Yenisel Saturona looked around, scanning the battlefield for potential hiding places of traps his opponent may have set up for the glide-baller. After being told that his opponent had already made his way to the arena, Yenisel began seeing enemies everywhere. Not a single stone or tile around the place seemed safe to step on, and every one of them could have concealed his opponent.
"Argh, it can't be helped!" Yenisel gritted his teeth and vaulted his heavily modified glider over his back. This time, instead of merely resembling a kite-like wooden glider, the contraption employed an aerodynamic rocket shaft that spat a trail of heated gas and propelled the glide baller much higher into the sky, not to mention–much faster.
While hovering in the air, the rocketing athlete flung his playing ball up, putting his head and feet to good use. With his skill and experience, Yenisel kicked and bumped the ball higher and higher, all the while helping it build up some speed and attract a heated comet tail of its own. While it may have seemed impractical to play around with a ball while rocketing up in the sky at breakneck speed, this durable ball could have easily inflicted massive damage if it were to connect with an opponent unfortunate enough to get in its way.
"Even if you're well-hidden, and I don't doubt you'd be able to outlast me before you saw an opportunity for an ambush, there's only one place you can possibly be hiding in!" Yenisel smirked while performing a death-defying loop and slamming directly into the ball as it hung suspended in mid-air. With the full speed and power of a rocket repurposed into a ball, the blazing sphere slammed directly into the center of the arena, causing a devastating blast and burrowing a considerable crater while causing a terrifying quake throughout the fighting ring which spilled well into the spectator stands.
"What a raucous attack!" Rajul exclaimed, grabbing hold of the railing in front and putting his back into weathering the quake to the best of his abilities. "It appears that knowing that this is the final match of this round leaves competitor Yenisel no reservations about wrecking the arena if it means his victory!"
"There it is!" Yenisel Saturona called out as his eyes focused on an unnaturally shifting surface of sandstone tiles. "So you were using camouflage to conceal yourself underneath the tiles!"
"Damn, what crazy eyes on this kid, and he doesn't need any visual gadgetry for a focused glint like that…" a firm, masculine voice yelled out, revealing a man with shoulder-length greasy hair and a thick, full beard with a senbon etched in between his lips as the man appeared to be chewing it. The camouflaged spy was wearing a cloak over him that looked ridiculous and rubbery when exposed but seemed indistinguishable from the real arena floor while Hit Boomslang was laying still on the ground.
Ditching his disguise, Hit Boomslang vaulted for an evasive roll and avoided the blitzing tackle of a speeding rocket, however, with another loop, Yenisel Saturona switched directions and dived into the crater the explosive crash of the playing ball caused. Correcting course to the best of his ability to avoid a face-first crash, Yenisel slammed down with the soles of his feet, causing an expansive, tremorous shockwave that propelled the crashed ball off the ground and let Yenisel punt it into the air and regain control over it.
After exposing himself and his skin-tight bodysuit of slick, metallic texture, Hit Boomslang slipped a kunai dispenser from his side holster and attempted to pin the blitzing rocket speedster down with some skilled and precise shooting. Yenisel gasped and fumbled around on his rocket, switching directions and nearly losing control of the ball and all the momentum it's built up after being propelled off the ground and taken to the air again.
"What the…!? How's he doing that? He nearly shot me down from a rocket!" Yenisel grumbled to himself while vaulting on his hands on the upper side of his speeding rocket shaft and grabbing hold of the ball from the air by pinching it with both his feet. An impressive upside-down spinning motion, similar to breakdancing, allowed Yenisel to propel the ball further away from the firing line. What was even more impressive–the glide-baller performed it entirely on his arms in an awkwardly diagonal position, balancing his body on the shooting rocket.
"What is going on!?" Rajul roared out in astonishment. "Why has competitor Hit Boomslang closed his lone unbandaged eye!? He only has one after serial killer Bambi stabbed the other with his knife during their brief scuffle back in the battle royale round!"
"He's been shooting with his eyes closed!?" Yenisel gasped. Cold sweat accompanied the expression of the sentiment as it poured down the athlete's face and his back. "This is bad, I need to put a stop to that or else he'll blow me or the rocket out of the sky for sure! It's like he's reading my moves, even though my rocket's supposed to be able to build up unperceivable speed!"
"Oh, my… It appears I've forgotten that the little doll twerp stuck my eye ou…" Hit Boomslang spoke with a raspy, masculine tone that sounded like the tone of an embarrassed old man who'd forgotten to turn off the gas before leaving for groceries. Before he could finish the sentence, however, a resounding crack made the audience wince and turn away.
Yenisel Saturona switched directions, from running away in evasion of Hit Boomslang's series of kunai shots, the glide-baller swooped straight down. Flickering like a speedy mirage, Yenisel Saturona disappeared and reappeared in a confusing pattern as it shot forward in an arcing, straight dive. With his disappearing trick, Yenisel Saturona evaded a handful more kunai shots before kicking Hit Boomslang straight in the face while he was rocketing by. The ruthless impact threw Hit's head back and rocked the spy's entire body in a backward arc, planting him on his back.
After shifting directions, Yenisel Saturona shot off into the air and kicked off his rocket to backflip over the airborne ball and punt it downward at the floored and dazed opponent of his. Despite the deafening crash of the heated ball, when Yenisel landed feet-first on the solid, metallic shaft of his rocket glider and gently guided it with his legs to skid across the ring disengage the gaseous blaze, and give it a little rest, the stunned athlete realized that once again he's lost track of his opponent.
"Another camo trick, huh?" Yenisel tucked his neck and began looking around, realizing that he had made his situation much worse, compared to the beginning of the match. Despite landing a wicked kick straight to the front of his opponent's face, he's also overextended with the aerial ball punt trick. He got too greedy, thinking he could just finish his opponent off, while he only created more and larger rocks, sticking out from the craters, for his opponent to hide behind or under. "Something tells me I won't be able to take it to the skies as easily this time, not to mention I'd rather give my baby a little breather for now. Man, you've really cornered me here, old man…"
With a spine-chilling click, a lumbering stone platform exposed a couple of barrels underneath, somehow ruining its impressive disguise and making the whole hollowed-out rock platform look fake and plasticky in the process. Yenisel blanked out, freezing stiff in place as the daunting turret armed with terrifying barrels took aim at him, almost crossing the black barrels to center their aim on the stiff athlete.
Instead of thunderous gunpowder rips, only a dull pop of bursting air came from the barrel, befuddling the spaced-out athlete who was flashing through all that preceded in his life, awaiting the painful and final resolution of being caught off-guard. "Gotcha!" he heard the firm, masculine voice right behind and below him. Regaining his senses and with his heart pumping with racing adrenaline, Yenisel did his best to turn around in time, but that was outright impossible.
The turret was a distraction!
The athlete felt a firm whip of cloth against his heels, as the slick and hi-tech camouflage sheet that disguised the spy-turned-mercenary, Hit Boomslang, against the floor of the arena, wrapped around his legs from a focused and skillful whip of his opponent. Just as quickly as he whipped the brushing chain-mail sheet to wrap around and entrap his opponent's lower body, Hit Boomslang drew it back, pulling the rug from underneath the pro athlete and leaving him stunned and suspended in mid-air as he fell.
However, it was Hit Boomslang who was left the most stunned of the two clashing forces. For Yenisel's arm shot and firmly supported his body in a suspended, horizontal position, as he'd done dozens of times before, shooting a straight kick to the spy's chest and sending him skidding back. Grunting from the brunt of the impact he took, with his arms crossed with a well-timed block, Hit Boomslang skidded as far back as he went before pulling a thin, military knife that had a jagged backside and was large enough to look almost like a handheld saw blade.
Judging by the wide eyes of Hit Boomslang as he charged forward in a ferocious flurry, even the veteran spy and mercenary was caught off-guard by the uncanny balance of his opponent. The spy slashed and thrust with his handheld military knife in an attempt to pin his opponent down, only for Yenisel to swiftly vault back to both feet and shuffle with blurry and almost elastic-looking footwork that seemed impeccable to any outside observer. While it remained evident that Yenisel Saturona was no fighter, just doing what he did best in playing Glide Ball manifested itself with some gifts that proved useful in a fight.
The bloodied and grazed face of Hit Boomslang swelled up and turned red, as the spy's head once again rocked back and the staggering veteran of combat clutched for it with shaking hands. Hit Boomslang has been punched, stabbed, and skewered with most ninja tools, burnt, choked, and nearly drowned before. But he hadn't experienced the sensation of his entire face feeling like it was on fire merely because of a blinding kick of a playing ball that hit him right in the face.
Ooh!" Rajul exclaimed, reeling and wincing back, just as the rest of the audience did, before erupting with claps of applause. "What incredible battlefield awareness! Competitor Yenisel Saturona shuffled all the way back to his ball and punted it straight into Hit Boomslang's face faster than the eye could track! While Hit Boomslang is an unmatched hand-to-hand and weaponry combatant, I bet he's never had to contend against a fighting style reliant on someone kicking a ball to one's face!"
The veteran mercenary clutched it out, maintaining a standing balance and pushing himself through the searing pain of all of his facial sensors burning up with tearing blips. Just as he thought he'd catch the young glide-baller off-guard with his sturdiness, something popped in Hit Boomslang's head, making him vault sideways. This burst of fighting intuition proved to be correct when Yenisel caught the ball, as it bounced off of the spy and punted it right back.
"Dangerous!" Rajul yelled out, standing up on the railing with one foot on top as he followed the ball's trajectory with passionate anticipation. "If the ball goes out of bounds and lands in the lake, Yenisel Saturona might lose his hardest-hitting weapon so far!"
The other end of the rocket pillar that the glide-baller rode on just earlier lit up, and the static, gas-riding beam flew off like the world's thickest arrow. It didn't even come close to threatening Hit Boomslang, but it rushed just in time to thwack the ball back into the arena's bounds from outside before twirling with a mad spin toward Hit Boomslang's back.
With a forceful grunt, Yenisel Saturona dashed forward, catching the incoming ball with his foot and sending it in a nuking trajectory, seeking another straight and devastating shot at his opponent's face. Hit Boomslang slipped under the ball before kicking off with a graceful backflip and landing on top of the swerving rocket, then kicking off into the sky again. Just as Yenisel Saturona thought he read his opponent's mind and dropped with an overhead kick, aiming to punish the spy if he were to move behind the athlete, Yenisel's kick only cut through thin air.
Just like that, Hit Boomslang was gone again.
"Hate it when he does that…" Yenisel grumbled, picking himself off the ground in humility. The bruises to his pride hurt much more than the skin-deep grazes of gravel against his skin from the drop.
"There aren't many people alive that can keep up with me hand to hand," the firm voice of Hit Boomslang went from somewhere further away. Somewhere closer toward the edge of the western side of the fighting ring. Looking to check this taunt without investing too much into it and leaving himself wide open, Yenisel gently flung the ball and kicked it in that direction, crushing a plastic stone with microphone-like holes, functioning as a walkie-talkie.
"Even if you're a rookie in terms of fighting ability, it's clear that practicing your sport has toughened your body up in different ways. Not even I can keep up with your footwork, maybe I couldn't have even in my prime," the cybernetically altered and staticky transmission of Hit Boomslang's voice continued to spread from a different microphone rock somewhere in the arena as the ball bounced back under Yenisel's foot.
"If you can hear me from wherever you're holed up in, I've got to say, I appreciate not riddling me with those shooting knives back then," Yenisel smirked, rolling the grounded ball over on his toes and kicking it up and down to himself, just to keep it in play and ready for the sendoff.
"I'm not here to kill people. Not until I deem it necessary to complete my mission," the voice came back from a different location entirely.
"So you're saying you can defeat me without resorting to deadly force? Beat me while holding back, in other words?" Yenisel pouted, kicking the ball up in his hands and catching it, then stuffing it under his armpit while he bounced back over on his rocket glider and prepared to take off.
"You've given me a cold shower, kid, I won't deny that. But compared to the shower of pointy rocks in Melody Port or the weeklong trek through the explosive clay minefields of the Desert of Solitude, your games are nothing," Hit Boomslang replied. "All you've done is convince me I'll need to actually try in order to eliminate you."
"That sounds a bit scary, not going to lie," Yenisel smirked while closing his eyes and doing his best to regulate his breathing so that his hands stopped shaking. "But so far, this entire thing has been crazy. I've seen flying mountains and murderous children and so much worse and I've pushed through all the way here. If that's not proof that I cannot die, I don't know what is!"
"I've spent more time cleaning blood off of soldiers who thought they couldn't die off me than you've spent in combat your entire life," Hit's voice concluded before the air just in front of Yenisel Saturona rippled, like the surface of disturbed water, sparkling with hectic reflections of sunlight.
"What the…!?" Yenisel freaked out, realizing that his opponent was standing within arm's reach of him for a while now. Hit Boomslang now had a mask that matched the slick, metallic black texture of his bodysuit with lenses that seemed like they broke and distorted sunlight back and over, expelling all sorts of chaotic color combinations. It was because of this bodysuit and mask combination that the spy appeared to have been able to bend light wholly around his body and remain invisible despite closing up to the athlete.
A thunderous and relentless combination of chain punches rattled the energetic glide-baller on his back and off his rocket. Crawling on his back, Yenisel scrambled back on his feet with alarming precision and speed, still riding the high of adrenaline coursing through his system and fueling his uncanny footwork and balance to work in tandem making the battle-hardened mercenary vanish without a trace by activating his stealth suit again rather than to press his advantage at this time.
Yenisel jumped toward his rocket, throwing his entire body like a stack of wet laundry without care. Revealing how little forethought it required to predict the fact his opponent would recklessly charge toward his trusty gliding mechanism, Hit Boomslang appeared in dancing patches of filtering light that allowed light to deflect off the surface of his camouflaged body with a spinning high kick. Yenisel caught that kick with a nasty crack.
"Oh! What a mistake! Now Yenisel Saturona is headed for a ring out!" Rajul exclaimed, pointing out the fact that the hearty kick that sent him flying directed the athlete to a spot where there was nothing but the lake outside the bounds underneath his back. The audience clenched with anticipation, wondering if this last match of that day would be cut short by a disappointingly swift conclusion.
An ear-raking rumble dazed the veteran spy. The speeding rocket tripped him up into a backward flop, prompting Hit Boomslang to disappear into hiding to reposition himself, meanwhile, a metallic clang was soon to follow. The racing rocket glider mechanism caught Yenisel Saturona before the athlete fell outside of the bounds and brought him over into the air, putting him in a more favorable position compared to his opponent and leaving Hit Boomslang with fewer angles to attack his opponent from.
"Hmm… I think I remember this guy from the battle royale now. Back then he flew using some kind of kite-like glider, didn't he?" Endo scratched his head.
"I believe he had another gliding mechanism, however, it broke after catching a stray shot. From that point, Yenisel used the kite from the sum of his broken glider to soar," Ryoku Genshi pointed out.
"Either way, compared to some giant kite, this rocket thing's a massive upgrade. I wonder if he found himself an ally similar to Damisan, but more focused on helping him rather than conflicted and split between the competitors he's helping," Asuka pondered, finding a way to bite Mana and Damisan along the way.
"No, I believe that this is simply a case of Yenisel Saturona securing all the sponsors that backed the rest of the athletes up," Ryoku Genshi shook his head.
"Sponsors?" Damisan turned to his protégé, wondering if he'd been keeping some kind of ace that could have helped his case this entire time. "You mean you had sponsors that could have provided you with gear if I didn't?"
"Never mind that how did a bunch of athletes attract sponsors? I thought everyone hated you guys for wasting everyone's time and being all-around useless members of society…" Endo squinted.
"Well… Not quite, to both of your questions," Ryoku Genshi replied without moving, feeling like he was being interrogated, based on his stiff body language. "When we banded together with our dream to establish the World Sports Games here, we've reached out to a bunch of rich industrialists for support. The idea was that we'd promote their products and services by decorating the playing field throughout the games we played. Some of us received monetary support, and some of us received some professional aid and gear built by our benefactors. In a way, man-children who hadn't grown out of their silly ball games became the soldiers of wealthy sponsors that bet on their favorites."
"I see, with more and more athletes being eliminated, the sponsors all banded up on the one horse they were most likely to win backing," Shige-H surmised.
"That's right. Initially, some industrialists backed the most favorite to win, the athletes whose specialty they thought would best translate to combat ability. I was one of their favorites, in fact. Plenty of them diversified their investments by investing a bit into every athlete, investing more into those they saw more promising to win. Once the battle royale ended and I was left… Well… An arm and a leg short, blinded and my spirit broken, it's not difficult to see why that support dried up for me and why Yenisel suddenly saw more support, despite seeing very little initially," Ryoku Genshi explained. "Frankly, this changes nothing for me. I still owe my life to Damisan-san for his help. For believing in me when the sponsors that brought me up abandoned me in droves. But it changes a lot for Yenisel and his chances to win."
"Heh," Endo smirked, becoming more invested in this match with a clear shift in his body language, leaning more toward the arena from his seat. "So, we've got two posers backed by an extreme amount of experimental and groundbreaking technology and gadgetry. One of them poses as a ninja, another one–as a warrior. Ridiculous, but amusing at the same time. Maybe it will inspire Damisan to once again see the potential of building weapons and pulling his own weight on our team?"
"The outcome or the pizzazz of this battle will change nothing, Endo," Damisan dismissed the notion of his comrade. "I've made my decision to quit building weapons and puppets. If you want to see the sum of my potential, wait until Ryoku's match in the quarterfinals."
While Endo and Damisan bickered with their clashing passive-aggression. Yenisel Saturona and Hit Boomslang were still feuding in the field of battle, the tide of which was ever-changing.