Chapter 21: Honor Lies With The Winner…

Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Honor Lies With The Winner...

...Victor’s gamer mind did calculations.

Popo was built like a wall. Meeting him head-on, blow for blow with a wound like that was a bad idea for Jaja.

Victor reckoned that Jaja was going to run out of strength before he fell Popo.

Jaja seemed to reach the same conclusion half a breath after Victor did.

He stopped meeting Popo’s swings dead center. Instead he began circling, feinting, striking at angles. He was not trying to overpower Popo anymore, but trying to open him up.

He gave quick strikes to the ribs, the shoulder, anywhere that wasn’t a direct clash of axe against axe.

Even Victor had to admit that this method was smarter and cleaner. If Victor was honest with himself, Jaja was simply the better technical fighter. His years of discipline showed in every calculated cut, and every step that put him exactly where he needed to be for the next attack.

But that did not mean the fundamental problem had suddenly disappeared. After all, strategy cost stamina, and stamina was the one thing Jaja didn’t have to spare, not with a wound already eating at his strength from the inside.

Popo caught one of the strikes on the flat side of his axe, he twisted, and drove a shoulder into Jaja’s chest that sent him stumbling backward into the dirt.

The crowd held its breath.

Jaja hit the ground hard, but he didn’t stay down long.

His hand planted flat against the sand, and instead of pushing straight up, he pivoted, as his back foot slided wide in a low arc, weight dropping into his hips, his front foot pressing forward at an angle, toes turned inward. It was a strange stance, almost unnatural-looking, like he was folding his own body sideways.

Victor’s eyes tracked it without meaning to. That’s... that’s not a normal recovery. This guy’s resetting his whole base.

Maybe it was the many hours of game play or Manwha and manga showing itself, but Victor found himself sensitive to every action in this fight.

Victor knew a special foot work when he saw one.

This was such.

Also, it had so much conviction and practice behind it, one could just tell that it had been done many times before.

Jaja’s pivoting did something to Popo’s positioning too. It forced him to adjust his own stance to keep facing Jaja square, shifting his weight onto his back leg just slightly, and just enough.

And in that gap, Jaja turned.

The motion was fluid, almost lazy-looking, the axe trailing behind him low before whipping around in a full arc aimed straight for Popo’s neck.

For one full second, Victor’s eyes widened. He was certain he was about to watch Popo’s head leave his shoulders.

It was too clean a swing.

Even Popo saw it. His eyes went wide, as the realization landed a half-beat too late for a clean block.

But his instincts screamed louder than his thoughts, and his own axe came up in a desperate, raised guard, catching the blow off-angle instead of head-on.

It wasn’t enough to stop it. Just enough to survive it.

Clank... Jaja’saxes’ edge slide off Popo’s.

The edge caught Popo’s chest instead of his throat, tearing a long line from his right beefy breast clean up through his shoulder and arm. Blood sprayed outward in a wide arc, spattering the dirt, and even spattering Kiki where she stood at the circle’s edge.

She did not move, but did frown.

The crowd gasped as one voice.

"Popo!" Foto shouted.

Victor was amazed by this. If it was him, he would have died ten times over. But even more alarming was the fact that he felt a pang of excitement at the thought that Jaja was wining.

Wasn’t he supposed to be supporting Popo, his brother?

His feelings were quite complicated on the matter.

Jaja was angry that his strike did not give him the victory he sort. But he was not going to give Popo a second to breathe.

He attacked immediately, faster now, and wilder.

Clank.

Clank.

Clank.

The strikes losing their earlier precision, and turning into desperation hiding up as aggression.

Victor could see it even from the crowd: Jaja was burning through the last of whatever strength his wounded body had left. He was throwing everything into this window if opportunity before it closed.

But Popo did not desire to lose his head. His left arm rose to block. Again. And Again.

Each swing landing harder, each block coming a fraction slower than the last.

His fingers had begun to shake around the axe’s haft. It was clear to Victor, Kiki, to the crowd, and to Jaja himself. That grip wasn’t going to hold much longer.

A slow, victorious curl touched the corner of Jaja’s mouth.

He was about to win. And with that would come the chief title.

Unfortunately for Jaja, he didn’t see what Popo’s eyes had already found. The dark, spreading stain at his own side, the wound that had nearly killed him hours ago.

All the fighting had opened more of it and blood had soaked the leafy bandage enough that it dropped on his side.

Popo’s gaze became resolute. He dropped low, driving forward not with the axe but with his own skull, headbutting straight into that exact point of the injury.

Jaja doubled over, spitting blood, as the momentum of his last swing died uselessly in the air.

Again, it came. Victor’s heart strings, worried for Jaja.

He was no savior, but he found his arm squeezing at the helm of his loincloth, toes curling into the earth, as if ready to dive in when needed.

But he knew he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t dare.

Although her eyes was on the battle, Kiki also noticed Victor’s subtle movements.

She frowned. ’Don’t do it.’ She thought to herself.

Meanwhile, Jaja managed to pull a recovery distance from Popo. His breathing was rough and heavy. Sweat trailing down his forehead and blood leaking down his lips.

Yet he gritted his teeth, staring at Popo. "You fight dirty. Where is your warrior’s honor?"

Popo rose to his feet, axe in hand, gaze on his opponent. "This is a battle to the death. Honor lies with the winner..."