Ryuma kept his Katana's guarding in front of him. Suffice to say, he didn't know what he was going to see. Talo materialized a pair of tonfa's into his hands, which was another pair of duel weapons. Binzo materialized a sickle, while Nuna had a spinner.
"Oooohhh… I'm sorry about this Ryuma," Nuna said.
"Don't be, because when I knock you all out of the arena I sure as hell won't be," Ryuma said.
"Hmm. You're more accepting of these circumstances than I would have thought you'd be," Talo said.
Ryuma shrugged his shoulders. "If thirty people can't take out one guy, would ya'll really want to go down there? I'm letting you guys know right now, my goal is to protect as many people as I can in the lower world. If reaching that goal means I must deny twenty-nine people a position in the order, I'd do it without hesitation, and without remorse,"
With no more words needed, Shio jumped into the air. He materialized a javelin and threw it. The weapon came flying at him like a large, unseen arrow. Ryuma side stepped, barely dodging it.
The javelin hit the ground so hard, it embedded itself like a flagpole being stuck out the ground at an angle.
Why'd he throw it?
This early in the match, he risked getting rid of his only weapon, unless of course…
Ryuma's eyes widened as the realization hit him. He turned he looked back at Shio who was still in the air. He had materialized another javelin into his hand and threw that one as well. Another long rod came raining down on him that he dodged.
Of course… Like the bow and the crossbow in the previous matches, this wasn't a melee weapon. It was a ranged one. Ranged weapons, unlike the normal weapons, and the duel weapons, can replicate ammo when used. Meaning, he can keep throwing these things, so long as he has the soul force to do so.
A weapon with ammo that powerful means his ammo limit must be weak. If he had to guess, it would be around seven, maybe eight shots max a guy of his caliber could throw. After that, the boy would have the arduous task of running around the arena picking up javelin spears all around them.
{Or… he could just take him out now that he's in the air.}
Ryuma dashed forward and jumped as hard as he could towards the sky. Before he made it much further off the ground, his foot got wrapped by some long white cloth.
It pulled him back down, forcing him to fall flat on his face.
"You gotta be shitting me," Ryuma cursed at the cloth, it led itself all the way towards Frez's sleeves. This is what his weapon was? Fabric?
Ryuma saw that a sickle was flying his way, and so he spun and sliced himself free from the cloths prison and dodged it just in time.
Binzo pulled the sickle back and started spinning it atop his head. "My rivalry with Krill should give me somewhat of an idea how we should take down Ryuma,"
"All ears, anytime you ready to tell us," Talo said.
Ryuma didn't give any time to huddle. He dashed towards Talo, swinging with a renewed sense of vigor. Talo had no trouble blocking him. The way he moved those tonfa's it was like just a meager extension of his arms. Like they weren't even there to begin with.
With two of the blocks, Talo parried hard enough with enough focus to knock Ryuma off balance. Talo spared no punches. He jabbed Ryuma in his mid-section so hard, Ryuma thought he might have heard a crunch.
{I hope that wasn't anything important.}
He slid back, only to have cartwheel away from Nuna's spinner rolling directly at him. Seems she wasn't sparing anything either now.
He smirked to himself. Good. He wanted to beat them at their best. Though the way things were going, winning seemed more like a luxury.
Not only were their individual skill hard to deal with, their teamwork and timing was loads above the rest of the class.
Shio landed on the ground. He materialized another javelin and charged him with it. Thrusting the weapon out, Ryuma desperately dodged it. It can be used as a melee weapon as well. After missing three of his thrust, he jump spun and threw the javelin at Ryuma who this time, caught it.
That moment of break was cut short, when a sickle sweep was coming from his left, and Nuna's spinner pincered him from the right.
Won't even give me a moment to counterattack. The most annoying thing he just realized about this team is that most of them have something to constrict his movements. Aside from Talo, they were all mid-rangers.
And getting up close and personal was only going to lead him to getting punched by him if he weren't careful, especially considering the amount of lockup the team could potentially throw at him. Diving headfirst into their only fighter was a bad move.
These things needed to be done in the proper order. He had a close combat fighter like Talo, three mid-ranged fighters in Nuna, Frez, and Binzo. Then there was the long-ranged Shio, throwing javelins.
Talo kept closing the distance on him and forcing him into a fight. Whenever he showed the few openings there was, Nuna and Frez's weapons would come darting out at him to block any sort of counterattack.
Then every so often a javelin would be thrown from up above, embedding itself into the floor next to him.
One attack… he just needs one attack on any one of them, but they wouldn't relent. As this went on, the only thing that changed was the amount of javelins stuck in the ground. He had to block blows from Talo… he had kept his attention on Nuna's and Binzo's weapons despite blocking blows. He had to space himself away from Frez and his constricting cloth.
And then, another god damn javelin raining down on him only to find itself into the ground again, mere inches from crashing into to him.
Where was the opening? He couldn't even force one out. If this lasted any longer, there were going to be too many javelins stuck into the ground for any one of them to circumnavigate an actual fight around.
Ryuma's eyes widened. An epiphany hit him as soon as he thought about the javelins. Why didn't he see it before? There was an apparent reason as to why he kept jumping and throwing it at him instead of doing it from ground level. They were up to something.
"He's starting to catch on guys! Let's go!" Talo screamed.
Shio landed on the ground. He slowly began pulling his hands apart from each other, causing all the javelins in the ground to start lifting itself into the air, high above his head. The points of the javelins all aimed directly at Ryuma. He was going to have to avoid all of that. Looking at it, this was a strong, tactical move on Shio's end.
His focus on the javelins floating above him, blinded him from the sickle that wrapped around him from out of his blind spot. The chains kept him from moving, forcing him to be a stationary target.
{Shit! I screwed up!}
He had to think of a way to get out of this, otherwise it's over.
Not only did the javelins fall, but they shot towards their target.
"Wind Artes: Spiraling Spin,"
Ryuma spun so fast, he pulled Binzo who had previously hooked him, towards him too fast to react.
"Argghhh…" Binzo grunted.
"Spiraling Spin, reverse,"
Ryuma spun in the opposite direction now, freeing himself from the hook and chain. As Binzo closed the distance, so did the javelins coming from above. He had to make this quick.
The javelins crashed down, blowing dust and smoke too thick to see either targets. The crowd stared in awe.
A lone figure came flying out the top of the dust cloud, covered in cuts and bruises, with torn shirts. He was holding his black and white swords, having just barely escaped that move.
"HAHH! I FIGURED YOU'D ESCAPE TOWARDS THE AIR!" Frez yelled.
He appeared out of nowhere and wrapped his cloth around Ryuma, hugging him so tight, the two were conjoined together. He flipped both of them upside down and started plummeting down towards the outside of the arena.
And now he had to deal with this? How far ahead were they thinking just to take him out,"
"I don't care about falling outside, so long as I take you with me," Frez said.
If both of them are out, then they still win. Was that the plan? To hell with that.
"Wind Artes: Whirlwind!" Ryuma said.
Instead of falling straight down, the two started spinning, creating a whirlwind like vacuum along the way.
Just before hitting the ground and the outside of the arena, they curved from falling vertically, towards moving diagonally, like a flying vortex.
"Wind Artes: Cutter!"
As they spun, cuts started appearing around them, enough to cut the cloth free. Ryuma used the freedom of his arms to spin while cutting Frez with the blades he now held.
Ryuma was successfully able to land on the arena, while Frez crashed into the ground and landed outside of it.
Ryuma was breathing hard this time. His body was damaged, and he was forced to use his Artes in succession. Overall, he came out on top.
The dust finally cleared up, and there lied Binzo, who was knocked out cold. Not a single javelin managed to hit him, the crowd looked on in despair at what that meant. If it wasn't the javelins that did it, how much of a monster is this Ryuma kid.
Frez was out of bounds, Binzo knocked out, and Shio was running on an empty tank. That was a good sign. Now Ryuma could see it.
The path to victory.