313 CH81 (311), Continental Semifinals (3)

I made it to our seats and mom immediately began crushing me with a hug while praising me. Dad and the others laughed at my predicament, and Misty decided to tease me a bit.

"Should big sis Misty hug you like that as well?" I just smiled harmlessly at her before firing back.

"If you can't stop yourself from wanting to hug me, I don't mind you doing so. I know I'm great, so I don't blame you," I returned before chuckling a bit.

Our exchange cause the others to laugh as well, and mom gave Misty a smile only a mother on the hunt could give, which made her blush much more than my quip had any chance of doing.

Misty pressed the abort mission button and chose to stay quiet and not continue the banter, and I chose to distract mom.

"Mom, I'm a bit thirsty, do you have some sparkling water or some juice?" That was enough to have her switch focus, and she directly pulled out some cold juice for me to drink.

I could hear some snickers from the boys but ignored them. Instead, I finally took my seat with a drink in my hand and watched as the staff finished repairing the battlefield.

The personal combat semifinals would start as soon as they were done, and thankfully my fight was the second one. The first one would be between Lee Kwan, the Air Elementalist representing Johto, as well as the Sky Academy in Cianwood City, and Haru Saru, the Fire Elementalist representing Johto, as well as the Pyre Fire Academy in Maroon City.

Both contestants were Tier 2 First-Class Elementalists, so they were equal, at least prowess-wise. Still, I had to say that Lee had really drawn the short stick with his opponent since fire elementalists had a not insignificant advantage over air elementalists.

I was also wondering if the two Johto semifinalists facing each other was a coincidence or not since the assignments were supposed to be random. While I was musing, the staff do complete all repairs and the field was back to pristine condition.

Both Lee, as well as Haru, were in position and the host began their introduction. After that came the referee's part, and once he was done their fight began.

Lee did his best, but his air simply fueled Haru's fire, and he could not deal with him using only his martial art prowess since Haru was good enough at defending himself in close combat that he always managed to force Lee to retreat.

Lee tried different ways to manipulate the air to attack Haru, but Haru maintained a thin film of fire around himself that stopped most of his plans. A vacuum would have been able to help him but that was outside Lee's abilities for now.

If he had enough time to prepare or concentrate, Lee would probably have been able to create attacks capable of breaking through Haru's fire, but Haru knew that, so he kept Lee on his feet.

Haru gave Lee no time for any loaded attacks, always sending streaks of flames at him or briefly engaging him in close combat before forcing Lee to retreat once more.

Still, Lee did not give up and tried multiple different approaches for 20 minutes in hopes of taking Haru out. Yet, Haru managed to deal with all of them, and by the end of the 20 minutes, Lee had run out of juice. Everyone could see that, but Haru did not underestimate him and went for the safe approach.

He surrounded Lee with a wall of fire and forced him to give up without approaching him in case he still had a final card to play. His prudence was rewarded and Lee gave up after being unable to escape the firewall that followed him slowly shrinking towards him.

With his surrender, Haru was declared the winner and became the first finalist in the personal combat category. The crowd cheered and both fighters left the field under their cheers.

My fight was next, so I went towards the field under the well-wishes of my parents and friends. My opponent was Eren Herb, who was a Tier 2 First-Class Grass/Plant Elementalist. Eren was representing both Hoenn and the Vines Academy in Fortree City.

He was a predominantly long-range fighter with good mid-range capabilities. From the few instances where he was forced into a close-up fight, his abilities there were geared towards forcing his opponent to retreat or to help him to retreat.

Anyway, enough musing, I had made it to my spot, and Eren was already in his place as well. The host was doing our introduction, and the referee began his usual spiel shortly after.

I had long decided that I would be revealing something else during this fight, so as soon as the referee gave the starting signal, I pulled out the two short swords I had hidden behind my back.

The crowd cheered seeing me doing something new, and the host confirmed that this was the first time I pulled out any weapons besides my senbons during any part of the ongoing competitions.

Eren also looked much more serious now that I had pulled out bladed weapons. Before this, he had looked supremely confident, but now that had given way for a look of full concentration instead.

Good, easily taking him out because he was too overconfident would have been disappointing. I began flooding my body with my aura to boost the overall performance of my body, and the current boost was double the performance.

I could keep that up for hours, so I used it as a basis. Increasing the boost was easier and faster than applying one each time so I was planning to keep the boost up for the whole fight.

While I did that, Eren actually pulled out some seeds and sprinkled them around himself, before using his energy manipulation to accelerate their growth.

The area around Eren quickly turned into a vineyard, and the vines began to move according to his will. Both because of his manipulation but also because they were grown through his energy.

Eren's next move probably took everyone by surprise, including me, since it was something he had not shown so far, and no one had expected him to do something like this.

He moved a small part of the vines towards himself and had them wrap around his body. They writhed a bit before he formed something like a vine armor. His height rose by at least 5 cm and he became bulkier because of the vines.

If not for his head that remained the same I would have thought he was some kind of wood spirit or a vine treant or something like that, and just as I was thinking that the vines began covering his face as well, only leaving a visible opening where his eyes were, completing the vine spirit/being look.

He actually resembled Groot a bit, just shorter and more viney instead of woody. As a final touch, a vine whip grew out of each of his/its arms/hands.

The whole transformation took close to 20 seconds which was not that long in general, but usually too long in a fight like this. Still, I had been surprised and curious about what he was doing, so I allowed him to complete the process without interfering or attacking him, which might seem dumb to others, but I was confident in winning, so I let my curiosity get the best of me.

I would not recommend actions like this to anyone else because they would most likely lead to an unnecessary increase in difficulty and an increased likelihood of losing.

Well, that was the case for others, but as soon as I saw what he was doing I knew that I could still easily beat him which was why I had no problems letting my curiosity win. If it had been dangerous to me, I would have stopped him, curiosity or not, I was not going to risk losing because of it.

Anyway, once he was done with his transformation he nodded toward me and spoke in a deep slightly distorted voice.

"Thank you for waiting for me to finish. Still, you should have stopped me since you can't beat me like this, and I won't hold back," He said and I smirked at his self-assuredness.

"I'll take you down all the same," I retorted before I began to finally head towards him.

He did not wait for me to arrive in front of him and propagated the growth of his vine field further while I was approaching. It took me less than 5 seconds to arrive within 20 meters of Eren and as soon as I did the whole vine field came to life and surged towards me in a vine tsunami.

Now, I could have effortlessly dodged it by heading up using some aura platforms, but instead, I increased the aura I sent towards my legs and arms, increasing the bonus there to 4 times instead of twice, while also channeling aura towards both my swords to increase their durability and sharpness.

I had to admit I could not have done all that without the parallel thinking ability I gained as a psychic, but that was more a passive ability than an active one, and it could not be checked, so whatever.

I turned into a veritable whirlwind of swords and moved headlong into the vines. I cut a swath into the tsunami, and I kept my risky sword dance against the vines up for nearly 20 seconds before I felt satisfied.

Once that happened, I did a twister movement that created a momentary clear area around me by cutting all vines around me. I used that opening to jump up and did a double jump using an aura platform, escaping the reach of the vines for now.

I took stock of the situation once I was up in the air. I could see Eren in the position he had been before I ran headlong into the vine tsunami. He was totally still, probably fully focusing on the vines field his feet were connected to the field, so he was in direct contact with it.

The vines below me were squirming, and I could see the field retracting. The field became denser, and its reach upwards no doubt increased. Eren was preparing to grab me out of the sky, but I did not plan to wait for him to finish this time around.

Instead, I confirmed his position and calculated everything for my next action, then I created a platform behind me at an angle that would allow me to shoot toward Eren.

Then I proceeded to boost my legs, my back, my neck, my shoulders, and arms, as well as wrists with as much aura as they could endure and I could manage.

Afterward, I coated my blades in aura, and all of this took nearly all my concentration, which would have been risky if not for the opportune situation.

Once I was ready I pushed myself off the aura platform behind me in a mega jump at Eren, propelling myself at him in a corkscrew fashion with my swords stretched out turning myself into a drill.

I was falling/soaring at Eren at an extremely fast speed, and destroyed all the vines that were in the way. The destruction of the vines alerted Eren, but his attempts at stopping me failed because of my speed and the cutting power of my swords.

Just a moment before I managed to reach Eren I got stopped but not by anything Eren did. No, I could feel the telekinesis being applied to me. The organizers had interfered at the last moment because they had deemed the situation too risky for Eren's life.

The referee declared me the winner, and Eren plopped on his behind while the vines began to fall off his body starting from his head. I could see his pale face, and I saw him release a sigh of relief. He proceeded to wipe the sweat off his face before throwing me a wry smile.

"That was a pretty scary move you did there," he said with a terse laugh. "I thought I would get shorn right there for a moment," he finished with a sigh.

"I had full confidence in the staff interfering if it became genuinely dangerous," I assured Eren, and it was the truth as well. We had not signed any liability waivers, and our fights were being broadcasted, so I doubted that they would let us die or get maimed live on TV.

Anyway, with my victory, I was now in the finals of both categories, and after thanking Eren for the fight I made my way back to our seats since I still had around 20 minutes until the Pokemon battle finals thanks to the speed at which I finished the fight just now.

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