Gunny had glugged down the entire bottle. He was sloshed and vicious. His face was fiery red and his eyes brimmed with madness—whether deranged or angry, Zora couldn't tell. His body seemed to move on autopilot, threatening and defiant. His military instincts were taking over.
I need to get rid of his guns if I want to get close to him, Zora thought.
"Now that I'm ready, we can do this probperply…" Gunny belched drunkenly. He approached Zora menacingly, guns swinging unpredictably.
Gunny and Zora were engaged in a heated hand-to-hand combat in a battle of their powers: wind versus earth. They moved in tandem and countered one another with ease. Gunny with a renewed fierce power from imbibing his last dose of heavy drink, and Zora with her practised rhythm from years of dogged training. At such close range, they could rely only on their speed, agility, and rōōh. But they were practically equally matched.
The battle returned to a long range when Gunny's rifle let out a barrage of compressed air explosives in Zora's general direction. Zora was ready. Blocks of concrete rose from the stage to shield her, creating a moving maze of pillars that served to disorientate an already-drunk Gunny. She crumbled the rubble from the pillars into dust, creating a smokescreen. With a physical shield of the pillar and under the cover of a dust storm, she closed the distance between her and Gunny. She would have the upper hand once she took out Gunny's weapons and it would be down to hand-to-hand combat.
The air was thick with fine particulates. Gunny created a vortex of clean air around him in order to have clear vision. But it was already too late. Zora had reached him and was grabbing his rifle. Gunny's other hand, holding his pistol, pulled the trigger. Zora was way too close to Gunny to move out of the way. She stomped her foot on the floor and a spike from the ground popped up immediately, destroying the explosive. But the explosive had already exited the barrel. Zora made to dodge, but it was too late. The explosive was in close proximity, and shrapnel cut into Zora's arms and face.
Gunny moved the wind vortex under Zora, throwing her into the air. Zora was stuck in the air with nowhere to go. Gunny lifted his rifle to aim. Thinking quickly, Zora shaped a pit under Gunny's feet. He stumbled forward to avoid the pit, his aim trained on Zora in mid-air.
Gunny hiccupped, "I grueess I win." He pressed the trigger.
The rifle blew up in his hand.
Gunny groaned in pain, his hand and face were bleeding.
Zora had made herself an easy target for exactly this moment.
***
"I'm confused! Did you see that? What happened?" Dart turned to Kitaro and Felix.
"She must have thrown a piece of rock inside the gun and jammed it, causing the bullet to blow up inside the barrel," Kitaro explained knowingly.
Ashley was besides herself with excitement. "Did all of you see what Zora just did? Let's watch it again!" The audience watched open-mouthed as the projector screens displayed a slow-motion replay of the rock flying into the gun barrel and jamming it.
Kitaro was right.
***
Gunny stumbled back, trembling and clutching his elbow. A few of his fingers had been blown off and he was screaming in pain. Zora, now back on stage after Gunny's vortex dissipated, had Gunny exactly where she wanted to be. It was a trap. With Gunny distracted, Zora had been able to use the cover of the smokescreen to shape parts of the floor into two halves of a iron-maiden torture device. When she clapped her hands, the two halves pivoted up vertically to sandwich Gunny. He was trapped.
Zora clenched her hands. Spikes from the side pierced through the trap in an X shape, goring its contents.
Injured, Gunny blew his way out of the iron-maiden. But it was too late, he had already sustained heavy damage. His lungs had been pierced and a crucial artery was bleeding profusely through his torn clothes. He was nearly spent.
But there was still something left in him. He had to take one more shot left. On his knees, he raised his pistol and aimed it at Zora. His tattoo created an unearthly glow emanating from his entire body, illuminating where he stood. Rōōh was accumulating in one major final blow that would be the explosive end to either one of them.
Just in the nick of time, Zora erected multiple barrier walls in front of herself, knowing that it would be too powerful to dodge. Gunny's final shot took out almost all of them, but stopped short of Zora.
Boom! The pistol was taken out by a similar trick. Gunny's other limb was smoking, his hand missing. His shoulders were limp and his face frozen with terror.
Zora turned the floor under Gunny, still on his knees, into quicksand. Gunny sunk deep into the stage, with only his head and shoulders exposed. A sitting duck with no recourse.
"Oh the irony. I'm in the same situation again. Finally... I'm out," Gunny laughed dryly.
"Do you finally have the answer? Tell me, which one of us is luckier?" Zora asked. She clenched a fistful of dirt in her hand, transforming it into a dagger made of rock, with a sharp point.
"I am," Gunny replied. His eyes were wet with tears now.
"Why?"
"Because I have people waiting for me on the other side," Gunny whispered. His lips were formed into a smile.
Zora's dagger pierced Gunny's head. It was all over.
The crowd was transfixed. Even Ashley held her breath as they watched Gunny, the martyred military survivor, give up his life for the God's Tournament with his body transforming into a magical glowing orb. The orb flew onto Zora's back. It merged with her own tattoo, and expanded into a more intricate design that now spanned the width of her shoulder blades. Zora had taken possession of the power of wind.
"The winner of the first match is… Zora!" Ash declared to the audience.
-END OF VOLUME 1-