A sizable chunk of rock hurtled toward me. I slid beneath it — left foot forward, pivot through the left side, and unleash a stream of fire from both hands on the exhale.
The maneuver worked. Instead of crushing me between the arena floor and the massive boulder flying overhead, the girl, sensing the approaching heat, was forced to hastily raise a wall to shield herself. Normally, this was the moment I'd toss one of my little bombs while the enemy blocked their own vision, but we were fighting fair here. And besides, what kind of "blocked vision" could possibly matter against an opponent who was already blind?
So instead, I kept pouring flames at her while simultaneously trying to circle around. The Blind Bandit was forced to keep defending herself, slowly walling herself in more and more.
And now she should—
Yep!
The section of floor beneath me suddenly jerked upward, clearly trying to launch me out of the ring, but I'd expected that. Calmly, I slid aside, letting the spike pass beside me without even considering weakening either the pressure of my flames or the speed of my movement.
Another attempt — but this time she tried to fling me together with a much larger section of the floor itself. That one forced me to jump, interrupting my attack for a brief instant, but only for an instant. The flames licking across the stone wall protecting the girl hadn't even had time to fade. My hands had barely touched solid ground, my body was only just preparing for the roll that followed, and already another torrent of fire erupted from my leg, sweeping across Toph's shelter in a broad arc.
Use the body's momentum now, finish the spin with a twist of the torso, push off with my fingertips — and I was standing again, blasting her cover with a fifteen-foot flamethrower burst.
The wall of her "shelter" suddenly tore loose and came flying toward me like some gigantic flyswatter, threatening not only to knock me out of the ring but to do to me exactly what an actual flyswatter did to flies. It was fast, but I'd seen that move plenty of times before. It was one of the standard earthbender tactics against firebenders — if the firebender hesitated and failed to get off the line of attack, both the stream of flame and its creator would simply be crushed together.
I didn't hesitate. I slipped aside on instinct and, just as instinctively, nearly burned Toph's face off, managing to pull back the stream of fire at the very last second. That gave her enough time to throw up another wall.
That was the difference between us. In terms of "pure bending," she was unquestionably more skilled. Her control over her element and the sheer variety of her techniques far surpassed mine. But she knew nothing about the firebending itself. She had no real combat experience beyond tournament fighting, whereas I, thanks to the Spirit of Knowledge, understood perfectly well what she was about to do at almost any given moment — and I had more than enough genuine battlefield experience besides.
Toph compensated for this somewhat by tracking my movements through her "echolocation," but it still wasn't enough. Without understanding what firebending was capable of, you simply couldn't react properly. Then again, I'd already mentioned that.
The other problem was that earthbending demanded constant focus. You couldn't simultaneously hurl a wall at your enemy and raise a new one beside yourself. To begin doing the second, you first had to stop doing the first. The gap might be tiny, but I didn't move like a turtle either.
As a result, at one point I simply forced her to wrap herself completely inside a cocoon of earth and began slowly roasting it. Let her not relax. There wasn't exactly much air in there either, so she'd have to come out soon and surrender.
Or use one of the favorite tricks of every remotely experienced earthbender: Earth Swimming.
Judging by how all movement inside the baking sphere suddenly ceased, she'd chosen exactly that option.
I managed to react to the upward strike in time since I'd been expecting something like it, though not that close and not that fast, so I failed to block it completely. Need more training.
Bright red, panting, sweaty, and lightly smoked, the girl literally burst up from beneath my feet and very delivered catastrophic damage to an extremely important part of my anatomy. Fortunately, I managed to clamp my knees together in time.
The male half of the audience collectively tensed up for one horrifying moment before letting out a synchronized sigh of relief. Even so, pain still shot through my legs, and I tried very hard not to think about what would've happened if I hadn't blocked the strike.
At that moment, I had every opportunity to end the fight. The girl was close and off-balance. One light hit to the head and she'd lose consciousness. Or I could simply grab her by the scruff of the neck and throw her out of the arena.
But I hadn't come here for money, and certainly not to boost my ego by beating a blind child. The fight could help me establish contact with her, but actually defeating her was out of the question. She was still a child, after all, and she'd take a loss badly — personally and emotionally — and by extension, she'd reject the one who handed it to her. So…
I deliberately did nothing, allowing her to continue her attack.
And she didn't disappoint me!
A pillar of earth slammed into my chest (ow. That was definitely going to leave a bruise.Honestly, I had a rather negative opinion of heavy objects colliding with my ribcage in general), sending me flying out of the ring.
Only, I couldn't afford to lose either. She wouldn't respect me if I did. So while airborne, I grabbed onto… something. Heh.
Though there was just one tiny complication. Said "something" was, firstly, shrieking, secondly, extremely light, and thirdly, somewhat squirmy.
Thus, in our bizarre tangle, both I and the screaming object exited the ring together.
The landing wasn't exactly pleasant, but it wasn't all that brutal either. There was soft sand below us. (And anyone who doubted sand was soft was more than welcome to try landing on granite flooring instead and experience the difference firsthand.)
"Oof… That was painf—"
At that exact moment, my captured "passenger" landed squarely on my chest.
(End of Chapter)
🙌Bonus chapter for 200 power stones!
🔥The next bonus chapter will be for 300 power stones.