Clear to cloudy

Target 49: The final battle of the ring conflict?

Riccardo steps into the arena and the bubble appears around him and his opponent: NM-5. "Before we begin I have a question… NM-5 is an autonomous machine with no pilot or controller… how do I defeat him? If I were to knock him out you cannot check if he's alive or not as he has no pulse.

"We've already thought of that… NM-5 runs on a power core inside his body. Remove it and he will be unable to move, but destroy it and it will be the same as killing him, even if we have spares," They say and NM-5 opens up his chest just to show him where it is.

"Sounds fair… breaking a body of steel doesn't sound too tough," Riccardo says jumping a bit to loosen up before taking a fighting stance.

"Let the eighth match… BEGIN!" They say and Riccardo takes a deep breath before launching forward.

NM-5 quickly does computations. "Opponent: Riccardo. Strength: 10, speed: 6, durability: 7, flame control: 4, capacity: 4. Optimal strategy: found… chance of success… 30%..." He speaks at a speed which is so fast no one can even hear what he's saying. He dodges out of the way with his rocket boosters flying into the air. "Computing chance of success with full capability… 97%. why did you do this Zaccaria?" He says once more before beginning his strategy boosting downward towards Riccardo who throws a strong punch straight at him. He blocks it with his hand, grabbing hold of the man and he spins with his rocket boosters sending Riccardo spinning along the ground. NM-5 lands again, revealing his cannon arm and he fires it at Riccardo who simply punches straight through it before quickly making his way to him, and when he gets close he begins some intense footwork enhanced by his sun flame making afterimages appear around NM-5. The boy simply looks around his eyes shifting rapidly between targets. However before he can determine Riccardo's exact location he starts getting hit from different directions.

Kotsu looks a little confused. "I… I fought that guy… he's… different than he was back then… he's much… slower…" He says thinking back to their very first day when he was completely destroyed by NM-5. He had a lot more weapons back then, each of them with much more impact… "He's holding back for some reason…" He determines and everyone looks confused.

"T-that's a good thing right…?" Ren says. "What if he's just waiting for the right time to go all out…?"

NM-5 gets launched to the side by another strong punch and he notes that he has a dent in his side now. "Damage: minor. Repairable…" He says before Riccardo is suddenly in his face again and NM-5 begins predicting his movements and blocking them all using his arms, kicking in the weakspots to get some cheap hits however Riccardo seems aware of his own weakspots and keeps covering. "Chance of success… falling… currently: 10%" He says once more too fast for Riccardo to hear. However Riccardo is a bit surprised by the look on NM-5's face as he's looking annoyed. After a bit of a scuffle Riccardo connects a palm to NM-5's face sending him flying back doing multiple backflips on the way. He stops himself using his rocket boosters. "Victory by combat: impossible… alternate method… found," He says slowly this time and suddenly his chest opens up revealing his core and he raises his arm. Riccardo's eyes widen realizing that he's going to 'kill himself' in order to win. He speeds forward jumping into the air knocking NM-5 down holding his hands away from his chest as he's about to close his chest to protect his core so he can destroy it himself using his full boost power to get free from under Riccardo. However the larger man grabs hold of one of the plates trying to slide back into place ripping It back open and as soon as he tries grabbing the core NM-5 sends a shock from his core into Riccardo and he's flung back. NM-5 once more prepares to destroy himself, however right as he's about to stab his core to pieces Riccardo rushes forward, with a pinpoint strike at NM-5's shoulder, knocking it clean off it's hinge and he spin kicks also with perfect precision on his chestplate knocking it off, grabbing his core and punching him in the head ripping it straight from his chest sending NM-5's unconscious shell flying across the battlefield and he holds up NM-5's core.

"There… I win," he says as the bubble disappears and the Cervello confirm that the core is still working my reinserting it into NM-5, who simply wakes up and gets up.

"The winner is Riccardo!" They declare and Riccardo holds out his hand.

"I have never fought a machine such as you before… However I must say you were quite underwhelming," NM-5 simply turns away from him without a word. "Excuse me… did they not program manners into you?" NM-5 picks up his arm Riccardo punched off holding it out for the handshake.

"I have little excuse for my poor performance… it was out of my hands," he simply says reattaching his arm as he walks back to Zaccaria's team.

Zaccaria grits his teeth angrily. "How useless can you be…?" he says and NM-5 looks a little confused before reading his face and nodding.

"My apologies master Zaccaria," He simply says before heading to the back of the group to repair himself from all the minor damage he took.

Ywan looks a little suspiciously at Zaccaria who just smirks back at him. "What's the matter Ywan!? Scared you might lose there for a second!?" He yells with a confident grin.

Ywan grunts disapprovingly. "I would never be so foolish as to not have faith in my guardians! I believed that he would pull through and he did!"

The Cervello raise their hand. "Now then… shall we move onto the final match?" They say and Kotsu looks up almost depressed. The score at the moment is 2 to Kotsu… 3 to Ywan and 3 to Zaccaria… and this final match… isn't happening since Kotsu doesn't have a rain guardian. So Zaccaria has won. "Will both participants please step forward?" they command and Boris winds back his shoulder before stepping into the arena.

"Guess it's finally me huh? Let's see what you can pull out to oppose me Kotsukiba!" He says smirking as he hits his knuckles together. However his smirk slowly disappears as there's a moment of awkward silence between everyone. "Um… my opponent please?" He asks and Primo fishes the rain ring out of his pocket.

"Well… it just so happens that I've found no one whom I thought would make for a proper rain guardian… I've already explained this to the Cervello…"

There's a bit of silence again as everyone lets it sink in. "WHAT!?" They all yell and Boris grits his teeth.

"The hell's this!? You could've picked ANYONE from our family to do that job! You can't just… NOT do it!" He yells stomping his foot down making the ground crack beneath him.

However suddenly there's a loud laughter through the hall. Everyone gets slight chills as suddenly it's as if a hostile presence has appeared right next to everyone and a pair of deadly ice-blue eyes stare at Boris. "I didn't want to admit it…!" Geraldino starts as he walks forward. "But I kinda liked being with your group yesterday… such a crazy bunch of kids…" He says and Yamamoto once more realizes Geraldino took his sword. "So if you'll let me Primo… I'll take this one on me…" He says holding his hand back gesturing for Primo to toss him the rain ring. "Let's call it payback for being so nice to me even though I tried killing you…" He looks to Kotsu with a slightly creepily happy smirk.

Primo looks to him with a concerned look. "Kotsu…? I won't allow him to if you're not okay with this…"

"I…" Kotsu's about to deny it when he looks at Geraldino and gives a slight smile remembering just how much he did this week. Especially with Rinoka. He helped her get here, train her, look after her, and at the amusement park he was surprisingly human and… nice. "Sure…" He says smiling back at the gangster.

Primo tosses Geraldino the rain ring and he puts it on his finger. "Besides…" he says looking at Boris, with his cold gaze. "I've always wanted to see which of us is stronger Boris… I still remember that time a few years ago when I was sent to assist you in a battle but you'd already finished by the time I got there. I wanna see if that was just luck or skill…" He says and Boris grins almost triumphantly.

"You're about the LAST person I expected to see on that kid's team Ice Wolf! A gangster without mercy like you? Showing compassion?! That's so unlike you!" He yells slamming his fists together.

"What can I say? I guess I'm just feeling a little bored watching so many fights and not having one myself," He says holding out his sword and it lights up with his deep blue rain flame. Kotsu notes how watery it looks and looks to Primo.

"I-I've seen a normal rain flame before Primo… and Geraldino's is a lot different…"

Primo lets on a little smirk as Geraldino prepares his stance and the bubble appears around them. "Well remember our little talk before this whole thing began… about Ywan and Zaccaria…?" He asks and Kotsu gulps.

"Yeah… how… they got to where they are…"

"I told you about seven special people… the cosmic flames… Zaccaria's cosmic sky flame is the most powerful sky flame in the world outmatching even mine…"

"With this new addition… let the ninth match of the ring conflict… BEGIN!" Boris leaps forward towards Geraldino both participants having a deadly glare and fire in their eyes.

"I said we knew of one more cosmic flame back then… and that person… is him! GERALDINO: THE COSMIC RAIN FLAME!" He declares as Geraldino and Boris connect their first attacks.