Chapter 31: What I'm Fighting For

"Do you promise…?"

I was suddenly faced with a flashback to a few hours earlier, I was at the Heeler's house, knelt down in front of Bluey as she was looking up to me, concern dripping all over her face just as I was about to head the arena.

...That's right. Bluey made me promise that I'd come home from the fight victorious, how could I have forgotten that when I made that wager with Kurou?

Another flashback confronted me. This one I still remember to this day, one night where I was awoken by Bingo sniffling and sobbing in her sleep from a possible bad dream…

...and me coming over to comfort her and help her sleep peacefully.

One by one, I was met with more flashbacks. At first, I thought this was my life flashing before my eyes, but the more I noticed that they were of me helping Bluey's other friends among other citizens of Canistralia, the more I realised this was reminding me of how much of an impact I had made to this region.

The region that had one last hope of reuniting the entire world, which was me.

…

...No.

I can't let this happen.

I can't throw everything I've done for this land away.

I… won't… LET IT.

My blurred vision began to straighten itself as I saw the distant ceiling lights of the arena itself that slowly got smaller in size, signalling to me that I was still falling to the floor. If I didn't act now, it was over.

With whatever feeling I had left in my body, I struggled to send that feeling to any part of my body, anything to stop my fall.

…

Until finally, at just the last second, a surge of energy rushed into my left arm and my palm slammed onto the floor just beneath me, catching me before my body could make impact.

A heartbeat.

And then another.

Just after I had caught myself, my heart began to function once again and feeling of paralysis whittled away to nothing, my stamina recovered as I used a burst of it to launch myself, allowing myself to stand back upright.

I'll never forget how mentally satisfied I was to see Kurou's smirk turn to a look of disbelief upon realising I was still standing and raring to go.

"And it looks like Faulkner is still in, mates! I don't believe it, he managed to push through such a damaging blow, it's like he's a super-human!"

The cheering from the crowd got louder as the announcer made his awe at my comeback known, Kurou meanwhile quivered his body to try and shake off the initial shock and glowered at me, but I could still sense a hint of hesitation in his expression.

I don't know how, but I could sense he was about to perform another strike to the chest in attempts to paralyse me again seconds before he'd make a move. My arm shot up, deflecting the blow as I immediately countered with a kick to the stomach, which actually did a bit more damage to him than I thought as I heard him audibly grunt out in pain.

Seeing a window of opportunity, I launched a punch to the stomach to increase the pain he must've been feeling only for him to quickly recover and block with his arm, swinging a leg upwards to attempt a strike to the head, I quickly leaned aside to lessen the impact of the kick before ducking around his leg and shooting my own leg upward, which he never anticipated as I heard a faint crack and watched as he took a step back, his face bearing a look of severe discomfort as I saw the first drip of red slowly run from his nose.

Even with his nose broken, I could still see a feeling of fury in his eyes as he glared at me through his pain, only something about it felt more like a desperate kind of fury as he hastily rushed at me with another neck chop which I immediately swung an arm up to block said chop before countering with a chop of my own, to the side, this chop I put all of my brute strength into which may be the reason why I was able to faintly feel one of his ribs through the fur.

However, because of how much attention and focus I had given to the chop, I never anticipated the kick he would retaliate with. It was honestly a miracle that he hadn't managed to knock any of my teeth out considering how strong it was. I had almost forgotten that he had a lot more experience in karate than me so he was still a dangerous opponent even if he was starting to look fatigued.

Thankfully, I foresaw the next kick to the face he was going to deliver as I immediately leaned back to dodge it and attempted to counter with an elbow strike to the face, only for him to try and throw an elbow strike of his own.

Both our elbows collided with each other as we felt our arms tremble upon impact before we staggered back and stared at each other, panting.

Both of us were running short on stamina, I could see beads of sweat running down Kurou's cheeks, the blood dripping from his nose looking to have dried.

Yet despite this, I could sense the stubbornness in his eyes as he clenched his fists and roared before leaping towards me, leg shot forward to try and strike me in the chest once more.

It wouldn't get anywhere near it's target as I threw an arm up, blocking the leg before launching myself forward and throwing a hard punch to his stomach, causing him to stagger back.

And then I felt it, the sudden burst of energy like it had been hiding until the perfect moment. He was completely open as he was coughing, the blows I had given to his stomach taking it's toll as he glanced up at me with a look of disbelief as if trying to say "...How…?!".

With the rush of energy inside me, I let out a war cry before delivering another punch to the stomach, followed by another, and another, and another. None of them he was capable to countering and blocking as I was just sending flurries of punches to his body like mechanical pistons on overdrive, my knuckles colliding with his skin through the fur, it wasn't long until I heard him try to restrain his grunts of pain as if to hide how much pain he was actually in.

I was so caught up in the adrenaline of delivering the rapid punches that I had almost lost all sense of my surroundings. I finally stopped, pulling my arms away as they immediately began to ache from how fast they had been moving, the fur on Kurou's front ragged and a little torn at places. The Spitz in question remaining stood in place, but his legs quivering as he used whatever energy he had left to turn his head up to look at me, his teeth clenched in obvious agony as he heaved through his teeth.

Then his body jolted, as if his organs were finally reacting to the barrage of blows. Well one of them was, his stomach as he doubled over, a hand immediately clamped over his mouth. I heard choking grunts as his cheeks puffed up, no doubt filled up with bile as his body twitched until after what felt like a few seconds, he could no longer hold it in and let out a retching noise, the spew flooding out of his open mouth. The audience not hiding their disgust with audible outcries of revulsion.

For whatever reason, even after how much of a threat he had been, I couldn't help but feel a little sympathy for the pathetic state Kurou was in. Heck, I almost felt like a bit of a bully just standing there looking at him on his knees with digested mess in front of him.

Exhaling, I slowly walked over to the Spitz who suddenly flinched a little, possibly believing I was going to strike him again. However, I only just knelt down a little and held a hand out to him, offering to help him up to his feet.

Kurou just stared at my hand and then up to me, perhaps contemplating taking my hand, only for him to tense up as if reacting to a sudden stab of pain, his brows furrowing as he snarled a little at me before heaving out a few words.

"…Damn…You…"

And without another word, he let himself fall to the floor, not dead thankfully but not unconscious either.

He had chosen to reluctantly accept defeat.

"YAME!"

The applause and cheering from the audience was almost deafening the second the very word from the announcer rang out.

"It's one heck of a miracle match, folks! For Nathan Faulkner was cornered and it seemed to be all over but he bounced back and took the stage! Ladies and gentlemen, give a hand to our human ambassador, NATHAN!"

I just stood there, looking down at the exhausted Spitz as some of the crowd was chanting "FAULKNER! FAULKNER!" among the cheering.

At first, it almost felt like I was dreaming. I actually managed to pull through and win, even through Kurou's cheap tactic.

I actually won.

That was when the relief upon realising I had also won the wager as a result hit me harder than a wall of bricks, which made me feel the sudden rush of exhaustion as I collapsed on one knee, but managed to keep myself up to avoid concerning the many dogs watching me.

"Nathan!"

The familiar voice of a certain Heeler grabbed my attention as I looked over to see Chilli run over to me, a look of shock on her face from seeing me in such a state. She stopped a few inches away from me for a brief moment, before falling forward and wrapping her arms around me, her voice a mix of concern and a bit of anger.

"What were you thinking? Why didn't you tell me or anyone else?"

I slowly returned the gesture, feeling bad for making her worry.

"I'm sorry, Chilli. I didn't have much of a choice, Kurou… Kurou made me keep quiet about it. But how did you know?"

Chilli separated from the hug to look at me.

"A mum always knows when her kids are hiding something." She stated, looking back at Bluey, her eyes narrowed in a stare. The Blue Heeler in question was a few feet away, looking aside sheepishly.

"KUROU TAKESHI SPITZ, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH TROUBLE YOU'RE IN, YOUNG MAN!"

We were suddenly caught off-guard by the bellow of an elderly old man's voice as we looked to see an older looking Spitz similar to Kurou and Ayumi, the white highlights on his fur were instead a faded gray. Speaking of Ayumi, she was standing beside the elder, arms crossed with a disappointed frown on her face.

Kurou at that moment recovered enough to push himself up and groan a little upon seeing the elder Spitz and Ayumi, the former glaring daggers at him as he marched towards him.

"What on EARTH were you thinking making empty threats of contacting the Human United Nations, claiming that we're taking one of their kind hostage, just to scare the ambassador into letting him be your punching bag?!"

The audience fell silent upon hearing that, aside from a few confused murmurs before the elder continued to reprimand him.

"What happened to your friend had NOTHING to do with the ambassador in the first place, and I've told you multiple times to NOT be friends with humanophobes like him! I will NOT have a racist grandson under MY roof!"

Grandson…?

Wait… This was Muramasa?!

"…You told him, didn't you?" Kurou growled at Ayumi who didn't flinch.

"All of this is wrong, brother! Imagine yourself in Nathan's shoes! You shouldn't feel obligated to mistreat him like this just because he's different!"

Kurou didn't respond as he just looked down at the floor.

"Well, I hope whatever the police have in mind for punishment was worth it, boy! Because I won't stand for any of my grand kids making up war threats to make themselves feel superior!" The elder scolded before approaching me and Chilli.

"And you must be Nathan. Ayumi here's told me quite a bit about you." I glanced over to the female Spitz who quickly averted her gaze with a blush on her face. The elder then got down on his knees and bowed. It took me a moment to realise he was doing a Dogeza, a Japanese gesture of apologising.

"I am so deeply sorry for all the trouble my grandson's been causing. Ever since he became friends with that Great Dane, he's become rebellious and difficult to handle. I understand if you are unable to forgive us."

Honestly, I had no reason to be mad at him. He was unaware of the situation to begin with, and it was rather clear Kurou had made Ayumi keep quiet about it.

"All is forgiven, Mr. Muramasa." I said politely, nodding to him understandingly. The Spitz smirking a little.

"I take it Konan told you about me, did he?" He asked with a bit of a chuckle. It honestly surprised me a little to think Muramasa and Konan must have at some point reconciled and are on better terms. I wonder why the latter never told me that.

With nothing else, Muramasa turned back to Kurou and grabbed him by one of the ears and began to drag him off the ring, Ayumi following behind as she looked back at me with a small smile which I returned with my own. This exchange wouldn't go unnoticed however.

"Ohhhh, is she a new friend of yours?" Chilli asked in a teasing tone.

VICTORY

NATHAN FAULKNER

TIME: 4 MINUTES 36 SECONDS

WON BY K.O.