Chapter 8: Day 3, Part 3, Samurai Showdown
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Tsuna grips his shinai tightly. He has absolutely no idea how he's going to win this fight, but he's going to give it his best shot. Of course, Revy doesn't really give Tsuna a lot of time to think up a plan of attack.
"Alright, let's begin!" and with that, Tsuna's fate is sealed.
Thankfully Mochida doesn't immediately rush Tsuna, instead walking forward nonchalantly. He swings the shinai to get a feel for it, and starts speaking to Tsuna.
"I'm almost impressed that you came, you pervert. Heaven may forgive you, but I won't. I shall punish you for your actions. Of course, this should be easy given your obvious lack of skill at, well basically everything and anything. But in the spirit of fairness I shall come at you seriously and if you defeat me I shall honor that. The prize for whomever wins this bout is of course the lovely Sasagawa Kyoko!" the whole room goes quiet at that for a moment before furious whispering sweeps through.
Tsuna's lightly shaking hands still as his determination is replaced with a combination of confusion and anger. He's not entirely used to being angry, though he's gotten some extra practice over the last few days. This anger is different somehow. It burns hotter.
"Prize? Who do you think you are, treating Kyoko-chan like some sort of object to be owned? You make me sick, Mochida." Tsuna didn't realise he was talking out loud until he finished, and even he's surprised by the amount of venom in his voice.
Mochida pauses for a little, obviously caught off guard, as his little speech didn't go over as planned. The scattered clapping that follows Tsuna's retort moves his mood from confused to pissed off.
"I see you've gotten awfully arrogant ever since you managed to move from useless to mediocre. Very well. Allow me to carve a lesson into your body that you won't forget." with that, he changes the way he's holding the shinai, and the fight is on for real. Tsuna throws an Observe at Mochida, knowing that any piece of information can be helpful.
*Ding!*
Kensuke Mochida, the Annoyance
Level: 9
Description: Captain of the kendo club during middle-school, and now vice captain of the high school kendo club, he's fairly skilled with a blade. He's also extremely arrogant, and maybe just a bit misogynistic.
Not particularly helpful, but at least he knows that Mochida is only three levels above him. That means his stats can't be too much higher. That means he has a chance. Tsuna tightens his grip, and mentally says a short prayer to his necklace and Phantomdrache to give him courage.
Mochida doesn't wait any longer, and immediately takes a few steps towards Tsuna, shifting his grip as he does so. He then thrusts his shinai forward, aiming the 'point' at Tsuna's forehead.
'Just think of him as a Random Encounter. Move out of the way, and retaliate. It's just a wooden sword, and not claws or fangs.' focusing on Mochida and Mochida alone, Tsuna ducks his head out of the way of the attack.
He can feel the edge of the shinai scrape the side of his left cheek, scratching five health points off, but he dodged and that's the important thing. He can dodge, meaning he has a fighting chance. Abandoning the two-hand grip he has on his own weapon, he swings it at Mochida's side with his right hand.
His own attack is sadly blocked by Mochida, who expertly swings the 'blade' of his weapon into the path of Tsuna's hasty counter, though the impact makes a nice sound. Tsuna does get a notification about gaining a sword skill, but he doesn't really have time to worry about that right now and decides to read it later.
Swiping his sword to the side, Mochida nearly knocks the shinai out of Tsuna's hand. Tsuna thankfully doesn't lose it, but he's off balance enough that when Mochida reverses the swing aiming at Tsuna's side, he knows he can't dodge it in time. Eyes widening, he does the first thing that comes to mind: he lashes out with his free hand and punches the oncoming shinai.
He manages to stop the encroaching weapon, but the pain in his fingers and the forty-eight points of health he just lost tells him that that little piece of brilliance nearly broke his hand. Mochida clearly wasn't expecting his attack to be stopped short, and his hands nearly lose their grip on the hilt of his shinai.
With Mochida starting to try and pull back to recenter himself, Tsuna decides to double down on his impulse decision, and grabs the shinai with his now bruised hand, ignoring the spark of pain that that causes. He then pulls Mochida in, and stabs his own weapon at Mochida's head.
Caught flat footed, Mochida can do nothing to stop the oncoming shinai, and takes the full force of the attack. Tsuna's hopes soar when his attack hits, only to drop when the attack does little more than push Mochida back and bruise his forehead.
"Tch, you almost had me worried there for a moment, Sawada. Turns out I was worried about nothing. I've had bee stings more painful!" Mochida starts to laugh, though to Tsuna's surprise nobody else joins him.
In fact, most of the student body seems surprised and impressed with his performance so far, and Yamamoto is even giving him a cheerful smile. Kyoko of course looks worried, but she always looks worried when it comes to someone possibly being hurt. Hana almost doesn't look upset at Tsuna anymore, which he figures is about as good as he's going to get.
Tsuna's not sure how to really feel anymore. On one hand he's despairing because he did jack shit in terms of damage. A whopping 13 according to a little blue box telling him about the fact that he just learned the skill for using swords. On the other, he actually hit Mochida, which was something he would have considered impossible just days ago.
A ping on his Danger Sense tells him he probably should have been paying more attention to Mochida. Tsuna reacts as fast as he can, but all he can do is shift so that the surprise shinai swinging down at his head instead hits his shoulder at an angle, reducing the impact somewhat. He still takes 38 damage though.
Moving to swing at Tsuna again, Mochida is obviously done playing around. Tsuna desperately ducks out of the way of the next attack, which gives him a notification that Dodge leveled up. Tsuna doesn't really have time to read it, but it at least makes dodging the next two attacks ever so slightly easier.
"Stop running around and fight me!" Mochida doesn't seem to take well to Tsuna's panicked dodging, and lashes out with a punch.
With an internal scream of panic, Tsuna's instincts aren't sure whether he should back up or curl up and cry. So his body tries to do both. His back curves away from Mochida as his head lowers. He then stops half-way through as his body realises its mistake, having put his head behind him instead of in front of him.
His mistake works out well for him though, with Mochida's fist passing just over his face. Not that he notices, because Tsuna had closed his eyes for half a second, expecting pain that never came. Opening his eyes in confusion when he hears the tell-tale ding of a blue box appearing, Tsuna then realises that he's about half a second away from falling flat on his ass, and swings his head and torso forward to try and regain his balance.
In doing so, he accidentally slams his forehead into Mochida's. This takes five health off of Tsuna, but apparently it counts as a 'punch', because he got a notification that it had gained an experience point for that attack. It also counted as a critical, doing double damage against his opponent. Probably because Mochida was in no way prepared mentally or physically for the attack.
Stumbling back once more, Mochida grabs his face as a small trickle of blood comes from his nose. Looks like Tsuna just accidentally broke Mochida's nose with his face. Tsauna's hopes continue to swell until Mochida glares at him, and growls low in his throat.
"You're dead meat." Tsuna internally whines as his spirits and stomach drop like a meteor.
'Oh boy, i'm fucked.' Tsuna raises his shinai in preparation for the oncoming assault, only to quickly learn that Mochida wasn't vice-captain of the team for no reason.
Where before he could dodge each attack and stand his ground, the oncoming onslaught of sword strikes completely and totally outclasses the previous exchange. While even Tsuna can tell that each individual attack is a lot sloppier and less refined, they come a lot faster and harder. Tsuna can just barely move his body to dodge out of the way of an approaching attack in time before the next attack is on it's way.
If he had had any sort of skill with a blade - aside from the literal Skill he had just picked up - he might have tried to block the attacks. But he doesn't have any sort of 'block' skill, so he goes with what he knows he has, which is Dodge. It also doesn't really help matters that his internal monologue is looking a lot like someone trying to list all the known expletives, and he's reacting more off of instinct than anything else.
This goes on for about ten seconds before Tsuna stumbles over his own feet, and he hears the metaphorical dice roll in his head as he starts to trip. He had done surprisingly well, having dodged all fourteen of Mochida's attacks, despite the fact that they had continued to increase in speed and ferocity. As Tsuna's panic and Mochida's rage both continue to grow exponentially, the gymnasium in in silent awe at what they're seeing, and more than a few gasps sound out as Tsuna starts to fall backwards.
As a harsh buzz echoes through his mind, and Tsuna's eyes widen as he feels his body tip too far backwards and succumb to gravity. Time slows to a crawl as Tsuna loses his grip on his weapon and it slips out of his hand. Mochida's face twists into sadistic joy and he slowly raises his own shinai to bring it crashing down on Tsuna. Tsuna can only close his eyes and regret.
'If only I wasn't so weak. I might have stood more of a chance. I'm sorry I failed you, Kyoko-chan.' suddenly, Tsuna hears someone speaking, though it's so faint he swears he's imagining it.
"If you feel so strongly, then do it with your dying will."
Tsuna's eyes open when a sudden sharp pain hits his forehead, and he sees the vestiges of a bright yellow trail fade away. Looking forward, he locks eyes with Reborn, who's sitting in a high window sill pointing a miniature sniper rifle at him with a devilish smirk.
Tsuna's thoughts start to cloud over, and as his body makes contact with the floor, everything turns bright orange. From an outsider's perspective the fall had taken less than a single second, and the streak of yellow is easily dismissed as a trick of the light coming from the windows. What isn't a trick of the light is how Tsuna seems to suddenly change when he touches the ground.
Eyes narrowing and shifting into a wrathful visage, Tsuna flows with the momentum of his fall, curling his legs up and pushing himself off the ground like a backflip. Landing on his feet, it's hard to tell who's more confused, though Mochida would probably be a strong contender. Tsuna starts to growl, and a flicker of orange flame appears over his forehead.
At least, to a select few, that's what it appears as. Most of the students there assume it to be another trick of the light, the noon sun bouncing off of his gravity defying hair. Either way, everyone not in the know about Dying Will Flames can really only say that something about Tsuna seems different as he stands up.
"REBORN! I'm going to beat the shit out of Mochida with my dying will!" as Tsuna shouts this to the heavens, his already torn clothing once more rips itself apart.
Mochida's not sure whether to blame the light or his imagination, but for half a second he swears he sees some sort of figure behind Tsuna, almost looking like an orange lion baring it's teeth. He shakes his head, and the image is gone.
"Oh, so you have some spine to you. So what? I'm still going to crush you." Tsuna doesn't respond to the provocation, and instead rushes towards Mochida at incredible speeds.
Trying to swing his shinai to intercept the brunette missile, Mochida is thoroughly surprised when Tsun easily sidesteps the attack and lands a rib cracking punch, all within maybe a third of a second. Mochida curls over Tsuna's fist, coughing up some spit and trying to catch the breath that had just been knocked out of him. Tsuna doesn't ease up though.
Taking half a step back, Tsuna pulls his right fist back to throw another wicked haymaker at Mochida, this time aimed at his face. Eyes widening as he panics, Mochida instinctually moves his shinai as quickly as he can to try and defend himself. Half a second later, he's glad he did because it's the only thing that stops Tsuna from giving him a concussion.
As it is, the raw force behind Tsuna's punch causes him to stumble backwards. His right arm has gone slightly numb, and he can hear the wood of his shinai creaking from the force.
He doesn't get any time to recover though, as yet another bone rattling impact runs down his arms as he blocks Tsuna's punch once more. And again, and again, a total of six time knocking Mochida further back each time. He even swears that, ridiculous as it sounds, the force keeps stronger and stronger with each punch. The force of the sixth punch actually causes him to trip a little, and he falls to one knee.
Looking up, Mochida's not sure whether he's going to act brave in the face of such raw power or try to jab at Tsuna's legendarily weak self-worth in an attempt at getting him to pause long enough for Mochida to take back control of the fight. Either way, he pauses when he sees Tsuna's eyes.
Dilated so that his irises are a fraction of their usual size, Tsuna's eyes in the afternoon sun look to be glowing orange just like the light caught in his hair. Mochida isn't entirely sure what look is in Tsuna's eyes, but he places it halfway between burning rage and freezing determination. Mochida has no doubt that at that very instant, Tsuna wouldn't hesitate to wrestle a bear if it got in the way of beating him up.
Mochida would even wear at that very moment, when the two lock eyes, that it wasn't just Tsuna's eyes and hair that were on fire but rather his entire body seems to be lightly wreathed in burning orange flames. And then said flaming boy sent another earth shaking punch hurtling towards the kendo vice-captain.
"Don't fuck with me, you damn No-Good!" Gritting his teeth, Mochida swings his shinai at full force towards Tsuna's fist, fully intending to break it before it broke him.
To the surprise of both Mochida and the stunned silent audience watching this suddenly one-sided beat down, the moment Tsuna's fist meets the solid wood implement of pain it's not the wood that gives. With a resounding crack, Mochida's sword shatters half-way down. Tsuna had literally broken it with his sheer power.
The entire room freezes at that point, staring at the near impossibility in front of them. All except for two people. The first is Tsuna, who ignores this event and rears back his left fist and slams an uppercut into Mochida's chest. The impact actually raises Mochida off the ground a good centimeter and a half.
The second punch from Tsuna's right fist throws Mochida back across the laminated floor, and nearly knocks him unconscious from the impact alone. A few people instinctively back away as he slides near them. Tsuna doesn't stop though, and stalks forward eyes still locked on his target. Before he can get too close to mochida though, the second person not to be stunned into inaction makes their move.
"Alright, you've won kid. Stand down before I have to remind you why i'm the gym teacher." Revy seemingly fazes into existence behind Tsuna, one hand on his shoulder almost threateningly.
Tsuna for the first time takes his eyes off of Mochida, slowly turning his head to lock his piercing gaze onto his teacher. The temperature around him seems to spike dangerously before suddenly dropping back to normal.
"Ah. It happened again." Tsuna mutters under his breath as the orange glow fades away, leaving him suddenly painfully aware that he's standing in his boxers in front of his classmates again.
"Eii!" Desperately trying to cover himself, his squeak of less-than-manly proportions knocks everyone else out of their stupor.
Tsuna's once more not entirely sure what just happened. His memories of the last two minutes are a lot clearer than they were when it happened this morning, but it still feels more like watching a video after the fact rather than actually living the events. He also hurts all over again, or rather he actually hurts more than before, probably because he went into that state at nearly half health rather than full health.
So Tsuna's not sure how to feel about his little 'episode'. Honestly, he's positive that his classmates are going to be disgusted by him. not only was he needlessly brutal with Mochida, but he also stripped again even if he hadn't meant to either time. What he certainly wasn't expecting is for the crowd to go wild, cheering out his name.
"Tsuna! That was crazy! You did great, man." An arm throws itself around his shoulders, and Tsuna looks into the beaming eyes of Yamamoto.
"Y-Y-Yamamoto?!" Tsuna's heart skips half a beat again, and his face flushes in embarrassment at their closeness.
"Yeah, you showed that blow hard!" Tsuna's not sure who it is that shouted it, but the sentiment is echoed by most people around.
Tsuna gets yanked out of Yamamoto's grasp and passed around like a celebrity at a gala, shaking hands and getting clapped on the back by people who had laughed at him just hours earlier. He's really not sure how to deal with this.
"THAT WAS EXTREME! SAWADA, YOU HAVE TO JOIN THE BOXING TEAM STAT!" the crowd clears a little as a whirlwind of energy shoves it's way past them right into Tsuna's face.
If Tsuna could remember this morning 'incident' clearer, he might recognize the young man in front of him as the boy who had tried to save him from a facefull of truck earlier. Since he could only vaguely recall about half of the event however, he's just left with the vague feeling that he knows the spirited male in front of him. To his great confusion, the praise and hands clasped to his shoulders causes him to flush with joy and embarrassment, just like he did when Yamamoto wrapped his arm around him.
"I-I-I-I, I don't know how to deal with all of this!" if this were an anime, Tsuna's eyes would be replaced with spirals as he loses his cool and nearly blacks out from all the high flying emotions.
"Onii-chan, stop pestering Sawada-kun!" Tsuna's not sure what surprises him more, the phrase 'onii-chan', or who said it.
"K-kyoko?" Truly, the brunette beauty smacks the white haired teen accosting Tsuna, causing the other brunette to feel extremely conflicted on how exactly he's supposed to feel right now.
"Hey, Sawada-kun. I'm sorry I ran away this morning. I'm always told that i'm bad at dealing with surprises."
Tsuna's not really sure if him showing up in just his underwear counts as a normal surprise, but the serene smile on Kyoko's face is bright enough for him to completely forgive her, and frankly he almost forgets why he worried in the first place. Hana, on the other hand...
"Tch. I might have been a bit hasty but for real do you have some sort of stripping fetish? Put on a damn shirt already, monkey." Tsuna chuckles nervously as a drop of sweat drips down the back of his head. Typical Hana.
"Oh, that's right! Sawada-kun, meet my onii-chan Ryohei! He's captain of the boxing team. I'm sorry in advance about any weird things he says." Oh that's right, there was a teen screaming in his face a minute ago.
"YO! I'M SASAGAWA RYOHEI! YOU CAN EXTREMELY CALL ME ANIKI IF YOU WANT. JOIN THE BOXING TEAM." Once more, Tsuna's not sure how to handle the situation in front of him.
On one hand he's happy that Kyoko's brother likes him, mostly because everyone knows that if the brother doesn't like you it's impossible to date someone. But on the other, the white haired teen is loud and energetic, two words that don't describe Tsuna at all. And that's not even mentioning the bright and warm feeling that Tsuna gets looking into ryohei's eyes, like a warm summer sun on his skin.
Thankfully for him, he doesn't really have to respond, as Kyoko reprimands her brother again and the incident passes without mention. Tsuna's happy. Everything seems to be back to normal. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he turns in surprise only for a bundle of clothing to hit him in the face. Lifting one edge up, he see's his teacher glaring half-heartedly at him.
"Cover yourself up, brat. Can't half a streaker running around, now can we?" and with that she leaves.
For a moment, Tsuna's surprised at her. He had expected something a little sterner given her no-nonsense attitude, and the fact that if he remembers correctly she had had to stop him from mauling Mochida to death.
'Oh my god, Mochida!' just as Tsuna starts to panic about possibly seriously hurting a fellow student, he hears a groan.
Looking to the other side of the gym, Tsuna sags in relief to see Mochida being helped to his feet. The students around him seem genuinely worried, and after a second of throwing an Observe at the three of them he can see that they're part of the kendo club too.
Mentally thanking his teacher, Tsuna throws the new set of clothing on and follows his classmates and crush - crushes? Food for thought for much, MUCH later, Tsuna decides - back to class. During the walk, he throws an Observe at the...one, two, three...thirty six students hanging around the gym. He also runs through the series of blue boxes hovering just out of sight. He's really glad that whatever mental witch is thrown in his mind when in Dying Will Mode, it doesn't cause him to close the boxes before he has a chance to read them.
Most boxes are pretty predictable. A couple boxes for Dodge, a couple in Punch, one in Sense Danger, some in Physical Resistance, and apparently his new Skill had levelled up on it's second usage.
Dying Will Mode Lvl 2 (80/150 Exp)
+500% to Str, Con, and Dex
-99% to Int and Wis
-1 HP/s
-Lasts two minutes
The timer hadn't extended, and the damage over time hadn't decreased, but the boost to his physical stats has increased a full 100%. That now puts him at a times 6 whenever 'under the influence', for lack of better terminology. the Exp requirement also isn't following the normal trend. He'll have to keep an eye on that, Tsuna supposes. He also finally reads the notification for his Quest.
You have completed the Quest: Blades of Hate and Fate!
Rewards:
+For defeating Mochida while using a practice sword, Swordsmanship has gained 50 Exp!
+For defeating Mochida using hand to hand combat, Punch has gained 100 Exp!
+For getting your ass handed to you but toughing it through, Physical Resistance has gained 100 Exp!
+For defeating a level 9 human, you have gained 250 Exp!
+1 to Str and Con for fighting your opponent head on
+1 Cha for getting an entire gym full of people cheer for you
+50 Reputation with everyone present
-1000 Reputation with Kensuke Mochida
Well, at least it was only Mochida who hated him. Tsuna decides that, cruel as it sounds, he's more than willing to sacrifice any potential at a friendship with Mochida in exchange for a few more points with Kyoko. That and he's still beaming on the inside over the fact that he just took down Mochida. He, Tsuna the No Good, had defeated one of the most respected - even if not the most well liked, as even other students had found him arrogant and pushy - students in his grade.
Honestly, as far as Tsuna is aware, he's walking on cloud nine right now. Forget about a cloudy day, not even a solar eclipse could darken Tsuna's smile. Now if only he didn't' have this odd sinking feeling in his stomach as though this were merely the start of his troubles, and he'd be perfect. sadly, he feels like he's forgetting something. Something important.
Outside the Gym
A somewhat tall figure stands, looming physically over a second person. Both have their eyes locked on the group that just exited the building towards the school proper. One has an unreadable expression, the other a heated glare.
"So that's him? That's the one?" The second figure doesn't respond verbally, but nods.
The first growls a little under their breath, and a snarl grows across their face. Taking a cigarette out of their pocket, they light it up with the tip of their middle and pointer fingers, the edges coated in a crimson flame.
"This is going to be a cake-walk."
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