Chapter 4 –– Haru vs Yara
After several fights had passed, it was finally Haru’s turn to fight. So far, Zum and Meixia had advanced to the next round. Right now, it was Haru’s turn to fight against Yara.
The battle began right after Saaya blew the whistle. Yara and Haru stood in front of each other, waiting for the other to strike the first blow.
After staring at each other for a while, Yara moved her arms and shot a light arrow at Haru. Due to Haru’s quick reflexes, he managed to dodge it. However, his shirt got slightly bruised by the arrow and it did something to him.
“What’s this.....?”
Haru noticed that his right arm which was merely slightly bruised by the arrow felt kind of numb. He felt like his arm was electrocuted.
Before figuring out what that was, Yara already shot another arrow at him. Now that he knew that he can still receive damage by being around the arrow, he decided to use his fyx to dodge it this time.
Haru charged his fyx on the soles of his feet–– seeping through his shoes–– which turned luminescent. He then moved super fast to dodge the arrow.
Yara shot several more arrows towards him, which Haru all dodged perfectly this time. Haru noticed that unlike Zum’s attacks, Yara’s arrows did not follow him after he dodged them.
Thinking that Yara was a long-range fighter, Haru decided to dash towards her to close the distance and to have a close-range combat.
Yara got surprised by Haru’s extraordinary speed. She didn’t have enough reaction time to dodge him, so she decided to block his attack instead.
Haru threw a kick at her using his right leg while mid-air, which Yara blocked using her bow. As a legendary weapon, the bow was strong enough to withstand Haru’s kick. Yet, Yara was struggling to hold her ground without being pushed by Haru’s strength in his kick.
Yara then decided to swing her bow with all her might to break free from Haru’s kick. She then swung her bow at Haru while he’s mid air–– almost like a sword–– which Haru blocked before he took a few steps back away from her.
They were several feet away from each other. Both of them were gasping, trying to catch their breath.
Suddenly, Haru felt a surge of electric current running through his body. He then fell on one of his knees, stunned.
Haru finally realized something.
“My fyx skill is ’Stunning Arrow,’ which means you will get stunned every time you receive damage from me.”
Yara’s statement clarified Harus’s suspicions. He noticed it the first time an arrow bruised his arm. Yet, that didn’t explain Yara’s last attack towards him, which was just a melee attack.
“I suspect your fyx skill has something to do with your speed. Nobody has ever managed to dodge all of my arrows like that, except for Chief Saaya.”
Yara was also starting to figure out Haru’s fyx skill, which was unknown to most members of Garuda Squad. This would be the first time Haru demonstrated his fighting style and combat skills.
Right when Yara let her guard down a bit, Haru saw an opening and took advantage of it. He dashed towards her and launched another attack.
He threw a kick mid air just like before. Since Yara saw it coming, she tries to block it again with her bow. However, before Haru’s kick reaches her bow, Haru immediately changed orbit and swung his leg on the ground to sweep Yara’s feet and made her lose footing of the ground. Yet, Yara was quick on her toes and dodged the attack by jumping high above and landed on her hands, backing away from Haru.
“Just because I shoot arrows, doesn’t mean I’m not good at close-range combat,” Yara said.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Haru answered.
Haru grinned. He figured out something.
“Your fyx skill doesn’t only apply to your arrows. Your fyx energy texture is electric.”
Yara looked surprised. She knew sooner or later he was gonna find out, but she didn’t think it was that fast.
“How did you find out?”
“When you tried to block my kick with your bow, I saw electric current running through your arms to your bow. I threw a feint just to make sure my assumption was right.”
Yara was impressed. She didn’t expect him to figure that out this quickly.
Now that Haru had figured out her fyx skill and texture, he needed to find a way to fight her without getting stunned every time. The fact that her fyx energy texture itself was electric was very problematic to him.
Yara was finally getting serious. She started holding her bow differently. She held it horizontally, and started using four of her fingers to conjure four arrows simultaneously. She then immediately shot them at Haru.
Unlike the ones before, these arrows were three times faster. Haru was surprised and he got hit by one of the arrows when he tried to dodge.
He got stunned and was unable to move for a few seconds. Before he could stand up, another set of arrows were coming towards him.
Haru conjured a light shield in front of him using his palm to redirect the arrows to another direction. He managed to escape from those arrows.
Haru then stood up and copied Yara’s exact movement.
“What....”
Yara was shocked by the sight. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing
Haru was conjuring a light arrow using his palm just like she does, but without the bow. Everybody knows that archery was a hard enough skill for a lumina user, but without a bow, that was extremely difficult.
Haru shot the arrow at an amazing speed, even faster than Yara’s arrows. Yara did try to dodge, but the arrow shot her on her shoulder and made her fall to the ground.
“You know, just because I kick, doesn’t mean I’m not good at long-range combat.”
Yara got annoyed. Haru just returned what Yara said to him.
Haru walked towards Yara who was sitting on the ground and conjured a mini light arrow using the tip of his finger, looking down on her.
“Alright, I give up,” Yara said.
Yara forfeited and Haru was announced as the winner.
After the fight between Haru and Yara was over, everyone took a break to have lunch at the dining room.
Everyone finally realised that Haru was a Sorcerer, unlike what they expected. They didn’t expect Haru to be “one out of five people” who was able to do Sorcery fyx. Since Saaya and Zum were the only Sorcerers in Garuda Squad, this made Haru the third person in the squad.
After lunch, the tournament was resumed. Next up was Zum vs Bing.
“Alright, bring it on!” Bing said.
Since Bing won the previous fight by default due to Arudo not participating in the tournament, this was the first time Haru was gonna see Bing fight. He was curious to see what kind of fighter he was.
Right when the fight started, Bing chanted something.
“Summon!”