I’ll Win, Especially Against You

The first few fights were intense; there were many people with powerful blessings and who were very skilled when it came to magic. But everyone wasn’t like that, Nensho being one of them. On the first day, I hadn’t realized that Nensho was also in our group. And after watching his fight, I was surprised. Not by how much he’s gotten stronger, but by how weak he was. After all this time, he stayed the same. He didn’t seem to get stronger, didn’t have any new spells, and didn’t even seem to be good in hand-to-hand combat. So he took a swift and embarrassing defeat. It was like this for most people, actually, a lot of them must not have trained and went into this tournament not prepared. I guess the threat of dying first to the Demon King didn’t scare them enough. I can’t believe they would waste their second life like this.

After watching a few more fights, it ended up being my turn. The girl I fought was someone named Nina; she had the power to summon familiars. She was strong and caused me a bit of trouble, but I ultimately won. It was the same with Yuno, he seemed ot be struggling at first, but he eventually pulled through. Of course, he didn’t seem like he was struggling at all. He constantly had this stupid grin on his face; I guess he was really having the time of his life.

Then it was on to Akiko’s fight. Well, I couldn’t even call it a fight. It was more of a one-sided beatdown. Once she disabled their spells, her enemy wouldn’t know what to do next, and before they could react, she would overwhelm them with her attacks. I guess everyone here was overly reliant on their blessings.

Each day consisted of two fights, and both of Akiko’s fights ended without her having to try much. Also, Yuno and I were able to defeat both of our opponents, so we moved on. Looking at the leader board, I would have to fight Yuno if I won my first fight tomorrow, assuming he does too. After each fight, we had time to fully recover, and once we did, we had to fight the next opponent

“You ready for tomorrow?” Yuno asked me.

“Yeah, what about you?”

“Of course, I’ve been waiting to fight you since you lost to me the first time.”

I shot him a look. “That’s assuming you win.”

“I will.”

The next day I won again, though my opponent forced me to think. His blessing let him fully regenerate, corresponding to the amount of liens he had on his arm. Meaning I had to put him down five times before he finally stayed down. Yuno pulled off his win too, and then it was time.

Walking down the hall toward the arena, my heart pounded, but not with fear, but with excitement. This wasn’t like fighting Gareth. There was no nervousness, no dread. I felt alive. Maybe this was how Yuno always felt. It would make sense why he’s crazy all the time.

He was already waiting when I stepped onto the battlefield, that same mischievous grin plastered across his face like he’d been saving it for this moment.

“Are both of you ready?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Just start it already,” Yuno complained.

“Let the duel commence!”

Yuno lunged instantly. I caught the trick with celestial mana; the body coming straight at me was just an illusion. The real one was angling in from the side. I pivoted and swung, but the fake burst apart, exploding in my face. His fist smashed against me before I could fully brace. I softened the blow with negative mana, but the distraction was enough for him to vanish from my senses. A second later, he dropped from above, foot slamming down. I caught it with my arms, shoving him off.

“You weakened my illusion’s hit with negative mana, didn’t you?” he smirked.

“Yeah, since your illusion is just made up of mana, it was able to make it a lot weaker than it would’ve been compared to taking a punch from you. Which was still weak by the way.”

“Is that so?” he smirked.

I lunged at him, “Yeah, it is!”

He flickered, suddenly wearing Akiko’s face. My guard slipped, and his kick dug into my stomach. Earth mana cushioned the impact, and I countered with a spell. “Destructive Void Ryu!”

This version of Ryu is used with void, the negative form of celestial and primordial magic. The paragon pulls a target in and imploads on itself once it reaches the target. He put up a barrier, but the negative mana was able to tear through i,t and he was swallowed whole by the attack.

I would’ve expected him to dodge the attack since he knows how effective negative mana is against regular mana.

I didn’t sense any movements from him, so I let my guard down a bit. An attack like that would’ve been fatal, facing it head-on, especially if it’s his first time getting hit by negative mana.

Then I sensed a presence behind me. It was a familiar and warm. My mother.

Another illusion!

I turned around and saw Yuno behind me. I swung my fist against him and knocked him far.

“Don’t think you can tri—”

I felt a sharp pain from behind. I looked down at my stomach, it was my belly dripping with my blood.

“Don’t think I can what?”

“I hit you, though.”

“Did I forget to mention that my illusions can play tricks on your senses too. Oops, my bad.”

“Bastard,” I muttered.

“That’s not a nice thing to say to a friend now, is it?”

“Being stabbed in the back isn’t so nice either.”

“Oops, sorry, you were just so open.”

I detonated a barrier of negative mana, spikes tearing out of the ground in every direction. I needed him to get away from me while I healed myself. I couldn’t tell where he was attacking from anymore, so this was the best course of action.

He was able to steal my sword and trick me with his blessing. It’s a lot more powerful than I had originally anticipated.

I pulled my sword out and healed myself. The wound wasn’t fatal, so I didn’t have to resort to healing myself with malif. As I looked up, I saw an army running towards me.

All illusions, but if I focus on them, then he could attack me. I need to attack him from everywhere.

I built another barrier, but this time not for defense. I packed it with raw negative mana until it hurt, then unleashed it in a wave. The arena cleared in an instant; there were no illusions and no Yuno.

That’s when I heard it. My mother’s voice, trembling. I turned and saw her wrapped around my father, both burning alive. This was the same thing I saw in my vision

Her arms slowly reached out towards me, “Y-yakusei… how could you fail us like this?”

Then I felt another stabbing through my chest. I turned around, expecting him to say a mocking one-liner, but there was nothing. Then I felt a punch hit my face. It hurt a bit, but I was able to weaken most of the damage with my earth mana and imbuing a bit of negative mana. I felt these punches all around me. Even though I was able to weaken it, it still knocked me around. Between punches, Yuno let off some explosions, too.

I tried to sense where he was, even if I couldn’t see him, but I had nothing. No matter how hard I focused, no matter how much celestial mana I was using, I didn’t pick up on him. And anytime I would use an attack that was meant to attack every angle at once, I didn’t feel it hit anything. Not even a barrier. He must’ve been split-stepping past it.

Dammit, why can’t I sense him!

All I could do was keep running around, hoping that he wouldn’t keep up. At first, I was able to stall for some time. I ran around the walls of the arena, hoping he couldn't catch up. But he eventually caught on to me and knocked me back to the center and started berating me with attacks. None of the attacks were lethal, but they caused damage, damage which I needed to heal up. If this keeps going on, then I would’ve run out of mana.

His voice echoed in my head: Did I forget to mention my illusions can play tricks on your senses too?

Does that influence my senses that sense mana? It has to be, but how is his illusion still affecting me? I can’t see him.

Then I tore off a piece of my shirt and wrapped it around my face like a blind fold. Then I sensed his mana, his presence, everything all over again.

“So you figured it out,” he said.

“Yeah, you imbued your mana into everything on this battlefield, making everywhere I looked dangerous.”

“Good job, but you’re blind right now. How much can you accomplish against time without being able to see?”

“Let’s find out.”

I had to focus on celestial magic a lot more, so I was able to keep up with his movements. He was fast, even faster than earlier. He must’ve been holding back when he knew I couldn’t see or sense him. I charged at him, swinging my blade down, but he was able to jump to the side.

As he jumped away, I fired a barrage of spells at him.

“Dragon storm: Shining Dragon Ryu!” He put up a barrier blocking all the attacks, but I could sense that he was still in the air.

“Giaia’s Strike!” I channeled jagged spikes to appear where he was going to land.

As the spikes rose from the ground, he slammed his fist at it, destroying my attack. With his attention turned over to the spikes, I split-stepped over towards him. But once I appeared, he seemed to have a spell pointed at my voice.

“Collapsing star!”

It shot directly at my face, but I put up a barrier. But it pushed me far back.

Damn, I forgot he can read minds. No wonder he was able to counter my plan.

He immediately rushed over to me, ready for an attack.

I slashed my blade, “Primordial Flame!”

“Rushing waves!”, “Absolute zero!”

The water he sent at me covered my blade, then he froze all of it. He appeared behind me. I let go of my blade and prepared to swing at him. Punch after punch, he dodged them all so effortlessly. I didn’t even bother to shoot out a spell cause I knew it would be too slow. With needing time to think and release the spell, he could read all of that and respond with a counterattack. I had ot keep it strictly physical. So I enhanced my body with a whole bunch of mana, a lot more than I’ve ever had to do. This was like training by pushing as much mana into my muscles as possible. The pain was excruciating, but if I was able to push past it then I would be fast. Faster than he could react. That’s what I did. I sensed him jump back, even though I didn’t let off any mana; he knew what I did. I was surprised that I was able to suppress all this mana even with this much flowing through my body.

Each muscle felt excruciating, like the first time I was training all over again. I lunged at him, but he was still able to dodge.

“No matter how fast you move, I can predict where you’ll hit and dodge it!” he taunted.

Shit, he’s right.

“I know I am.”

I need a way to clear out my mind, but how can I do that? How would someone fight without thinking?

I tried not to think of anything as I fought him, but it’s impossible. I couldn’t help but think of all the ways he could attack or how I would counter. At this moment, I wasn’t making any progress; I was only hurting myself by having this much mana imbued into my muscles, and on top of that, I was barely able to avoid any of his attacks. I had to do something.

My brain scattered for a time, I did things without thinking, and I suddenly stumbled upon a memory. It was me in my old life when the incident happened. After finding out that a man had assaulted my friend, I went to confront him. When I talked to him about it, it seemed like he had no remorse and that he was proud of it. He even started to taunt me that there’s nothing I could do about it. Rage built up inside me more than I’ve ever felt in my life. My body acted on its own and started attacking him, and before I realized it, I ended up beating him to death. I couldn’t remember much from that fight; it was like all my memories had fled, and I was fighting with my mind turned completely off. But that isn’t even the intention.

Then Yuno appeared beside my ear and whispered, “When I beat you here and fight Akiko, I’ll kill her. Even if it’s against the rules, I’ll kill. You’re disappointing me, so I need to take my anger out on someone else.”

“What’d you say?”

“You heard me.”

My fist moved on its own, streaking his face. My body lunged towards him, and I started attacking. There was no thought behind each punch; all I cared about was hurting him any way possible. My body moved unattractively, no form, no technique, just power and a desire to put him down. Before I knew it, I started to keep up and eventually overwhelm him. He tried to make space and fire blasts at me, but I didn’t give him time. My hits started to land, and blood started to fly. I was winning until I heard those words.

“Arcane Requiem…Unavoidable Eye!” Then he started dodging all my attacks, just as if he knew where I was going to throw them. The more I missed, the more I had time to calm down. I eventually hopped back and created some distance between us.

My body was burnt out, so I had to use my malif ot heal myself.

“What you said earlier, you were reading my mind and were just trying to provoke me, right?”

“You know me so well.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because I was winning and I wanted a fair match-up. But now I’ll go back to winning.”

“What do you mean?”

“My Arcane Requiem gives me the ability of foresight.”

“W-what?”

“I know whatever you’re going to do, even before you think it. If you couldn't hit me then, what makes you think you can hit me now?”

I charged up mana into my body as I did earlier, but this time I used negative mana instead. It was much more powerful but did a lot more damage. I needed to finish the fight fast before I ended up destroying myself. I could only use malif to heal myself one more time, too.

“Let’s see if your foresight can keep up with this!” I launched myself at him but he barely dodged it.

He’s moving before I make the attack. He wasn’t joking about the foresight. But I’m close to hitting him. Just how long can he keep this up?

“I know requiems cost a lot of mana. Just how long are you able to keep that up?”

“Longer than you’re able to keep that up!” I chased him around the battlefield as he nearly avoided each blow. He knew that if I landed a single blow, then I would be able to turn this fight in my favor. So he planned to stall me out.

Anytime I felt my body reaching its limits, I released some of the negative mana and quickly healed myself, then focused more on my body. I did this so that the second I use attack, it makes not able to attack me while I heal.

The fight dragged on, each of us burning through reserves, pushing limits. His foresight faltered, his mana draining. My body gave out, bones screaming, skin tearing under the weight of energy. But I still pursued.

The final blow shattered me almost as much as it shattered him. Pain shot through every bone in my arm as Yuno’s body blasted across the arena, carving into the wall with a thunderous crack. For a moment, all I could hear was the ringing in my head and the rush of my own breath tearing through my lungs.

Dust billowed, my body buckled, my knees gave out, and I slammed into the dirt. Every muscle screamed, my vision flickering, but I forced myself to lift my head.

The crater smoked in the distance. Yuno lay at the bottom, motionless. No smirk. No illusions. Nothing. Silence swept the arena. No cheers, no gasps, just everyone holding their breath, waiting.

I tried to push myself up, and my body refused. My arm dangled uselessly at my side, blood dripping into the dirt. I grit my teeth, refusing to fall face-first. But I was just too weak, and I fell flat on the ground. As I made contact with the ground, my body screamed. Every inch of me was in pain, a lot more than usual. It looked like the negative mana made me a lot more fragile than usual.

Then the announcer’s voice cut through the stillness, loud and sharp: “Yakusei has won the battle! He will advance to the next round!”

The arena erupted into cheers and roars. The crowd shook the ground beneath me, but all I could do was let out a ragged breath, tasting iron on my tongue. I had won. But the way my body trembled, the way my vision darkened at the edges, I couldn’t shake the thought that this fight had taken just as much from me as it had from Yuno. Still, as I lay there on the dirt, I couldn’t help the faint grin tugging at my lips. On this battlefield, victory was survival, and I’d clawed it out of him with everything I had.