Celsius, still riding the high of defeating Tempo for the first time, yet again crafted that pristine great sword of his with his fingertips. He was none the wiser that Tempo had just spent skill points on a new ability, one that would cover his weakness. Despite being naive to Tempo's antics, Celsius wouldn't allow himself to become overconfident. Tempo's high posture and determined, glowing eyes were clear signs informing the ice user that this next battle may yield different results than the last.
'He just got his ass kicked– why does he look so confident?' Celsius asked himself; meanwhile, Tempo's black and white energy began to swirl around his fists, taking the shape of three long claws on each hand. The technical name for these is Tekko Kagi, a Japanese weapon that one would usually see a ninja utilizing in any video game or movie taking place in feudal Japan.
'My physical strength is my biggest weakness in this matchup. There's no way I'm going to outpower him, especially with a smaller weapon. If I want to beat him, I need to fully commit to an agile fighting style. What would be better than a weapon supposedly used by ninjas?' As Tempo narrated in his own head, he imagined himself dressed as a ninja, running across rooftops with his claws trailing behind him. In reality, he found himself shuffling sideways in a balanced stance; his knees were bent slightly to allow for more springy, swift movements. As he circled around Celsius, who looked confident yet still far from cocky, Tempo wriggled his fingers freely. 'Plus, my hands are free like this, allowing me to fire my projectiles without unarming myself.'
Tempo wouldn't be the only of the two analyzing every aspect of this oncoming battle. With a chilling stare, Celsius scanned Tempo up and down, shuffling his own feet to follow the time warper who circled around him. 'Those claws can't be the only thing that's changed. What's his goal? To outpace me? I can change weapons too– but I'll hold off for now. I need to watch what he does.'
Tempo, having sized up his opponent, took ten steps forward before delivering an onslaught of slashes from all directions with his Tekko Kagi, slicing chunks out of Celsius's frozen body. Unfortunately for the time manipulator, these wounds were almost instantly accompanied by smoke and were healed in less than a second.
Tempo's movements were more sporadic this time around as the time warper began mixing in jumping attacks as he attacked Celsius from all angles and sprinted around the battlefield as if he'd lost all sense of strategy. There wasn't a single moment where Tempo wasn't in a full-on sprint, always on the attack, even from afar with his volley of temporal projectiles. He was moving with such urgency and for so long, anyone watching would assume he'd tire himself out if he were to continue with this strategy. During all of this, his body was still aching like hell due to his Temporal Cloak ability still affecting his skeletal system. Meanwhile, Celsius was trying to keep up with his speed, doing what he could to block and counter-attack when opportunities arose, however, Tempo was far too quick for him.
When Celsius would get comfortable blocking, Tempo's blades would phase through them, catching him by surprise, only to then retreat and begin firing projectiles. 'What the hell is he doing?' Celsius thought as he watched Tempo continuously attack from up close and afar without any hint of a pattern or real strategy. 'It's like he's button-mashing in real life!'
Celsius inevitably reached the point where he had given up on blocking and countering; instead, he opted to take the hits and throw out heavy swings of his own while staying in place, knowing just one lucky hit would decommission his rival. 'He can chip away at me all he wants, as long as there's moisture in the air, I'll regenerate!' With ease, Tempo dodged and weaved the attacks like a boxer, counter-attacking on agile feet! However, despite landing all of his quick hits and being completely unscathed, the fight was at a complete standstill. It was evident that these wide swings of Celsius were calculated, each one only giving Tempo a short window to attack but not doing any serious damage.
'Damn it! There's no way I can beat him if he turtles up like this. I need him to commit to something bigger so I can punish him!' Inside Tempo's own mind, he saw a miniature version of himself and Celsius in a one-on-one battle in the format of a 2D fighting game. 'Every time I hit him–' The video game version of Ky– that he created in his head– sliced at Celsius and his metaphorical health bar moved downward. However, the health bar was immediately refilled. '–he regenerates as if he were one of those cheap bosses from those old arcade games that eat all of your quarters. I know his regeneration is slower if he needs to regenerate larger chunks of himself, but these claws aren't made for big damage. If I use larger weapons, I'll be too slow and he'll overpower me again.'
Ky imagined the metaphorical video game version of himself using a sword instead of his claws, only for him to see a dramatized version of his own potential death. 'What I need is for him to throw out something he can't recover from! Then I can swap weapons and punish!'
Tempo could see the cooldown for his Time Stop ability had reset. 'In the meantime, let's see what I can do with five seconds of frozen time!' Head first, he sprinted toward Celsius and the moment before the two beta testers clashed, Tempo snapped his fingers and time froze!
Snap!
Tempo didn't waste much time, immediately switching his weapons, opting for dual shortswords. Based on what he'd seen from Celsius, any wounds would simply be healed, but he could at least get a good head start by attacking in frozen time. Tempo only had a few seconds, so he sliced off one arm and a leg before directing his gaze toward Celsius's head! He wanted to test something. There was a only moment of hesitation, he was curious if slicing off his head would kill him. 'Well, if he dies, I can just reverse time by a few seconds and reverse it!' He wanted to know everything about Celsius's power, and since a single touch from Celsius resulted in Ky freezing over, Psychometry wasn't an option.
With one big swing, Tempo sliced Celsius's head clean off! Once time resumed, Celsius's arm and leg fell onto the ground, along with his head which started rolling across the floor like a frozen ball. Tempo could feel a tense feeling in his chest as he was still worried about killing Celsius, but that feeling would be all for nothing as Celsius instantly started attacking with his free arm like a reanimated, headless corpse, shooting shards of ice at Tempo with near-perfect accuracy!
'He's still conscious even without a head?' Ky slowed down time and began running circles around the ice user, the ice bullets still trailing closely behind him despite time being slowed. 'Damn it, he's adjusting to my speed. Does he remember when I outpaced his bullets during our Domain fight?' During all of this, Celsius's limbs and head were regrowing, and by the time Celsius's lower face and mouth had reformed, he immediately started bantering.
"You didn't think that would actually kill me did you!?" For good reason, he was pissed. In his own mind, Tempo tried to kill him just then, even after he'd spared the time warper's life.
Tempo, still dodging the ice user's attacks as time began moving at its normal pace, spoke while sprinting for his life! "I knew you wouldn't die, I just wanted to see what would happen!" Tempo rushed in and started attacking Celsius with quick attacks once again, their weapons clashing as Tempo started chipping away at the regrowing parts. "If we were to ever get into an actual life or death fight, I might as well see how far I can go."
"You want to know how it works? I'll tell you! My consciousness is no longer a part of my brain; it's a part of a single molecule that exists inside of my body which I can move at will. Unless my entire body is destroyed, I cannot be killed!" Celsius's limbs had grown back, allowing him to finally go on the offensive. Fueled by anger, he was attacking Tempo with everything he had.
"You might think you can melt me, but there isn't anything on this Earth hot enough! No matter what you do, no matter how many times you attack me, I am immortal!" As those last words left his mouth, Celsius released an earth-shattering vertical slam with his greatsword, cracking the ground and leaving himself open for an attack and giving Ky the exact window he was hoping for, just as his preparations for his new ability had been set.
"Well, if that's the case! I guess I won't have to worry about accidentally killing you! I can truly go all out!" Ky roared.
'Everything is set in motion! Now's my chance!' Just like before, Tempo found himself attacking Celsius with his weapons reeled behind his head, opting to attack with two short swords once again. With Celsius's weapon down, there was no way for him to counterattack, at least, that's what Tempo thought. What he didn't expect was for Celsius to freakishly transfer one of his arms to his neck, extending it outward toward Tempo. All it would take was a single touch and Tempo would once again be frozen solid.
As if the world was in slow motion, Celsius's palm inched its way closer to Tempo's chest, and when it was just millimeters away, Celsius grinned like a devil. 'Gotcha!'
However, the second that thought escaped from the inner workings of his brain, Tempo disappeared out of thin air.
'What!? Where did he–' The red sun that shone above the Hades Realm was directly above and behind Celsius, casting not only the shadow of the ice user but the shadow of Tempo, whose arms and weapons were still raised high above his head.
[Temporal Recall]
The name of Tempo's new ability appeared in his visual field, the ability he sneakily purchased in Celsius's face after freezing time. With this new ability, Tempo could teleport his body back in time to any place he'd been to after unlocking the ability. This was why his movements were so sporadic, this was why he waited so long to unleash his ability; he needed to have physically been to every single inch of the battlefield around them to use the ability to its full potential, giving him an entire space to work with.
As if he were cutting through butter, Tempo sliced through one of Celsius's arms, this time Celsius couldn't hide his pain, grunting as his icy arm fell to the ground. With his free hand, he once again attempted to touch Tempo's chest, however, before it could get too close, Tempo once again disappeared in front of him.
[Temporal Recall]
The words once again appeared in Ky's visual field as he teleported behind Celsius, this time sliding across the ground and slicing off one of Celsius's legs. With his new strategy, there was no way Celsius could react to Tempo's attacks and the time warper knew this, it was all part of his long-winded strategy. With his previous move set, he was able to do damage to Celsius, but only in small bursts. For example, he could freeze time and cut off his limbs, as he did, but once time resumed, he wouldn't be fast enough to continue the onslaught. The same was true when it came to his Time Slow ability, due to its limitations, his barrage of attacks would have to stop eventually.
Temporal Recall, however, lacked the shortcomings of what used to be his most powerful abilities. There was a cool down, yes, but the cooldown directly corresponded to the distance in which he teleported, though the cooldown was capped out at three minutes. For example, if he were to teleport just a single meter forward, the cooldown would reset after one second. If he teleports three meters, then the cooldown would be three seconds. If he were to teleport across the planet, the cooldown would only reach the cap of three minutes. For the first time since he'd joined the tournament, he felt as if he was just as powerful as his contemporaries!
[Temporal Recall]
Again, Tempo teleported on the opposite side of Celsius, however, the ice user was ready, predicting the exact position of Ky's teleportation after noticing a pattern. "Gotcha!" Celsius sent a blast of ice toward the time manipulator, but this attack was meaningless. Tempo smiled beneath his mask and the moment before the attack would hit, Tempo teleported again.
[Temporal Recall]
Ky's spatial blade whirred as he sliced off Celsius's last leg before spinning and slicing off his other arm. Celsius was completely limbless, and before he could say anything else, Tempo sliced off his head and began forming a boot of temporal energy around his foot. "Checkmate!" he repeated the words that were said to him during their last battle before kicking Celcius in the chest, blasting him into pieces.
Despite Celsius having explained how his body worked, Tempo was still worried that he'd killed him. "Hey, are you alive?"
There was a moment of silence accompanied by shattered ice rolling on the ground. Tempo was ready to reverse the damage, but then a mouth formed on what used to be Celsius's… Well, it's unclear what the part used to be, but it spoke. "What part of I'm immortal don't you understand, jackass?" He wasn't too happy about getting blown into pieces. That mystery piece that spoke to Tempo was what inhabited that special molecule that Celsius had mentioned previously. It would also be the part of his body that would begin the regeneration process.
Ky let out a sigh of relief as Celcius's body began to slowly put itself back together. "You know, this means I win, right? Tournament rules."
"We never agreed to that. It's still two to one." Celsius was stubborn, but Ky was right. Based on the tournament rules, he would be rung out and declared the loser.
"Nuh-uh, it's three to one." Ky crossed his arms as he watched Celsius's torso begin to take shape. "I'd kick you out the ring and ten seconds would have passed. I won."
"Nuh-uh! I never yielded." Celsius pointed at Ky with the baby-sized hand that was still reforming and growing.
"Technically, I never yielded either, you yielded for me." Ky rebutted, his arms still crossed.
"No, that was a checkmate, you lost regardless so it was an automatic yield!"
"Technically, I can just keep cutting you up as you put yourself back together. So it is a checkmate." Tempo redrew his black and white blade, pointing it at the half-built Celsius.
"Fine! Just wait until I upgrade myself and I can regenerate instantly!" Though it may have sounded like a bluff, which Ky believed it to be, Celsius was working himself up to obtain the ability to do so.
"I'll just vaporize you instantly." This was a half-bluff by Ky. Vaporization was an oversimplification.
"You can't do that– can you? Wait, are you serious? Can you do that?" Celsius still didn't even understand Tempo's powers, so Tempo being able to vaporize him was entirely plausible in his mind and also very horrifying.
The two continued to bicker as Celsius rebuilt himself. It wouldn't be long before those two would go at it again, however, the other groups were just beginning. They had a whole day of training ahead of them, a day that they would not let go to waste.