WITH AN EXPLOSIVE BEGINNING, GOING TIT-FOR-TAT IN SPITE OF THE STAGGERING DIFFERENCE SPOKEN BEFOREHAND, STUDENTS NEORU AND ZINCO HAVE ONCE-AGAIN GAINED AN UNEASY MEASURE OF EMPTY SPACE!
WHO WILL BE THE ONE TO BREAK THE ICE FIRST!? THE PLUCKY CHALLENGER!? OR THE STALWART HERO!?
Neoru smirked. "Should I kick this off, or…?"
"You're fine." Zinco's eyes started sinking into concentration, a pressure gathering around him.
"HERE I G-"
He moved as he spoke.
In that moment,
As Zinco rushed past,
Neoru's perception ran into a dead end.
[ OP: My First Story – REVIVER ]
Oh, How Heaven Trivializes Mortals' Passions! And Yet, The Fighting Spirit Ever Burns!
A nightmare.
One in which the dreamer fell from a great height. Or in which something unbelievably large hurdles toward them.
The pressure, the buildup. The body tenses, in preparation for a bone-splintering force that would undoubtedly kill. An absolute helplessness, ending in a jolt that violently rocks the dreamer into consciousness.
And a force that would never meet its target.
Zinco now stored that very dream into his attacks.
Only…
Neoru stood in place, zoned out.
With a dampened fighting spirit, the body simply forgets to resist death.
He suddenly shook out of his stupor. In a rattled reorientation, he locked back onto Zinco, leaping back as he did. "The… FUCK!?"
Depending, of course, on that fighting spirit in question.
The boy found himself bounding back MUCH further than he should've been capable — without risking his soul exploding, that is. "(Huh…!?)" He stumbled over himself, but fell on air as he fell.
Three impossibilities in the span of a second. The violet-eyed boy fell gently onto the now-hilly tiles, paralyzed as he slowly regained bearings. With effort, he presented himself with his shaky hand, and he stared into it as if expecting seven or three digits. The standard five that humans came with reasserted reality.
"What in the…"
The reality that he, in fact, stood no chance.
"Actual…"
And that he was MUCH stronger than he had any reason being.
"Hell…" Pervading his hands – and entire body, for that matter – was a light field of jade fog, like visible cologne in an overblown advertisement.
"Cloud-Walking Fist…" With a light bound forward, Zinco had leapt over to his position several kilometers out, before outstretching his hand in front of himself. "Altostratus."
"Where the hell'd you learn how ta say that?" Neoru joked through his dread, smirk contradicting his contracted pupils.
"Kaza," Zinco explained in kind. "I just gave you half of my power."
Neoru's pupils outright faded. "HUH!?"
WHAT THE!? IF MY EARS HAVEN'T FAILED ME, STUDENT ZINCO HAS JUST GIVEN STUDENT NEORU HALF OF HIS OWN KI!
THIS PURE AND JUST ANNOUNCER CAN VERIFY, HER VENERABLE PREDECESSOR'S OLD AGE HAS NOT ROBBED HIM OF HIS HEARING JUST YET! IT'S JUST AS CRAZY AS IT SOUNDS!
Khh…!
THE BLONDE BOY SCOUT SEEMS FIT TO BET HALF OF HIS ENERGY TO HIS OPPONENT! IS THIS THE EPITOME OF ARROGANCE, OR COULD HE HAVE SOMETHING SPECTACULAR IN THE WORKS!?
In-between her commentary, Pan noted something. "(It's his own version of reinforcing the environment…! But used on a SOUL? This kid is ridiculous!)" MORE URGENTLY, HOW WILL HIS OPPONENT MAKE DUE ON THIS GAME-CHANGING EQUALIZER!?
He pushed himself up, shaky footsteps belying his new-given strength. "What's wrong with you!?"
"I did it so I wouldn't crush your soul. You saw what happened to the soldier, right?"
Neoru's glare persisted.
"..."
"Motherfu- YES."
"... right now, compared to me now, you're even weaker than he was to me back then. If I could, I'd've just used a pressure point to put you to sleep… but we both know that won't work on you."
Jin's shaking palms balled up very soon.
"I don't wanna do something like that to you here, or anyone ever again. So I thunk up a way to make sure Cirrus can't do that to people weaker than me." He lowered his hand. "Only a bit of Cirrus will seep through the ki around you, and your soul won't get jumbled. This way, I can kill your fighting spirit, and nothing else."
The dragon boy's eyes darkened. "So much of a joke t'ya that you feel like ya need ta protect me from you mid-fight, ah?" He sped toward a motionless Zinco. "Then keep standin' there, dickhead, 'CUS YOU JUST MADE ME AS STRONG AS YOU!"
He leapt forward with a punch, and as it collided, he realized.
Zinco's elated face slowly motioned back into view. "... it worked!"
An offense, without the conviction to wound, was as good as hurling an insult.
[ BGM: Yasuharu Takanashi – Enfin Apparu ]
Neoru tried to leap back, but even with his buffed speed, Zinco pushed himself to catch up; his sharp exhale was like a flash-gale, and his sharper inhale was like a brief exposure to space's vacuum.
In that single instance, Zinco had replenished his ki by near 10% — or, from what Neo could feel, more than what he had before then. In four more's time, he'd be back at full.
A palm slammed into his diaphragm, and the feeling from before was replicated. For a brief moment, he saw the void, but he snapped out of it with just as much fervor. Neoru had to stop himself from throwing a retaliatory kick, and spaced himself against the charging half-blood.
"(I DIDN'T DO SHIT BUT MAKE HIM BUDGE WHEN WE WERE APPARENTLY EQUALS, AN' NOW HE'S GETTIN' HIS POWER BACK! DAMMIT, NOW WHAT!?)"
Closing the gap, Zinco's kick shot out, colliding with and shattering Neo's hasty barrier – in the same moment in which it shot into the fold – sending the human back further. He caught himself in a handstand, sending the surface up in light and debris the moment his palm made contact.
In the midst of it, Zinco caught three more sharp breaths before locking onto a single larger piece of rubble. He tore it from its descent with a swing of the hand, only to find a single orb of spirit lingering in freefall.
He then noticed Neoru's elbow over his neck.
"According to findings from the Calculations Division,"
-said Stroga as he pointed to the board, "A factor of two is the line separating a battle from an outright slaughter. Though factors vary, of course, this measurement remains the most consistent across battles witnessed both across time and first-hand by patrollers. One can negate such a factor by focusing ki into a certain region or attack but, as such, doing so makes one vulnerable to attacks aimed elsewhere. Now, any questions?"
A 15 year-old Neoru actually managed to stay up for the explanation, though barely.
"You don't need to write things down?" asked Zinco as his pencil sizzled with barely-legible characters.
He smirked. "If I'll actually wind up usin' the shit, then I'll just listen. What brains I got'll do the rest."
That "line"…
Neoru's eyes burned violet and bulged as he squeezed with all the resolve he could muster.
Had not yet been reached.
IN A STUNNING DISPLAY OF MIND OVER MATTER, STUDENT NEORU SNEAKS HIS WAY AROUND HIS OPPONENT'S THROAT!
WHICH IS TIGHTER; THE STRANGLEHOLD, OR THE CLOSING GAP BETWEEN THE TWO, THANKS TO A TEXTBOOK CONTROL OF KI!?
"(SCREW WITH ME ALL YOU WANT, THAT STRATUS BULLSHIT'S TOO WEAK TO WORK ON ME!)" he gloated internally, having formed a rear-naked choke borderline-instantaneously, channeling all of his ki exclusively into his arms and hands as Zinco's curled and twitched around them. "(IF YOU REALLY WANT ME OFF YOU, THEN BLAST ME OFF! BUT THAT'S ONLY IF YOU GIVE THAT MUCH OF A SHIT ABOUT WINNIN', AND NOT THAT STUPID DREAM! WELL, NOW WHAT!?)"
Jin proceeded to emit the second most organ-rattling growl Neo had ever heard.
And it was close enough to first place to shake him more than physically. It only tightened his grip, but his eyes frazzled. "(... you're fucking kidding…)"
He was, somehow, taking in air through such a choke. The air itself rumbled as his pupils faded.
The same feeling of despair rapidly shredded through his veins in jagged spirals of ice, as sheer force of the saiyan's aura alone was inching his vice grip off, baying the Tlatla that had started to ramp into play. Never mind his hardening neck, his very presence was repelling the hold. His fanged teeth presented themselves, as Neo braced for a roar that wouldn't arrive.
The burning embers of his will caused ki to surge, fighting the difference with a menial resistance.
But soon, Jin's tail wrapped around Neo, prying him off as if lifting a toddler, as the half-blood shrank onto himself in a blinding motion.
The next thing Neo knew, he'd shot everything he had into the next instance of Cirrus:
"KA!"
A back kick.
With no space afterword, he swung his arms down in a circle, smacking Neo with each falling palm and rotating the whole of his body into one seamless, beautiful crescent that slammed into his challenger, quite visibly knocking the spirit out of him in a mystical crash and eruption of light.
Not once did he break from the triangle those movements had based around.
Slowly, as if verifying, Jin brought down his leg from its skyward position.
Neo's eyes had lost their supernatural light, glazed with confusion.
IT'S NOTHING SHORT OF AN UPSET, FOLKS! STUDENT ZINCO'S SKILL AND ABILITIES HAVE LEFT HIS OPPONENT STUNNED! EVEN- NO, IN PART DUE TO THE FIFTY-FIFTY SPLIT, HIS TRUE POWER HAS BEEN LAID BARE ON THIS HERE STAGE!
The aforementioned opponent staggered back, as if lost.
"Ah…"
There was a high feeling spreading through his mind, like droplets of dopamine starting to condense. There was an excess of headspace, one he hadn't felt since…
"There's no reason to keep this going."
Zinco's words met no resistance. It felt like fact, simple as. "... huh."
The boy's emerald eyes dilated for a moment, but he didn't allow the moment to pass.
Zinco opened his mouth, but stopped the words from leaving, uncertain of their value.
"..."
But at last, he found them. "... 'That Perfect 1'. Right? Well… I think I have it, now. A hold on what it is, what it could be. I… I remembered what you said during my fight. It helped me out. Actually, I think I would've given up if we didn't talk… if you didn't have that faith in me. You helped me get here, so…"
Zinco placed a hand on Neoru's shoulder.
"This is your reward. Go be happy. Enjoy life." He grinned warmly. "I'll keep fighting for you!"
Neoru stared; his confused, glazed expression was self-directed.
"(Yeah. I can just do that kinda stuff now, huh? What was the point of risking so much searching for whatever… if I already had so much?)"
It was weird, how he, not too long ago, insisted Zinco be stopped before he hurt himself.
"(... I saw myself in those eyes. Someone set on doing something, and wouldn't stop until he did, the world be damned. But even after everything...)"
That light had once left his eyes. It still shined bright as ever, if-not brighter in Zinco's.
"(You're not even close to broken... you actually pulled it off. I guess… guess I was always just jealous, huh? If this was the worst he could do now, then why bother?)"
It slowly occurred to him — the futility of it all. How stupid everyone looked flailing against each other, vainly trying to prove something.
Neoru tossed his objective to the ground. He would oppose Zinco's dream no longer.
"Heh... yeah. It really is useless." He looked up. "You did it. You beat the fight right outta me, and without harming a hair on my head."
It really was something praiseworthy. His eyes filled with awe, just thinking about it.
The same boy who'd claimed something so stupid out of nowhere, had finally realized his dream. And he… had nothing even close. If Zinco had his way, then no. There would be no reason to be strong enough to find a reason. He could just… do it.
Jin's eyes slowly filled with, somehow, even more light. "Really...? You're not doing a sarcasm!?"
Neo chuckled weakly. " 'Doing a sarcasm'? Idiot...! You're too stupid ta take the 'real world' for what it is, no wonder ya still can't speak!"
"H-hey!" Jin laughed bashfully. "I'm not that stupid anymore!"
"Yeah, I'll give you that!"
The tailed boy calmed. "I couldn't've done it without everyone, including you. Now you can be happy with your friends, from now on. Especially Dina, right?"
Neoru slowly raised his hand. "(Honestly, what a guy. Someone like this…)"
.
.
.
"Huh?"
Zinco stared in confusion, before understanding. Kind of. "NOW YOU CAN BE HAPPY WITH YOUR FRIENDS, FROM NOW ON! ESPECIALLY DINA, RIGHT!?"
Neoru stared at him blankly. "I don't get what's makin' Dina so special."
"... it's… uh… the girl you really like… it's like me and Kaza. Your... your girlfriend. Dina is her name, right?"
Dina stared, red.
Kora folded her arms. "(I knew it!)"
Kazikum stared.
Wabi folded his arms. "(I KNEW IT...!)"
Katlij stared.
Mashii stared.
Baubi stared.
Euu stared.
Selaine stared.
Tenganosu stared.
Devine let out the most obnoxious gasp known to man. "I. SO. KNEW IT!"
Ayeva stared. Daggers. Ayeva stared daggers.
Kaset stared. The smirk he blocked with a hand was juuuust visible enough. "Knew it..."
Kaza stared.
"(... did she know?)" the djinn asked herself amidst the palpable rage beside her.
Neo stared.
Neo stared.
Neo stared.
Neo's fist shot into Zinco's gut.
Neo stared.
Neo stared.
Neo stared.
Neoru stared at his shaking fist. "(... the hell just happened?)"
A few meters away and on his back, Zinco took a moment to understand what had occurred. "W-hy?"
Neoru came to grips with his own intent, forming a frown. "... her name's Mèi, dumbass."
"Kih-..."
Kaza gasped in horror. "MEI!?" she screamed, turning toward the seasoned taker of life currently burying her flushed face in-between her palms.
"BUT… BUT WHY HIM!?"
"Mh-hm-mmh…!" Mei answered bashfully, doing everything in her power not to squeal.
OOOOH! STUDENT NEORU HAS PUBLICLY DENOUNCED ANY NOTION OF ROMANTIC FEELINGS FOR THE PUNKISH-YET-COMPASSIONATE STUDENT DINA, INSTEAD BOLDLY DECLARING HIS LOVE FOR THE MYSTERIOUS AND TORTURED STUDENT MEI, WHO NOT-TOO LONG AGO STOOD BEFORE HIM AS HIS MORTAL ENEMY! IN A TWIST OF TUMBLING EMOTIONS, LOVE HAS IN FACT BLOSSOMED FORTH ONTO THE BATTLEFIELD! MEI, OH MEI, CAN YOU SEE THIS NOW!? HAVE YOU ALREADY RETURNED THIS GALLANT BOY'S BLAZING HEART, OR-
With a smack upside the head, Trunks buried Pan into the tiles.
… It seems Student Neoru has regained his fighting spirit! And nothing else!
"Lovey-dovey crap aside," Archi scratched his head, "Why's he punchin' again? I thought the Zinco kid could beat the fight right outta ya!"
"Of all that'd utter such drivel, for it to be a Saiyan is outright appalling." Voshyo directed his glare from the buffoon beneath him to the arena once more. "No matter how deeply it is submerged, no matter how distant one grows from it, a fighting spirit does not dissipate. Though, for the human…" His lip raised in confusion. "How strange. It didn't take much at all for him to regain it. As if a mere mistake could respark it all at once…"
Stepping back, it felt like he'd awoken from a rosy dream.
"(You know, come to think of it... That dream of his, the one that he took THIS far... can I take it even higher?)"
Neoru's quaking hand started clawing in place, slowly, but surely, closing.
Zinco's brow shot up, before furrowing in austerity. " 'Kay…!"
"(What if all along, THIS has been my point!? Ever since I heard that nonsense, THIS has been what I've wanted!?)" An inexplicable super-emotion rose into his core and spiraled outward as rising ki. "(I don't…! I don't think I've ever felt like this over somethin' before…!)"
The violet flare returned to his eyes as he began surging with energy. "(YEAH! ALRIGHT! SCREW BREAKING IT, I'LL MAKE SURE HE CAN DEFINITELY PULL IT OFF, THEN!)" He reflected on their chance meeting, its abruptness, its progression, everything between the past and present, and the blinding future that could lie just ahead. Anything he could to kindle this new, passionate flame in his heart. "(I'LL USE EVERYTHING I'VE GOT LEFT TO-)"
"HAA!"
Zinco cast his palm to quell his soul once again and definitively pacify him.
The falling dream returned.
.
.
And his spirit responded.
cHKRROAAAAAIIAIAIAIAAAAAAAAO!
"AH-!?"
A dragon of amethyst lunged at Jin, full sail.
This time, he was fast enough to act.
W-WHAT!? BEFORE STUDENT ZINCO COULD DEAL A BLOW THAT COULD'VE DECIDED THE MATCH THEN AND THERE, A DRAGON EMERGED FROM STUDENT NEORU! IS THERE A SET OF DRAGON BALLS SOMEWHERE UNSEEN OR WHAT!?
Pan stared at Trunks. Kchm… Mmhm… WELL IT'S DEFINITELY A SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT! WE'VE SEEN DRACONIC DISPLAYS FROM THE ALLEGEDLY-HUMAN STUDENT NEORU IN THE PAST, BUT NOTHING SO BLATANT AS THIS! COULD THIS BE A SIMPLE TECHNIQUE!? OR DOES THIS HINT AS SOMETHING DEEPER BENEATH THE SKIN!?
It sent him across the landscape, tearing into its floor as Zinco's scorching boots sunk into the ground like it were snow. An amount of power that continued to rise, starting from the value he'd given and rapidly exceeding his own, threatened to sear him altogether as it began to weigh more and more, take on a tougher and tougher physical property. Cold to the touch and yet igniting the air around it, the spirit beast thrashed wildly, Zinco's grip on it unwavering in spite of its properties.
"GHH… HNNRAAAA-"
He hurled it into the air, sending himself tumbling across the rocky tile arena and right through a hill made of such. With one last enraged roar, it sailed in an arc across the crystal-blue sky, before descending straight into its body of rebirth.
Beaming down for a tense few seconds in an inflamed pyre, finally, the area cleared. At the center of the aftermath, mind spinning with eyes stuck in a trance,
"... FUCK."
Neoru.
He staggered back, before falling onto a knee. "... FUCK." His eyes raced toward his arm, which no longer possessed a multitude of feathers. It was once again flesh and bone. "I'M… NEVER GETTIN' OVER THAT…!"
Finally acknowledging the subtle assault, the boy's soul had forced himself into an out-of-body experience. And in doing so, it coiled in defense, restoring its properties with all the ki it could get its essence on.
"(... shit.)" He had to visually, auditorily seek out Zinco's position; his sixth sense had disappeared.
"(Ah shit, I'm in Tlepoctli. Wait…)"
The sparkling jade fog that had once surrounded him…
[ BGM: Kenji Fujisawa ‒ Hieroglyphic Fist ]
Had grown amethyst.
"(HELL YEAH, I'M IN TLEPOCTLI!)"
"The hell is a Tlepoctli?"
Tenganosu gathered his thoughts. "It's a reversed, Inner Tlatla, from what she said." He thumped his knuckle onto Neo's shoulder. "Even as it activates, the soul doesn't rush outside the body and get solid as ki is dumped into it; it's everything you need inside to keep fighting at your max, as your soul stitches itself with the spirit ki it's making. THAT'S done by converting the ki AROUND you into spirit ki, thanks to the intensity of your prenatal vitality — or as we call it nowadays, Genki. What you did versus Mei was just that — sealing it all inside yourself so nothing came out as power. Just that… it's only happened a handful of times across Orojia history, from what Ahrotsu said, and only with REEEEAL nasty berserker-folk. You did it by overpowering your own desire to live. You're a nutcase, basically."
"Oh. Neat."
"I'm not done yet, mano. The reason she called it Tlepoctli, the smoke still rising from in-between those atoms of yours… you know how you get folk riled up for no reason, right?"
"Dude I'm just a dick."
"As am I, mano, you an' me both, but that's… not… entirely what it is. Your spirit itself stokes others' 'inner flame'. Makes them springier, you ever notice?"
"How people start orbitin' me after a fight like they're joinin' my damn party?"
"... you like video games?"
"No that's weird nerd shit, Baubi just can't shut up about 'em sometimes."
Tengano shook himself back to the point. "Tlepoctli is the same way, only… concentrated in an area. People's energy tends to become like your energy. At first it's figurative, y'know, giving people that same jolt in vitality — it's a part of how South Stretch folk survived. But if people's own ki, that extension of their energy, comes in contact with your own hyperaggro'd spirit, away from their own 'core' and right up against yours by means of a fired technique, then…"
Neo put his thinking cap on. "Oh shit. Like Mei's threads…!"
Tengano laughed as Neo got excited — the latter was an infectious person, after all. "So you're already familiar, ah?"
Zinco recovered from his place in the rubble with a few scratches, only to behold what now stood before him. "What?"
Neoru stared diamonds at him. "Hey, hotshot, you're back up!" He grinned maniacally, a raging smoke steaming from his body.
"... what are you doing?"
Neo shrugged. "Found a new reason, I guess!"
"..." Zinco seemed to get more confused the more he looked at his opponent. "Oh." He bowed respectfully. "I'm sorry for misunderstanding your relationships. I won't do it again."
"(How the hell did his vocabulary shoot up this much, what I miss?)" The dragon shook his head. "Nah. Don't worry about it. Honestly? I'm not even KINDA angry about it, anymore." His violet solar storms burned a hole into the saiyan's own irises, as he began leaping in place. "Just focus everything you've got on your technique, alrighty?"
Zinco's eyes furrowed. "But why?"
"Eh?" He pointed to himself. " 'Cus I still got a light! Why else!?"
"HE'S DOING THE THING FROM LAST TIME!" Mashii exclaimed. "THE THING THAT MAKES… Him… weaker…"
Katlij grabbed his hair. "This can't be good…"
Manic chuckling stemmed from behind them. "Nope…!" Both turned to see Tengano, who looked like a psycho. "YOU'VE BOTH GOT IT ALL WRONG…!"
All the while, Kaza glared down in disbelief. "W-what did he do? Why didn't he just surrender!?"
Manic giggling steadily streamed from below.
"Mei?"
The aforementioned anti-assassin grinned. "Because he is a fool!" she declared.
Ayeva glanced. "Kaset, do you know anything about…?"
The patroller looked down in abject awe. "Not a thing…"
[ BGM: Linkin Park/CC Karaoke – When They Come For Me (Instrumental) ]
The half-blooded idealist readied himself. "(I took back Altostratus, but he's holding onto it...!? Still, I'm stronger. I just need to use a heavier Cirrus, and I can-)"
A knee shot into his face.
"(...!?)"
He weaved it, just in time. "(-I CAN MAKE SURE HE STOPS FI-)"
To be soccer-kicked in the back of the head.
Neoru skid as he landed. "Hyuu—..." His other leg dragged back over the other, standing back upright.
Jin bounced three times off the tiles, shattering them with each. His heels slammed against the ground as he bounded onto his feet, shock etched onto his face as he checked the blaring back of his head.
A dead-serious Zinco stared down Neoru, who'd begun wagging his finger.
He knew it in his heart, despite how upset the truth made him — his opponent wasn't contradicting himself. "(I have to shut down Altostratus!)" Zinco rushed him.
Neo sank into low posture; Jin flashed beside him just as he'd jut forth his elbow forward.
"You know…" the dragon mused before eating two of Jin's hits without so much as a daze.
"...!?"
"I'm startin'a see it now… you're doin' the thing where you raise your power the second you attack, right?"
With a leering smirk, he swayed into one of Zinco's kicks, using the momentum to swing one of his own, Manji-form. The golden boy caught it gently mid-air, diverting the ki to the ground, stomping to null Neo's fall.
"... REALLY!? You're gonna use THAT dumbass's technique!?"
He was then hooked onto by one leg and socked by the other, the prior limb joining in and erupting into an erratic frenzy before the tailed boy caught his bearings, parried one as he stepped to the side, and reared into an axe stomp.
Neo slammed straight through the momentary energy cloud beneath him – "C'mon, man, I…" – and raised into a coiled cross-legged handstand – "KNOW you're better than that!" – sending Zinco's leg right back up.
"GEE, THAT NEORU GUY HAS GOT TO HAVE SOMETHING UP HIS BUTT, HUH!?" Akaki """"nonchalantly"""" shouted, kernels crumbling in his hands. "WONDER WHAT GAVE HIM SUCH A BONE TO PICK!? YOU SHOULD REALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT, ZINCO!"
Archi gave him a look. "I… don't think he can hear you, bud."
"That force…!" His foot touched down on the other side, before Neo swirled onto his feet and sent one into Zinco's skull, sending him back – right before impact, they seemed to catch fire.
"OH HEY, LOOK AT THAT!" the dragon cackled, head beneath his own leg as he held his freeform stance. "GUESS I DON'T NEED KI TO DO THE POWER BURST TEQ, AH!?"
"GH…!" The self-sacrificial saiyan watched his now-nemesis slam his leg into the ground, sending tile structures of various shapes and sizes into the air. Zinco stopped them in an all-area kiai before shattering them in a balled fist, only for Neo to spring off their broken forms, launching a spire tip at him like an arrow; the blonde caught it with a hand, only for it to launch into his forehead regardless, courtesy of a highspeed Neoru-based dislodging. The violet-eyed boy kicked off his emerald-eyed enemy's face as the latter tried slowing down, tunneling through the environment before bursting out of the still-breaking path of destruction, lashing out with a kick that Neoru met with his own thanks to a fortunately-placed hill, scattering white-rock rain around them. Setting himself back down, Jin's feet entered the triangle of a pumbalki.
So did Neo's, in a ginga that fluctuated between loose n' lazy and belligerent.
"Why are you trying so hard to win!? This is senseless!"
"KHH-KH-KH…!" Neoru grinned maniacally. "Win? Who gives a shit 'bout winnin'? I just wanna see how far I can push that dream'a yours before I burn out!"
Zinco read his next move before he made it, gently, quickly weaving his arm to block, only for Neo to seemingly phase straight through him.
"(BUT...!?)"
Neoru had simply not made the move. The feint burned with overwhelming hostile intent, akin to an animal viewing the bared fangs of a toddler's smile as a direct threat; it caused Zinco's impeccable battle instincts to work against him.
It happened again, and again, and again, in closer and closer intervals with more chained "attacks" than the last as Zinco's gentle and otherwise-graceful parries were rendered choppy, unfinished movements, until his feints caused the blonde's mind to short-circuit — like a short-change electrician with a broken tv, a hammer fist to the side fixed it right up.
"(Mmh…! He's not-)" Jin stopped a kick with his own despite his brief stupor – "(Giving me-)" He parried an instigating slap with a flowing-motion palm, then stopped a MUCH faster elbow with his own – "(ANY other option!)"
Their lightfooted pseudo-dance continued, accelerating after each bizarrely-similar kick and lighting the air itself ablaze, with every slight opportunity given by the flash of a blind spot. "(WHY ISN'T CIRRUS WORKING ON HIM!? IS IT TOO… WEAK!?)"
His mind flashed back to the colossal gap he was subject to in the quarterfinals.
"(NO! He's not even HALF as strong as Kaza!)" He leapt into the air to meet Neoru's force, only for the flame-eyed boy to cut everything — his movements, his intent, all of it. "(NNH…!? SO WHY!?)"
"(It's amazing… reversing the situation, despite what should be basic common sense…)"
He'd stopped himself for a nanosecond. The moment where Mei took down a guy twice her size and far stronger surged through him in a flash.
He basked in the moment. Losing himself. Becoming nothing.
"(It's like I'm spitting in nature's face!)"
And in a sharp burst reminiscent of the Shadow Spider's flash-footed maneuver, Neoru drove his forehead into his sternum.
The golden boy rocketed backward, hacking spittle as he struggled to pull in air.
"ZINCO!" Kaza screamed. All the while, Mei looked on without a word, her smile fading.
"(... Neo?)"
"FUCKIN' CALLED IT!" He laughed. "IF YA CAN'T DAMAGE MY SOUL, AND I START PULLIN' SHIT LIKE THAT, THEN WHAT!?"
Zinco pounded the ground, not so-much-as shaking the tile beneath. "THAT'S…" He struggled to finish his sentence.
"Dirty… right?" His demented howls ceased, suddenly dead-calm. "People are dirty, Zink. Someone like me rolls around, an' pulls shit like that, then the dream ya worked so hard for's down the drain, buddy."
"But you're different…"
"Everyone's different in their own special way, dumbass, that's my point. But ya know what's funny?" The human raised his fist. "I'm A-OK, even AFTER givin' myself that 'push' I can do when I get like this. My body shouldn't be able to keep up this far in, but right now, I'm peachy." He started pacing around Zinco like some melodramatic action villain. " 'first I was thinkin' 'I mean yeah, the gap between me 'n you's WAY lower than it was versus Mei' but… hittin' a guy twice my EVERYTHING's gotta suck a BIT, right?"
Zinco started staring a hole into the ground.
"You're still holdin' back." He crouched with a sigh. "... I think I'm pissed? I already knew I can't beat you. But you're lettin' me down if THIS is how far you're willin'a go for this. After everything, I mean."
"Why can't I kill your fight?"
"Eh?"
Zinco looked back up.
… he was doing everything in his power not to let his anger present itself. It resulted in tangible pressure.
"My technique isn't working on you anymore. Why?"
"..." Neoru shrugged. " 'Cus I'm not a bitch? I dunno."
"Neoru…!"
The boy spat to the side. "Fine. I'll let you in on it."
"(That's the exact same Zinco-bloke who rocked two separate worlds, and Neo's actually making him work for it...!)" Dina smiled. "(It's like an asteroid rock that's finally met a hand of paper...!)"
"He's 'armored' against it."
Dina finally looked behind her and away from the screen, her arms still folded. "What?"
Kora elaborated — there was no one else in the room to tell Dina how much smarter she was than her. "His last fight made it clear that this weird form keeps his body together, to an extent. But this fight proves that it's just as much of a defense on the mental and spiritual level."
The Yarg saiyan put on her thinking cap — there was no one else in the room to tell Kora off for being a know-it-all and/or a colossal twit. "Lemme guess... Shoki, Yuki, all that palaver, while Genki and its byproduct redirect to nurture the spirit. You DO realize there are more than three facets of ki, yeah? Because that's a primary schooler's understanding."
Kora easily could've fallen into the trap of calling Dina a moron. She'd learned magic out of nowhere; there was no telling what esoteric knowledge she could've tripped and face-planted her way into, across a week's time. "If you're going to burden yourself with useless information when those three are clearly the center-focus of ki, then be my guest. I'll stick to the fundamentals."
"(Bitch…!)"
"As I was saying," Kora continued, to celebrate her victory, "Zinco's technique can somehow attack the soul and its will to fight, without damaging the body at all. The human's state kills his ability to reinforce his body or externalize ki in exchange for, considering his condition NOW,"
On the screens, Neoru kept explaining his weird state of being, albeit in a much-less refined manner. That is to say, there was an "um" every five words and a "like" every seven. Curse words and finger-snapping filled the frequent blank space.
"Apparently healing the spirit in totality while maintaining the body and mind's state, undoing the restraints of both in the process. But from what I've seen, it can amplify not-just his focus, undoing any mental constraints… but amplify his emotions and fighting spirit, too. It's become a bottomless pit that'll keep maintaining itself until there's nothing left to fight with."
"... you're just lip-reading, aren't you?"
"I'm gonna sew your lips shut if you don't zip them yourself."
"(YOU'RE the blabbermouth at the moment, you slug shit!)"
"So basically..." Neoru tapped on his skull with a crazed glee. "Everything ya got right now… I'll just 'will' on through it. (Not gonna mention how this shit starts meltin' my brain after a while…)"
"... you're wrong."
"Fuckin' better be." Neoru stood over Zinco. "I'm doin' this all for you right now, buddy. That's the reason I've come to."
Energy began circling Zinco's hand.
"...?"
[ BGM: Hiroyuki Sawano – thunderBOLTfantasy (0:00 - 2:43) ]
A deep, slow breath rattled and tossed the rubble staged miles away.
The boy stood, grabbing the forearm currently charging his superweapon.
"... it wasn't ready for anyone. I only made it to redo what I did with Kaza, in case something like that ever happened again. It's just close, now. No one should be able to handle it."
Neoru couldn't sense energy in his current state. Pressure, however, wasn't off the table by any means.
The Sok-Kum formed a lotus mudra.
"But you're different, Neoru."
And also,
Both announcers were rapidly entering the same boat as Neo.
IT'S… IT'S NOT QUITE ON THE LEVEL OF HIS LAST MATCH, FOLKS, BUT STUDENT ZINCO'S PALM IS FLASHING IN AND OUT OF THIS HOSTESS' SIXTH SENSE! AND- HOLY MACKEREL, CAN I SAY THE SAME ABOUT ITS SHADE OF BLUE!
BIZARRE WORDING ASIDE, I CAN CONFIRM, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! STUDENT ZINCO IS INVOKING DIVINE KI, IF NOTHING ELSE FOR THIS SOLE ATTACK!
Neoru spun his head around. "He's invoking WHAT!?"
Wolf Under Moon, Deer Under Sun,
Trapped In Cycle, Fogged By Natures.
Should This Be Fair? Should This Be Fair?
To End Unending Battle,
Shall Clear Path With Weightless Strike.
The dragon slowly turned back around.
歩
雲
拳
"CLOUD-WALKING FIST…!"
What sounded like trumpets rang out across the sky.
The existence of the attack alone was comparable to a constant storm of Cirrus. His every sense was now fixated on BOTH arms, and solely the pair — the sky had grown darker, and the brightest sources of light with that blinding jade.
The Sok-Kum's eyes were blank voids of that very jade, his hair raised to the sky as he prepared to lunge.
積
乱
雲
{ CUMULONIMBUS ! ! }
Neoru leapt back — he successfully dodged solely because he could still see Zinco's body move. The fists were a different story.
He'd instinctively crossed his arms as if the half-blood had thrown a star at him. His skin seared from the sheer speed at which he dashed out of dodge.
Yet instead of any earth-shattering gale resulting from the whiffed attack,
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
"... OH."
And it sure as hell didn't FEEL like nothing.
Jin's arm fell, still brimming with flaming jade flow. "So will this work?" He sounded nothing like Zinco. There was too much raw confidence in his words — no childish pep, but the genuine self-assured victory of a seasoned warrior. "I can keep going, if you want. That'll be up to you, though."
"(Whatever the hell that attack is…)" His mind raced back to the state Jin was in versus "Kaza," somehow standing up to par with some sort of demon god. More specifically, how it ended. "(If it's anything like THAT, I'm shit outta luck if it hits me.)"
"(What was with that poem...?)"
Dina gasped. "HE'S USING 'IT'!?"
Kora's eyes went alight with intrigue. "What's 'it'?"
Dina realized her mistake, and dramatically shrugged. "I-I DUNNO! SOMETHIN'AT WORKS!? Y-YOU SHOULD ALREADY KNOW AFTER ALL, YOU KNOWITALL!"
The saiyaness wasn't persuaded. "(That's the third time someone's used a chant like that...)" she noted, remembering the namekian and the ancient human's matches. "(Is it like a spell? But that couldn't be magic...)"
Konus' interest skyrocketed. "He's defined his spirit…?"
From afar, Voshyo raised his brow. " 'Defined his spirit'? Is that what Namek calls it?"
"Would it be called anything but?"
The Saiyan shrugged. "It's merely an act of focus. An extension of bestowing a technique with a name. At least, that's how I've managed to perceive it."
Selaine glanced over. "That sounds rather similar to a spell, when phrased in such a manner…"
"A spell? A mere plea for strength from forces greater? Laughable." Voshyo turned back to the battle. "He's forcing the world, inside and out, to bend to his will. I'd expect nothing less from a brat of his caliber."
"W-what a juvenile interpretation of magecraft!" The witch furiously averted her gaze. "That brute isn't worth your attention, dear!"
Unbothered by either, the martial sorcerer turned back to Zinco. "(This is a sliver of the Gods' energies… ki and magic are seemingly invalidated…! And it's all from HIS ESSENCE!?)"
Zinco's jade-imbued arms spread — one to the sky above, one to the ground below. "(This should've been obvious to me. I'll need to use even more if I wanna end this.)" They then crashed into each other, one fist atop the other. "(But this is what he wants, right? No… it can't be. I KNOW it can't be... So I'll free you.) Asperitas."
Neoru had a last-second thought.
Faster than he could think any further than any other part of his body could move, his arm yanked forth the sword.
It swathed through a titanic spirit tsunami, one that spread for miles, announcers exempt by virtue of reflexes.
Neoru stood still, staggered. "(Why'd I…)" He checked the weapon.
Ki swirled and swam through the jet black glass engraved throughout the bladed club's darkened red body. The weapon pulsed with what felt like a heartbeat, ki surging throughout the obsidian with every repetition.
It synchronized with his own heartbeat.
"... Don't have time to question miracles right now, huh?" He swung it through the air at a speed ten-fold what he was used to moving. Zinco noticed, and VERY visibly-so.
[ BGM: God is an Astronaut ‒ Worlds in Collision (1:06) ]
His chuckle lacked the arrogance he held beforehand, but a newfound confidence soldered him a steady stance. "Ain't the first time this guy's saved me, after all."
Zinco prepared to dive in.
"... so first off," Neo lowered his weapon to kiss the ground. Just the intent of reaching for the club boosted his arms' speed.
He then swung in an arc with everything he had.
For miles, the ground before him followed.
Emerging through the chaos, Zinco honed in. As did Neoru, macuahuitl in hands.
"DRRRH…!"
"HMMR…!"
A swing collided with a kage zuki, causing a break in the storm and stopping both in their tracks.
The macuahuitl curved along the punch ever-so slightly, before swinging back around, battering Zinco in his side and flinging him cross-stage right into the sky-gazing monolith, the pieces pausing their otherwise-avalanche below in the Sok-Kum saiyan's presence. Compelled to pursue, his advance was halted by a giant gold-jade orb that his brain practically fried to keep up with. He bisected it, and the many dozen that came after it.
Neoru's headspace rapidly filled with violence the more he swung the blade like mad, techniques of which he'd never learned flying from him as if he'd known since birth. By the time the onslaught had ended, his smoldering amethyst eyes twitched nonstop, practically drooling, rushing to meet his enemy,
Who rocketed straight into him.
Neoru roared like a dragon, his arms outpacing his own speed ten-fold, bashing the attack to the side.
As did Zinco's, relieving himself of all defense as he poured everything into his technique, exceeding his speed as his own divine roar echoed out.
The saiyan's fists began to bleed and fragment as he gave his all to outgun the weapon. All the while…
"What is so different about that jade glow?" Mei asked with veiled anxiety. "Is it a... 'dao'?"
"The move that resc-... beat me in our fight… it's his way of interpreting it as he is now," Kaza answered. "Normally, Cirrus dampens fighting spirit. No matter how deep he sends it, even if the receiver's soul or 'fight' is weak, it'll never fade entirely. That's just how weird things like that work, I guess. But with Cumulonimbus…" Kaza smiled warmly. "Zinco's own will starts rewriting that bit of reality. Magic can't compare."
Voshyo palmed his cheek, sucking his teeth. "You uncreative, fanatical brat..."
"THAT'S GOD KI!?" Archi howled. "AWESOME...! NO, WAY PAST AWESOME, THIS GUY'S OUTTA THIS WORLD! HEY, RENCHI, WHAT'S YOUR PIECE, MAN!?"
Renchiru began falling deeper and deeper into a trance.
"Renchi?"
"(It's like watching history repeat itself...)" he surmised. "(That boy's clinging to ambition, in the face of a senseless lust for battle...!)" The ancient saiyan began to smile. "(He's like the spitting image of Yamoshi himself!)"
"Er... I'll wait 'till you're back on this planet, then."
Nearby, Wabi's eyes were redirected by Kazikum's manic growling. The half-spawn had fingers to head like there was something trying to chew its way out. "Kaz?"
"THAT… FUCKING… PRESSURE…!" he managed to cough out amidst his drooling.
A barrier of ki suddenly raised around him, lessening the strain thanks to the additional protection. Wabi quickly snapped over, smiling at the returned favor. "Thank you!"
Archi raised a thumb. "(Even half-demons don't like God Ki, huh?)" His eyes returned to the clashing below. "Hold on...!?"
The malice-endowed spirits began to fade off with every collision, the reddened stains of the blade chipping free.
The blade's color grew hotter and hotter, until a fresh-forge orange wove alongside the blazing violet.
"Nh…!" Neoru, broken from his stupor, noticed; the memories flooded into him. "(Bro…)" He broke into a smile void of anything but the pure joy one should hold. "Haha…! SOCAI!"
However, the blade grew slower as a result.
And it flew from Neoru's hand.
"NEORU…!"
"ZINCO! DO IT!"
Jin stepped in, kicking the bouncing tiles as he zoomed in, forming a reverse punch.
Neoru formed a sword-finger hand, and sent it downward.
In an inferno of scarlet and purple, it slammed into Zinco's head.
And with a manic high, Neoru chained the attack, lunging into co-op with the ancestral weapon's dance, battering his opponent with a desperate, beautiful savagery. In the instances he grabbed it, no longer were his slashes wild, animalistic whirlwinds.
They were the flowing gales of warriors that had wielded the weapon in the past, burning fighting spirit etched into its every obsidian mold and wooden splint.
At now only seven times his output, it lost firepower. It gained thousands of years of resurfaced experience, in exchange.
"(I can't help it,)" he thought to himself, his body and spirit in an unshakeable harmony as his fists and kicks battered Zinco in a rhythmic duet with the blade scorching a synchronized violet-scarlet flame. "(This far in… I still can't stand the thought'a letting myself lose.)"
Zinco's hands tried raising, all in futility.
"(Not now that I know YOU'RE watchin', Socai…!)"
Zinco undid himself.
"(... huh?)"
Green flares reappeared beneath the boy's agape violet eyes.
His own skin seared from the evasive feat, tail having smacked into the air and bounding from collision with the sound barrier. In a bal-ttagwi, his legs with an emerald hue smacked the macuahuitl out of the air, shattering the ki that enabled it in the first place.
"(I won't… let THIS…! BE WHERE IT ALL ENDS!) HUAAAAAA—!"
Still mid-air, tail once-more smacking into nothingness, he lashed out against Neoru.
A controlled, fluid motion flowing like water, with all the vicious intensity of fire, accelerated beyond light into a point, and suddenly evaporated into a stillness like the void. The effect one such movement should contain was destroyed in one instant, calm and passion coalescing into one miniscule instant of time.
All of it, shown by a gyeot-chigi.
Sound distorted, mimicking a muffled heavenly bell. Ki crossed dimensions, taking force with it, passing physical contact entirely.
Zinco's feet hit the ground. The blade, and Neoru, fell a second after.
All at once, the burning sputtered out.
DOOOWN!
Those unaware of its effects looked on — thrilled by the nature of the technique, proud of the golden saiyan's efforts having paid off – and with varying degrees of noise – or upset with the human's sealed loss, like a chance for rain that'd been realized.
Only one was distraught.
"Nh…"
Mei's scrunched eyes held back tears. "No…!"
He felt crushed.
"(what...?)"
On two fronts, he felt crushed.
— An inexplicable hollow pervaded him. One he hadn't felt since his brother died.
"(But... but he was... right... there...)"
— He no longer felt his brother's ki.
In both cases, he'd lost his brother all over again.
"(... no...)"
He could've come back from it if either event had happened in a vacuum. Both in quick succession was too much.
Neoru's fighting spirit had sputtered out.
He sank to his knees, losing the will to keep them upright. The steam rising from beneath his skin faded, and his eyes grew opaque as they fogged with moisture.
The announcers called the hit and counted down as the boy sat on his knees.
Kaza breathed a sigh of relief, one that rattled in her chords with excitement. "(You did it, Zinco…! It's finally over!)"
A stifled sob stole her attention.
"I'm such a fool…!" Mei wept into her hand, the other balled to bleeding.
"Mei!" Kaza quickly untightened it, tending to her smaller friend. "What's wrong? Neo's fine, he's just-"
"His eyes…" She grew quieter, averting her own to the sight she spoke of. "They are…!"
Zinco stared down at his felled opponent."Neoru?"
7!
Uselessness. The more he fought, the more he'd lose.
"(... what the fuck was I thinking?)"
All along, his bro had been right there, and right there he would've stayed. If he'd just stopped. Now he was gone.
"(If I'd just given in sooner…)"
Just like then.
There was no inner flame to rekindle. It had been put out. The shock, the technique, it was too much together.
Nothing felt worth fighting for. Not a damn thing felt worth coming back to; he couldn't even trick himself into revenge, with all the good it did him the first time, so long ago. The will to ball a fist faded; even the will to breathe felt like a meaningless chore.
"(Why'm I… even… here…)"
..
.
"(... I dunno.)"
8!
Yet somehow, a spark leapt into the void.
"(None of this really mattered... even now, the end was the exact same… my whole time, here, I've been kiddin' myself…!)"
Seeping in from the spirit. Created from nothingness.
"(... so why the fuck'm I still going…!)"
He choked back a sob as a heat began to surface from him.
"(Just stay down…! Just stay down, PLEASE just say the FUCK down already, I'll just lose more 'f I get up...!)"
A hearth.
"(Dammit... the FUCK has been pushin' me forward this whole time!?)"
A blaze.
NI-...
NINE!
He slammed a weak fist into the ground, shaking. "(I wanted… a reason, right?)"
Pouring into his spirit, restoring his heart with vitality and his soul with fight.
"(Cost me this much, an'... and I STILL don' even have an IDEA? After all'a this, after EVERYTHING, I don't even got a CLUE?)"
Right beside that oddity, the thoughts of all those he'd seen fight right through a similar despair.
"(The hell's it gonna take, huh? Why'm I still so damn stupid!?)"
What they had.
"(HELL'S IT GONNA TAKE, DAMMIT!?)"
In spite of himself, the soul pulled itself from Ego Death.
"(WHY THE FUCK DO I ALWAYS WANT MORE!?)"
And made a fighting spirit from scratch.
"RYAAAAAAAA-"
Zinco lunged toward him in a grapple. "Mammatus."
Neoru's fighting spirit sank out of him in condensed bubbles of spirit.
"It's over." Zinco stared forward, convicted in his action and yet unwilling to meet his eyes. "Please, let this just be over. Then you can go back to Mei and just-"
[ BGM: Chihiro Aoki – The End of Denial ]
Veined arms gripped his shoulders.
He met violaceous fire storms.
Said storms blasted him in the face.
"KHH… Neoru!" Zinco dug into the surface, stopping himself. "Please, stop! You're only hurting yourself!"
He didn't even know why he was so angry. At the point he'd reached, he wanted it to stop. "... THAT'S… THAT'S GOTTA BE... SO EASY FOR YOU TO SAY, YOU LUCKY SON OF A BITCH!"
He disappeared in a flash. Zinco blocked a sudden overhead, veering him away before the two entered a brief round-and-round exchange.
"IF IT WERE SO DAMN 'POINTLESS', THEN YOU WOULDN'T EVEN BE HERE!"
Jin slipped a hook before front-kicking away Neoru's fighting spirit. "I'm different! I have to show people! Show them there's a way beyond hurting each other!"
Neo lunged over, throwing volleys of enflamed punches at the tailed boy. "THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, YOU IDIOT! THIS ENTIRE DAMN TIME, I'VE ONLY BEEN FIGHTING TO FIND SOMETHIN' EVEN HALF AS GOOD AS THAT!" He latched onto Zinco's collar mid-miss, throwing punch after punch at him, each one growing stronger and stronger. "AND YET, THE BEST I'VE GOT, IS HAVING JACK-SHIT AS A REASON! THAT'S THE ONLY JUMP I'VE MADE, AND I'VE BEEN TRICKING MYSELF INTO THINKIN' THAT'S EVEN A FUCKING ANSWER AT ALL!"
Zinco slipped beneath the fist and took it in-between neck and shoulder, the two checking each other's furious kicks as they flew. "What about all your friends!? WHAT ABOUT MEI!?"
Neoru took one head-on, feeling his inner fight die and rebuild against his own will from the pit of burning void within his chest, all-the-while throwing himself into an angle that offset Zinco's balance for a moment.
"SHUT... UP!"
- just long enough for Neoru to wrap both legs around the blonde's one, taking it to the ground with a spiral down into it. "IF IT WERE THAT EASY JUST TO LIVE FOR OTHERS, THEN YOU'D BE PEACHY WITH KAZA!"
"JSH-" Zinco stood steady, only to receive a face full of heel as Neo kipped into his head directly. The golden saiyan stepped back before his foe spun into a compass kick that only barely made it through a rotating guard and bounced straight off his oblique.
"SO WHY THE HELL AIN'T YOU!?"
He flipped away from any of Neo's crazed antics on the ground, readying an emerald-gleaming ki blast. "BECAUSE… EVERYONE SHOULD BE THIS HAPPY!"
Neoru's retaliating blast didn't even compare; it became nothing on contact with the half-blood's, leaving him to struggle against it himself. "So what…? So it'll be you, just you fightin' EVERYONE's battles, IS THAT IT?"
"Yes…! That's all I WANT…!" Zinco had it explode. Neoru's eyes went void for a moment; the spark lit again, to his own chagrin, to Zinco's chagrin, and a dragon's confused roar rang out.
Trunks began opening his mouth to commentate, but Pan's outstretched hand stopped him. She wagged her finger, instead holding her mic closer to the two boys' increasingly-verbal battle.
"WHY!?" The reverb of a great ape lingered with Zinco's roar. "WHY ARE YOU STILL FIGHTING ME!?"
"I WANT SOMETHING TO PUSH ME ALONG! THAT'S ALL I WANT!"
Both charged each other in the air.
Two miraculous fighting wills collided and contradicted.
"AND I DON'T WANNA DIE NEVER HAVIN' AN ANSWER!"
"THAT'S… SO… SELFISH!" Zinco let loose a kiai, sending them both back, before loading pressure into a fist.
"SO!?" Neoru's own hands lit in violet blazing. "HOW COME YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS TO HAVE A PURPOSE!?"
"YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO BE HAPPY! WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT!?"
Zinco launched his attack, at the same time Neoru fired his to the left, blasting him out the way and toward him in an arc.
"LOOK IN THE MIRROR YOU… FUCKING ASSHOLE!" Neoru roared as his haymaker jumbled Zinco's head, the ponytailed boy unrelenting in his assault. "LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE! YOU THINK YOU CAN SOLVE EVERYONE'S ISSUES FOREVER BY MAKIN' 'EM PASSIVE, STUPID!?"
Neoru's fist suddenly veered off in a controlled stream, as Zinco's palm jet into his spirit. "I CAN'T STOP!" Again. "I WON'T STOP!" And again. "NOT UNTIL EVERYONE CAN SMILE!" And again. "NOT UNTIL EVERYONE CAN WALK OUTSIDE WITHOUT STOPPING THEMSELVES! " The emerald-eye'd boy swung into a roundhouse, tail-swing and all. "NOT UNTIL NO ONE FEELS LIKE THEY NEED TO PROVE ANYTHING TO ANYONE! WHY THE HELL DO YOU ALL HATE THAT WORLD SO MUCH!?"
The outline of a dragon simmered around the boy, and fighting spirit was once-more ripped from the ether. "I JUST WANT A STRAIGHT ANSWER!" Zinco's palms were wrastled from his control, and both legs were checked into a standstill as a violet storm flooded the arena for miles, sending all four bodies present up in shadow.
Neoru began to scream at someone who wasn't there.
"I WANT SOMETHING TO TELL MYSELF WHEN I WAKE UP EVERY MORNING! I WANT TO KNOW WHAT TO TELL SOMEONE WHEN THEY ASK ABOUT ME! I WANT SOMETHING REAL TO HOLD ONTO! SOMETHING MORE THAN A PERSON, SOMETHING MORE THAN ME! THAT'S ALL I WANT! THAT'S ALL I'VE EVER WANTED!"
A jade storm counteracted it, inch by inch, second by second. "WHY DO YOU HAVE TO FIGHT FOR IT, YOU IDIOT!?"
As emerald ripped through, amethyst rebuilt itself. "'CUS THAT'S… THE ONLY WAY I HAVE…"
The battles he'd fought since getting there, the reasons for them, pooled into his head at once.
"... TO FIGURE IT OUT FOR MYSELF!"
"You are lying…"
Mei wept softly to herself, longing that her muttered words would somehow reach him. "Could you not even try another way, you fool…!"
Kaza's fists shook as her friend's despaired sobs continued to sink into their arms. "Then tell him that."
"What?"
"YOU CAN TELL HIM THAT!" Kaza shouted in desperation as her hands swirled with magic. "I CAN LET YOU TELL THAT IDIOT TO GIVE UP! MEI! LET ME HELP YOU!"
"... I…" She reached her hand out, yet it refused to go any further than halfway, quivering the closer it got to its limit of advance. "N…!" She yanked back her own hand. "No!"
"M-MEI! WHY!?"
She looked back at her struggling, confused choice of lover. "I don't want him to lose to himself…!" Her head sank to the banister as her sobs grew louder. "I am a fool…!"
Watching her tie herself into a knot and refuse help, Kaza's teeth grit. "(THAT… BASTARD…!)"
"THEN LET ME FIND ANOTHER WAY!"
"NO!" The violet wave dissipated, and the jade wave alongside it; Zinco took a punch to the face as a dragon's reverb orbited Neoru's incessant cries. "NO, DAMMIT!" The two traded blows, yet Neoru's lost anger ‒ by some miracle beyond the heavens ‒ overpowered Zinco's righteous fury. "I'M NEVER!" Again. "NEVER!" And again. "LETTING ANYONE FIGHT MY BATTLES AGAIN! I CAN'T DO THAT TO MYSELF! I CAN'T DO THAT TO ANYONE ELSE!"
The half-blood's soul roared as it crashed against his chest, his fists shaking subconsciously as they tightened. His fangs bared to a greater extent amidst the monsoon of attacks hurled his way.
"We had a lot of fun, huh?"
Against even the influence of the heaven-defying fighting spirit before him, his will once-more reaffirmed by the tragedies of the past, Zinco's two fists collided with Neoru in a C-Kata, a brilliant flash of jade lighting the way. "THEN I'M NOT GIVING YOU A CHOICE ANYMORE!"
Neoru fell from the sky, abruptly stripped of all will to push, falling onto air for a brief moment. He saw his brother's macuahuitl laying there before him, as if mocking him. Picking it up revealed the truth — no longer did his brother's energy reside within. His eyes shakily winched down at the wake-up call as his head shook.
"Seguir luchando, mi hermano."
His eyes shot open, and with fire in his heart, he shot back around — the act of holding the weapon was proof enough that his brother had affected the world. "I'M NOT FUCKING ASKING YOU FOR ONE!"
Zinco honed in. "NEORUUU—!"
Neoru bounded with an overhead slash. "ZINCOOO—!"
Jin formed a bladed hand against Neo's dark edge, sending sparks across the battleground.
"GHH…!"
"KHHH…!"
"EVERYONE… IS COUNTING… ON ME…!"
Neoru grit his teeth. "YOU DON'T... SPEAK FOR ME...!"
And…
"AAAA—!"
"AAAA—!"
The blade gave way to Zinco's hand.
And Neoru swung 'round.
And Jin dodged.
And so did Neo.
Who released it into the air.
And kicked its amethyst-enflamed broad side with everything he had.
Straight into Jin's noggin.
…
..
.
"Already bored'a bein' a 'baseball man'?"
"Mhm," Neo nodded beside the cool axe he found and dragged over. "I finally hit the ball, so now I'm a wood chopper!"
Sitting atop the decaying shop counter beside a fat bag, Social slumped into his palm. "It took you, what… five months non-stop to hit that home run, Brother Mine!"
Neo squinted. "Five… mo- those are night butterflies, right?"
The dark grey chaleco-clad older brother chuckled into his hand. "Thirty days each, Neo. Say, what's the rush?"
"I can cut down wood for everyone, and I don't need a bunch'a people to watch me for it! I like it more than baseballing!"
"... not knocking it, but… we can cut wood pretty easy already, Neo. You're well on your way already, too."
"Oh." Neo raised the axe a bit over his head before toppling onto his back.
"See? You could still get something from swingin' that big ol' thing around!"
The kid picked himself back up with a pout and rubbed the back of his head. "No, axes are stupid…" Despite the proclamation, his purple dots latched onto the axe.
Socai watched him try his heart out with an amused, tired smirk.
"So is he actually going to help restock, or…"
He looked over his shoulder. "Nah. He's six. He's fine."
"He's already six," Kuole restated matter-of-factly, crossing his arms. "And he's far too comfortable. You know that."
"Eh- ee-aaaah, nah, he's fine. Training him's plenty good enough. See? Watch him with that axe, he's a pro."
Kuole watched Neo stumble into a wall and stifle back sobs. "Socai."
"..."
"Socai, he's going to learn too late, or he's going to die. Or both. Likely both."
"I'll be there."
"Will you?"
"... I get it, alright? But, come on. It's nice to let the boy dream for a bit." The two kept watching, as Cleo walked in with a full knapsack fit for a grown man, only to behold Neo's tomfoolery and promptly scold him for it. "He'll lose that innocence quick. He's gotta have something keeping him going once that's out. I just want him to find something until then."
"Find what? A lie?"
"If that's what it takes." Socai's eyes sank to the ground. "For one reason or another, he won't wanna save the world forever."
The silver-haired woman scoffed. "He has to've gone through twenty since I first heard him speak."
Her brunette counterpart smirked. "He ran through five before our little run-in."
Neo finally lifted it over his wettened face, before Cleo pushed him over with a finger. Neo cried.
Kuole groaned. "I miss his chef phase."
"Ooooh, who doesn't?"
…
..
.
The steel-eye teenager stared, sitting over the edge. "What are you thinking, Zinco?"
The nine year-old gawked from the skyscraper, the smog of the city lingering above himself and the young freedom fighter, not very long after the former's destructive surprise helping hand.
"... the thing is, things weren't always like this. The world used to be a lot more colorful where people lived, if recordings and movies and stuff aren't lying. Before all this, when Earth wasn't so obsessed with being on top. Hell, the Queen of the World was probably just another rich kid back then."
The young man stood up. "It used to be a blue-green marble that anyone from anywhere in space could run to for shelter… it used to be hope. That's what Blue Button wants. To keep clinging onto that hope until we can undo what's been done. Zink… you're strong. And I can see hope in you like no other. It's dangerous, but… we could really use you. Fight with us."
Zinco's gaze shook, stuck to the world below. "Mr. Oeetsu, I... I don't wanna hurt anything... ever."
The young man seemed to have his answer. He was hard-pressed to like it, but an answer he'd received. "Alright. If that's your choice."
"But this is wrong…!" His face curled. "No one gets anything from treating other people like this…! Not food or water, or protecting their babies…! It's all wrong!"
Down below, a mobile cage had been freshly torn open. The surroundings were riddled with holes and loud with sirens and orders, but the splotches of red stemmed from one source alone.
Zinco's arm recoiled as his fist began to clench, but it solidified regardless. "I wanna help! I... I gotta!"
The red-headed teen thought about it, and Zinco's useful skills outside of combat. "I don't think you'll be able to do that without getting your hands dirty. You can help around the underground, but up here, I've got nothing. Just that stunt you pulled has me scared for you."
The images of what he'd seen ran through his head again.
— animals tearing into each other, not due to hunger, but petty things like territory.
Merona.
One moment, he shuddered. In the next, he'd froze.
"... Kid? Zinco?" Oeetsu grew more concerned, the small child's expression stuck in horror.
And then it thawed. "... Then I have to get stronger. Strong enough to not get hurt. That way, I won't need to hurt anything to help."
Oeetsu opened his mouth, prepared to tell the boy how impossible, how wasteful such a self-imposed task was.
The look in the child's eyes, the stare he cast on the horizon, shut him up before he could speak. "Then I'll find a way to stop all of this." He needn't say it directly; it was a promise. Whether or not he believed it was regardless.
Oeetsu sighed uneasily. "I like those eyes, kid. I'm sure Master Sandaru will, too."
He resorted to spurring him on while sounding cool.
[ BGM: Linkin Park/Ariva Belgrade – Session (Ariva Remix) ]
A palm slammed into the ground.
It cracked as the young man stood to his feet.
"Neoru…"
Zinco turned, head dripping with his own life essence, green suns burning through the red.
"You're going too far."
90%.
The air in the opposite corner was humid. More so than any sauna fit for a human. And yet, one emitted it.
"Woah…" He chuckled in exhaustion as pain seized him, one leg out of commission entirely. "Really? I didn't know I could do that."
80%.
Zinco's eyes stared at the screen like it had shot his dog and salted the wound. His teeth shakily came into view, before directing the bared fangs at his adversary. "Don't you see what you're doing to yourself? To someone else? To EVERYONE you care about, doesn't that matter to you?"
Neo stared at the ground lifelessly.
"... hh-hh…"
He shot up, finger to his temple like a visual cue. "Nope. Guess I don't, huh!?"
The scenario began to shift.
No,
Tug.
A snow-laden temple, a cliff over a shore. The division spilled into itself, two biomes in a jarring clash as they hazed and distorted between themselves and the true stage.
"God, I'm such a bastard..."
"I don't get it…!" Jin's head slowly shook, a subconscious expression of repulsion. "How could someone like you be so selfish!?"
Neoru lost his crazed smirk, though his beaded eyes persisted. "Selfish, right. 'Cus I ain't content with livin' just to be someone else's point'a comfort, right?"
"YES!"
"WELL CRY ABOUT IT!"
The staredown continued.
"... keep fighting. Right… I'm not gonna stop just 'cause I've found people that give a damn about me. They don't own my life, and I don't own theirs. They're gonna shape their own, just like how I'll shape mine. And there's something... in all of them, something deeper... a reason, that'll keep them moving forward, even as they lose everything around 'em. So in the meantime, I'll keep stringin' myself along with whatever I come up with in the moment, until I've got a reason just as strong as theirs… or hell…"
Zinco bore a hole through his skull.
"Even stronger than yours."
"You...! You have to stop, before one of us does something they can't take back…"
"Hell man, you sound like Gohan at the Cell Games, at this point…" Neoru's eyes vacantly floated to the sky for a second.
[ BGM: Hiroyuki Sawano – show-no-feel (2:16) ]
Then he clapped. "How 'bout a wager?"
"Nh?"
"You know? I've got my whole life ahead'a me. I don't gotta find that 'reason' here, with you. I mean, you put yourself here, so of course I got the right to keep fighting you, but this honestly sucks for me. Besides, all I really need is to prove I still have what it takes to find it. To be strong enough to find it." He raised his index finger. "One attack. With everything I got. If you can no-sell it the same way you've no-sold everything 'till now, then that's it. I'm hittin' a brick wall, and this fight really is pointless. But if you don't, then I keep fighting. And I never stop fighting. Until one of us goes down."
Zinco glared. "If it means stopping you, right here and now… then FINE!" His feet plunged into the snow, and past the rock beneath. "This is as far as you go! Absolutely, positively!"
Neo smirked weakly. "Fine by me."
He proceeded to fall upon two knees.
OH- AND STUDENT NEORU HAS ONCE AGAIN FALLEN! TEN-
EXCUSE MY IMPATIENT PRECURSOR, FOLKS, IT SEEMS WE'RE GETTING CARRIED AWAY WITH VERDICTS AS OF LATE! NO, STUDENT NEORU HAS DONE THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF GIVE UP! IF THIS FLASH-FLOOD OF CONFIDENCE IS BEING PLAYED STRAIGHT, THEN THIS PLUCKY PLAYER'S NEXT MOVE SHOULD BRING EVEN STUDENT ZINCO DOWN A MARGIN!
He raised one hand above his head. The other descended to his liver.
"(Honestly, I'm not actually meaning to risk my life just to hit him real hard, or win some fight against a guy who doesn' even want to. I'm not that reckless, and I'm not that selfish.)" The void-eyed husk he was ever since Kuole's death, the one he'd been in his first week in Conton, flashed into his mind. "(But I can't let myself be 'that guy' ever again. I can't do that to Bro, not after losin' the last piece of him still in this world.)"
He thought back to all those he'd met along the way. "(If nothing else, I wanna be able to live without wonderin' how much more I could've given. So this is more to find out just how high I can go. Only then, will I have something 'concrete'.)"
Neoru took a single, massive inhale. Burning white ki swirled throughout his being, as his muscles began to bulge, and his aura burned amidst his strained grunts, fanning the cauldron within.
"(How much ki I can hold. How much 'genki' I can generate. How high I can take my emotions while stayin' in control. And…)"
Amethyst flames soon overtook the pale ki. A foreign energy enveloped him, intertwining with and exacerbating the ki of the living realm. "(How close to 'un-being' I can get before my soul explodes. How much my 'true self' can really handle. How much of the Spirit World I can muster.)"
His hands slowly wove into a Naga mudra. A dragon's shape, coiled and wings fluttering like a hood, enveloped him.
"(I need to understand myself power-wise before anything else, right? This is the only way a dumbass like me has. You watchin', Dina, Kaset? You three dickheads? Mei? Here's to you guys. This'll be everything you gave me.)"
Neoru closed his eyes and focused on himself.
From Nothing Comes All Things,
As All Things One Day Fade.
That's Something Special.
Gives Worth To Worthless Sights,
Like Flight of Winged Snake.
Jin's stern, determined frown fluxed. Not long after, he raised his ki to the ceiling in a yell.
[ BGM: Hiroyuki Sawano – Claymore (2:23) ]
His palms split to both sides, connected by interwoven thumbs, empty space between the two.
Energy of the physical and of the spiritual mixed.
The inner cosmos and outer universe experienced each other in full.
Fear, ecstasy, sadness, joy, all flowed into Neo's heart and pounded outward as even more compounding energy.
Burning fighting spirit was focused by an unshakeable calm.
Neo's soul transcended its incorporeality as it neared existential erasure.
Hot and cold ki swirled into a miniature vortex.
At the precipice of absolute death, Orojia Neoru had never before felt so alive.
His spirit, for a moment, became completely solidified with ki, its limit having been reached as it dwarfed rivers and lakes in sheer size. A single drop more of energy drawn from the world beyond, and he would no longer be.
His eyes opened, a portal to that very world.
Through him, and through his voice, both worlds converged into a point.
The human poised.
应
龙
インロン
(RESPONSIVE DRAGON)
熕
コ
(CANNON)
{ In… RoN… kOoOoO . . . ! }
The dragon struck.
One light.
No tearing beam, no mammoth ball. A single, blinding silent light.
One that swallowed everything before it.
An ear-piercing quiet rang out — no one could hear themselves speak, nor could the attack's effect be heard amidst the light.
A tsunami of smoke followed, devouring everything behind it.
What felt like eternity passed, before the announcers did their job and cleared the scenery.
ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ!ㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤʀᴇNCE IN QUANTITY, THE SINGLE TECHNIQUE BY STUDENT NEORU HAS LEFT JAWS AGAPE IN SPADES!
YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN! ACTUALLY, PLEASE! PLEASE SAY THAT AGAIN! THAT SILENCE WAS QUITE LITERALLY DEAFENING!
Echoing throughout the carnage, the ghostly bellowing of a spirit beast.
On one end, the violet-eyed boy coughed up a storm. On his hands and knees, above a pool of vomit and sweat, he shook.
"I…" he jittered, laugh-wheezing, "I DID YOUR STUPID FUCKIN' POEM...! NOW... N' PISS OFF, I GO... HOME..." He shrank further down, forehead crashing onto his forearms. "... N-NO… NUH-UH… I'M DONE…"
50%.
His head rose up.
"... oh… oh, oh hold on…"
Zinco stood there.
.
.
10%.
"May… Maybe not…"
Shaking like a hypothermic, despite the smoke that stemmed from his body. Neither his body nor his soul could understand what he'd been hit with, only that it hurt like hell for both. Racked with a state of agonized confusion, his crossed arms lowered with a stutter as his beady pupils bounced around the eye whites like an electron caught in a cathode tube. Behind him, in a cylinder that went on and on and on, the ground was razed; the monolith which once stood high with its sobbing face slowly crumbled with a blaring chorus, a mountain coming undone along with the former illusion.
"It… isn't… over ye-"
Zinco crashed onto a knee.
Neoru slowly stood from his own, into a limp. "Yeah… You're right. It isn't."
[ Self-Contained ED: Chronic Future – Time and Time Again ]
In a moment of despair, Orojia Neoru has now "mapped out" his spirit. And, from there, his potential.
Nearing the same despair, Sokkum Jin would soon begin to realize his own.
4/23/2024 PATCH NOTES: Further emphasized the mind-bending nature of Neoru's feints + the speed at which Zinco dodged the sword with more flowery language.
7/16/2024 PATCH NOTES: Called the OP an OP instead of a BGM, alongside a multitude of other fixes that OP has already forgotten. OP was beaten for his repeated incompetence. Meaning of each "OP" is up to readers' interpretation.
10/4/2024 PATCH NOTES: Touch ups on choreography.
Yo! OP Here!
Won't lie, writing this chapter terrifies me. It's like I can't stomach the thought of ruining any characterization so far into the game. It's in trouble of becoming unfun as I reread over and over, but I don't wanna regret something in this chapter.
Oh, and near the end, I made the audience shut up near the end. I've got a big cast and I'd get REEEEALLY frustrated if I had to give them something to talk about every five seconds. Of course, it's hard to do that anyway in the written medium and not visual.
Tlatla works so that fighting spirit is a given. Whether or not that continues after death is up in the air... no, no it doesn't. Only, like, idly as a fragment of Bro's Sword, I guess. But nah, it's dependent on mind/body. Physical and Spiritual need to be as one in order for Tlatla, Tlepoctli to work. If ya wanna know why, uuuuuh Yinyang, I don't gotta explain shit. Also I added Katakana to the attack because Neo can't read Kanji.
Ah, and Cumulonimbus does exactly as Kaza says it does; it literally un-exists fighting spirit. If that's a bit of it or all at once, that's up to the power Zinco applies to it. Don't work on Neo because Neoru's fighting spirit is literally forming from nothingness. Activating it causes a skyquake because those are freaky and cool.
Yeah I'm gonna try to explain Spirit Define, now. Or Dao, Dou, Way, if you want. From first to last:
Mei's first one was a Dao, not Spirit Define; she became one with the concept of 'cut' for a period of time. Mei's Spirit Define was during her fight with the Yammy One. Hers is Severance, a component of 'cut' but much moreso connected to Mei; she embodies every aspect of herself for a moment, to allow her to surpass limits, immediately close distance with, and sever her enemy in order to protect the weak.
Konus's Spirit Define is Power. It's basic as fuck and allows his Ki and Magic to flow seamlessly in his 'Ashura' state. Also, it no longer defines his spirit, so it's defunct now.
Dina has a Spirit Define despite being a filthy fucking westerner; actually, I leaned into that and made a limerick to accentuate it. Her Spirit Define is Change, allowing her to shift between Ki and Magic seamlessly... like Konus... I'll explain mana (ye that's a thing) in Dina's fight and genki's significance to that, just trust the plan. It also allows her to think MUCH, MUCH faster, and adapt to things in the figurative sense in an instant. Jakka-Ball is better in this state because it can change properties.
Zinco's Spirit Define is Peace. And like, a FORCEFUL peace that kills the concept of "rules of nature." Shut up. Anyway, it enables use of his latent God Ki and the Cumulonimbus techniques associated with it; they're named after bizarre cloud formations. I played into his Korean influence, making his poem in the style of, and you're not gonna believe this, Kasa. Ain't it great when things just happen? Hopefully I did it right.
Neoru's Spirit Define is Formlessness. It perfects Tlatla for one attack, allowing him to push it to the ABSOLUTE FURTHEST FEASIBLE limit for ki and genki generation before BOOM, absolute control/amplification of his emotions, and knowing EXACTLY when to release it all at once. This breed of attack allows him to hit you on the Physical and Spiritual level simultaneously, unleashing all the potential he has without mental barriers. Having a weak EITHER means you're either a ghost, a husk, or returned to nothingness by its end. His poetry structure's based on Spanish flamenca.
These are the only characters that will ever have a Spirit Define. Voshyo was mad capping when he said that his focus chant and Spirit Define are similar, that was for one attack.
Dao [GREATER THAN] Spirit Define [GREATER THAN] Focus Chant [EQUAL TO] True Spell Cast [GREATER THAN] Attack Name [EQUAL TO] Simple Spell Cast. In terms of "Words of Power" Enhancement, that's the hierarchy. Why greater than/less than signs don't appear on this god-forsaken site, I will never know. Truly unfathomable.
OK so Pun Time, real quick one.
Oeetsu - Formerly Appoc, before I got educated. Pun on a certain vomit onomatopoeia in Japan, which is also used for sobbing/choking. Head of the Blue Button resistance effort in Zinco's timeline. Red hair, vomit pun. I'll let you do the rest.
Sandaru - Katakana for Sandal. Reference of Zinco's knowledge of "hard style" kenpo (Karate, I just can't say it cus it's Dragon Ball and I'm cautious of doing that.) A martial arts master of said "hard style." No particular association to any animal.
Oh, quick thing. I forgot Recoilless Kick existed till like a day ago. Been a while since I read GoH since it ended, so that's some subconscious influence.
I bought Tao Te Ching. Bucchigiri! is like Tokyo Revengers if it was in the same universe as Sengoku BASARA, it's aight. To Flail Against Infinity is kino. Alright I'm finished.
Next Chapter: Mori Jin the Stampede gets very upset, Denji Hanma punches him in the face. A snake chicken and a crocodile horse mess up a very nice office really high in the sky. Ceushius continues to reserve comment.
That's about it. See ya.