Chapter 23

A few moments before Kris stepped onto the stage:

"One more hurdle and it will all be over." Kris spoke to James as he sat on the waiting bench, fingers interlocked with his elbows on his knees.

"Agreed, but you did set this final match to maximum difficulty. You are injured, she is not and you still managed to piss her off. She's going to come at you with everything she's got."

"Hmnph..."

"Any plans?"

"A few makeshift strategies all dependent on how the battle flows. Plus, Captain Oumar did say, 'Everything strong about us comes from within' If I have it in me then I guess I'll win regardless of the odds."

"It's shocking how you can be optimistic."

"Well it doesn't matter either way. Only the flow of battle will determine the results. What's the point of beating myself down before the opponent does?"

"Regardless, you have no concrete plan and you are holding on to a vague statement as a possible win condition. Considering how she beat her previous opponents... I am sure you'll do fine."

"Man, fuck you and your sarcasm."

"Ha! I'll be watching from here. Best of luck."

Kris smiled as he got to his feet. He walked out of the waiting room and headed for the stage.

THE STAGE WAS set for the final match of the graduation ceremony. The winner is given the opportunity to choose where they'd want to serve. That was considered a great honor for an aspiring source soldier.

THE MOST INTERESTING ROOKIE VS THE NUMBER 1 FIGHTER OF THE SET. 

Cheers and excitements filled the hall. Everyone felt their hearts tensed up as they didn't know what to expect. Some were screaming for the match to start already as they couldn't bare the suspense. The two fighters were on stage and the ref gave the call to begin the match.

KRIS VS SU MING

"Does the end justify the means to you Kris?" Su asked in a very cold tone.

Kris didn't respond. He just stared at her for a bit. Trails of dark yellow energy began to rise from Su.

"Very well then..." Su burst out a terrifying dark yellow energy. She glared at Kris with rage filled eyes and gritted her teeth.

"Tch... going all out from the start." Kris smirked but had a cold sweat trail down his head. He quickly switched to a defensive stance as he watched for her next move.

"I am going to make you pay in blood for what you did to him!" Su roared out. Her cloak formed rapidly on her body before she dashed with immense speed at Kris.

She smashed her fist into his guard which launched him a few meters backwards. He landed on his feet which dragged against the ground for an extra meter before he managed to stop himself. His hand went numb, but before he could pay attention to the pain, she was already infront of him with a swing from her leg. In an attempt to dodge it, he dove instinctively, but she drew her feet down in the middle of the attack in an effort to ram his head into the ground. Kris blasted the ground to push himself backwards to the air in order to avoid it as he watched the thunderous slam of her feet cause the ground to sink in.  He placed his hands behind him and created energy thrusters to maintain himself in the air. Just as he was about to catch his breath, he noticed a fist closing in on him. He pulled his hands to receive it but the force sent him crashing on his back. Su soon landed her feet on his face making him sink into the ground with his hands flailing forward. She charged her fist and was set to pummel him deeper but Kris transferred red energy into the ground forcing it to explode upwards.

This had no effect on Su as her fist still slammed into his face while the explosion occured. As she attempted a second strike, Kris burst out an energy wave which managed to push Su into the air but constituted no damage to her. She spun herself in the air  and landed on her feet. Kris burst out of the hole with blood dripping from his forehead and mouth. As he landed he curled multiple energy blasts at Su which individually split into three blasts that zoomed at her. She stomped her feet and with incredible speed, drove in a punch into Kris' guts. He coughed out blood while his pupils shrunk. She followed with a flurry of punches each dazing Kris as he drifted in and out of consciousness due to the heaviness of the punches. Su curled an energy sphere a short distance behind Kris, then blasted his face twice before kneeing him on the chin which launched his head into the energy sphere behind him. It exploded on contact and forced Kris' head forward and it was met with Su's kick which hooked his neck and dragged it unto the floor spreading a spider web of cracks. She took a big leap backwards and as she landed, she snapped her fingers. Dark yellow spheres began to engulf Kris before it finally exploded sending yellow energy racing across the stage in different directions. A brief moment of silence ensued as the dust cover settled. Kris was seen bloodied and laying flat on the floor. His cloak had broken patches and was slowly disintegrating. He coughed and clenched his fists. He soon staggered to his feet and looked at Su condescendingly as if to say "Is that all you got?"

Su hissed. Her energy rose and her hands glowed. "Thousand hand attack form." She muttered as she dragged her right feet back before stomping it on the ground. In a blink she was at Kris' position with a strong Jab. As soon as her strike was about to connect, from her point of view, Kris vanished. Her eyes opened widely as it trailed sideways to see Kris standing in a crouched position. before she could react, she felt a heavy uppercut on her jaw which launched her spinning into the air. She created a blast behind her to control herself  in the air. Shock was written all over her face when suddenly she saw energy blasts rushing at her. She blasted above her to descend quickly and added a spin in order to avoid more blasts from Kris. The moment she landed, she dashed quickly at him only to see him infront of her with a heavy right swing which connected to her cheek and sent her crashing into the ground. Kris' cloak had reformed and he started skipping slightly in a 'jeet kune do' fashion as he watched Su get to her feet. Blood trailed from her mouth as she looked at Kris. She  spat out blood and wiped the trail off her cheeks then taking a false stance (Xu bu).

"If speed is your game, then two can play that!" Kris spoke before zooming in quickly at Su. She blocked a direct fist from him instinctively. The impact caused the ground to sink in and Su felt her bone shift. She bit her lips and replied with a strike of her own but Kris circled behind her and kicked at her face. She was able to block it with her left palm but it sent her flying. She bounced on her back twice before rolling on the ground.  As kris dropped his feet. He dashed quickly to her attempting to kick her into the air. He noticed a glow in her eyes and stopped himself just in time to dodge an energy beam which grazed over the cloak on his forehead. Next his face was met by two punches from Su then a Knee jab to his guts which he blocked with his palms before striking at her face. Su turned rightwards to evade it then slammed her elbow into his neck. She gave him two punches to his chest and followed it with a kick which sunk deep into Kris guts. It basically rocketed him quite the distance from her however, before he was kicked away, he had dropped an energy blast which engulfed Su in an explosion that dug deep into the arena while spreading huge cracks on the stage.

Kris landed on his back and dragged on the floor for a while. He coughed out blood as his breathing became erratic. His injuries had begun reopening and blood were soaking the bandages. He staggered to his feet and tried to maintain his balance. Soon he felt quakes from the ground. Dark yellow energy burst through it and an enraged Su tore out of it. She bolted with immense speed at him. Kris clenched his fist and stood his ground. With a roar they smashed their fists against each other dispersing a wild energy. The two kept smashing their fists and soon entered a continuous barrage of strikes and kicks each countering and responding. The battle became too fast for most of the audience to keep track but they could see the arena deteorating from their clashes.

AT THE VIP section,

"They really are going at each other." Louis commented.

"Despite the fact that Kris is matching her speed, there is a clear difference in skill which is giving her the edge. He's taken more blows than he's dishing out." Elizabeth noted.

"But how much longer can Su hold out? Kris maybe behind in skill but he's quickly adapting and closing that skill gap."

"It's less of him closing the gap and more of the drawbacks of her method of powering up. She's 'OVERCLOCKING'."

"Overclocking?"

"Of course you wouldn't know about it. Being a guard type and all."

Louis chuckled while Elizabeth sighed.

"To simply put, it's forcing one's core to pull more of your internal energy than it normally would in order to increase the power of the source energy you are utilizing. But since your body can't truly compensate, you enter a 'DECLINE REGION' where you begin to get weaker until you reach the 'BURN OUT' state. It's a method I've used back in the days as a last resort to defeat really powerful opponenets. The aim was to finish them off as soon as possible before entering the decline region. It's a terrible choice for prolonged battles"

"What happens when you reach the burn out state?"

"Your source energy loses it's colour and for a while you are only capable of peak human feats."

"In other words, irrelevant to the scale of power. Considering that you may also be gased out. Doing those feats will be difficult. It's quite extreme."

"Hence why it's a last resort. She ought to have used it at the end of the battle rather than the very beginning. It's quite annoying. I see my younger self in Su a lot, down to the minute mistakes." Elizabeth sighed.

"That explains why you were harsh on her."

"Regardless, I'll like to see how this battle plays out. The results will be thrilling."

"That much I expect."

BACK ON THE stage,

Kris and Su slammed each other's faces with their fists however Kris had the advantage as his pressed deeper into Su's before sending her into the ground. As Kris coughed out, blood trailed from his mouth and injuries. His body shivered as it gradually grew numb. His cloak had cracks all over, nonetheless, he took in a deep breath and started reforming it.  Soon two energy spheres were shot at him. He caught them with his palms although they forced his feet to drag a bit before they stopped. He tried to toss them aside but noticed that they were stuck to his palms. As the glowed, Kris forced out energy spheres from his palms which pushed that of Su's away before he fired them to the side. That was enough distraction for Su to close in and ram both palms into his chest releasing a shockwave. Kris' eyes sunk before he was blasted away. His body flew heading straight to a wall. Su dashed after him with her energy spiralling around her.

"Thousand-hand attack from, spiralling fist!" She stepped, then twisted her body round as though to gather centrifugal force before smashing the fist into his guts just as his body made contact with the wall. There was a massive explosion of dark yellow energy which froced the audience to cover their eyes. As the explosion began to rest, a smaller explosion occured and Su was seen being tossed out of it and crashing on her side. Kris walked out of the explosion slowly with all the fingers of his right hand pointing forward. As he emerged, there was a big hole in his cloak at his guts level but his body was unscathed. All his fingers excluding his index had small spheres on them. The wall behind him had shattered with deep cracks spreading to other walls which inturn revealed the red energy barrier. Kris took in deep breaths before he uttered the words,"Flash shots."

He shot three of them at her. While on the ground, she lifted her hand and spoke weakly, "Thousand-hand defense form, Repel" The flash shots merged at her hand, doubled in size, then were shot back at  Kris.

Kris clenched his fist and pointed his thumb at her. He crouched his knees and placed his left hand on his arm. "Flash. SHOT!"

No one saw the sphere on his right thumb leave but they all heard an explosion at Su's location. The blast she sent at Kris had a huge hole in it and dissipated before coming in contact with him.  As the explosion dissipated, coughs were heard from Su. She weakly stood to her feet. Her cloak had cracks all over it before falling apart completely. She was bleeding from her mouth, hands and her forehead. Her energy had decreased from a dark yellow to a very light yellow color. She coughed out steam and fell to her hands and knees. Her energy dropped from a yellow color to a clear, transparent color as she took short breaths in pain. She was 'BURNT OUT'

"Judging by how you are breathing, a clear colour would mean you've gotten weaker right?" Kris panted out. Su didn't reply him. She was trying her best to control her breathing. Kris stood straight and let out a deep breath to calm himself.

"This fight is basically over. I'll like to avoid a repeat of Fred with you as much as possible. So I am going to tell you exactly what I told him. Forfeit now or I won't show mercy."

Su's eyes widened. She couldn't believe what she had just heard from him. She forced herself to her feet and glared at Kris.

"You mean to tell me that you asked him to forsake his pride as a soldier and when he didn't you pummled him to the ICU?"

"Put it however you want. I don't really care. All I want to know now is your response."

"Your lack of regard is sickening. Everyone who participated in this tournament had something to stake, be it our pride, our goals, people we want to protect or whatever. We are soldiers preparing to serve. How can you even think of insulting us with such an ultimatum!" She yelled out and the clear energy formed a cloak around her.

"You want my answer Kris? FUCK YOU!." She stomped her feet and took a boxing stance.

"Then so be it."  Kris burst out his energy and his eyes glowed with a long upward trail of red energy. The energy gathered and spun on his right hand basically creating a double cloak on it. He created an energy sphere in front of him. He crouched and pulled his hand backwards. Su placed both her hands together and launched an energy beam at him with all her might. Kris shifted all his weight to his right hand and then punched the sphere. His fist sunk deep into the sphere and the double cloak got absorbed by it before releasing a rotating fist which headed for Su's beam.

"This might be a weaker version of the move that finished of Salim but it's still going to hurt a lot."

The fist tore easily through Su's beam and jammed into her guts. She coughed out blood before it lifted her into the air. It pushed hard till it shoved her to the side and climbed a few meters. It exploded as she fell and fifty fists split into the air.

"I also have a goal to fulfill and I don't care how many people or demons I'll have to take down to achieve it. Take a rest Su, this is my Grand fist"

All the fists came crashing down on her striking at all sides untill she crashed deep into the ground. Once the last fist hit her, a big explosion erupted shooting a  beam of energy into the air which dissipated into tiny flakes of red energy.

There was a cold pause in the entire hall. The ref looked at his hand and his eyes widened. He rushed to the edge of the deep hole and saw Su unconscious in it. She was bloodied and her camo top had burnt completely revealing her sports bra. the trousers had burnt patches on them and her boots had burnt off. The ref slowly turned to Kris. He stared at him with a bit of disgust for a while before letting out a sigh. The moment felt dramatic. In Kris' point of view it seemed like the ref was lifting his hand slowly in order to declare him the winner. As Kris was about to exhale in relief while the hall fell silent, a tremor abruptly spread throughout the arena. The ref stopped his hand about halfway through then looked at his wrist and couldn't believe what he saw. As he turned towards the direction of the deep hole, a large, violent, towering, clear energy burst out. From its edges, sparks of yellow energy began to appear and soon spread round the clear energy. The sparks turned to trails and soon the entire energy turned yellow. The spectators, the ref and Kris lifted their hands to cover their eyes due to how bright the energy shone. Su walked out of the hole and the towering energy shrunk to her before spreading out in a dome shape. The energy relaxed and Su was standing, covered in a yellow ASTRAL ARMOR. The energy was intimidating and Kris could feel shivers all over his body. His eyes widened at it and all he thought was, "It can't be..." as he fell to his bum.

Su looked at her body and could only feel energy surging through it. She gazed at Kris and a wave of energy blew pass him. Su took a false stance(Xu bu) and focused her attention on Kris.

"Get up Kris. This battle is far from over..."