Chương 103: Chapter 103 – The Wonders of Ki Control
Ajax turned halfway and leaned down to gently pat Mushin on the head. The young Namekian looked up with fear at the terrifying blasts surrounding them, but there was also a glimmer of awe as he witnessed the power of the Zone.
"Stay here," Ajax said softly and reassuringly. "It'll be over soon."
With that, Ajax straightened up and began walking confidently but unhurriedly toward Jeice. As he moved, the myriad of energy blasts, frozen in time like raindrops, parted to clear his path. As he passed, they began to orbit him like electrons around a nucleus—or planets around their sun.
Ajax managed to advance unhindered, as Jeice had ceased firing altogether. The elite simply stared blankly at Ajax, mouth slightly ajar, eyes darting between the many energy attacks revolving around Ajax.
After closing some of the distance, Ajax stopped and shot Jeice a piercing, intense gaze. A menacing streak of electricity flickered from the corner of his eyes, dancing through the air sharply.
Despite the significant distance still between them, Jeice reflexively floated backward, his body instinctively recoiling from the pressure of Ajax's presence.
Jeice abruptly stopped and looked down at his own body with wide eyes. His expression shifted from disbelief to humiliation, and then quickly morphed into an angry scowl. With a furious roar, Jeice thrust his remaining good arm forward to renew his assault.
The sky darkened as a barrage of Ki blasts descended upon Ajax like a swarm of locusts, filling the air with an ominous hum.
But this time, Ajax was in the Zone. And that changed everything.
Ajax waved his hands casually, as if brushing aside an invisible curtain, and every attack hurtling toward him came to an abrupt halt. Without ever taking his eyes off Jeice, Ajax began floating upward.
As Ajax ascended, he raised his right hand high, holding it aloft as if he were a conductor preparing to lead an orchestra. Then, with a brisk motion, he brought it down. In perfect tandem with his gesture, his energy swept across the battlefield, effortlessly consuming Jeice's territory without the slightest resistance.
As Ajax solidified his control, the ripples behind him that had previously been under Jeice's command shattered like fragile glass and vanished completely.
Within moments, Jeice's and Ajax's territories once again divided the battlefield in half, just as it had been at the start of the battle.
Jeice snarled and swiftly adjusted his stance. Behind him, countless ripples emerged in the air, each gathering crimson energy.
Ajax watched the formation of every ripple with the intense focus granted by the Zone. The intricate patterns and movements of the energy as the gates formed unfolded before him in slow motion.
In the end, not a single one had escaped his notice.
When the ripples stopped forming, Ajax finally spoke, his voice calm but laced with a hint of amusement.
"I think," he began, "it goes something like this?"
Ajax extended his hand as if holding an invisible apple in his palm. The air above his hand began to shimmer and ripple, like the surface of disturbed water. The distortion grew, twisting and warping until it took a semi-transparent form—a gate, identical in design to Jeice's, but with one key difference: it glowed with a brilliant silver.
Across the battlefield, Jeice's eyes nearly bulged out of his skull.
Ajax tilted his head slightly as he examined the silver gate floating above his hand. With a satisfied nod, he casually closed his hand, crushing the gate effortlessly between his fingers. The fragments of the gate dissipated into the air, and Ajax's gaze returned to Jeice, now flashing a dangerous glint.
With a gesture reminiscent of an emperor addressing his subjects, Ajax spread his arms wide to either side. Behind him, the air shimmered as a single silver gate materialized, quickly followed by another and then another. In no time, the sky was adorned with a magnificent display of countless silver gates—first tens, then hundreds, and finally thousands—all gathering to form a grand, majestic array behind him.
Ajax allowed a small, satisfied smile to curl his lips as he took in the awe-inspiring scene. For once, he decided to indulge his inner Chūnibyō.
"You won't get the reference, Jeice, but I've always wanted to say this."
He briefly closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, a sudden, intense burst of electricity flashed from his pupils.
"Gate of Babylon, Open!"
As expected, the reference flew over Jeice's head, but it mattered not—violence was the only language they needed.
At some unspoken signal, both fighters unleashed their attacks simultaneously.
Ajax's eyes tracked the trajectory of every blast with superhuman speed, his pupils darting sharply back and forth as if he wielded the legendary Sharingan. Each time Jeice released a crimson beam, Ajax responded in kind, effortlessly matching it with an equally precise counterattack. Between them, an uncountable number of Ki blasts collided, each neutralizing the other in a brilliant shower of sparks.
While Jeice fought with fierce intensity, Ajax remained calm and methodical. He began to take slow, unhurried steps toward Jeice, walking on the air as if it were solid ground. With each step, his influence expanded, gradually encroaching on Jeice's domain like insidious cancer.
Jeice's expression twisted into something unpleasant as he watched Ajax's steady advance. Gritting his teeth, he channeled his energy into two concentrated points and, with sheer force of will, managed to conjure them as two azure orbs, one on either side of Ajax.
But Ajax displayed no sign of concern. Instead, he maintained his leisurely pace, casting only a brief, almost dismissive glance at the two fledgling Kamehameha orbs that Jeice had created.
With a careless wave of his hand, the orbs scattered into a sparkling shower of particles that dissipated harmlessly into the air.
"Just as you have learned from me, I too can learn from you," Ajax murmured softly, fully aware that Jeice couldn't possibly hear him over the cacophony of Meteor Storm and Gate of Babylon's explosions.
Ajax extended a finger, pointing directly at Jeice, and two azure orbs materialized beside Jeice, replicating the very tactic that Jeice had just used.
The orbs pulsed once.
Jeice's eyes widened, and he instantly leaped backward. His battle-forged instincts kicked in just in time, as mere milliseconds later, the two azure orbs exploded, releasing twin Kamehameha waves.
The beams carved through the space where Jeice had stood moments earlier, skimming past so close to each other that they nearly touched.
But as if striking a reflective surface, the Kamehameha waves suddenly refracted, ricocheting in completely erratic directions as though they were trapped in a demented funhouse of mirrors. But the beams only seemed to ricochet randomly—they gradually and inevitably adjusted their trajectory to follow Jeice no matter where he went.
Ajax made sure of that.
Ajax tilted his head slightly as he observed Jeice's increasingly desperate dodges with detached curiosity. It was somewhat pitiable to see the once-confident Jeice now floundering under the pressure. Clearly, Jeice was out of his depth, likely because he had never faced anyone who could so thoroughly outclass him in energy control.
It must have been disorienting for Jeice to realize that his usually infallible strategies were utterly useless against Ajax.
But Ajax couldn't help but sympathize, at least a little. After all, he had faced the exact same dilemma earlier in the battle, struggling against Jeice's overwhelming energy manipulation. He understood what it was like to be on the receiving end of such absolute control, to feel as though every move made would be countered before it could be fully executed.
Now, however, the table had turned, and Ajax was the one in control, watching calmly as Jeice struggled against a level of Ki Control he couldn't counter.
The two Kamehameha beams finally caught up to Jeice, striking him in an explosion of energy. It was a significant moment, marking the first time in the battle that Jeice had been struck by Ki attacks.
Meteor Storm's bombardment ceased as a thick cloud of smoke and debris shrouded the area where Jeice had stood. After a few tense moments, Jeice's silhouette emerged from the smoke. He staggered in mid-air, his face twisted in pain as he clutched his already broken arm that hung limply at his side.
The elite appeared to be in disbelief at his first genuine setback in this battle, but as the initial shock wore off, his expression hardened to one of fierce determination.
Gritting his teeth, he concentrated his energy, causing all his gates to reactivate. Each gate pulsed with power, firing a concentrated beam of crimson energy that converged at a single point in front of him.
However, the converging energy didn't explode as one might have expected. Instead, the converging energy began to merge into a swirling orb of chaotic power. The orb expanded rapidly, swelling in size until it was nearly twice Jeice's size. Wild tendrils of crimson lightning arced off its surface as it floated ominously in the air.
This was Jeice's final gambit, a desperate, all-or-nothing attack.
With a roar of intense fury, Jeice bellowed his ultimate attack.
"Crimson Catastrophe!"
With that fierce roar, Jeice thrust his uninjured hand forward and punched the massive orb of energy. However, as his fist neared, an unexpected phenomenon occurred: his punch never made contact, as if the orb and his fist were repelling each other like two magnets of the same polarity.
The energy ball shuddered and distorted in reaction to Jeice's punch, momentarily freezing in mid-air before being launched away from his fist at blistering speeds toward Ajax.
Ajax, however, watched the entire sequence impassively. His steady, measured stride toward Jeice never faltered, even as the energy orb approached him. As the orb drew nearer, its blistering momentum gradually decreased until it came to a complete halt, hovering docilely above Ajax's hand as if it had lost all will to fight.
Ajax flexed his hands slightly, and the massive orb of energy began to shrink rapidly, compressing to an extreme degree. As it shrunk, the orb's color changed from a turbulent crimson to a radiant azure, even as it grew increasingly luminous with each passing moment.
By the time the orb had shrunk to the size of a small apricot, its color had settled into a calm blue, a clear sign that the attack had been fully commandeered and controlled by Ajax.
Ajax studied the tiny, apricot-sized sphere thoughtfully, debating what he should do with it. Should he end the battle immediately, or should he pick Jeice's brains just a little while longer?
Without further warning, the apricot-sized orb suddenly ejected a Kamehameha in the form of a laser. It shot forth with remarkable velocity, not unlike a Special Beam Cannon, only more concentrated.
Jeice did not have time to react.
Before the Ginyu Elite even realized he was under attack, the laser had already zipped past his ear, missing him by mere centimeters.
Jeice stood paralyzed, trembling with wide eyes. His gaze locked onto Ajax, who stared back across the battlefield. Eventually, Jeice's expression changed from stunned disbelief to resignation. His shoulders slumped, the fight seemingly drained from him.
But just as Jeice's shoulders slumped, his face hardened suddenly, and his gaze sharpened with a grim intensity. The previous despondency was replaced by a fervent light that glinted ominously in his eyes. With a guttural roar, he began to pull every last bit of energy he could still control on the battlefield toward himself, his entire body glowing with a powerful, almost desperate radiance.
Ajax watched closely as Jeice's energy surged and concentrated into a focal point. His eyes narrowed. The process of gathering such quantities of volatile energy into a single spot was dangerous because, if not properly managed, the energy could explode catastrophically, essentially releasing all the Ki at once.
But Jeice was too skilled to let the energy accidentally detonate, which meant this was a technique.
As far as techniques go, Ajax found this technique particularly intriguing. All fighters were constrained by the maximum rate at which they could release their Ki, meaning the power of each Ki blast was limited by this release rate rather than the user's total Ki capacity.
The Kamehameha somewhat bypassed this limit by allowing the user to gather Ki in a compressed orb outside their body, resulting in an initial burst of attack power exceeding the "maximum rate" in proportion to the charging time. The Kikoho also circumvents this "maximum rate," but through a mechanism that he had yet to understand.
The method Jeice was employing appeared to bypass this limitation as well. By drawing all ambient energy into a concentrated point, Jeice was effectively compressing and amplifying his previously released power. To use an analogy, instead of being restricted to the flow rate of a river, Jeice had access to the entire lake that the river fed into.
However, considering Jeice's prodigious proficiency in energy control, he should be more than capable of directing the energy toward Ajax instead. If the attack's epicenter could be aimed, which it likely could, there was no need to use it as a kamikaze-style move by gathering energy around himself.
Then, an unsettling thought crossed Ajax's mind—was Jeice intentionally planning for the attack to be self-destructive? It was a grim possibility; perhaps Jeice believed that the attack would be neutralized if he aimed it at Ajax, which wasn't an unreasonable assumption because it absolutely would be.
In his desperation, Jeice might have pushed himself for mutual destruction via the philosophy of "Art is an Explosion."
Well, if his opponent was already this desperate, then there was no point in dragging the battle out any longer.
Ajax was never really fond of art anyway.
From a short distance away, Jeice opened his mouth to roar his defiance.
"CRIMSON CONVERGENCE!"
In an instant, Ajax vanished and reappeared just ten feet away from Jeice. Ajax's energy spread out in a wave, eroding the last vestiges of control Jeice had over the volatile power he had amassed. The convergence of energy came to a sudden halt, and the air around Jeice seemed to thicken, forming a solid barrier around him.
Had Jeice attempted to move, the dense air would have severely hindered his efforts, rendering any attempt to escape futile. However, Jeice remained still, his posture one of quiet, somber acceptance, as if he had already accepted his fate.
Ajax approached Jeice and stopped directly in front of him.
In a final attempt, Jeice clenched his hand, trying once more to trigger the gathered energy. However, Ajax cast a mere glance at Jeice's hand, and with that simple action, the Crimson Convergence scattered into nothingness.
Jeice looked at his empty hand with a bitter smile.
"Oi, just give me an answer," Jeice asked, his voice carrying a note of weary curiosity. "How the bloody hell did you get so good so fast during the fight?"
"Extreme concentration."
Jeice chuckled at Ajax's straightforward but cryptic answer and shook his head.
"You reckon you're gonna take down Lord Frieza with that, eh? Well, this ain't gonna cut it. Even with our top-notch energy control, we've got limits, and Lord Frieza's raw power blows those limits out of the water."
"I know," Ajax replied solemnly.
But then he paused, his expression turning thoughtful as Kami's words from their training on the Lookout a year ago echoed in his mind like a ghostly whisper:
'If you master Ki, you can find solutions to problems that others cannot solve. Things you never thought possible become possible—for you.'
Those words had struck a chord with him back then, but Ajax was still unraveling their full meaning even now. The journey toward mastering Ki wasn't just about gaining power; it was about unlocking potential and finding new ways to overcome limitations that once seemed insurmountable.
He would soon find out if Kami's wisdom could withstand Frieza's power.
Ajax met Jeice's eyes with determination.
"But I never said I was fighting him alone."
Ajax raised his hand into a fist and gently pressed it against Jeice's chest, right over his heart, in a gesture reminiscent of a fist bump. It was a sign of respect and acknowledgment for the role Jeice had played in his development.
"Thanks for all the new tricks. I'm sure they'll become a staple for me in the future."
Jeice laughed when he heard his own words thrown back at him.
"Haha! Get stuffed and piss off, mate. I'd reckon I'd appreciate it heaps more if you just let me bloody live."
But both warriors knew that such a wish was unrealistic under the current circumstances.
Without another word, Ajax made his move. He unleashed the Rokuogan, sending a colossal shockwave that tore into and through the space around Jeice's heart. The impact was immediate and devastating; blood spurted from Jeice's mouth as his body went limp, hanging in mid-air, held up only by the Aerospace Domain.
Ajax deactivated Aerospace Domain, causing Jeice to plummet to the ground with a heavy thud. As Ajax landed next to Jeice's fallen form, his Ki sense detected the final flickers of Jeice's energy dwindling and then disappearing entirely.
Even though Jeice was defeated, Ajax chose not to step out of the Zone. The mental strain required to maintain it was still manageable, and re-entering it later would be far more difficult. Besides, Ajax suspected he might need it for the upcoming confrontation with the remaining Ginyu Force members.
With his decision made, Ajax returned to Mushin. The young Namekian greeted him with a stereotypical flood of excited chatter, and together they headed toward the location where Ajax sensed the remaining Ginyu Force members.
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