Sustained high-G maneuvering was simply unsustainable.
The scissors maneuver would continuously bleed the energy of both flyers, causing their speeds to drop and their altitudes to plummet. Ultimately, this kind of engagement came down to a pure test of their brooms' turning capabilities.
Although his Firebolt was vastly superior to the Nimbus 2001 that George was riding, ensuring his eventual victory, Kyle had no intention of letting himself get dragged into a grueling war of attrition. After all, once their speed and altitude dropped below a certain threshold, he would be left in an incredibly vulnerable position if any opposing player decided to seize the moment and launch an attack.
Making a split-second decision, Kyle shoved his broom handle forward. The Firebolt rocketed downward in a steep, high-speed dive, breaking away from the scissors maneuver and the grueling test of turn rates.
George immediately noticed Kyle's break. He, too, pitched his broom down and gave chase, tailing Kyle closely.
Talk about being haunted by a persistent ghost, Kyle thought, curling his lip in disdain.
"Kyle is in a terminal dive! What is he trying to do? Could it be the Wronski Feint?!" Lee Jordan roared into his megaphone as Kyle plummeted.
As Hufflepuff's star player, every single move Kyle made drew the undivided attention of both the spectators and the commentator.
The Wronski Feint was a tactic typically reserved for Seekers. A Seeker would pretend to spot the Golden Snitch far below, hurtling toward the ground at breakneck speed in the hopes that the opposing Seeker would blindly follow. At the absolute last second before impact, the feinting Seeker would pull out of the dive, leaving their opponent with no time to react before crashing violently into the dirt.
But for a Beater to pull off such a maneuver... it was truly baffling.
Then again, how could mere mortals comprehend the thoughts of the Sky Demon or the Golden Flash? It was better to just shut up and watch.
One second, two seconds... Kyle and George's altitude continuously converted into pure velocity. They looked like twin meteors falling from the sky.
One hundred meters, seventy meters, sixty meters...
When they hit the fifty-meter mark, George aborted the chase and pulled up.
But Kyle had no intention of stopping.
In the blink of an eye, he was a mere twenty to thirty meters from the ground. It was only then that Kyle violently yanked back on his broom handle.
"He's out of time!" Lee Jordan screamed.
With the baseline speed of the Firebolt coupled with the terrifying acceleration of a vertical dive, not even a Thunderbolt broom—famous for its acute-angle turning capabilities—could prevent Kyle from obliterating himself on the pitch at this perilous distance.
But who was Kyle? Since he dared to do it, he naturally had a way out.
"Open! Eight Inner Gates Formation!"
Astride his broom, by the time the Firebolt finally flattened out parallel to the pitch, Kyle was less than a meter from the grass. He thrust his legs out and stomped violently against the ground.
"First Foot!"
A deafening boom erupted, drowning out every other sound between heaven and earth. Countless torrents of muddy water and chunks of earth exploded across the Quidditch pitch, completely shrouding Kyle from view.
By the time the displaced mud and debris rained back down, Kyle was gone. In his place was a massive crater nearly ten meters in diameter.
Propelled by the monstrous counter-thrust of his kick and the Firebolt's terrifying straight-line acceleration, Kyle closed the gap in an instant. He overtook George, completely reversing their roles as attacker and defender.
Lee Jordan's megaphone slipped from his hand and clattered onto the commentary desk below, sending a harsh, screeching blast of static through the magical loudspeakers.
What the hell kind of move was that?!
Everyone's mind went completely blank. The stadium, which should have been erupting with cheers, fell into dead silence.
Kyle, however, wasn't about to waste time standing around dazed like the rest of them. Quietly channeling the Mystical Palm Technique to heal his battered legs, he snapped his head around to look at the tough little girl backing him up nearby.
"Hannah! Pass!"
Snapping out of her shock, Hannah immediately activated her Chakra Enhanced Strength, slamming her bat into the Bludger buzzing near her and rocketing it toward Kyle.
His ammunition replenished, Kyle locked his gaze onto the broom George was riding just ahead. A savage, fierce grin spread across the corners of his mouth.
A Nimbus 2001 was worth nearly a thousand Galleons, after all. If he smashed this thing to pieces, he wondered if Sirius would be willing to open his vaults again to restock the Gryffindor team's gear.
"Second Foot!"
BOOM!
Rocketing at subsonic speeds, the Bludger punched a perfectly cylindrical tunnel through the dense curtain of rain. Trailing the icy breath of the Goddess of Death, it screamed straight toward George's broom.
Having dodged Kyle's incoming Bludger by the skin of his teeth, George's face turned completely pale.
"Help! Fred, save me!"
Seeing his own "dear brother" frantically fleeing toward him for dear life, Fred's face also turned a distinct shade of green.
"Stay the hell away from me!"
Despite his words, he still had to save his brother's neck. It already took both of them working perfectly in tandem to barely hold their own against Kyle. If Kyle managed to knock George off his broom now, the match would be all but over.
We can't let Hannah keep feeding Kyle Bludger ammunition. We have to intercept every single pass she sends his way!
Urging his broom forward, Fred zipped across the sky toward where George and Kyle were locked in a fierce, high-altitude dogfight.
Meanwhile, amidst the dense, falling sheets of rain, Cedric caught sight of a golden afterimage.
The Golden Snitch was fluttering barely a dozen meters away from him. Squinting through the obscuring downpour, Cedric could barely keep it in focus. He flattened himself against his broom, surging into an explosive acceleration and charging straight for the Snitch.
With visibility drastically reduced by the raging storm, he had to lock his eyes onto the Golden Snitch and never let it out of his sight, or risk losing its trail entirely.
As a fellow Seeker, Harry had kept half his attention trained on Cedric's every movement. Spotting Cedric's sudden break, Harry resolutely threw himself into pursuit, tracking the exact vector his rival was chasing.
At this point, the entire Quidditch pitch was effectively split into three distinct battlegrounds.
The highest tier of the sky belonged to the Beaters of both teams. This was the most violent and hard-fought arena of the entire match. Kyle, Hannah, George, and Fred—all four of them possessed mastery over Chakra Enhanced Strength. Even without undergoing lightning-style body tempering or consuming strength-enhancing potions, George and Fred could still smash a Bludger at subsonic speeds when putting everything they had into a swing. The sheer intensity of their aerial dogfight was easy to imagine.
In the airspace just below them, the two Seekers were locked in a desperate race centered entirely around the Golden Snitch.
The remaining players—the Chasers and Keepers—held their ground around the level of the goalposts, locked in their own intense confrontation.
"Hufflepuff scores again! The score is now forty to seventy!"
Hufflepuff forty, Gryffindor seventy.
Perhaps bolstered by their upgraded brooms, Gryffindor was exceptionally fierce today, practically pinning the Hufflepuff squad down and dominating the pitch. Granted, that was only the battle playing out between the Chasers.
High above, the tides of war told a completely different story.
Right now, the eyes of every spectator were glued to the chaotic dogfight unfolding in the upper atmosphere. Whichever Seeker managed to snatch the Golden Snitch first would secure the ultimate victory for their team.
Glancing back at Fred, who was hot on his heels, a look of helplessness crossed Kyle's face. Hannah's tactical awareness in aerial combat still needs some serious work.
The four Beaters were currently flying in a single straight line, completely ignoring the wild Bludgers. The most optimal play right now would be for Hannah to take control of a Bludger while Kyle kept the twins tied down single-handedly, using it to help Cedric shoot Harry down out of the sky.
"Hannah! Forget about me! Go help Cedric!" Kyle's voice boomed over the roaring rain.
Hearing Kyle's shout, Hannah finally realized the tactical blunder she had committed. A flush of embarrassment crept onto her already rosy cheeks.
Yet, embarrassment didn't hinder her execution in the slightest. Without a moment's hesitation, Hannah wheeled her broom around, locked her gaze onto a black streak slicing through the gray sky, and rocketed straight toward the Bludger.
Having just barked out the order, Kyle hadn't even had time to turn his head and refocus his attention on George.
Right at that moment, an unexpected anomaly occurred.
————
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