Hard Fought

Standing across from Four, whose aura had taken physical form as spectral arms and heads, Thirteen's final unnecessary thought before he slipped back into that focused trance was a simple one.

'I want that.'

Thirteen could tell that the small amounts of withering blood that had invaded Four's system were already neutralised, his connection to it having vanished. Wielding a blood coated handaxe in his crimson right hand, he began to split his focus further to encompass the new elements in the battle. The spectral hand on Four's right held a shortspear, while the one on his left held a scimitar.

The eyes of the two spectral heads adjacent to Four's own were moving with life, and Thirteen would bet that they functioned as a second and third set of eyes and ears.

Things would get more complicated he thought.

Four did not advance alone this time, as he had prior, but was met with an equal charge from Thirteen, each of them kicking dust and stones in their wake.

The former opened with a wide and domineering swing of his flamberge, which Thirteen made to react to, only to find it was a feint as Fours body spun left and the shortspear came stabbing forth.

Thirteen adjusted quickly and hooked his handaxe behind the incoming spearhead but had no time to manipulate it as Four abandoned that approach and continued spinning, exposing his back to Thirteen.

Thirteen thought to capitalise on the opening, but realized it was a foolish gamble as Four's spectral arms morphed and ignored the restrictions of material joints, the scimitar attacking Thirteen despite Four's spin not yet reaching completion. The furious eyes of one of his heads locked onto Thirteen despite the original looking away.

Thirteen decided to step back and take a defensive stance as he continued to parry, deflect and block attacks, while Four continued to rotate, spin and reposition his body in a practiced manner, making full use of his four limbs and three heads.

As Thirteen continued to be pushed back, he moved in the direction of an arming sword stabbed in the dirt. Before he had even made it within hands reach of the weapon, he extended his free hand and called it to him through his connection to the blood coating its blade.

The arming sword flew over, and as he caught it, Thirteen suddenly switched gears to the offensive, employing a handaxe in his right and an arming sword in his left as he did battle with all three weapons wielded by Four.

Four was strong and fast, but he lacked the agility and control of Thirteen, who swiftly began to move around his unstoppable friend, neutralizing every strike before it reached completion.

As the battle continued in this manner, an exchange between five weapons, Thirteen reached out with his will. Now it would begin in earnest.

A Greatsword and a Longsword, both buried and laying in dirt around the two fighters, shook slightly before shooting in Four's direction with incredible speed, their blades pointing forward and the red blood coating them running black.

Four's spectral heads saw this and moved to react, but just as he did, Thirteen used his handaxe to lock down the flamberge's blade, tugging at the dips in it's wavy form. At the same time, Thirteen's arming sword struck at Four, forcing a defense with the scimitar, but as the two blades struck with incredible force, the deep scarlet coating of that arming sword became bright with hints of orange as it reverted to liquid form.

The clashing of swords and the inertia acting on that now liquid blood sprayed it all across Four, and immediately a sizzling sound rang out.

Caustic blood. It wasn't incredibly potent, but it had one hell of a shock factor. Four still managed to block the black greatsword flying at him with the shortspear, but the longsword stabbed through the back of his thigh, while Thirteen released his grip on both weapons and made fists.

Four's momentum had taken a serious hit for the first time in this entire fight, as Thirteen willed the withering blood along the longsword to flow through Four's own bloodstream, while he was dealing with acidic burns on his face and chest, and defending against an onslaught of steel fists.

Four began to step backwards, even despite the sword stabbed through his thigh that was slowly being pushed out on its own.

Thirteen continued his assault, meeting blade with fist as he continued to strike, occasionally throwing kicks at the legs and body of his opponent to keep him guessing.

It had to be said that neither of the two were fighters that gave in quickly, and they each could sustain a long fight without issue. The black blood coursing through Four's body was sapping him greatly, but he cultivated the will, something normally beyond his current realm, and that will did wonders in forcing the energy in his body to neutralise internal threats.

As Thirteen stuck incredibly close to the powerful Four, employing all manner of unarmed fighting styles, his opponent made a drastic choice and abandoned his flamberge, the spectral scimitar and shortspear vanishing with the wind, as he met Thirteen in unarmed combat.

Thirteen's hands were as steel, and the blood coating them only reinforced the fact, but Four was not much different with the arts he cultivated.

As the fight continued on, Four tried to gain advantage with his extra limbs, unbound by conventional movements, while Thirteen would swap between fists and sword hands, while occasionally calling nearby weapons and forcing four to reconjure his own spectral blades.

Just as Thirteen severed the hand of a spectral arm, he received a heavy hook to the head that dulled his thoughts and made him slip from the empty trance he had fought in.

That was a bad sign, and soon Thirteen became flustered in the face of what he could only now recognize as an incredibly domineering aura that weighed down on him like a mountain. Four's severed spectral hand regenerated quickly, and soon all four arms delivered well trained strikes that Thirteen was now finding difficult to defend against.

'Three, Two–' Another hook from a spectral hand hit Thirteen in the ribs as he felt incredible pain. If he had not trained the Steel Body technique, that would have broken his ribs without a doubt.

'Three, T–' Again, Thirteen was interrupted as he tried to follow slip into a trance.

'This wont work' He decided, having taken quite a few heavy blows.

Gradually he began to rebuild his focus little by little, no longer attempting the countdown, and eventually, he managed to regain his wits.

'Right, what am I doing? Why am I wasting my preparation?'

With an outstretched hand, three blades flew at Four. They did not act with the grace of a qi cultivator's flying blade, but were instead shot in a single direction. Four defended, and this bought Thirteen time to arm himself as his hand axe reached his right hand.

Thirteen dodged slowly for a bit as if the exertion and hits had taken its toll on him, but continued to observe as many factors as he could, now with his recomposed calm.

Four threw a straight punch with his original left arm, while the others each took guard or prepared to strike. This was it. Thirteen suddenly moved with as much speed as he could muster, striking out with his handaxe and lodging its blade deep into the inside of the punching arm. He tugged down and back with that hand axe to throw Four slightly off guard, if only for a second, interrupting the follow up of those spectral arms.

As he pulled the axe, and by extension, the arm backwards, he threw a punch against Fours momentum with his left. He punched at such a position that Four could easily guard with his other real arm, the right one, as opposed to the two spectral limbs.

When Four did just that, Thirteen unfurled his fist before contact, extending his four fingers into a sword hand that stabbed at the defending forearm.

With both a squelching noise and the sound of metal scraping against metal, Thirteen's sword hand pierced through the opposing forearm. But that was just the start. Thirteen willed the blood coating his hand and within less than a second, it re-morphed itself, stabbing forward as an incredibly sharp blade that pierced through the rest of Four's arm and into his chest beyond.

Four gave a shout as the blood took a slightly caustic nature, and tried to punch at Thirteen who had both of his hands busy, with his right spectral arm.

By now, Thirteen had become very calm. Incredibly so. In fact, without even realising it, he had begun to slip into that combat trance once more, this time without any method of self-hypnosis, no countdown, and no deep exhalation.

Recognizing the fist inbound for his head, Thirteen released his right hand's grip on the handaxe and instead grasped the arm it was lodged into firmly.

'Sorry about this.' He thought, as he did four things at once. Firstly, he formed a void of life within his right hand, the withering technique, which sucked at the stamina and life within Fours left arm as he pulled said arm downwards.

At the same time, he supported his weight on his right leg, and kicked up at Four's incoming right spectral arm, stopping its approach.

The left hand that was stabbed through Four's original right arm, and the attached blood spear stabbing through his chest, both erupted in brilliant golden fire, filled with lifeforce.

And finally, he tensed his core, ready for the hit he knew was coming but could not avoid, tangled up as he was.

As his left hand and blood spear burst into golden fire, Four yelled in pain, his flesh becoming scorched. But that would not be all unfortunately, as Thirteen had also activated withering on the other arm. Withering would absorb lifeforce, that's what it did. The brilliant golden flame now scorching the insides of Fours chest? That was a massive beacon of lifeforce.

The fire formed a current through Four's body, rushing towards his arm where it could be dismantled and absorbed by withering, but only after having burnt everything in its wake.

The sound of an inferno raged as Four, through all that pain and suffering, unleashed an incredibly powerful punch with his left spectral arm which had remained free. That punch hit Thirteen directly in the core and immediately, Thirteen felt his body go weak as his internals shifted.

With a brief groan, Thirteen was sent flying like a cannonball, his body arched and his hands no longer grasped anything.

He hit the dirt hard and bounced, still flailing as he dragged along the ground, coughing as harshly as one could imagine.

He had let himself get too tangled up with Four. His hands and legs were all preoccupied, exactly what he should have avoided to maintain Unhindered Motion.

But looking over to Four who now fell to his knees, it looked to have worked.

Fours chest and arms were severely burnt, with serious stab wounds in a few locations. His spectral additions vanished as his martial aura dwindled.

Thirteen activated lifesight immediately to check if he was okay and was relieved with what he saw. Four would need urgent attention, but with the wonders the healers here were capable of, he would suffer no permanent damage.

*Cough*

Thirteen's blood dyed the dirt below as his vision began to fade.

'Really, after all that, he just hits me once more and im…' He lost his train of thought before it finished and almost fell unconscious.

"This fight is over." Instructor Diores called. "Whoever stands first will be deemed the victor."

'What?!' Thirteen looked to Four, who matched his gaze.

'Shit.'

Struggling to stand, they each fell back before trying again. Thirteen tried to call one of his weapons to support him but received only a headache in response. Four tried to coalesce his aura into more limbs to keep himself stable, but they refused to take form.

In his trance, it was easy to ignore pain, easy to ignore fatigue. He took note of them like a researcher would when watching a hamster run a wheel, and he could adapt to them in battle, but it was only now that the severity of it hit him.

When he had been forcefully awoken and could not perform a countdown, he had taken too many hits. He had been too flustered by the sudden change. And it was now all coming back to bite him.

The two continued to struggle, and when it looked like neither would be able to stand, Instructor Diores sighed, ready to call it a draw.

At this moment however, Thirteen's remaining lifeforce did what it did best, and he soon found some of his injuries healing. This didn't restore his fatigue, but helped steady his legs just enough to shakily rise, bit by bit.

When he finally stood on his feet, his back upright, Thirteen felt the slightest breeze threaten to topple him, but smiled still.

He had won.