[ JINICHI WATARU ]
With no wasted effort I went on the offensive, I struck out with a combo: Jab,jab, cross.
Aoi slipped under the two jabs then parried the cross, the force of the parry left me exposed.
She struck forward with a two palm strike to my chest, I could feel the wind get knocked out of me, but using the momentum of the blow, I launched a flash kick that found its target with deadly accuracy.
[ *BAM* ]
The kick landed squarely on her chin, launching her off the ground and causing our classmates to grimace at the move.
Using the momentum of the kick I used it to do a backflip and land on my feet before pressing the attack again capitalizing on her moment of weakness.
I didn't let my feet stay planted for even half a second. The moment my boots touched the dirt from the backflip, I lunged forward.
Aoi was still airborne, her head snapped back from the force of the kick. Her eyes were wide with a mixture of shock and pain, her defense completely shattered. This was my best chance to end the match right here.
I closed the distance before she could even hit the ground. Twisting my hips, I drove a heavy right hook aimed straight for her ribs.
But even with her bell rung, Aoi's survival instincts were terrifying. Mid-fall, she frantically crossed her forearms in front of her torso.
[*CRACK*]
My fist slammed into her guard. The sheer force of the impact sent her skidding across the dirt, her boots carving two deep trenches in the ground before she finally managed to stabilize herself near the very edge of the white chalk circle.
She was gasping for air, one hand clutching her bruised forearms while the other wiped a smear of blood from her lip. Her breath came in ragged, painful wheezes. The absolute confidence she had a moment ago was entirely gone, replaced by a hyper-focused, dangerous glare.
Around us, the crowd was dead silent. Nobody was laughing or calling me a slacker anymore. Even Naruto had stopped yelling from the sidelines, his mouth hanging open in shock.
'Man, my chest burns' I thought, rubbing the spot where her double-palm strike had landed. The wind was still missing from my lungs, and every breath tasted like copper. If that flash kick hadn't connected, I'd probably be the one staring at the sky right now.
Aoi slowly straightened her posture, her eyes locked onto mine. "You... you've been hiding your strength this whole time," she hissed, her voice shaking slightly from adrenaline.
I let my arms slump back down to my sides, trying to look as indifferent as possible despite the throbbing ache in my ribs.
"I told you. I just like to sleep. I never said I couldn't fight."
her glare never left me, I never lost sight of her.
when were about a meter apart we both settled into our unique fighting stances.
The previous boxing stance I was using was nowhere to be seen, I had adopted a fighting stance many martial artists were familiar with.
'Karate'
my legs were spread out, my back leg slightly angled, my right arm was straight out, and my left arm was at my hip ready to be released for defensive and offensive manoeuvres.
Aoi's stance had changed too, her legs spread out to maintain her center of gravity, one arm shaped like a spear rested by the side of her head, the other hand pointed out in a pose similar to mine.
micro adjustments were made whenever I or her made a change, we didn't want to give either one the chance for an opening.
the training grounds was dead silent, everyone was hyper focused on the fight.
The absolute silence stretched over the training grounds, heavy and suffocating. The usual chatter of our classmates had vanished entirely, replaced by a hyper-focused tension as every eye glued itself to the ring.
My breath slowed down, matching the rhythm of my heartbeat. I could see every micro-adjustment Aoi made—the slight shift of her weight to her back heel, the subtle tightening of her spear-like hand. In response, I lowered my center of gravity by a fraction of an inch, locking my back leg firmly into the dirt.
We were a single meter apart. In a high-speed clash, that distance didn't exist. It was pure reaction time now.
A leaf drifted down from a nearby tree, cutting right through the space between our locked gazes.
The moment the leaf brushed against the dirt, the silence shattered.
Aoi exploded forward. Her spear hand thrust forward like a viper, aiming directly at my throat to compromise my breathing.
Instead of backing away, I trusted the core mechanics of my karate stance. I snapped my left hand out from my hip, executing a crisp, aggressive inside block.
[CLAP]
The meat of my forearm collided with her wrist, violently deflecting her deadly thrust over my left shoulder. The opening was right there. With my right arm already chambered and extended, I twisted my hips violently, channelling the entire weight of my stance into a lightning-fast reverse punch aimed straight for her exposed solar plexus.
Her speed ever inhumane, enabled her to block the punch with blinding speed, but I had already expected that, my leg lashed out with a low kick to her chest, she used her elbow to forced the leg down, she used her spear hand to chop at my throat, I leaned slightly and dodged it, launching a kick at her chin, she slaps the leg away opening up my guard.
Using the momentum of the slap, I front flip to launch and overhead axe kick which she blocks, the force of the blow forces her to her knees.
She grunts and pushes my leg away putting distance between the two of us.
I attack again a straight kick, parried, she throws a low sweep, dodged.
A straight punch is launched at her with vicious fury, she ducks under the blow and lands a deafening blow to my solar plexus.
[*BAM* ]
The impact radiated through my entire torso, a deafening ache that instantly locked up my lungs.
'Damn it... she got me.'
Aoi's eyes flared with predatory focus. Recognizing my moment of weakness, she didn't give me a single heartbeat to catch my breath. Before I could even stumble back, she stepped deep into my guard, her upper body twisting to leverage a brutal follow-up elbow strike aimed straight for my jaw.
My vision blurred at the edges from the lack of oxygen, but muscle memory refused to let me freeze.
I couldn't draw a breath to brace myself, so I dropped my weight entirely. I let my knees buckle intentionally, collapsing under her incoming elbow as it sliced through the air right above my head. The wind from her strike literally whistled in my ear.
As I hit the dirt on one knee, I clamped my teeth together and drove my fist upward in a desperate, blind counter-attack. My knuckles caught her right in the ribs.
[THUD]
It wasn't a clean, perfect karate punch, but the raw desperation behind it made it heavy. Aoi gasped, her forward momentum instantly halting as she stumbled two steps back, clutching her side.
We were both completely battered now, gasping for air like drowning men in the middle of a silent ring. The circle around us felt smaller than ever, and I could feel the sweat stinging the fresh cuts on my face.
I forced myself back up onto my feet, my chest throbbing in absolute agony. My karate stance was messy now, held together by sheer willpower. Across from me, Aoi's breathing was just as ragged, her spear hand trembling slightly from exhaustion.
This fight couldn't go on like this much longer.