chapter 18, Beginnings end.
Warning: This chapter contains the Suicidal Ideation of a girl who fights Zack in the preliminaries.
If you ever feel like hurting yourself, please for the love of all that is holy, righteous and good, seek professional help! Everyone has someone who cares for them and even if you don't believe it, someone will believe in you.
IF that doesn't convince you, remember that if you die, you won't be able to read any more stories and that would be fucking boring.
Zack POV
A tremor of revulsion lanced through me at the mere thought. But just as swiftly as the icy tendrils of doubt had taken root, I felt them wither and die beneath the blazing force of my resolve.
I thought for a moment and then I decided I didn't care.
Even if he is the father of this flesh, my soul belongs to me and that's what matters.
Lifting my gaze, I met Miu's stricken expression with an intensity that bordered on ferocity. Her eyes shone with the same anguished conflict, the same desperate need to reject the abhorrent implications of Hanma's words.
I put my hands on her shoulders and spoke. "This changes nothing. He's just a shitty sperm donor as far as I'm concerned, and you're the only one who matters."
Her eyes widened, the turmoil within them ebbing as my declaration anchored her, steadied her against the surging tides of Hanma's words.
"We'll beat the shit out of him and you can have the final strike."
She looked away from me for a moment, eyes moving back from the ground, me and then the sky.
She looked into my eyes as if peering into my soul and for a moment, silence hung between us - a single, crystalline shard of perfect tranquility amidst the roiling madness. Then, gradually, the shadows fled from Miu's gaze as her lips curved into a feral, predatory grin that shed all doubt.
"You're damn right we will," she rasped, the words a declaration of trust reaffirmed. "I'm going to savor every last agonizing second."
As if her words were a starting bell, the droves of corpses that had the sad fate of being too weak to please Hanma turned to a black ash. The remainder of us, still an extremely large amount, were moved into sections.
Hanma's voice seemed to echo across the building as janitors wearing collars and jumpsuits came through and started sweeping what remained of the weak into dustbins. "You! Yes you with the red tokens! There are 25 rings in each of the 160 sections! You'll be called up and then you'll fight! The 160 of you who remain when the 4000 of you are done- What do you mean there are 9472 Red tokens?!"
The jumbotron went silent for a moment. "Fine. those with red tokens who's forms stated they are at 7th dan and below no longer matter, get out within 10 minutes and go get stronger with those 4 years I gave you! Otherwise your tokens will turn black and we'll be sweeping you up!"
A large number of people ran towards the exits like they were being followed by the hounds of hell. We were lucky that there was a large amount of space after the black tokens were- removed, or these slightly weaker martial artists would have trampled each other.
Hanma continued as if he hadn't made a mistake in counting. "Good, when the 3960 of you are done, your tokens will turn orange, and the yellows and those with the special tokens who haven't reached the level of a green token, will start challenging the victors! When they kick your asses off the stage, and they will because they know how to use Ki and you don't, they will challenge each other until there are 60 of you remaining. After which, the preliminaries will start and the 30 of you remaining will enter the final tournaments where the experts and above are."
There was a pause as if the people were baffled at the obvious lack of actual organization.
"FUCKING GET UP THERE AND FIGHT! YOU TRASH!" Hanma roared and the red emblem clad martial artists could only obey.
The fights lasted at most 30 minutes.
A large number of them died and no one came to help them.
Broken bones were not splinted, bloody wounds weren't bandaged.
In the end there were just a ton of heavily injured people standing on those stages, most in no condition to fight.
"Hurry up yellows! If you aren't holding a spot in one of the central 120 stages, you'll have to wait another 4 years to try again!" Hanma's voice called out.
I decided to wait until there were only 150-250 stages with people on them.
Peering at Miu who was examining the competition, I hope she thought the same.
Another two hours passed as the people dwindled. Over 6000 yellow emblems had been reduced to about 200.
I decided to jump into one of the rings at the center, and noticing I did, Miu followed my lead by jumping into a stage three slots away diagonally.
I didn't even bother observing the martial artist in front of me.
I wrapped myself in Karate Style-Ki and supported it with Breaker and Jujitsu Style-Ki.
I launched myself forward, and he didn't even have time to react.
He was immediately launched off the stage as my fist smashed into his chest.
He skidded on the ground outside the ring and that was that.
I watched as Miu launched her second opponent into the spaces in between the rings, and I dodged as someone tried to sucker punch me.
I let his fist push me, doing no damage as my breaker stance made it effortless for me to twirl into a back-hand, adding the moron's momentum to a strike that would already be powerful.
A slamming sound rang out as the sneak-attacker who thought he had the upper-hand slammed into the side of the ring beside mine.
About 30 seconds later, a horn sounded across the stadium.
"60 of you remain. It's time for the preliminaries." I noticed that those with yellow emblems turned a shade of acid-yellow-green.
Half of the remaining martial artists had a weird design instead of a color.
9 of them had an iridescent rainbow color like mine.
My half-brothers if any of that mattered and it really fucking didn't
I just had to beat everyone in my way.
**
My first real opponent was a girl in a black dress. She had a fierce look on her face and I noticed she was barefoot. Her blonde hair was shoulder length one one side, but the other side seemed like it was caught in a fire and half-burned off.
"Rimi Kokorone." she said.
"What?" I asked.
I noticed her emblem had the Kanji for Ogata on a silver background.
"Rimi is Rimi Kokorone and she is going to kill you." she declared.
I looked at her confused.
"Rimi will kill all Hanma spawn and then she will kill Hanma and then Rimi can die." She declared, as I felt increasingly disturbed.
I got into a stance, as her style Ki and battle aura erupted around her.
Her battle Ki emanated absolute despair.
Whatever happened to this girl, I couldn't know.
But I knew who was responsible and my hate for Hanma rose.
"I hope when I defeat you, you can find a reason to live." I said, a sad look in my eyes and I charged forward.
I charged forward, opening with a feinting jab to gauge her reactions. Rimi didn't so much as flinch, her eyes burning with a hollow intensity that sent a chill lancing down my spine.
In a blur of motion, her leg whipped out in a withering crescent kick aimed at my head. I ducked beneath the sweeping arc, the rush of displaced air ruffling my hair as I countered with a rising knee strike.
Her lithe body twisted with serpentine grace, deflecting the force of my attack with a deft inward hand parry. Without missing a beat, she launched into a blinding flurry of alternating kicks, both legs becoming shimmering wheels of destructive force.
Backpedaling furiously, I narrowly avoided each punishing blow - the shockwaves from her feet clipping the air mere inches from my face. Biding my time, I continued giving ground until her onslaught reached its crescendo, her eyes widening fractionally as she committed her weight fully forward with a final, devastating roundhouse kick.
The instant her pivot foot touched down, I exploded into motion, launching myself into a furious series of flowing hand strikes and grappling attempts. Rimi fended them off with almost preternatural reflexes, her arms whirling in tight defensive arcs as she redirected every ounce of incoming force.
But I was relentless, pressing the attack and steadily backing her towards the edge of the ring. A bead of sweat traced its way down her temple as her eyes finally betrayed a glimmer of consternation, her desperate need to regain space and reset the encounter's tempo written across her features.
Sensing my opportunity, I unleashed a furious combination - a deceptive palm heel feint that flowed seamlessly into a double-leg takedown attempt.
Rimi pivoted and contorted with boneless fluidity, evading my grapple while delivering a series of sledgehammer kicks to my midsection that detonated like missiles. I doubled over, the wind driven from my lungs as I instinctively covered up, absorbing the full brunt of her blazing counteroffensive.
Gritting my teeth, I willed myself to stay rooted, to withstand the relentless barrage as she battered away at my defenses with those whirling, unstoppable legs. The ring beneath our feet trembled from the sheer force she unleashed, her anguished determination to end me fueling each earth-shaking blow.
Just as the pain became too excruciating to bear, as darkness began to creep in at the edges of my vision, I felt it - a momentary hitch in her rhythm, a barely perceptible lapse in her irresistible momentum.
Seizing that infinitesimal opening, I exploded upwards, abandoning my defensive shell to hammer Rimi with a blinding combination. Fists, elbows, knees - every strike a singularity of force lancing through her whirling guard.
Her eyes went wide with stunned shock, all that wild vehemence evaporating beneath my avalanche of aggression. For an endless, breathless moment, our mortal dance devolved into a formless melee, a churning cyclone of flesh striking flesh as we traded blows with everything we had.
Then, inevitably, the flurry reached its chaotic crescendo - only this time it was Rimi who faltered first, staggering backwards from the sheer accumulated trauma as I brought the heel of my palm to her temple.
"Kill Rimi then. Grant Rimi the final mercy Rimi doesn't deserve and end Rimi's sham of an existence before it torments Rimi any further."
I sighed, and walked forward. I stepped into her collapsed form and knocked her out, as I said. "I'm sorry. Even if I could, I wouldn't."
As her head hit the ground, the last thing I heard was a whispered "Ryu..to." before she surrendered to unconsciousness.
Her Ki and battle aura retreated into her body.
I followed suit.
I felt sick to my stomach and walked away, knowing I had finished the preliminaries.
Preliminaries. 1 / 2 completed
I turned my eyes to see a crying Miu knocking out a purple haired girl with a facial structure startling close to Kensei.
I noticed that her emblem was just a pair of sunglasses on a skull with a familiar depiction of a hat on a blue background.
Kensei's hat and sunglasses.
Same colors and everything.
Preliminaries. 2 / 2 completed
World Jump token granted
System shop unlocked. Permission lvl 1.
I grit my teeth as a token that shifted into many different colors, some which couldn't possibly exist, appeared in my hand.
I willed it to activate and everything around me, all motion and action, slid to an unnatural stop.
Miu seemed to disappear. For a moment, I panicked and then I was hurtling through a not space into a not reality that had no time and no words capable of describing it.