Chapter 28: Yang vs The Man in Black
Fair warning people, there is a few gruesome parts in this, nothing major, I did try and keep things as non-descriptive as possible during those parts. So with that, you guys have been warned and should brace yourself for what is about to happen. Got nothing else to really say so enjoy this chapter!
"Yang Xiao Long… to what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you… five weeks ahead of our appointed time?" The man in black said with a bow, making Yang just look at him with a serious face.
"I'm going to end this here and now, I want to fight you tonight." Yang said popping her knuckles.
"You wish to give Wasure her freedom back early? You are not ready…" The man in black said before he started walking towards the side of the house, as if he was leaving.
"I'm ready to fight you… and I will bring you to your knees." Yang said, making the man in black stop and look over his shoulder.
"You think you can bring me to my knees? Heh… you'll be playing with the big boys when you play with me…" He said before turning to face Yang. "If you want to fight me and yet still keep the agreement to let you and your friends get stronger, in case you fail to beat me, you need to give me something of precious value to you, something you wouldn't give up on any condition…" The man in black said.
"What do you want me to give you exactly?" Yang asked before she saw the man in black suddenly vanish in front of her eyes.
"These arms of yours…" The man in black said before his long fingers touched Yang's arms, he was behind Yang. "Your arms are precious to you in a fight considering you're a boxer. But then again… arms are very important to your kind…" He said before like a shadow, he whooshed in front of Yang, a hand on her chin looking at both sides of her face. "Hmm… nice throat…" He said before mumbling something.
Yang wanted to hit him for looking at her like he was some sort of object or something. But she knew that if she did, she could risk the agreement her and everyone else had with this man, even though she was acting tough, she knew there was room for failure.
"Perhaps… you could give me Ruby… haven't had a virgin in a while and they are as tight as they come…" The man in black said as he walked a few steps back, almost making Yang want to hit him for that creep-perverted comment about Ruby.
"Or… what do you think is worth the fight and Wasure's freedom? Now don't go saying you'll give me your soul, I only take payment up front." He said.
"Do you have something I can cut with?" Yang asked, knowing exactly what she could give him.
The moment she asked that the man held out both hands to her face and between each finger was a blade of different shapes and sizes, some that seemed too heavy to simply hold between two fingers. "Choose your weapon…" He said before Yang picked a normal looking dagger, just barely noticing the man in black fold the weapons up like a deck of cards and then concealed them somewhere.
Yang looked at the dagger before taking a deep breath and grabbed all her hair before tensing up her face as she put the dagger close to the back of her scalp and cut her hair. She looked at the long cluster of hair in her hand and her blood started to boil as she saw just all the effort she put into hair, gone at that moment. She got angry and was secretly grinning because her eyes had turned red and she knew that she would beat the man in black know that she couldn't hold back.
She held out the hair before the man in black took it from her and looked at it before looking at her with a grin that could only be noticed because of a fang stuck out and the moonlight reflected off it. He flicked the hand holding Yang's hair before the hair suddenly disappeared from Yang's very eyes.
"You made a terrible yet smart choice to pick your hair… this something very precious to you, yet you can no longer rely on it after this fight for a long time… until it grows back. But that's not the terrible part of it… you decided to give your hair up to fight me..." The man in black said before Yang threw the small dagger at him, completely missing him as it flew past and over his shoulder.
"I gave you my hair, now let's fight!" Yang said before getting in a ready stance with Ember Celica ready to fire.
"Hold on… we'll cause too much noise if we fight here… perhaps we can fight in the bamboo forest where no one can hear us, is that alright with you?" The man in black asked.
"Sure, but you lead the way…" Yang said, feeling like he might do something tricky if she didn't watch him closely.
"If it makes you feel more at ease…" He said before leading the way around the side of the house and to the back before walking towards the bamboo forest.
The man in black did not slow down as he walked towards the thick bamboo forest, but before he stepped his foot off the stone ground and onto the soft ground where the bamboo grew, the ground started to grow horizontally. It pushed the bamboo to the side, creating a straight dirt path somewhere. The man hadn't stopped his momentum at all and continued to walk casually as the bamboo parted for him and Yang.
Yang was surprised to see the bamboo somehow move and create a path for them, even when she looked behind her the path was closing back up as bamboo sprouted from the ground and grew to join the already grown bamboo. They walked for a few minutes before they came into an open area, surrounded by the bamboo like it was a wall or border that towered over them.
"This is it… our arena…" The man in black said as he held his arms out and walked towards the other side of the circular area.
Yang looked behind her and watched as the path they took was starting to close up like when she first looked back while on the path. "There's no turning back from this is there?" Yang asked.
"Oh.. you can turn back and all the way home, crying to your mommy if you wanted to. But, after you throw that first punch… there is no turning back, but then again you would have cut your hair for nothing." He said with a shrug.
"His aura has completely changed. He's more careless feeling and has an upbeat attitude… where's that serious tone of his and where is that feeling I got from him before… that pure evil feeling?" Yang thought, knowing something was up. "I won't run away… I was just worried you might ask for mercy…" Yang said with a grin as she let the anger of cutting her hair grow and fester before her hair caught on fire, along with her whole forearms.
"Oh… well don't expect much from this fight…" The man in black said with a grin before his grin turned serious and the air suddenly grew cold, "Because I'm going to kill you in the slowest and most painful way possible…" He said before Yang just have a laugh-like huff and raised her fists. The man in black also raised his fists up, taking a different stance than Yang was in though.
"Not going to fight with those swords?" Yang asked, remembering the swords he unsheathed about a week ago, back when he was about to take Wasure away.
"I have no need to use a dagger against someone who already signed their death wish…" He said before Yang gave a slight chuckle.
Yang shot towards him, pulling her right fist back and hearing the click of Ember Celica before sending her fist forward, towards the man in black. Though she wasn't able to land a blow on him as he mimicked Yang's move and his left fist hit Yang's.
Ember Celica gave a loud bang! and the man in black's left arm exploded into bits.
Yang sent in another punch and the man in black apparently hadn't realized what happened to his left arm because he mimicked Yang's punch once more with his right fist, the same thing happening to his right arm this time.
He looked at his missing arms and then back at Yang, "Well… didn't see that coming…" He said before Yang grinned and sent a punch straight towards his head, blowing it off his shoulders and all over the side of the arena behind him. He stood upright for a few seconds headless, before he fell onto his back.
"Shouldn't have messed with me and my freinds…" Yang said before she turned around and started walking to where she believed was the location of the house. She was about to push some of the bamboo away when she suddenly heard soft wet squishing noises, making her turn around before her eyes widened. The man in black was regenerating, the little bits Yang blew to pieces were floating towards the man in black, resting at a certain spot on him like they were pieces of a puzzle. The regeneration got faster as time got longer.
"Shouldn't have asked to fight me… I told you that you weren't ready…" The man in black said as he was almost fully done regenerating, somehow getting to his feet without even moving an inch of his body.
Yang's rage burst and her flames got hotter before she charged at the man in black, his arms fully healed now, along with his head. Yang sent a punch, but this time the man in black stepped around Yang when she got close and disarmed the Ember Celica used in her punch. He held several pieces of the gauntlet and threw them all out of the arena which got Yang worked up.
"Son of a-!" Yang wasn't able to finish that sentence as the man in black shot towards Yang and did a roundhouse kick right into her stomach, sending her flying into the bamboo wall of their arena. She immediately got up and sent an air punch to the man in black, her other gauntlet firing from the punch and sending a burning projectile towards the man in black. But he simply caught it and crushed the projectile in his hand before opening it for a rather large bullet to fall from his hand.
"Explosive rounds… you surprised me with that, but you just wasted your trump card right off the bat… you wait until later on in the fight…" The man in black said before suddenly appearing right in front of Yang.
She was shocked for a moment, but sent a punch towards him, only for him to grab her right fist with ease and extinguished that burning arm. She readied her left fist, knowing that she had the operating Ember Celica on her left hand. She sent the punch forward, but this time the man in black grabbed her fist and instead of his hand exploding, Yang's gauntlet exploded into bits, shocking her once more.
The man in black then lifted Yang off the ground before thrashing her against it like a dog's chew toy before throwing her to the other side of the arena before her back slammed into the bamboo wall and she fell to the ground, stomach first. The man in black calmly walked over to Yang, who was slowly getting up, but before she could get completely up, the man in black slammed his foot to the back of Yang's head and pushed her back to the ground.
"Now let's get started on the slow killing…" The man in black said as he popped his knuckled before sitting down on Yang's back, his body facing Yang's right arm. He pulled Yang's arm up to him and his fang shined in the moonlight, showing he was grinning. He grabbed a hold of Yang's pinkie finger, using his thumb and index finger. "This little piggy went to the market…" He said before he looked at Yang.
CRACK!
"AAHH!" Yang screamed as she felt her pinkie finger break and burn in pain. She looked at her arm and her eyes widened as she saw her pinkie finger bending a wrong way. She couldn't feel anything but pain and couldn't move it.
"This little piggy…" The man in black paused before moving his thumb and index over to Yang's ring finger.
SNAP!
"GAAAH!" Yang shouted as she felt the same pain now surge through her ring finger.
"Stayed home…" The man in black calmly said before moving over to Yang's middle finger. "This little piggy… had roast beef…" He said before…
POP!
"No wait… was it jam and bread?" The man in black said before snapping Yang's middle finger the opposite way he originally did, filling the air with a painful crackling noise followed by Yang's screams. "No… the rhyme changes in different places… so it is roast beef…" He said to himself before snapping Yang's finger back to the way he first had it, filling the air with a softer cracking sound before Yang gave a few yells of pain.
"Now this piggy…" He said, moving to Yang's index finger. "GOT CAUGHT HAVING SEX IN THE BOYS STALLS AT HIGH SCHOOL!" The man in black shouted before yanking on Yang's finger, giving it the most body shuddering sound to fill the air as Yang screamed in agony, unable to lift the man up as he seemed to heavy to lift up, she couldn't hit him considering he was sitting on her back.
Yang looked at her hand, tears now in her eyes as they were also just their regular lilac color, no longer blood red and her aura wasn't causing her hair to burn or anything. The index finger was bending 160 degrees backwards, the farthest out of the rest.
The man in black didn't even say "This little piggy" but instead just grabbed Yang's thumb and gave it the most strongest twist before it got dislocated and Yang screamed in pain, her voice mixing with her sobs.
"Please… stop…" Yang weakly said, the pain seeming too much to bare for the brawler.
"No can do, the moment you threw that first punch, you sealed your fate to die by my hands… alone… and in pain…" The man in black said before pulling the forearm towards him while pushing down on the bicep while Yang screamed in pain as she felt her elbow joint in pain.
BANG!
The man in black did a frontflip and dodged the bullet, seeing who fired to see Ruby, followed by everyone else. Ruby did not seem happy at all.
"Girls… what a surprise to see you all here." The man in black said.
"Get out of here… now." Wasure said, her voice cold and growling at the end.
"And what makes you think you could…" The man in black stopped his sentence when he watched Wasure pull what looked like a small square piece of paper and held it for him to see. He suddenly started padding himself down before looking at Wasure and then chuckles could be heard. "Alright… I'll go… just don't ruin that Wasure… I'll kill you on the spot if even a drop of water lands on it…" The man in black said as he started walking backwards, the bamboo parting for him before they closed after he passed the arena's wall.
Wasure put the item back where she had it and rushed over to Yang who was crying in pain. "You guys create a clear path to the house, I need to help Yang with this and I would rather not let you guys see this…" She said as she looked at Yang's fingers.
Everyone nodded before they started cutting away bamboo away to leave a path back to the house.
Back at the House
"What do you mean her arm won't heal in the hot spring?" Ruby asked, a bit angry at how Wasure said they couldn't put Yang in the hot spring to let her arm heal.
"Any damage dealt by my mentor does not heal as fast as normal wounds. Yang will have to wait till her arm heals the old fashion way, if we tried to speed up the healing, it could cause her more pain than anything else…" Wasure said, looking at Yang who was sleeping with a sling holding her right arm up. "Plus, Yang was lucky to still be conscious when we got there. My mentor actually causes more pain than that should be given, Yang was experiencing pain similar to that of being stabbed when it was just her fingers being broke." Wasure added.
"How long do you think it will take for her to fully heal?" Weiss asked.
"Well… I'd have to say at least a few weeks at minimal for her to be able to move her arm… fighting will be another story..." Wasure answered.
"A few weeks? She'll still be able to train with one hand though, right?" Blake asked.
"Oh she most definitely will, her training actually doesn't really require any of her hands. She walks through a tunnel of ice which gets colder and colder as she travels farther in. It's her aura that is getting stronger, making her send stronger blows." Wasure calmly said smiling.
"Your mentor is a monster to do that to someone though, I don't want to think of might have happened if we didn't show up." Weiss said.
"I told you, he's a bit of a sadist, he finds pleasure in other people's suffering. Though he doesn't do it for sexual pleasure, he just does it because he enjoys harming others and the thrill of the battle." Wasure said, turning to face Weiss.
"So what is the plan to fight this guy if Yang couldn't take him down with hair cut so short? She had to be full of power if her hair is that short." Ruby asked.
"I was planning of fighting my mentor myself, you guys back me up. Getting in a direct fight with him is dangerous, he's unpredictable and its best to let me fight him as I know him much better." Wasure explained.
"I would have said that would have sounded like you didn't have faith in us, but after seeing what your mentor did to Yang... I'd have to agree with you." Weiss said.
"Will he come here? He's out there, and we know he's watching..." Blake asked.
"No, he won't do anything until the six weeks is over. What happened between him and Yang was something that tried to end our agreement by letting Yang fight my mentor alone. We can sleep soundly tonight." Wasure said before everyone looked at one another before back at Wasure who looked calm.
"You sure he won't be back? What was that thing you pulled out when we confronted him?" Ruby asked.
"Insurance, that's all you need to know. But there really is nothing to worry about, you three go back to bed, I'll take Yang to my room where I can keep an eye on her." Wasure said before Ruby, Blake, and Weiss all decided it was safe to sleep and started walking back towards their rooms.
Ruby though, felt a hand on her shoulder and looked back to see Wasure holding it.
"I'm glad of what you did back there..." She said, confusing Ruby a little.
"Back when we stopped your insane mentor from doing more harm to Yang?" Ruby asked before Wasure nodded.
"You purposely missed my mentor when you fired. I know you were angry to see Yang in pain, but I was glad that you didn't try to hit him. It could have ended our agreement with him if you did hit him." Wasure said with a smile.
"How did you know I would miss on purpose?" Ruby asked.
"You're talking to a woman who can literally transform herself into a weapon… I know how people fail to hit their targets, and I know when people can fake that." She answered. "Though when Yang wakes, I'll have a talk to her about how lucky she is to be alive…" She added before looking at Yang, her smile fading away.
"Ok, I'll be heading to bed now if that's all you wanted to say, goodnight." Ruby said before Wasure said goodnight and watched Ruby walk out of the living room and out of sight.
