Toka shifted his weight, taking a long, measured breath through his nose. He closed his eyes, letting the quiet hum of the collapsing chamber fill the silence.
"I see," he said softly. "So that's how it is then."
Haramuci’s grin wavered slightly. "Hmm?"
"You know, I’ve been trying to understand something..." He continued, a tired smile touching his lips as his eyelids slowly parted. "...what took such root in you, so deeply that you’ve held such a relentless desire to see someone else fall?" He paused, tilting his head. "Guess I was mistaken."
He tried forcing his right index finger to move against the strain of his own injuries.
"You entered a survival test, claimed a territory, and set up a dictatorship by structuring your own petty idea of the weak and the strong," he said, his tone deceptively calm.
Deep within his damaged wrist, a faint spark of sensation flickered. His fingers twitched, slowly regaining a fraction of their movement.
"You fixated your whole agenda into an obsession over one single person, turning this holy ground into your little personal palace," Toka continued, raising his chin to lock eyes with him. "Truly, as I thought... you are way too over your head."
Haramuci muffled a short, bitter laugh. "Oh, really? Am I now? Wanna do something about it?"
Toka kept his grip firm around his injured hand. The nerves were firing again, though far from fully functional.
"Say..." Haramuci sneered, his tone dropping as he spread both arms wide toward the cavern walls. "Do you know how massive this sacred ground you speak of really is? Yeah, that's right, over a hundred pillars holding this monument. It is the central heartbeat of this entire territory.
To put it bluntly, when these pillars fall, the whole sector collapses along with it." He slammed his hands together with a hollow crack. "Once it all ends here, I can finally move on to my next objective."
Toka watched the dramatic display, his sharp gaze shifting briefly across the ruined floor toward Kairo’s motionless body lying near the center. He exhaled a low, quiet breath, letting his eyes slide back to Haramuci.
"This is turning into a spectacular waste of my time," Toka murmured. Turning his attention back at him, "Are we going to stand here all day, or you just gonna torture me to death with your yaping?"
"Oh, tough talk from someone who's running on empty," Haramuci purred, a gentle smile spreading across his face as he began walking toward a fallen knife glinting in the dust on the stone floor. "This is going to be such a delightful, but I'll make it a slow death for ya."
Scooping up the blade, Haramuci raised his head, his eyes bright with brimming excitement. "Brace yourself, here I come!"
Toka’s breath hitched, his focus sharpening into razor alertness. He raised his functional left arm, settling into a half-stance while his right hung useless at his side, its channels ruined.
Seikon energy erupted along Haramuci’s forearm as he whipped his wrist forward, sending the blade hurtling straight for Toka’s face, his pupils tracked the steel in a fraction of a second, his torso snapping sideways just as the knife whistled past his ear.
"A diversion!"
He whipped his head back forward, but Haramuci was already upon him like a starved predator. He threw his left arm up to shield his head as Haramuci unleashed a blistering flurry of strikes. Fists tore through the air from the left and right in a relentless onslaught, offering him not a single second to draw breath.
The manic thrill on Haramuci’s face deepened with every blow, his speed escalating as dense streams of light-green seikon flow surged over his forearms.
Step by step, his boots slid backward against the crumbling stone floor under the sheer volume of the assault. He gritted his teeth, forced to rely on a single arm to deflect a barrage meant for two.
"Can you feel it?!" Haramuci roared, his laughter ringing out like broken glass over the clashing energy. "Can you feel the overwhelming weight of my emotions?! This is the strength of my determination! Do you hear me?!"
Toka’s face hardened into a mask of pure concentration, his lone arm moving in tight, desperate arcs to intercept the barrage.
Then, mid-flurry, Haramuci changed the rhythm.
Slipping beneath his raised elbow, Haramuci’s fingers snaked under his guard, clamping tightly onto the front of his shirt. Toka’s eyes widened in sudden realization, but his momentum was already compromised.
Seikon energy flared violently through Haramuci’s shoulders and core. Arching his back like a javelin thrower, he pivoted on his heel and hurled Toka through the open air with terrifying velocity.
Toka’s body rocketed across the hall, plowing straight into the massive structural columns along the far perimeter. Stone columns sheared in two with a thunderous roar, shattered debris cascading downward as a towering wall of thick monument dust engulfed the entire sector.
Down amid the dust and shattered pillars, Toka coughed violently, a dark smear of blood spattering the stone beneath him. His eyes rolled from left to right as the pitch-black haze filled the air, rendering him barely able to see through the suffocating gloom.
Far behind him, loose debris continued to tumble and scatter while broken rocks fell from above, shattering against the cavern floor. Each impact sent violent tremors through the stone, the hollow echoes rolling through the hall like thunder. The entire structure trembled around him, groaning under the weight of its own decay.
"This place won't last much longer..." He thought, straining to raise his head off the cold, fractured floor.
Before he could react, a figure crashed down from the dark ceiling, landing heavily between his sprawled legs.
Dust burst outward in a concussive shockwave from the impact.
There he stood. Haramuci towered over him, his light-green seikon energy flowing through the veins of his forearms as he stared down at Toka’s battered frame.
Toka’s jaw clenched, his breath hitching with every agonizing effort to push himself off the ground. But before he could even lift his shoulders, Haramuci dropped his lead knee straight onto his chest with brutal force.
"GAAAGH!" He screamed, the air violently expelled from his lungs as his back cracked against the stone floor, pinning him uselessly in place.
Reflexively, he lashed out with his functional left hand, but Haramuci snatched it out of the air with his own left hand, driving his wrist firmly against the broken ground and leaning his full weight into the lock. Toka’s chest heaved beneath the crushing pressure, every desperate attempt to break free met by the immovable weight above him.
Haramuci sneered down at him, his face contorted in sadistic pleasure. "Just like I said... the strong will always triumph."
Reaching behind his back with his free right hand, he drew out a combat knife. In one swift motion, droving the blade straight through the center of Toka's left palm, pinning his hand directly into the stone floor.
Toka’s throat ripped open in a raw, harrowing scream that echoed through the falling cavern.
"You think I'd be shaken because you're some Stage Two user?!" Haramuci roared over Toka's agonizing cries. "How does it feel to be beaten by a Stage One, huh?! Tell me! I wanna hear it! Where is that idea of yours now?!" His tone dropped into a dead, terrifying quiet as he gripped the leather hilt, twisting the blade and driving it deeper into Toka's pinned palm.
Toka's cries echoed through the falling cavern, his body convulsing as fresh blood surged over the hilt and pooled across the cracked floor.
Haramuci leaned his face down, his cold eyes hovering inches from Toka's trembling pupils. "Where's all that big talk now?"
He drove the blade deeper still, grinding the point against the solid bedrock beneath his palm. Toka slammed his eyes shut, clenching his teeth so hard they groaned under the pressure.
The ground trembled violently, sending loose pebbles bouncing across the cracked stone floor.
A heavy, subterranean rumbling surged closer from the edge of the cavern, riding a thick gust of dust-laden wind that swept over their faces. Haramuci’s eyes rolled forward toward the dark perimeter, the gentle smile spreading across his lips as he took in the impending cave-in.
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"Well, would you look at that," Haramuci sneered. "The section of the monument you broke through earlier has decided to be the grand opening act for the entire collapse. Lucky for me, I know this territory far too well to get trapped."
Pinned flat against the bedrock, Toka strained his neck, lifting his chin as his eyes tracked the swelling cloud of dust and falling debris tumbling from the upper vaults. Slowly, he let his head drop back onto the stone floor.
"Hey..." Toka rasped, his voice impossibly steady.
Haramuci’s gaze snapped down at him. "Hmm?"
"You might wanna get off me now," Toka whispered, blood pooling around his jawline. "You're way too heavy."
The dead silence fell over Haramuci as the ground continued to shudder beneath them. He stared down at the completely composed face of his target, his brows suddenly pulling together into a furious contortion. His lips flattened into a tight, murderous line.
A radiant flow of green seikon energy erupted around his right fist as he drove a brutal blow straight into Toka’s face.
"How dare you!"
The concussive force rattled Toka's jaw, spraying blood across the stone floor. "You piece of shit!"
Haramuci hammered another blow directly into his cheek, fracturing the bone beneath his skin. "How dare you huh?!" he screamed, his voice cracking with unhinged rage as his fists rained down without pause. "Trying to act like some hotshot now, you piece of shit!"
He delivered one final, crushing punch straight to Toka's mouth, his chest heaving with heavy, frantic gasps as fresh blood slicked his knuckles.
"You know what?" Haramuci growled, his eyes wild and unblinking. "I've changed my mind."
Withdrawing his knee from Toka's chest, Haramuci swung himself fully over his opponent body, straddling his torso. Reaching down, he seized the hilt of the combat knife, he yanked it out of Toka's pinned left palm with violent force.
Toka gritted his teeth, his entire body convulsing as the stifled groan escaped his throat.
"I've decided," Haramuci spat, a fiery, psychotic glare tearing through his eyes. "I'll end you right now, and you can bleed out slowly while this monument buries you along with your friends!"
Raising the knife high with one hand, he drove the point straight toward Toka's exposed throat.
Before the steel could sever his neck, Toka's wounded left hand shot up out of nowhere, his bloody hand locking directly around Haramuci's wrist mid-descent.
His teeth bared as he strained to force the blade down, the tip hovering mere inches from Toka's skin. Their eyes met, both jaws clenched tight in a desperate, grinding contest of raw strength.
With a roar, Haramuci slammed his second hand onto the hilt, applying his entire upper body weight to overpower Toka's single, shattered arm. The blade crept downward, millimeter by millimeter, as the thunderous roar of the collapsing monument closed in around them.
Clouds of suffocating dust billowed across their locked bodies. Haramuci glared directly into Toka’s unyielding eyes, his gaze flicking down as he noticed a faint, flicker of crimson-green seikon energy beginning to surge through Toka’s mangled left hand.
Delight flared across Haramuci's face as he poured his own energy into both arms, driving the steel down further. "Come on! DIE ALREADY!"
Toka’s bleeding fingers slowly shifted, twisting his grip to clamp tightly around Haramuci's wrists.
The seikon energy between them abruptly lost its rhythm, vibrating out of sync.
Exhaling a single, faint breath across his bloody lips, Toka conveyed weakly:
"Matsukaze... Shihai."
Haramuci startled, his pupils dilating. "Huh?"
In that fleeting moment, the seamless current of seikon flow coursing through Haramuci's veins begin violently disrupted from within.
A choked gasp tore from Haramuci’s throat as his energy collapsed inward. His body slipped backward off Toka's torso, his spiritual flow instantly shattering into chaotic fragments.
Without warning, a terrifying paralysis spread through his nervous system. His joint muscles locked completely, leaving him rigid and immobilized against the trembling floor. For a second, the entire world around him seemed to freeze in a silent, static haze. The deafening roar of the collapsing monument dimming into a distant, muffled echo as he struggled in vain to draw a single breath.
"Wha-what have you done to me?" Haramuci stammered, his voice trembling as he struggled in vain to turn his head against the cold stone floor.
Toka slowly forced himself upright. His battered body groaned under the strain, his clothes stained with blood as he turned his back on his immobilized opponent. Above them, the cavern’s destruction reached a fever pitch; massive boulders detached from the ceiling, plummeting into the haze with thunderous impacts.
H-Hey!" Haramuci called out, straining his vocal cords to project over the deafening roar of falling stone.
Toka paused, turning his head slightly to look down at the pinned target out of the corner of his eye.
"Answer me, damn it!" Haramuci shouted from the ground, frustration and panic bleeding into his voice.
He took heavy breath, slowly shaking his head. "Good grief... do I really need to do this now?"
"What?!"
"I said, do I really need to explain myself to you?" Toka fired back, his tone flat.
"Don't give me that!" Haramuci snapped, his voice pitching high against the ambient roar of the cave-in. "I know I severed that technique before! How can you make that move?!"
"Oh, yeah. Sure you did," Toka said calmly. He shifted his stance, looking out into the swirling dust. "You see, your assessment on my technique being used for offense and defense was spot it. However... there is a still third principle I never told you." He tilted his head toward the fracturing cavern. "You see.. with my wind palm control, I can also redirect an incoming attack, but only at close range."
He turned his full gaze back to Haramuci’s startled face, his expression completely tranquil as he slid his right hand casually into his pocket.
"The moment you manifested your seikon flow into your hands, I had to get hold of it, in other for me to synchronize with your current. By releasing my wind palm control at that precise instant, the sheer momentum of your own energy provided all the power my technique needed. It redirected your flow directly back into your own network, causing a total internal disruption."
Haramuci coughed, a violent spasm racking his chest. "But that's impossible... It still doesn't explain how you had the energy left to pull that off!"
"Oh, right," Toka replied, pulling his right hand out of his pocket as he gaze at his injured hand. "Your earlier calculation was spot on. That surprise attack I hit you with earlier really was my limit... well, at least for the offensive principle of my technique that it. Like I said, there are three principles. With my energy reserves depleted, I couldn't channel enough flow for a direct strike."
Haramuci’s eyes widened as his mind flashed back to the moment he felt the vibrations in Toka's arm, the moment he had rushed in with his rigid knife-hand to sever the flow. "I see... So when I felt your technique manifesting..."
"Yes, you fool," Toka interrupted smoothly. "Did you really think I’d be reckless?"
"So then, it was a bait," Haramuci rasped. The paralysis in his nerves was slowly beginning to recede, allowing a faint twitch in his fingers as he struggled to pull his upper body against a fallen pillar for support.
"Call it whatever you like," he said, stepping past Haramuci's form as the ground around their boots began to fracture. "It was just a hypothesis. I mean, you had already analyzed my style, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt, with the feeling you were cooking up something to counter if you had your chance and then you did!"
Toka kept walking, his paces steady amidst the tremor. "I had to bet on it, allowing you to feel the sense of my submission so I could wait for my single opening."
He paused slightly, glancing back over his shoulder at the defeated opponent leaning against the stone pillar.
"You know..." Toka smiled faintly. "...your idea sense of the strong and weak really fascinated me. Next time, I'd advise against underestimating an opponent, especially one at a higher stage than you."
The stone floor shuddered violently as Toka vanished into the haze.
Haramuci remained slumped against the rock, his head bowed, his face shadowed in dark, silent fury as the subterranean vault collapsed around him.