At Hachi’s battle area…

“Well, since the number has increased, time to amp things up,” Hachi says and cracks his neck.

“Three should be enough,” he says, tucking his hands into the scroll-like bag wrapped around his waist and tossing out two extra short blades from there into the air, plus the one he is currently holding, making three blades.

“This is bad,” Dubnet says as he sees the extra blades and rushes to attack Hachi.

Sienna and Teru quickly follow to assist him. Sienna is skilled in hand-to-hand combat and so does not carry any weapon while Teru carries a staff with very strong reinforced round tips and also has some chains wrapped around his arm.

Dubnet attacks with a vertical slash however, Hachi dodges by stepping to his left and places his hand on Dubnet’s shoulder, using it as support to lift himself high in the air. He quickly kicks one of the blades as it is falling down, sending it against Sienna. This halts Sienna making her to jump backwards but Hachi quickly catches the other blade he threw and quickly moves to Sienna’s location, spins and lands a horizontal kick on her stomach.

“Argh!!!” Sienna screams as she is sent flying and crashing into a nearby rock.

Without delay, Teru dashes to attack with his heavy staff but Hachi quickly throws one blade up and with one hand, easily parries Teru’s fast attacks.

“For a heavy weapon, you swing that quite easily. Quite the strong one, aren’t you?” Hachi compliments.

“However,” he says, catches the blade he earlier threw up and parries one of Teru’s attacks. Swiftly, he kicks Teru’s hand knocking off the grip of Teru from the staff. He does a quick turn and using his leg, takes the weapon from Teru leaving Teru weaponless and knocks out Teru by guiding the staff with his legs.

Gerrar, with his two swords wrapped with lightning, immediately goes for the attack against Hachi by launching continuous slashes.

“Hoo, wrapping two weapons with elemental energy at the same time, impressive, Gerrar Henri,” Hachi compliments as he releases Teru’s staff from his leg, making it spin continuously, blocking Gerrar’s attacks and also attacking him.

Hachi starts using his legs to control the movement of the staff for defence and offense.

“What the?!!! He’s easily controlling such a heavy weapon at high speed with just his legs,” Gerrar says to himself. (Gerrar is among the fastest students in the school, that is the more reason why he is surprised).

Suddenly, Hachi breaks Gerrar’s grip from one of his swords, using the staff. Artemis quickly launches an arrow which Hachi deflects to Gerrar, by directing the staff with his leg. Gerrar is quick to see the arrow and evades it by tilting his face to the right. While he does this, Hachi uses leg, turns the staff to a horizontal position while in mid-air and kicks it against Gerrar. Gerrar, with a sword in one hand and none in the other, quickly holds the staff to stop the attack but the force from the kick, taking into consideration the weight of the staff, pushes Gerrar some distance away, crashing into a tree, out of it and into another.

Hachi lands, holding two blades in each of his hands and one with his mouth. Dubnet is standing some metres from his right, Dayve is farther away but is centre to him while Artemis is the furthest, hiding at the top of a tree.

“He just took out two special class people and a prodigy. Amazing and this is just a projection of twenty percent so that’s not even his top speed,” Artemis says in astonishment, watching from her distance.

“I might have to use that,” she adds.

“Hey, Dayve,” Dubnet calls out.

Dayve turns and looks at Dubnet.

“Allow me to take on teacher here for a brief moment,” Dubnet says.

Dayve looks at Dubnet for some seconds, Hachi just stands there watching.

“A brief moment you say. Suite yourself,” Dayve says.

Dubnet lets off a gentle and confident smile.

“Well the others can’t really see us battle anyway. I don’t really like to stress myself much as I don’t care about finishing first or so in this tournament,” Dubnet calmly says as he stretches a little, holding two swords.

“I’m more interested in something else and here you just presented the perfect opportunity for that,” he adds as a powerful blue energy aura with a little tint of red begins to emanate from Dubnet. The aura is so powerful even Artemis can feel it from her distance.

“Now let’s see how far I can go against the likes of you,” he concludes. Immediately, everyone stops feeling the aura and Dubnet becomes shrouded in the blue aura.

“Energy release: Amplification.” – Dubnet.

“Hoo, you’re usually just calm about things and decided to be lazy on your own. So, not to be pressured as a genius or prodigy, you never really showed much efforts during classes. However, you are quite the powerhouse, aren’t you?” Hachi says as he readies himself for Dubnet’s attack.

“Show me your true potential, Dubnet Cris Falcon,” he adds.

“Here I come, teacher,” Dubnet calmly says and moves so fast that it appears as if he vanished, and quickly appears at Hachi’s other side to land a horizontal slash attack.

Hachi quickly turns and blocks the attack but Dubnet immediately moves to his other side and does the same attack to which Hachi does a backflip to evade the attack. The force of the attack cuts down into two, a nearby tree. Hachi, while in mid-air, quickly throws the blade from his mouth at high speed against Dubnet but Dubnet swiftly dodges the attack and as Hachi lands, he rushes to attack. The two begin to exchange slashes at a very high speed such that Artemis even with her ‘hawk eye’ can barely keep up however Dayve can still keep track, carefully watching.

“What? What sort of speed is this? I can barely even see what’s going on,” Artemis says to herself.

“However that boy is able to keep up. Is this the true power of that lazy one? The lazy genius?” she says in amazement and shock.

Some leaves falling nearby the sword clash, are torn to pieces from the force generated by the clash. After a while, they both screech backwards with Dubnet panting a bit.

“Kid, you’re good, I must say. I don’t understand why you’ve been keeping such talents hidden,” Hachi says smiling as he holds his blade in cross-like manner to shield his face.

“Well what can I say? It’s a hassle,” Dubnet replies with a smile. He calmly takes a deep breath and as he gently exhales, moves so fast that he suddenly appears at Hachi’s back and launches an attack, just a few metres away.

“Energy release: Bilateral strip.”

He swings his sword vertically and releases huge amount of raw energy, blue in a color and shaped like a crescent, sending it against Hachi who is just turning at the moment. The attack is fast and divides into two, everything in its path however Hachi is faster and quickly evades it by a hair’s breadth. Without any delay, Dubnet changes location and does the same attack but Hachi dodges it again. Dubnet, getting faster with each attack, continuously does the same attack till Hachi is now completely surrounded by the attacks approaching him at high speed, with no space to run.

Dayve quickly jumps in and adds an attack. He does a claw like gesture with his hand and swings it from his distance at Hachi.

“Lion Claw!!!”

He releases large slashes of fire in a claw-like manner at Hachi.

“Two power houses right? I never thought I would have to use that in this fight,” Hachi says as the attacks approach him.

“Oh well,” he smiles and there’s a large explosion which creates a small crater in the ground due to the collision of the attacks.

BOOM!!!

“I said a brief moment,” Dubnet says panting and smiling at Dayve.

“Well…I saw an opening,” Dayve shrugs. They both chuckle and smile at each other.

“Now now isn’t it too early to celebrate?” Hachi says as he appears where one of his blades is.

“What?!” Dubnet says as he turns to attack Hachi however Hachi quickly throws the blade at him and instantly, he appears in front of Dubnet, catches the blade and lands a powerful blow with his five fingers spread, on Dubnet’s stomach.

“Argh!!!” Dubnet exclaims as his mouth opens wide and spews blood.

“Eight path seal: Path of the conscious: Seal.”

Five small flame-like balls of colors green, purple, orange, red and yellow, appear on each of Hachi’s fingers while they are still on Dubnet. Hachi vigorously twists his hand and immediately Dubnet is rendered unconscious. He creates a spin effect from this and sends Dubnet flying some metres away.

“That’s one troublesome one down,” Hachi says.

“Well since it’s just a projection of twenty percent, I’m not sure the effect will last long though,” he adds, holding two of his blades in his hands while one is stuck in the ground.

“This is bad. I have to use that, my laser release,” Artemis says to herself as she hops to the top of another tree to get a better shot at Hachi.

She stands straight, holding her bow with her left hand and pulling the arrow with her right as she chants some words.

“The arrow is me and I am the arrow. What I see, is where it goes and how I will, is how it goes. Let this, pierce all in its path,” she chants.

“Go!!! Hunter’s beam!!!” she screams, releasing the arrow with a powerful outburst.

The arrow changes form to a red laser beam; moving at high speed, it heads straight for Hachi, piercing through every tree and object in its path. Hachi, with a fast reflex, tilts his body to his left and evades the arrow. Still in motion, he powerfully throws the blade on his left hand at Artemis. The blade moves so fast and reaches Artemis even before the light of the arrow beam dies down. Artemis is surprised at how a human can throw a short blade to a far distance at such speed. The instant the blade is at the left side of the face of Artemis, Hachi instantaneously appears and in an inverted position, grabs the blade by its handle. Before Artemis can even react, he does a spin and lands a kick at the back of her neck, completely knocking her out before she can even utter a word. He then lands on the large branch of the tree Artemis is on and catches her before she falls down from the tree.

Instantly again, he appears where the third blade was stuck in the ground and lays Artemis down.

“So you finally use it. Though at twenty percent, it’s still a pain to deal with,” Dayve says gazing at Hachi from a distance.

“What?” Hachi smirks.

“Instant teleportation using your short blades. The way of the eight paths,” Dayve says as he slowly approaches Hachi.

“Hoo, so you seem to some things about my technique young Dayve, interesting,” Hachi replies.

“Well, now it’s just you and I. We can have a good fight now,” he adds.

“We’re not done yet,” Gerrar staggeringly stands, panting as he wipes some blood from his mouth and chin.

“Of course,” Teru and Sienna add as they too struggle to stand.

“You guys…save your energy. I and Gerrar will be sufficient,” Dayve says, halting his approach.

“Tch!! I don’t have to listen to you, however… Sienna and Teru, sit this one out. I’ll work with this son of a traitor for this one,” Gerrar says after a deep exhale. Dayve lets off a light smile.