As was becoming customary, they watched all the fights, talking, discussing and debating on various strategies they could use to beat their opponents. Once all the fights had finished, they went back to the hotel. Tomorrow, Zach would have his first fight, and Ace was truly looking forward to it. At his level, every one of the fighters that had attended was the best of the best, and every single one of the fights would be great to watch. However, instead of watching them at the end, they would ask for the recordings, which would be given only in the senior portion of the tournament. This was because otherwise, they would miss many of the fights, due to how many of them happened at the same time.
Recordings were only taken for those fights, and no other, furthermore, since they would only be given to the fighters, no one had any problems with that. At that point, every interested party knew how they fought anyway, and they were easily recognised. All there was to it was to check whether certain techniques had been improved upon or not.
"Have a nice night guys.", Zach said, as he sat down on a chair, and took out his tablet, finishing the touches on his strategies for tomorrow.
"Same to you, don't stay up too late.", Nai said, as they all parted ways, going to their own rooms. Ace went up, and ordered some food. They had already eaten, but he had to think, and was getting peckish anyways.
As some snacks came, Ace thought about the fights that awaited him. Considering that three rounds had already passed, the rest of the opponents would not be lightweights. He also had to consider limiting the risks he took, he still had to go through three more fights before the finals, and since they were one after the other, on subsequent days, he had to avoid getting injured, since that could harm his chances of making it safely. Bruises and cuts were fine, but if he got a bone fracture, his future opponents would exploit that weakness, and that could be fatal.
After about an hours of sorting through various simulations of fights against various opponents, he went to bed, still thinking over the different opponents he could have, their weaknesses, and their strengths.
***
Ace walked up to the arena, stretching lightly as he walked. Igor had already won his fight, even if he did get a nasty cut in his eyebrow. It would not become a scar, but was certainly close.
Now, it was Ace's turn, and he was facing Me, a boy that was as weird as his name. He had long, dark hair, and stood slouched, hunching over his own body, his long, greasy tendrils covering his face.
From what Ace had seen, he focused on fighting with knife-hand and finger strikes, relentlessly hitting pressure points, and abusing pain receptors on his opponent's body.
Ace bowed, and it seemed like his opponent did as well, but due to his slouched position, it was impossible to tell if the slight shrugging of the shoulders was that.
Ace got ready, he knew his opponent would circle him for a while, but then would lunge at him, attempting to take him by surprise, and then take advantage of that surprise, causing as much pain as possible. It was not lasting damage, but made it so that people ended up surrendering out of pain, becoming unable to fight.
As expected, the boy lunged, fangs out. He went to hit the shoulders, well, the back of the trapezius to be exact. Ace had seen this move, he would take hold of the muscles and then pull them towards him. Of course, he would not tear the muscle, but it would cause a large amount of damage, which would allow him to begin dishing out more damage.
Ace walked into the lunge, letting him grab onto the muscles, but as he pulled, he went in with it, and, taking him out by surprise, headbutting him in the face. That surprised Me, you see, when someone grabbed on to the trapezoid muscles, you were unable to move your arms neither fast nor fully. Therefore, he mostly focused on attacks coming in in the form of kicks. It had happened before, but he was always able to react in time. Nevertheless, this headbutt was a first, and he was not ready for it.
Ace hit the bridge of his nose, which exploded with blood, erupting it, and dirtying both the arena and Ace's face. He now looked like an absolute savage, with the blood of his opponent dripping down his face.
Ace, taking advantage of the shock, launched a turning kick that impacted right on his thigh, bending his leg and bringing him nice and close for the jab that followed. At that point, Me seemed to switch back on, and stepped back. Then, he went batshit crazy.
He straightened up, and then launched himself like a spring towards Ace, ignoring the punch that landed solidly on his cheek, and simply focusing on the momentum that took him to Ace. He snarled as he took the hit, and then went to grab Ace's arm, taking ahold of it, and digging his nails into the soft spot that connected the joint of his elbow to his arm.
'Fuck, what the hell? How sharp are his nails?', Ace thought, as he elbowed him in the ribs, and twisted his hips, delivering a side-piercing kick that made Me take three steps back, reeling from the impact. This had the negative outcome, however, of him, with his nails still dug in Ace's arm, tearing the skin fully. Ace groaned, and looked at his arm, it was now full of rivers of blood. Ace looked like a demon, his right arm and face covered with blood. The arm was only superficial damage, but the blood that came out of it was numerous, and made the wound look much worse than it was.
'Let's just annihilate this bug.', Ace thought, 'This is taking way to long.'
***
Me was laughing frantically in his head, relishing the smell and feel of the blood of his opponent, 'Hihihihihi, there is more where that came from.', he thought, peering through his tendrils to look at Ace. What he did not expect, however, were to see the eyes, the eyes of someone that knew, much like the eyes 'she' had. 'What is going on? Who is he? How does…', that was all Me had time to think about, before he was knocked out by a hit to the temple. And yet, if someone had bothered to look at his face, someone would have noticed an unbridled expression of terror.
***
The crowds were quiet as their minds processed what they had just witnessed. It had not been the most brutal fight of the tournament, but it came close. And yet, as they looked at the figure of Ace, they saw half of his body covered in blood, and shivered. At one point in the fight, it seemed like he had gotten tired or bored of his opponents, and decided to end it. The moves had seemed simple, he had stepped forward, and hit him in the temple. And yet, the speed had been so unfathomable, that they had barely had time to react. And yet, they understood what they had just witnessed, the utter dominance in a field of battle. And so, they cheered…
***
Ace walked back to his team, where he smiled and they smiled back, Win handing him a warm, wet towel with the which he wiped off all the blood. His skin still had a tinge of red, and his clothes were ruined, but he had done the best he could without a shower.
"Good match.", Zach nodded, pleased with the outcome, "Are you planning on just going full out the next matches?", he asked, and Ace looked at Igor, who nodded, "I think we might as well."