25. Last Man Standing
25. Last Man Standing
Still, true to the Disciplinary Committee's devotion to fundamentals, a vanguard with a shield stepped in front of me to protect the crossbowman.
In the gap, a crossbow bolt curved around the vanguard's body and flew at me.
While the sequence of scenes unfolded before my eyes like slow motion, a fun idea came to mind.
A grin spread across my face.
Before the bolt reached me, I spun my body and dodged it easily.
As the bolt grazed past, light enveloped my body.
Sparks popped and danced—like stage lighting, like firecrackers.
It was a simple application of illumination magic.
The effect?
Nothing.
Instead, I got to put on a stylish spectacle.
While spinning to evade, I channeled that rotational force into my heel and kicked the vanguard under the chin.
The instant chin and heel met—
Boom!
With an explosive effect, the vanguard's head snapped back hard.
[Wow! An artistic Rolling Savate! But what was that explosion? It looked incredibly painful!]
It was a technique Wolf sometimes used when he landed a critical hit.
Whenever he showed this, the audience used to go wild.
The nameless vanguard probably never imagined I could dodge and attack at the same time, and he was eliminated anticlimactically just like that.
But the crossbowman was no pushover either.
Even as her comrade's body was crumbling, she fired her crossbow right past the back of his head.
She had probably calculated the bolt's flight time against her comrade's fall, aiming for it to appear suddenly from my blind spot the moment his head dropped.
If I'd been someone who relied on sight, it would've been a pretty effective strategy.
But the mana carried by the arrow and the killing intent she hadn't managed to suppress meant I didn't even need to confirm the bolt with my eyes.
A brief moment of Allen Slow Time.
I could dodge to the side, but then the crossbowman would use that opening to create distance again.
And dodging like that wasn't cool.
So I decided to charge straight at the crossbowman in a way she'd never expect.
Namely, using the crumbling vanguard as a stepping stone and leaping straight up.
The crossbowman, whose vision had narrowed while focusing on her sights, belatedly registered me soaring into the sky.
"Miriel! Above you!"
By the time she noticed me, my shadow was already draping over her head.
I flattened her with a body press.
As I tried to rise and conveniently found her leg right in front of me, I hooked my leg around hers like a lever and lay back down.
I didn't forget to fold my arms with flair as I lay back down.
Crack-crack-crack!
"Aaaagh!!"
Something snapped in her knee.
[A Body Press flowing seamlessly into the Deathlock! My eyes are being spoiled today!]
The more I heard that announcer, the more I liked him.
Behind my back, I flashed him a thumbs-up.
The announcer grinned wide, gums showing, and returned the thumbs-up.
Now the real show began. I grabbed both legs of the girl incapacitated beneath me and hoisted her up.
And as my body turned, her body began spinning along with it.
Once I'd built up enough rotational force and let her go, her body flew toward her comrades like a shot put.
But a normal Giant Swing would have been boring, wouldn't it?
"Hup!"
I adjusted my grip on her spinning ankle with one hand and began swinging her like nunchucks.
I draped her over my shoulder and ribs once each, spun her around once like pizza dough, then hurled her at her comrades like a frisbee.
[Aah! That's the legendary technique rarely seen even in Wrestle Kingdom! The Bloody Canopy!]
The comrades who had been rushing to help her stopped in their tracks to catch her as she flew.
While they checked her condition, I couldn't resist slapping my biceps and showing off my muscles.
The audience's favorability toward me rose accordingly.
"How can you do this to a lady!"
One Disciplinary Committee member who seemed close to her shouted at me.
What he misunderstood was that this counted as gentle treatment.
Done properly, the Bloody Canopy made blood surge from the victim's eyes, nose, and mouth. It also involved swinging them once between the performer's legs as a deliberate humiliation, then slamming them into the ground several times for impact.
Blood would pour from every opening in the victim's body and envelop the performer like a dome, hence the name Bloody Canopy.
I'd only cut it short because I couldn't bring myself to use it properly on a student.
The announcer seemed to know that too and shouted in my defense.
[That wasn't even the basics of the Bloody Canopy, you know~? If I had to name it, it was barely a Mini Canopy!]
But to the Disciplinary Committee member, that wasn't what mattered.
What mattered was that I was an unprecedented piece of trash who'd mistreated their comrade.
"How far do you intend to humiliate us!"
Someone shouted at the back of my head, but I ignored them.
But they must have learned a lot from what had happened so far, because they didn't rush in right away.
Even so, with their only ranged attacker eliminated, they had no means of attacking me other than closing in, so they couldn't just keep watching forever either.
'Then I'd make them come.'
I tore off my shirt and struck a bodybuilder pose.
With my back turned to the committee members, though.
My provocation must have worked, because my senses picked up the presence of someone getting closer.
While all my focus was directed backward, I didn't stop the promotion aimed at the audience.
The opponent rushing in wasn't holding a weapon, so he seemed to be a martial artist like me.
In that case, there was a good technique.
Until he approached within arm's reach, I didn't stop my performance toward the audience seats.
Just a little more.
Just a little more.
Just a little... now!
Once there was enough distance, I leaped backward and wrapped my arm around his neck.
I took a couple of hits to the ribs for it, but nothing I couldn't handle.
As I fell with that momentum, his body also dropped toward the ground.
But unlike me, he fell head-first.
And the impact of hitting the ground traveled straight up my arm into his neck and jaw.
[RKO!!!!]
Did this really need an explanation?
It wasn't Big Evil Wolf's technique, but it was a fairly famous finishing move in Wrestle Kingdom.
And it was an unwritten rule that once you took a finisher, you didn't get up.
One more Disciplinary Committee member was eliminated like that.
Now there were three first-years and one second-year left.
At that moment, healing magic enveloped the body of the student who'd taken the RKO.
"Huh?"
There was one thing you shouldn't do at a funeral: resurrection.
In a similar vein, resurrecting after taking a finisher without even setting up a flag was also a breach of etiquette.
'You'd just gotten this kid killed a second time.'
I pointed a finger at the priest who'd cluelessly cast the heal, then brought my clasped hands down on the head of the male martial-artist student who was trying to get up.
Boom!
With a massive flash that conjured the image of an explosion, the male student's body levitated into the air.
[Huh?]
"Huh?"
Must've looked bizarre.
Hammering a guy's head and watching him bounce into the air.
This was a difficult technique that I couldn't pull off unless I got the angle just right.
That was because it worked by manipulating the ground's elastic modulus, turning it into a trampoline and then driving the opponent down.
To anyone who didn't know this, though, it would just look like I was using a human body to play basketball.
For the record, this wasn't Wolf's technique.
One of Wolf's direct disciples—a monkey beastman wrestler whose body could shrink and stretch—developed this finisher.
That guy could pull it off from absolutely impossible angles, but I found it hard.
In any case, I caught the airborne student and slammed him into the ground.
With my knee placed beneath his spine, that is.
Crunch.
As a bonus, I deliberately conjured crimson sparks near my knee, suggestive of blood, to emphasize the technique's power.
"Oof..."
[Oof... Back Breaker... This one's a little hard to commentate on. My own spine is involuntarily curling up.]
Oh dear. This one might have been too brutal.
A performance failure.
I scratched my head and gestured apologetically to the audience and announcers.
The male student who'd been about to resurrect vanished without anyone paying him any mind.
Meanwhile, one of the second-years was just glaring at me with his arms crossed, either thinking it'd look bad if they all rushed me together, or because his teamwork with the underclassmen wasn't clicking.
Just in case, I twitched my fingers in a taunt, but he only twitched an eyebrow and stayed exactly where he was.
"Tough crowd."
In that case, I'd go to him.
I struck a fighting pose, threw up a Y-shaped victory sign, and charged at a first-year who was unmistakably a wizard.
The guy who'd been unable to use magic until now for fear of dragging his allies into it no longer hesitated once his comrades weren't near me, and he brought lightning crashing down.
How was I supposed to dodge lightning?
I couldn't.
I would just have to tank it.
I forced my numb muscles to move and rushed the wizard.
Though, unlike archers, wizards being slow was practically an iron rule, so it took him a little while after casting that single lightning spell.
The two behind him—one holding a scripture and one holding a dagger—seemed to be a healer and a rogue, and there was no way those two could form a vanguard.
So I reached the wizard without any interference whatsoever.
"<Frost>!"
Right before I reached him, he cast a spell to freeze my feet, but the weight-class difference was so overwhelming that it couldn't even hold them in place.
I grabbed the frail wizard by the waist, hoisted him onto my shoulder, and pointed to the sky.
[Huh? What technique is this?]
This was a technique I hadn't shown before, so I shouted the move's name myself for the curious announcer and audience.
"Running Three!"
Thud!
I carried the wizard, ran, and drove him straight into the floor.
Then I picked him up again, pointed at the sky once more, ran to the opposite side, and slammed him down the same way.
Finally, while running back to the opposite side one last time, this time I jumped high and hit a piledriver.
After being planted into the ground three times in a row, the wizard turned into specks of light and vanished from the arena.
[Running Three! Allen Price's new finishing move! I dare say this is good enough for Wrestle Kingdom! Shouldn't we be paying to watch this?]
Before I knew it, the audience's reaction toward me was nothing but cheers.
As I waved to the crowd, the second-year upperclassman finally uncrossed his arms and began to move.
It seemed he'd decided it was about time for him to step up, since all that remained were a rogue and a healer.
"You have remarkable talent as a clown, underclassman."
I thought he meant that as a provocation, but well.
When he was the one being toyed with by that clown, acting like that didn't make him look cool or get under my skin.
But what he said next was more than enough to strike a nerve.
"Professional wrestling, is it? No matter how much you package a martial art with zero practical combat value, a show is a show."
"This son of a bitch?"
[What's this guy talking about?]