An Assassin's Respite

The End of the Tournament Draws Near

The first match was the battle between Kauzna and Ria. They took their places on the field and stare each other down. This will be our first one-on-one bout in quite some time." Kauzna notes.

"Mhmm,": She replies with a nod.

It was clear that she had her focus completely on this match. Kauzna decided to stop with the chit-chat and ready himself. Mr. Satouro starts the match and they charge directly for each other. They meet in the middle and begin an impeccable display of hand-to-hand combat. It was like watching waves flow through the ocean. Their movements were fluid and had a purpose. There was no wasted energy or momentum. Kauzna had more speed and power, but Ria was more agile so she kept Kazuna as close as possible. As they fought, Kazuna had to suppress his smile.

"You've grown a lot, Ria." He notes to himself.

He activates his power and increases the speed and force behind his blows and began to overwhelm Ria. She knew she had to do something or she would just get overpowered so once she deflected one of his punches, she goes invisible. Kazuna throws a roundhouse kick in the area he sensed her at but didn't connect with anything. He heard what sounded like her jumping and aimed a punch for the air but doesn't connect with that either and instead feels a fist go into his side.

"Did she crouch after going invisible and push her feet off the ground in order to bait my attack?" He questions.

He wasn't able to hide his smile this time as he increases his speed even more and knocks her off her feet with a low sweep. He waits for her to hit the ground before he slams his palm into her stomach and sends a shock throughout her body. She becomes visible again and wasn't able to fight anymore marking Kazuna as the winner.

He picks her up in a princess carry and takes her to the rest area.

"I-I didn't need you to carry me there." She says a little flustered from being in his arms.

"I sent a shock through your body so you won't be able to properly move for a few minutes. But anyway, you have improved as both a fighter and a strategist. Using the fact that I knew where you were when you were invisible but couldn't see you in order to get an attack in was impressive. If you were aiming to kill me, you may have succeeded." He notes.

The praise made her go silent and her face went completely red. He set her down on a stretcher and returned to the stands. The next match was an interesting one as it would be Katsuro facing off against Chad. This would be a battle of stamina and determination over anything.

Mr. Sautro started the match and neither side wasted any time as they both activated their powers immediately. Chad drastically increased the gravity around Katsuro as she sent him flying backward. Chad increases the gravity around himself in order to slow the push back. Katsuro lifts him up and throws him to the ground. He shakily gets up and increases the gravity around her even more. There wasn't anything she could use to throw at him and it was becoming difficult to breathe as the gravity slowly increased. With an angry look on her face, Katsuro reluctantly gives up.

"He's really not going easy on anyone," Yua notes.

"You just had to make him mad," Katsuro says as she stiffly takes a seat in the stands.

Mr. Satouro was about to announce a break, but Chad shouts out.

"Can we start the last match of the winner's finals? I'm not really injured." He yells as he glares at Kazuna.

"Something tells me that you won't listen to me no matter what I say so I guess we can. Kazuna, is that alright with you?" Mr. Satouro says with a sigh. 

"It makes no difference to me." He says as he heads to the field.

Kazuna could feel Chad glaring at him from across the field.

"Maybe I shouldn't have gone along with Ayanami's plan." He thinks to himself as Mr. Satouro starts the match.

He immediately moves a few feet to his left and looks at the spot he moved from and notices that a rock on the ground had been indented into the ground.

"It seems that he doesn't increase the gravity of objects but specific areas.No, that's not how his power worked when he first used it on me. He probably has to touch a target in order to increase the gravity of an individual or object." He notes to himself as he looks towards Chad.

"His power seems to activate nearly instantaneously so it'll be difficult to launch consecutive attacks from long range. Close-quarters combat will probably be most effective." He decides.

He cloaks his body in lightning and blitz's Chad. Once he was within reach of him, Chad tripled the gravity around them, throwing Kazuna to the ground and forcing Chad to his knee. Chad recovers from the initial shock of the gravity increase and tries to touch Kazuna so he could just increase his gravity, but Kazuna was able to move out of his reach before he could touch him.

"The area he's affecting is larger than before. Does he have more range the closer he activates his power?" Kazuna questions as he gets up despite the increased gravity.

"It doesn't really matter. If his plan is to catch the both of us in his power then I'm still at an advantage since I'm both stronger and faster than him." He notes to himself.

As he prepared a plan of attack, he could feel the gravity around him changing and he slowly began to rise into the air.

"He decreased the gravity?" He thinks in shock as he begins to float.

Chad had decreased the range of his gravity effect and was running towards him. With his feet off the ground, Kazuna had to get creative in order to move so he blasted the ground a little in front of him with lightning in order to propel himself out of Chad's gravity influence. But he had no control over his body at the moment and was flung to the ground as Chad had increased the gravity around him by 5x. The impact stunned him a bit and Chad was able to get right next to him.

"I've got you now," Chad says with a cocky grin.

But Kazuna smiles back. 

"You almost did." He replies.

Before Chad could process what he said, Kazuna had already begun his counter-attack.

'lightning bomb'  He mutters as an explosion of lightning blows Chad back and disrupts his concentration, freeing Kazuna. Kauzna rolls to his feet and bursts towards Chad.

'Wukong's palm' He says as lightning covers his hand and he presses it into Chad's stomach.

Once the dust settled from Kazuna's attack and Chad's body hitting the ground, it was obvious that Chad had been KO'd and that Kazuna had won.

With the winner's finals match of Kazuna and Chad being finished, the losers bracket would finish deciding who fights Chad. There was another break so that Ria and Katsuro could recover before their matches. once the break ended. Yua and Ria headed to the field to begin the first match to finish the loser's bracket.

"Sorry Ria, but I'm going to be the one winning this match." Yua proclaims.

"Confident now aren't we?" Ria questions.

"Of course, I've come up with a flawless strategy." She replies.

"Whatever," Ria says while rolling her eyes.

Mr. Satouro begins the match and both girls act immediately. Ria goes invisible and Yua creates some... goggles?

"Are those infrared goggles?" Kazuna questions.

His question was soon answered as once she put them on, she looks straight at Ria and creates staff, and connects with a hit on Ria. Ria loses concentration and becomes visible. Yua twirls her staff around and lands an attack from Ria's other side as well. Yua creates handcuffs and cuffs Ria's arms behind her back signaling her victory.

"Perfect just like I said," Yua says with a triumphant smile.

Once Yua frees Ria, she leaves for the stands with an angry expression and a disappointed look.

"You truly have improved a lot," Kazuna notes as she sits next to him.

"Whatever," She says as she looks away with her face blushing.

"Just a couple more matches until our fated rematch," Yua says with her chest puffed out.

"There are still some very capable people you'll have to get through first so don't let your guard down," Kazuna says.

"I may be confident, but I'm not cocky," Yua assures him.

Kauzna lets out a quick chuckle before the next match of Kagura vs. Juro began.

Kagura had come up with a plan to win and began to intact it right away. She runs towards Juro dashing from left to right in order to make it difficult for her to run face-first into his wall. She was also letting out a constant stream of wind in order to tell where his walls were in case he had already set one up. As she changed from running right to left, she ran into one of his walls. He must have formed it thereafter he felt certain that she was only running left to right and wasn't throwing in random directions. She quickly throws herself forward as Juro throws the wall into the outskirts of the arena. She knew that if he could catch her that she would lose. This time as she approached, she threw in random stops and changed directions more sporadical until she got to the range where things became difficult. All Juro had to do was create a wall in front of himself as she attacked in order to catch her guaranteed, but she had thought of a way to deal with that. She raises her hand and prepares an attack.

'tailwind' She whispers as a gust of wind blasts Juro from the back.

She was not one for underhanded or sneak attacks so the move caught him completely off guard. He creates a wall in front of himself that stops his momentum, but the fact that he created that wall allowed Kagura to attack without the worry of a wall suddenly appearing and she slams the hilt of her sword into the back of his head, knocking him out.

"Sorry for being a little rough with that one, I just had to make sure it would knock you out." She says as he falls unconscious. 

The next match Yua vs. Katsuro.

"Sorry Yua, but your luck runs out here.' Katsuro says.

"Luck? I've gotten this far thanks to talent." She replies. 

The match begins and Yua starts off by throwing smoke bombs down.

"I see. Katsuto can only use her power on things she can see so by blocking her field of vision, her power becomes useless." Kazuna whispers mostly to himself.

Katsuro flies into the air in order to stop any surprise ground attacks as she disperses the cloud of dust. But those few seconds were enough time for Yua to continue her plan as Katsuto could see something being thrown at her, but she stops it mid-air.

"A good try, but not good enough." She says.

"Just wait," Yua says with a smile as the thing she throws explodes in a burst of light briefly blinding Katsuro.

Yua creates a g*n and shoots something that looked like a tranquilizer dart at Katsuro. It must have been pretty strong as Katsuro immediately falls from the sky and into a deep sleep. Yua glares at Kagura who she would be fighting next with a determined look in her eyes. It was clear that she was going to come at her with everything she had and all Kagura could do was reply with the same energy. They were rivals in both battle and love. Neither of them was going to go down without a fight.

Mr. Satouro picks up their intensity and starts the match without allowing time for a break. They silently glared at each other before rushing one another. Yua knew that Kagura had grown too much for her cheap tactics to work and Kagura knew that a battle that allowed Yua time to create whatever she wanted was disadvantageous to her. Yua creates a sword and clashes with Kagura. Yua may not have practiced her swordsmanship as much as Kagura, but she was plenty adept with one. This was the first time the two of them had ever fought and Kagura couldn't help but be impressed with how well she moved. She had known that Yua could move well, but as she was fighting her it was even more obvious how polished her movements were.

But, despite how impressed she was, Kguara was much more experienced with a sword and had begun to gain the upper hand. Kagura uses her power to knock Yua off balance and tries to capitalize on her window, but Yua throws her sword into the ground, and the hilt forces Kagura to move her body awkwardly awarding Yua enough time to roll away. She quickly gets up and barely has enough time to create a staff to block Yua's follow-up attack. Kagura goes for another swing but cloaks her sword in wind and cuts her staff in half. She throws the pieces at her and creates a spear and shield. She lunges with her spear and Kagura narrowly dodges the attack. She grabs the spear and cuts it the same way she did the staff. She goes for a downward s***h that Yua blocks with her shield. Kagura decides to use something that Kazuna did to her once and she let go of her sword. The force Yua was using to stop her attack caused her to throw her arms upward and expose her midsection. Kagura places a palm into her stomach and launches her back with her wind. Yua creates some pillows and softens the impact she felt when she hit the wall a bit but it still did some good damage. She looks up and sees that Kagura had already covered a good amount of the distance between them. Yua creates a small object and throws it at her. Kagura cuts it in half but it explodes shortly after and launches small needles. They weren't very big, but there was enough of them that they stopped her charge and caused a good amount of pain. 

Yua uses this chance to attack. She creates gloves of steel and punches Kagura in the stomach. The blow knocked the air from her and she fell to her knees.

"Give up?" Yua asks.

Kagura grimaces but smiles shortly after.

"As if." She groans as wind explodes from her throwing the needles out of her and into Yua as it blew Yua away.

Kagura shakily gets up and stares at Yua as she begins to form a plan. Yua recovers and pulls the few needles that were in her out as she herself begins to form a plan. Kagura decided to try something new since she felt that the two of them were pretty evenly matched. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

'Galestorm' She whispers as a wind began to blow in the arena. Soon after, the winds turned into more of a storm as they raged ferociously. They continued to grow in strength until Yua had to cover her eyes. Kagura began to walk towards her and the winds began to lift her off her feet and cut her body. She wasn't sure what she could do.

"There aren't any weapons that would be effective in winds this strong and I can't create anything that could block this attack." She desperately searched for a way to change the tide of battle, but when she caught a look in Kagura's eyes, she knew there was nothing she could do.

Her eyes were fierce and it was clear that she could increase the ferocity of the winds even further. Yua smiles a little as she admits defeat. Kagura slowly stops her attack so that Yua would slowly be let down. She falls to her knees and tried to shakily get up. Kagura walks over and offers a hand. Yua smiles as she takes it and Kagura helps her to the rest area.

"I always thought you were overconfident, annoying, and a nuisance. But you're stronger than I thought." Kagura says.

"Ouch," Yua replies.

"Well, to be honest, it was mostly because of how you acted towards Kazuna, but as I 've gotten to know you, I can tell you're nice, strong, smart, and dependable," Kagura explains.

Yua smiles and blushes a little.

"I could say the same about you," Kagura says as she helps Yua get on one of the rest beds. 

One of the aids helps Kagura to her own bed to treat her and there was another break before the final two matches would begin.