It's been three so far and now we about to have ourselves a four. To address some minor misunderstandings: Akuma and Asura had an extended fight before arriving at Remnant, and they lost much of their vitality surviving the rift, so they are not at a hundred percent upon arrival. Thanks for understanding and let Chapter IV commence
Special Thanks to user Maglad for proofreading this chapter. Hell, the other two before this as well. (Maglad: You didn't give me time to correct anything on those, don't put those on me! :D )
Back at the Forest
"They'll what?", Weiss asked as Akuma and Asura stepped away from them- eyes on each other as they assume their combat stances, still as statues, waiting for the other to attack or for an unexpected, yet obvious sign to begin the fight
"Yaaayy" Nora could barely contain her excitement this time around as she was about to witness these beasts fighting again. The same excitement was shared by Yang (despite some animosity toward Asura for touching her baby sister) but could not pass the chance to witness a good 'old-fashioned brawl.
Blake and Ren on the other hand just watched in utter silence as the men before them prepared themselves for a seriously anticipated fight. Blake was confused by the way things are going, and shared Weiss' suspicions of the strangers.
'These two... why are they fighting each other?' Blake thought, trying to understand their reasons for fighting after showing such amazing teamwork while demolishing the grimm. Ren on the other hand was deep in thought as to why the red-haired man referred to the now-named General Asura as the God of Rage.
'Of all titles, [The God of Rage]? What are you hiding, General Asura?' Ren thought, awfully suspicious of the six-armed man's title.
Either scared or surprised, the other students stood perfectly still. Except for Ruby, who was worried about Asura after he saved Lisa earlier and chose not to harm her. In fact, she was rooting for him.
"Go, Asura! Beat him up!", she yelled, much to the surprise of the other students, Glynda, and Asura himself. Asura filed it for later and focused on his opponent.
"Wait, What!?" Jaune asked, his face graced with a look of shock from what Ruby just said. "How could you be rooting for someone at a time like this?" He asked
"He's right, you dolt!" Weiss raised her voice slightly, siding with Jaune on this one. "Those madmen are fighting in the middle of grimm-infested land for no reason we can see!"
Yang agreed to side with her sister, and show some support for Asura.
"He does have six fists and last I checked, six are better than two." - She stated before giving Ruby a light high five
"The lion man, from what I've seen, does more than makeup for his lack of extra appendages with an abundance of martial arts skill." - Stated Ren, showing he favored Akuma's victory over Asura's.
"Yeah! And he was able to do that cool move with the fireball and the light show…and now his hair is White!" Nora added, siding with Ren and Akuma "And he made the ground all wobbly"
"They look evenly matched. It's anyone's fight" - Pyrrha chose to remain neutral since despite both warriors being extremely powerful, she had yet to see one show any advantage the other couldn't counter.
"Guess we have to watch and see."
"What are they waiting for?" Now standing beside them, the cameraman asked with his scroll ready to record the fight.
As if on cue, Akuma, without relaxing his stance for even a moment, turned his head and looked Goodwitch straight in the eyes. His sudden change of posture slightly spooking her and both teams.
"Woman! Take your children and leave!" He barked at her before refocusing on Asura "the battlefield is no place for weaklings."
Glynda could not hold herself back. Her shock transformed into anger. Even if she did not know what the man had said, she saw it as a sign of disrespect and a challenge to herself. With a flick of her riding crop, she attempted to threaten Akuma. It failed woefully as Akuma didn't do so much as move at all.
"Professor Goodwitch, I think he wants us to step back." - Ren translated the only one who could understand Akuma's words to Glynda, doing so in the least insulting way possible.
Oh hearing this, the students moved back to a point where they could still see the fight, but felt safe enough. With an audible huff, Glynda followed after them to what would now serve as the spectator area. Their mission was to bring them back to Ozpin, but the two's had made their intentions clear, meaning that she and the students had to either knock them out, persuade them, or wait out the fight. The first two should be faster, but were definitely not realistic. They didn't share a common language and she doubted her students would come out unharmed.
"Students, we will watch and wait. Do not interfere or antagonize them." - Glynda laid down the plan for the time being.
"But we..." - Weiss tried to interject.
"No buts! Stay and Observe."
Asura and Akuma studied each other, unblinking. Crimson red pupils met smooth white orbs. Their respective energies beginning to flare, birthing a breeze around them. Weiss felt a bit miffed by her teacher's abrupt rebuke, but her gloom was quickly replaced by a sudden idea and she rushed to recover her scroll and point it at them, quickly tapping and sliding through menus in order to reach its aura measuring function. The device reported some malfunction, but she quickly managed to adjust it to display whatever energies the combatants used as bars on the screen. Nora saw this, and with the widest grin called out: "Round one, FIGHT!"
That was enough.
"HARGHHH!"
"MESSATSU!"
With a loud battle cry, the fighters lunged at each other at speeds Ruby could barely perceive. Asura's middle-left arm went in to punch Akuma, who countered by raising his right knee and deflecting the attack. This did not make Asura let up and this time, all six arms launched a barrage of punches at Akuma, aiming for different parts of his body. Loud bangs rang out from his attacks whenever they were blocked or deflected.
The Supreme Master of the Fist made a decent effort to parry the barrage of attacks but even he wasn't fast enough and was eventually caught by a right punch to his torso. Asura followed it up flawlessly, breaking his rival's posture with more punches and a right uppercut, launching Akuma into the air before jumping after him and finishing with a ten-hit combo.
"Yeah!" Ruby screamed, happy that Asura had the upper hand. Yang cheered too, she and Nora having a thousand lien bet riding on the fight. Meanwhile, the rest of the students were frozen, their faces displaying varying expressions of shock and awe.
Akuma slammed into the ground but quickly flipped back onto his feet and assumed a different stance, his Rakan stance. This granted him an impeccable defense against one attack, which may not sound like much, but to an experienced fighter such as himself, that was all he needed.
Asura lunged at Akuma again to catch his opponent with a kick to his left side, but Akuma only moved to block at the last possible moment. His crimson eyes flashed and his energy flared as his arms moved, catching Asura off guard
"Goshoryuken!" He cried out. His fist flashed red and moved in a black and red blur as he moved in to deliver an EX Goshoryuken uppercut to the unguarded chin of Asura. Asura raised one arm to block the glowing fist in vain, Akuma's punch breaking through. The fist connected with Asura's jaw, and both opponents rose into the air. A second uppercut followed as Akuma began spinning around each time, delivering a third and even a fourth uppercut before landing on his feet, his opponent recovering in mid-air and landing on his feet, both fighters now facing away from each other.
"Take that, Ruby" Nora yelled in glee as Akuma had managed to make a quick comeback. Akuma's sudden movement had not escaped anyone.
"How do you move that fast?" Jaune asked
"He's just... No professional huntsman can ever move that fast" Pyrrha replied
"Might even give you a run for your money Wait… My money!" Yang stated, facing Ruby who watched the fight hoping that Asura won. Amongst the two, she felt more comfortable with Asura than Akuma
"No more games, friend!" Asura yelled, demanding he comes at him full force.
Akuma replied with a grunt of annoyance and pleasure. Waves of black and red ki flowed around him, his body flashing red as his eyes began to glow. A sudden wave of darkness washed over the battlefield, leaving only the glowing eyes of Akuma and the red silhouette of Asura visible to the eyes.
"Who turned off the lights," Yang asked but as Weiss was about to reply, The voice of Akuma cried out again
"Prepare yourself!"
A red blur with glowing crimson eyes moved towards another red blur, both intent on clashing with each other. As they met, the voices of the fighters echoed again in the pitch-black forest
"Die One Thousand Deaths!"
"This is the end!"
What happened within the next minute shocked Glynda and the students to no end. The two blurs, now identified as Asura and Akuma, clashed. Akuma moved fast to hit each of Asura's vital organs, joints, and arteries. The attacks could not be seen by the naked eye, leaving the spectators to barely see purple sparks as Akuma's fists struck their targets.
One, two, four, eight, twenty... Akuma had landed forty hits within the span of but a single moment! Asura managed to block most of them, but still took some of the outrageous numbers of blows, leaving him floored for almost five seconds, the longest so far in the fight.
"This is Messatsu!" He growled, the darkness disappearing as a kanji appeared on his back.
Asura got back up and regained his composure before lunging to punch at Akuma, who struck back with both hands, parrying two of Asura's blows and landing one of his own even as the rest of the God of Rage's fists landed on his torso, the sound of crunching bones filling the woods before his body was imbedded at ballistic speeds into the heart a nearby hill, just for Asura to begin blasting at the hole with mantra blasts, the ground shaking and the air trembling with the blast of countless explosions as the hole grew into a crater with Akuma at the bottom of it.
"I'M STILL NOT DONE!" - He yelled
Asura, all six fists cocked back, dove into the dust-filled crater, much to the surprise of those who thought he was dead. The dust cloud disintegrated as Akuma jumped towards the diving Rage Deity, his fist surrounded in crimson red hado. The seven fists met with a boom that was felt before it was heard, followed by a just of wind that broke the top of nearby trees and caused the earth to shake before tossing the spectators into the ground.
The two were blown away from each other, with Asura landing on his feet and Akuma on his hands before flipping back onto his feet.
"You continue to impress me. You truly deserve your title, Akuma" - Asura thought
"Could this be the battle I had been searching for all these years!? It wasn't Ryu, but you, Asura!"
The two warriors were about to continue, when…
A sudden shower of steel-hard and razor-sharp feathers drew the two's attention, a murder of nevermore attacking everyone in sight. Asura immediately moved in front of the kids and begins to shoot down the incoming projectiles, while Akuma growls and looks up, easily catching a feather the size of a greatsword between his palms, then using it to hit another out of the sky, worrying about nobody but himself.
"Annoying pests... why do they keep coming?" the eternal scowl of Akuma grew even deeper as he glared at the monsters.
"Grimm are attracted to negative emotions, such as rage or fear, and we are the only source of emotions here in the woods," explains Ren "so they will keep coming until we're gone."
"Rage eaters? Very well, I shall feed them 'till they choke!" - Akuma's scowl eased into a gesture too feral to be called a smile