Chapter 306: Until the Match is Decided
This was Kure Village—the heartland of the Kure Clan.
With roughly ten percent of the population being Kure members or their
associates, the concepts of the Kengan Association and the "Street Brawl" were
common knowledge. Thus, even though the clash between Ren Shiroki and Doyle had
started as a spontaneous street fight, it quickly drew a sizeable crowd of
spectators.
As they watched, the crowd began to notice a peculiar detail.
Ren Shiroki wasn't fully "focused."
Or rather, he wasn't focused solely on his opponent. Even in the middle of a
blood-soaked struggle, he had the mental presence to shamelessly admire
everything around him: the timing of the moon, the layout of the street, the
hype of the audience, and the shifting atmosphere of the festival.
And, of course, he was savoring his opponent, Doyle.
This was the warrior known as the [SOUL COMBATANT].
"Ungh—!"
Doyle's attempt at "Blood Blindness" had failed. Now, staring at the advancing
Ren, he felt a genuine chill of terror. His entire body was a map of agonizing
pain. He managed to push himself into a sitting position, gasping for air and
coughing up thick clots of blood.
Ren approached Doyle but didn't follow up with a strike. He tilted his head,
drifting into a memory.
"When you ambushed Robinson-aniki, you asked him: 'What is a Duel?'"
"Well... let's have one. A real Duel."
Ren stood bladed—left arm low, right fist guarding his ribs. He locked his gaze
onto the convict.
"That first round... in my book, you've already lost. But if your pride won't
let you accept it, that's fine. Let's start Round Two!"
"..."
Hearing the challenge, Doyle scrambled to his feet. He was a wreck, staggering
forward with blood-slicked boots.
Zip!
He lunged forward. His right fist was pulled back, his left arm extended for
balance. To a normal eye, it looked like he was committing to a massive
right-handed haymaker.
But in the next heartbeat—CLICK!
Doyle's left ring finger twitched, triggering the internal mechanism. The
industrial spring in his left elbow snapped taut, propelling his left fist
forward with a velocity that was nearly invisible to the human eye.
It was a "Spring-Fist"—a mid-range projectile strike that only a modified human
could execute.
Whoosh!
The left fist tracked straight for Ren's jaw.
Ren dropped his center of gravity. He kept his right arm in reserve, his left
hand snapping out in a horizontal parry. He met Doyle's wrist mid-extension,
swatting the high-velocity punch off-course.
[DRIVE PARRY: PERFECT GUARD]!
SLAP!
"—?!"
Doyle gasped. He was trapped in the recovery frames of his mechanical fire.
Ren took a technical step forward, his left arm bending into an acute angle. His
elbow became a rigid spear, driving into Doyle's chest with the momentum of his
entire mass.
[RYU'S DRIVE REVERSAL: COUNTER-ELBOW]!
THUD!
The rock-solid Karate strike landed with a sickening thud. Doyle let out a
ragged shriek of agony as the force rattled his internal organs.
"WAAAAAH!"
Doyle was launched backward, blood spraying from his mouth as he hit the
pavement. He rolled across the sand, clutching his chest.
Ren watched him, offering a clinical analysis. "The Spring-Fist feels a lot like
Retsu-san's 'No-Inch Punch', but it's less versatile. If it had been the Fist
Master's punch, I wouldn't have parried it that easily."
With those words, Ren continued his steady march.
A primal sense of crisis erupted in Doyle's mind. He ignored the screaming pain
in his torso, bolting upright and dropping into a desperate defensive shell.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
[LUKE'S TRIPLE IMPACT]!
Ren was on him instantly. A flurry of heavy punches rained down on Doyle, the
speed so intense that the convict couldn't even find the room to draw a full
breath.
Bang-bang-slap-bang!
Ren transitioned into a high-speed blitz. Fists and feet fell like a monsoon,
hammering every part of Doyle's frame. Blood sprayed and the fabric of Doyle's
training suit was reduced to rags. It was a scene of clinical destruction.
"GAH—!"
Doyle retreated with a scream, but he couldn't create distance. He was terrified
of falling; on the ground, he would be completely defenseless against a monster
like Ren.
My ribs... are they all broken? God, it hurts...
Defeat. Internal hemorrhaging. Total technical suppression.
I can't block him! I can't even touch him! Am I... am I losing?! Me?!
BOOM!!!
Ren unleashed a [ZANGIEF HEAVY PUNCH].
Doyle's crossed-arm guard was smashed open. He was launched backward, slamming
into a perimeter railing with a thunderous CLANG.
At this level of trauma, an ordinary person would have been dead or in a deep
coma. But as a former intelligence operative, Doyle's mental and physical
threshold was in a different dimension. He had survived the electric chair once.
He had the "Guts" of a survivor.
Zip—
Doyle grabbed the railing behind him. He used it as a pivot, yanking himself to
the right while his feet drove him to the left, diving toward the crowd to
escape Ren's reach.
Simultaneously, he reached into his waistband and pulled out a specialized
high-density smoke canister—a piece of British military hardware far superior to
the cheap contraband Dorian used.
CLACK!
He pulled the pin and slammed the canister into the pavement.
PSHHHHHH—!
A wall of thick white smoke erupted, swallowing Doyle instantly. He vanished
from sight.
"Hm?" Ren paused.
He looked down. A nearby manhole cover at the mouth of an alley had been
displaced. Did he dive into the sewers? Or did he slip into the shadows of the
alley?
Ren approached the smoke.
Suddenly—ZIP!
A figure exploded from beneath a nearby sidewalk table, throwing the tablecloth
aside. It was a blood-stained Doyle. He hadn't run for the sewers; he had used
the "displaced manhole cover" as a feint, hiding right beside Ren to launch a
point-blank ambush!
CLICK!
His knuckles twitched. The blades in his wrists and elbows snapped out as he
swung a series of lethal arcs at Ren's throat. The movement was silent, fast,
and precise—the work of a Kure-level assassination specialist.
But the sheer accumulation of injuries had slowed Doyle by a fraction of a
second.
Zip!
Ren tilted his head back, letting the blades whistle past. He countered with a
lightning-fast left drunken strike that caught Doyle flush on the face.
Doyle stumbled, his vision blurring.
Ren used the counter-force to pull his fist back, pivoting into a spinning
back-kick that buried itself in Doyle's gut.
BANG!
Doyle shrieked in pain but gritted his teeth, refusing to collapse. He swung his
right wrist in a horizontal slash, tracking Ren's jugular.
Ren reacted with a fluid backward lean. His right foot remained anchored while
his left leg snapped upward in a high-speed vertical strike.
[JAMIE'S DRIFTING DRUNKEN LEG]!
POW!
The rising kick caught Doyle square in the groin. The force hoisted the convict
into the air, his feet leaving the ground entirely.
"Ungh—"
After a heartbeat of frozen, agonizing shock, Doyle's eyes rolled back. He hit
the pavement on his knees with a heavy thud, taking several seconds to find the
breath to scream.
"WAAAAAAAGH!!"
Doyle scrunched into a ball on the ground, his body trembling violently as cold
sweat drenched his back.
I... I'm actually losing? This is defeat?!
He struggled for ten long seconds before he could even process the reality of
his surroundings. He looked up, panting heavily. Ren was still standing there,
waiting for him.
"..."
Doyle gave a bloody, manic smile. He forced himself upright, looking at Ren.
"What's the matter? Why stop? There's only one step left!"
"My vitals are wide open. All you have to do is stomp my head and it's over!
Finish it!"
Ren reset his side-stance, his expression curious. "So... you want another
round?"
"Heh... hehehe..."
Doyle let out a dry, bitter laugh. "A 'Round'? Don't be naive, kid. When you
lose... don't you dare call me 'Cowardly'."
He stood up, his body swaying as if he were about to collapse. He approached Ren
as if looking for a clinch, but as he closed the distance, his left thumb
twitched.
Doyle whispered: "FIRE—!!"
The device triggered!
The high-explosive powder embedded in his chest cavity detonated. A localized
eruption of flame and high-velocity shrapnel blasted forward, aimed directly at
Ren's torso.
This was Doyle's absolute trump card. The same move that had wounded both Ren
and Gaolang earlier.
But in that exact microsecond—ZIP!
Ren drove his heels into the asphalt. He performed a mid-air vault, his body
tracing an aerial arc that carried him over Doyle's head, clearing the blast
radius perfectly.
[CAMMY'S HOOLIGAN COMBINATION]!
The agile leap left Ren suspended in the air diagonally behind Doyle.
DERIVATIVE ART— [CAMMY'S CANNON STRIKE]!
SHINK!
While still airborne, Ren's right leg snapped out in a descending dive-kick.
THUD!
The kick slammed into Doyle's upper back. The power was calculated—not a
kill-shot, but enough to pitch the convict forward and prevent him from turning.
Ren touched down. He pulled his right fist back, his pupils vibrating with
terrifying intensity.
[ENGINE]—MAX OVERDRIVE!
The concentrated battle aura was so heavy it felt like a physical shockwave
hitting Doyle's back. The convict turned his head, his face a mask of pure
horror.
"FINISH!"
Ren unleashed his most focused strike, his fist burying itself into the center
of Doyle's spine.
[STRIKE AT THE APEX]!
BOOM—!!
A thunderous explosion of kinetic energy followed. A visible ripple of air
expanded from the impact point, launching Doyle across the street.
ZIP!
A trail of blood painted the air.
Doyle hit a massive metal rolling shutter at the back of an alley. He was hit
with so much force that he was literally "embedded" into the steel, leaving a
man-shaped indentation in the metal.
"Doyle-aniki. You really don't have to worry. I'm not going to call you
'Cowardly'."
Ren shook out his right fist. A faint trail of heat and steam rose from his
knuckles.
"In a fight, 'Taunting' is standard. Manners, rules, games... they all have
their place."
"But at its core, a 'Combat' exists to decide a victor."
"Sure, feigning a taunt just to launch a sneak attack is part of the deck. I've
seen it before."
"But ultimately... those tricks are just part of the experience."
Ren walked over to the shutter. He reached out, grabbed Doyle by his shredded
collar, and "peeled" him out of the metal, dropping him heavily onto the
pavement.
"You asked 'What is Combat'?"
"Everything that happens until a winner is declared—THAT is Combat!"
(End of Chapter)
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