Val staggered to her feet. A spurt of blood came from her slashed eye, from a vertical finger-length cut so clean and precise it was almost elegant.
"Did you think you could fight me and remain unscathed?" Warui asked, perfectly at ease.
Val ignored the burning sting in her eye. "I was aware of the risk. But still, I have a lot of fight left in me."
"Then show it to me!" Warui roared, raising the blade.
Val was half bluffing. It was obvious she couldn't defeat Warui with her strength alone. But she recently trained with someone who could. In one swift motion, Val separated her feet and forcibly bent her knees into a deep hinge. It was the stance Saku had used in their earlier encounter.
Warui's face distorted with a fury Val had never seen on him, as if seeing Saku's stance was a worse experience than any he'd suffered.
Warui's mind filled with memories of the grudge from a thousand years ago. The feelings of jealousy and anger filled his soul, burning him to the bone. Vividly, he began to remember.
***
Warui was standing in the dragon cave, surrounded by a few hundred of his Korosu clanmates. They had just eliminated all dragons within the cave, catching them off-guard by slipping in through the shade of the night sky.
The corpses of dragons were omnipresent across the hard-packed earth. As was the vile, pungent smell of blood, smothering the Korosu's senses and suffocating their breath.
Ahead of the group, Saku was kneeling by Blue's lifeless body. A few moments later, she stood up, wiping the growing wetness from her eyes before they became tears.
She gazed into the mass of Korosu, her eyes narrowing as she caught Warui's gaze. "My apologies, Warui," she said solemnly.
The sight of Saku shedding tears, along with her unexpected words, created great unease within Warui's core. He had just taken the lives of creatures Saku bore immense love for. Yet, she had pity for him. Why?
Warui commanded his forces to charge Saku, but her odd sentimentality disappeared the next second as she assumed her stance. The stance that Warui dreaded so deeply.
His body felt heavy, feeling as though rocks rested on his shoulders. Fear was not an emotion he was accustomed to. It was something he only experienced around Saku.
Before he could act, his clanmates were already unconscious at his feet. They were alive, but each had been incapacitated in just one hit, leaving Warui to face Saku on his own.
Saku still unconsciously wrapped herself in the same air of unquestionable superiority, but her stance was more still and unyielding than Warui remembered from their previous spars. Could it be? Had she been hiding her full power all this time?
To be in Saku's presence was to not meet her standards. A mere few seconds of silence were enough to make Warui tremble. Saku's Doragonken surpassed even the dragons themselves. It was nothing less than godly. In comparison, he felt insignificant.
Warui roiled with wrath and fear. "You exist beyond the laws of the world of man! The gods themselves bless you with their favor! I refuse to submit to you! I will kill you—"
Saku's speed scoured Warui's vision into a blur.
"Doragonken: True Violet Dragon's Kick!"
As the very pinnacle of martial arts, Saku's moves were notions of their own, warranting names separate from all other Doragonken techniques. The Violet Dragon's Kick was an advanced version of the Blue Dragon's Kick, augmented to account for Saku's immeasurable strength.
Saku spun on the balls of her feet, perfectly centered, with more dance-like beauty than Warui could ever have mustered. A crescent of violet light followed in the path of her foot, striking Warui in the chest before he could even comprehend what had happened.
Warui's spine nearly snapped itself in two. Each drop of his blood had been stung by a viper bat. His body felt numb and tacky. His skin had seared off.
There was a thump and jolt through his body. An eternity later, he realized it was his knees hitting the ground as he collapsed. The rest of his torso followed, leaving his jaw to impact against the floor.
Had Saku not spared him and his clan, her next blow certainly would have sent them to the afterlife.
***
When Warui flashed back to the present, Val flung a thrust kick at him. Only pure instinct saved him. He snatched his body to the side and stumbled awkwardly, like a drunk that had lost his footing.
"Pesky woman!" he shouted with a tone of depreciation that sent fresh loathing down Val's throat.
Val fought against the anger that ran through her body. Warui was disoriented, and his anger was getting the best of him. His ill will would likely impede the strength of his Doragonken. In this situation, she had to remain as calm as she could. Eliminate all killing intent, and use Doragonken in its purest form, as Saku had taught her. If she succeeded, she could overwhelm Warui.
Val mimicked the moves Saku had used during their conversation with Doragonken. She slid forward fearlessly until she was within Warui's striking distance. Her expression was cool and impassive, like Saku's.
It didn't change when Warui launched a flurry of sword swings. The disciplined movement of his lower body was at odds with the wrath coursing through his face.
Val read his movements like the lines of a book, letting his momentum pass right by her as she made pivots so short and sharp that her feet left imprints on the asteroid. His Doragonken greatly surpassed hers, but when it came to swordplay, Val had a slight edge.
After he missed a straight sword lunge, she bumped him in the armpit. He went flying back, his feet making a clownish attempt to support him.
Warui grunted, realizing he was at a disadvantage. He chucked Ame-no-Ohabari to the side and lashed out with a wild punch devoid of technique. It was so telegraphed that Val ducked under it and hammered two quick, vicious blows into Warui's chest, where his wounds were most prevalent.
A terrible and familiar pain wracked his body and folded him in two.
"Saku," Val said to herself, "you made those weaks spots. Even now, you continue to show me the way. I will not lose!"
Val cocked her fist again, but Warui's body was stronger than his will. Out of sheer memory and practice, the forms carved into his muscles and bones, his gesture of surrender morphed into a sky-piercing uppercut.
The result was a jaw-rattling collision that shattered Val's defenses on impact. She collapsed into a heap. She tried to get to her hands and knees but collapsed, her chest flat against the ground and the side of her face pressed against the floor.
Warui sauntered over to the side her face was pointing, blocking her view. He stared down at his downed opponent and punched her viciously in the head.
"It didn't have to be this way!" he shouted, punctuating his sentence by sending a third and fourth fist pulsing into her body. He intended to beat her corpse beyond recognition. "You had the most valuable gift the world had to offer. My respect. But you threw it all away! And for what?"
He kicked her in the shoulder, a pointless stunt other than to show his disdain. "Those eyes of yours. . .they're just like Saku's. You look at me with condemnation. Now I am the one looking down on you!" A fifth punch, for emphasis.
What Warui didn't seem to know was that none of his punches beyond the first had hurt to the same degree. Val had played dead while she awaited an opening to strike Warui in his wounds—where it hurt most. Her survival could only be attributed to the fact that she channeled dense amounts of Prana into her face to cushion Warui's otherwise lethal blows.
Ame-no-Ohabari materialized in Warui's hands. He breathed in again and raised the katana high above Val's neck. He planned to decapitate a target he thought was surely dead. The blade plummeted downward, a blur of motion.
Val spun out from under the sword. Rotating on her shoulders like a top, she thrust her arms forward, two fingers extended from each hand, directed at Warui's chest, where Saku had struck him all those years ago.
"Ririsu Prana: Immuration...
"Nullspace Release!"