He wasted no time, driving himself forward through the pain, the blackened arm trembling under the strain as though it might tear free of him. Each step threatened collapse. Breath came jagged and thin, not from fear, but from the sheer violence coursing through his nerves.
Still, he pressed on.
There was no room to falter, not now, not when the opening now lingered, fragile and fleeting.
His fist closed.
The ruined arm followed, dragging its agony behind it as power gathered along its length. Then,
Impact.
The strike landed clean.
Jiro's head snapped to the side, the force bursting across his temple. His eyes emptied at once, rolling white as his body slackened, consciousness severed in an instant. He sagged instantly, still trapped in the fractured concrete, lifeless for the moment.
Jurgen had already moved on.
His gaze shifted with ruthless precision, locking onto Blackwood who still lost to that maddened state, steam curling from his form like something feral barely contained.
A blur of motion answered him.
Blackwood charged without hesitation.
Jurgen read it.
The incoming strike unfolded before him with stark clarity. Pain flared through his arm, sharp and insistent, but he buried it beneath instinct. Dropping low, he turned just enough—guiding the punch upward with the back of his palm, the force glancing past him in a clean, controlled slip.
In the same breath, he pivoted.
Blackwood's momentum betrayed him.
Jurgen was already behind.
An arm coiled around the man's neck, locking tight. His legs followed, binding the torso with unyielding pressure. The hold settled into place with brutal efficiency, precise, suffocating, inescapable.
Blackwood reacted instantly.
Steam burst from him in hissing waves as he struggled, rage thrashing against restraint.
Jurgen's eyes burned.
"…burn away… your fuel, you damn monster."
His grip tightened.
Elbow anchored. Fingers cinched. Legs constricting with quiet, lethal certainty.
Everything, heat, pain, fury, drawn inward. Disciplined. Claimed.
Blackwood roared, the sound tearing through the arena as his body bucked and twisted. His fists lashed out blindly, striking air, then flesh, anything within reach. He clawed at the arm around his throat, desperate to pry it loose.
It did not move.
Jurgen did not yield.
Elbows drove back in frantic retaliation, slamming into his ribs from both sides. The blows landed hard, sharp enough to fracture.
His teeth clenched.
Pain surged, through his ribs, through the ruined arm, through every frayed nerve screaming for release.
He endured.
The hold remained.
Unbroken.
Desperation clawed at Blackwood as he hurled himself upward, a final, reckless bid for escape.
His body twisted midair, forcing a backward descent with Jurgen still locked to him, unrelenting, fused to his spine like a second shadow.
They came down hard.
Concrete surged up to meet them with a violent crash.
The impact tore through Jurgen. His vision lurched, pupils jolting as though they might slip loose from their sockets. Air fled his lungs in a brutal rush, his chest collapsing under the force.
For a fraction of a second, the world threatened to dim.
Then it snapped back into focus.
No time.
His grip tightened, fiercer, deeper, as though his very bones refused to yield. Even as his body screamed, even as the hold trembled at the brink of breaking, he did not release. Not an inch.
Blackwood lost himself completely.
What remained of reason burned away, leaving only raw, unfiltered frenzy. He twisted and thrashed with violent desperation, teetering at the edge of unconsciousness. Sweat and steam merged into a scalding haze around him, his pupils flickering as if retreating inward.
His Reira flared wildly, hissing, boiling, unraveling.
Then, in a sudden shift.
Jurgen let go.
Not out of mercy.
His legs unwound in the same instant his hands shifted, sliding down and locking tight around Blackwood's waist. He pushed off with explosive force, creating just enough space to reposition.
For Blackwood, it felt like salvation.
Air rushed back into his lungs in a ragged inhale as he flipped forward, instinct dragging him upright. For the briefest moment, clarity flickered.
It didn't last.
Jurgen had already seized him.
With a strained, deliberate motion, he lifted, muscle and will forcing the action through the agony and twisted sharply.
Then drove him down.
SLAM.
Blackwood's back met the concrete with merciless force. The ground fractured beneath him, cracks racing outward as the impact devoured what little breath he had reclaimed. It escaped in a single, broken burst, his arms rising instinctively, grasping at nothing.
Dust erupted.
Jurgen moved through it without hesitation.
Forward again—relentless, almost feral in his resolve.
The chokehold returned.
Legs coiled. Arms sealed tight.
No space. No air.
Around them, the arena fell into a stunned stillness. Shock lingered across the faces of those watching, the sheer brutality pressing down like weight. Even Nemesio stilled, caught for a moment by the intensity of it.
Blackwood's steam surged once more, hissing violently, yet it lacked its former force. The Reira that once roared now faltered, thinning, fraying at the edges.
Gradually, it diminished.
The heat ebbed.
Smoke curled where power had once raged.
His movements slowed. His eyes dulled, losing focus as his breath weakened into shallow, failing pulls.
Slowly,
he sagged.
Strength left him in quiet surrender, his body slackening as consciousness slipped away, inch by inch.
Jurgen felt it.
The resistance fading. The fight dissolving beneath his hold.
Instinct stirred.
His grip loosened, just slightly, enough to steady him, enough to prevent the line between victory and something far worse from being crossed.
For a moment, it was over.
Yet something in Jurgen twisted.
A flicker of distaste. Of certainty unmet.
His hold tightened once more, not wildly, but with deliberate finality. Assurance. No doubt left behind.
Beneath him, Blackwood's body gave a faint, residual twitch.
Then,
stillness.
The arena fell silent.
And through that silence,
a blur.