The long wait is over: time to conclude the first Power Struggle Tournament once and for all!
The great day has finally come. The arena got filled with twice more people who came to see the great ending of the PST.
The two opponents who made it to the final, Ayano and Yin Bei, were already standing in the middle of the fighting zone as the former participants were gathered to the bar and watched with anticipation to see who will come out victorious of this encounter. One thing was for sure: there was going to be a lot of blood.
"This is will be interesting." Shinsuke though.
"This time, she'll need to be better to beat this psycho monster." Shao mumbled.
"Those girls are equals in term of fighting style, but Ayano got a magic sword, so that might be a problem for Yin Bei." Karasu though.
"Come on, Yin Bei! You've gotta win this!" Koji though with a fist.
"Who do you think will win, darling?" Cat asked Misty whom he was still carrying in his arms.
"I can't say for sure: both have good chances of winning."
Yin Bei and Ayano squared off in the center of the arena. The two leporids stared into each other's eyes, calculating, evaluating.
Ayano was calm, her stance relaxed, and her ears hanging down the back of her head. Her face was as flat and emotionless as a stone wall.
Yin Bei's stance was tense. She stood with her arms folded, her brow wrinkled in thought. Unlike Ayano, she had her ears up, twitching slightly at surprises only she could see.
"Any objections, my friends?" Bindo asked, glancing back and forth between the fighters.
Neither of them said a word.
"Alright then…" said Bindo with an uncomfortable cough. "Well, it's hare versus hare for the final round of the Power Struggle Tournament! Who will win our grand prize of 100,000,000 Yuan? Let's find out! Let the final round…BEGIN!"
Yin Bei did a backbend just before he finished his sentence, dodging Ayano's incredibly fast horizontal slice. Before Ayano could dash back to a safe distance, Bei wrapped her ears around the other hare's neck, delivering a firm headbutt to her nose.
"Ouch! That's gotta hurt!" Mustafa remarked.
Ayano reeled, and Bei was on her again before she could blink. Her shield slammed into Ayano's nose.
Ayano was smart. She used the momentum of Bei's strike to roll onto her back, planting her feet into the Chinese hare's chest and monkey flipping her onto her back. This put a fair amount of distance between them, giving Ayano time to recover.
The ronin touched a paw to her nose. Her fingers came away bloody.
"She must be pissed off! This is not good!" Toka said.
Bei rose to her feet, and was nearly sliced in two as Ayano's katana came down in a lethal overhead swing. She barely got her shield up in time to catch the flat of the blade in a parry. The lack of emotion on the other hare's face was eerie. She looked almost…bored. Bei took advantage of her stumble, stomping down hard on her foot. One ear lashed out to thwack Ayano in the eye.
Ayano fell into a handspring, leaping back to land on her feet. She stared Bei down with no intensity or urgency in her gaze whatsoever. This girl was dealing too much damage. Time to take things up a notch.
With a flick of her wrist, Hayano vanished from her grasp, sailing at Bei far too fast for a normal person to react. Bei's enhanced senses barely enabled her to move, but the blade still slashed her upper arm.
Ayano beckoned with the tips of her fingers, and the sword heeded her call. It sailed back to land handle-first in her open hand. As she caught the demonic blade, her mangled face began to repair itself, her broken nose shifting back into place with a nasty pop. The foot Bei had broken with her stomp returned to pristine condition. All of this happened in a span of two seconds.
"So this is true!" Karasu exclaimed in surprise. "Her sword can really heal her wounds by hurting her adversary with it."
The tide of battle shifted in that instant. Ayano rushed at Bei in mid stance. Bei tried to block with her shield, but Ayano swapped to low stance and slashed the back of her knee. Bei collapsed forward with a cry of dismay. Ayano followed up by ramming the butt of her sword into the back of Bei's head, then nonchalantly kicking her in the ribs, sending her flying several yards.
"Darn it!" Saras said. "She's strong in close combat."
Bei hit the ground hard. She was winded and bleeding, and her vision swam from the pommel strike. She turned her head, expecting to have to counter a killing blow.
Instead, she saw Ayano calmly strolling towards her, twirling her sword in one hand. Her face was still stone cold, revealing no emotion, no soul behind her eyes. A bitter feeling filled Bei's gut as she realized she was being toyed with. Anger boiled in her gut, and she let out a small growl.
Ayano ducked to one side as Bei's shield was thrown at her with impressive force. She heard it clang off the wall behind her, but was taken by surprise when it clanged into the back of her head, sending her sprawling onto her face, and returning easily to Bei's hand.
"Someone didn't paid attention to my match." Shao remarked with a smile.
Bei flicked into fist mode. She slugged Ayano in the stomach as hard as she could. It barely phased her. Bei's Sight quickly detected her counter, and she jumped back to avoid a knee that would have caught a very sensitive place.
But Ayano wasn't stupid. She slid forward, scooping up a fistfull of dirt that she threw right into Bei's eyes.
"Agh!" Bei's hands flew to her blinded eyes. Her cry was stifled when the hilt of Ayano's sword slammed into her throat.
Battered, bruised, and struggling for breath, Bei collapsed to her knees.
"Hey! That was a cheap shot!" Koji protested.
Ayano did a back leap, dropping into low stance. Once again, Bei's shield came flying at her. But Ayano wouldn't fall for the same trick twice. Instead of dodging, she raised her blade, slicing the shield in two as it passed her.
Bei's jaw opened, her mouth moving wordlessly at first. "That was my father's shield…" she whispered. "THAT WAS MY FATHER'S SHIELD!"
Even Ayano was too slow to stop Bei dashing straight up to her to duck behind her guard. Bei's ears whipped back and forth, pummeling Ayano as effectively as any fist. A hand raised to block resulted in her wrist being broken by one of the strikes. Her sword clattered to the ground between them.
Bei tossed her into the air, then dropped back to land on her hands, catching the other hare in her feet. With one mighty heave of her legs, Ayano rocketed into the air. Bei scooped up half of her shield, as well as Ayano's sword. She had seen the end of this battle. Ayano would not survive. She leaped up into the air after her foe.
Ayano desperately tried to right herself in the air, unsure which direction was which as she spun. She had to survive. She could not let this weakling slay her here. Yin Bei would pay for this.
"Feet of Fate!"
Bei's yell preceded the worst pain of Ayano's life.
Kick after kick after kick slammed into every part of her body. Bruises were left, organs were ruptured, and bones were broken. The kicks came too fast and too hard to count.
Turning her body to steer her fall, Bei sank to one side, delivering a final roundhouse kick that sent Ayano plummeting to the ground, landing with a resounding thud. "Let's see you heal from THIS!" Bei hurled Ayano's katana like a spear towards her prone opponent.
Ayano landed on her back. She gasped for breath as her lungs filled with blood. She needed to feed the sword. She needed to heal. Where was her sword?
SHUNK!
Ayano stared in horror at her own sword, impaled through the center of her chest and pinning her to the ground. Her vision was rapidly fading to black. 'Wait! Maybe I can still heal with it like thi-'
Before she could finish her thought, half of Bei's broken shield hit the ground, embedding itself deeply into the dirt beneath Ayano...right through her neck.
Bei landed right beside Ayano's severed head. She picked the head up, casting a look down at the other hare's still-twitching face. "You finally look surprised," said Bei, right before punting it out of the arena.
Everybody in the arena got silent as the usually nice and quiet snow hare just decapitated her opponent out of rage. It was so shocking that Bindo took a moment before calling the match.
"The winner of the final match of the Power Struggle Tournament is contender YIN BEI!"
Instantly, the silence got broken by a huge wave of cheers. Yin Bei, though tired, looked around as everyone cheered for her and screamed to congratulate her, mostly the other participants. This made a smile form on her face.
Later on, the winner ceremony was held during which Yin Bei was given a beautiful golden medal to testify her victory as well as the bag containing the 100,000,000 promised Yuan. After the ceremony was done, all the participants as well as the emperor himself, Bindo and a few watchers who didn't left after the match clapped for her.
Yin Bei blushed a lot before looking at her prize. She then decided to go see Yu Lien.
"Hum...Yu Lien?" She shyly asked.
"Yes." The tanuki responded.
"I...hum, well, Toka talked to me about your problems with your job and that you were lacking money for getting free. So...I'd like to give you some of my prize to help you."
The lady tanuki was very surprised by the snow hare's generosity. "Oh, you don't have to do that: you fought hard and well-deserved this money."
"I insist." Yin Bei said with a smile.
Unable to resist the snow hare's cute kindness, Yu Lien took the part she offered her and gave her a bug hug before departing from the arena.
Later on, as the sun started going down, Yin Bei was leaving the arena with Toka, Koji, Shao, Lin Bain, Cat and Misty following her.
"Sorry for decapitating Ayano in front of you, guys. That was a bit too much." She apologized.
"It's okay, Bei. This monster deserved it anyways." Koji assured. "And beside, that way, you avenged Shengwu."
Yin Bei nodded. "You sure you don't want a part of the money. I mean, you did work hard too."
"Nah." Toka answered with a paw shove. "You won so this is your prize. Beside, Koji and I didn't participated in this tournament for money: we did it to test our level and become stronger. Looks like we still have a lot of work to do."
"Anyways, we made new friends and that's a lot." The beetle added. "Now, we must go join our friends and get back to our world to train. See you soon, Yin Bei." Koji hugged his new friend before leaving with Toka to go found their pals.
"What are you gonna with all this money?" Cat asked.
"Well, I own an orphanage in my world, so I will probably use it for it." The snow hare answered before looking at the still-paralyzed giant otter. "You're gonna be alright, Misty?"
"Yes, don't worry: I have my guardian angel to look after me and "take care" of me too." She said with a wink which made Cat blush as he understood what she meant.
"Congratulations again, Yin Bei." Shao said. "And I hope we'll see each other again for the next tournament. But I warn you: this time, I'll be even stronger than before and you won't win so easily."
Yin Bei smirked at his competition spirit. "We'll see about that."
The friends then said each other goodbye before leaving for their world and promising to meet again for the next PST...
And that's it! The first Power Struggle Tournament is over. Congratulations to Mind Jack's Yin Bei for winning.
I want to thank this last one for writing the fight along with everyone who submitted OCs to participate and make this a super show!
In fact, the tournament worked so well that I already decided to make a second edition. There's already a few authors their OCs, but there's still a lot of free spots remaining.
Come quick, KFP lovers ;)