Kapitel 40: FELLED BY LOVE
"You are pushing your luck too far, kiddo!" all the four brothers except for Aziz roared aloud. "Your tale ends tonight!" their feet lifted as one to step ahead.
In that instant, the referee struck the bronze plate with a bronze rod, signaling the start of the deck test, which worked up the crowd into whistling, whacking the drums, and acclaiming in many other ways.
"We, Hardy Brothers, hate flies that buzz by our ears!" the hands of the four brothers formed into fists and swung down at Lirzod concurrently.
A hand pulled Lirzod away from the critical spot in the nick of time, and the red-haired girl came into the brothers' vision, fleetingly desisting their fists from carrying out their occupation.
At the same time, every other contestant sprang forth into the ice dumpster like frogs jumping into a well; however, the frogs that could jump across the longest distance weren't necessarily the first to submerge their feet into the water.
"Why would you fight a kid?" Sariyu's probing tone picked the nerves of the brothers.
"Buzz off, kiddie!" Centry's fist stormed straight at her face. Sariyu ducked down and slightly pirouetted to his right before switching the supporting leg with her arms and nimbly wheeled her leg into his shinbone, all in one flowing motion.
BAM~! CRACK~!
"Nngh!" Centry suffered a sharp pain in his leg as his whole upper body unmanageably bent to his right, briefly lifting his whole body off the ground. (This girl!)
The eyes of the crowd popped out of their sockets, for they were rabbits witnessing a deer rebel against the wolves with wary might.
While gyrating on her hands, Sariyu capitalized on her momentum and endeavored for another brandishing sidekick into Centry's stomach, but Betts carelessly came in between and met her pernicious kick with a parallel punch. Both the fist and foot clashed in an explosion of sense and skill, bringing about a hair-teetering breeze in their proximity.
Divas caught Centry by his shoulder, thereby saving him from a disgracing collapse.
Fimbry lunged at Sariyu with arms widespread and ready to strangle her in a suffocating bind. "Let me bake your bones!"
With a resilient propel, Sariyu bounced off her hands and went for a reverse somersault, dodging Fimbry's bind in the process. Her foot gently landed atop Fimbry's head, and as his eyes angled up, her other foot stomped down on the crown of his head, making him tumble headlong, his arms locked under his chest.
A moment later, Sariyu quietly landed on her feet a meter away from where Fimbry fell.
The crowd, upon witnessing the spectacle, was distinctly befuddled and gazed at her with awe.
"She, she, she fended off the four of them?" Hundred's buttcheeks were clenched to the max as his dilated pupils failed to discern what he had gotten a load of lately.
777's face, however, was full of content as he noticed Lirzod, Burton, and Sariyu whisking away toward the ice dumpster.
"Fimbry, it's 'break' and not 'bake,'" Divas helped Fimbry get back to his feet.
"Right, right, brother," Fimbry massaged the top surface of his head with his rough palm. "I missed breaking her bones this time, but I will not miss again."
"Fimbry, you stand back," Centry's voice boomed with displeasure, combined with the crunch of sprinkled sand under his feet. "I will be the one who'll let true terror seep into her bones!"
"Don't worry, both of you," Betts said as his eyes reflected the images of the three youngsters going forth, "the circus has just started."
"Let's give 'em all a little taste of death!" all the four brothers took off at once, whereas Aziz ambled at his own pace, his arms folded behind his back, and an aberrant radiance emanating from the eyes.
"Whoa, whoa, you did it now," Lirzod's smile hit her like a friendly wave.
Sariyu rubbed her palms together to get rid of the lodged sand off her skin before flashing back a marginally similar smile, for the 'smell of shoes' in the air had considerably become vague. "Let's hope their advance unnerves the rest and acts like an arrow leading us to our victory."
Burton tagged along with the two with a somewhat impassive expression.
As Lirzod, Sariyu, and Burton entered the ice dumpster with a middling long jump, the number tags on them: 28, 55, and 82 got perused by many an eye—principally of the audience.
"Number 55… She's slender, cool, elegant, and maybe even adorable. What's her name?" many people from the crowd, who were previously disinterested, now itched to know more about her. A quiet-eyed, red-haired girl in her late tens became the subject of the chatter of men. Some bettors wished they had bet on her as live betting wasn't allowed on the eleventh deck.
As the three youngsters plunged their feet into the piercing water, the newly forming ice spikes underneath posed as their first hurdle. Before the three of them fully landed, a tall figure—one that had been hiding in the water—rose from behind and jumped on top of the closest one, Burton.
Taken by surprise, Burton, who didn't even establish a proper footing, got pushed down into the water. When Sariyu was about to react, someone else, who had been lurking underneath the water, sternly pulled Lirzod's leg, thereby distancing him from her. Sariyu had less to no time to react. A frightful fist rose from beneath the water in front of her and rammed into her chin, lifting her entire body into midair, during which a dark-eyed figure revealed himself.
Sariyu somersaulted and planned to land safely in the pool, but the dark-eyed man, who just let her taste his fist, already reduced the distance and threw a straight punch at her stomach. She grabbed his fist by her hands and stood off for a moment until her leg slipped over the edge of an ice spike, making her fall backward and crash into the water.
The dark-eyed man's lips curled up a little as he tightened his raised fist while staring through the air bubbles at Sariyu, who responded from underwater with a flinty stare. "Bye-bye, baby," His fist plummeted down at her, punching through the water surface like a bear's fist, but before it reached her face, a shadow engulfed him, making him glance up and ahead in mid-motion.
"Second Bunch of Fives—Misty Fist!"
Bett's mighty fist pummeled into the dark-eyed man's nose and sent him packing back for a few meters, his body chafing over the water surface, making a balefire-red pathway of bubbles for well over a heartbeat's time.
Upper lip pulverized, a few teeth broken, eyes turned silver, and nose metamorphosed into a grotesquerie, the dark-eyed man no longer moved a muscle and gaily lay down at the bottom of the not-so-clear waters as perceived by the onlookers.
"Big Brother!" the other two men, who were tussling with Lirzod and Burton, furiously attacked Betts; however, Betts stopped them with his hair-shield, the hair that was tied to the wrists, which he currently used as a defense from their fists. Before they could land their attacks on him, they both got their ribs fractured as Centry and Divas sent them flying away in opposite directions with a rude swing of their arms. Though they were not as beaten their Big Brother, the two of them could no longer fight back.
Pulling themselves with ease, the four brothers marched past the three youngsters without even casting a glance.
Neither of the three youngsters expected the four brothers to ignore them altogether.
"Those shameless skunks!" Hundred stood from his seat and scolded out of his lungs. "How can they ambush like that? They deserved what they got!"
"Kah-haha, there are no saints in that ice dumpster," Tarkan said. "Anyone who expects a fair fight can only blame themselves for it."
Hundred plopped back into his seat and looked at Tarkan. "I know that, sir, but someone has to scold them for what they did."
"Kah-ha, fair enough."
Meanwhile, Sariyu's whole body, except for the face, was still submerged in the water as she stared at the four brothers, her eyes packed with puzzlement. Burton aided her in getting back to her feet and then averted his eyes off her. Her hands dangling at ease, she forced her hair to flow back with a quick lift of her chin, and the water droplets upheaved off her hair and assembled into winding streams which sparkled en masse before splashing back into the waters below, creating evanescent ripples. Every bit of her was soaking wet. Sariyu almost always wore loose clothes to keep her form hidden, but now the waters uncovered her figure. With the whole of her wetted dress outlining her chiseled curves, which shaped up into a groovy figure, most men in the audience stands couldn't avert their eyes off her. Time lost speed for them all as their eyes traced the dips and curves and swells of the lass.
Smooth was the frame perfected by her maidenly posture; smooth was the line traced by her roseate lips; smooth was the texture signified by her milky skin, and smooth was the silence born in the vicinage of men who lay their eyes on her—a beauty to be had—with hearts set on fire.
Sweat slipped down the faces of men, and the degrees of the audience stands crept higher and higher as more and more burning desires vivified their deadened minds. Despite being seated in the stands, a sudden rush of adrenaline, and a few other hormones coursed through their veins and briefly made many a man forget everything except for the beauty that the girl with the red hair swimmingly redefined.
Some never espied a goddess this divine; some hoped to touch every inch of her curves; some wished to see a bit more of her skin; some envied the superior chasteness oozing out of her mien, but all of them were at a loss for words, blown away by the hidden treasure that surfaced spectacularly.
Like the sweetness that soothed the sweltry souls in the heat of summer and the hotness that heartened the hawkish hearts in the cold of winter, she brought unwonted glamor to the wolfish ambiance of the hall.
In consequence, all their confident and cocky selves were conclusively felled by love yet freshened by lust. Their minds might have gotten thrown off balance, but all eyes still reflected her image.
The atmosphere in the ice dumpster, however, was wholly different from that of the audience stands. No contestant let the other contestants get ahead of themselves and made sure to not only keep it in mind but also implement it without a break.
Lirzod, Sariyu, and Burton dashed ahead while keeping two meters of distance between the adjacent ones. The ice spikes their feet stepped on got sturdier and sharper as they went deeper into the ice dumpster, but no eyes among the audience could find an apparent source of pain on their faces.
"Go on, number 55!" a man from the audience cheered. "I hope you will win!"
"I want you to win as well, number 55!" another man bellowed.
"Number 55! Number 55!" some other men also joined and began to chant her name, hoping to get her attention, but she didn't even turn her head to gift them, what they thought, a deserved glance.
Burton glanced back and noticed that Aziz stood still at the entrance of the ice dumpster. (What's up with him?) Not minding much, he shifted his focus back to the men in front.
"Number 28, where do you think you are going without kissing my fists?" a slim-mustached man scuttled toward Lirzod from his left. "Not so fast, brat!" he unleashed a booming punch aimed at the boy's jaw; however, water splashed on his face, rendering him temporarily blind. His fist in action hit nothing but air and the falling mass of water.
"Howl my name!" a youthful voice followed by the further splashing of water, uneased the slim-mustached man exceedingly. "Howl my name! Howl my name!" the ritual continued for a few more seconds until the slim-mustached man was forced to temporarily dip into the water.
"Shut up, you son of a bitch!" he roared in utter frustration after quickly rising up again.
"Tsk, you're not howling my name!" a rising kick to the crotch crumpled the slim-mustached man to knees, his eyes abruptly opened and face disfigured by much, but only his forehead was visible to the onlookers as the rest got submerged underwater. If not for the water that naturally burdened the kick, he might have suffered even more damage. "What did my mother do, huh?" Lirzod struck the man's crown with his head, making him go unconscious. As he fell forward, Lirzod gently pushed him back and made him sit on his heels so that he wouldn't drown.
Meanwhile, a black-bearded man, with an average build and an unruly hair, attacked Burton but got assaulted in the face until blood poured out of his nose. "Debt paid in full with nose job as a bonus!" A passionate punch to his nose put him down for good. Having exacted revenge for a surprise attack—a smack on the back of his head—from that man in an earlier round, Burton now felt a bit better. He glanced at Sariyu.
After her feet came to a halt, Sariyu folded her arms and began to rub her shoulders. Short breaths escaped out of her mouth in the form of vapors.
"Why did she stop?" a man from the front rows of the audience stands was perplexed.
"Why wouldn't she?" another man spoke bluntly. "She's just clinging close to her bodyguards."
"Oh, so those two boys are her bodyguards?"
"Lucky bastards! I hope I can replace one of them!"
"I hope I can replace both of them!"
Many men blurted out their desires shamelessly.
Sariyu was slightly shivering as both Lirzod and Burton approached her. "Is it just me, or did the temperature suddenly plummet?"
"It's fine for me," Lirzod said, shrugging his shoulders. "This pool is not much colder than the one where I contended with the river monkeys back home."
"Stop showing off," Sariyu coldly harrumphed as her shoulders shrunk. "That smelly Moon Pool isn't half as cold as this one."
"You've never been there in years, so how would you know better than me?"
"I just know it."
"Yeah, you do..." Lirzod's hand scraped over the surface of the water and picked up a palmful of water and pitched it at her face, startling her.
"Aye!" though she turned her head, the water slapped most part of her face.
Some sections of the audience, who had witnessed that, felt enraged and even stood from their seats. "A bodyguard dared to be rude to his owner?"
"He crossed his limits! How could he cowardly attack someone so cute?"
"He must be fired from his job!"
"Yeah, fire him!" some men synchronously yelled.
Sariyu had a frown on her face as she turned to look at Lirzod when both of her hands pitched even more amounts of water at him. "Take this with interest!"
Some sections of members in the audience stands were left-benumbed and slack-jawed as they gazed in silence.
"W-W-What's she doing?" one of the standing men—who had been a group that kept shouting 'fire him' till that moment—broke the silence upon feeling that the strength in his voice was being sucked out.
"Can't you see?" another man from the same group said, "She's watering him." He sat back in his seat. "You too can rest your ass. Those two are probably not her bodyguards."
That man sat down slowly but voiced out his hope—or at least what's left of it. "We don't know for sure if they are her bodyguards or not. Who knows? She might have the habit of being close with her bodyguards."
Hearing that, the eyes of many men in the vicinity overflowed with an appetence for the job.
Burton, who had been observing the other contestants, now turned to Sariyu and Lirzod who were still pitching water at each other. "The others have almost reached the center. If we don't hurry, we won't be able to catch up."
Both Lirzod and Sariyu stopped at the same time, but the former one still secretly held water in his palms.
"You are right. We should hurry," Sariyu said and slightly frowned as they stepped onward together. (All this coldness is stirring my stomach.)
At that moment, a mass of water slapped her face from the side, entirely taking her by surprise. "You little…" Her eyes reddened as she took note of the annoying grin on Lirzod's face as he took off like a lizard. "You are gonna get a month of pain for this!" she hunted him at full pace.
AUTORENGEDANKEN 
VKBoy
VKBoy Daily Dose: A king was once hunting in his royal forest, and he came across a tigress and went after it. So many arrows missed, for the beast was agile. The king, however, didn’t give up. He followed its trail and as he did, he suddenly heard some movement in the bushes. His fingers let go of the arrow. The cry of the beast echoed in the woods as it fled in haste. The king carefully followed the blood trail, and it led him to a cherry blossom tree, where a young lady, as beautiful as the forest itself, was pressing his hand against her belly that was profusely bleeding, and the other hand was hiding the bloody arrow behind her back. As the falling blossoms made a bed around the girl, their eyes met, and he didn’t see a hint of anger or sadness, but the faint smile her lips forged during her last breath made the king let go of the bow. Her belly was bored through by an arrow, and his heart was felled by love. The hunt finished, but the only one who was left hurting, in the end, was the king.
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