บท 112: Finals
*BOOM!!!!*
A great explosion occurred alongside a blinding brilliant light that covered the area several miles away in a faraway desolate valley. The explosion was causing a tremor in the air as numerous sounds of shattering could be hear from various directions.
After the situation calmed down, in the middle of an empty space of land, Haruto who was panting heavily dropped to the ground as sweat covered all of his body. From the dark night sky, a glittering silver light landed next to him.
"Geez! You've really overdone it you know! Even my barrier was completely crushed into pieces in a matter of a second." She sighed seeing the sorry state of the previously beautiful land filled with rivers and greenery.
"But it certainly amazing Nii-sama! So it's finally completed now!?" Elsie who was also standing right beside Kaori hopped up and down with fully impressed eyes. Haruto who was finally able to speak after catching his breath smiled wrily.
"Well... thanks to my recent power boost on earlier case, I managed to use it perfectly, although... barely. Even... though it's already useable in real combat, but as ...you can see, just using it for a few minutes had brought me in this... condition."
He spoke with constant pauses from panting, the usual vigorous black eyes were now looked misty. The sweat dripping out from his skin was tremendous, anyone could see Haruto was very exhausted right now.
"I can see that but must you gone this far? Is 'she' really that strong? I know she's very powerful but the current you shouldn't have much problem to defeat her...." Kaori said with doubtful tone.
"....I know your sentiment, even I feel like I shouldn't need to go this far logically. But instinctively, I feel like she's far more powerful than we thought. Every time I looked at her, the blood of the warrior race inside of me was raging violently, like it was very happy."
He sat on the ground and managed to recover his stamina a bit while clenching his fists. There's no way he would forget how the blood of the Saiyan race had been boiling and circulating in high speed when he saw the figure of the silver haired elven woman. His body felt hot and excited, how could someone unworthy was capable of causing this kind of reaction? That's why he decided not to be lenient and trusted his instinct.
Kaori was silent and did not say anything. She still remembered Lumina saying they all possessed tremendous talent, with Haruto being a monster. By his current progress, maybe it's truly won't be long before the boy transcended to an immortal, the realm of the gods. She had mentally noted to accompany him no matter how long it was. She knew her status alongside Elsie was similar to his familiar, even if they did not become an immortal, they wouldn't die as long as Haruto still lived.
In that case, she would have to put more effort on guiding the other girls. She knew just herself and Elsie wasn't enough to fill in the gap of what needed to live eternally, they must supported each other and tempered their bonds without ends.
Haruto on the other side was only thinking regarding the match later in the afternoon. He was training harshly these days in order to push himself beyond limits. He purposely asked Elsie to gave him ten Ton armbands and boots, twice his actual ability. In that extreme condition, he also spared with Kaori just in his base form. He always left battered and then fully healed, before doing the spar all over again.
Although the training was extreme but just a few days wouldn't cause a great change in power. Still, he could see his body underwent some changes by constantly pushing himself to the limits.
"Hahaha..."
Chuckling happily to himself as he thought of his success, he raised his body after ten minutes of resting. Elsie was putting on a dumb face with Kaori smiling wrily as they followed the boy to return back on the island. It was way past midnight and the date had changed to exactly 25th day of the 12th lunar month.
On Earth it would be a day where children and family spent their times happily in Christmas.
....
The afternoon several hours later at the tournament main arena.
The atmosphere today was so merry and loud. There's fireworks and shows around the arena's entrance. Snow was dyeing the place in white with endless people making their way in to the interior of the place.
Those people were discussing the upcoming finals with brightened faces similar to when people would soon watch the climax of their favorite sports. Usually, there should be a third place consolation match before the finals but the news regarding one of the participant, Erick suffering from illness automatically made the other party Dyan as the third rank.
In regards to that, the finals was advanced forward in schedule where the infamous Lotus would contend against the recently raising star dark horse Haruto that kept causing turmoils on the tournament.
All of the spectator's seats were completely filled, not leaving a single empty spot. The defeated participants including Haruna, Tram and Dyan was also attending the match between two equally popular people.
From one of the passageway below, Haruto was making his way to the stage. He had recovered after a few hours slept complimented by Kaori's regeneration enhancement spell. Right now he was at the peak of his condition, his muscles was brimming with energy and vigor.
Ahead of him, he could see a figure of a hooded lady waiting silently on the arena platform.
"Isn't she's being very motivated?"
Haruto laughed while being slightly surprised that his usually aloof opponent was appearing earlier than him, radiating with fighting spirit despite her face remained stoic.
There's no way he would know that his recent fights had agitated her greatly. She was fully aware on how her opponent was far more powerful than she ever thought as he kept on getting stronger bit by bit. Especially regarding the last match, the final strike he launched with his fist that pierced through the atmosphere itself, even she wasn't sure she could defend against the attack without spending much effort, that's just how deadly it was.
She had an objective and in order to do that she had to be much stronger than the current her, something she had to do alone. That was why seeing her opponent was improving quickly and displayed such incredible power made her feel curious and interested on him. Until now, she never found anyone reaching her feats around her age.
Although she's an elf, but until she turned twenty, her growth speed wasn't any different than an ordinary Human, that's why Haruto could still be considered her peers despite being in the late thirties.
Looking ahead of her, she saw a handsome black haired boy stepping on the platform, smiling cheerfully at her. A vein appeared on her head remembering how this very boy was always strangely putting on that kind of annoying face when their eyes met each other. For some reason she felt like she's being made fun of by him, just what was funny about her?
Her frowning face was noticed by the young man and he winked instead to incite her more.
"....Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something funny about my face?" She spoke with usual stiff voice that contained annoyance.
"No? I just think you're beautiful, that's all. Hehehe."
"...."
"Although.... If only you would smile a little bit, you should look a lot more pretty you know?"
"....It's not your business." Haruto's praises did not make her embarrassed, because he was teasing her.
"Aw come on, don't be like that. I'm sure it's a lot better than keeping that kind of hard rock expression! Hora hora, smi~le!"
"...."
More veins appeared on Lotus' head. It was her business on what kind of face she wanted to make, why was he so noisy!?
She retained her composure thinking if she actually reacted to his provocation, it was the same as admitting lose. But despite her efforts to maintain poker face, it could be seen that her mouth was twitching.
"Hmm, trying to act uncare are we? Fine then, I'll make sure to crumble that poker face of yours."
".....Do as you wish."
"Oh? Is that confidence I saw? Why don't we spice things up then?" Haruto's eyes lit up.
"....Spice?"
"If I can defeat you, you're going to tell me your real name. In addition, I'm going to take a selfie with your smiling face!" Haruto pointed at her.
"....I'm still able to accept the first condition but I refused doing the latter." Although she didn't know what 'selfie' meant, she knew it wasn't a good thing.
"Fine then. So do you want me to do something if you win?" Haruto shrugged.
"...No."
[The finals of Tenkaichi Budokai, contestant Haruto vs contestant Lotus....BEGIN!!!]
"Hee, it frustrated me somehow but if that's what you say then so be it.... I'll first wiped that compose face of yours!!"
Haruto narrowed his eyes and transformed into a Super Saiyan. At the same time he did, the signalled from the announcer came as the match officially began. He once again stood at the stage in his flaring golden aura and hair.
"That form again, just what in the world is that?" One the audience's said.
"How should I know? But this man defeated the crown prince with only a single punch in this state."
"Yeah that was hella amazing but I still think Lotus was still stronger."
"That's your opinion, what if the kid actually managed to defeat her? There's no way to know yet."
The audiences were all drawing conjectures regarding the final victor of the match. Their opinions were split into half as the battle below about to begin.
As Haruto was radiating with golden light, his energy and prowess was skyrocketed than before. It was emitting strength that did not lose to the snow milky aura Lotus possessed. The female elf also raised her guard as she took on her stance by holding an elegant looking azure rapier.
She never needed to use her weapon Artifact before in battle so it was left unsheathed on her waist. And right now, that weapon was drawn from its scabbard, held by its master as she took on her current battle seriously. It was exactly the weapon that she used to instantly defeat a middle rank Demon Lord, a weapon capable of amplifying her cold attacks several times stronger.
In the participants' spectator seats, Tram was smiling wryly as he felt Haruto wasn't nearly using all of his strength on the fight against him, if the boy so wanted to, it wasn't impossible to defeat him with a single hit just like what he did on Erick. What stood on the arena was exactly two kind of freaks, two kinds of monsters.
"Haaa!!"
With a roar, Haruto charged at his opponent with his fist clenched tightly. The right straight he launched contained a great force that aimed on the slender looking woman without mercy.
Facing this, Lotus did not panic and moved her body to evade the attack. Her nimble movement caused Haruto to hit an empty air even with his fearsome speed. Even so, he did not stop at all and began to chase after the retreating figure of Lotus, delivering numerous strikes using his arms and legs.
Some of his attacks were blocked by the tender white hands of his opponent, he also had to put his efforts on defending against the retaliation made by her using the rapier. Her thrusts were very fast, so fast that the numerous attacks came at the exact same time in the form of several rays of lights.
He could also feel that his body was being oppressed by the coldness she constantly let out around her body. Ordinary warriors would long be frozen solid just by standing near her and yet the fact Haruto was able to keep moving his body freely proved he was on equal stage with the opponent.
Blasts of energies were fired by the young man to shower Lotus in a rain of explosions. Even though he was able to endure her frost energy, Haruto did not expect to be able to maintain his condition for a long time. The longer he was making contact with the opponent, the more disadvantage he would get.
"....Lotus Dance First Style, Blizzard Wave."
Waving her arm, Lotus unleashed a surge of cold wave from the rapier Artifact. It was covering the space like a glimmering pale blue river as Haruto's energy blasts were completely eliminated without traces. The tremendous frost energy continued their moves against the target opponent to drown him in a deathly cold strike.
Haruto in midair extended his hands to defend against the freezing energy wave. His golden ki was colliding fiercely, causing ripples and sparks on the air. He gritted his teeth and channelled more power to his arms, feeling the cold energy was starting to freeze his nerves and flesh.
*WHOOSH*
The powerful wave was finally dispersed into small particles of lights. Still, Haruto did not let down his guard as streaks of white lightnings were coming on his direction. It was the bombardment coming from numerous glowing ice spears.
*BAM* *BAM* *BAM* *BAM* *BAM*
Using his fists, he punched through all the attacks, destroying them into pieces for each strike he made. He was going "Ora ora ora ora ora ora ora!" while swinging his arms intensely.
This intense actions was keeping him busy enough to not notice the atmosphere of his opponent was changing. The eyes from the female elf became sharper and more cold. The energy she radiated was beginning to raise significantly, making her ice attacks to become colder and stronger. The ice spears she conjured was increasing in size and the ice looked more solid and glittering, similar to a crystal.
"Ugh!"
Before long, Haruto finally realized the changes because his arms were hurting and numbed. The healthy skin was becoming paler and blue, receiving the improve attack that was a lot harder to destroy as the freezing aura was creeping into Haruto's bones like a poisonous venom.
He now knew Lotus was starting to get serious and increase her power level more. He just didn't expect it to be so soon.
"....Lotus Dance Fourth Style, Frozen Coffin."
"!?"
Widening his eyes, Haruto saw a great number of gigantic crystal-like ice spears locking him from every directions. Each spear was more than ten meters tall, everyone of them launching on him ferociously.
*CRASH!!*
The flurry of ices came like a storm, producing a loud crashing sound as a huge thorny blue prison made out of frost was formed on the place Haruto was in before. His figure couldn't be seen inside the messy ice coffin resembling a flower but a normal man should be reduced into pulp by now.
Silence descended on the arena without any response coming from the ice sculpture.
"I-Is it over?" One of the audience's said with nervous tone.
"T-There's no response from the young man."
They were all making buzzing noises, thinking the match was over. Even the announcer was hesitating on whether to end the match or not. Her feelings told her Haruto was already defeated. It was natural for the to think so as Lotus' attack was extraordinarily powerful, far stronger even compared to the giant cold wave attack earlier. Even the audiences behind the barrier could feel their skin was trembling with coldness, their breath was in the form of white mist and fog. How would it feel like outside the barrier? There's no need to imagine that.
"Haru-kun..." Rikka looked worried on the spectator seats.
"Don't worry Rikka-chan, Haruto-kun is alright." Kaori pat her shoulder while smiling. She's able to sense Haruto's energy signature and knew he wasn't done yet.
*Rumble* *Rumble*
Suddenly, the ice structure was shaking greatly. The ice was beginning to crack, drawing numerous long lines on the entire structure.
"See? This is just the beginning." Kaori smiled.
*BOOM!*
A flash of lights shone through the cracks before the ice coffin was exploded by a great wave of energy. A bright golden light formed a small pillar on the air with a silhouette of a person jumping out from them. He landed back on the stage, surrounded by violent golden ki that constantly making sparks of electricity. His golden hair was standing straight rigidly as his eyes looked more stern and sharp than before.
"Sorry, but I'm not done yet."
He said as he stood straight ahead of his opponent.
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