"In a shocking twist, Hakuji Shukufu, the Yokai Summoner, has been eliminated! His victory seemed all but assured after the timely interference of a Yurei calmed the spirit of Granny Bantou's drowned son and left her to fight for herself. However, it appears that just the old ax-swinging hag is enough! Who of us could see that ax fling coming!?" the announcer clued the audience in on the most relevant of the recent developments, though this felt like a fool's errand. There shouldn't have been a single spectator who missed a man collapsing into the lake with an axe sticking out from his face.
Meanwhile, the Salvari were making their moves to speed up the series of elimination as much as they could and proceed toward the one-on-one rounds, where they thought they held the advantage. Dashula charged straight for a nearby condor-shaped Cursed Warrior, however, the colossal flying weapon wasn't its intended target–it was the slender man with an oval face and a lone strand of hair sticking out from the central top area of his bald head.
The cowardly Silsilat yelped in terror, swinging on his chain to avoid the bold charge of the Salvari warrior. Instead of stopping to adjust his direction or try to read the inertia-fueled movements of the Fennec's mercenary, Dashula hurled a blazing trident at him. While the trident seemed to miss the randomly swinging and thrashing mercenary by a mile, a loud clank alerted Silsilat that the trident severed the chain that he used to tether himself to the soaring Cursed Warrior's wing.
Shouting and with a much shorter chain, Silsilat swung it at Dashula just out of a desperate attempt to fight against the inevitable end of his participation in this tournament. Dashula moved his right arm to the side and activated a sealing glyph on the back of his right hand, summoning the fiery trident he just flung away back to his grip before it stabbed into and attracted the attention of the massive Cursed Warrior still rampaging around with the same purpose as Dashula's in mind.
With his free hand, the Salvari champion grabbed the chain lashing at his face and pulled it in toward himself. Despite having the full ability to impale Silsilat on his trident after yanking him toward him at terrifying speed, Dashula decided to pummel him with an elbow strike instead. No matter how madly Silsilat tried to rid himself of his chain, it was wrapped all over his waist, right shoulder, and arm. Dashula's movements were swift and powerful, it barely took a moment before a single elbow slam turned the mercenary off and led to him plunging into the lake unconscious.
"Another elimination for Dashula! Given his cowardly disposition, nobody expected contestant Silsilat to win this tournament, but his elimination now only leaves a single mercenary competing for the tyrannical revolutionary Fennec, and that mercenary is a mindless golem of clockwork and metalwork!" the announcer declared as Fennec's last hope of achieving victory in the tournament and earning his passageway deeper to the south-west in the Land of Wind without a direct invasion wrestled against the Cursed Warrior Batsumon in the air while the red neon dragon circled the arena.
The draconic Batsumon took a few circles before it got its hands on the crawling, mindless beast of clockwork that single-handedly ruined the Chaos Factor's day by eliminating the final representatives all at once. Once Batsumon came out on top of the wrestling game, it focused on a magenta-colored, pulsating energy punch and cracked it straight into the golem's chest, pounding it away from sight and sending it flying at the lake's surface.
Despite the solid blow and a chillingly effective attempt, the walking clockwork configuration slammed against the wooden remains of a pirate ship, throwing its wooden boards and ship parts around as if the ship had blown up from the inside. A heavily armored pro athlete, with a helmet that simulated and translated strokes of reality after the athlete was blinded, hurled aside along with the wooden boards.
Against all odds, the blinded and worn-out athlete managed to grab hold of the airborne ship chunk and stabilize it mid-air, all while spouting jets of sealed chakra from the back of his armor to assist him in controlling the part's angle and direction. Had it not been for the hi-tech vizor feeding the young man vital intelligence such as his position in the air and the altitude, he would have separated from the wooden chunk and flopped face-first into the lake.
[Warning: Weight discrepancy imminent. Error: Water not present in standard Fusion Ball fields. Warning: Please return to the stadium to continue the quarter…]
Grumbling as he struggled to stay afloat on a drowning chunk of the ship, Ryoku Genshi began frantically stripping chunks of armor and heaving them aside. Although it was that same armor that kept him alive for the entire past of the tournament, not to mention, feeding him visual input after a collision with a drug-pumping serial killer left him permanently blinded. While the audience hated the showcase of the sum of injuries decorating the well-maintained body of the professional athlete and the mashed, bloody porridge that remained of the upper half of his face after his Fusion Ball armor healed his gruesome injuries halfway, the Fusion Baller managed to save himself as the drowning ship chunk suddenly shot upward, nearly tossing the young man over with its revived buoyancy.
The only part of his career sports that Ryoku Genshi retained after fully stripping off his armor was the piece of equipment that his entire game was named after — the Fusion Ball. Tucked underneath his armpit, the farm boy who became a Fusion Ball titan leaned down to balance himself while trying to listen in to anything that could tip him off about any incoming attackers. Given his grievous wounds and the fact he just rid himself of the only thing relaying him visual information, he had only the brush of wind, smells, and hearing to rely on.
Naked, bleeding out and the most helpless he's ever felt since he was still in his mother's womb. Despite the sum of his injuries and the sheer unlikeliness that he was to survive just a single position higher in the rankings, the pro athlete continued to surf his discarded chunk of the ship waiting for what was to come with a hi-tech destructive sphere under his armpit.
"Eleven o'clock, sixty-three degrees sharp," a voice reached Ryoku Genshi.
Just who could have been speaking to him? If it was another challenger, why would they help him by tipping him off to where they were attacking from? Unless… They purposefully tried to confuse him, to make Ryoku turn his back and expose himself. That was stupid. Why would they ask for an even greater advantage and try to trick the athlete into opening up when he was one foot in the grave already? Without giving way to doubts, Ryoku Genshi jumped off his platform.
The moment his feet left the wooden ship fragment, he could already hear it. The rumbling of a disastrously large object incoming straight at him, the roaring of an intense amount of energy focused on the right side. He could feel the heated atmosphere that scorched hotter than the vanishing desert sun in the evening sky. When Ryoku's feet touched a firm metallic surface and grabbed something sharp and jagged for cover, he realized he reacted in an ideal way. If he merely flung his Fusion Ball and caused it to explode with all of its awesome might, he'd have possibly knocked the incoming Cursed Warrior to the side, but that would have left him utterly disarmed and helpless.
Instead of delving on the black void of blindness, Ryoku Genshi returned home. Back to the days when he helped his dad plow the fields with the equipment placed and pressing against his shoulders. An eight-year-old boy, already stronger than a group of dad's liveliest oxen. It was as if Ryoku felt the leathery touch of the plow as he charged forward and rushed to where the heat stung his pores the worst. That must have been where the energy of the Cursed Warrior was at its most intense. Also, where it was closest to the pro athlete and the least armored.
The beast rattled and shook, but this felt exactly like being back on the field for Ryoku. Just like against incoming, armored titans with mountainous, beefy bodies, Ryoku Genshi rolled over, crawled, and pushed through all the struggle and the shifting ground beneath his feet.
"Now, dunk it now!" it was that voice again. However, this time it sounded differently. When his enigmatic benefactor first warned Ryoku Genshi of the incoming danger, it sounded staticky and artificial, almost like he was speaking through a microphone. Now, it was as if the man was rushing atop the massive draconic weapon of mass destruction alongside the young athlete.
Given how there was a precedent of the voice being trustworthy, Ryoku Genshi yelled out, with full knowledge of how painful it would be, and slammed the Fusion Ball straight down. He didn't just touch it down; he shoved it in, bending, breaking, and forcing the Fusion Ball through a layer of armor before it touched something sizzling and ionized. The ball screamed out before the shriek escaped the shell of the adamantine obsidian armor and flung Ryoku Genshi away, ripping him free of his right hand and shooting him off into the air.
A ragged mercenary with brown hair and a headband, still balancing atop the burning and crashing Cursed Warrior, emerged from underneath a makeshift camouflage sheet and aimed the airborne pro-athlete. After hooking him with a grappling rubbery band, the spy-turned-mercenary stuck his weapon into the back of the crashing Cursed Warrior as it splashed into the lake face-first, yet, because of its massive size, remained emerged with the back side of its body. The rubbery band snapped and locked Ryoku Genshi onto the Cursed Warrior's back, securing him in place while Hit Boomslang pulled out another grappling gun and zipped away.
"What just happened!? Despite being completely blind, somehow… Against all odds, the immovable Fusion Ball titan, Ryoku Genshi plunged his unstable fusion reactor ball straight into the energy currents flowing underneath the Cursed Warrior armor and caused a violent chain reaction that rung out the Cursed Warrior Batsumon!" the announcer flipped out, tugging his long, bright hair with his hands as he shook his head in disbelief. "Also, where the heck did Hit Boomslang come from just now and what's his input in all this!?"
"Hit Boomslang?" Ryoku Genshi thought to himself while laying on his back, completely powerless to stand up yet bound to the back of the Cursed Warrior who, despite only taking minor injuries, has been ringed out and therefore couldn't finish him off either. "Wasn't he one of the spies? I see… He must have hacked into the frequency of my suit and spoke through my helmet before it drowned too deep with his radio. Once I jumped onto the Cursed Warrior's back, he spoke to me directly, guiding my hand. He must have an agenda against these Cursed Warriors, so he used me as his living weapon against the Cursed Warrior."
The maimed athlete heard a metallic clang and the hissing release of gas to his side. The solid surface that Hit Boomslang bound him to with his grappling hook gadget to prevent Ryoku's elimination began shifting. What the blinded Fusion Ball titan couldn't see was Batsumon's back splitting open with two metallic plates, splitting apart like doors. A muscular and wet arm of a man who looked both swollen with muscle and starved to a lethal extent and covered with metallic plates emerged from the open platform.
A pilot with a robotic right eye, a face covered with metallic patches dyed to resemble human skin better, and spiky white hair turned to the one-armed, blinded and excruciated pro athlete hanging on for his life. The spiky-haired pilot in the standard Cursed Warrior pilot uniform snarled and raised his arms in a wind-up motion that telegraphed a ruthless pound. Given his gorilla-like proportions of slender robotic legs, rod-thin waist, and oversized chest and arms, such an attack would have undoubtedly proven lethal.
"What's this!? The pilot of Batsumon has emerged from the cockpit intending to kill Ryoku Genshi for causing the Cursed Warrior's elimination! This is against the rules, somebody, stop him!" the announcer called out this behavior, given the huge amount of problems that it would cause. After all of that day's pompous and violent festivities, the battle royale shouldn't have had any disqualifications and unanswered questions left. If Ryoku Genshi was crushed now, by a competitor that's been eliminated with him still being part of the battle royale, that would throw the integrity of the whole tournament into disarray.
The cybernetically modified pilot halted. Ryoku Genshi couldn't see his would-be smasher and, with the leathery straps of the grappling hook gadget having bound him to Batsumon, he couldn't really move. It wasn't like he could accomplish much against a halfway decent opponent, even if he could move, given the ridiculous extent of his injuries. The athlete wasn't sure why Hit Boomslang went out of his way to reward the young man for helping him eliminate the Cursed Warrior, but dark thoughts suggested it was just as a joke. An ironic jab at fortune herself to see how far a one-armed, blind, stripped, and lacerated man could go in such a grueling event.
"What's this!?" the announcer exclaimed, realizing that the pilot who controlled Batsumon was frozen in place for far too long now. "What on Earth is going on!? It's like the pilot is still struggling with his consciousness, desperately fending off the idea of rotting away what little dignity he still has as a warrior!"
With rolled-back eyes and a widely ajar mouth, completely relaxed and without a trace of life, the pilot plunged into the lake on his back. The audience jumped up when they saw the gorgeous sight of the Supreme Salvari himself standing in a prayer position in the gateway leading up to the behind-the-scenes facilities of the Sun Disc colosseum.
"The Supreme One interfered!" rumbling came up amongst the riled-up audience.
"Of course, he did, he just couldn't stand for this injustice!" many more argued.
"As a warrior, he couldn't accept one bad seed spoiling the tournament for everybody by breaking the rules like that, no doubt!" some more experienced spectators added to the cacophony of banter amongst the members of the audience who were in for the show of their life, just about to reach its conclusion.
"I may have been eliminated, but so were you," Bishiyari mumbled to himself before lowering his hand after his consciousness-shattering illusion had run its course and left the Batsumon pilot senseless for the healers to scoop up, restrain, and drag to the infirmary to see what signs of life they could still salvage out of him. "I expect little sense from you mere pilots of the true fighters, however, just because you don't know any better doesn't mean I would ever forgive your interference when so many mighty warriors had gambled their lives and reputations as warriors on this competition. Given your tendency to refuse to live your lives without your blasted weapons, I did you a favor by leaving you unconscious."
Ryoku Genshi heard the commotion amongst the audience and the ecstatic cheering the likes of which he could only attribute to the Salvari, yet he didn't feel the hefty fists crushing him from above, no matter how long he winced for. What he could easily make out, however, was the plates beneath him getting sensibly hotter. Ryoku began wriggling like a worm. Because he lost his right arm in the explosion that knocked Batsumon out of bounds, he just barely slipped out from the tight leathery wrap that Hit Boomslang left him in, just wide enough to detain a two-armed person, no doubt.
Completely unable to sense anything, with an expansive shriek filling his ears and deafening him to anything other than this high-pitched screaming in his mind, Ryoku just pounced into nowhere. Completely surrendering himself to the tide of fate, just like he used to take wild leaps of faith off the rocky forest waterfalls back home on the farm with his friends. His instincts proved to be right for Batsumon's remains lit up the sky with a fiery bubble and a widespread concussive wave that sent Ryoku Genshi flying and smeared him across a remote chunk of rocky debris–a remainder of what was once the majestic structure of the Sun Disc colosseum arena.
Despite being robbed of his sense of hearing for a time, Ryoku picked up on the fact that he hadn't blacked out and grabbed hold of the edge of the rocky platform he skidded across. His fingers and hand grazed against the rock, unraveling the fingers backward in a popping fracture while his entire body felt dragging asphalt burns all across his left side and over his back. The audience gasped and held their breaths, counting the stubborn young man out.
Except he managed to hold on to the edge narrowly by biting into it. This cost Ryoku Genshi at least four teeth and severe damage to his gum that bled out across the devastated rocky platform, but he stayed in the competition somehow.
"Unbelievable! What perseverance! What willpower, what endurance!" the announcer only ramped up the audience further. "Could we witness the birth of another Salvari today!? Another God of the Arena!? Even if the Cursed Warriors, apparently, explode upon defeat so that they don't fall into the enemy's hands, this remarkable ironman fought for his survival! It's as if he simply cannot accept defeat! Blinded by the serial killer Fusho Yakobu, likely deafened by being hit and taken for a ride by this rowdy self-destruction blast, disarmed by his own desperate move and forced to strip his armor and gear to allow balance on lightweight wooden platforms… Still, Ryoku Genshi refuses to stop, eliminating his second Cursed Warrior today! 19 contestants left, just 3 off from determining the Top 16, ladies and gents! I can hardly contain the excitement!"
"Boomslang to LOBOMUTT, the Cursed Warriors appear to self-destruct unless they are completely broken apart upon defeat. It must be a means to prevent them from falling into the enemy hands," Hit Boomslang reported to something stuck in his ear while hanging on the protective wall with an embedded grappling hook. "Dispatched of another one, Codename: Batsumon, with a little borrowed help. Three more remain. It just so happens that three eliminations later, the round ends. I'll see what I can do to make it poetic, but I might have to leave it for the next stage, over."