Chapter 20
The foot of the leg that was in the sky began to charge with a bright blue energy that began to get more fierce the longer he held it. "Oh no…this is bad!” Terence said while putting up his guard to hopefully weaken the damage. He slammed his foot down causing a cutting wind horizontal tornado to run across the arena floor, tearing up the ground as it came towards Terence. Terence closed his eyes and tightened the guard as much as he can coming into full contact with the attack. There was a loud explosion but instead of fire and debris, there was wind and debris from the point of impact. The audience all held their hands in front of their face as hurricane force winds blew around the entire arena. "H-he’s that strong…” Lianna said not being able to look at the arena. "I told you!” Kallen said holding one arm up. "He isn’t exactly someone to play around with.” Rin stood her ground putting both arms up as well only sliding back a little bit from the impact point. "That was a lot more force in that attack than I thought” she thought to herself. "I can only hope Terence tightened his guard as much as he could, that attack would have ended the fight immediately.” The winds stopped shortly afterwards and she let her guard down. "Damn…I have to go check on the idiot! But it’s against rules…this is about as far as I can get to him. Don’t screw this up…show me I was right Terence…” The wind that was around Terence had stopped swirling and he was still standing gritting his teeth really hard. His eyes was still closed and his school uniform was in shreds. It was so destroyed in fact, that eventually the jacket itself just fell apart in the middle of the ring. Terence fell to his knees and eventually face down with his eyes still closed and the ref began counting. Taro smirked while watching the ref who count was at 2 and he rose his arms in victory. As he was gloating, Rin caught his attention who went over to where Terence was to try to get him to wake up. "She must have come to congratulate me!” he said trying to catch his breath. He began slowly walking over towards them and stood over top of Terence looking down on her. "Come to give me a kiss eh?” he said brushing himself off. She looked up at him and averted her gaze back to Terence trying to get him up. The ref count was now at 5 and Taro began laughing. "He’s not going to get up you know. Just look at him, I shredded him. Just like you did when you two fought.” She balled her fist up and looked up at him. "You must be crazy if you think you and I are even in the same class, let alone fighting skill.” Taro scowled at her, "What did you say…?!” Rin smirked at him, "You pulled that move of out of desperation. Especially after he knocked you unconscious for about 8 seconds.” Taro swiped his hand at Rin as if to say shut up. "This street urchin could never beat him. He never even-”
Taro looked down and saw Terence clench onto his ankle and began pulling himself up on him. The two reached eye level and stared at one another for a while with Terence still clinging on to his jacket at the 9 count. His arms were badly cut up and were bleeding profusely, the left arm was more ripped up than the right with a few pieces of skin missing on it. He shoved Taro back in the center of the ring and began shuffling after him. "Hey!” Rin called out to him making him turn his head to her. "With those cuts you don’t have to continue…it’ll make this fight nearly impossible now.” Terence stood still for a minute before giving her the thumbs up and shuffling forward anyway. Rin sighed to herself backing up away from the arena because the officials saw her. "You’re not impressing anyone…idiot.” While Terence was going forward Taro got a sneak attack in and middle kicked Terence in the ribs stopping him cold while he buckled from the pain. Taro dropped the leg he kicked with to the ground and quickly followed up with another kick but Terence caught the leg while still holding his ribs, now showing a few of the cuts on his face that began bleeding. He elbowed Taro in the leg making him back up and hold it a bit. "Why won’t you go down!” He yelled angrily at him. The two dashed forward and began to trade blows, this time Terence matching him with his own kicks since Taro’s were weaker now. Terence gained the upper hand by jabbing Taro who was about to throw another kick and stunning him. Taro followed up and punched Terence the same knocking him down to one knee. Taro cocked back for another but Terence rushed upward with a dash in upper cut knocking Taro down completely. He walked over to Taro and sat on top of him locking down his arms and began rapidly punching him in the face. Terence then stopped with the punches and head butt in the face clenching his own head and standing up stumbling while Taro struggled to his feet. Just as he got up Terence hit him with another right hook knocking him back down again on his side. Terence than shuffled over to him and placed his hands on his head, driving his knees into the bridge of the nose of Taro who rolled away holding his face and slowly stood up.
Both men were tired looking at each other breathing hard. Taro’s face was completely ruined at this point, bruises everywhere with a broken nose and a busted lip. Terence arms were tore to shreds and continued to bleed but not as heavy as it was before. His face was cut up and his legs were in pretty bad shape as well. Taro’s outfit was dirty but Terence’s outfit was shredded, the jacket was gone and the pants now contained holes in them. Terence and Taro pulled together strength rushed each other and began to trade blows again with Terence getting the upper hand by kicking Taro in the shins and bringing him to a knee. He followed up with another hook, a uppercut, and another roundhouse flooring Taro again and skidding him across the ground. The ref began to count since Taro no longer moved for a bit but he stood up again at about the 6 count. Not giving Taro enough time to breath, Terence rushed him and connected with an additional hook stumbling Taro back a bit. He knocked him back into place with a left hook and put him into another clench again. "Get your hands off…of me!” Taro said head butting Terence and leveling him instantly. Taro then stepped to the side of Terence, wiping off blood that is getting into his eyes since he now has a cut on his right one and motioning for him to get up. Terence began to slowly getting up, not seeing Taro in front of him when he was. He got to his feet and looked around not seeing him. "Up here!” Terence looked up at where the voice was coming from and saw Taro performing a double leg split kick with both feet glowing again. "Aw shit!” Terence said placing his guard up once again. The attack connected with so much force it threw Terence into the other air of the arena and blew a crater into the ground where he landed at performing a split. Two towering dust clouds where thrown into the air on both ends of his legs as he landed. Terence hit the center of the arena dislocating his left shoulder in the process and rolled towards the edge of the arena. Taro got up slowly and laughed at him. "Hah! That has to be it now. There is no way he is getting up. I told you the beautiful never loses!” He turned to the crowd and began gloating again while the ref counted.
"Damn…” Terence muttered to himself. "I don’t think I can…get up after this…” He attempted to move his body but it wouldn’t budge at all. There was also random surges of pain rushing through his body that furthered him to just want to lay there and not get up. The count now was at 4 and he still couldn’t move his body. He could hear the crowd and the ref but the sound was distorted and most of his sight was blurry. After hearing the ref say 6, he tried again and his body began to move while he fought his way through the pain. Seeing Terence get up, the crowd began to do Terence chants, as he made it to his knees on 8 and to his feet at 9. Taro turned around and shook his head. "No…! Why! Does she mean that much to you!” Terence slid his way to the center to be face to face with Taro again. "It’s not about her…I just…gotta do this for myself.” Taro clenched his fist. "No it isn’t! You just want to ruin me! You’re jealous of my greatness! You’ll never beat me! Never!” Taro began to rush him with all of his power and Terence took out the three jewels that he had in his pocket. Two of them filled and one of them half filled. He kissed all three of them at once and then crushed them in his hand, causing all of his body to glow bright white. "What!” Taro said stopping in place. Terence held both his fist out towards Taro and pulled them back. He closed his eyes and his ki became fiery, lighting up the entire arena. "How could you have so much energy left…” Taro asked lightly, a little fear in his voice can be heard. Terence smiled at him crying a bit from the pain of his dislocated shoulder. "Because I believed in my tutor…and she believed in me!”. He thrusts his fist forward and out came the same giant white blast that he fired at Rin, only this time it was more potent, larger, and trailed the sky with white streaks as it came out. Taro stared at the blast as the entire crowd got quiet. He laughed to himself of the irony, "I guess…even the greatness…can be flawed…” The blasted sounded like a gunshot as it came out and when it connected it sounded like a nuke had hit somewhere far away. The entire stadium began to glow white while Taro was being shocked by the blast of the attack. A few minutes later, the stadium was completely covered and illuminated in white, blinding everyone in the area. When the shock of the flash passed, Taro was in the middle of the ring face down with his jacket and shirt completely removed. The ref checked Taro to make sure he was okay and came to the conclusion that he was knocked out and stopped the fight. Terence fell to his knees while the announcement was made. "And the winner by knockout…Terence Mason!” There was a silence in the arena for a second. "Woo Woo Woo!” Jarvis said yelling from the crowd and the crowd began to cheer.
Rin ran into the ring and checked on Terence who doesn’t seem to know where he is right now. "Hey can you hear me? Terence?” Rin turned his face towards hers but before she could ask him another question, Terence fell out into her arms.