The Quarterfinals (Part I)

"Pick your jaw off the floor, Leo," Morgana chided.

For the entirety of the Ath3na versus Don Coyote, Leo had been sitting beside Morgana with his eyes wide and his mouth agape, and he clearly wasn't the only one. Around them, many of the audience had been left in different stages of shock and awe.

"Ath3na's won their hearts and minds yet again, it seems," Donatella laughed.

"Humans are so easily impressed," Morgana replied with a roll of her eyes.

"That's because we can't normally shoot lasers from our eyes… so we tend to feel wonder when one of us manages the unimaginable," Leo explained as he unfroze from his seat. He sent Morgana a sideways glance. "And don't pretend you weren't impressed either, kid. I saw your mouth hanging from its hinges."

Morgana cleared her throat. "I was simply expressing surprise at how finely-tuned Ath3na's control over her abilities has become… It's not like I couldn't do what she just did, silly."

"Yeah, sure," Leo chuckled.

"Hush, you two," Donatella reproached them. "The next match is about to begin."

Leo glanced down below to the arena where the next combatants were waiting to be introduced.

"It's showtime!" Morgana announced to the audience as she continued to play the role of Morgue.

Leo spared her another sideways glance and noticed the energetic grin plastered on her face, and he thought it was about time she had some time in the spotlight.

He didn't mind hiding in her shadow once in a while. In fact, he preferred it. Leo always imagined he was the man in the chair assisting the hero on her caped crusades. He never fancied wearing the cape himself.

"Lyghtning! Narukami!" Donatella announced. "Another explosive battle is about to begin!"

Leo faced forward. "Let's get it on."

---

While the first match had proved to be a sight to behold, the battles that came after were no less invigorating to watch.

The match between Narukami and Lyghtning was simply non-stop action from start to finish. It began, as all of Lyghtning's fights begins, with an exchange of sword blows.

Narukami effectively parried Lyghtning's attacks with his dagger while blocking those he couldn't with his fel iron bracers. These exchanges often ended with him counterattacking with a fist or kick at Lyghtning's body. None would land a clean hit.

"Narukami just launched a hook into Lyghtning's shoulder but she pivots away at the last second," Donatella announced.

"Lyghtning tries to stab him in the leg, but Narukami parries the attack nicely," Morgue chimed in.

To the audience, the two combatants were a blur of motion whose actions zipped seamlessly from one to the next with little wasted movement.

"A one-two combination from Narukami finally connects!" Donatella announced.

Narukami's left-fisted jab strikes Lyghtning right on the nose, causing her fans to scream profanities down on the ring. His second attack, a right hook that clips her in the chin, forced Lyghtning to go down on one knee.

"Don't ruin her pretty face, you bastard!" they yelled at him.

"Shut up~~p!" he yelled back at them.

"Ravaging Blades," Lyghtning yelled too.

Suddenly, she was a deadly hurricane whose blades would have sliced into Narukami's legs if he hadn't backed away in the last second.

However, the [RAVAGING BLADES] strikes more than once, and as he pulled away, Lyghtning launched herself forward… and cut deep into Narukami's left shoulder.

In response, he grabbed at her with his free hand and pulled her in close. Then he yelled, "Lightning Bolt!"

A bolt of lightning streaked down from the sky and exploded onto Lyghtning's back.

Lyghtning screamed. Her fan club screamed.

"Narukami's really turned into the villain for this match," Donatella commented.

"Lyghtning has too many diehard fans," Morgue laughed.

Narukami let her go and his opponent dropped to her knees.

"Seven Sword Blossoms," she whispered through gritted teeth.

Above them, seven glistening blades appeared — and the audience's shrieks of encouragement reverberated across the arena.

Narukami raised his arms to the sky and yelled, "Chain Lightning!"

A bolt of electricity exploded out of his palms and streaked into the air, hitting one, and then two, and then a third floating blade. The electric energy zoomed toward blades four and five as well, but it missed the sixth and seventh blades which had already dropped down toward him.

Quick as a ninja, Narukami dodged the sixth by stepping back and then the seventh by stepping forward.

"Hell yeah," he screamed in delight.

"Made you look," Lyghtning whispered from his blind side.

Narukami turned just in time to see one of Lyghtning's shortsword's pierce his right leg.

"Sh*t~~t!" he screamed.

Narukami stumbled backward, but Lyghtning was already there beside him. A second later, another shortsword was imbedded onto his other leg.

"Lyghtning just gave up both her weapons in those two attacks," Donatella announced.

"But that's because she has more, doesn't she," Morgue commented.

Lyghtning reached down and pulled out one of her glistening blades from the obsidian floor.

Narukami raised his arms forward in the style of a Hadouken, but just as he began to yell, "Chain Lig—" Lyghtning had slashed at the palms of his hands.

He stumbled back again while screaming profanities into her face.

Snikt!

Lyghtning's blade pierced Narukami's gut. He screamed.

In retaliation, Narukami made a wild grab for Lyghtning's arm, and as his bleeding hand clamped down on hers, he yelled, "Lightning Bo—"

Snikt!

With her other hand, Lyghtning had picked up the other blade on the floor and slid it into Narukami's side.

"Oh, Lord of Death, how many more times can she stick him with blades before he goes down?" Donatella asked.

"We're about to find out!" Morgue replied in amusement.

Of the five glistening blades Narukami knocked off course, two had remained afloat — and they had just penetrated his back.

"I've got nothing against you, love," Lyghtning interrupted Narukami's screams. "But a guy like you won't give up unless I do at least this much."

And with that final word, she sends him a haymaker right on the nose almost like she was getting payback for his earlier punches. With this final attack, almost mercifully, Narukami tumbles backward unconscious on the floor.

As he watched him fall, Leo felt pity for Narukami. "Man, that was brutal…"

He had been far away from the ring but he could almost imagine the pungent smell of blood drifting along the ring's obsidian floor.

"I hope Agatha got good shots of those last few seconds," Leo said. "Although we might need to blur out the blood sprays a bit…"

Back in the arena, Lyghtning raised both hands and made the peace sign.

"Cheer up, loves!" she said, sounding almost apologetic. "I didn't kill him. I just roughed him up a bit."

The cheering that followed was so loud that it seemed to cause even the sandy floor to quake.

"And Lyghtning secures the victory with that ruthless dance of blades…" Donatella announced. "We can only hope the next matches will be just as entertaining."

"And just as bloody!" Morgue chimed in.

It was a wish that would be granted later on by the four remaining challengers of the quarterfinals.