(A/N) Aaaand an update. I'm sorry to anyone expecting this chapter a little sooner. I fully blame Monster Hunter World. I spent a good while trying to stop those two Rajang from using me as a cum rag, but I eventually caved and fired an SOS flare. On the bright side, I've got my event armor now.
And so, one completely unrelated story later, here we are. Actually not quite, since I've got another one for you.
I'm putting up a list of stories I'm itching to write (but won't have the time for right now) in my bio, along with a short explanation for why I would or wouldn't go through with the idea. I'll also set up a poll to see which of those ideas should be my go-to if I ever find the extra time or I finish one of my on-going stories. I'd love to hear y'all's input:)
Without further ado, the part we've all been waiting for! Yay! I hope it lives up to expectations; I'm not much for fight scenes in general. In fact, you'll find most of mine (as well as this one) are less about the fighting and more about what's going on between the lines.
Enjoy!
XX
Those watching the event through a television would be pleased to see the advertisements from the break in action come to an end. The digital screen flashed "Mistral Live, with Dorothy and Morado: Overtime" before presenting the live video feed from the on-stage camera.
The event maintenance crew was just about done setting the stage for the final fight. They flashed quick hand signals to each other and vacated the area.
Long-time watchers of the event would know that this was a sign that the lock fight would begin in a few minutes, which left the Kingdom's most well-known pair of event broadcasters little time to get through their coverage of the previous fight– content that would have otherwise gone over in-depth during their post-game show.
"Wow, Dory, just wow. Was that a fight, or what?"
Though neither could be seen, Morado knocked his cohost in the shoulder with genuine enthusiasm.
Dorothy rolled her eyes in an equally non-transmissible fashion, though she smiled back. "I suppose it was, Mory, but I'm afraid it won't mean much in the grand scheme of things. The viewers get to see Nikos in action early, but that's about it. Vale isn't going to shock anyone today."
"Ever the pessimist."
"What, you think differently?" she shot back, as if daring him to do so.
"I suppose not," he gave in begrudgingly. Were it any other circumstance, Morado would have forced the issue until they fell back on their usual debates –it was a key part of their show's programming, after all– but they were short on time as it was. "Not to take anything away from Xiao Long, however. Not many can push through something like that. Aura's got nothing to do with it, folks! That's all nit and grit."
For once, his partner agreed with him. "Definitely. If she can take a full-force blow to the skull like that and keep on going, then all the power to her."
A horn blared. It was a sign to both the audience to return to their seats, and a signal to the referees and scouts to prepare themselves.
"Sounds like the locks will enter the field of play any moment now, Dory." He laughed. "I won't bother asking you who have as the victor, though."
She laughed along with him. "Smart decision, Mory. Though I must say, I feel bad for Arc. I would've liked to see how he stacks up against the other two locks participating in the tournament."
"Mhm," he hummed his approval somberly. "His scouting report is going to be skewed by an oh-one loss and a first-round exit. I'd wager the kid would've done a lot better for himself if Vale was up against anyone other than Mistral."
Dorothy sighed. "Yes, but the same could be said for whoever fights Nikos either way, whether it's him or whoever takes Vale's place in a such hypothetical situation."
Their time was up.
"Indeed. Thanks for your input, Dory."
"Any time, Mory."
XX
Yang's eye wouldn't stop twitching from the moment they made their way back to the benches. Her glare was set firmly on the young woman she had just bested in combat.
Arslan, on the other hand, refused to make eye contact.
Jaune knew that he wasn't the only one feeling a little awkward about the tension. Competitors from both sides were making a visible effort to not get in between the two of them.
Thankfully, the sentiment wasn't shared by all.
"Yang, you were so cool!" squealed Taka. The words gushed out of her mouth as if she had been trying to keep her mouth shut for a while, and finally gave in to the temptation. Quiet though she may be, but that was frequently pitted against her excitability.
Often, that excitability won out.
The older girl blushed and scratched the back of her head. "Gee, ya think so?"
"Yeah!" the brunette affirmed easily.
Yang's fellow blonde watched the pair with a weak smile.
That girl's ego is big enough as it is, Taka.
The sixth-years' good moods were squashed by an audible scoff from Nadir. "You got lucky. Arc won't be."
Yang smiled at him, though it didn't reach her eyes. "Ya talk a lot of shit for someone who isn't fighting, bud."
Jaune leaned forward with a nervous chuckle, trying to obstruct her view of the boy who caught her ire. "Come, now, there's no need for that, is there? Let the better fighter win, and no hard feelings after that. Yeah?"
CLINK
Everyone in the box whipped their heads towards Pyrrha. She had gotten up from her seat on the bench.
"Jaune."
It was the first thing she had said all day. He got up too and faced her squarely.
She stared him down. "I'm going to win."
Most would have taken it as an insult– an affirmation meant to get into her opponent's head; a vocalisation of the gap between the "invincible girl" and the unlucky chump caught facing the pointed end of her blade.
He knew her better than that.
If she knew that her adversary was outclassed, then she wouldn't say anything at all. The last thing she'd want would be to discourage the other fighter any more than they already were.
This was a challenge.
Everyone from Signal –Amethyst, Taka, Zhang, Yang– prepared to defend him with protests of varied intensity. He acted before they could.
"You took the words right out of my mouth," he shot back with a grin
Yang blinked owlishly. Knowing him as long as she had, being confrontational like that was out of character for him. Was he competitive? Absolutely, but he'd never just come out and say it to someone's face.
At least not usually.
Sanctum's team was equally puzzled. Throughout their admittedly short season together, Pyrrha Nikos had always been more of a wallflower despite her fame and strength. To see her call someone out was definitely new.
What could he have possibly done to make her this mad?
Neither Pyrrha nor Jaune backed away. Their confident smiles were locked in place.
XX
It was strange. After their short quip, all the tension –the nervousness– seeped out of him and was replaced by anticipation. By confidence.
The battlefield was not a place for doubt, his father would always tell him. Due to the mechanisms of his semblance, the importance of that advice was twofold. For now, he would forget about the consequences were he to fail, and focus only on what he could do to win.
Winning here was something very few seemed to think he could do, not that he could blame anyone for thinking that way. For how often he's heard people call her invincible, he almost started to believe it himself.
Almost.
Both he and Pyrrha had nothing else to do but wait, now standing face to face in the middle of an arena that suddenly felt a lot larger than it had before. That was saying a lot too, since it already seemed big to begin with.
Being at the center of it all –center stage, but also at the center of attention– made him feel small. The matches up to now didn't feel like this. Never like this.
It excited him, he decided.
He would fight the odds here. He would prove that he could fight the odds.
His eyes were pulled away from his opponent, first finding the competitor's box where he knew his teammates were looking back. Next, they lingered further up where he knew their coach and manager would be, respectively.
Finally, they landed where he knew a certain row of seats would be; where his family was sitting.
You don't have to worry about me anymore. I'll be fine.
If there was one message he wanted to convey, that was it.
"Lock fighters! Are you ready?"
The announcement was more for the sake of the audience than it was for them. He was ready for this moment long before now, and he'd wager Pyrrha was the same.
The crowd, full once again after the brief intermission, came to life with the loudest series of cheers he'd heard all day.
The redhead before him removed the shield from her back. Her weapon was unsheathed, and quickly shifted into a javelin.
Her eyes were sharp.
Jaune didn't reciprocate just yet. He rested his palm on the hilt of Luminosité Éternelle. "You've been awfully quiet, you know."
Her lips quirked upwards, amused by the way his small-talk cut through the solemnity brought on by the magnitude of the event. "Now is not the time, nor place for an exchange of words. Today, I speak with my blade and listen in turn with my shield."
A referee stepped forward and raised a hand in a cutting motion. The crowd grew quiet.
The horn sounded.
Time to test the waters, then. He swung his polearm at Pyrrha's weapon rather than her person in an attempt to catch her flatfooted. It seemed to work, as the javelin was pushed away, leaving her vulnerable.
The low grip he held on Luminosité Éternelle for his wide sweep was abandoned in favour of a firm, two-handed one. He got in close, ready to stab–
The polearm was intercepted by a sword.
He pulled away the moment he felt contact lest he fall into a trap of her own making. Now with more room, he got a better look at the new weapon.
It was the same one. It mecha-shifted into a xiphos.
He smiled nervously.
Seriously? She was able to pull something like changing weapon forms mid-swing?
That was insane.
The familiarity with one's weapon needed to do that, not to mention the skill, was beyond what most people could achieve in their lifetimes. Forget training day in and day out, if someone were to tell him that this girl was born with that weapon in hand and hadn't let it go since, he'd almost believe it.
It really put into perspective how little he had used Luminosité Éternelle up until now.
He wouldn't be deterred.
Before he could go on the offensive once again, he was forced to dodge a flurry of stabs. He was barely fast enough to catch her shield with the shaft of his weapon before it bashed into the side of his head.
He grunted. Getting the upper hand here would be difficult. Pyrrha Nikos was strong, talented, and skilled all without any apparent weaknesses.
"Ha," he exhaled sharply, pushing against the shield as hard as he could. The explosive force behind his shove threw Pyrrha a few paced backward.
He would have to show that he wasn't half bad himself.
"Shit," he yelped, rolling out of the way. The spot he had occupied was shrouded by a cloud of dust kicked up by the impact of high caliber bullets.
Pyrrha was on a knee near the farthest inbound. She had a rifle in hand, the barrel still smoking.
After their fight was finished, he'd have to ask her about that weapon of hers. A xiphos, a javelin, and a rifle? Who engineered that thing? It probably wasn't cheap, either, but only the best for the best, and all that.
A more troublesome thought came to him a moment later.
She had range; he didn't.
XX
In an uncharacteristic display of nervousness, Jacques Arc bit the side of his nail.
"He should've known better than to stray too far from his adversary. Luminosité Éternelle doesn't have any ranged functionalities."
His wife eyed him with a quirked brow. "Doesn't every huntsman and their mother have a gun in their weapon?"
Cheeks flushed, he scratched his neck. "I mean, there was only so much we could ask of Senji…"
She sighed but didn't say anything else. A few of their children overheard them and snorted.
Jade, on the other hand, didn't notice their short bout at all. The entirety of her focus was on the two competitors.
Her brother was strong.
It was something she came to accept a long time ago, but she had never really understood. Not properly, at least. She heard that he got good grades at huntsman prep school, and she had seen him spar with their father on occasion, but that wasn't the same as seeing him go toe-to-toe with Pyrrha Nikos.
The two of them were friends. At first, it was a fact that she had a little trouble wrapping her head around. After all, how did someone like her know someone like him?
As it would turn out, proven before her very eyes, someone like him wasn't all that far off from someone like her, and suddenly things didn't seem as strange anymore. Her unassuming brother, from their small little town of Orleans, was a match for the greatest tournament fighter of this generation.
Jaune was incredible.
They were so far away, but she could still see every clash in abundant detail. Every swing and parry was a work of art onto its own; when one delivered a strike so masterful that it had to land, the other would surprise her by countering in a way she'd never think imaginable.
Their dad would always complain about Jaune's fighting style around the house, saying that both he and Yang fought like a pair of muscle-brained brutes. How was that the case? This was a performance; a dance so intellectually demanding that it could've been choreographed.
Her starry-eyed gaze was unflinching. She'd remember this moment for many a day.
XX
For the umpteenth time, Jaune took a half-assed lunging strike at Pyrrha and hoped for the best. As with all of his previous attempts, he was thwarted, this time by a long hop step to the side. Just as easily, he batted away her own retaliatory swipe.
He frowned. This was going nowhere.
If either had lost any aura, it was merely the result of the feedback from clashing weapons running up their arms. Not a single blow had landed on either side.
Unlike with any other opponent, he couldn't simply hope to outlast her. If he slipped up, what then? He couldn't be anything less than at the top of his game if he wanted to make it through this.
A change of strategy, then.
The flag spear shortened, the waving cloth wrapping around itself in an intricate weave. Jaune adopted a firm-footed stance with his sword held steadily in one hand.
His planted feet were taken as an invitation for his opponent to go on the offensive. Pyrrha shuffled towards him with her spear held underarm and leading with her shield.
He steadied his breathing. This would only be fully effective once.
Jaune prepared to defend his vulnerable position– and vulnerable was surely what he was at the moment. Pyrrha had the advantage of both a bladed arm and a shield, whereas he only had the choice between a spear and a single-handed sword. The spear was favourable, as it allowed him to keep a safe distance while exposed.
Knowledgeable of the ways of combat as she was, the Invincible Girl had long since come to similar conclusions. She seized the opportunity and engaged him in close quarters with her xiphos.
A shield bash was her first move, which he blocked with his sole weapon. Her blade came swinging around to catch his exposed and defenseless side–
His aura flared, and caught it in the palm of his hand.
Her eyes widened, not expecting such an action. Taking full advantage of her seldom-seen lapse in control, Jaune extended Luminosité Éternelle back into a spear and made an effort to have the flag unfurl in her face to block her line of sight.
She was exposed. The spear went straight for the center of her chest–
And missed.
Once more, he slammed the side of her shield and pushed away to make some breathing room. His mind was running a mile a minute.
How? How did he miss?
Something felt… off about the blow. It wasn't so much that he lost control of his swing, more like control was taken from him.
Was it a semblance?
It could be. He would have to be more careful from now on.
XX
"Ah! Damn it, Jaune, how did you miss that!"
Were she anyone else, Yang would have ruffled her hair in frustration. As it was, she settled for waving a pair of fists over her head.
She, along with the other Signal students, had long since left their seats as the fight went on. Their emotions went on a rollercoaster of excitement, nervousness, and elation as their lock fought the best of the best to a stand-still.
Mistral's team, as close as they were, didn't even bother to express annoyance with her loud tone. They too were entranced by the intensity of the match.
"Wicked," mumbled Scarlet under his breath.
No one called him out on it.
XX
Jaune couldn't hit her.
Amusingly, it reminded him of a similar occasion many years ago. He'd reckon he was almost as frustrated about it now as he was then.
Still, the fact remained that he couldn't get anywhere as long as he couldn't land a blow. Her aura wouldn't hit fifteen percent otherwise.
He didn't think for a second that he could pull off a ring-out.
The issue hadn't changed. Whenever he managed to scrape together an opening, something messed with his form and he'd miss his strike by a mile. It had happened four or five times now.
Who would've thought that both of their semblances made it hell to get a shot in? This was going to take a while…
His thoughts were put on hold as he made a sharp lean away from a high-aiming thrust. He motioned to push the shaft to the side with his arm, but his eyes shot wide open when he wasn't able to do so. Unprepared as he was, the javelin caught him in the waist and he was forced to tumble onto the ground to minimize the damage of the attack.
This far into their fight, Pyrrha Nikos won first blood.
The fact didn't upset Jaune, for he had come to a realization.
He had a good idea of what her semblance might be. He would have to hope that he was right.
XX
Pyrrha's smile was ear-splitting as she finally hit her opponent, but then again, her smile had been set firmly in place since they started.
Jaune was strong.
It made her happy to know that. She always had expectations –strong ones, at that– but to finally fight him here confirmed all of it for her and more.
He understood her, she felt. With every strike that resonated against Akoúo̱'s metal carapace, the shield served its namesake and listened. She could hear how much he wanted to win. He wasn't fighting an "invincible girl", but Pyrrha Nikos.
How long had it been since someone had actually tried to beat her? Who had ever thought they could beat her?
That's right. This match wasn't about the final outcome. It was about Pyrrha Nikos and Jaune Arc.
And she would win, because that's how much was at stake; all that needed to be at stake.
She didn't know how his semblance allowed him to avoid damage from her blows for so long, but the point was now moot. He hadn't figured out how she had been using her own semblance through each exchange, either.
Strangely, the use of her semblance thus far had filled her with a sense of elation rather than the usual bitterness. Since her earliest days as a professional fighter, she had thought of her near limitless control over her opposition's equipment to be an unfair advantage, so she used it sparingly. As time went on, however, misuse turned into spite as every manipulation felt as though she had slighted the image of "the Invincible Girl".
That wasn't the case here, though.
She would use Polarity because it was the semblance belonging to Pyrrha Nikos, and Pyrrha Nikos needed Polarity to defeat Jaune Arc.
His flag spear came swinging down against Miló. Again, she lightened the load of the attack with her semblance before meeting it with her own weapon. Jaune was a beast, physically. The strength required of her were she to catch his weapon against hers directly would exhaust her aura.
What?
Unexpectedly, there was none of the usual strength behind the swing. Jaune had let go of his weapon.
A naked fist came barreling into her chin before she could think. It was a testament to her own abilities that she was able to follow the directional force of the strike with her body. As it was, she simply lost a good chunk of her aura rather than knocked right out by the angle of punch.
Something he picked up from his blonde friend, most likely.
Pyrrha didn't bother to question how he managed to remove his gauntlets and vambraces without her noticing. Despite what she told him earlier about not speaking, she did ask, "How did you find out?"
Panting, much like she was, Jaune offered, "When you stopped me from blocking your attack earlier, it was only my armour that you froze. I could feel the forward momentum of my arm pushing against the walls of my gauntlet."
"Risky assumption, wouldn't you say?"
Regardless, he was right.
"I'm not going to beat you if I'm not willing to take risks," he shot back cheekily.
"I suppose you're right," she relented with a quirk in her lip.
Jaune reached into his collier and pushed a tab. Suddenly, all of his armor fell to his feet. After putting his headpiece down gently –delicately– on the ground, he was left only with his shirt, pants, and boots.
XX
Taiyang blinked as he tried to wipe away the dust in his eye that made it look as though his student had thrown away his only protection after doing so well until now.
He didn't actually just do that, did he?
Next to him, his youngest daughter had a similar reaction.
"Hey, dad?"
"Yes?"
"Is Jaune alright in the head?"
"…"
XX
"WHAAAT THE SHIT!" Yang shrieked. She really was pulling at her hair this time. "Dumbass! Idiot! He had it in the bag! Why did he have to go full stupid mode on us now?"
Sanctum's team seemed just as confused as they were.
"…"
Zhang's eyes narrowed.
"Jaune knows something we don't."
His blonde upperclassman stopped ranting for a moment. "Hm?"
He blushed, noticing that he had the attention of both teams, but explained, "Jaune isn't stupid, and he wants to win this more than anyone. If he did something like that, it's because he thinks it'll give him the upper hand, somehow."
XX
Both Coco and Mocha stared at Jaune with unimpressed, lidded eyes.
"He's an idiot."
"A moron."
"Imbecile."
"A complete ninny."
"I've seen birds with more between their ears."
The pair's parents sweatdropped at their children's remarks.
XX
Jacques tuned out the nagging of his daughters asking him what Jaune was thinking. His eyes were planted on his son.
What are you planning, I wonder?
XX
The redhead tilted her head, not understanding what he thought he was going to accomplish.
"You don't think you can beat me unarmed, do you?"
Jaune took a breath.
Another.
Another.
Aura flowed through him; around him.
Pyrrha took a step back. She didn't know what he was doing, but she could tell that something was going on.
"Please, stand still," he asked her jokingly, not actually expecting any form of compliance. "I won't be able to keep this up for long."
Their next clash was unlike any of their previous ones, and yet was similar in outcome. Pyrrha's weapon thundered down on his body, but somehow his frame stood unyielding. Due to his inexperience in hand-to-hand combat, however, neither could manage to get the upper hand.
Jaune grunted. This wasn't how his semblance was meant to be used, especially considering he wasn't using it with Luminosité Éternelle. If he wanted to win, though, he'd have to tough it out.
His discomfort must have been visible on his face, because Pyrrha kicked it into second gear. Her weapon, a xiphos once more, tore into him in a flurry of slashes.
Jaune didn't brush off the blows so much as ignore them. He could feel his limits approaching as he pressed forward to grapple the redhead.
There was nothing she could do. All the skill in the world wouldn't help her move the immovable.
For that's what he was now: a human fortress. A defender.
The moment he had a grip on her, the advantage was held by him. Her blade couldn't help her. Her Shield couldn't help her.
He slammed her into the ground, and the earth cratered. What was once a flat arena was now a giant bowl. No one needed an aura gauge to know how that a good portion of hers was gone.
Though not enough, evidently. The match wasn't called yet.
"Hah!" Jaune screamed as he brought his fist up for one final blow against his downed opponent.
Her eyes glowed, and–
It happened before he could react. No… there was no way he could have anticipated something like this happening in the first place.
Luminosité Éternelle somehow pulled itself from where it rested on the other end of the arena and flew into him at frightening speeds, sending him tumbling off of the girl he had pinned.
He tried to get back, but his path was blocked. Her weapon, her shield, his weapon, as well as all the pieces of his discarded armour set formed a moving, flurrying wall that held him at bay.
No!
Had she figured it out?
The Arc semblance, Absolute Protection, varied greatly between members of the household. Despite this, it had just as many constants as it had variations. One of those constants was the continuous drain placed on one's aura reserves to keep it running.
Considering the wasteful way he'd been forced to use it, his aura reserves were dangerously low. He couldn't just drop it and save what little he had, either, since the puppeteered weapons that were currently prodding him would quickly take away what he had left.
He didn't have much longer.
Relying on physical strength, he tried to force his way through the impromptu wall of metal. Through the cracks, he could see Pyrrha visibly struggling to hold him at bay. Her entire body was trembling.
In the end, their fight had been reduced to who's semblance could endure the longest.
"Jaune Arc's aura is in the red! Victory goes to Pyrrha Nikos! Mistral's representatives will move on to the next round!"
There was a dead silence that reigned for what seemed like an eternity. No one knew what had just happened. There was no way for them to have understood the final moments of the match between Jaune Arc and Pyrrha Nikos.
The coveted Invincible Girl didn't seem so invincible anymore. She had trouble standing on her feet, and anyone close enough could see her flushed complexion and laboured breathing.
The one she had bested was in a very similar condition, though he was on his hands and knees.
Both were still. Their tired, lidded eyes did a poor job of conveying how either was feeling.
"HAAAAA!" shouted Pyrrha at the top of her lungs, cutting right through the dead quiet of the onlookers. She fell onto her back with a dorky smile, and let her eyelids drop.
The crowd followed. Hundreds of thousands of people watching –millions viewing across the four kingdoms– shouted along with her.
Jaune didn't hear any of it. There was a strange ringing in his ear that he could quite place.
He rolled onto his back and stared blankly at the sky.
So he lost, then.
Obviously, it was always a possibility, but that didn't pave any roads for him to recover from the bitterness he felt.
He lost.
He lost.
His nose twitched, then his brow.
I'm sorry, Jeanne.
Tears. There were tears trailing down his cheeks. He hadn't cried since that time.
If Jeanne were to see him know, she'd tell him to get over himself. Hell, his dad would probably say the same thing. Despite the promises he made to them of his own volition, he knew he was being overly dramatic.
He knew that, but still–
"Jaune."
It was soft; weak, but it cut through the noise. With what little strength that he had left, he turned his head towards Pyrrha.
He almost chuckled. She was in pretty bad shape too, huh?
The noise was caught in his throat though. He couldn't take his eyes off her smile.
Happiness. Gratitude. Respect.
"You're the best," she told him.
The bitterness was chipped away by something else.