Those who have seen battle know this feeling. The feeling of having an anticipated moment finally arrive. Nothing can prepare one for such a feeling. No matter how much one prepares, no matter what one plans, no matter what one imagines, when the time comes, one would still be overtaken by that feeling.

  Orie and Waramaki stared at each other from across the arena and both of them uttered nothing. The stadium was loud and the crowd was roaring but between the two men in the arena, it was very quiet. With focused eyes, they watched each other, monitoring each breath, noticing each drop of sweat that fell from the face of the other.

  "I was wrong to doubt your abilities" waramaki said, breaking the tension

  "I accept that you are strong and have every right to be a teacher of this school"

  "And as an apology..."

  "... I'll be sure to take you on with everything I have"

  "I would also like to apologise" Orie replied with a bow

  "I let the hate of many distract me from the true intentions of the few"

  "I let my anger towards fools prevent me from seeing the wise"

  "I would not have spoken rudely if I knew the kind of man you were".

  "So as an apology..."

  "... I will hold nothing back and face you with full sincerity and all my strength"

  For a moment, the two men just looked at each other and smiled. The buzzer sounded but not one of them made a move. The roaring crowd grew quiet as people began to wonder what was going on. Just then, a man ran frantically towards the arena with heavy breath. It was Kojiro.

  "Sorry I'm late" he said as he waved both hands and the stadium began to expand. Those who understood what it meant roared in excitement and others joined them as the entire arena was suddenly engulfed in flames.

  The flames were so fast that no one could tell who was the source. Waramaki was a safe guess but anyone who's thought went in that direction was only half right. The flames came from both sides of the arena, almost evenly matched but Waramaki's flames were stronger.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  The flames died out almost as quickly as they were ignited and all that was left was smoke. Vague movement could be seen within the smoke, small distortions in the smoke revealed the directional movement of both contestants though no one could tell who was which. The movements got faster, and faster, and faster.

  Even after the smoke cleared, not many could tell what was going on. Projectiles of different variations were flying around the arena and hitting each other but it was hard to tell which belonged to whom.

  The two contestants were going all out from the start and it was hard to tell who had the upper hand. Waramaki with his overwhelming power and control was firing at his opponent with precision, each shot was carefully calculated each trap was elaborately set,

  Before Orie would finish dodging the fireball in front of him, the ground below him had become his enemy, before he could regain his stance, the wind around him became hostile. The water that came to him was not to quench his thirst and the lightning that struck around him was not for show. The elements around him were there to cause him harm but they had to hit him first.

  Normally, the people watching would assume that Orie was having a hard time dancing around the arena but after watching his previous matches, even those who didn't know what was going on could guess that there was a pattern to what he was doing.

  Indeed, there was a pattern. Their attacks weren't just randomly clashing, they were cancelling each other out. To be more precise, it was Orie doing most of the cancelling.

  Waramaki had a much more overwhelming power than Orie. His elements filled every corner of the arena, ready to strike whenever he willed it. Orie on the other hand, kept a few of his elements around him, cancelling out whatever came at him as he tried to close the distance between him and his opponent.

  Waramaki watched Orie with a smile on his face, seeing him run around trying to get close brought back memories of his youthful days. It was almost exactly how he fought when he was younger, when he could afford to run around and have fun, when he wasn't in a hurry to end the fight, when he truly enjoyed fighting. Waramaki always believed that if he faced his younger self in battle, the fight wouldn't last long, but he was facing someone similar and was yet to land a single hit. He had thought that he improved, that the overwhelming power that came with his awakening had made him far greater than his former self, that his precision and control had put him above the greatness of his past. But there he was, facing someone with less power and still having a hard time.

  Waramaki finally understood what was wrong, he finally understood how the current situation came to be. In his younger days before his awakening, he formulated new strategies in the heat of battle in an effort to win against those who were more powerful than him but as he became more powerful and confident, strategy became obsolete. As far he could hit accurately and hard enough as quickly as needed, his opponents went down, that was how the world worked, that was how this match was supposed to go. By now, he was supposed to have forced his opponent to resort to their strongest move but the man he was facing showed no sign of being anywhere near such a situation.

  "Ha ha" he laughed

  "Ha ha ha" the laugh continued as he raised his hand and caused all the elements he had sent all over the arena to start circling round at an incredible speed. Hundreds of flames, water, rocks and condensed wind spun into giant tornado and Waramaki stood in its center.

  From within the eye of the storm, waramaki offered another apology.

  "I'm sorry Mr. Addison" he said

  "I promised not to hold back anything but I still went ahead and did"

  "But I also want to thank you" he added

  "Because I don't think I've had as much fun as I am about to have right now.