"So, how're you feeling?" Bult asked Mana next morning as the girl seemed to be more silent than usual the whole time since she woke up. As usual, the guards announced the fights after the breakfast and lined the crew up, despite taking part in the very first fight and Bult not fighting at all, the two ended up at the front of the row.
"It doesn't matter how I'm feeling," Mana replied, she was afraid and worried, despite the fight not being one that only death ended, a lot still depended on her performance. She needed to not only win but also do so in a manner that'd change the Sheikh's attitude towards martial arts. She needed to give the man the fight he had not seen for many years.
One like the kind that changed it all. Mana hoped that Damij would be helpful in that but she wasn't quite sure. The man was apparently the strongest fighter around so if he couldn't be the second part of the greatest battle this arena had ever seen no one could and that possibility greatly scared Mana. Having an impossible goal set in her mind did not worry the magician nearly as much as not having one at all. If this failed she'd know no other way to change the Sun Disc arena back to its glory days.
"Look, if you lose... Well, nobody will blame you for anything. Everyone knows you're really strong but nobody depends on you, we've all seen too much of this place to put all of our hopes on you" Bult tried to calm Mana down, he wasn't really successful but it wasn't because of the fact that his words weren't the best suited for that goal, more so due to the fact that Mana tried to hide her fear, to begin with. This was her test, her chance to be a hero without the ability to mold chakra, chance to be the kind of hero she always wanted to be. Heroes of legends didn't feel fear, they weren't afraid before their big battles, or so legends made everyone believe.
"I don't care about that, I'm depending on myself being able to do this. I will win. I still have another mission I need to complete so I can't take too long here" Mana said looking forward into the darkness of the waiting area. Not too long after the area sunk into the darkness Mana could hear loud voices from all the way inside the arena. She couldn't exactly make out what was being said, not for the lack of trying, all she could hear was a faint voice of the announcer and deafening cheers from the public. Finally, the light seeped into the waiting area as the gate rumbled open and the bridging platform extended to her end. Mana took a small step forward onto the platform as it closed in to the ring of the arena. The magician took a brief moment to look down. There were no longer spikes to fall down on, just grass.
"I have a feeling that this warm-up fight will set an unfair high for the other matches to overcome, ladies and gentlemen!" the announcer yelled out energetically pointing at Mana who finally gathered the courage to look at the man called Damij.
He was a tall individual, well developed and trained, his body was muscular, edging out to the limit where he may have appeared too muscular to move fast but not just yet. His physical condition bordered perfection, his build suggested enough physical strength to compare even to the strongest arena's fighters but he also looked fit enough to move fast. His stance didn't appear anything special – the man just stood with his arms lowered and his chest buffed up front and open, his legs split shoulder-wide.
The man wore some strange head attire, Mana had seen some people wear it in Sunagakure – it was a cloth garment covering the man's head and held down with a golden ring. He also possessed rich facial hair, just like Fajal and his cold facial expression suggested some experience in the military discipline. The man wore a long white coat on top of his black tank top and white rather baggy pants held pressed to his abdomen by a large rubber sash so red that the color almost hurt to look at.
Upon setting her foot onto the arena Mana stretched out a bit, jumping on her left and right feet just so her legs got accustomed to the pressure of quickly having to keep all of her body weight and transfer it to the other foot just as swiftly. Something told Mana that Damij would give her absolutely no time to breathe easy. Mana took a brief glance at the Sheikh's balcony, not much appeared to have changed except the women appeared to be more passive as the Sheikh was all over the balcony edge, the man was hyped about the fight. Even the Sheikh expected to see something interesting, maybe that'd help Mana in the end?
"Begin!" the announcer screamed out gesturing for the two to go at each other but for great public disappointment, the fight didn't immediately explode out of control. Damij continued to stand there looking at Mana while the magician dashed to the edge of the arena to give her maximum time to react to his attacks. The ex-kunoichi expected Damij to be faster than Fajal, stronger as well which meant that she'd need all the time and advantages she could get.
"Well? Won't you attack? I'm giving you seven minutes before I finish the fight..." Damij asked looking curiously at Mana while the public roared up, throwing their headgears up into the air before remembering they'll need them once the Sun reached its peak so they quickly caught those at their way down. Damij's seven minutes gimmick appeared to be a beloved one in this arena.
"Darn it, if he's going to be passive about it this fight won't change anything. I need this fight to be the best that the Sheikh has seen!" Mana thought to herself angrily, she was usually a patient girl but now her goal pushed her forward, forced her to be less cautious than she'd have usually been. Mana rushed forward with a jumping kick which Damij effortlessly avoided by leaning back. Mana quickly repurposed her force into a downwards ax kick but Damij moved sideways just as easily. His move economy was just as impressive as that of the other fighters. That being said, the move economy of Fajal was so good that Damij's only matched it. There was no possible way for it to be even better.
Mana continued to attack Damij with a flurry combination of kicks, switching her balance foot often so that the martial artist couldn't counter by targeting it. Damij avoided each and every kick with such ease and grace that it appeared like he had entire seconds to spare when in fact Mana's strikes peaked the speed that a human was capable of. The girl grunted, she noticed it immediately – the secret that made Damij the most powerful martial artist in the Sun Disc arena. Damij wasn't necessarily that much more masterful, stronger or faster than Fajal or the second strongest member of his crew, whoever they were. Damij's budojutsu enhancements were so weak, so faint that they allowed him to cross the superhuman limits by a small margin without tiring him like Fajal's monstrous power boost did. Damij won through control, not sheer power and speed.
Damij's foot flashed below, the man swept his leg faster than a blink – a feat of the perfect economy not only of movement but budojutsu as well. Mana felt her balance being taken away as the man's hand made the air whistle around his thrust arm and rustle his long sleeves. Instantly, the girl felt a tight grip on her throat, her body being lifted up effortlessly. That wasn't as impressive as it'd normally had been – Mana was quite a lightweight and yet... That perfect economy of Damij's slightly visible power boost made all the difference in the world. Fajal was faster and stronger than Damij but the latter's perfect economy of both physical movement and his budojutsu augmentation made Damij a challenge even for genin ninja while Fajal would've landed a couple of blows and winded out. Mana was out of her league.
The girl tried to smack the man's wrists, slip her finger thrusts in between his soft spots and pressure points that'd cause the man pain and irritation forcing him to let go of her neck but he kept on holding her, snuffing all the air she had. Mana couldn't believe she'd be taken out this easily... If this was a one on one fight she'd have died like this! She had no tricks in her sleeves – her ninja tools were taken away and her limbs didn't listen to her. As her bodily temperature rose, sweat started breaking out the girl felt a light breeze – her body was being thrown sideways. Damij wished neither to kill her nor to end the fight before his seven minutes clocked out.
"Sloppy, you're not even a martial artist, how did you beat Fajal and Almash exactly?" the man spoke. It wasn't cockiness as such snarky comments would've been coming from Fajal's mouth – the man had a genuine point. Mana tried to attack him using her self-taught taijutsu style of kicking which to a martial arts master would've appeared childish and primitive. Her ace was her combination style of redirection and dodging. If she just employed that she could've matched Damij, Mana knew that but... That wouldn't have been the fight Sheikh wanted!
The magician grunted, she rushed forward with the textbook Academy taijutsu moves, she was at the very least as skilled at them as a common genin would've been. Finally, Damij noticed a slightly elevated challenge as Mana heard him breathe erratically dodging these blows just for a brief moment. However, he once again dodged each and every attack. It was like he was a perfect evasion machine, Mana was now shown how her opponents felt when fighting her one on one.
The girl screamed as the man's kick flashed tapping her lightly in her chin before his palm strike sent her stumbling backward. Damij then leaped spinning his legs like a buzz saw hitting the back of Mana's head and pounding her body into the rocky floor. The magician heard something in her crack, she felt the taste of blood and stone in her mouth, her eyes were watering – she was failing her objective, she was being humiliated and by then the public knew just how this fight would end. Another seven minutes of punishment before Damij ended his opponent. In the end, the strange girl that rode into Agbarah on the back of a camel and showed these amazing moves no one had ever seen before was nothing special, she fell just like everyone else...
"No!" Mana screamed in her mind as her body started boiling, three and a half minutes had passed, she still had half of that time to end it before Damij was fighting her seriously. She had faced superior opponents in the past and it never stopped her, adrenaline forced Mana to jump on her feet and bounce right off the arena, the girl saw the cracked floor tiles and couldn't even begin to imagine how much damage her body had actually taken from these blows, these mad whirlwind kicks would've busted through stone and left dents in steel but Mana's adrenaline kept her body moving, shock kept pain from being fully registered just yet.
Mana tried to attack Damij but then dashed backward herself – this man was as skilled and powerful as a genin ninja that focused on taijutsu and trained their body on the technical side of martial arts. He discovered a new form of chakra augmentation – budojutsu. One that Mana had never seen before. He was a prodigy of taijutsu whom she could never match in a fair one on one fight so it was the time she stopped trying. The magician took a couple of deep breaths before taking the defensive stance that Meiko and Kouta's training helped her devise. This combination of styles allowed her to evade attacks from both Shimo and Kouta at the same time. While those two were holding back from chakra augmentation even without it they'd have trumped Damij in skill together. Mana felt confident that she could evade Damij's perfect movements.
"What is this?" the martial artist asked her as he slowly started walking up to her.
"My true fighting style, the one that beat Fajal-san, Almash-san and the others..." Mana replied.
Damij cracked a grin, he punched a couple of times using his palm – just like Mana did. It only made sense that the man fought similarly to her, after all, he was a Sunagakure Ninja Academy dropout if Bult's tale was to be believed. Mana avoided his blows just as effortlessly as he avoided hers previously. The man raised an eyebrow and started relentlessly attacking her with a string of spinning kicks, he delivered them from various angles, as he was jumping, flipping and spinning in the air yet he was unable to land them now that Mana switched to the defensive.
The man performed a couple of lightning-fast backflips and took a straight fighting stance again.
"Impressive..." He noted "People refer to the human peak of speed and power as 100%, I suppose you could call my current state 120% and yet I don't quite tire myself because my increase is so minuscule and irrelevant. My subordinates love to multiply their power at least twenty and more times but I advise them not to go beyond 2200% increase. It appears none of my budojutsu augmentations can touch you if you don't want them to... I mean if Fajal's 2200% couldn't, how could my measly 120% ever hope to compare?" Damij complemented Mana's evasive style.
"My friends taught it to me so that I was able to fend for myself and didn't drag them down..." Mana replied briefly, she noticed that Damij was stalling for time. He knew by now that he'd have been unable to beat her using just the level of power he had now and he wasn't willing to show the audience that he didn't have things under complete control. Sadly the pain of being beaten and thrown around like a ragdoll was slowly beginning to catch up to Mana finally as adrenaline could only help her for so long to fend off so much pain.
"And that is all that it is... Defense. A style to help you to survive, just something to keep you from getting hit" Damij smiled.
Normally he'd have been right but the style of redirection that Meiko taught Mana was still up the magician's sleeve, while the evasive style was purely defensive Mana still had the option of creating her own openings using redirection and beat her opponents, even those of far superior skill. Still, Mana wished to use that style either when she was pressed against a wall or when Damij's seven minutes of playing around ended. If she managed to keep fighting after the seven minutes ended she'd be able to entertain the audience by showing that there was someone able to fully challenge Damij even at his best.
Damij quickly charged at Mana, his body blurred as he once again briefly augmented his abilities just barely above the human limit and dashed to Mana trying to strike her down. She didn't have much time, less than a minute left to seven minutes. The magician leaned back to avoid Damij's palm strike, moved the rest of her lower body back to avoid his flip kicks and barrage of offensive acrobatic kicks. She had to do it, she couldn't just keep on dodging forever. Mana thrust her own palms and knees to work, opening Damij's body for secured blows.
Mana opened her own offense but Damij evaded it, he evaded her artificial openings! Now he knew of Mana's ability to redirect, to create openings and exploit them. Brief dark aura started emanating around Damij – his augmentation was increasing. Mana found her hands caught in Damij's grasp, her eyes opened wide in surprise, "Ten, nine..." she counted down seconds until Damij's seven minutes would clock out and he'd supposedly beat her.
"I see... So you can redirect to create openings even from the perfect styles... That being said, such strategy works only on humans of peak human strength and speed. The moment you redirect you are no longer defending and evading. You still switch and jump around from offensive to defensive styles and you lack harmony between them. You can only defend yourself, you won't lay a finger on me..." Damij explained as Mana desperately tried to kick the man as her hands were firmly locked down in his iron grasp. Damij's feet matched Mana's, not only blocking her kicks but kicking her in the gut and her knees as well, sending the girl on her knees. Damij lifted Mana by her hands as her pain-ridden beaten body weighed down.
Mana didn't even try to resist. She knew that Damij was right, she could only defend herself in infinite loops of evasion but she could never tag Damij. Eventually, she'd tire out or Damij would but she had to use her full one hundred percent to evade his superhumanly fast strikes and he only had to warm himself up to throw them, a body capable of two thousand percent augmentation tired little when it fought using a bit over a hundred. She'd have timed out first, most likely... Mana knew it was all over, she gave up. Damij's crushing headbutt made everything go black. Her seven minutes were up...
For the first time in a while pain of light seeping into Mana's eyes didn't cause headaches that made her wish she was dead. Mostly because it was the middle of the night that Mana woke up, she was laying on the bench with a bucket laying beside her and Bult passed out by his bench. Mana smelled something very disgusting inside that bucket, the magician tried to sit back up but she couldn't, her head was too dizzy. Bult must've kept himself awake the whole time tending to Mana's knocked out body, watching that the magician didn't stop breathing all of a sudden or didn't choke on her vomit. This must've been quite a nasty concussion...
Mana checked her forehead feeling a cold and damp cloth dripping on it. It must've been something to help her concussion but... What exactly would she be returning to? She lost. Hopelessly and unconditionally. Damij had the full control the entire time, he dictated the terms, he named seven minutes and once the last second ticked Mana was knocked out. Maybe she could've resisted for a bit longer, just long enough to defy him his seven-minute satisfaction but... What was the point? Damij was right, she wasn't a martial artist. All she had was the ability to run away, evade blows and survive. That wasn't a skill worthy of an arena champion or the legendary hero that'd beat the Ascension Gauntlet and save the arena once again.
Mana took the damp cloth off of her forehead and flipped onto the other side as her shoulder was completely numb and hurt a little already. Crystal tears started running down Mana's cheeks, she was so arrogant thinking she could've won. She needed to listen to Bult, to the old man, to everyone telling her to wait and do it right. This silly arrogant rush to save everyone every time would've ended her life if this wasn't a warm-up match. Why was she so adamant to rush it, the save the arena as fast as possible? The girl sighed and tried to get some sleep. At this point she wasn't sure to what exactly she'd be waking up to, she must've disappointed everyone that secretly believed her and started having faith in her once she beat one opponent after another, each stronger than the other.
She raised everyone's hopes up just to let them all down...