The monastery fell silent.
Everything had happened far too quickly for most of the crowd to have a complete understanding of what had just occurred. One second, the battle was in the midst of a room-length staredown, and the next, a hole had been torn into the wall, and only one fighter remained standing.
It fell onto Master Kirin to provide guidance as she raised her hand to the air and called, “Match!”
With the duel complete, those of the monastery rushed over to the three fighters to assess everyone’s condition. Meanwhile, the audience murmured amongst themselves, trying to piece together theories as to the ending of the match.
Ryuna took those moments of silence to catch her breath, her chest heaving as far outward as her lungs could push, her breath escaping from her agape mouth like invisible vomit. When the monastery woman rushed past her, her eyes darted over to the woman’s destination: the unconscious Zhen.
Zhen lay sprawled out on the rocky mountain ground outside of the monastery amidst the rubble of the broken wall. She was bleeding, but not alarmingly so, and the woman of the monastery seemed to be rousing her from her post-brawl slumber without much issue.
Once her own energy began to return to her, Ryuna stretched her arms out, soaking in the morning sun. It was a feeble attempt to try and wrestle away the burning sensation dancing along her skin across nearly every inch of her body. She hadn’t attempted to harness her chi to such an intense degree in quite a long time.
The first and last time she’d done so was out of pure, foolish pride: “I can handle this,” she had told herself in defiance of her lack of natural control over her Energizer signature. “I can control it no problem! Nothing’s too strong for me!”
In fairness, she did appear to have improved in her control of her chi, as evidenced by her current ability to remain standing. But that wasn’t quite good enough for her, as the burning was getting worse, and she could feel her legs starting to go, like some kind of magma inside of her feet was melting away at the bones of her legs.
But suddenly, the pain vanished.
“Another impressive showing, Ryuna.”
She looked to her shoulder, whereupon Master Kirin’s scaled hand rested. “Yeah….yeah, thanks….”
Another exhalation coursed through her, as though it were the last step needed in cleansing her system of the aftereffects of the chi. And with the pain gone, she was better able to take in everything that was going on around her.
Her eyes first settled on the hole in the wall she had created. “Uh….sorry ‘bout that.”
To her pleasant surprise, Master Kirin responded with a chuckle. A very faint and low chuckle, but a chuckle nonetheless. “Worry not. That can be repaired with ease.”
* * * *
ULTRA DRAGON
* * * *
The rest of the day’s matches finished within the next hour, although none were quite able to live up to the spectacle of the opening triple-man bout. And with all matches complete, the competition was down to four remaining warriors, and thus, three more duels to decide the eventual winner.
“Congratulations to the four of you,” Master Kirin announced as the four remaining competitors stood in a line before her. “You have all performed admirably, and I am looking forward to your remaining duels.”
Ryuna took this time to look over her three possible opponents. She would only need to beat two of them, but would be more than happy taking on all three of them if needed.
To her immediate left was a tall and lean humanoid hornet. From the matches she’d seen of him, the layer of armor around his body gave him improved defensive abilities, and he was also able to fly for limited amounts of time. She hadn’t been impressed much with his raw power, but he was definitely fast, and based on his biology, she was willing to bet he had some kind of venom inside of him if things got dicey.
Next in line was a ninja girl from the Dragon Clans. Lithe, tiny, and wrapped head-to-toe in red. She’d been deadly efficient in her duels, ending each one swiftly. She’d shown very few of her tricks other than her incredible agility and paralyzing martial arts skills, which sparked Ryuna’s imagination as she envisioned their potential duel.
Finally, there was the one Ryuna was most interested in. He didn’t have much in the way of defining features — black hair without any thought put into its styling, matching eyes, a muscular but not sculpted physique, and a simple white gi that had seen enough use to have battles sewn into the cloth. But even so, Ryuna found him quite cute, and she’d been pretty impressed with his fights as well. He was well-trained, highly disciplined, and had an unshakeable focus in his eyes when in battle. She was definitely hoping to cross paths with him before this mountain trip of hers was over.
“Rest well,” Master Kirin said with a slight bow of the head. “And good luck tomorrow.”
* * * *
ULTRA DRAGON
* * * *
Rather than immediately head back to Welca, Ryuna instead decided to spend some time hanging around the monastery. It seemed as though a good portion of the competitors had gotten fairly comfortable with one another, as a few cliques and friendships seemed to have formed.
Ryuna wasn’t particularly interested in making friends with anyone, although she did wish to speak to the stoic guy in the gi.
Before she could make it over to him, however, she was suddenly swarmed by a circle of others.
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“Hey, good luck tomorrow, Ryuna!” said one of the men in the circle. Half of his face had been bruised up pretty badly during one of his bouts. “I’m rooting for ya.”
“Thanks,” came Ryuna’s dry response. There was no point buttering him up; he had nothing to offer her.
A powerful pat on the back prompted her to turn around, where she came face-to-face with Zhen. “You fought well.”
Ryuna’s eyes flickered up and down her previous opponent’s body. She needed to have one of her hands bandaged, and her lip had been split open, but otherwise she seemed okay. Another “thanks” followed.
On the other side of the crowd that had gathered around her, Ryuna’s eye caught the man in the gi as he wrapped up his bag and started to make his exit. Wanting to follow, Ryuna prepared to step through the circle, but someone in the crowd wasn’t quite ready to let her go just yet.
“Why are you even in this competition?”
As the crowd fell silent, Ryuna turned to face the source of the voice. It was Caedo, the tall hornet man, and one of the other final four competitors.
Ryuna felt her eyebrows furrow at the tone of the question. “Every tournament needs a winner.”
A handful of schoolyard “oooh!”s came from the crowd.
Caedo stepped forward to stand directly before Ryuna. He towered over her by a good foot or so, and the structure of his hornet-like face gave him a permanent look of anger and intimidation. Were he staring down someone other than Ryuna, it likely would have worked. “You are already trained in chi. It is unfair!”
Ryuna folded her arms across her chest. “First off, bug-eyes: I haven’t had any chi training.”
“Liar! You defeated Zhen with a high-level chi technique!”
All eyes in the crowd looked to Zhen, including Ryuna. While the woman didn’t say anything, from the look in her eyes, it appeared she agreed with Caedo’s accusation, at least on some level.
Ryuna turned back to the hornet man. “I haven’t had any training with chi. That’s all natural talent.”
Caedo’s head jabbed forward aggressively. “That is unfair to the competition!”
Not backing down, Ryuna stepped forward, shoving her palm into Caedo’s chest to push him back. “Well tough shit, but if you’re not good enough to win no matter how high the odds are stacked against you, then you don’t deserve to win, so piss off!”
Caedo’s wings began to buzz, quickly amping up in frequency. The two looked damn near ready to start a fight right then and there, and no one in the crowd seemed at all concerned with stopping it.
The woman of the monastery was the one to do so, stepping in between both Ryuna and Caedo, dividing them further. “That is enough, you two. You can settle this outside or tomorrow, but you will not do so here in the monastery.”
With a scowl, Caedo turned to leave first, but not before spitting at the floor by Ryuna’s feet. His glob of saliva started to burn into the ground, eroding some of the stone away in a stream of smoke.
Ryuna stomped her shoe onto it to kill off the heat.
The crowd dispersed soon afterwards, and Ryuna prepared to leave as well. Before she did, however, she tapped her hand into the woman’s arm. “So what’s the deal with Welca?”
The woman didn’t answer right away, and from the look on her face, Ryuna could tell she was trying to formulate a specific response. One that satisfied the core question while avoiding the parts it didn’t like. “Did you find lodging there?”
“Yeah,” Ryuna responded as she tucked her hands into her pockets. “It’s not bad. The people there are pretty nice. But what’s up with the weird rules? And why did you not want me to tell them about the monastery?”
Again, she wasn’t able to answer in the naturally appropriate window of time.
“Is it because of that weird rule they have against fighting?”
The woman nodded. “Yes. Welca is a remote village. They do not typically interact with outsiders. Disrupting their way of life would be unfortunate.”
Ryuna could tell she wasn’t going to get much more out of her, which annoyed her, but at the same time, she wasn’t all that invested. She would be leaving the Vorga Mountains behind forever in just another two or three days, so there was no point wasting too much energy on the topic.
She began to make her way towards the door, but stopped for one last question. “Oh, hey, what’s your name anyway?”
The woman bowed her head. “Brise.”
* * * *
ULTRA DRAGON
* * * *
By the time she finally made it out the front doors of the monastery, the area had died down of activity. It seemed as though most of the competitors had boarded the bus back to Ermina, which was fine. Ryuna wasn’t in the mood to have another crowd circle around her and stir up drama. While a part of her was somewhat hoping for Caedo to step up to her again so that she could beat him down there and then since they were no longer within the monastery’s walls, ultimately, she was grateful for the quiet walk back to Welca.
That is, until a few minutes into her walk when she noticed someone standing off to the side.
It was the man in the gi. He appeared to be overlooking the mountains below, perhaps contemplating something, perhaps simply enjoying the beautiful view of nature.
“Yo, what’s up?” Ryuna asked, waltzing over to join him. “You meditating or something?”
The man didn’t answer her vocally. When she came to his side, she could see that his eyes were closed, and he was focusing his breathing.
The air around him was warm, and it gave her arms a tingly feeling, like small jolts of electricity poking at her skin. She figured it must be his chi — it was a broadly familiar sensation, but the details of it weren’t familiar to her. Since everyone’s chi acted differently, it made sense that his wouldn’t feel the same as her own.
Feeling a bit playful and competitive, Ryuna followed suit, bringing her eyes to a close and concentrating her breaths. In no time at all, that burning, biting sensation began to stir inside of her, arcing in all directions throughout her body.
The man in the gi opened his eyes, looking over to her, taking note of the faint glow of gold seeping into the space around her body. “Impressive.”
Ryuna calmed herself back down with a smile. “I know.” She flicked her hands out to her sides to shake off the last lingering sensations within her fingertips. “So….you looking forward to tomorrow?”
His pensive gaze made its way to the skies. “Indeed. It will no doubt be a great challenge of my abilities.”
“Better hope you don’t get paired with me,” Ryuna said. “Or you’ll have to head home early.”
No change came to his expression. “All three of you are formidable warriors. It would be an honor to battle any one of you.”
“Pfffft. Even bug boy?”
He nodded, slowly. “Caedo is fast, and he possesses great mobility. His body is not unlike tempered steel, and he is able to spew crippling venom. He is a force to be reckoned with.”
“Eh, if you say so,” she responded. “I think he’s out no matter who he faces.”
“It is unwise to underestimate one’s opponent.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. But I think it’s even stupider for someone to think they can beat me.”
The man still kept his stoic visage, even as the wind began to tousle his hair. “You are confident.”
“Well, yeah. Have you seen me?” she asked, breaking out into a bright smile. “What’s not to be confident about?”
He gave her another nod, then began to turn away from the edge of the mountain. He leaned over to grab hold of his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. “I wish you good luck tomorrow, Ryuna.”
She offered him a salute. “Don’t need it, but thanks!”
She began the trek to Welca, but quickly came to a stop, turning around. Luckily, he was still within view.
Cupping her hands around her mouth, she called out, “Oh, hey! What’s your name, handsome?”
He stopped in place, then looked over his shoulder, his voice calm and composed.
“Billy.”
Ryuna’s face dropped, weighed down by heavy disappointment. “‘Billy?!’”