An avian Cursed Warrior with a massive wingspan and a white trail of flames shooting out from its rear end where the beast's inner Curse Engine was and labored to keep it suspended in the air flapped its wings. The potent concussive shock shattered a mound of debris and destroyed the wreckage of a ship, sending its parts hurling throughout the arena as a troublesome area of effect attack for all competitors to deal with.
It seemed that the Fennec's crew wasn't the only band around getting desperate and resorting to hasty measures to reduce the number of competitors as much as possible. Even if they were untouchable behemoths early in the competition, not even the Cursed Warriors would have attempted to attack every single competitor in the arena and draw their collective ire. It could have been everyone's stamina supply running low or the injuries collecting in vast quantities after so many consecutive engagements that fueled this desperation, but its presence was unquestionable.
A lone, plainly dressed man with a boring short haircut and the most ordinary-looking face hopped off a dozen meters off the ground and jumped onto a stray batch of ripped ship boards. Using them as a platform, this madman used the airborne whizzing debris to navigate his way across the scrap storm by merely dashing and jumping to another chunk whenever he ran to the end of the line. This feat registered in the visuals of the condor-shaped Cursed Warrior and piqued the pilot's interest. The tall and broad-shouldered man with tidy, long, curly white hair zoomed in on the man, defying calamitous odds and putting him in the crosshairs of the flying super-weapon.
The raging Cursed Warrior scanned the fighting arena with a line of channeled and compact white flames. The durable man dressed in plain clothes dashed to the side, narrowly avoiding instant disintegration in the concentrated heat of the blazing white beam. Pulling a handheld dispenser, the strangely defiant and capable man launched a handful of shuriken from it in the Cursed Warrior's direction but, as could have been expected, despite the vast increase in speed and launching efficiency of a dispenser being used, the shuriken still bounced off the armor and scattered on the tile set.
It was nigh impossible to tell where this unimpressive man found his energy. Not to mention, his battlefield awareness skill was off the charts too, managing to pick up on objects of interest and remain completely aware of everything around him in a way that only hardened combatants could. While casually avoiding stray attacks from ambitious assailants or projectiles coming his way from nearby engagements, the man picked up on a glowing neon tube from the body of one of the destroyed Cursed Warriors. Dashing toward it, he performed an effortless slide and demonstrated nigh infinite stamina in dashing a quarter of kilometers without dropping his speed or it wearing on his breathing.
Grabbing the discarded artifact, the man in a grey sports jacket and a bland charcoal t-shirt underneath heaved it toward a nearby chunk of rocky debris before flicking a trigger on his shuriken dispenser and shooting a steel star with a sizzling explosive tag attached to it at the neon-glowing pipe. The perfectly executed sharp shot maneuver blew up the discarded Cursed Warrior part, which in turn destroyed the mound of rubble and sent hefty debris hurling from the explosive force inside straight at the side of the Cursed Warrior.
This came just in time as another concentrated white heat beam was about to drag across the plainly dressed surprise badass and leave him as just an ashen smear on the floor. Instead, a handful of house-sized boulders slammed against the side of the monstrous weapon of mass destruction and sent it steering to the side. The sudden loss of balance caused a shift in the beam's trajectory, narrowly missing the brown-haired man while he stood up and advanced toward the super-weapon, undaunted by the challenge posed by the monstrous Cursed Warrior and the efficiency at which its peers operated throughout this competition.
With a potent overflow of burning fuel, shooting off from its rear in the shape of a fluffy white blaze tail, the obsidian condor rose into the sky with its wings pointed over its head. The violet neon glow in the archaic patterns decorating the obsidian artificial behemoth turned white as the devastating flame the bestial weapon produced began channeling as a star-texture concentrated white energy bomb over its headpiece where the cockpit likely was.
It didn't take a genius to perceive that a channeling and growing white dwarf above the head of a destructive super-weapon was a bad omen. And so the risen to his feet nobody became dead-set on stopping that attack from connecting and doing whatever the condor's pilot meant it to do. The attempt to stop it began with a dash toward a nearby ship's wreckage. It had been laying in a way that its jackstaff should have permitted access to the colossal body of the Cursed Warrior after a daunting jump.
However, instead of merely staying concentrated on charging its ridiculous attack, the Cursed Warrior pumped another concentrated white beam from its rear end where it fired its jet blaze. The concentrated white beam slammed against the ground, causing a tremendous pulse, like a tsunami of sandstone, rock, and dirt, to wash across the arena. This blast flipped the devastated pirate ship that the unrelenting everyman was dashing across, causing him to suffer the same consequences that a ship passenger suffered when their ship became just a featherweight piece of junk hurled around in the air. Like a cockroach trapped inside a tin can filled with razors, the unnamed man bashed into and crashed through various weathered walls and bits of the ship while the vessel suffered a heinous crash landing.
Coughing in pain and writhing, the man rolled out from a ripped hole in the lower left side of the crashed vessel and flopped onto the sun-scorched tile set, dragging his battered body across the tiles while doing his best to peel his body off the ground to intercept the lengthy preparation for the white dwarf attack. With a painful whine, the injured man, who looked almost like a random civilian off the spectator stand had stepped onto the stage to take part in this excessive blood fest, kicked his way back into the crashed ship, desperately browsing it for its cannons.
Just a few seconds later, the Cursed Warrior heaved the massive white star from over its head, hurling toward the arena. It came straight for the mangled wooden boards and steel plates that was the busted ship that one of the raucous pirate captains summoned to do their bidding earlier in the battle royale. Just before the silence reigned in, a loud pop came from the ship. The noise from the resulting detonation laid an unyielding and overwhelming siege on the eardrums of all the surviving combatants and made the painful screams of the audience inaudible over the boom.
A concentrated white beam shot off into the sky where the white sun hit the mangled ship wreckage. Unlike an ordinary weapon of mass destruction, this attack appeared to be centered on obliterating a lone object this time. The beam, barely even a hundred meters in radius, shot off into the orbit where it dispersed the rest of its white hellfire around the entire planet in a type of exaggerated version of a mushroom cloud.
Despite it not being necessary to fly, the Cursed Warrior returned to waving its massive segmented wings while shooting white jets from its rear that kept it suspended in the air. After a couple more moments of silence and recovery for all those who felt the sting of the ear-raking noise that would have made the brains of the ordinary spectators leak out their ears as crimson mush had it not been for the protective barriers around the fighting arena, the Cursed Warrior turned toward the announcer, acknowledging the man's presence in a rare out-of-character moment where the pilot's behavior overrode that of the weapon they piloted.
Before the announcer could explain why he wasn't listing the elimination, another bang which would have sounded uncomfortable under ordinary circumstances but was barely audible after the uproar of moments before distracted the Cursed Warrior. Its sensory systems scanned the skies, eager to pick up the life signs of its most persistent opponent yet. Much to the pilot's chagrin, to the point where he smashed the control panel in front of him with hammering fists in a fit of rage, the Cursed Warrior picked up life signs in the air.
Using the point-blank detonation of one of his handheld explosive gadgets, the airborne John Doe navigated his fall to shoot like a living arrow, straight toward the Cursed Warrior, as opposed to straight down in a fast and flattening flop. Despite suffering damage from using an explosive to navigate himself in mid-air, the simple man felt like this was the only choice to channel his opponent.
"Simply astonishing! Contestant Codename: Kenji Sixpack used one of the ship's cannons to shoot himself into the air, as high and as far away from the incoming white star blast! He then used a handheld explosive device to navigate his fall straight for the trajectory of the Cursed Warrior Batsudoru! Not bad for a man who claims to have no idea who he is and what he's doing here when he signed up, having only a strong feeling like he has to sign up! Given that a few of the competitors in the spy faction recognized him and gave him this codename, that's why he's both attributed to the spy faction and has a spy-like codename as opposed to his actual name, which he doesn't know himself," the announcer gave the baffled audience some context behind this unexpectedly amazing combatant in plain outsider civilian clothing.
With the injured spy flying straight for the obsidian condor, color was slow to return to its neon patterns. Extending his hand down, the nobody fired a few shuriken and cracked the neon pipes that made the Cursed Warrior's glowing archaic patterns all over its body. Forming himself in a cannonball-like curl, the spy prepared to burst through the cracked pipe and enter the Cursed Warrior's internal corridors to challenge the pilot, as opposed to the invincible beast.
Unfortunately for him, Batsudoru became revived and flared up with white fireballs bursting forth from its rear end. Its purple neon colors turned white again as the Cursed Warrior concentrated a breath of white flame and breathed it out straight at the incoming madman in plain clothing, enveloping the nameless spy Kenji Sixpack in a devastating white beam of the turbulent blaze. Just a flash beaming into the stars later, nothing but a handful of ash remained of the amnesiac super spy.
"Oh, no! Codename: Kenji Sixpack was just a bit too slow to break into Batsudoru's cockpit where he could attack the pilot of the Cursed Warrior instead of the invincible titan itself! A cruel reminder that even if the secret of the Cursed Warriors is out, that doesn't make them any less of a threat!" the announcer yelled out, reacting to the almost traceless obliteration of another contestant.
A veteran samurai staggered onward with blood dripping from his wounds and his muscular hands seeming too tired to lift his sword up for a proper defense. One of his own, the perilous wild card Soragen Hanamuro, tried cutting the retired swordsman Konishi Gokojin down. Despite having lived for over six decades and wielded a sword for over five of them, Konishi couldn't remember the last time he was in such a miserable state.
He's seen bloodshed without any mistake. He's been the cause of plenty of it himself. Though usually, it was the blood of the enemy dripping from him and not his own body leaking outside through the testaments of his failures as a swordsman. In his line of work, this outcome was unavoidable. You fought as hard as you could; you struggled every day of your youth to maintain a solid grip on your sanity as you butchered fellow men and women by the hundreds on battlefields or just in some alleyways when they weren't on their guard.
When you grew older, you learned to make your mind go numb to the madness, to the savagery. It became just the same as any other work. Early in the morning, one rose to go to work, the routine of butchery and swordsmanship was almost boring to a degree, all the native techniques and most notable swordsmen were already known and etched into your experience, and, sometimes - your body.
At some point, if you didn't fall in battle, somehow, you would end up just a husk of the man you once were. The wounds you've accumulated throughout your life, the natural process of the years dragging you down, dulling your eyesight, neutering your reaction time, and snuffing out your physical strength and speed with time, would take their toll. No matter how long you lived, how long you fought on, eventually you'd run into a young man who'd remind you of the ambition but also the naivety you had at his age. Before you could impart your wisdom to them, he'd cut you down without hesitation.
And so, the cycle of men needlessly devoting their lives to violence continued. The wisdom of those old enough to know better slashed down mercilessly to shape the fangs of the young and hungry swordsmen looking for their place under the sun. That was why Konishi left active service. He considered himself smarter, at one point he thought he'd bypassed this natural end that all veteran samurai found, eventually. He considered himself something of a rebel against the tide of fate. He almost thought himself clever…
A hefty golden fist came crashing down from above, raising dust and sending Konishi Gokojin rolling away from the rowdy point of impact with his teeth clenched and his entire body burning in pain and going numb from blood loss. Only by stabbing his sword through the sandstone tiles could Konishi push his body off the ground and stand back up to face the man who had chosen him as his opponent.
It was one of the more peculiar competitors–one from the Cursed Warriors, but not one of the soaring, destructive weapons. Before him stood a tall and ridiculously beefed up man with biceps the size of boulders and a chiseled, rectangular jawline. A behemoth of sinew. Even his robe, which attempted to imitate the appearance of the other Cursed Warriors, failed to wrap itself around the exposed bare chest of the living titan of flesh.
Glowing golden patterns ripped through the body of this one too, just like they did with the Cursed Warriors. Besides that, this man had glowing eyes and mouth, whenever he opened it, his dark hair floated evenly in all directions, held suspended by a supernatural force and the strident force pumping through his body leaked outside, coating his fists with solid gold and making them flare up with surrounding pink flame specks and sizzles.
The man amongst titans didn't honor Konishi with a proclamation of his objective. He didn't really need to. Konishi was battered and beaten down and his opponent was bloodthirsty and desperate to score as many cheap eliminations as possible to advance as many of his Cursed Warriors to the Top 16 stage as he could. Konishi was just a minor obstacle in his way that the broad-shouldered goliath meant to stomp on and then kick to the curb.
"Divine Punishment Style: Elegant Halo Sword Flash!" Konishi chanted, throwing himself at his enemy and doing the opposite of what he always did. He was too tired to defy fate. Too betrayed and too disappointed in the life he's led. There were too many dead bodies crawling up his limbs and dragging him down under, the body toll was too tall to turn anything around, to change anything. Divine Punishment Style… What a joke. This swordsmanship style that emulated the elegance of the heavens and favored peerless balance even when tapping into superhuman speed and efficiency to punish one's opponents and send them to the afterlife in an instant.
Konishi never felt proud of himself or his sword, he never felt like some angel meting out divine punishment. He was no better from a cutthroat. Despite mocking and acting spiteful toward manslayers like Hashin Tamasatsu, truth be told, he was no better. Konishi's katana flashed mid-swing, becoming blurry and producing afterimages while in an elegant, flowing motion. As a response, his opponent bellowed like a wild boar and just punched with a flaring, golden fist. Everything went black.
The sense of weightlessness took over. Konishi was flying. He must not have been dead yet. Given the life he's led, there wasn't a chance in hell that he would ever ascend to the good place. If there was any consolation to be had, it was that he helped those who deserved it to reach their eternity of serenity in the afterlife sooner than they would have without him. The Iron Country was no utopia, Konishi would have never fooled himself, thinking otherwise. An individual was only as deserving and worthy of human rights and individual happiness as they were strong and able to serve their state.
Konishi served. He served long, and he served well. Healers swarmed around him and lifted Konishi off the soft grass that caressed his face. Everything just wouldn't stop spinning! They were such nice lads. The old man couldn't have done it without their help. It seemed like his service wasn't over yet. He still lived. Then again, perhaps Konishi didn't need to worry about his individual happiness and earning it through service. Someone like him didn't deserve to be happy, meaning he didn't need to serve his state to earn the right to that happiness.
At last, Konishi was free. Strangely, he was alive too. Maybe he truly defied fate after all. Most men only attained their freedom upon dying.
