Chapter 13: Hero's Heritage
"Ugh! You're as rash and rude as your father was. Both of you bring shame to our name!" Yoshi's calm demeanor broke out into a rant of rage.
"You know nothing of our heritage! You're a disgrace to the good names of our lineage!" Taiki also felt very worked up by the argument.
"Ha ha ha. Fool! I am our lineage, I will be remembered for generations." Yoshimitsu raised his hands to the sky as if to grasp the sun and claim it as his own. "No one in our family evens remembers the name of the one who started our pathetic traditions. Your outfit for instance, it's repulsive, not to mention those techniques. They're all self-righteous mementos of a forgotten hero. How sad."
"If they're pathetic and repulsive, then you should be able to beat them right?" Taiki alone had the nerve to mock his uncle, no one had ever defeated him, none besides Zen and Taiki's father had ever even survived a fight with him, and those were sparing matches.
"It's sad, you know, I don't have any children of my own. I had hoped you would one day inherit my throne, that's why I left you and your mother alive after your father's betrayal." Yoshi's words seemed sincere, but he kept up his cold front.
"I am going to take that throne from you, and then I'll throw it in the trash right along side you. We don't need another dictator!" Taiki's rebuttal was cliché, but effective.
"No one can kill me, I am the beast of Korin. I am invincible!" Yoshi's bragging didn't phase Taiki in the least. "Sadly you aren't nephew."
Yoshi held his palm out and fired off a Ki blast larger than any Taiki had ever seen, a good thirty feet across. Taiki had nowhere to run; all he had left to do was to defend himself the best he could. The attack hit hard, it carried him back, past Zen's unconscious body, out of the courtyard, and slammed him hard into the buildings on the perimeter.
The walls crumbled around Taiki as he lay amongst the rubble. Yoshi rose from the ground and hovered in the air. In an instant he was racing toward Taiki, who powered up the Kaioken and burst from the ruin to meet his rival.
He let out a Hurricane Kick, but Yoshi vanished, and reappeared before Taiki with a fist to the face. As Taiki flew back, Yoshi appeared again for a second strike, Taiki phased away as he struck. "Ahh!" Taiki screamed as his uncle delivered an elbow into his face just as he appeared behind him. Yoshi had seen right through him and countered unblinkingly.
"I told you those techniques were pathetic. The After Image is no contest when matched against real speed. Tricks won't work on a true warrior, that's why Zen lost to you, is it not?"
Taiki cringed as he held his bloody face, "Uh, my nose. Fuck! He broke…" Yoshi grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground.
"You shouldn't talk in a fight, especially when you're losing." Taiki spit blood in his eyes, "Foolish to defy the man who now holds your life, most literally, in his hand." Yoshi began to squeeze.
"Guhh… kah!" blood vessels in Taiki's eyes burst, and his face began to turn blue. "Kkk-ka-kaio-ken!" Taiki burst force in a fiery essence, fueled strong by his rage. Yoshi was eventually forced to let go. His hand burnt and bleeding, he retreated a few feet.
"BASEBALL!!!" Taiki launched a series of Ki blasts at his uncle, who needed little effort to parry them all. Yoshi then rose his hand in Taiki's stance, and hurled one right back at him. Taiki was knocked back once again.
"Your hate feeds the Kaioken to a degree I have never seen before. I'll have to get serious." Yoshimitsu descended to the concrete below. "I guess you're more like your father than Zen had thought, he was the only other person to witness this technique. Fitting that you die by it as well." The air pulsated around him as his muscles began to twitch and swell.