The two competitors stared one another down from across the arena in total silence.
And then, Ryuna stomped on the floor, but rather than create a pillar beneath herself, she conjured one underneath Billy, launching him across the air.
He’d certainly been caught by surprise as he suddenly found himself catapulting towards Ryuna, who was already winding up a spinning kick for when he reached her.
For a moment, Billy considered taking the kick head-on in order to activate the ripple barrier and unleash its power back at Ryuna. However, after a quick calculation, his mind determined that he wouldn’t have the time or space to position himself for a proper attack. So instead, he twisted around and led with his arm and shoulder.
Ryuna’s heel clubbed him right on the bicep, sending a stinging pain throughout his entire arm. He could feel the bones within begin to creak, coming as close to snapping as they could without doing so completely.
The force of the kick sent him flying to the side in a series of mid-air twists. He just barely managed to land on his feet when Ryuna’s shadow washed over him.
He blindly threw his arms up into a safe defensive cross. Though he hadn’t been able to see what attack was coming his way, it had proven a decent maneuver, catching the punch Ryuna had tried to slug him with.
A splash of yellow flames spewed from the point of contact, burning at both fighters’ arms, though neither allowed the sudden surge of pain to break their focus.
As the fighters stood there, locked in place, Ryuna flashed a confident grin. “Having a hard time keeping up, huh?”
Billy kept his lips sealed, though in this moment, it was less about keeping his cool, and more about needing to clench every muscle in his body to maintain his stance against Ryuna’s strength, including his jaw.
Another burst of yellow light burst out from Ryuna’s chi aura, although this time in the shape of a smoking spark of electricity.
Billy’s eyes flickered over to the spark for the brief moment it existed before returning his attention to Ryuna once it had ceased to. Her eyes were beginning to glow with the same golden light of her aura, and on top of her confidence and determination, it made for a rather intimidating sight.
He could feel his own chi aura beginning to waver in the presence of her own. Up until this point, the pale blue dome had done well to keep the yellow storming sparks and flames at bay, but cracks were opening in its surface. And once they shattered the dome to pieces, the storm would consume him.
Ryuna stomped her foot into the ground once again, and the earth beneath Billy ascended, pushing him skyward.
Dashing around towards Billy’s back, Ryuna prepared to fire off an upward kick to Billy’s now-exposed back.
Whilst in the air, all Billy could do was thrust his hands upward with force, configuring the metal ULTRA Force particles within the floor into a sheet which emerged from the floor.
Ryuna’s kick tore through the metal sheet with ease, but it had provided just enough of a cover for Billy to lean away and avoid taking the hit.
Grabbing hold of the metal sheet, Ryuna flung it in Billy’s direction like a discus. A simple duck prevented it from chopping his head off, though it certainly didn’t prevent the sheet from exploding like fireworks when it struck the wall behind him. Those in attendance scrambled away from the sparks in a hurry.
“Ya know, I was kinda enjoying you running away since it made me look better,” Ryuna stated, resting a hand on her hip. “But now it’s gotten really annoying. And the longer you keep running away, the harder I’m gonna beat your ass when I finally catch you.”
Billy took a deep breath. “I’ll admit, it doesn’t make me the proudest fighter to resort to these tactics.”
“Oh so you can still talk! I was wondering if I’d knocked your voice outta you earlier.”
Ignoring her, he continued with, “That being said, it’s what I must do in order to achieve victory in this battle. You are the stronger warrior, and I cannot overpower you in raw might. I must strategize in order to win this duel.”
A slight blush hit Ryuna’s cheeks, as the frankness of his words caught her by surprise. “Whoa, uh….” She shook her head. “Well, it’s good you recognize who the boss is here, I guess.”
She held her fists up. Faint yellow light akin to the glow of candles appeared around them, and heat flowed around and within them, going so far as to warm the very bones of her fingers. “But it doesn’t look like you’ve got much of a strategy there, Mister Philosophy, so I think it’s about time we wrapped this shit up.”
Billy lowered himself into his own stance, watching as Ryuna’s chi aura steadily grew more solid in color and presence. She was right; the time to end the duel was drawing near.
He let his chi flow through his arms, soothing all of the aching muscles and bones, restoring them to proper fighting condition. With her chi now seemingly stabilizing, that gave him more confidence in his ability to redirect it at her using the Spirit Flooding Palm without harming himself or the bystanders in the room.
It would still be a monumental task to withstand Ryuna’s assault and position himself for the right time to use the Art, but he just had to get it right once, and he was confident he could claim his victory.
On the other side of the battlefield, Ryuna was starting to feel a bit drained, and not in a way that her chi could help her with. She’d been using the Supercharge Install for quite a long time; longer than she ever had before. Add onto that her simultaneous usage of her Heart Slot, and her body was quickly being drained of ULTRA Force particles. She needed to give herself a bit of a breather and allow her body to filter more particles in from her surroundings, and so she discreetly shut the Supercharge Install off.
That meant that her movement speed would return to normal, her attacks wouldn’t hit as hard as they had been, and she’d be less durable when struck, but she was willing to risk it. She’d already worn Billy down significantly throughout the match, and with her chi working with her, she felt confident she wouldn’t have a problem bringing an end to the fight.
Ryuna stomped the floor, calling forth a chunk of stone to rise up. She slammed her shoulder into it, sending it flying in Billy’s direction, before rushing behind it, using it as a sort of projectile shield.
Billy quickly moved his hands to his chest, cupping them one atop the other.
WATER!
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He was able to side step the incoming boulder, but he knew it had only been used as a distraction. Ryuna would surely jump around from behind it once he had decided which direction to move.
Predictably, she moved around the opposite side of it in order to circle around and aim for his back.
Billy quickly pushed one palm behind himself, throwing a splash of water in Ryuna’s face. She was able to deflect it without trouble, although that one moment in which her arm covered her eyes was just long enough for Billy to sneakily create another stream of water, this time beneath her stepping foot.
Rather unfortunately for Ryuna, if she had kept her Supercharge Install on, her body would have been able to maintain its balance as she stepped into the rapid stream of water, ruining Billy’s entire plan and leading to his doom. Rather fortunately for Billy, she had not kept the Supercharge Install on, and his plan was a success.
Ryuna slipped backwards, losing her balance long enough for Billy to bring his arm back. Pale blue light from his chi aura gathered around the palm, swirling in rapid circles like a whirlpool.
« ART! »
〚 SPIRIT FLOODING PALM! 〛
Ryuna’s eyes widened as the explosive voice rang around the room. She’d completely forgotten about the Art that Billy had used against Hai Tien, and hadn’t been expecting it.
Billy’s palm thrust forward, pressing forcefully against Ryuna’s gut. She immediately felt her breath escape her lungs, and a momentary paralysis overtook her body.
Powerful tendrils of pale blue light escaped from Billy’s palm and arced around the rest of his body; backblast from his chi as it charged into Ryuna’s aura with conviction.
The invasion of Billy’s chi into her own aura’s space sent chills throughout Ryuna’s body, washing away the heat her own aura had provided.
Her back suddenly began to swell in tremendous pain; it felt as though the talons of a mighty beast were trying to rip through her flesh and escape from within her. She wanted to scream out in pain, but there was no air within her to power her voice.
Panic and fear overtook her. The helpless state she found herself in, completely robbed of all agency; it was practically strong enough to make her forget the actual physical pain she was in.
Her mind was alight with anxiety, a voice declaring to her that she’d been defeated. That’d she come all this way, suffered through all she had, and that it had ultimately been for nothing. She’d lied to and hurt the people of Welca for no reason. She’d put on a confident persona for the tournament crowd that was now being exposed as a fraud. She’d asserted her surefire victory to her opponent, only to have him wrest it from her with a single attack.
Streams of yellow flames and sparks emerged from Ryuna’s back, crowding the air with smoke, singing her jacket and scorching the floor and ceiling of the room.
Watching over the scene carefully, Master Kirin muttered, “You must do it now, Ryuna. Tame it, or it will take flight and leave you forever.”
Billy held steady, directing more and more of his chi into Ryuna’s aura. It was so much denser than Hai Tien’s had been, but the Spirit Flooding Palm was working. All he had to do was hold on for just a little longer, fighting through the heat emanating from her, and victory was his.
Ryuna’s eyes slowly began to lose their concentration, rolling back into her head. The pain was ramping up exponentially, with every inch of her body feeling as though it were being consumed by flames and fangs. And with her chi being pushed out of her, it was unable to soothe that pain like it normally would have.
Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. What was she supposed to do now? She’d come all this way to learn to control her chi to take on the world, but now that she had lost, that entire plan had been thrown down the drain.
Was she just supposed to return home to her parents with her ambitious trip around the world cut short, empty-handed with nothing to show for it? Was she just supposed to return to a meaningless life of struggling to barely scrape by? What about her potential? She knew she had something special about her, even Master Kirin had said so; was she destined to never achieve it? No one back home recognized it; never gave her a chance to truly show what she was capable of. This was supposed to be her first step towards proving to the world that she was worth something.
No….she couldn’t let it end there. She had to make it all worth it. There was no way in hell she was letting it all go to waste here.
She pushed aside thoughts of her home, of her parents, of Master Kirin, the crowd, Welca, even Kizzy — she couldn’t afford to think of them right now. She had to focus on herself, and her chi. One step at a time.
The yellow flames and sparks were rapidly bursting out from her back in one long stream, like a golden spear of light had skewered her and was emerging out the other side. This stream started to form a dense mass of light and smoke at the ceiling of the room, as though it were taking life and trying to escape the very room itself.
This Art that had hit her; it was pushing her chi away. Away from her body, and out of her control. That was what was causing the pain. She needed to get it back, and seize control of it once more. To make it heal her, and to make everything worth it.
Just focus it in one direction, Tell it what to do. Don’t think about anything else.
Her eyes slowly struggled their way back to normal, fully transforming from their usual green to the radiant glow of gold, the very sight of which caused Billy to hesitate.
And in that moment of hesitation, Ryuna, forcing herself to break through the paralysis caused by the Spirit Flooding Palm, managed to barely stomp her foot onto the floor.
A crack opened beneath Billy’s foot, causing him to stumble, spin around, and release his grip on the Art.
Now freed, Ryuna thrust her foot into Billy’s back with enough force to send him flying forward face-first into the ground.
Make it all worth it….she mentally spoke to herself, even as a loud, thunderous growl echoed around her skull. Make it all worth it….make it all worth it!
Control it!
Ryuna spun around, directing her attention to the mass of golden flames and sparks that had coalesced near the ceiling; the chi within her that had been pushed out. Most of it had left her body, but there was still a sliver of it inside, tethering the large mass of light to her.
“You’re….you’re not going anywhere!” she screamed, holding her hands out and gripping tightly around the thin line of yellow chi that had sprouted from her back and snaked around her torso up to the mass in the ceiling, like a rope keeping a balloon from floating into the heavens. “We’re making this all worth it, and we’re winning this thing goddammit!”
She yanked on the line of chi, pulling it towards herself with all the strength she could manage. The line tugged on the mass cloud of light and smoke in the sky, dragging it back into her body like an uncoiling pile of chain.
Knowing he had to stop her or else he would lose, Billy hurriedly pushed off the floor, and rushed towards Ryuna, holding his palm upward, gathering his chi into it.
« ART! »
〚 SPIRIT FLOODING PALM! 〛
As the long coil of chi was retracted back into its host, the far end of it exploded in a burst of smoke and lightning. A ferocious roar escaped from the dark cloud, sending chills down the spines of all in attendance.
Brise turned up to Master Kirin in shock. “What’s going on?!”
“She’s finally tamed it.”
When the smoke cleared, the last of the chi line revealed itself. It had taken on the form of the head of a mighty dragon, roaring as it rapidly shot down towards Ryuna like a meteor.
The entire room exploded in a wave of surprise and panic. Billy’s eyes widened at the sight of the chi dragon head, throwing off his concentration.
As the dragon approached Ryuna’s rear hand arced around, flowing through the air like a river carried by the wind. She snapped her forearm directly into the wrist of her opponent’s incoming palm with pinpoint precision.
She carried the momentum of the parry with conviction, deflecting the Spirit Flooding Palm past her by a hair. In the same motion, she clenched her fist just as the chi dragon’s jaws locked tightly around it.
« ART! »
〚 YELLOW DRAGON FIST! 〛
Ryuna blasted her knuckles into Billy’s face. The chi dragon tore through the pale blue ripple barrier that attempted to protect him, shattering the entire chi aura into pieces.
An inferno of golden light consumed both Billy and Ryuna, simultaneously blinding everyone in the room. Even Master Kirin had to blink once to protect her vision.
When the light finally faded, Ryuna and Billy stood in the center of the battlefield, locked in the still frame of the moment Ryuna’s punch had connected. Neither moved for several moments, and neither’s chi aura was visible.
But the steady stream of smoke rising from Billy’s face gave the ending of the fight away as he fell onto his back, unconscious.
Ryuna stood still, breathing heavily. The sleeve of her jacket had been completely torn apart and singed, but she remained standing, with a smile on her face.
Master Kirin raised her hand upwards. “Match! The winner is Ryuna!”