “THREE!” Katherine didn’t move a muscle while waiting for the countdown to end, “TWO!” I could feel my spirits churn in their cores, ready to fill me with power, “ONE! FIGHT!!!”
My Storm chakra coursed through my body, and I exploded forward toward Katherine. I drew my fist back as I got within arm’s reach of her, and her lips curled in a smile as she disappeared in a blink. I stopped a few meters behind where she once stood and looked for where she might have gone. One of her teammates came up behind me with a kick, and my tail casually bit her leg off with a loud snap. She screamed and fell to the ground.
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I continued to search, and then I spotted her in the distance, emerging from the woods between the forest and mountain environments. She stopped between them, turned to me with a wry smile, and raised her hands, casting a quick spell I was too far to see. Then she positioned her hands as though she was going to play the violin. Then she drew her left hand back and forth, creating the sound of a violin.
Did she cast a music spell? No, that’s not the right question. There are music spells?! I want to learn how to do that! Katherine’s violin got faster and slowed in waves, and I soon recognized the song. It was Violin Concerto No.2 in B minor, Op. 7, la campanella, three, Rondo by Paganini, but only the violin part of the concerto. Why was she playing that? She must have been reincarnated. I wonder— My thoughts were cut short as a root wrapped around my leg and dragged me deep into the forest before slamming me against the ground. I switched to my Ice-claymore core, created a sword, and cut myself free from the root with a single slash as it slammed me against the ground one last time.
I quickly switched to my Healing core and felt the Healing chakra course through my body and heal me. As it did, I got to my feet and readied myself for a fight. Several more roots shot at me from all directions, and I quickly swung my blade, spun, and twirled as I cut, slashed, and dodged the roots attacking me. I soon felt my full strength return to me, and I switched to my storm core as I cast a level three haste spell on myself. The world slowed, but the music didn’t.
The roots only slowed down briefly before speeding up to match my speed. I quickly continued defending myself and tried to figure my way out of this. I quickly regrew my wings and blasted into the sky. I couldn’t keep up with the onslaught anymore. I climbed high above the trees and took stock of how the fight was going for everyone else. I turned to see a horde of undead zombies climbing down from the mountain and overwhelming my team. The zombies had black bones and roots sprouting from their bodies.
I switched to my Inferno core and felt the chakra course through my body as my wings turned from blue-purple to yellow-red. I blasted toward my team, leaving a trail of fire in my wake and landing with a fiery explosion in the middle of the horde, setting the undead closest to me ablaze. My team quickly breathed a sigh of relief before advancing again and fighting the undead horde. I looked around and saw the rest of the Evergarden team standing at the back of the horde, doing nothing but listening to music.
“Scarlet, Jax, Shiro, let’s go!” I called as I blasted a small group of the undead with fire.
“What do you want?!” Scarlet asked.
“Fire! We need fire!” I answered and began focusing my chakra between my hands and creating a small light of fire. Scarlet, Jax, and Shiro ran to my side and began shooting fire out of their hands at the undead horde, creating an impenetrable firewall. The small ball of fire I was creating grew a little as I concentrated all my chakra into it, and soon a high-pitched whistling sound began to pierce the air around me. It was so loud that I nearly didn’t catch the music changing.
It got faster and played a different song that I didn’t recognize this time. “Scarlet!” Xiao called, making her and I turn to see the water behind us turn to ice, and undead made of ice began climbing out. I cursed and pushed as much of my chakra into the fireball I created. The fireball turned from red to white, blue, then purple.
I got it, “Scarlet! Make a barrier to cover everyone! Now!” I called and took to the sky. Scarlet didn’t hesitate and pulled everyone close as she pushed her shield chakra out and created a shield around everyone. I waited for a second more as I flapped my wings and condensed the chakra in my hands before unleashing it. I pushed my hands forward, and the whistling stopped as a tsunami of fire washed over everything, disintegrating the undead horde and causing team Evergarden to scream in pain for a second as they were killed.
I stopped flapping my wings, glided to the ground, and landed softly before my team. Scarlet lowered the barrier and looked around at the black carnage I had created. She nodded approvingly, “Well done, kid.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I smiled sheepishly, “I had no idea if that would work like I thought it would, but it did so, yay.”
“It was still reckless!” Shiro yelled.
I backed away and said, “I know, I know! I’m sorry,”
“That’s not— LOOK OUT!” Shiro yelled and lunged forward, pushing me out of the way. As I fell, I turned and saw a black, thorny vine shooting toward Shiro. Shiro’s fists were covered in flames as he tried to burn the vine but was too slow. The vine shot toward him and went down his throat through his open mouth. He screamed as the thorns shredded his insides and filled his body before he turned to glowing dust.
“SHIRO!!” I yelled and got back to my feet. More vines shot from the now flaming forest and attacked. I created another sword with my Ice-claymore chakra and began hacking away at the vines that shot toward me. I heard another scream behind me, and I risked a glance over my shoulder to see Cami impaled by a dozen vines. As she turned to dust, I felt my body freeze, and I couldn’t help but watch as each of my friends were killed in horrible ways. Xiao was ripped limb from bloody limb, Jax was flayed by hundreds of vines several times, and Scarlet was cut in two and crushed by the vines wrapping around her body.
My breathing became unsteady and ragged, my chest tightened, my vision blurred, and my legs gave out from under me as I dropped to the ground. Panic gripped me, and I couldn’t calm myself. Then I heard a crunching sound behind me, and I slowly turned to see Katherine emerging from the forest, parts of her skin and clothes burned in patches. The strings she once had on her arms were burned away, revealing dozens of scars that looked to have been made with razors, and her blindfold was gone. She glared at me with turquoise eyes that conveyed all of her rage.
“You,” Katherine growled, “I understand why Drakara wanted you dead so badly now.”
I gritted my teeth and took in a long quivering breath as I quickly turned my panic into pure rage. With my sword in hand, I got to my feet and glared back at her, “I want to know one last thing before I kill you. Why? Why did you kill them in such horrible ways?”
“Because you killed my family first. It’s only righteous revenge on my part. Momento Mori. Remember, you must die. And I will be the one to kill you.”
“But they’re not gone!” I yelled, “They’re just in the waiting room, waiting for this fight to end!”
“It doesn’t make it any less painful. Now die!” Katherine bellowed, and a web of vines shot toward me from the forest, and I took one last deep breath.
A growl escaped my lips as I formed my Ice-armor around me and shredded the vines as they came at me. I caught a glimpse of Katherine through the vines and saw a red aura around her filling me with rage and a single word. Pain. I glided back over the ocean biome, freezing it as I went over the water. I circled until I saw Katherine again and shot straight toward her at full speed.
I closed the distance in a second and lunged at her with my ice-clawed fists. She jumped back, dodging my attack, and ice formed over her fists. She lunged at me, and I hastily ducked, her fist passing a fingers breadth over my head. I then jumped backward with a backflip and lashed out with my tails. She brought her arms up and blocked the attack, making her stumble back with the force of the blow. Once my feet touched the ground, I took advantage of her stumble and lunged forward, using my chakra to make claws of ice on my fingertips, and I fired them at her legs.
The ice talons stabbed into her legs, and she fell to the ground. I raised my ice claws and swiped at her legs even more, carving finger-width cuts in her flesh. She screamed in pain, and a burst of energy escaped her body, and my armor and sword dissolved into blue dust. It wouldn’t help her anyway, as I jumped forward, wrapped my fingers around her neck, and began to choke her. She gaged and began punching my body with enough force to knock the air out of my lungs and break a few ribs.
My fingers loosened, and she punched my ribs again and forced me off her. She rolled on top of me, coughing and spluttering as she wrapped her fingers around my neck and began to choke me. I didn’t let her stay there long as I used my tail to bite her arm off with a loud snap. She screamed in pain as blood sprayed from where her arm used to be, and I used my tail to bite her torso and her off me, throwing her a few meters away in the ash. I stumbled to my feet and walked over to her.
She coughed up blood and glared at me, hate evident in her eyes. I stood over her and whispered, “Momento Mori.” And my tail shot forward and closed around her head, ripping it clean off and turning her to glowing dust.
“And with that bloody conclusion! We! Have! A! Winner! Give it up for team Fiery Heart!” Felix announced, and I felt the arena slowly descend back to the ground.
I gritted my teeth as tears began to roll down my face. I didn’t want to see that. I didn’t want to watch as my friends died. I didn’t want to watch my family die before my eyes. The crowd’s cheers and applause sounded like they came from a long way off as I exited the arena through the corridor.
There I found Shiro waiting for me, a severe expression on his face. I looked up into his eyes, and without a word, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me in a hug. I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders and silently cried into his shirt. I didn’t want to fight anymore. But I knew I would have to fight again someday soon.