The courtyard thrummed. Every bench was packed, every railing lined. Names ricocheted through the noise until the proctor's voice cut clean through it:
"Final match! Samui versus Reina!"
Reina stepped in first, chin up, eyes like glass. No smile. No bow. A predator walking into her own territory.
Samui followed with quiet steps, posture measured, breath even, gaze steady as ice.
The proctor's hand rose.
"Begin!"
⸻
They didn't rush.
Reina prowled, weight on the balls of her feet, shoulders loose, hands open.
Samui set her fortress—hands high, elbows tight, stance compact, feet gliding in small, precise lines.
Reina tapped first: a sharp jab at Samui's guard, then a low kick testing the calf. Samui's forearm tilted; the kick slid off a checked shin. No chase. No greed.
The crowd leaned forward as the first minute bled away in probes and answers.
Karui hissed from the rail, "Hit her already."
Omoi's voice stayed low. "Reina's mapping. Samui's refusing to write."
Reina's eyes narrowed. Enough drawing lines.
⸻
She shifted gears without warning.
Feint high—shoulders roll—hip whip. The spinning back kick cut in at an ugly angle for the ribs.
Samui braced late; the impact thudded against her guard and rattled bone. Reina flowed with it, elbow snapping toward Samui's jaw in the same breath.
Samui's head moved an inch. The elbow grazed. Her answer was cold: a short palm under the elbow joint that bit nerve, then a threaded jab into the soft spot below the clavicle.
Reina's arm stuttered.
"First blood," Takuma murmured around a cigarette.
Reina showed teeth that weren't a smile. "Cute."
She pressed.
⸻
Pressure rose like a tide.
Reina layered feints into real cuts: tap at the eye-line, rake at the thigh, hook that became a shove. She played rhythm like an instrument—rush, pause, rush—forcing Samui to react on her count.
Samui absorbed and answered, but the cost stacked fast.
A shin clipped her hip.
A knuckle kissed the ear.
A knee thudded into guard and still shook the lungs.
Samui's breath stayed even. She gave ground in inches, never more. When Reina's heel overcommitted, Samui's foot hooked the inside of the ankle and took a step from her. When Reina's wrist turned a fraction too far, Samui's palm bit tendons and reset the angle.
Reina grunted once, twice—nothing that slowed her. She was accelerating.
"Reina's breaking the tempo," Omoi said, eyes tracking. "Samui's holding the wall, but…"
"But walls crack under floods," Karui finished, fingers white on the rail.
⸻
Samui shifted first for once.
She stepped in.
Reina's eyes flashed at the audacity. Samui's hand blurred—straight palm to the sternum, the kind that didn't look like much until the breath went crooked. It did. Reina's chest hitched, and in that heartbeat Samui slid right and chopped the jaw with a clean, clinical strike.
The crowd exploded—Samui seizing initiative.
Reina stumbled half a step—and snapped back like a trap. Her weight dropped, shoulder rolled, and the return hook whistled. Samui slipped outside by a hair. The backfist followed—Samui shelled and took some of it on forearm and cheek.
"Samui's pushing," Mizue breathed, a ghost of a smile. "Finally."
Reina's pupils tightened. She changed songs.
She showed the same entry. Samui read it—moved to punish—walked straight into a nothing-feint that turned into a knee up the middle. Air burst from Samui's lungs. Reina hammered the opening with a jab across the nose and a small, mean elbow into the ribs before Samui restored shape.
The fortress had a dent.
⸻
Mid-fight settled into a knife fight.
Sweat striped their faces. Blood ticked from Samui's lip; a bruise bloomed along Reina's thigh where those cold checks had bitten. Neither looked tired. Both looked narrower, as if they'd cut away anything not needed to win.
Reina hunted the edges of Samui's guard, hands like scalpels. Ear clap—half beat—heel drag—trip denied. She'd pause a breath on purpose just to make Samui guess, then lunge in an angle nobody liked.
Samui punished greed without mercy. A wrist twisted a thumb's width took a hook's teeth away. A precise knuckle to brachial plexus made Reina's right arm late for one exchange; a calf kick placed like a pin made her stance buzz.
"Reina adapts faster," Takuma said, smoke curling. "But Samui's damage is cumulative. If Reina doesn't break through soon…"
As if she heard, Reina broke through.
She offered a rib. Samui stabbed it. Reina took it—grunted—and used the contact to slide inside, shoulder-to-shoulder, space smothered. The headbutt didn't crack—Reina wasn't Daichi—but it jarred. The follow-up forearm scrape across Samui's face shoved her line off an inch. For Reina, an inch was a doorway.
Knee—solar plexus.
Palm—jaw hinge.
Low kick—inside thigh.
Samui's stance shivered. She caught herself on discipline.
Kanzō watched without blinking.
⸻
The crowd found volume again when Samui refused to drown.
Reina's flurry hit guard, bone, and air—Samui shelled, pivoted, and threaded a needle through the chaos: two fingers into the notch above Reina's collarbone. The arm on that side lit up wrong. Reina hissed and circled to bleed the shock.
Samui stepped forward, just one step. Not for rhythm—authority.
Her palm speared for the throat—stopped a breath short—then turned to a shove as her leg scythed Reina's ankle. Reina fell to a knee, posted—Samui stomped the posting hand flat and shaped a finishing heel toward the temple.
Reina rolled with it. The heel cracked air. Samui didn't overchase—she reset.
Reina's laugh was low and humorless. "Almost."
"Enough," Samui said, voice calm.
⸻
Final minutes bled the arena dry.
Reina's tempo games got sharper, uglier. She offered openings that were traps inside traps. Samui's answers got cleaner, meaner, as if the fight had shaved her to a blade's edge. Every exchange left something behind: a welt, a cut, a tremor hidden in the leg.
They crashed at center.
Reina flashed the spinning elbow she'd used to finish Tetsuo—Samui read it and tucked. It grazed. Samui's counter palm landed flush on the jaw. Reina's head snapped; her feet didn't. She lashed a short kick into Samui's calf that made the muscle jump, then took half a step out, inviting chase.
Samui didn't bite. She breathed, reset her hands, and closed without greed.
"Stalemate," someone whispered. It wasn't.
Reina's eyes dipped left. Samui's guard tilted to meet the line. That was the invitation.
Reina stepped in like a knife.
Tap at the eye-line—Samui's parry twitched high.
Hammer to the forearm—nerves sang; fingers loosened a centimeter.
Inside low kick—Samui's base shifted just enough.
A breath opened.
Samui took it like she'd take any clean counter—fast, precise, decisive—hand shooting to snap Reina's head back and freeze the rhythm at last.
Reina had placed that breath.
Her head slipped outside the line. Samui's palm carved wind. Reina's hand opened and slapped Samui's ear with a brutal clap. Equilibrium tilted. The floor moved a little under Samui's feet.
Reina didn't waste the wobble.
Heel hooked behind Samui's ankle. Shoulder drove through the chest. Samui's base went light.
Reina turned her whole body in one cold coil.
Spinning back elbow—short, mean, perfect.
CRACK.
Samui's world flashed white. She dropped to a knee, hand catching dirt, posture fighting to reassemble in straight lines. Reina was already there, breath close, hand raised for the coup de grâce—
—and stopped a finger-width shy of Samui's throat.
The proctor slid between them, palm high. "Stop! Winner: Reina!"
Silence took a heartbeat to understand it, then broke into a wave that shook the courtyard.
⸻
Reina took two quiet steps back, chest rising and falling, the predator who'd cracked the fortress. Her lip bled. A bruise colored her ribs. Victory didn't touch her face; certainty did.
Samui exhaled once and stood without help. Her hands were swollen. Her cheek was marked. Her eyes were clear.
They faced each other. No theatrics.
"You forced me forward," Samui said. It wasn't praise. It was truth.
Reina's smirk flickered, small and real. "You forced me to finish."
Samui extended a hand first. Reina looked at it for half a heartbeat, then took it. The shake was brief, firm, and exactly enough.
On the rail, Karui blew out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "Damn."
Omoi nodded to himself, jaw tight, a student of rhythm filing away a thousand beats.
Mizue's eyes softened—respect given where it was due.
Daichi rolled his shoulder and grinned because a fight that good feels good to watch, even when you're not in it.
Takuma lit a new cigarette with steady fingers. "Predator takes it," he murmured. "Barely."
Kanzō's gaze swept the ring one last time, then the stands. "Remember what you saw," he said, voice calm and iron. "Control under pressure. Choice under fear. That is what endures."
The thunder over the mountains grumbled and moved on.
Reina raised one hand because the crowd demanded something, then let it fall. Samui stepped off the ring without hurry, the fortress intact even in defeat.
The finals didn't end with an easy win.
They ended with a narrow edge cut between two different kinds of control—and the promise that the next time ice met the predator, the story might not be the same.
The courtyard shook from Daichi's clash with Samui, the crowd still buzzing at how close the wildcard had come to toppling an Elite. Samui stood battered but steady, her hand raised as victor. Daichi bowed his head once, sweat dripping, pride unbroken despite the loss.
The stands murmured: a general-class boy had forced the Elite's ice fortress to the brink. Even Karui, jaw tight, couldn't sneer. Mizue's lips curved faintly, as if Daichi's fight had proven something she already knew.
Then the final was called. Reina. Samui.
The predator and the fortress walked into the ring, and the air itself seemed to hold its breath. Their clash was brutal, methodical—two calculators cutting for the other's weakness. Samui's patience froze Reina's opening tempo, but Reina's aggression shattered the ice piece by piece. When the dust cleared, Samui was on one knee, Reina's elbow hanging inches from her temple. The proctor's hand cut the air. "Winner: Reina."
Silence, then thunderous applause. The Elite tournament was over.
Principal Kanzō rose. His gaze swept the exhausted students—Elite and General alike.
"You've all seen the measure of yourselves in combat," he said, voice carrying across the courtyard. "But a shinobi's test is never one-sided. Battle alone does not make a ninja. Tomorrow—ink and endurance. Written test. Survival exam. Bring discipline to match your strength."
The crowd quieted. Fatigue weighed on every shoulder, but the storm of the mid-term was not done yet.