Battle For Respect Finale Part four

Seth coats his hands and legs in ice, while at the same time, Kage makes two balls of energy in his hands. The two boys start a back-and-forth with attacks, which cause the crowd to become ecstatic.

In the announcer's room, Nixion takes note of Kage.

"That boy is way more intriguing than I originally thought. He has a heart like no other. A heart that has been built upon the cruelties of this world."

Mr.Brown asks Nixion, "Who do you think is going to win?"

"I actually can't tell you."

"Wait really?"

Well, you see, when two fighters achieve a perfect understanding of each other, that is when a battle becomes unpredictable. So this fight could go either way.

On the battlefield, Seth blocks another beam of energy with ice and then shoots multiple shards of ice at Kage. Kage dodges all the ice shards.

"Is that all you got, Seth? No more tricks up your sleeve!"

"Tch!"

Seth forces the ice under Kage to rise as spikes, but Kage senses it coming with the sense technique and uses the accelerate technique to dodge. Seth stomps on the ice and sends mountains of ice at Kage, who is still backing away. 

"Woah, so you still have some gas in the tank!"

Kage gets hit by the mountain of ice and plants both of his palms on it.

"Full power energy shot!"

Kage's energy shot breaks apart the ice mountain, and with it gone, Kage shoots out multiple beams of energy while using energy jet to fly after Seth.

Seth, who is breathing heavily, smiles.

"You're making this a challenge with that energy-drain ability of yours!"

Seth starts moving chunks of ice around to block the incoming energy beams.

"If you have a problem with my powers, do something about it!"

Kage lands on the ground directly in front of Seth. Kage applies the flex technique to his arm muscles and punches Seth in the chin. Seth freezes a spike of ice on his knee and slams it into Kage's left thigh.

"Fuck!"

Kage tries to grab Seth's face, but Seth dodges, freezes a spike of ice on his forehead, and slams his head on Kage's head.

"You're too slow, you fake!"

Kage clamps his hands together and smacks Seth in the head, causing Seth to fly back.

"Energy cutter!"

Kage sends out several slashes of energy at Seth. The slashes hit Seth, causing deep cuts in Seth's body.

Seth falls to the ground, completely exhausted. Kage stands in front of Seth while also being exhausted.

"Damn, you're persistent, but at least I know I can beat your ass when your confidence is at its peak!"

Seth puts on a smirk after hearing Kage's words and stands up.

"Well, I can say the same to you since we both have the same idea!"

Simultaneously Kage and Seth's OGI tank expands, and both of them scream at the same time.

"Bring it!"

In the announcer's room, Mr.Brown turns around to Nixion.

"Is this what you were talking about, principal?"

"Yes, this is it! Kage and Seth are fighting each other with 100 percent synchronization. Now the loser and winner of this battle will be decided by who can keep in sync and who falls out of sync."

On the battlefield, Seth and Kage rush forward at each other.

"Thanks for waking me up, Kage. I almost forgot who I was for a moment! I am the greatest person in this bitch, and everyone above me is a fake!"

Seth starts to slide around Kage, who is using energy jet to keep above the ice. Seth forms a chain of ice, freezes it to Kage's back, and pulls him down to the ice.

"Damn it again with this ice chain!"

Kage melts the ice chain by increasing his body heat and then releases a burst of energy to send Seth flying back. Seth lands on his feet, and at the same time, Kage jumps back onto his feet.

"Chilling bone"

"Good on your fe—"

As Kage speaks, he feels something.

"My bones!"

"With your bones frozen, I have enough time to get this off."

While Kage starts to increase his body heat in an attempt to defrost his bones, icy mists at temperatures of absolute zero release from Seth's body. The mist starts engulfing the entire field, and as it does, Kage defrosts his bones and uses energy jet to fly into the sky.

"What the hell is he doing now?"

Inside the mist, Seth is laughing to himself.

"Haha! Thank you, Mother! You truly showed me where I belong, and I apologize for almost forgetting that!"

The mist gets so cold that the barrier surrounding the battlefield freezes and cracks.

"Woah, Seth's ice powers are so cold that they have broken the barrier! This battle could get nasty, so all the teachers are on standby!" Mr.Brown screams.

"Icy zone: ice kingdom!"

The cold mist clears and the field has been frozen, with many ice towers scattered across the field, but what's most noticeable is the thirty-foot-tall castle completely made out of ice. The one at the top of the castle is Seth, whose hair is flowing in the icy wind.

Kage, who is levitating with energy jet, looks up at Seth, who is all the way at the top of the castle.

"So this is your ultimate attack! Well, I'll tear it down!"

Kage starts flying at full speed up to the top of the castle, but all the ice particles flowing through the sky turn into sharp icicles and start bombarding Kage. Kage creates a barrier of energy around him to block them, but the shards of ice freeze the barrier, and then suddenly a bunch of men completely made out of ice jump from the castle and break the barrier.

"What the fuck! He has minions now!"

With his barrier broken, Kage releases a burst of energy to force the icemen away. While he's distracted, giant spears of ice rain down from the top of the castle.

"You've got to be kidding me!"

Seth starts putting small balls of energy on the left and right sides of his stomach.

"I guess this new version of Energy Jet is going to get put to the test today!"

Kage starts making multiple sharp turns with energy jet to avoid the raining ice spears.

Even with his quick dodges, a giant spear of ice tears through Kage's right shoulder, and another one tears through the left of his waist. Then after that, more icemen come down, but with ice spears for hands.

Kage gets stabbed by three spears all at once in his right arm.

"Ahhh!"

At the top of the castle, Seth is standing still while breathing heavily.

"I bet you're having a hard time with this attack Kage! Ice Kingdom is where I pull out all the stops. Everything a king has in their arsenal is in this attack! Now bow down, Kage, to the greatest! The King!"

Kage makes it halfway up the ice castle but is badly damaged on every part of his body.

"There's no way this loser had an attack like this in his arsenal!"

An ice shard hits Seth in the forearm, completely freezing it, and at the same time, three icemen jump from the castle and slash him in the back.

"Fuck!"

Kage smacks into the side of the ice castle and starts falling, and at the same time, thirty ice shards chase him on the way down.

"There's too much going on! I can't get past one thing without another throwing me down!"

Kage starts to remember the words he said to Unknown before the third round.

"We can handle it from here! Tell you what tomorrow in the third round none of us will lose, and I put that on class one!"

After remembering these words, Kage's face becomes ferocious.

"Well, I guess it's tough shit for me!"

Kage uses energy jet to catch himself.

"Multi-shot!"

Kage sends out multiple energy beams to destroy the incoming ice shards.

"I'm done fucking around! I made a promise, and I plan to keep it!"

Kage starts to spin while still using energy jet.

"Energy rocket!"

While still spinning, Kage breaks a hole in the side of the castle and, when inside, starts flying up with energy jet while still spinning. He flies through floor after floor. He breaks past the icemen and multiple other obstacles until he breaks his way to the top. 

"Rahhh!"

Kage busts through the roof of the ice castle from the inside, and while still using energy jet, he stops mid-air. There, he sees Seth standing on top of the roof with a shard of ice in between his index finger and middle finger.

"You look pretty fucked up, you fake! Well, I've been waiting here for you! Now feel honored to go down to the greatest of all time!"

Seth takes the shard of ice and drops it in his right hand, where he crushes it. As he crushes it, a massive amount of power exudes from the ice shard.

"Absolute zero!"

Kage stares directly at Seth while breathing aggressively. Without saying a word, Kage inhales so hard that he damages his esophagus. With the words he said to Unknown still playing in his mind, Kage releases a giant beam of energy from his mouth.

"Energy cannon full power!"

"Cryo freeze full power!"

Kage's huge beam of energy and Seth's beam of ice under zero degrees clash. The clash of power is so great that it shakes the stadium.

Both boys scream simultaneously.

"Rah!"

The entire castle of ice explodes from the clash of power. With both of their attacks exploding, both Kage and Seth fell back to the field.

"This battle is insane! Can anyone get up after such a clash of power?" Mr.Brown screams.

Both Kage and Seth are laid out on opposite sides of the field, completely exhausted. Seth, who is on the right of the field, smiles.

"I used every ounce of everything I had in that last onslaught of attacks, even though I knew my energy was still being drained. I can't even feel any of my limbs right now. I will admit it. I'm the greatest of all time, but you have won this battle for now, Kage."

Seth looks up at Kage, who has risen despite multiple injuries and most of his body frozen solid. Kage puts a weak-looking smirk on his face.

"I had fun whooping your ass."

"That's it, folks! The winner of the last match of the third round is Kage! Which means class six has been eliminated from the tournament."

After the winner is decided, the crowd is silent after watching such a thrilling battle, but then the whole crowd claps and screams in excitement. As Kage and Seth get carried away to the resting area to be treated, Mr.Brown starts speaking on the mic.

"What an amazing battle that was! Let's hope we get more of those tomorrow! In a few minutes, we will go over the round summary."

After this, four minutes passed, and in the resting area, Seth is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. With bandages all over his body, Seth reflects on his battle with Kage.

"Sorry, Mother, I couldn't prove I was the greatest today either, but like you always say, that was a fluke. Next time it will be different."

Seth attempts to move but seems to be struggling.

"It seems I'm still running on empty."

The door to Seth's room opens, and when he looks to see who it is, he sees his father, Ronald.

At the same time, Mr.Brown starts to close out the day outside.

"OK, folks, the tournament has gotten extremely tight this round! We only have two classes remaining in the tournament. Class one with three students remaining, and class two once again survived another round with only one student remaining. Class one didn't lose a single student in the third round, but Chika has been on her own for two rounds! Tomorrow should be interesting! Can Chika carry her class to the finals, or will she be stopped by class one, who looks unstoppable right now? Tune in tomorrow to find out!"

With the third day of the Grava Academy tournament over, everyone started to clear out of the stands. In the resting area, Amelia is sitting outside Seth's resting room.

"I hope with this, Seth can find happiness."

Inside the resting room, Ronald has been sitting next to Seth's bed for five minutes without saying a word. Seth finally gets annoyed and says something.

"Do you have something to say to me, or are you just going to sit there and stare at me the whole time?"

"Well, I saw your match. I was running late, but I saw most of it. You and Kage seem to be pretty good friends."

"He's not my friend!"

"Oh, my apologies."

"You know, Dad! You would know that if you bothered to look at me without disappointment."

"I don't see you as a disappointment."

"Oh yeah!"

Seth uses all his available strength to sit up and grab Ronald by the collar.

"What about all those lonely nights I had? Did I just imagine it? All those days when I begged for you to help me become stronger for my future and you said no! Did I imagine that too!"

"..."

"Tell me damn it! Or do you have another meeting to attend?"

Seth lets go of Ronald's collar and turns his back to him.

"Leave my room."

Ronald started to shake because of the amount of pressure he was feeling.

"I have never been good at stating how I feel, but please just hear me out this one time, and then you don't have to ever hear my voice again."

Seth turns his attention to Ronald.

"I haven't always lived the way I do now. I was raised in the slums of the mud zone since the wealthy part of our family didn't care for worthless members with no potential. I might not have been gifted in the way they wanted, but I was smart, and by some miracle, my smarts brought me to the top of the world. The family that once shunned me accepted me. It was like a fever dream. Me, a person of no talent, became the most powerful by just educating myself, but if I knew before what it takes to be at the top, I would have stayed stagnant."

"What are you saying?"

Ronald starts trembling.

"When you surpass the expectations society puts on you, people hate you. Everything you do is automatically hated! Nobody wants to see the powerful happy, especially the ones that hold so much. The government hates me because I want to help the community instead of complying with their sick demands. I choose to help people; people of the lower class hate me because I can't do the impossible, and people on my level hate me because they don't have my position. To make it worse, if I dare try to give up my power, everyone will make sure to take advantage of my vulnerability."

Ronald starts to cry tears of sadness while still trembling.

"I had to watch my wife get raped by multiple people, tortured, and shot dead by random people who hate me because I didn't fix the slums yet. I had to hear the news of my parents being burned alive by a rival company. I had to watch a video recording of my hometown being massacred because I didn't help the government with some sick experiments! Every time I step out of the house, I have to watch my back because who knows when my security guard will get killed and I'll have to fend for myself? I even have to watch myself around people I consider friends. And for what? All because of my achievements! Why don't they ever kill me and be done with it? Why am I forced to live with this pain?"

"Dad?" Seth mutters with concern on his face.

"I pushed you away, son, and put you down! Because I didn't want you to reach the top and become like me! The top is worse than hell; it's a different type of torture, and I wanted to shelter you from that. Even if that meant hurting you in the process but after watching that match and hearing the pain you felt deep inside, I realized I made a mistake! I tried to force you down a path that wasn't yours because of my insecurities.

Ronald grits his teeth and slams his fist on his legs.

"Please, all I ask is, can you please forg—"

Before he even finishes his sentence, Seth jumps out of bed with tears in his eyes and hugs Ronald tight.

"I forgive you already, damn it! Please don't hurt yourself further just to get forgiveness from a selfish son!"

With him feeling the warmth of his son's hug, Ronald sees an image of him, Seth, and Rena as a happy family. Ronald hugs Seth tight with tears staining his face.

"I missed you, my son."

Chapter 131 end