Captain Morgan grumbled and coughed some blood up as he pushed his body off the ground, stained by the small puddle he had accumulated where Wayna Nunnon cut him. In a snap, the skate-baller had completely changed her entire fighting style, switching into a hand-standing position while making her skates even more deadly than they were when Wayna blitzed around in her prime.
"I guess I'll have to work for it," Captain Morgan sighed, shaking his head as if the buccaneer still struggled to believe it himself.
"Isn't that a part of every battle you fight? If I didn't put everything I had into each game and leave a part of myself out there in the yard, it would make me a sorry excuse for an athlete," Wayna Nunnon brought her legs down as she adopted a pre-dashing all-fours position from which she could just as quickly take off dashing as she could go right back to standing on her arms.
"Not quite the case for me," Captain Morgan stuffed his pinky finger in his ear and gave it a good shake and twirl before pulling it out and clenching a fist. "Being a pirate is all about putting as little effort for as big of a payout as possible. Piracy is about freedom and breaking the rules. If I had to work for every nugget of gold I got, that'd be no different from getting a job."
"So we've led very different lives, huh?" Wayna put it into perspective with a longing, low-pitched tone, preparing to intercept any attempts Captain Morgan may have made to attack.
Captain Morgan pulled out something resembling a spying glass from a long, black leather pouch. Just like he would do with a spying glass, the pirate captain extended it to full length and then pressed it to his face, however, instead of his eye, the buccaneer pressed it to his mouth. "Devil's Honey: Water Law!" Captain Morgan barked out, exhaling a gigantic water blob from his mouth.
"Wow! This massive bubble isn't coming from the lake! If something like this bursts, it could be trouble!" Rajul reported to the anxious audience that shifted in their seats, unable to decide which of their butt cheeks they should have settled on. By now, they knew that if they pulled their attention away from the battle for one second, they risked missing the resolution.
"It's a rare talent for a Water Release user to be able to generate water on their own," Mana noted, finding the first talent shown by either second-round contestant to be amazed by. Even to a ninja who had access to the theory of chakra manipulation and centuries of training and records left by their ancestors who practiced the craft, only a handful could pull off a similar feat.
"He's not pulling it from the air," Asuka replied. Her expertise with Water Release and experience of being brought up in Kirigakure pulled her through in being able to read Captain Morgan's move flawlessly. "He's pulling it from himself. This bubble is 100% his own body fluids, turned to rum, just like he does with ordinary water."
"That's dangerous," Shige-H added her take as the medical ninja of the squad. "Even if you move past the obvious danger of dropping unconscious from dehydration, depriving oneself of body liquids in battle is a questionable move at best."
"No, he's doing a banging job," Asuka shook her head, smirking a little as she recognized genuine skill in a talent she knew well enough herself. "He's only drawing a small amount, not something that'll make him pass out, but he's using Water Release to expand what he takes in size and volume, then turning it into rum. That's some intermediate ninja stuff. You would rarely see someone on chuunin level pulling a trick like this off in the middle of a battle. Seeing a civilian doing it… That's almost unbelievable."
"I've encountered more than a few surprises in how well pirates handle Water Release," Mana nodded, finding nothing out of the ordinary based on her experiences fighting the Pirate Lords. "Some pirates have ninja backgrounds, some merely devote their entire lives to mastering a single move. That kind of devotion always leads to impressive, albeit one-note, results."
The audience shook in their seats as the massive, undulating bubble of rum that Captain Morgan blew out shattered into dozens of smaller transparent, odorous liquid orbs that smelled of liver bile, yet, if one were to drink it in, tasted sweet as rum. Just as Wayna Nunnon began wondering how or where the rogue sailor would attack her from, Morgan pulled out his carabin rifle and took a wild shot. "Devil's Honey: Buckshot Skip!" Morgan called out, with the end of his chant getting cut by the bang.
Wayna vaulted forward, shooting out her arms to stop her from planting nose-first into the tiles, rushing to avoid the high-caliber buckshot blast. The oddest thing happened, however, instead of blasting through the weightless, hovering blob of rum, the rum became thick like jelly and bounced the bullet off, redirecting its trajectory and causing it to chase after the diving skate-baller again. After taking the luxury of gasping, Wayna grit her teeth and put her shoulders into pushing her body into the air while she curled into a cannonball and began rolling mid-air.
Just like before, the buckshot bounced off of yet another blob of rum while losing none of its momentum. Gritting her teeth in dire need, Wayna thrust her right foot out and sliced the round metallic ball in two. The split, round bullet parted ways and flew a few more meters past its intended target before blowing up with pops, burning up all its gunpowder. Meanwhile, Wayna landed on her arms, stressing her biceps so much that her shoulders, biceps, and forearms became decorated with popping veins and her chest tore her tank top by the armpit and shoulder.
"Well, I'll be damned…" Captain Morgan reared his rotten teeth, realizing he needed to prepare his carabin for firing again if he were to make his opponent dance and roll in the air for him again.
Wayna Nunnon would not take that chance. Pushing herself into a frontal roll, the skate-baller closed the distance and stood up with an uppercut and a spinning backhand, but Captain Morgan dodged the first by slipping it back and blocked the second with his rifle, putting the empty carabin to good use as a staff. Dancing in place, Wayna Nunnon turned around with another backhand, then took it to the air to slash with her skate. Morgan was skilled enough at close quarters to block the first, but the second split his rifle into two, leaving a shallow, diagonal gash on Morgan's face too.
Adopting a handstand position, the skate-baller began spinning around after spreading her legs, becoming a whirligig of death. Captain Morgan had very few options in defending himself from such a close-distance blossom of blades. Just before he'd have been sliced to ribbons, the captain vaulted onto a hovering bubble of rum and took off into the air where he thought he'd be safe while the spinning, dicing frenzy of Wayna's left no nearby bubble of rum uncut. Once Wayna's skates split the hovering mass of booze, it collapsed to the ground like it was spilled from a bottle and soaked the floor tiles.
In mid-air, Morgan pulled out his water rifle and pumped it up, spraying alcohol from it directly at the dicing danger zone. Cutting her way through it all, Wayna spun her way past where the pirate captain was to land and delivered one brutal, backward solebutt that etched its way into Captain Morgan's forearms like an axe. The wounded pirate grunted in torment and staggered back, spilling up some red as it gushed from the wounds in the outer side of his forearms that he used to block the horse-like punt with Audra alloy skates.
"Ouch! Despite reaching deeper into his bag of tricks, it appears that Wayna Nunnon's handstand skating style is still too much for Captain Morgan to deal with!" Rajul reported with an excited and clamorous voice. "While our final remaining pirate contestant is showing skill in avoiding grievous harm, getting wounded where he can handle it, with each attack like that, Wayna Nunnon is taking her pound of flesh! Or maybe it'd be more apt to say–a gallon of blood!?"
"It looks like we're even now," Wayna Nunnon stopped whirling and returned to a perching position. This was not an instance of her showing off. Any fighter with even the least amount of experience could have surmised that Wayna would have kept attacking if she could. She needed this breather. Maybe her head was getting woozy, maybe her shoulders and arms were getting tired, or maybe it was a little bit of both. Whichever it was, she couldn't just keep up her whirligig routine for long.
"Yeah…" Captain Morgan acknowledged, wincing as he tested the function and feeling in his fingers. "Your knee's too messed up to bolt around like greased lightning, my wrists are too cut up for that quick-draw precision shooting…"
"This is where the battle becomes a fight of attrition. However, as you've admitted before–you don't like digging deep during your fights, whereas I live for it, because each time I play, I am playing to validate my existence as a professional athlete," Wayna explained why she thought she had the advantage in a fight like this. Before she could go on any further, Captain Morgan's whooping interrupted her.
"Is that what you think…?" Captain Morgan mumbled, sounding almost offended that his opponent took him for someone so simple to unravel. With visible irritation and pain, the pirate unturned the flask of water that fed his water gun, effectively turning it into a plastic bottle of rum and flipped it over, drinking it up with greedy slurps and sticky, honey-colored splashes spilling over the sides and dripping down the pirate's lip, running down his chest and turning his chest hair sticky and wet. After drinking it up, Morgan screwed it back up and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "I ain't getting drunk only on the adrenaline and the heat of the battle, you know…" he slurred while a line of blush colored the center of the pirate's face.
"Are you sure getting drunk will improve your aim?" the athlete taunted her opponent, preparing for trouble since she had a feeling that the pirate captain wouldn't have done this if he hadn't counted on at least some manner of advantage.
"Don't need aim!" Captain Morgan exclaimed shortly after burping. The captain unsheathed the reserve pair of flintlocks and aimed. "Just the courage to make some poor decisions!"
To elaborate on his case, the buccaneer began firing wildly, emptying his flintlocks dry of gunpowder without aiming. Just like before, the miniature cannonballs fired from the twin hand cannons bounced off the highly buoyant mass of alcohol, creating a literal bullet hell with highly volatile and swift cannon balls whizzing everywhere. Collapsing on her arms, Wayna Nunnon began break dancing in place, using the skates on her feet to fend off the incoming hail of randomly coming and going bullets while slicing the iron balls into two, detonating them further away from her.
"Unbelievable! Even with alcohol completely randomizing Captain Morgan's shot trajectory, Wayna Nunnon's unorthodox break-skating fighting style proved to be random enough to match it and deal with the incoming hail of bullets!" Rajul reported, hyping up the audience as they observed this deadlock in awe.
Feeling the burn in her shoulders and arms, Wayna hopped back on her feet and kicked off into a controlled skating dash. Having recently emptied his flintlocks and his carabin, Captain Morgan found himself a bit short on methods in how to fend his opponent off, leading to him taking a shot to the jaw that turned him around from the pent-up momentum of the heavyweight skater dashing past him. Swerving with a full 180, Wayna Nunnon delivered a spinning backfist, a vertical knife-edge chop before taking off in the air to spin with diagonal skating kicks that resembled ballet more than martial arts.
Whether it be luck or prediction, Captain Morgan staggered to the side and away from the deadly dance of relentless slicing, then pivoted to the opposite side and threw up. While revolting, this aftereffect of sudden intoxication led to Morgan avoiding the entire skating flurry and only suffering a pair of brutal cracks to the jaw and the top of his head from Wayna's beatdown.
"Contestant Wayna Nunnon is applying pressure! Whatever weapons Captain Morgan had in his coat are now useless, meanwhile the ones he has equipped on his body are empty! Wayna Nunnon has an opening to go wild and inflict her dirty deeds completely unpunished here! This could be the faithful opening that settles the match!" Rajul reported the progress of the match, as whatever advantage Captain Morgan had earned earlier was now swinging back to the equilibrium. Much in the same vein as the battle had returned to the center of the fighting stage, as opposed to moving toward the edge on Wayna's side.
"Now it smells like a party…" Captain Morgan slurred while staggering left and right. Gritting her teeth, Wayna put some space between the two so that she could respond to Morgan's counterattacks in time. The unpredictable evasive action from earlier proved to the skate-baller that whatever investments she put into attacking would yield risky yet limited results. It was a much more trustworthy move to back up and seek openings. She had the battle already. All Wayna needed now was to make no mistakes and actually win it.
"But why am I the only one partying? Come on, missy, drink up, loosen up a bit!" Captain Morgan cheered, pulling his carabin rifle out from behind.
"Sorry, drinking doesn't really jibe with the whole athlete's lifestyle!" Wayna smiled, seeing a dozen openings where to attack her opponent from. Not only did he fully open himself up to pull the carabin out again, Morgan would need to clean and reload it mid-battle. A herculean task in the middle of the battle against an opponent that was successfully applying pressure.
Building up some momentum with an ordinary skating dash forward, Wayna threw herself into a horizontal belly slide, becoming a skidding human shuriken to trip her opponent up. From where she was standing–Captain Morgan was already shifty with his footwork after getting plastered for the battle. Now all she needed was to just trip him up while his mind was focused on the rifle and…
Captain Morgan jumped up like a monkey, tapping the tips of his fingers on a hovering alcohol bubble over his head and sticking to it. This caused Wayna to miss her mark completely and scramble to push herself off the ground to react in time. Was this a plan of his, or did Captain Morgan just get lucky? How did he read Wayna so well and instantly figure out that he could neutralize most of Wayna's efficiency by taking it up into the air? Before she had her ranged air slashes, however, with her injured knee, it was doubtful that Wayna could attack Morgan from range.
This stick in Wayna's wheels allowed Morgan to crawl up to the top of the undulating mass of pure alcohol and begin the maintenance and reloading of his weapon. Wayna had few options but to clench her fists and seethe at the sight while Captain Morgan levitated up above the ground.
"Is this a game over?" Genshi shifted in his seat in unease. It made sense that he was rooting for the fellow pro athlete, given how they all were fighting for the same goal and were more sympathetic toward each other's plight than most other factions within the tournament roster.
"Not necessarily," Mana rubbed her chin while observing the developing endgame of the first match of the day before her. "While it's true that Nunnon-san can't attack Captain Morgan from this range, one can say the same thing about her opponent as well. The injuries on his wrists won't allow for precision shooting at this range. Both of them are essentially safe from their opponent's attacks."
"However, his rifle isn't the only way that Morgan can attack Wayna," Damisan objected. "Those alcohol blobs are flooding the battlefield after his Water Law technique from earlier. He can still use those and Wayna's too slowed down by her injury to evade as effectively."
"I wonder about that…" Shige-H crossed her arms with a smirk. "While what Damisan said is an agreeable position, I'm leaning more toward Mana's conclusions. That's solely because of the state in which that pirate is in."
"I see…" Damisan nodded. "A good observation."
"Huh?" Mana turned to Shige-H, looking baffled. Truth be told, she hadn't really considered Morgan's state and merely spoke on what she saw before her. "What about his state?"
"Seriously?" Asuka squinted her right eye, turning to Mana. "He's foaming from the mouth drunk! I can't believe you're our asset in this tournament."
"Oh… Well… I've never really… Been drunk, so…" Mana rolled her eyes around. "It didn't really occur to me that it might have that severe of an effect."
"Heh, seriously!?" Endo chortled, breaking through his façade of grumpiness to join in on poking fun at Mana. "We gotta get you plastered on one of these days. Call it special training, for the sake of experience, of course."
Meanwhile, while the Stars were enjoying their view and discussing teaching Mana about inebriation, a fresh development came up on the battlefield where the two combatants, heated and ready to pull at each others' collars, prepared to resolve their fight. Captain Morgan burped up with a thunderous crack, erupting with an ethereal and shapeless cloud of sulfur-colored stink. Before the shocked Wayna could wrap her head around this unusual move, she noted the sharpness in Captain Morgan's eyes.
"Devil's Honey: Reload!" Captain Morgan chanted with his speech having gotten rid of its slurring, pulling the container off his plastic water rifle and containing the very alcohol that he had just exhaled within. By the time Captain Morgan had screwed the container back on the water rifle and pumped it a couple of times, the gaseous barf turned to liquid and once again powered his toy gun in the ways Captain Morgan intended.
"Oh, no! Captain Morgan proved to be a master of alcohol manipulation once again, ridding his body of intoxication and arming his water gun with it!" Rajul reported this goofy technique while Captain Morgan prepared to shoot from his water gun, bypassing the trouble of wounded wrists that would struggle to withstand the shock of a high-caliber gunpowder rifle, as well as the disadvantage of drunkenness impacting his aim.
Wayna Nunnon was now a sitting duck!