[ Self-Contained OP: Alexandros – Arpeggio ]

I Won't Let You Fool Yourself! Two Souls Adrift in the World's Turbulence Clash!

KNOCK! KNOCK!

The short-haired little girl with a perpetual frown waited, to no answer.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

She waited again longer. Still nothing.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

She waited once more.

"... kh…!"

She kicked the door and yelped in pain.

"I… I SPEND DAY AFTER DAY CLIMBING THESE STUPID STEPS, AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN HERE TO SEE ME!?" she wailed, ember eyes puffy with tears shed equally recently and long ago. "WHAT WAS EVEN THE POINT!? STUPID FAIRY MAN, I BET YOU'RE NOT EVEN REAL!"

Heavily heaving after expending more energy than she had, she slowly turned around, staring down the countless steps she'd climbed just to get to where she stood. She shook in a futile rage, swallowed and climbed back down.

A night passed.

And the next morning…

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Having climbed back up, she was back at it.

Each and every sunrise, she'd set off on her trek up the harrowing steps, caked in sweat and scrapes, and overwhelmingly cold, hungry, and thirsty by the end of every successful climb, only to be forced to return to the lower world by a necessity for food, warmth, and sufficient air.

She spent every successful trip down crying alone, tending to her makeshift camp, and readying for the next attempt.

"The carp…"

Her feet, legs, hands, fingers, eventually even her head all became tools for ascension up those hellish stairs, and she'd force herself to stand up and forcefully knock with something.

"Leaps through…"

She simply had no better option than that. She was too far from any other part of civilization, and if a wild beast didn't tear her apart and devour her, bandits would kill her and sell what little she had.

"The g… ate…"

One day, 30 days after her attempts, she reached the top and fell on her face.

The last thought that should've ever crossed a six year-old's mind was the longing for death. And it did not cross this one's. But she was, indeed, tired. And she'd love to see her mother happy again. And she'd love to lay down her head and sleep forever.

The slow creak of a door woke her from her otherwise-eternal rest. Her head rose ever-slowly, and she saw it: the black eyes of a human, staring down at her.

She felt reinvigorated, suddenly able to stand.

"M-MISTER, I-"

The door suddenly shut on her.

"Need… to…"

.

.

"AAAA—!"

That day, the child learned how to harness life energy.

That day, the man behind the door learned how loud the girl could get when she was upset.

As the days went on, the sun rested ever-so slightly higher in the sky upon her arrival to that door. She no longer crawled up the steps on the way up; with each passing week, she would bound over one more step, for longer and longer periods.

Although she tripped far more often, not a single bone in her body would break once she hit the ground. Though…

"GAAAAA—!"

The entirety of the forest knew whenever she'd trip.

"SHIT!"

After the first several-dozen times, her fingers grew strong enough to clutch onto a step from sheer grip strength alone, and she'd throw herself right back up to try again.

Her knocking also improved.

"I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE, NOW! YOU CAN'T HIDE ANYMORE, COWARD!"

Vastly.

"OPEN UP!"

They'd begun to imprint upon the door.

After the second month, the door began to speak to her.

"YOU'RE HIDING FROM AN INJURED LITTLE GIRL!? WHAT SPIDER FLEES FROM A MOUSE!? THAT'S FUNNY! HAHAHA! I'M LAUGHING AT YOU!"

The door opened ever-so slightly, and the girl's attention was ensnared.

"..."

"... Hah…"

"... go away. You're scaring off the carp."

It shut again.

"... AAAAA—!"

The girl responded by kicking the door like an angry mule.

The seventh month had come.

The deer pelt duan da-clad girl had started leaving things at the door, like a cat bringing prey to its owner; more a symbol of her progress and tenacity than gifts.

She'd also begun to talk to it. Not the one behind the door, but the door itself.

"... my dad was called off to war, one day."

[ BGM: Pride of the King of Knights (Erhu Cover) ]

She rested her head upon the door, her full-length, dark-red hair smearing the ground.

"He wasn't the strongest of warriors, and he didn't have anything like a tactician's mind. He was just a farmer. He only ever worked for his family. He'd spend the entire day, reaping, sowing. Praying for just-enough rain. My mom never stopped trying to help, but… he'd never allow it. He never got angry. He just insisted on bearing life's weight on his own. He didn't look afraid at all when he left us… but he wept once he closed that door. It was the last thing I ever heard from my father."

The door was silent, as always, ever the good listener.

"No word ever reached us, but it was clear what'd happened when only a hundred of ten thousand returned. My mom changed after that. She stopped reading stories to me. She started looking hollow all day, like a statue or a ghost. 'The Sad Woman'. She'd get angry out of nowhere, and she'd break things, but then she'd start crying, and she wouldn't stop until she fell asleep. One day, she didn't wake up. Her heart gave in."

The door remained quiet.

"... I miss not being lonely. And cold. And hungry." She sniffed.

"I wanna be warm again."

The door had nothing to say to her. She expected such. She simply stood back up and trekked back down.

At the end of the seventh month, she returned to find two large fire pots. One on each side of the door, each filled with dried logs.

Neither was lit. However, over each pyre, the child simply picked up a rock and swiped it with one of her now-iron fingers.

The girl suddenly had warmth, each time she'd climb the steps.

The twelfth month.

After a grueling fight for her life, she was on the very bottom again. Just like that day, exactly one year from then.

So just like then, she climbed.

In some vain hope that, maybe this time, that door would open.

Maybe she could have some of that fish he'd gone on about.

That big, dead tiger carcass didn't look half as appetizing. She gave it a passing glance, as she kept stumbling up.

Water. He'd have to have water, too.

And something soft to sleep on. Maybe.

And something to stop the bleeding. Maybe something to ease the pain, as well.

The dawn sun had inexplicably risen high in the sky one moment, then fell past the clouds another.

At a random point in time, she suddenly realized how close she was to the top. From then on, she seemed to be walking in place, gaining no distance despite all her effort.

She reached out, before falling down a few. And she began to crawl.

And crawl.

And crawl.

And stood.

She'd finally made it to the top. She channeled every ounce of energy into her fist one last, desperate gesture.

She knocked. Loudly. Once.

To no response.

Her face crinkled.

But she'd tried. She had that.

A wave of warmth washed over her, and she fell back, accepting what came next.

She fell into someone's thigh.

"Ha? You're still alive? That's odd."

She had a long blink.

"Damn it… whelp, guess I don't have much say in it anymore. Shit, why am I stuck with the loud-"

Black.

Her eyes shifted about, taking in the sight of the devastated forest and decaying steps that she once considered sacred. It took her back to the first time she'd seen her master in years, broken and lifeless. She looked down at her feet, melancholy dragging down her eyelids alongside her lips' falling crease. A smile threatened to take her face. She kept it at bay with a stare at the bottom of the now-cracked steps.

"(Right here. That was where I found his remains. One of those saiyans had eaten at him, no doubt curious. Like an animal. But even before then, he had lived in self-exile, cursing himself for devoting himself to a ruler that became an ever-warring tyrant. I wanted so badly for him to see me as a woman, see me surpass him. I wanted to see him smile, once more. But I could not even have that.)"

She shook her head. "(I do not know why I am forced to see it, but I cannot allow this scenery to steal my nerve. I will not allow someone else to live such a life. Never again.)"

"(... not her. By my own life, not her.)"

TRUST THIS FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WHEN I SAY THIS TECHNIQUE IS NO KIENZAN! STUDENT MEI HAS NO-DOUBT TAKEN KRILLIN'S PATENT TECHNIQUE, AND USED IT AS A TEMPLATE IN TANDEM WITH HER OWN NIFTY THREADS TO CREATE A TERRIFYING MOVE THAT LEAVES HER OPPOSITION FLOORED!

The Kienzan technique, formed between Age 761 and 762 by the former Orin temple monk Krillin, is one that disregards all forms of defense outside of intangibility altogether. An incredibly thin, compressed energy construct, it possesses the sole purpose of slicing. Employing enough strategy, holding enough focus, it has the potential to cut down opponents many times stronger than its user.

Mei's attack does not use another technique. In fact, her threads are all she can form, as a trade-off for their strength.

A component of Mei's threads, however, is their passive rotation. With this, the threads are able to dig into their victim, making escape not only nigh impossible, but excruciating. They also gift a Shadow Spider with the ability to pierce anything by simply 'opening a path' to a pressure point, millimeters before their true strike makes contact.

Using that, Mei weaves a spiral. Ki is woven over, and over, and over in one single thread, looping onto itself. Fully extended and leaned vertically, the thread would shoot past the clouds. The rotating qi further adds to its prowess, and in such a small circle, comparable to a shuriken, there exists nothing that can withstand direct contact; even atoms are torn asunder. What's more, bits of the thread embed themselves directly into the wound.

千

劍

氣

(Qiān Dāo Qi)

Senkenki: Thousand-Sword Energy

The apex of cruelty.

The technique embodies the very concept of "cut" and enforces it upon its target until one of two parties loses consciousness. For one party, permanently.

Mei refocused on the boy beneath her. His frantic, bewildered eyes and jammed, shaky turns of the neck assured her that this was no illusion; at the very least, it was a shared one, though she wasn't certain he was beholding the same thing.

"Can you see it, boy? These steps, this forest?"

With grit teeth bleeding from the gums, Neoru responded like a rattlesnake would to a tarantula.

"Ten thousand, six hundred and ninety-two ascend this mountain. Through the year I had spent climbing up and down them as a child, I had taken to counting them. It helped retain my sanity. I had survived off the forest around you, without a soul to rely upon, until I was considered worthy of being trained. THAT is the depth of my resolve."

She took a step down.

"A potent qi stems from resolve."

Another step.

"A potent resolve stems from reason."

She marched down the remaining steps without pause.

"As we are now, I bear within me a reason far greater than any of you could grant yourself."

Mei reached the base, just as Neo pushed himself away and forced his body into a stance. Just doing so had put him on the brink of passing out, woken back up by more intensifying pain. A normal "Kienzan" simply cut things and dissipated, simple as, with varying degrees of sharpness. He'd been sliced, stabbed, both in the past; no fun, but bearable if he grit his teeth hard enough.

This was an injection of jagged molten needles directly into his nervous system. Whether or not that was a metaphor, Neoru was too scared of confirming with a look.

"If you seek praise, then I will grant you it. Well done. You are not the hapless child I handedly defeated twice before. But make no mistake, boy, your role is over. Now give up."

Mei pointed at him, the same way one aims a gun at a resisting suspect.

"Or NOTHING beneath divine work will reverse what I will do to you."

"Ah," Neoru suddenly rose to a knee, "JUST SHADDUP-"

Mei heel-kicked him across the face, sending him tumbling back.

"Insolent brat. This is no longer a game, where you may pretend to stake your life while your opponent humors you." She watched Neoru stagger back up with genuine contempt, before walking toward him.

She weaved beneath his hook. "EVERY-" She shot a blur-like, phalanx-led straight punch into his throat, and continued moseying toward him as he wobbled back.

She kicked his kick to the side. "SECOND-" She straight-punched him again in the solar plexus.

"You spend-on-this- STAGE!" She chain-punched him in the lower abdomen, ending with a one-centimeter punch and finally letting him fall, before stepping onto it with the sharp end of her heel.

"Is another moment you spend in pain. You gain nothing from your stubbornness but further humiliation as I force you back onto the floor." She lifted her leg off him, stepping back with a hand on her hip. "See? Even your qi abandons you in embarrassment."

In an effort to prove her wrong, Neo tried powering up, even giving his idea of Tlatla a go, only to find that he could barely even breathe, and the traces of energy he COULD pool leaked right back out, as he were a jug and Mei had poked him full of holes. He was growing weaker with every passing minute, unable to calm himself due to the constant shock of pain and inability to grasp any meaningful amount of breath. Before he could try any harder, Mei spun in place and fed him with the ball of her shoe, sending him in a crescent to the ground with a meaty thud.

"Now sleep, insolent dog." She turned from him to the announcer. "This man is dying. Please disregard the count, and end the match."

"... but…"

The flash of surprise upon the ancient girl's face died out in an instant, leaving cold apathy.

"Hh-hnn—..."

Mei leaned her head to the side. Neo's elbow, and then Neo, followed soon after. The blood-redhead shot a kick to the sky, sending the boy toward it chin-first in the process.

"Like I said," Mei continued, back-kicking the boy into the mountain of stairs before he could crash on top of her, "His life force has been spilling from him, even before our battle. If action is not taken to save him, he WILL-"

HeeeEE'S UP AGAIIIN!

The anti-assassin veered back. She stirred in a stoic rage, head tilting with a gaze like a searchlight locking onto an escapee. With the same hunting expression, she spun around and stomped toward him with as much speed as humanly possible without outright sprinting at the defiant little shit before her.

If his legs could stand any higher, Neo would've ran. His instinctual self-preservation would've overridden his unnaturally-high tenacity. Sadly, his knees wouldn't unbuckle; that stance itself was already far past human limit.

And so, he beheld a shoe blotting out the full moon's glow, before careening into his face head-first, sending his head to the ground in a grisly backflip.

"STUPID… STUPID… STUPID BOY!" she hissed between stomps, desperately trying to knock him out on the steps. His magenta eyes began fading, only to reopen once more, the flaring amber dots above them zooming down as hands impatiently gripped his collar. "WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT BEYOND THIS POINT THAT IT DEMANDS YOU GIVE YOUR LIFE FOR IT!? YOU PASSED THIS PATHETIC TEST! YOU FORCED MY EFFORT! WHAT, ARE YOU SUCH A CHILD THAT ANY OUTCOME SHORT OF VICTORY IS WORSE THAN DEATH!?"

Neo stared at her. He spat.

Mei watched the bloodied phlegm inch through the air toward her eye, before backhand-smacking it into his cheek.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH Y-"

Mei cut herself off, drops of red crawling from her strained throat.

"What is there to…" She dropped him, clenching her neck. "... gain from this…?"

Neoru had finally started asking himself the same thing.

"(I could just quit, right now.)" He offered himself the choice, as the ref began counting down.

"(She's real set on gettin' to Zinco. Hell, she's probably the kick in the ass he needs, if Kaza up-and… y'know. And I did pretty damn good. Way better than last time. And with the time I've got left, I…)"

His thoughts drifted to those cherished few that he'd finally opened himself to.

"(I shouldn't waste them here. I coulda got even better if I had more time. But I don't.)"

His accepting mind returned to reality, as the ref's count reached four.

"(... damn… I really… wanted to find it here.)"

He gazed up the steps. Apparently, his opponent had climbed up and down them, over and over.

"All on your own… huh?" he croaked. "Never dragging anyone down with ya. Must be nice… bein' that strong."

"..."

He sounded so accepting.

"... it was awful," she said, turning her head. "For so long, I was alone. I hated it." Her voice had softened up. It was nice.

"Still, I… just once… to live like that…"

He'd been here before.

An eleven-year-old boy, on a failed path of revenge, being strictly reminded of his place on the redefined food chain.

"I... I trained too hard t-to... no... NO..."

The beast responsible for the uprooting of civilization, slayer of his brother, wasn't even particularly hungry that day. It was resting. He'd been the one to pick the fight.

The beast growled, a distorted, humanoid wail infusing with a demonic bellow as it approached.

Shaking, with his brother's sword in hand, unable to do that cool orange thing that made his bro the strongest, he'd tried assuring himself in much the same manner.

"Co... come on...!" Holding the sword his bro had once used to lay down the law and safeguard the weak, he dreamt of being strong enough to face down the monster.

"COME ON! YOU DUMB, UGLY, CRACKED-UP BASTARD!" He propped up a stance, the oddly-shaped weapon feeling heavier the closer it came.

"Fine, screw you, I'll kill you first!" Neo yelled, charging the Beast. His war cry was abruptly cut off, however, by a closer look at its eyes. At its frilling, skin-like hairs. At its rotting odor. At its imposing frame. At its immense pressure. At its horrible 'voice' muttering in a low, endless whisper.

He'd frozen just by realizing what he was up against.

"Huh?"

All he managed to squeak out before being swatted for the first time by its hand-like paws. Everything inside of him shut down, as blood spewed from his mouth, marking the distance between the two as he rolled across the ground.

"KH-HAKK-HAAA...!"

His bro was never the strongest. That had been made clear in full force, in that one moment.

He shook violently. The clarity was overwhelming.

"(No... no, no, no, no, no, no, no...)"

His eyes relocked upon the Beast, and all at once, he regained his fear of death.

Its spinal hairs began immolating, cast to the wind as heat radiated off the Beast. The same heat that he'd felt the day Socai died.

Weak.

He was weak. His bro was weak. Everyone that wasn't that was weak.

A pathetic scream had crawled out of his throat, despite how hard he'd tried to keep it down. He grabbed his brother's weapon despite his unworthiness and fled. Zigzagging like a prey animal.

But a bolt like lightning struck the creature, stopping its attack before it could launch. Leaping back, holding him at her flank, was his guardian for the three years after his brother's death.

"... oh, how simple life could've been if you'd only listen, Neoru." Kuole looked back with a small glare, lifting her leg forward. Neo braced himself, preparing himself to be struck for his insolence.

Instead, a several-meter swath in the earth opened.

"Will you hide, now that you know just how outmatched you are?"

Neoru tried holding back tears, but lost control of himself as he nodded, erupting into hiccups.

"... huu—..." She turned her back, ruffling his small, spiky afro. "I miss him, too. But only one of us gets to see him today. Jump down there, and stay as faaar away from us as you can, alright?"

"O-Okay...!" He was suddenly embraced by her.

"My annoying little sister is all you have left, and vice-versa. Don't abandon her, ok?" She pulled back, and Neo looked into her steel-blue eyes one more time. "Promise me."

Neo nodded, just to make her a bit happier. Kuole let go, and returned to the Beast, still recoiling after its attack had been interrupted.

"So you DO have a weakness, cur. Damn you, giving me hope." The grey-haired young woman silently powered up, her mystic grey-blue aura fluttering in lightning patterns through the air. A colossal eagle briefly shined into existence around her, before disappearing.

"If you want to pay your brother and I back, the least you can do now is live." She looked back once more. "So live."

The following shockwave knocked him down into the crevice, the boy clutching his brother's weapon all the while. The battle above land lasted maybe a minute, hard-fought and rife with quaking earth.

And then the heat returned. It didn't dissipate, this time.

He sobbed like a baby, as Kuole's death throes enraptured the area, threatening to drown out even the blast. She'd died strong.

And because he was so fucking weak. Too weak to do anything on his own.

He woke up after crying away his stamina, and the sun was beginning to rise. He climbed out, and found only a vague article of the jewelry she donned. Half-corroded.

He stared down for what felt like eternity. He knew what way Cleo must've been. She was probably still sleeping. She'd never forgive him if she found out what he'd done to her sister.

So he went the opposite direction, and walked. He didn't stop walking. Twice, he looked back.

"I'm so jealous…"

"... stop getting up."

"...?"

He caught himself doing it again. Trying to stand.

"Ah. I…"

He'd gotten so weak, all Mei needed was a light push on his chest to throw him back down. "Just lie there. Stop subjecting yourself to this."

"(It's alright, me. I know damn-well it wouldn't happen again. Not the way I am now. Let it go.)"

"I said, stop."

Neo looked down.

He was still trying.

"I don't-"

Mei slammed him down with a palm.

"STOP. IT."

She looked down on him. Her expression was angry, but there was a softness to it, too. A sternness.

"Bringing this much pain onto yourself for such a child-like purpose…" She balled her fist, taking a handful of his shirt. "Living amongst others who would give themselves for your sake… you should feel honored! Yet you're… jealous? Even now, you envy me? You have no idea of what you possess, you ingrate!" Despite her words, he held onto that blank expression. Despite how broken and bloody he'd become, he'd get back up soon. And for such a meaningless reason.

"Are you even listening to me..?" She stood back up. Her arms fell to her side, hands falling dead. "You… you really are just a stupid boy…"

His body was tired. He was coming to terms with his loss, mentally. But something was still pulling him back up.

Fighting Mei was not fun. It was terrifying. One touch from her could kill him, and every other was sending him through waves of pain he didn't think were possible. And yet…

"I think… I think I still really wanna fight." He chuckled nervously, not quite understanding his own actions as his body stood back up. "If I give up here, just 'cus I've got no reason anymore, 'cus I'm in pain… I just can't do it."

He'd kid himself.

Of course, he was weak back then. But not because he was weaker than that monster, but because he'd given up. And someone suffered for it.

If he did the same here, HE would regret it. No one else. There was no greater meaning. With the time he had left, he'd likely die, never having one.

But he'd have nothing but regret in his heart until he died, unless he gave this everything he had.

"I don't know. I just know I've got just a bit more to give."

"... don't."

"Huh?"

Neo's eyes widened.

Mei stroked his cheek, with sad, pitiable eyes.

"No. No, you don't."

Neo stared down into her eyes.

Neo stared into her eyes.

Neo stared up into her eyes.

Neo's eyes fell.

Mei removed her hand from beneath his ribs, not a trace of blood resulting.

"... you hapless fool."

Neo fell.

... 10! 9-

"Stop.

She turned to the ref.

"End this."

Xiao Mei had someone to save. There was no place for needless bloodshed in that ambition. Especially from a boy who hadn't done anything.

"This boy will see himself dead before he loses. He does not know when to stop, and I cannot keep him down forever. A gentle push is enough to knock him down. Do not allow this to continue."

Pan hesitated.

Shock didn't begin to describe Mei's response. "Do… do you ENJOY seeing this!? Is that sick mind shared across all martial artists, seeing wounded children die for the sake of their abhorrent dreams? Is there no line where 'honor' dies, and virtue wins out?"

The killer shook. "This boy is HURTING himself every time he gets up! He has proven incapable of making the choice to surrender! You MUST make it for him!"

"... but he… he's still getting up."

"AND HE WILL FALL AGAIN!" Mei stepped to Pan. "WHY SHOULD THAT MATTER!?"

"Because that means he's MAKING A CHOICE," Pan retorted, stepping to Mei. "If he's a martial artist, and he's making the choice to keep getting back up, then I HAVE to honor it!"

"SAYS… SAYS WHO!?"

Pan's eyes went dark. Her fist shook, as she held the microphone a bit closer.

I'm sure my judgement as an announcer is being called into question right now, but I assure you all, I have my reasons. As many may know, my mother is none other than Videl Satan. In Age 774, she fought a minion of Babidi. After the fight, she quit martial arts altogether. The fight is recorded as one of the most brutal in broadcasted World Tournament history, at least in the Primary Timeline, and many regulations were set because of it. Videl Satan was shown not an ounce of mercy during that fight, and she suffered injuries that would've debilitated her for the rest of her life, if not for Senzu Beans.

Pan took a moment to breathe.

BUT STILL! Not ONCE was she forced to keep fighting! At any time, she could have surrendered, and the fight would have ended right away. I know this because… because she told me the story, when I was little and insistent on learning martial arts. Pain is the risk you accept when you become a martial artist, because that's EXACTLY what you'll be inflicting on others who follow that path. She also taught me that it's ok to surrender when you have the option, and you know you can't win. However… it's YOUR choice. Anyone calling themselves a martial artist has the right to give everything they've got before giving up!

Son Pan pushed up her drooping sunglasses. So just like every announcer before me, as long as one isn't making an attempt on another's life, I WILL respect that right!

"... Before this match… a girl was allowed to suffer… and weep, and despair… for a reason so awful?"

She'd rewatched recordings of the fights. Therefore, she immediately knew. Especially considering who she was currently talking to.

"... Yes. As awful as it may've been, Kaza stuck to it by cho-"

A sword-finger suddenly stopped millimeters from her heart.

"End this," Mei whispered. "Or so help me."

"... if you want this to end so badly, you could always give up."

"I cannot. I have… someone else has too much to lose if I do not progress. I must win."

"If that's the case, then…"

[ BGM: Hiroyuki Sawano ‒ BLAZE_Final_Version (0:23 - 1:28) ]

Behind the girl, an impossibility was occurring.

"Maybe you shouldn't turn your back on your enemy. (So much drama! Kya~!)"

An immense ki pulsed throughout the world, dimming everything but the center, violent magenta. Heat surged throughout the plane, setting bamboo ablaze and melting the steps.

And at the heart of it all,

"There it is," Teganosu smirked,

Stood Neoru.

"NnnrrrOAAAAA—!"

It was a dragon's roar. Unrestrained, reverberating for miles. Without a doubt, the winged serpent was Neo's spirit itself; it had become the generator for an energy that dwelled directly within the eternal soul, a reservoir that could never truly be exhausted; all that mattered was the soul's strength, and whether or not it could withstand the pressure of such a demand all at once.

And, as an Orojia, Neoru's soul was custom-made to.

HE'S MAKING QUITE THE CASE FOR HIMSELF, IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IT'S SAFE TO SURMISE THAT STUDENT NEORU DOES, INDEED, HAVE JUST A BIT MORE TO GIVE THIS BATTLE!

Mei stepped back. "This is…!"

It was even more violent than it was that day. The difference was Heaven and Earth, a downpour of the sea itself compared to a waterfall.

"... No. This is perfect."

She prepared a Strike Prison in her hands. "At least now, you no longer waste my time..." She sweated but smiled devilishly. "Should I best you now, that coward will be nothing to me!"

Tenganosu chuckled. "Yeah, that's ok. That's a-ok, maluco. If you know you're going out anyway…"

Neoru kept roaring, surging with ki that should've been impossible for a human, let alone one in his condition.

"Then doing with a bang, and show these bastards everything you've go-"

Neoru grabbed at his heart.

And suddenly…

"PISS... OFF!"

It all vanished. Magenta smoke pushed off him in an expanding helix, before almost short-circuiting into nothing.

All of that power had leapt from him, fading.

After a bout of breathing on a knee, coughing up smoke as if he'd tried to huff a dusk sky, he finally spoke. "Like… hell…"

[ BGM: James Dooley, et al. – And I Thought I Was a Pyro (BGM Mix) ]

He stood up without so much as a wobble. There was pain, lots of it, but the mere act of focus allowed him to move and think as if it weren't there. So he ignored it, and focused.

Mei came down from the staggering fit of confusion that had rocked her. "... what did you just-"

"Just who the hell do you think you are, asshole?" he bellowed. Flaring violet eyes burned with twice the intensity they once had. "I don't remember beggin' for any help."

The announcer stared on in bewilderment. I'M... JUST AS LOST AS YOU, VIEWERS BACK HOME! STUDENT NEORU HAS, UM... DENIED THAT AMAZING POWERUP FROM JUST MOMENTS AGO! BUT FROM THE LOOKS OF IT, THIS PLUCKY FIGHTER IS STILL REARING TO GO ANOTHER ROUND! "(His ki's not pouring from him anymore... wait, it's stopped altogether! He can't even form an aura anymore, with that bare minimum to survive he has left! It's all receded into his body! And yet...)"

"W-what the hell?" Mashii stared at the holographic television in the exact opposite way one should look at a TV. "What did he just do? He's not pink-red anymore!"

Katlij ‒ and every other party present ‒ looked toward Tenganosu.

"Que porra é essa..." he muttered to himself before feeling eyes latching onto him.

Tenganosu looked back. "... ey, I know what I know, I'm just as lost as you folk right now."

He now felt side-glances latching onto him.

"... fine, Papa Tengano will baby you all." He pinched and twisted his chin hairs. "So somehow, some way, he shut off Tlatla completely. Tlatla, of course, was his only route to victory, and for SOME REASON, he threw it out the window. Which makes him a stupid loser."

Mashii kicked him in the shin.

"MH-HM...! A-Anyway, he isn't back on the floor for a reason I can't piece together. I've literally never seen this before, and I've lived my whole life on the South Stretch! He's not... fine... and his ki's at a level where," he suddenly darted his head to look for an example, and settled on Selaine, "Even THAT flower without her tricks could leave him a bruise in a brawl, but he's standing like nothing's wrong!"

"wait what the bloody hell was that supposed to-"

Kora looked at him like he was crazy. "Why can't humans just transform like everyone else!?"

"We're built different like that, anyway... wait..." Tengano suddenly smacked his hands together, pointing to the screen. "THAT MOTHERFUCKER'S GOTTA BE USING PURE WILL!" He began pacing back and forth. "WhaddoIwannasay uh... the 'bucket' isn't carrying anything, though? Wait, shit, if the soul is the bucket, and will is the water, then... what the fuck? What is he doing!?"

"i'm not finished with you, you virile bastard, i demand you explain your prior comparison this insta-"

"You..." Kora interrupted again. "Will... are you talking about Spirit Energy? You know that the soul IS that, right?"

"... eh?"

"Spirit energy is the inexhaustible base root of ki derived from the soul, and it translates into ki by combining with three other components: Genki, Shōki, and Yūki."

"... the hell're those!? Use a water analogy senhora, pronto."

Kora facepalmed. "Vital Energies, Sound Mind, and Courage. Spirit Power is... an infinite river... and when needed, it goes down a... Yūki drain, then through a Shōki filter, and it lands in the Genki bucket. Ki is someone pouring that out."

"... Oh." He looked back up. "Vital energies... Physical and Spiritual wellness alongside Ki, no? Because I only see one in spades. The other's gone, and I can't figure out how... unless..."

"i swear upon my family banner that i'll curse you-"

Kora finished his sentence for him. "He's 'covering the bucket,' forfeiting Genki. He's reserving it inside himself." She turned to the young man in the tribal hoodie. "Since when could humans do that? And... you're all so squishy! Why WOULD you abandon ki control!?"

Tenganosu stared at her, and then at the screen, in disbelief. "With what little he has left, I... I don't think he's given himself a choice. Why the hell's he goin' this far for some redhead?"

"Hey..."

The boy turned. Dina stared at him, as if he were a ghost.

"You said something... What did you mean about Neo 'going out, anyway'?"

"... you have lost. Do you not feel it, you stupid child?" She balled her fists. "YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE TO WIN, AND YOU SQUANDERED IT."

Neo glared at her, silently.

"You done gettin' pissy over other people, yet?"

Mei's face twisted.

"Good. See, whatever the hell that was… it wasn't there for Kuole. Or my bro. Or anyone else I was too late to save. Or me. So s'far's I'm concerned, it ain't worth shit. Hell, it's the reason I'm in the situation I'm in." He pointed at her. "You said it yourself, right? I'm 'sick,' and it's terminal. I'm not gonna use the bullshit that's killing me to win."

He cracked his knuckles. "It's THIS, or nothing. If I really need a random bullshit pick-me-up that I can't even count on to fight my battles, then it's settled. I was never strong enough to find my own reason."

Mei sighed. "How sad." She formed her qi spirals, closing her eyes as if bored. "You have no sake for yourself, much less for another."

"Yeah, you're one to talk."

That woke her back up. "What?"

He cracked his neck. "I hate it when folks give seminars before a fight, so I might just leave it there. But, y'know… I'm startin' to wonder just who's got more 'resolve' between a dumbass with no reason, and the dumbass who, for some reason, can't put him down."

That remark made Mei very, very angry with him.

"I was too easy on you. That changes now."

He could now feel that. Without an aura to protect himself, he was subject to her ki in full; combined with the murderous intent coating it, the feeling was crushing and cutting at the same time.

Yet Neo held firm. "I haven't given you shit but 100%. It's about damn time you started trying." He raised a contradictory middle finger to her, one beckoning her forward. "Bring it, asshole. Come find out what else I've got in stock."

The girl clasped her hands, formed a senkenki, and flung it toward him with fury. The construct scythed through the air at speeds surpassing another ten mach with every passed centimeter directly toward Neo,

And hit nothing.

"...?"

A wheel of fire then hit Mei's neck dead-on, but she didn't move an inch. Revealed was a Neo ablaze – not with ki or spirit, but actual fire, having sparked himself against friction like a match across flint. There was no aura to protect him. All he had was his superhuman levels of conditioning.

His shin had also broken. An unreinforced human had sent it crashing against a target stronger than steel, of course it did.

"... shǎchā."

And then the shin reformed.

"WHAT!?"

[ BGM: Jamie Christopherson – The Only Thing I Know For Real (Instrumental) ]

A mid-air spin into a heel from the boy's other leg pushed Mei's cheek back a bit, before the lunatic kicked off it, the girl serving more as a wall than an opponent to damage in that instant.

He caught himself in a wobbly handstand and flipped himself back to his feet, now a hundred steps ahead of the girl in a strictly literal sense. "Ow," he giggled, in great pain. His skin had gotten a bit grayer; if not for his absurdly-trained body, he would've been ash at that point in time. The longer he stood in place, the more the pain and his own human limitation set in, and the more Mei's intent sawed at his spirit. It was like spending time in a microwave, now actively hurting him.

Mei made the next move in an instant. Neo's brain threatened to short-circuit as he reacted to it, but he did just that, retreating further up.

"Piece of…" the dark-clad girl hissed. "IS YOUR PLAN TO EXHAUST ME, BOY!?"

"MAYBE!?" he replied, half-snarking and half-screaming, all in an effort to dull the pain, before narrowly dodging another buzzsaw-esque construct. He lost his footing for a literal second, more-than enough time for his hunter to barrel into him, striking his Dantian point directly and sending him into a crater. Somehow, some way, he wheezed, and the ki he hadn't used at all stayed put.

"(His points are reopening on their own!?)"

Neo rolled to the side and back onto his feet, then weaved his head from another strike, and another, and another, using bursts of small motions to minimize the agony of dragging his unprotected body through the air. With how sparks flew around him, it looked like an orange pseudo-aura.

"SO INSISTENT ON THAT CHILD-LIKE FANTASY, YOU DESTROY YOUR BODY IN YOUR VAIN PURSUIT!" she roared, as she and Neo darted back and forth, gradually making their way up. "YET HERE YOU ARE, RUNNING LIKE A SCARED ANIMAL AFTER SO BOLDLY CHOOSING TO STAY AND FIGHT!?"

"(There's no FUCKING opening, dammit! She's too fast! No, bullshit! Push it harder, stupid! REALLY fuckin' look at her!)"

Neo suddenly side-limbo'd underneath a flying crescent kick, then struck out at her core, fragmenting his knuckles on her abs. A small, demented giggle escaped a hardly-fazed Mei before she shot several full-blown strikes at him, which – at the repeated expense of his breaking-and-mending wrists – he parried, making an attempt at a strike himself that Mei bashed to the side with ease, before altering her hand from a fist into a-

"(SHIT!)"

Neo almost heat cased, his brain working far beyond overtime, before intercepting the bisection attempt, taking Mei into a one-arm throw away from him. He gasped for air, managing two breaths before a GENUINE gasp escaped him; Mei had caught a bamboo shoot, spinning up it before cutting it down, leaping toward Neo before slamming her makeshift bo staff onto his position.

"EVEN NOW, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHY YOU FIGHT, DO YOU!?" she laughed, as if making fun of his aimlessness as she leapt down, darting toward Neo with what was now a several-meter spear. "'MORE TO GIVE'? 'STRONG ENOUGH TO FIND A REASON'? YOU MERELY MAKE THINGS UP ON THE SPOT AND CONVINCE YOURSELF THEY ARE WORTH FIGHTING FOR! ARE YOU SO SCARED OF YOUR OWN LACK OF MEANING!?"

Neo blocked a swing, shattering his forearms entirely.

"I HAVE MEANING, AND YOU STAND IN ITS WAY! STOP WASTING MY TIME! QUIT ALREADY! BECOME A STREET BUTCHER!"

Neo's solar plexus suddenly cracked.

"JUST MOVE ON!"

A kick had sent him flying straight into a door, one that his impact only splintered before he fell to the ground. Mei eyed her cracked shoot, then tossed it aside.

His vacant, twitching eyes went void for a moment.

Then they returned to their violent flare, in a scowl. His fingers twitched, before they balled into a fist once more. He slammed his palm into the ground, fortifying his resolve, and stood himself back up with a stomp. His ponytail had been lost, and his spiky, shoulder-length hair shook and swayed in a frenzy.

"JUST… WHAT… THE HELL MAKES YOUR BULLSHIT ANY BETTER!? THINK JUST 'CUS YOU'RE PAST THAT SAIYAN PHASE 'A YOURS, YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME, FUCKFACE!?"

Mei, who'd taken her time reaching the boy with a two step-per-pace stride, sucked her teeth. "Is a snake going to lecture me on knitting?"

"Suck a dick," he growled. "You couldn't even say Kaza's name earlier."

Mei suddenly stopped. "I have been lenient on you as of now-"

"SHUT UP, I'M NOT DONE!" Neo balled his fists to the point of bleeding. "So what, you're gonna 'save' her, huh? Well, this is gonna be news to you, ya pretentious fuck, but I'm NOT stupid. If, IF you beat me, that gives you a clear route to Zinco. And you've got the type'a skills to 'make it look like an accident'. THAT'S your 'great reason,' your shitty 'resolve,' right?"

"It… it does not need to end that way. I do not want it to. If he lets go of his delusions, he can only make her happy."

"And if he doesn't, you'll just KILL him, right?"

"SHUT UP."

"MAKE ME!"

Mei accepted his request. Neo was just a bit more prepared, ensnaring her hands before they could reach him. His nose bled profusely as a result of mental stress, and his back leg buckled, but he fought against her force; less equaling her strength, more placing himself in a state of inertia.

"Like it or not… you're not… making a DAMN thing better for her if you do that! She's just gonna…"

Neo pushed himself off Mei. "FUCKING hate you for it!"

"THAT IS FINE!" Mei finally screamed at him, throwing a senkenki with full strength, slicing through his cheek deep enough to expose teeth, before one-sidedly crossing blows with him. It looked more like she was taking out her frustration on a sandbag than fighting another martial artist. "OUR PRESENCE HAS ALREADY RUINED HER LIFE! IF THERE IS ANY HOPE OF HER FINDING ANY PEACE AFTER THIS, THEN IT IS IN A WORLD IN WHICH WE NO LONGER TRESPASS!"

"BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!" Neoru suddenly, recklessly evened the gap. Mei actually staggered, his fist jetting into her liver as hers knocked out another tooth, before Neo took the offensive in their manic dance down the stairs. "YOU KEEP TALKIN' LIKE YOU'RE SACRIFICING YOURSELF FOR HER SAKE, BUT WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOU'RE GONE!? I'VE GOT NO DOUBT THAT YOU TWO DUMBASSES ARE ALL SHE HAS, AND YOU THINK HER LOSIN' BOTH OF YOU AT THE SAME TIME'S A GOOD IDEA!? WHAT, DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT IT CUS YOU WON'T BE AROUND TO SEE HOW IT PANS OUT!?"

Mei suddenly reversed a punch, forcing Neo's face into the ground and trying her best to break his arm. And she did; like a creaking door, the crunch of bone sounded off over and over as his arm continuously reformed in a replica of its original form, sending Neo into a small tizzy.

But he remembered that he really, REALLY didn't want to lose to someone like Mei. And the pain stopped mattering so much.

"YOU'RE JUST TOO…"

He slammed his head down into the stone, his foot crashing into the back of Mei's skull like a scorpion tail with enough force to get her off him.

"CHICKENSHIT TO TAKE THE OUTCOME WHEN IT ALL COMES BACK TO YOU!"

He jumped up and spun in a kick; Mei ducked and did likewise; Neo ducked and lashed out with a roundhouse kick; Mei caught it and yanked him forward, decking him into the ground and raising her leg; Neo straightened himself in a solid vertical position to the sky, as the following kick destroyed the step his head once laid upon, before he kicked Mei in the face from said position like a wonky K, spinning himself back up. They went back-and-forth in a parry-beats-fist-beats-parry exchange, before Neo took both Mei's hands under his arms.

"You…" Mei hissed.

The two then butted heads.

"YOU CANNOT EVEN FIND A PURPOSE TO STAND BY! WEAK IDEALS, WEAK CONVICTIONS, A WEAK-MINDED, WEAK-WILLED FOOL! I WILL NOT LOSE TO A CREATURE AS PATHETIC AS YOU!"

"THIS COMIN' FROM THE ONE MAKIN' DECISIONS FOR PEOPLE WITHOUT SO MUCH AS LOOKIN' 'EM IN THE EYE WHEN THEY DO IT!? FUCK YOU!"

"SHUT UP! Mei desperately screamed, ripping her hand from underneath Neo's arm and jabbing it toward his throat.

He grabbed it with his teeth.

"I'D… RATHER…"

He grabbed it by the wrist with his free hand.

"HAVE NO REASON AT ALL… THAN ONE THAT PATHETIC!" he roared, winding back before obliterating his hand with Mei's face, sending her tumbling down the steps definitively.

"You're really just gonna leave her all alone… without either of you…" Neo blinked rapidly. "That's so dumb… what kinda friend does that…?"

At the bottom, where small, glowing flowers now bloomed, Mei struggled back to her feet. Huffing frantically, then desperately, she suddenly shot her gaze toward him with a pure killing intent so strong, it blasted Neo off his feet.

"Wiping out whatever fits your vague description of 'evil,' creating a utopia absent of violence, even though any real impact you make will always be confined to one city."

"YOU'RE THE ONE MAKIN' PEOPLE'S DECISIONS FOR 'EM WITHOUT SO MUCH AS LOOKIN 'EM IN THE EYE WHEN YOU DO IT!"

"Ghn… nnh…!"

"The course of that one's life was decided the day you two entered hers. Removing yourselves from the equation now will only make her more miserable than she's gonna be, because at this point, she'd follow either of you to Hell."

"You're both such idiots."

"UAAAH!" Mei formed three threaded disks and cast them toward the boy, two disconnected and flying freely as golden strands tailed from them. Neo evaded the first two at a literally blistering speed, but as he eyed the third, a snag across his skin drew his eye.

Both loose constructs had latched onto him via their lingering threads, gradually wrapping around him and growing smaller as the third, tethered senkenki honed in.

"WRITHE! WRITHE, YOU WORTHLESS SNAKE!"

Neo glared down at her after realizing his hairy situation. "Sneaky asshole!"

The blood redhead grinned maniacally. "I fight to WIN, boy! The contradictory codes of the martial artist mean nothing to me!"

Her target spun across the ground in an effort to dislodge one, erratically flailing from the other, all while keeping tabs on the third killer yo-yo frisbee. The air around the top of his head was starting to haze, like the end of a road in mid-summer, scurrying across the field and dashing into a rotting structure of which Mei was unfamiliar. Though, it was inconsequential.

"If I cannot break you, I will tear you apart and leave a stump with just enough blood left to live!" she screamed, watching him dance as if he were a puppet, then as her rounded blades diced a modern building without trouble, leaving a plume that was yet being cut into even smaller bits. The smaller the aforementioned disks became, the closer the battle was to ending. It seemed that she had the upper hand.

In truth…

"(C-control yourself…!)"

The girl's technique did not come without cost. Creating more than two senkenki every dozen minutes was immensely draining, considering the need to constantly generate one massive, spinning thread. She'd done the equivalent of running across a state without pause.

"(I-if I break now, then Kaza will never be free… she deserves better than that!)"

And also, said threads were fortified by the soul itself. Xiao Mei had given everything to produce such constructs, and so, they were nigh indestructible. A massively potent ki, stemming from her resolve.

At that moment…

"(... it is NOT too late for her! She is strong! She will survive without us, and she will flourish with time! I am already unforgivable! There is NOTHING ELSE I can do for her!)"

That resolve was waning.

"(I HAVE TO TRY!)"

The disks swathed through the air one last time, finally unraveled as threads, before disappearing into the cloud. Her threaded spiral came back to her, and she threw it in the direction in which the other golden vectors had converged. An arm and/or leg was the surefire casualty.

However, her thread was cut before that point.

"!?"

A shot emerged from the void.

Neoru had a sword. No, a club. A fusion of the two, made of stone.

Bound together by her threads.

Aimed right at her side.

"HAA-"

"HAA-"

[ BGM: Jamie Christopherson: The Only Thing I know For Real (0:29) ]

They clashed, Neo's weapon and Mei's thread-clad left hand, sending spiritual sparks across the serene battlefield.

"NOT SO FULL'A YOURSELF NOW, AH!? THANKS FOR THE NEW STICK, BY THE WAY!"

"WHY MUST YOU PERSIST!?"

The two broke off, then charged again, petals flying violently as the two crossed each other continuously, in a swirling alternation of swings, lunges, presses, and kicks. The opposing rotation of Neo's reappropriated threads canceled out those of Mei's.

"HOW CAN YOU FIGHT WITH THIS METTLE WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A REASON!?" the girl desperately demanded the boy answer, suddenly outmatching his footwork and catching him on his left with a leaping lunge, sending him tumbling back. The boy threw himself back up, managing another awful burst of speed, and parrying several of her follow-up blows before lashing out with a kick from below, dealing a genuine bit of damage to Mei.

"YOU WANT A PURPOSE!? ALRIGHT, FINE! RIGHT NOW, MORE THAN ANYTHING, I JUST WANNA KICK YOUR ASS!" His expression was nothing less than berserk. "I WANT IT EVEN MORE THAN WATER! I WANT IT EVEN MORE THAN THE NEXT SUNSET! I DON'T GIVE A SHIT, I JUST WANT THIS!"

His hasty attempt at a combo slash was dodged and countered by a jab to the kidney that hurt like a burning hell. He met her oncoming bisection with his own, clashing against her sword-fingered hand with his weapon. His nose bled profusely, mind beginning to corrode from the sheer stress of keeping up with someone so fast. With every second, his improvised weapon broke down a bit more.

"YOU KEEP ALTERING IT AT THE DROP A HAT, YOU STUPID, STUPID BOY! YOU ARE AN ABNORMALITY, AN ANIMAL IN A MAN'S SKIN! YOU LACK THE RESOLVE TO HOLD ONTO EVEN ONE SOLE REASON TO LIVE!"

"Khh…!"

"So live."

"Seguir luchando, mi hermano."

"A man should have more ambition, you loser!"

"And just what…"

"Find a purpose, if you even need one."

"And sometimes, you can find something better to replace it with!"

"THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT!?"

It reformed itself, its threads turning violet as if snakes molting their skin. Neoru questioned it for an attosecond before he swung down with all his might, sending Mei skidding away and finally winning a bout of strength. The anti-assassin noticed, eyeing her shaking hands in disbelief.

"... WHY!? WHY WILL YOU NOT LET ME PASS!?" She formed one final senkenki, imbuing it with all of her strength, and cast it out as if it were a beam of energy. "WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE!?"

"I WAS NEVER GONNA LET YOU HAVE SHIT, STUPID!" He guarded with his weapon. His claimed threads slowly began to falter in the face of Mei's, and so, he began to advance. "BUT IF YOU'RE REALLY THAT DEAD-SET ON FUCKING OVER THREE PEOPLE 'CUS YOU CAN'T THINK'A SHIT TO FIX YOUR PROBLEMS OUTSIDE MAIMING SOMEONE," he yelled, making greater and greater strides before breaking through the disk and all-out sprinting toward Mei as his leg muscles exploded, "THAT JUST GIVES ME EVEN MORE OF A REASON TO KNOCK YOU OUT!"

Neoru lunged forward. Mei could hardly react, before she and Neo's heads collided. The blade, the warring ki, and both their heads shattered.

Both flung across the flowerbed, bleeding through cracked skulls.

… LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, AFTER AN INTENSE BOUT OF THE WALKING DEAD STEALING THE SHOW, WE'VE LANDED AT WHAT COULD VERY-WELL BE A T.K.O! THAT'S ONE… TWO… THREE… FOUR… FI- holy sh- TH-THEY'RE STILL MOVING!

Neo was the first to start struggling to his feet.

"(ShIt,)" he mentally slurred, "(I ㅤㅤcAㅤn' fOㅤcUㅤs…)"

For a moment, Neo began to submit to the breaking, tearing, splitting, and exploding that he'd put his body through, in a state of confusion thanks to his bashed brains. But a surprise development gave him the motivation he needed to snap back to attention, his fighting spirit fanned.

Mei had beaten him to standing. Her hair undone and draped over her, she looked flat-out dead, like a ghastly apparition with an unsettled score in the living world.

"(How the fuck are you still…)"

He trailed off mid-thought. He'd seen it, displayed it, felt it, all throughout the match that was, just maybe, now coming to a blissful end. It must've been that Resolve stuff.

The scenery changed. Half of it, anyway. Old and new ruins surrounded them. One a burning half-crescent hell, the other, a stagnant overcast. The flowers persisted, as did debris of archaic, once-exquisite houses.

He noticed how she shook, staring into the flames. Her eyes were wide open, like those of fauna as they watched several-ton behemoths roar toward them. She clenched her arms, one specific area on her shoulder especially.

"No…"

It was the most pain she'd undergone throughout the entire tournament. A typhoon of overwhelming emotions threatened to tear her spirit apart, vying for control and placing her brain into lockdown.

She held her throat in a quivering, frantic mess, reminded of its source.

"... nope, this one tastes bad, too." It spat out a piece of her shoulder.

She was certain she'd made peace with this memory. This day.

"Are they ALL this weak? Planet's a bust, then. It's just resources."

But now that she'd returned to the spot, it all came flooding back to her. Every vivid detail, down to the ribs in their armor.

Any lofty exaggeration of the events, any exaggeration of the disgusting trash or self-explanation of the events that'd taken place in an attempt to make sense of it, all vanished.

"Maybe it can make a stronger child. It's got the same build you've got, no reason downstairs should be any different. Power level's a fair bit higher than the rest. She's not hard on the eyes at all, either."

"You pervert! Then again, these aren't a very long-lived race, gestation can't take that long. Sure, give it a shot, just do it somewhere else. Gross."

"You hear that? I'll give you a head start. Run."

They were not an evil mother and two corrupted children. They were not monkey wraiths born from the spirits of those who'd fallen in warfare and chaos to punish the land.

She had everything taken from her by three paid space thugs. No different from any other.

She'd gone under as it happened, fighting and screaming until she no longer could. After an untold many hours, she'd woken up, left alive, the flames having died out. Beaten savagely by the first, eaten alive by the second.

She stood up with a quaky stumble and confirmed it with the source of the pain.

The third had used her.

She no longer felt human. She wanted to rip off her own skin. She had no idea if her empress had made it out alive. She found herself not caring. Slowly, as if terrified of shattering what was let of her psyche, she looked up. The town had been desecrated. Bodies littered the squares. Men, women, and children alike lay dead. She'd taken time to know a great deal of them.

The dark, cold space was completely alien. Distant kabooms shook the earth and polluted the sky like unholy fireworks. The chatter of locals was replaced by distant screaming.

Her head stopped when she reached a dead guardswoman. She recognized her. Many times, they'd recognized each other as strong. She was missing a portion of her face.

Mei lost all feeling.

"... ah... a-ah..."

All was lost.

... all was lost.

And a sole feeling possessed her.

"RUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—"

She blew out her own voice box from screaming. A bottomless maelstrom of rage that her frail human body was ill-equipped to bear. Her face distorted as she roared, her jaw threatening to rip apart.

The closer her voice came to disappearing altogether, the louder she became. Blood began streaming down the corners of her mouth as unwavering malice filled the night air, her amber eyes becoming vacant voids. By sheer force of anger, her psyche, her cadaver, her very soul were all being held together.

There was no Hell deep enough, no torture painful enough. It would be slow.

For a month afterward, she devoted herself to killing them.

She failed, every time, and yet always survived. Until the day came that she'd taken one arm, one leg too many, when she stopped being a source of amusement and was finally put down, like a rabid-

"HEY!"

She fell back to reality at terminal velocity.

Neo was still there. "You alright? You froze up."

He received no response. Looking around, if nothing else, he had the "Why" sorted out.

"Shit, this looks bad." He turned to the announcer. "Yeah uh, I ain't fighting someone who's havin' an episode."

"Does that mean…"

Neoru nodded. "I didn't give up to anyone, or for any stupid reason. Whatever-" he pointed to Mei's vacant expression, "-THAT is, it ain't my fight anymore. Can't do it."

He raised his hand. "I-AH-"

A rock suddenly flew into it.

"JSFFFF… WHAT THE HELL!"

He turned around. There stood Mei.

She looked around. The flowers and modern ruins were still there, melding with her own nightmare of the past. The latter still hurt to look at. Yet…

"Why…" she stepped forward, but buckled under her own weight. Golden threads enraptured her, and after a low, long grunt, she stood, now her own puppet.

[ BGM: Rob Dougan – Furious Angels ]

"Why do you not care for this?" she asked, now holding a flower. "Is this not your nightmare?"

Neo stared for a sec. "Not really a nightmare, but it's mine. The last time I saw this, I was meditating. I, uh, I cried. Like a bitch." He pocketed his hands. "It's one of the worst fucking things that's ever happened to me because I'm the reason it happened. I'm not unaffected. I've just finally accepted it. That screw-up's a part of me now."

"... this is the source of your resolve?"

"... yeah. Yeah, yeah it is, actually." He turned back. "Why, uh… why'd you stop me?"

"..."

She bound her fist, crushing the flower and cursing her stupidity to the heavens above.

"I… I don't want to lose to you."

He looked back at her, fully prepared to call her stupid for saying something stupid; she was literally about to win. But he held his tongue. And his face slowly widened in shock. "... holy shit, I get it."

"... I am a fool. An arrogant, contradictory fool, who cannot let go."

"... eh. I coulda socked ya while you were out of it and won." He sighed. "Guess we're both insane."

Still spiting herself, she finally brought her gaze back up to him.

"But I have to try," she muttered. "That is all I have left."

"... I doubt it."

Mei gathered herself in a stance.

"I have to try."

0.7%.

Neo nodded to himself, before following suit.

"I know."

1%.

He wouldn't say it aloud, but seeing her take a stance, even after everything beforehand, made his heart skip a beat. Whether or not it was fear, he wasn't sure.

With glares that had long since lost their bite, the two stared each other down.

A single fragmented petal reached a flame, as the two collapsed cities loomed over them.

Slowly, it was eaten by the fire, until finally,

Its tail end was consumed with a spark.

Mei attacked Neo. Neo blocked her punch and countered. Mei parried with an elbow and jabbed. Neo parried from the wrist and threw a straight. Mei dodged and went for a hook right in his face. Neo blocked with a knee up and shot a kick straight after. Mei shot to the ground before bounding up with a spin kick from behind. Neo ducked and threw a backhand fist. Mei limbo'd beneath and threw her weight into a cross. Neo bashed it down with a forearm, dishing a jab with the same fist and throwing his own cross, both hits blocked and then dodged with a step forward by Mei. Their backs toward each other, both checked each other's roundhouse and sweep kicks alongside each other's back hits, before Neo shot one that Mei ducked beneath. Mei went for the back of his neck with a sword-like chop, and Neo stopped it with a forearm. The two attacks collided, then calmed and remained.

The two began stalking each other, stepping in a slow, steady orbit around their crossed limbs. It was indistinguishable from a dance, for the sparse seconds where no strikes singed the air, the two almost-intimately locking focused eyes.

A blur shot from Mei, and one from Neo followed at nearly the same time. They reset to neutral.

A blur shot from below Neo and was met with one from below Mei. They reset to neutral.

Every second and third step, another blow stopped by another blow. And then, every second step, shaken by the occasional feint. And then, for three steps, they pressed each other's waning reflexes, until stopping altogether. Mei sprang at Neoru once more, pushing his footwork to its ceiling; with every step back from the boy, a stomp forward from the same-sided foot from the girl, each accompanied with another strike. With every attack, Mei added more and more power, equaling if-not surpassing her opponent in strength for the first time in her life. Neo could tell, just off how much his limbs suffered with every failed parry. Mei's constant invasion of his "bubble" was strangling his minute of stamina. However, his footwork continued to grow, as his fading mind continued to use its full potential, relaying styles of fighting from his betters and peers in a desperate attempt to keep pace. Mei grew more bestial with her movements, remembering the way her chosen state's warriors were trained, in tandem with a fearsome beast of which, as her pseudo "initiation" to the training of a Shadow Spider, she'd staked her life to slay.

Suddenly, they completed their mental pictures, and separated with a clash, skidding back in different stances.

The sun began to rise, as a hulking, grotesque tiger ghost and Dina Spaurk faced off.

The silhouettes lifted, and as a matter of course, the anti-assassin pounced, with fast and heavy strikes that Neo could no longer afford to block; his held-together bones had been powderized. At the same time, despite her erratic movements, Mei wasn't hitting Neo; his speed wasn't superior, he was simply using minimum bursts and stable "kicks" off the ground to stay far enough to one side. His jabs were growing more and more agitating, but for once, she wouldn't bite; she channeled emotion through her "paws," not through actions, well-enough to weave through a low hook-into-straight, only for Neo to swing most of his upper body past a dual-handed strike. The boy's violet eyes left photons trailing through the air as he shifted himself around and swung his fist low, kissing the ground as he fired an uppercut at her exposed side. He landed the attack, but his target flew back too far; she'd used Taikūjutsu, flipping back on contact with the ground, her final use of qi sans holding her body together, leaving behind her power-centric fighting style. As Neo took up the offensive, she switched her stance, suddenly locking his wrist and jabbing him in the throat in one motion, using his momentum against him. Chahan took the locked joint behind his back, slowly motioning her pristine right hand through the air to cut his tendons; however, she was suddenly shoved off-balance, her gripping hand grabbed before her leading foot was kicked from under her. Kaset jerked himself like a crocodile, back-first on the ground and placing her in an armbar.

"(Do it, motherfucker, c'mon…)"

Mei dislocated her arm before it could break, then tried bringing down a fist onto his solar plexus; Neo kicked it up, handstand, and brought his legs down upon her, landing the attack. He rolled away, as Mei repaired her arm.

She threw her head up, fell head-first as if fainting, and dashed at him, utilizing long, darting fists with forward speed as power, a stance that her master had taken from his former lord's kingdom and had taught her on a whim.

Neo retaliated with the same flowing, ground-dependent movements he'd learned and honed since he was six, ones that his brother had taught him to pass time.

Both were losing their nerve. The pain they were putting themselves through was absurd. But both kept moving for a reason they didn't fully hold, hadn't fully placed together. Neither style could land a hit, despite their best efforts, until finally, they lashed out; a shared blow sent them tumbling, no more than two meters apart. The only thing superhuman about them at that point was their tenacity, and how they held their broken bodies together. The two, as they pushed themselves up, shared feral glares. The truth was revealed in them.

They had dropped any real reason halfway into this last bout.

In resolve. In a fight. One just wanted to beat the other.

Neo walked forward. Mei walked forward.

In each other's face, both paused. No style was working, time was running out before their bodies, minds, and spirits finally failed them.

So they cast aside higher thought. They swung.

It was now a fistfight. The only motive was to hit the one before them before they fell. Neither bothered blocking. No parries, and their feet didn't move, rooted into the ground.

Their gazes held burning. Their fists broke. They didn't stop.

Finally, somehow, Mei sent Neo stumbling. She blew out her still-bleeding nose for a final kiai, and all she could see was the young man's torso.

The target.

Her left hand could still pierce. One burst of speed, a straightened arm, and she'd reach him. She only need fall back on Zhizu Yinquan.

If she could do just that much, she'd reach him.

For a split second, she saw her. A smile that would fade forever, should she embark on such a useless path as pacifism, such a painful path as servitude.

All she needed to surpass her limits one more time.

Xiao Mei, Chāo Miǎn would not allow him to make her suffer.

"GRAAAAAAA—!"

Neo had reached the limit of limitless, the price of being born a mere human. He couldn't even raise his arms. But accepting such a thing, he couldn't bring himself to.

"HRRRR—!"

They had to try.

.

.

Futile.

Mei's resolve had won out. Neo had been stabbed. Blood trickled from the wound, the last pint. A small sliver ran down the corner of his mouth.

Succumbing to the massive blood loss, body and spirit finally giving way…

.

.

Mei fell.

The exact same point she'd used to end her first encounter with the boy had been used by the young man unconsciously. She had simply lost more blood. The announcer counted down. Neo committed to a final act, by virtue of a newfound will. With one hand, he grabbed Mei's, and pulled it out of himself.

It looked like they were shaking hands. In that moment, the announcer remembered the end of her conversation with her mother.

"If that's true, then how come you quit fighting, Mommy?"

Videl smiled. "Honestly…"

She playfully bumped the side of her head. "When martial artists hit a certain point, they start going crazy! I figured I was a bit too close to that point for Daddy and Grandpa to stomach. She stared off. "Although… maybe I'd be alright with one more fight in my lifetime. Who knows?"

0.1%.

0.

"(So this is what you meant, Mom… neat.)" AND THE WINNER IS… OROJIA NEORU!

The boy fell to the ground, opposite of the girl.

He looked content.

Like a dead man with settled affairs.

[ Self-Contained ED: RIZE – MUPPET ]

EXTRA_STEP: Stupid Revengeance Reference #1

"... you know, for a martial artist, you are not very good at your job," said Mei.

"The fight is the big payoff," Neo retorted.

"Right. Big praises all around once Conton TV gets all those hits."

"I'm not talking about honor, Jack. I'm talking ideals."

"who's jack"

"you rip things, you're jack."

"Didn't I call YOU Jack like 60 chapters ago?" Dina yelled from one of the drones.

Neo sighed. "Forget it. We've both heard enough speeches about 'Higher Causes" by now. History will decide who's right."

Mei fell off her comedically-large motor bike, solitaire flying everywhere. "I don't care who thinks I'm right."

"uh there's a spade in your head i'm just say-"

"AND I'VE GOT CAUSE ENOUGH FOR KILLING YOU."

Neo noticed she wasn't even pointing at him, just his general direction.

"Hi guys!" Zinco waved from his dumb flying TV.

Neo stifled a chuckle. "Oh good! Why, that's very good! Yes, I like that!"

"stop talking like that, it does you no favors"

"no"

Tengano scratched his chin. "I mean, it's not BAD, buuut..."

"No," Mashii and Katlij stated in unison.

A small flying TV showcasing some purple-haired loser sailed between them. "Must you really fight?"

IT IS LITERALLY A TOURNAMENT, YOU OLD BUM! BUZZ OFF!

"I DON'T REMEMBER ASKING YOU!"

Mei looked at them like they were stupid because everyone in that present area was stupid and she was a judgemental hypocrite. "... don't interfere."

Neo followed suit. "This is between US."

"Dramaaaa~~~..." Pan salivated.

Both gave her a side glance.

"... and... and it ends here."

"O... ok... l-let's dance."

.

.

"SHOW ME A GOOD TIME, MEI!"

"PLAYTIME'S OVER!"

The two had orbited each other in a Totally-Not-Dosey-Doe for five minutes, now. They had surpassed light and were now generating infinite energy.

Pan showed Trunks, who was currently hogging one of 56 fans in his room.

"Hey, I'm not complaining."

6/4/2023 Patch Notes: Buffed Mei's will back to 2017 Ver. Kinda forgot how much Berserk influenced her character and the dark-as fuck place I decided to take her backstory from rip. Got too caught up in grimdark sad girl hours to remember that she was originally the angriest fucking character in the cast, and the entire point of that happening was for Mei to be a focal point for raw human will. Will likely go further back to correct a certain fight's outcome.

Yo! OP Here.

I'm still pretty low right now, obvious reason, but homie wasn't the type that'd want anyone to mope forever. I'll keep him in my heart, and keep on moving forward, for his sake.

So fuck yeah, first real fight of this damn series, Neo vs Mei. Doneso. Honestly, it's better than I'd ever hoped for it to be. A lot of the ideas were real recent; the first time I started thinkin' this shizz up, it was 2018 and I just wanted Neo to rush a tile in Mei's face and be done with it; the sword scene was a remnant of said idea, 'cept it didn't nerf Mei to the ground. The final fight is a REALLY late idea, we're talking late 2021, and I FFFFFF-U-CKIN love it. Love it when final fights end like that, especially when it's with two characters with normally-flashy movesets. The idea of someone like Xiao Mei going "fuck this gongfu shit, run me them ones cuh" and raw beating the shit out of someone is just... I don't know. Lights a FLAME in me. Juxtaposition is just kino to me.

Won't lie. I love Dina, I like Kora, Voshyo's dope, Ceushius is dope, Kazikum is a guy that exists I guess, Wabi is Wabi, I'm gonna Launch Archi's ass one day, fuck you Akaki eat shit and die you little gremlin fuckhead, but man. I think if I had the opportunity to revamp the story to just star Neoru, Mei, Zinco, and Kaza, I would. For some god-forsaken reason, I've dedicated the most time into THOSE FOUR's backstories/development. They're the ones I've worked the most-extensively on. Everyone else hasn't changed much since their conceptions. And it's like, I have to do shit for EVERYONE else. Weird how I'm saying that about Dina and Voshyo, seeing as how they're the OGest of OGs and Dina was Neo's fucking girlfriend for four years, but MAAAAN. I wanna do cool Post Apoc/Wuxia/IDEEEEALS/Existential shit so bad. I dunno, I might change my mind as I keep going ahead, but right now, that weird thought's flashing through my head like crazy. Long Term Passion Project stories are weird like that.

I'm also gonna start adding EXTRA_STEPs if time permits. Injecting humor is just good for you, and these chapters are all about exploring those "major dark backstories" you were promised when you clicked on this fic for the first time.

Neo's soul has Heisei King Ghidorah's roar btw.

In unrelated news, I passed this one really important test today. Sets the tone for the next three months. 88. Not horrible. Any other info is classified.

Back to story shizz, yes, I am VERY proud of "Senkenki." I've also been rewriting and rethinking how Tlatla and, even more, Spirit Power works. Here's the result of that:

{TL;DR: Tlatla is ki, hyper-enhanced by the conscious drawing of spirit energy taking it into infinity. The soul takes the burden in Tlatla. Tlepōctli is the mind and body operating at hyper-capacity thanks to raw fighting spirit, as the spirit holds everything together by locking down ki. The mind and body take the burden in Tlepōctli.}

So the soul's eternal, yeah? Destructible, but eternal. My based and definitely real Headcanon is that Will derives from the soul, and that it can potentially generate an infinite amount so long as the soul can take the burden, kind of like a nuclear reactor, and its nuclear fission is ki through the Gen/Sho/Yu process. Translating this Will from the spirit and throughout the mind and body breeds ki, and a surge in Will, or Spirit Energy, from anger or a need gives that extra boost in ki. Humans can do that, but Saiyan souls are fuckin WACKY in terms of durability, so their boosts are gigantic compared to ours; they can also take this even higher with transformations. They can basically, in this fic's context, pull off controlled, set-amount and instantaneous Tlatla ‒ alongside both bodies AND spirits that can take the new strain ‒ thanks to Super Saiyan forms, and the Oozaru states are pretty much them taking on the higher shape of their souls.

Neoru, and the Orojia, are also built different. Before we talk about that, we've gotta discuss Toriyama's Ki fundamentals, as discussed in the "Toriyama Thought About it like This" special interview: Shōki (Sound Mind,) Genki (Physical/Spiritual Energy) and Yūki (Basically Fighting Spirit.) Because of where the Orojia civilization is centered, they have abnormally-strong Yūki, which allows them to draw Spirit Energy AT will, making it work overtime without limit to generate a potentially infinite amount of Genki. Their Shōki varies. It's still really important, cus Shōki establishes resolve in the first place, and Yūki pushes Genki to grow far past maximum for the sake of that resolve. Anyway, their souls also take on the shape of much stronger beasts like dragons and phoenixes and shit, because they've worked constantly throughout the millennia to improve their spirits to translate more and more Spirit Energy while storing more and more Ki; according to my notes, that's "an unconscious byproduct of the Orojia's desire to continue growing stronger and surpass human limitation, made possible by South Stretch tribes' abnormal Yūki." Basically, the tenacity of both they and all South Stretch residents to survive and surpass both the island and each other allowed for constantly-evolving Yūki. The stronger one's Yūki, the more Spirit Energy they can draw; and these guys never had a reason to stop growing, so they reached a point where they can just use it whenever. Spiritually, they're closer to monstrous beasts than they are humans. Problem is, Humans are still FUCKING MIIIIIIID. Our weak little bodies and SOVLS can't withstand that much strain, so undisciplined or even slightly-reckless Orojia's souls explode. Remember the nuclear reactor analogy? An Orojia soul is a star, and Tlatla is said star thrown into supernova. It produces massive amounts of energy in a very short time, pushing that limit still ends in a meltdown (see: Neoru,) and allowing it to run on for too long ends in an explosion. Bye bye soul, bye bye existence. Other tribes had workarounds like dividing labor (see: Graffia) that help restrict and control this outpour and ease the burden it puts on the soul.

Oh, you're probably thinking why Tlatla doesn't affect the body. Yeah, the soul holds the burden of all that excess ki. The probelmo's bypassed entirely because the spirit is what's being used once the body's limit is reached. Remember that one time Neoru charged at that big Frieza Force dude with a whole-ass dragon? That's the soul being used as storage for ki; doing that gives the spirit a physical form. Also, a giant reason the Orojia worked to distort their souls to support a bigger and bigger burden. Also why the soul explodes, while the body isn't affected. Through meditation and training and shit, as both Neoru's body and spirit grow stronger, he'll be able to take it further.

Neo was originally going Burning Godzilla because he wanted to be a defiant little bitch and BREAK DA LIMIT. He learned the cost of that real quick; I.E. he literally broke his soul, and now his ki's leaking out of him. He didn't die on the spot because Conton's tech is cracked. And he's STILL dying of Anime Spirit Disease.

So here's where things get silly. Spirit Energy can also be used to kill Tlatla entirely. That's got nothing to do with this next part, though, contrary to my own former belief.

A strong enough spirit can do damn-near anything tbh, but in this case, it can lock down the generation of spiritual ki ‒ ki used for blasts, aura, flight, shit like that ‒ entirely. Instead of conducting that ki synthesis, Spirit Energy shifts all focus to the inside, like it's becoming an endoskeleton, allowing one to hold themselves together and use what they have physically and mentally to its full natural capacity if-not at a higher level (made possible thanks to recognition of how fast and strong one can imagine themselves, and will themselves, being; former ki use helps this a lot) just without spiritual protection. His level of Ki is bare-minimum for a human like him to survive, higher than like ALL of the normal population, but so under parr that it can't be used for ki techniques; it's just his life energy. So yeah, this state is Shōki and Yūki operating at their absolute best, while Genki focuses entirely on the internal; absolute mental strength and fighting spirit, allowing the soul to heal and pushing the body forward past limits with sheer force of will.

I'll call it uhhhh Tlepōctli, Nahuatl for "Smoke" with a fire connotation. Named such for the faint smoke rising off his body, due to Spirit Energy doing work within him.

The problem with it?

HUMAN BODIES AND MINDS ARE FUCKING AAAAAAAAAAAAAASS.

WE CAN'T GO FASTER THAN LIKE 60 MPH WITHOUT SHIT BREAKING. OUR BONES SHATTER WHEN WE HIT WOOD HARD ENOUGH. WE'RE F TIER PHSYICALLY. A Saiyan using this shit would be on DEMON TIME, but ningen are SQUISHYYYYYYY.

Neo's able to sidestep this a bit because Kaset put his Body and Mind through the ringer, but still. He's like, slightly above Baki-tier physically in a world where someone like Mei using ki can split a mountain with a kick. So when using Tlepōctli, he's subject to natural forces and whatnot. It's a matter of the mind and fighting spirit remaining resolute as his body suffers from transcending human limits by force. He's being held together, but he ain't regenerating. At least, his body definitely isn't. We'll see.

But yeah, this is the last time I'm gonna screw with Spirit Energy and Tlatla as a concept. It's fine the way it is now.

I spent like 15 hours on this one stupid fucking section. I hate me.

Again, TL;DR: Tlatla is ki hyper-enhanced by the conscious drawing of spirit energy. Does not have a ceiling or set multiplier, only ramps up until user can no longer handle the influx. The soul takes the burden in Tlatla. Tlepōctli is the mind and body operating at hyper-capacity thanks to raw resolve, as the spirit holds the body together and guards ki. The mind and body take the burden in Tlepōctli. Is still a young concept, unlike Tlatla. Its benefits may be expanded upon in later chapters. For now, it's only useful against an opponent with dwindling power.

But yeah, Spirit Energy syncing with GSY-ki is, here, an ancient concept. Mei can do that shit cuz it wasn't ancient knowledge when she was around. S'why she can do crazy shit like Senkenki and Wo Qie and shit. She and Neo mirror each other a lot in this chapter. That's by design. What do you mean you don't care, you know how hARD I WORK ON THIS SHI-

Mh-hm. Yeah. I'm tired. Gonna study. Next Chapter: Kaza Wins ft. Zinco Does a Thing.

That's about it. See ya next match.