An Assassin's Respite

The next round and start of the losers bracket

After a brief intermission, the next round started with the first match being Kazuna vs. Matt. 

"Already fighting Kazuna in the second round. Oh well, at least it wasn't in the first one." Matt sighs with a shrug.

"Don't give up so soon and make sure you come at me with some fight," Kazuna replies.

"What kind of friend would I be if I didn't try my best against my best friend," Matt replies.

They smile at each other as Mr. Satouro starts the match.

Kazuna takes the initiative and makes a charge for Matt right away. He goes for a high right kick but Matt blocks it with his left arm after he increased its size. Kazuna twits his body and does the same type of kick with his other leg, but Matt blocks it in a similar fashion. 

"He's gotten pretty good at how fast he can increase specific parts of his body. He might have improved more than I thought," Kazuna notes to himself.

Kazuna increases his speed hoping to test Matt's progress and lands a powerful punch into Matt's gut. But... it knocks Matt out and Kazuna wins the fight.

"I guess he hasn't improved as much as I thought." He says to himself with an awkward look on his face.

"Even so, he's gotten more confident and has improved his skills," Kazuna notes with a smile.

Masahiro wins his fight against Tsumigi since he couldn't hear while in shadows but instead read the shadows of people's mouths. Kagura and Chiyo were up next and they were raring to go.

Mr. Satouro starts the match and Chiyo makes the first move as she sends a jet stream of water towards Kagura. Kagura dodges to her left and sends a powerful gust of wind towards Chiyo. She sends a wave of water to block the attack, but Kagura uses the brief moment where Chiyo couldn't see her to close the gap. She made it about halfway before Chiyo had vision of her again and she barely manages to dodge an attack that came shooting from Chiyo's wave of water. With her off balance, Chiyo launches attack after attack. Kagura sloppily avoids the attacks more so by falling away from them rather than dodging them. She tries to use the same tactic in her first fight and distract Chiyo with her wind, but Chiyo cancels her attack out with her own before it could get close enough. Kagura was forced to continue dodging until she came up with a new plan. One of Chiyo's attacks connects sending her to the ground. Before she could gather herself, she was surrounded by a wall of water and was trapped. She sends out a sphere of wind aru=ound her and manages to dispel the water, but Chiyo just throws the wall back up, putting her in the same predicament. She tries to jump out but the water covers the top and shoots her down. She tries to find a way out of her predicament but comes up with a blank and surrenders.

Kagura returns to the stands with a defeated expression.

"Don't be so down, you can't win every fight," Kazuna says in an attempt to cheer her up.

"I know, but I would rather win than lose," She replies.

"Losing is just as important as winning Loses help you understand what you need to improve upon and what your strengths and weaknesses are. As long as you learn from your losses, then losing can be as informative as winning. Think about why you lost your last match and what you can do to prevent yourself from making the same mistake and watch the matches to come so you can see how your opponents are adapting as well as what they're doing so you'll be ready for if and when you face them." He states.

Kagura remained silent, but she took his advice to heart and began to pay close attention to the matches starting with the one that was just starting between Haruna and Ria. Haruna instantly sends a wave of ice towards Ria, but she easily dodges and goes invisible. Haruna surrounds herself with a thin sheet of ice. Her plan was to make it easier for her to locate Ria and difficult for Ria to get close to her. But Haruna underestimated the training Ria went through. She felt someone grab her arm and slam her into the ground. She was unable to move and Ria was given the win.

"She's really something else," Kagura notes.

"Yes. I can tell that she trained hard while I was gone." Kazuna notes.

The next match of Mineta vs. Hitomi began once Haruna melted her ice from the field. Mineta turns his body into rock and rushes Hitomi head-on. Hitomi increases her strength and speed and easily dodges his charge. As he ran by she kicked her leg out and sent Mineta hurtling to the ground. She launches herself onto him, but he rolls over and manages to block her knee by crossing his arms. She throws a punch that he wasn't able to completely blocked and with her increased speed and strength, she inflicted a lot of damage. She jumps onto her feet and grabs Mineta by his uniform and hurls him over her shoulder and back onto the ground knocking the wind out of him. Hitomi was declared the winner and proudly headed back to the stands. Katsuro was able to beat Juro pretty handily thanks to Kazuna helping her be much more accustomed to her power. Akira beat Macey with his superior versatility and Chad was able to easily beat Jacques since reading his mind didn't help Jacques at all.

With the second round of the winner's bracket done and the losers from the first round getting adequate time to recover, the first round of the losers bracket began with the first match of Yua vs. Shiba. Thanks to her fight against Kazuna, Yua was able to keep up with Shiba and beat him with her superior hand-to-hand combat skills. Yamato took the initiative in his fight against Emiko and restrained her immediately so she couldn't take advantage of her superior speed and close-range capabilities. Nikoeasily beat Kenji whose power was useless, Riku beat Junichiro since taking his senses only made Riku release as much power as he could which completely overwhelmed Junichiro. Haruka and Azumi were able to easily beat Akeno and Ayame respectfully. Vincent beat Haru and Natsuki neat Tanashi.

The next round of the losers bracket began and Yua was fighting Matt who lost to Kazuna. She was able to beat him by taking advantage of how slow he was. Yamato fought Tsumugi. Once the fight began, Yamato wrapped shadows around Tsumugi's mouth before she could finish her sentence and she raised her hands signaling her surrender. Niko fought Kagura again, but Kagura used a different strategy this time around and was able to beat Niko easier than before. Haruna also had a rematch with who she fought in the first round and was once again able to easily win. Haruka was fighting Mineta again but went about the match-up differently. He charged her head on just as he's been doing with his fights thus far, but she dodges at the last possible second and places her hands on his back. She places an opposite charge onto his back from her hands and launched him in the direction he was running and into the outer ring of the arena, knocking him out. Juro was able to completely shut down everything Azumi tried and eventually overwhelmed him. Vincent and Macey's second bout went the same as the first with Macey's eventual victory. The last match was also a rematch between Natsuki and Jacques which went the same way with Jacques's victory.

The winners' quarter-finals began with Kazuna vs. Masahiro. Masahiro starts the fight by diving into the shadows. Kazuna stands in place and vigilantly surveys his surroundings. There was only one place that Masahiro could show up from in order to attack, but Kazuna couldn't throw away the possibility that he would use the assumption that he would come from his shadow as a way to use another form of attack. Soon, Masahiro appeared behind Kazuna, but when Kauzna went to block an attack he assumed was coming, Masahiro drops back into his shadow and appears at his side.

"He baited my counter?" Kazuna notes in surprise.

Kazuna was just able to rotate his body and block Masahiro's attack. Masahiro tries to dive back into the shadows, but Kazuna grabs him before he could completely submerge himself and he throws him to the sky so he couldn't dive into any shadows.

'Lightning Bolt' Kazuna says as he raises his arm towards Masahiro and strikes him with a bolt of lightning.

Masahiro comes crashing to the ground and is knocked out. Kazuna helps carry him to the rest area before going to the stands. Ria and Chiyo were up next and their match promptly began. 

Chiyo took a different approach to the fight compared to the others and began on the defensive. She spread water out around her and planned on countering Ria's attack over attacking first. She spread put her water so that Ria would have to either walk through it or jump over to get to her. Even if Ria was able to jump across and land an attack, it wouldn't be enough to win the fight outright and she would be able to easily counter. As she waited, there was a splash on the edge of her protective ring. She sends an attack in that direction but doesn't;t hit anything, There was a splash a few feet away from the first spot and another even further from that one. 

"Is she jumping at random areas to divert my attention or throwing things at different points?" Chiyo asks herself as she continues to launch attacks at the splashes. The splashes started to get closer, but the number of them also increases. She had no idea when or where she was going to come from. After a few more missed attacks, she could feel a fist being jammed into her stomach. She looks down in surprise as Ria comes into view. Ria pulls back and uppercuts Chiyo, knocking her out.

"Not bad," Kazuna notes as RIa takes a seat next to him in the stands. 

"Thanks." She replies, trying her absolute hardest to hide the joy on her face.

Katsuro and Hitomi were up next and Katsuro was able to win the fight handily since Hitomi couldn't get close. Chad vs. Akira was the last match of the quarter-finals. Mr. Satouro signaled the start of the match and Chad started it the same way as all his fights and increased the gravity around Akria, but Akira was able to withstand the increased gravity and launched a counter-attack. Chad was forced to dodge causing him to lose concentration from the surprise that Akira was able to move so well. Since he lost concentration, the gravity on Akira was released and he began to close the gap. Chad quickly focuses back onto Akira and puts even greater gravity onto him. Akira slams into the ground but had prepared an attack as he approached and launched it as he fell. Chad manages to dodge it but a piece of the attack grazes his abdomen. Chad falls to his knees but he keeps his focus and increases the gravity even more. Akira was no longer able to move at all and Chad was pronounced the victor.

Since the winners' semi-finals were set, the loser's bracket matches began once more with the first match of Yua vs. Masahiro. Yua was able to beat Masahiro by creating a light source that got rid of all the shadows in the area. Chiyo surrounded herself with an area of water so Yamato wasn't able to use his shadows to attack her. Kagura and Hitomi's fight was interesting.

Hitomi increases her physical abilities and charges Kagura. Kagura blasts her with wind as she approaches, but Hitomi was able to dodge or charge through all f her attacks. Once Hitomi was in front of her, Kagura throws her hands to the ground and blasts Hitomi into the air. She then raises her arms and throws them down, launching Hitomi to the ground. Hitomi was able to land on her feet and absorb the impact with her strengthened legs. She jumps towards Kagura but is thrown to the side. She lands and runs towards Kagura once more. As Kagura raised her hands to attack, Hitomi dodges to the side before Kagura even used her attack which was a mistake as Kagura was purposefully making her attacks easy to read so that this exact situation would happen. She smiles as wind pulls Hitomi towards her and into her knee. Kagura was victorious.

"She's starting to use less conventional strategies and fighting styles," Kazuna notes to himself.

Akira was able to win against Haruna pretty easily since his attacks were able to bust through her defenses. Haruka wasn't able to beat Juro's defense capabilities ad Jacques wasn't able to use his power to gain an advantage over Macey's much superior firepower. The loser's quarter-finals were set and the first match was Yua vs. Chiyo. 

Once the match began, Yua created a strange device. The purpose of the device was made clear once Chiyo used her power as her water was instantly tuned to ice after a quick spray from it. Yua had created a machine that shot liquid nitrogen. Chiyo was caught off guard and knew she had to change her tactics. Yua uses the ice pillars she created to close the distance. Chiyo shot a jet stream of water towards her hoping that the speed and power of her attack would be too much for Yua to turn it into ice, but Yua throws the machine at the attack and once it's destroyed, a mist of liquid nitrogen sprays our, freezing her entire attack. Chiyo stops her attack so as not to freeze the entire field, but that allows Yua to get right under her. In a close-quarters brawl, she stood little chance against Yua and was quickly overwhelmed.

Kagura and Akira were next. Mr. Satouro starts the match and Kagura decides to make this a close-quarters contest since Akira's power had more offensive capabilities. Akira tried to keep her away by shooting blasts at her, but she was able to dodge and deflect his attacks and close in pretty easily. Akira throws his hands to the ground and creates a pulse wave of Ki. The attack burns her legs a little, but she grits her teeth and thrusts her sword hilt into his abdomen. Although the attack was strong, he was able to take it pretty well and he grabbed her sword and pulled her towards a knee into her stomach returning the favor. She places a hand on his chest and blasts him back with wind, she launches another burst of wind to launch him even faster towards the arena edge. He slams into the wall and is knocked out.

Juro was able to beat Macey quickly by placing a small barrier in front of her eyes, causing her to inflict a lot of damage to herself. That concluded the matches for the quarter-finals for both the winner's and loser's brackets. The winner's semi-finals and finals would take place then the loser's semi-finals and finals before the last match to decide the winner of the tournament.