Chapter 81
The cage was silent except for the soft sound of two men breathing, and the morning light filtering through the boarded windows cast long shadows across the canvas floor where Elijah and Jack stood facing each other with nothing but empty space between them.
The Vice Leaders watched from the shadows beyond the cage, their auras flickering with tension, but no one spoke and no one moved because this moment belonged to the two young men.
Jack moved first, not with the explosive speed that Elijah had expected but with a slow, deliberate step forward that carried no threat and no warning.
His red eyes remained fixed on Elijah's face, and his expression was calm in a way that suggested he was in no hurry to begin the fight because he had waited this long and a few more seconds would not matter.
Elijah did not retreat, and he did not advance. He simply stood his ground with his hands loose at his sides and his breathing steady, and he let his Ki sense spread out from his body like roots sinking into soil.
The sensation was familiar to him now after weeks of practice, and the information that flowed back through his awareness was richer and more detailed than it had ever been because he could feel the tension in Jack's muscles before they moved and the shift of his weight before he committed to a step and the subtle changes in his breathing that preceded every attack.
Jack threw the first punch, a straight right aimed at Elijah's jaw that was fast enough to blur in the dim light but not so fast that Elijah could not see it coming.
His Ki sense had read the trajectory before Jack's fist left his shoulder, and Elijah leaned back just enough for the punch to pass through the empty air in front of his face, close enough that he felt the wind of it brush against his skin.
Jack followed with a left hook, and Elijah ducked under it with a smooth bend of his knees that brought him low to the canvas before he straightened up and reset his stance.
The two punches had been tests, probing attacks designed to measure Elijah's speed and his reflexes and his willingness to engage, and Elijah had passed those tests without throwing a single punch of his own.
Jack smiled, a small expression that did not reach his red eyes. "You're faster than I expected," he said.
Elijah did not answer because he was already moving, his right hand forming a fist that drove toward Jack's chest with all the force he could generate without activating his Ki enhancement.
The punch was fast and clean, and it would have landed solidly against most opponents, but Jack's body twisted at the last moment and the blow glanced off his shoulder instead of striking his center mass.
Jack answered with a kick aimed at Elijah's thigh, and Elijah's Ki sense screamed at him to move.
He shifted his weight to his back foot and pulled his front leg back just in time, and Jack's shin passed through the space where his thigh had been a moment before.
The kick would have hurt if it had landed because Jack's leg was thick with muscle and his form was perfect, but Elijah had read the attack and he had moved and he had avoided the damage.
They circled each other slowly,
Jack attacked again, this time with a combination that came in three parts.
The first was a jab aimed at Elijah's face, and Elijah slipped it to the outside.
The second was a cross aimed at his chest, and Elijah blocked it with his forearm.
The third was a hook aimed at his ribs, and Elijah's Ki sense read the trajectory and his body twisted and the punch grazed his side instead of landing clean.
Elijah threw a punch of his own, a quick counter that caught Jack on the chin.
The impact was solid and satisfying, and Jack's head snapped to the side for a fraction of a second before he turned back with the same calm expression on his face.
The punch had not hurt him, not really.
Jack's red eyes narrowed slightly, and his next attack came faster than the ones before.
His fists moved in a blur of motion, a storm of punches aimed at Elijah's head and chest and stomach, and Elijah's Ki sense worked overtime to track each one as it came.
He blocked some and dodged others and took a few that he could not avoid, and the impacts jarred through his arms and his shoulders and his ribs.
He stepped back to create distance, and Jack let him go because he was in no hurry and because he seemed to be enjoying the rhythm of the fight.
His breathing was still steady, and his aura was still calm, and his red eyes still held that patient intensity that had been there since he stepped into the cage.
"You're reading me," Jack said.
Elijah nodded because there was no point in denying it. His Ki sense was the only reason he was still standing, and Jack was smart enough to have figured that out already.
"Most people can't," Jack continued as he circled to the left. "Even people with strong Ki sense get overwhelmed by the speed of my attacks. But you're keeping up, and that's impressive."
Elijah did not respond because he was focused on the way Jack's weight was shifting, on the subtle tension building in his legs, on the slight change in his breathing that preceded a kick.
He was ready when the kick came, and he stepped inside the arc of it and drove his elbow into Jack's thigh.
Jack grunted, the first sound of discomfort he had made since the fight began, and he hopped back on one foot while his other leg absorbed the sting of the impact.
The elbow had landed clean, and Jack's thigh would bruise, but he did not slow down and he did not change his approach.