Chapter 569: Winner Takes Dinner
Chapter 569: Winner Takes Dinner
The arena opened before me. Bright sunlight. Packed stands. Twenty thousand faces blurred into a wall of noise.
Reyna stood at the opposite entrance.
Her crimson hair burned in the afternoon light. Her combat suit hugged her figure in ways that probably weren’t regulation. Her emerald eyes found mine across the distance and something passed between us that had nothing to do with combat.
Recognition.
Two predators acknowledging each other’s strength.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! THE FINAL MATCH OF THE ONE-ON-ONE DUELS! THE FIGHT YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!"
Maximus Hype’s voice boomed through the arena. The crowd responded with enthusiasm that bordered on feral.
"IN THE CRIMSON CORNER! THE LIGHTNING GODDESS! THE CRIMSON COMET! LA SIRENA HERSELF! REYNA CABANA!"
Reyna stepped onto the platform. Her supporters went wild. Signs with her name. Chants in Spanish. The kind of following that came from years of manufactured celebrity.
"AND IN THE DARK CORNER! THE IMPOSSIBLE ROOKIE! THE TOURNAMENT’S DARK HORSE! THE STRAY DOG WHO REFUSES TO STAY DOWN! SATORI NAKANO!"
I walked forward. The Hounds section of the crowd exploded. Smaller than Reyna’s fanbase but louder. More desperate. The kind of support that came from people who actually believed.
Somewhere in the VIP section, Natalia was watching. Counting.
Somewhere else, Veronica Cabana was watching too. Calculating.
We met at the center of the platform. Close enough that I could smell her perfume over the ozone of barely contained lightning. Close enough that I could see the pulse jumping in her throat.
"Stray Dog."
"Crimson Comet."
"This time I’m not holding back."
"Neither am I."
"Good."
The ref stepped between us. Standard rules. Non-lethal force. No head shots. No spine attacks. Match ends when one competitor yields or is incapacitated.
"FIGHTERS READY?"
Reyna’s marionettes crackled into existence around her. Six of them. More than she’d used against Natalia.
I gripped my bat.
"BEGIN!"
Lightning exploded toward me before the word finished echoing.
I moved.
Not away. Into.
Tori-Sense screamed warnings from every direction. Marionettes converged. The main blast of lightning aimed for my chest. Normal strategy would be to dodge. To find cover. To survive the opening barrage.
But Reyna expected that. Reyna had planned for that. Her marionettes were positioned to cut off my retreat angles. To herd me into a kill zone.
So I did the opposite.
Lightning Rod activated. The bolt meant to fry me curved toward my outstretched hand instead. The power flooded my body. My muscles burned with borrowed energy. My stats spiked as the System converted her attack into my strength.
"What the hell?"
Reyna’s voice carried genuine shock. Her lightning hadn’t just missed. It had fed me.
I closed the distance before she could process. My bat connected with the nearest marionette and it exploded into sparks. Two more rushed to intercept and I destroyed them with consecutive swings.
Three down. Three left.
Plus Reyna herself.
She recovered fast. Professional training kicked in. The remaining marionettes formed a defensive perimeter while she built another charge.
"You absorb lightning."
"Among other things."
"The Crucible. The tag match. You were eating my attacks."
"Eating is a strong word."
"I’ll find something you can’t eat."
Her good hand rose. The regeneration sleeve on her broken arm whined with increased power. Lightning gathered around her in visible arcs. Blue-white energy that crackled with lethal potential.
But something was different. The color shifted. Blue became purple. Purple became black.
"Void lightning," Nel’s voice warned. "Conceptual damage. Cannot be absorbed through conventional means."
Oh.
Reyna smiled. Not the playful expression from before. Something darker. Something that showed too many teeth.
"My sister taught me this technique. It bypasses energy absorption. Want to test if you can survive it?"
The black lightning launched.
I activated Steel Body.
Ten seconds. Iron skin. Conceptual immunity.
The void lightning hit my chest and scattered. The impact drove me backward but the damage didn’t penetrate. Reyna’s eyes widened.
"How?"
"Trade secret."
I pushed forward through the crackling remains of her attack. Eight seconds of invulnerability left. More than enough.
My bat found her ribs. She twisted to minimize the impact but the blow still lifted her off her feet. Her marionettes swarmed to protect her and I destroyed two of them before Steel Body expired.
Four seconds. Five kills.
Reyna landed hard but rolled to her feet. Her breathing came ragged now. The regeneration sleeve on her arm was smoking.
"You hit harder than Julian."
"I’ll take that as a compliment."
"It was."
She attacked again. The remaining marionette circled wide while Reyna pressed from the center. Normal lightning this time. She couldn’t maintain the void variant for long.
I dodged. Counter-attacked. My bat caught her shoulder and she stumbled.
"You’re faster than you should be," she said. "Stronger. Your file says C-Rank with A potential. This isn’t A potential. This is something else."
"You going to report me to the VHC?"
"I’m going to beat the truth out of you."
She came at me again. Faster now. Desperate. Her broken arm moved in ways that should have been impossible. The regeneration sleeve pushed her body past its limits.
I let her hit me.
Kinetic Absorption triggered. Her punch carried the force of professional training and supernatural enhancement. All of it flowed into me. My Strength stat climbed. My Agility sharpened.
"Thanks for the boost."
"You’re insane."
"Probably."
I hit her back. Harder than before. My fist connected with her solar plexus and the air exploded from her lungs. She doubled over and I brought my knee up into her face.
Blood sprayed from her nose.
The crowd gasped. Camera drones zoomed in. Twenty million viewers watched the Crimson Comet bleed.
Reyna stumbled backward. Spat blood onto the platform. Her emerald eyes found mine and something shifted in their depths.
Not anger.
Respect.
"You’re the real thing," she said.
"So are you."
"My sister is going to want you."
"She can get in line."
Reyna laughed. Blood stained her teeth and made the expression terrifying.
"One more exchange. Everything we have. Winner takes all."
"What are we betting?"
"Dinner. After the tournament. You and me. Alone."
"Your sister will kill me."
"Probably."
"Your fans will riot."
"Definitely."
"Natalia will freeze my balls off."
"That’s your problem."
I should have said no. Should have kept things professional. Should have remembered that I already had five women claiming various parts of my life.
But Reyna stood there. Bloody and beautiful and burning with something I recognized from my own reflection.
Hunger.
"Deal."
Her smile sharpened. The last marionette dissolved. All of her power gathered into her fists.
All of mine gathered into my bat.
We moved at the same instant.
My bat swung for her head. Non-lethal my ass. This was a killing blow and we both knew it.
Her fist aimed for my heart. Lightning wreathed her knuckles. Not void lightning. Regular voltage. The kind I could absorb.
But she knew that.
At the last second, her target shifted. Her fist veered toward my ribs. The injured ones. The ones Emi had warned me about.
Smart.
Too smart.
I twisted. Took the hit on my hip instead of my ribs. The lightning flooded my body and my stats spiked one more time.
My bat connected with her temple.
She went down.
I went down.
The platform rushed up to meet my face. My body screamed with pain from a hundred small injuries accumulated across three matches. My ribs throbbed. My muscles burned. My vision blurred at the edges.
But I was still conscious.
Reyna wasn’t.