To my right, Isabelle and Jin were still dancing their deadly waltz. She was faster and more skilled, but he had youth and desperation on his side. They were evenly matched, which ant neither could help their partner.
Kenjiro’s hand moved in a slashing motion, and I felt the air itself split. An invisible blade of compressed wind carved toward my chest.
Protection from Arrows scread at . I phased into shadow with Shade Cloak, the wind blade passing harmlessly through .
Kenjiro’s eyes widened. That was the first genuine reaction I’d gotten out of him.
"That’s definitely not Thermal Incision," he said slowly.
"Who says I only have one trick?"
I burst out of shadow form behind him, bat already swinging. He spun faster than should be humanly possible, wind erupting from his body like a shield. My bat bounced off the hardened air with a sound like a gong.
The crowd was losing their minds.
Kenjiro studied with new respect. "You’re hiding your real power level. The question is why."
"Maybe I just like the elent of surprise."
"Or maybe you’re sothing that shouldn’t exist." His hands moved in complex patterns, and the air around him began to shimr. "Either way, I’m going to enjoy taking you apart."
Wind exploded from his position in a perfect sphere, catching point-blank. The compressed air hit like a bomb, sending flying backward across the platform. I crashed through one of Isabelle’s ice constructs, shattering it into glittering fragnts.
Kinetic Absorption went into overdrive. Forty-five points. Fifty. My stats were climbing faster than my body could process.
I stood up, blood trickling from my nose, grinning like a lunatic.
"That the best you got, Pretty Boy?"
Kenjiro’s smile was cold and beautiful. "Not even close."
From the VIP section, Veronica Cabana leaned forward in her seat, her erald eyes fixed on with an intensity that made my skin crawl. She wore a red dress that probably cost more than my entire education, her long hair cascading over one shoulder like liquid fla.
"He’s good," she murmured to soone I couldn’t see.
Back in the arena, Kenjiro was preparing sothing big. I could feel the air pressure changing, the way it felt right before a thunderstorm.
Nel’s voice whispered in my mind. He’s compressing enough air to create a vacuum bomb. If that hits you directly, Kinetic Absorption won’t matter. You’ll be paste.
Helpful. Got any actual advice?
Don’t get hit?
Thanks, Nel. Real tactical genius right there.
I glanced at Isabelle. She’d finally gained the upper hand against Jin, her spear pressed against his throat. He yielded with visible frustration, and the arena AI announced his elimination.
Which ant it was two on one now. and Isabelle versus Kenjiro.
The wind user’s smile widened. "This should be entertaining."
"Isabelle," I called out. "You rember that thing we talked about?"
She looked at blankly. "We’ve never discussed strategy."
"The other thing. The stupid thing."
Understanding flashed across her face. "Absolutely not. That’s suicide."
"It’ll work."
"It will get us both killed."
"Trust ."
She stared at for a long mont, her wine-red eyes searching mine. Whatever she saw there must’ve been convincing, because she sighed and lowered her spear.
"You’re insane," she said.
"I prefer ’tactically flexible.’"
"What’s the plan?" Kenjiro called out, genuinely curious.
I activated Lightning Rod, though there wasn’t any lightning nearby. The electromagnetic field wouldn’t help here. But Kenjiro didn’t know that. All he knew was that I’d just activated sothing, and now I was walking straight toward him with my bat dragging along the ground.
"The plan," I said, loud enough for the caras to catch, "is that Isabelle is going to throw at you really, really hard."
The crowd laughed.
Kenjiro didn’t. His eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out the trap.
Because of course there had to be a trap. Nobody willingly launched themselves at a wind user who could shred them mid-air.
Except, apparently, .
"Isabelle," I said calmly. "Do it now."
She didn’t argue. Didn’t hesitate. Her Aspect flared to life, green wind coiling around like living rope. She spun once, building montum, then released toward Kenjiro like a missile.
I shot across the platform at approximately a billion miles per hour.
Kenjiro’s hands moved in a defensive pattern, wind gathering in front of him to form a shield that could deflect a tank shell.
I activated Steel Body the instant before impact.
My body beca diamond. Unbreakable. Immovable for ten glorious seconds.
I crashed through his wind shield like it was tissue paper, bat already swinging. The look on Kenjiro’s face was priceless—pure, unfiltered shock that soone had just ignored his ultimate defense.
The steel-reinforced wood of my bat connected with his ribs—a clean, devastating impact that sent shockwaves through my arms and up into my shoulders.
The sound of the collision echoed across the entire arena like a gunshot, a visceral, bone-deep CRACK that made half the audience physically recoil and wince. Even through the barrier separating the crowd from the platform, they felt it in their guts—that primal, instinctive recognition of serious damage being inflicted.
Kenjiro went flying backward, his body completely limp, tumbling across the platform like a broken marionette whose strings had been violently severed. He rolled three, four, five tis before crashing hard into the far edge of the arena, barely managing to catch himself with a desperate burst of wind before montum carried him over the boundary and out of the match entirely.
I landed in a low, predatory crouch, my knees absorbing the impact as my ribs scread their furious protest at the abuse I’d just put them through. Every breath was a sharp spike of pain lancing through my torso. Steel Body had protected from Kenjiro’s wind shield, sure—but it hadn’t done a damn thing about the whiplash of being launched like a human cannonball by Isabelle’s enhanced strength.
But despite the agony radiating through my chest, my grin was wider than ever—a feral, triumphant thing that showed entirely too many teeth.
"Still not seeing it?" I called out across the platform, my voice carrying easily in the sudden, stunned silence of the arena.
Kenjiro stood up slowly, achingly, one hand pressed tight against his side where my bat had kissed him. Blood trickled in a thin, dark line from the corner of his mouth, staining his perfect white uniform. His turquoise eyes were wide, his expression caught sowhere between genuine pain and sothing else—sothing that looked almost like respect.
For the first ti since this entire fight had started, the Untouchable Wind looked genuinely, truly impressed.
"There it is," he said quietly, his voice barely audible over the roar of the crowd beginning to find their voices again.
"Now I see what she saw in you."
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