"You… Paradox Magician!" Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts, approached a pyramid built out of ethereal cubes of compressed infinities stacked one on top of the other, emitting such crushing pressure that any lesser man would've been crushed without a trace. Lengthened to an infinite straw of flat spaghetti and compressed enough to become yet another singularity that would merge with the nearest cube. Jishoku Quinton, the Paradox Magician, sat on top of this pyramid.
"Hmm?" Jishoku looked down at the approaching battered and bruised man with black spiky hair. It was tough to say which way Jet looked more threatening, when he was at full strength and fresh for a fight or when he was bare-chested, his muscles at peak tonus and scrapes decorating his chiseled body. "Oh, it's you. I'll give you credit for managing to approach my resting place, but I'd suggest you get going. I'm not someone you can beat by swinging your fists like some caveman."
"Perhaps it is so," Jet's movements became slow and restricted. The combined weight of countless singularities pressed down on him with crushing gravity. A white flame of dharma passed upward through Jet's body, spiking up his hair to an even more chaotic state and turning their tips into white flames while Jet's eyes became cerulean lanterns of what Salvari perceived as a divinity of martial arts. "But I have a condition. I love martial arts!"
"Good. Being passionate about the thing you love is the key to a greater understanding. Keep at it…" Jishoku waved his hand in dismissal. Yet, when Jet began stepping over the cubes of compressed infinities and ascending the pyramid up to where the Paradox Magician was seated, Jishoku tilted his cheek off his knuckle with a glint of respect for the numbskull looking for trouble in front of him.
"You might be able to see my conundrum. I see you, a self-proclaimed magician in a martial arts competition. This leaves one of two options…" Jet ascended the hovering and humming cubes of compressed infinity and raised a hand holding two fingers right in front of Jishoku's face. "Whether it is that your magic is a type of martial arts I cannot fathom, or if you're no martial artist yet, you're a threat to desecrating a hallowed martial arts competition ground by eliminating true martial artists, I must fight you."
"You're much too green to understand magic," Jishoku pushed his hands into his pockets and stood up, leaning in front of the bruised Messiah of Martial Arts, as if challenging him to try and deck the Paradox Magician. "And even greener still to fight me."
"We won't know until the last punch is thrown!" Jet beamed an excited smile, shooting an uppercut aimed directly at Jishoku's chin. Everything turned black, and every ounce of matter comprising the universe became just a whirling bowl of ramen, slurped up into the pyramid of cube singularities, leaving just the two feuding warriors facing one another with Jet having frozen in place. Jet's fist was just mere centimeters away from Jishoku's face.
"You think you're fast, but truth is, this is exactly how fast you are compared to me," Jishoku turned around and leisurely paced to the edge of the pyramid's peak, reshaping the cubes to push underneath where he would step to keep him at the top of the void of non-existence. "It looks like I've frozen you in time, doesn't it? Well, that's not entirely true. You're just moving at your top speed, this is how much your peppy speed matters on the cosmic scale. To some, the speed that a proton takes to travel across the length of a hydrogen molecule is fast. But a photon hosts its own share of even more fundamental elements. Entire microverses are born, live out their lifespans, and die in that time, so, from their point of view, it's not fast at all."
"Paradox of Everything: Infinity Squared!" Jishoku pressed his hands together in a triangular sign formed out from his index fingers and thumbs while spreading the rest of his fingers apart like the rays of a shining sun. The cubes of compressed infinity began turning around, a focused white beam radiating from within the triangular space between Jishoku's fingers. Like a rockslide, the wild cubes began battering Jet, who still struggled to complete his uppercut to Jishoku's jaw.
Grunting, Jet could only ride and weather out the incoming beatdown while Jishoku snapped his fingers, making the cubes of compressed infinity burst and, like from a popped blister, spill out the reality that it had slurped inside, returning color and normalcy to the void of non-existence. Jet laid on his back with his mouth ajar, sprawled out and looking senseless while Jishoku gently hovered near him with his arms crossed.
"You are tough, I'll give you that," Jishoku sighed, brushing his hand through the messy, orchid-colored hair. "I wonder if it is because of what a toll fighting Mamosei took on me or if you truly embody and channel some primeval universal force with that white-flame state of yours?"
"Heh, heh…" Jet cackled, coughing up blood he spat out upon sitting up. The spontaneous return to life of his opponent made Jishoku stagger back. "You've got those weird eyes that understand everything, don't you? Why don't you slip those leather straps off them and peer into exactly what I am?"
"Because then your enigma would become boring. Either of these options would bore me to tears. I've been injured before, and I've seen unimpressive people channel terrifying forces beyond their understanding too. It's in the mystery of which it is, the guesswork that the intrigue keeps the passion alive," the Paradox Magician beamed a sheepish grin.
"You're one terrifying guy…" Jet panted with wobbly knees. The white flame in his spiky hair became extinguished and his black eyes returned to their ordinary human state. Sweat poured down Jet's forehead and his eyelids threatened to close shut and send him to sleep at any point now. "Even when you're all tuckered out from the fight for your life, you're still a whole head over everyone here."
"Don't feel bad, I've had a number of years you couldn't wrap your head around of practice. So… Do you truly think I'm just tired then?" Jishoku cracked his neck to the right side, making the leathery bodysuit and all the belts covering him squeak from the pressure being applied.
"It's time we find out, isn't it?" Jet slipped his thumb underneath his nose with a sassy flick. "How about I explain photosynthesis to you?"
"You do the what now…?" Jishoku scratched the messy orchid haystack resting on his head.
"People need oxygen to breathe, right…" Jet replied without skipping a beat. Ironically enough, he was struggling for breath after a fight that pushed him headfirst through the wall of his limits. "That's where plants come in with photosynthesis. They absorb the sunlight from the sky, the water from the soil, and the carbon dioxide we all breathe out to create oxygen and energy in the form of sugar."
"I… What is this…?" Jishoku became restless, shifting his balance from one foot to another, crossing his arms, then pulling them apart, scratching his head, and rolling his knuckles. For a moment, the index finger of his right hand slipped underneath the leather straps crossed over his all-seeing and all-knowing eyes. "What are you talking about?" he asked instead of pulling the straps off, so eager to preserve the mystery in his opponent's strategy.
"In math, addition means joining two numbers together. In a way, it represents combining all the bits into one. For example, to add five and five, it makes ten…" just to make it simpler for his opponent to understand, Jet illustrated the elementary mathematical procedure by counting up with his fingers by adding them together. "Subtraction is a similar concept, except the polar opposite. Instead of adding things together, you take the other value from the first. To subtract five from ten means to have five left."
"Are you just…" Jishoku yawned and rattled his head to shake the haze off. "Trying to waste my time…" Jishoku yawned again, placing his hand to his mouth, "Or something…?"
"In order to comprehend reading, you first need to know the letters. Only by having an intimate familiarity with letters to where you can identify the letter you're being shown when awakened in the middle of the night from your sleep can you read words at an acceptable pace. Also, there is the matter of the fact that if you are placing all your focus merely on the fact of the letters, processing each of them, you'll skip out on reading comprehension, making the entire process of reading worthless. For example, the story of how Jet's mom bought Jet new boxing gloves yesterday, Jet boxed with his new gloves for hours, Jet loves his mother, and his new boxing gloves would fly completely over your head if you're fussing about what each of the letters is. You'd miss out on the finer details, who bought Jet the new boxing gloves, what did they buy Jet, what does Jet love doing, how does Jet feel about his new boxing gloves, and about the person who bought them?" Jet went on and on until a dull thud snapped him out of teaching a magician who studied the most exquisite mysteries of the universe in a dimension outside the concepts of space and time, the basic matters of literacy and reading comprehension.
Jishoku laid flat on his face. His chest lightly pushed his body off of the ground while a meek snoring sound reached Jet's ears from the face of the sleeping Paradox Magician. Gently, Jet flipped his opponent over his shoulders and jogged all the way to the edge of the arena. All the warriors rushed out of Jet's way, giving the Messiah of Martial Arts stunned stares as none of them wanted to interfere with the elimination of the Paradox Magician.
Vaulting him over his shoulder with the simplest of throws, Jet planted Jishoku in the pool outside of the arena's bounds, snapping him awake.
"Sorry for waking you up, man. I really hate to eliminate you in such a sneaky manner too, but… I'd rather an actual martial artist wins this competition, you know?" Jet saluted the magician before making a quick getaway and plunging back into the chaos of the battle royale.
"I… I struggle to find words to describe the ludicrous happening! Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts defied the odds again by eliminating not only a Salvari but now also Jishoku Quinton, the Paradox Magician, by literally boring the magician to sleep!" the announcer rubbed his eyes underneath his shades.
"L'Ollonais!" Vatee hissed upon the sight of the Pirate Lord approaching the crumbled statue that Mana's spirit inhabited before collapsing and falling asleep. The serpentine statue coiled, positioning herself in between the Pirate Lord and the devastated Five-Tails' statue.
"I've come here to finish off the stone monster, but it appears that it has become just a background decoration. A pity. A gentleman shouldn't be flinging chipped stones around, so I suppose I should leave it to some ruffian to take care of the Five-Tails' statue. You, on the other hand… Tomoe symbols connected in a serpentine body, the art, the craftsmanship… Bravo!" L'Ollonais bowed before Vatee. "I admire your appearance, that being said, I don't take being hissed at very well, so I'll give you no quarter, snake!"
Before L'Ollonais could make the first move, however, open iron claws surrounded his body from both sides before snapping shut. "What might this be now?" the Pirate Lord sighed in disappointment before a chilling sound of reeling steel wire preceded a strong yank that dragged him backward. A woman with slick, creamy-colored white hair reaching up to the middle of her neck vaulted over the Pirate Lord, making her blood-red dress flap in mid-air. L'Ollonais was attached to something she held in her hands, but before he could snap back to it, a kick to his face from the woman's kick stunned him for the overhead slam to the ground.
The iron shut around L'Ollonais' body snapped open and the grappling hook claw locked back in place. The woman slipped her grappling hook shooting device into a pouch attached to a belt tied around her thigh underneath the long, red dress.
"You know, old man, you've got quite the bounty on your head in just about any country," the spy in the red dress pecked the tops of her index and middle fingers and sent the air kiss with a playful wave and a wink while the ruffled L'Ollonais rose and patted down his coat and frilly shirt.
"I don't recall the last time that a woman has chased after me. Maybe some woman mercenary tried capturing me a dozen years ago but… This smells of desperation," L'Ollonais stood up and showed the spy in the red dress his sheathed saber. "Know, however, that once a blade is drawn, one must wage a battle to its conclusion. I don't particularly fancy killing women, but in my youth, I've sworn to never henceforth give quarter to any lowlife whatsoever."
"On the mystical island of Tortuga, right? You've beheaded all but one member of the Tomato Bull mercenary crew. It put a bounty on your head on the black market, not just the countries you've stolen from," the woman's eyes glistened with focus as she teased the Pirate Lord with knowledge of his exploits.
"I didn't do the deed myself, but I gave the order, yes," L'Ollonais fixed the frilly collar of his shirt before crossing the fatal line of drawing his saber and letting sunlight glisten in the reflection off of its blade. "An awfully messy and bloody affairs, beheadings. Not befitting a gentleman."
"Aww, does that mean you'll mind if I hand your head over to Kumogakure?" the spy in the red dress teased her opponent with a cartoonish pouty face.
"I'll make you a proposition, I won't hold it against you if you don't hold it against me when I do the same," L'Ollonais swung his sword to the side, leaving himself wide open for attack. Reaching for the pouch around her left thigh, the spy in the red dress pulled out a metallic handheld gizmo that unraveled with a click, becoming half of an arm's length and spreading cross-shaped branches on the front. The transformed crossbow spat out a handful of bolts in the Pirate Lord's direction, but they only pierced a watery image of L'Ollonais.
L'Ollonais' skin and clothes rippled from the disturbance while a handful of holes where the bolts punched through his chest and waist persisted and drooped with red, syrup-like goop. "Campeche Ruse!" L'Ollonais' voice echoed from no one knew where while his syrupy doppelgänger lost his human appearance and became just a collapsing mass of blood-red syrup that slowly slushed into a thick and sticky puddle.
Distraught by the deception, the spy flipped backward in evasive action, eluding the leaking thick syrup puddle before it could catch up to her and entrap her, but her back hit a stone pillar protruding out of the ground. In moments, it became covered in the syrup and it began wrapping around the spy, pulling her deeper into its embrace while the gooey mass grew thicker and wider in girth by absorbing bits of the puddle L'Ollonais' lookalike dissolved into.
"Nothing personal, right?" L'Ollonais asked the entrapped spy, who struggled against the limb-like tendrils pushing her deeper and deeper into the syrupy goop as he manifested an upper half of his body from the gooey mass and raised his saber to swing for a beheading of the entrapped woman. "Based on what you told me and your desperation, you're not on the best of terms with the authority that governs the world. That means that at least one country should appreciate your head just enough for a small favor."
L'Ollonais swung his saber with a decisive stroke, overcoming his disgust at the idea of beheading a woman with his own hand. A splash of blood ran down the woman's body and soaked her dress, but the wound around her neck was much shallower than the Pirate Lord intended. This made L'Ollonais raise a questioning eyebrow at first, but as he pulled the edge of his sword to slit the woman's throat through the shallow wound he inflicted, only a flock of sparks shot out. A song of shrieking steel wire accompanied it.
The spy in the red dress held a strand of steel wire erected from her mouth that held one end clenched between her teeth and a metal lid attached to the upper end of her hold-ups that appeared as a lighter at the first glance but served as some sort of steel wire dispenser. While this steel wire didn't entirely block L'Ollonais' swing, it absorbed enough of the force to render what would've been a beheading into just a skin-deep graze.
Having wrestled one of her hands free of the goop, the spy in the red dress flicked a bell-shaped metallic orb. It went off with a loud pop and drowned out the district of the arena in a flash of blinding light that aimed to erode L'Ollonais' eyesight, prompting the Pirate Lord to retreat into the gooey mass. The resulting distraction was considerable enough for the buccaneer to lose focus and for the gooey red mass to turn into a liquid which the parched arena tiles absorbed in a split instant, leaving just a dried-out layer of stickiness on top.
L'Ollonais wasn't sure how his opponent had found him, but she swooped in from the right with a jumping roundhouse. His desperation block wasn't elegant nor was it gentlemanly, but it did the deed in protecting his belfry from a concussive ring. Turning around, the spy decked the half-blinded and still reeling L'Ollonais with the back of her other heel, then backflipped with the support of her hands while pulling out a handheld gadget from her black garter belt.
The slick-haired spy jumped forward with a flying dropkick, dragging L'Ollonais away with a slide as he had to cross up his arms to absorb the shock of the blow. There went that awful string-reeling sound as the captivating spy woman attached an end of her steel wire to L'Ollonais' lapel and dragged him in. A stiff backhanded smack opened up the Pirate Lord's guard and made him focus his defense around the upper side of his body. Still half-blinded, L'Ollonais bulged out his bloodshot, dulled-out stare eyes when the handheld gadget of the spy dug into his side and shocked him with a ludicrous voltage crumbling him down to his knees.
The loop of steel wire danced in the air, rich with color, flowing freely from the lighter-shaped gadget on the thigh of the female spy. With a certain yet light gesture, she flung the loop around L'Ollonais' neck and took off with a gigantic backflip, positioning herself behind the same boulder that L'Ollonais nearly beheaded her by. Hung by his neck, the Pirate Lord gasped for air and ripped at his own neck, tearing out the collar of his shirt and exposing the neatly shaved yet meek in terms of bulk chest underneath.
"My, my… Both the enigmatic spy codenamed Kotlin and Pirate Lord Green Hideo L'Ollonais appear to be engaged in a beheading warfare and it's only a matter of time before one claims the head of the other! Currently, it is the gentlemanly buccaneer who finds himself suspended above the ground and gasping for air, but, as we've already witnessed in this very engagement, things are bound to change at any moment!" the announcer reported the happenings occurring nearby the fallen Five-Tails' statue and the trigger-happy tomoe-chain serpent hissing and rearing her fangs against anyone approaching the area with ill-intent toward the crumbled statue.