Chapter 62
The fourth fighter stepped through the cage door, and Elijah's Ki sense screamed.
His mask was black cloth, wrapped around the lower half of his face, and his eyes were dark, almost black, with no emotion in them at all. His hair was short, brown, unremarkable. His clothes were dark and plain.
In his right hand, held low against his leg, was a gun.
Not a cheap pistol. A revolver, polished steel, the cylinder full. The man's finger was already on the trigger.
Elijah's mind raced. There were no rules in death matches. No one had said anything about guns. Of course there were guns. Why would there not be guns?
The man raised the revolver and fired.
Elijah's Ki sense read the trajectory before the man's finger finished pulling the trigger. He threw himself to the side, and the bullet passed through the space where his head had been, striking the chain-link fence behind him with a sharp crack.
He hit the concrete and rolled, coming up in a crouch, the woman's blades still in his hands. His shoulder screamed where he had landed on it, but he ignored the pain.
The man fired again.
Elijah moved. His Ki sense showed him the path of the bullet, and he stepped around it, the shot passing so close to his ear that he felt the heat of it. He crossed half the distance to the man in two strides, his blades raised.
The man did not retreat. He fired again, and Elijah deflected the bullet with one of the blades.
The impact jarred through his arm, numbing it from wrist to elbow. The blade did not break, but Elijah felt something crack in his hand. He kept moving.
The man's Ki sense was sharp. Elijah could feel it reaching out, reading his movements, predicting his attacks. Their senses were evenly matched. The man knew where Elijah was going to be before Elijah knew himself.
Elijah swung his right blade at the man's throat. The man ducked, brought the revolver up, and fired. Elijah twisted, the bullet grazing his hip, and drove his left blade at the man's chest. The man stepped back, the tip missing by inches.
They circled each other, the distance between them closing and opening, closing and opening. The man fired again, and again, and again.
Elijah dodged, deflected, dodged again. The revolver's cylinder was emptying, but the man was careful, conserving his shots, making each one count.
The crowd was not silent now. They were shouting, screaming, money changing hands, bets being placed.
The noise was a wall of sound that pressed in from all sides, but Elijah barely heard it. His world had narrowed to the man in front of him, the gun in his hand, the bullets that wanted to tear through his flesh.
He needed to close the distance. He needed to get inside the man's guard, where the gun was useless. But every time he tried, the man's Ki sense read his movement, and the revolver was there, waiting, the bullet already aimed at whatever opening Elijah left.
The man fired again. Elijah deflected, the impact sending a shockwave through his injured hand. He dropped one of the blades. It clattered to the concrete, and the man stepped forward, pressing his advantage.
Elijah backed away, his remaining blade held in his right hand, his left hand hanging useless at his side.
Blood dripped from his hip where the bullet had grazed him, from his forearm where the second fighter had cut him, from his chest and his ribs and his shoulder.
He was losing. Not because the man was stronger, but because the gun changed everything. One mistake, one bullet that he did not see in time, and he was dead.
He could use the King's Aura. One more use, and the man would freeze, would give Elijah the opening he needed. But the fifth fighter was coming after this one.
And the sixth. And the seventh. And the eighth, ninth, and tenth. He could not waste his only remaining trump card on a man with a gun, no matter how dangerous that man was.
He needed to kill him.
The thought settled into Elijah's mind like a blade sliding into its sheath. He needed to Kill him. Because if he did not, the man would keep firing, and eventually one of those bullets would find its mark.
Elijah changed his approach.
He stopped trying to close the distance. He stopped trying to dodge and deflect. He started moving differently, erratically, his Ki sense feeding him information that he used to twist and turn and spiral in ways that made no sense.
The man's Ki sense was sharp, but Elijah's movements were random now, unpredictable, harder to read.
The man fired. Elijah twisted. The bullet passed through his sleeve, tearing fabric but not skin.
Elijah threw his remaining blade.
The blade spun through the air, end over end, and the man's Ki sense read it. He raised the revolver to deflect it, his attention shifting for a fraction of a second.
That was all Elijah needed.
He crossed the distance in a single explosive movement, his right hand reaching for the man's throat, his left hand—broken, bleeding, but still moving—grabbing for the revolver.
The man tried to bring the gun back around, but Elijah was inside his guard now, too close for a clean shot.
Elijah drove his palm into the man's chest. The man stumbled back, his balance breaking, and Elijah followed, his right hand closing around the man's wrist, twisting, forcing the revolver down.
The man's free hand came up, fingers reaching for Elijah's eyes. Elijah turned his head, the fingers scraping across his cheek instead of finding their target, and drove his knee into the man's stomach.
The man grunted, his grip on the revolver loosening. Elijah pulled the gun from his hand and threw it across the cage.
Now they were equal.
The man's eyes were different now. The cold emptiness was gone, replaced by something closer to fear. He knew what was coming.
Elijah stepped forward. The man stepped back. His Ki sense was still sharp, still reading Elijah's movements, but without the gun, he had nothing to stop what was coming.
Elijah's left hand shot out, grabbing the man's collar. His right hand formed a fist, and he drove it into the man's face. Once, Twice, Three times, The man's head snapped back, blood spraying from his nose, his lips, his brow.
But he did not fall. He grabbed Elijah's wrist, his fingers digging into the skin, and his Ki sense flared.
Elijah realized, in that moment, that he could not knock this man out. The man's will was too strong, his body too stubborn, his breathing technique too steady. The only way to end this fight was to end him.
The man's hand shot out, reaching for Elijah's throat. Elijah caught his wrist, and they stood there, locked together, each one trying to overpower the other.
The man's aura was a dark gray now, pulsing with effort. Elijah's red aura, thirty percent of Zenith was holding.
Elijah made his choice.
He released the man's wrist, and the man's hand shot toward his throat. Elijah did not block it. He stepped into the strike, letting the man's fingers close around his neck, and drove his own hand forward.
The blade was in his hand. He had picked it up when he threw the other one. The man had not seen it.
The blade sank into the man's chest.
The man's eyes went wide. His hand loosened on Elijah's throat. His dark gray aura flickered once, twice, and went dark.
Blood welled up around the blade, dark and thick, spreading across the man's shirt in a stain that grew larger by the second.
The man's mouth opened, but no sound came out. His knees buckled, and he fell, pulling the blade from Elijah's hand as he dropped. He hit the concrete on his back, his arms splayed, his eyes staring up at the lights.
The crowd was screaming. Elijah did not hear them.
He stood over the man, his chest heaving, his body covered in blood—some of it his, most of it not. The man's blood was on his hands, on his arms, on his face. He could feel it drying on his skin, warm and sticky.
Then the man's hand moved to the revolver.
He had crawled toward it while Elijah stood there. His fingers wrapped around the grip, and he raised it, his arm shaking, his eyes barely open.
Elijah's Ki sense screamed. He tried to move, but there was no time, no space, no way to dodge.
The gun fired.
The bullet tore into Elijah's side, just below his ribs. The pain was immediate, blinding, white-hot. He felt his body twist with the impact, felt something inside him tear, felt blood pouring from the wound.
He dropped to one knee, his hand pressed against his side, trying to stop the bleeding. The man was still trying to raise the gun again, but his arm was failing.
The man's eyes met Elijah's. There was no hatred in them. Just the quiet acceptance of someone who knew he was dying.
His hand fell. The revolver clattered to the floor. His dark gray aura flickered one last time and went dark for good.
Elijah knelt there, his hand pressed against his side, blood seeping between his fingers. His vision was blurring at the edges, the lights above swimming in and out of focus.
He looked up.
Another fighter was stepping through the door.
The fifth fighter.
Elijah pushed himself to his feet.
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