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Their first exchange had ended, and although Shinji may have been sporting a facial burn that would have made the Phantom of the Opera green with envy, his opponent wasn't terribly better off. His right hand was aflame, a crackling conflagration burning up his glove and wafting black, toxic smoke. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth and ran down his front in a thin sheet, leaving an oily, crimson sheen over the leather.

A good four or five meters separated the two, now. Deitric waved his hand about in the air carelessly, shaking off the burning glove, which had been reduced to a rather pathetic scrap of unrecognizable, burning cloth that blew away on the passing breeze. The tribesman's ears were ringing hard, annoyingly reminiscent of having his ears boxed as a child from time to time for being too mischievous.

His vision came back blearily. The blob in front of him was either his opponent, or a giant pelican coming to roost - no, it was his opponent. The warrior heaved out a hacking grunt as his pained lungs finally settled down, although a throb of pain still emanated from his chest when he breathed in. It was more unnatural than anything; feeling that pain in his chest beneath the muscle and bone where he shouldn't have felt it.

Still wheezing slightly, Deitric peered at his opponent while his vision began to sharpen back into focus, the ringing in his ears slowly dying away. His breathing was heavier now, but he resolutely refused to show any sign of pain when he inhaled although his lung protested fiercely with each breath.

He noticed Shinji had procured smokes from somewhere, and realized he didn't have his own pack. They were sitting conveniently in his hotel room, miles away and very thoroughly out of reach. Idly, he wiped away the trickle of blood from his face with his left hand. His eyes still glowed, but the luminescence had dimmed somewhat after their exchange.

s**t man, this is hard.

Deitric's lips turned upwards into a black-tooth grin, blood staining the once clean, pearly whites. "Wouldn't be any fun if it was easy," he said laconically. He appreciated the monk's attitude, or at the very least, he didn't dislike the man. The fact that the two men had just been at one another's throats and had left each other bleeding, burnt, and battered didn't do much to keep the black-haired brave from being cordial.

I don't think I'm cut out for this, friend-o...

The normally stoic Khasmin man chuckled softly, spitting out a blackened gob of bloody phlegm off to the side. Shinji had never hit him in the face; the blood was a side-effect, much like the seared right hand he was sporting, of just the sort of strain he put himself through. In more than one fight, he had managed to harm himself worse than the opponent. "You're doing better than most," he conceded wryly, shaking his head as he spat out another wad of blood. He didn't elaborate on if he meant the tournament overall, or specifically his opponents.

Abruptly, the fighter motioned to the pack of cancer sticks his opponent had dropped to the ground, which he could see clearly now. "Kick those over here, will you?" he asked. He didn't seem terribly concerned with the fact that he was bleeding and burnt, or that a cigarette might have been worse for his lungs, rather than better. Or with the fight, for that matter.

Sometimes, there just had to be a smoke.

An article would be released in one of the monthly fighting-oriented magazines the upcoming week detailing an interview with Deitric's manager et advisor, Johnnie Farragut.

'Deitric, smoke? Of course not. You know how these fighters are, it was a sign of camaraderie. "You smoke, I smoke, just because we're beating the tar out of each other doesn't mean we hate each other." That sort of thing, you know? Good sportsmanship. Deitric neither approves of or looks down on smoking - what other people do with their bodies is their business, but he doesn't smoke.'

Whether or not that soothed the mother's qualms about the tribesman's actions, she couldn't keep her kids from wanting the Limited Edition Deitric Jocasta figure with patented Lightning Throwing Action(tm) for their birthdays.

Deitric crouched down, swiping the pack from the ground in his right hand before standing up. The entire hand from fingertip to wrist felt like it had fallen asleep, and just regaining movement in it sent a hundred tiny, tingling pinpricks through his flesh.

Flicking open the battered little pack, Deitric took out a cigarette while he stood up, closing the pack and tossing it across the distance in a high arc to his opponent with a nod of thanks. Lightning up with a thin, silvery lighter, the tribesman took a long drag, exhaling a haze of gray smoke from his nostrils. His expression was stony and unreadable now, without any hint of a grin or smile tugging at his lips.

The brave tipped off a bit of crumbling ash before taking another pull, the glowing cherry tip eating away at the cigarette as it drew closer to the butt. The air around the tribesman thrummed and buzzed audibly, as if someone had cut a powerline and left the live-wire thrashing about. He was silent now, keeping any thoughts to himself while he smoked.

Deitric let out another jettison of smoke from his nose. He had burned away relatively little energy to jump-start his CNS; affecting his own body in such ways never took a lot of energy, although it could have potentially bad side effects from forcing his musculature to work so hard. The lightning blast had taken a heavier toll, both in energy expenditure and in the subsequent backlash.

In the calm before the storm, he was gathering more energy for their next clash, just as Shinji sought to do the same. Deitric's method differed, however. He had never revealed the source of his abilities to any person, living or otherwise. The only thing that seemed readily apparent was that his power was limited by what his body could take. The flesh and blood had its limits, and when he pushed those limits, they pushed back. The seared flesh of his right hand was proof enough of that. The risk didn't bother him, though. If it did, he would have never decided to fight in the first place.

The more time he had, the larger pool of energy he could develop to expend before it began to hurt him, but no amount of time could keep his power usage from fatiguing him. Finishing his smoke with barely a fourth left of the cigarette, the Khasmin man let out a final, hazy exhale before dropping the spent cancer stick to the ground, grinding it beneath the heel of his boot lazily. His eyes had begun to glow brightly again, so that when he blinked, the illuminating emanation was still visible beneath his eyelids.

"Ready?" he asked, flexing and un-flexing the fingers of his right hand while he spoke. He peered across the way at his opponent calmly; neither man had adopted what might have been considered a traditional fighting stance. Each man seemed to be waiting on the other to acknowledge when the time was right to continue fighting.

For Deitric, now was better than never.

"Good."

Deitric let out a slow breath. There was nothing quite so esoteric what he did, in comparison to Shinji. His breathing had relaxed and calmed, even the air around him seemed to grow quiet as he honed his mind and the gathering storm barely contained beneath his flesh to a razor's edge, focusing on the man in front of him with singular intensity.

When Shinji burst across the distance, his opponent had still failed to adopt a proper fighting stance. The world had turned on its head and their positions were reversed; now it was Deitric who seemed lackadaisical and calm, putting away the silvery lighter into his pocket. His gaze didn't falter though, nor did the sense of alert readiness that surrounded him.

Unlike his previous round's opponent, Deitric could not view his opponent's actions in slow motion, he did not have the luxury of giving every option its due consideration. As a fighter, his first response was to act. Shinji's kick was fast, much faster than Deitric could probably kick, but sheer alacrity wasn't the only part of the equation when attacking and countering - there was also economy of motion.

Deitric's right hand had slipped away his lighter, and when his opponent's foot lashed out, something else came free.

Held in a reverse grip, the brave had pulled a knife free, hidden in a leather sheath that was disguised in the mess of belts he wore around his waistline, worn horizontally along his waist rather than vertically like a sword might have. The silvery blade severed cleanly through one of the belts like a surgeon's scalpel on its way to freedom, pointed outward at the monk and his kick with a flick of the Khasmin man's wrist.

Normally, one might have guarded a body kick with the forearm, putting it in place to absorb the blow, or to try and knock away the attack. Instead, Deitric had pulled out the seven inch, wickedly sharp knife that he had always refused to give up and pointed it out, aiming to stab it into the bottom of Shinji's oncoming foot. It was the only weapon he had kept on him, simply because he refused to go without it; the weapon had served him since his youth and remained an ever-present reminder of his homeland. It also happened to be exceedingly useful - keeping its edge honed, the knife was sharp enough to clean, dress, and skin animals with thicker hides, like wargs, bears, or buffalo. Its tip and edge could part human flesh and tendon like paper. The monk was one tough fighter, there was no doubt about that; but flesh had to give way before steel.

If Shinji were a particularly strong kicker - or, at least as strong at kicking as he was fast - the suddenly serious monk might have just, with a little help from his dusky skinned opponent, impaled his own foot on a good seven inches of glinting steel. The brave would probably get his fist and knifehandle jammed into his stomach for his troubles, but it wasn't nearly as bad as having a foot maimed.

The sleight of hand may have been a little bit sly on his part, but Deitric didn't think it was much worse than his opponent somehow developing an invisible scalpel to try and jam into his chest - or, that was how he had viewed Shinji's knifehand attack, at least. His understanding of chakra was limited, so the monk may have well as pulled a knife on him, so in his eyes, they were now even.

CRACK!

The path of Shinji's altered kick sent the ball of his foot careening right into Deitric's tucked chin, snapping the tribesman's head back and temporarily creating an explosion of stars around the edge of his vision. Luckily, he kept his jaw locked and his mouth closed, keeping him from being knocked out cold or from biting down onto his tongue. The blow jarred his senses and sent an explosion of pain radiating outward through bone and flesh, but it didn't stop him.

When the kick's path changed, the brave's wrist continued to turn, so that the knife went from pointing out to pointing up. And up it went - the knife point aiming to plunge right into the flesh of his opponent's leg from underneath when the ball of the monk's foot cracked against his chin. He didn't need to see; he wasn't some surgically precise knife striker, and although Shinji had changed his target, it didn't put his leg in a different position - it was still right in front of him.

Unlike many fighters, Deitric, when he chose to attack the Achilles tendon, did not try to strike for its thinnest point, where it connected to the heel. The tendon itself actually went up several inches and inserted into the calf muscles, where it connected them to the heel and allowed to a person's leg to support their weight. The key place to strike was not the back of the heel, but a few inches up, where the tendon widened before meeting with the bulk of the calf's mass, the soleus.

These terms weren't things Deitric knew, but he understood how it worked, and learned where to strike from experience. A little less than halfway up the calf, just before the largest part of the calf muscle - that was the best place to strike, for it severed muscle and tendon alike, without the potential fatality that came with hitting the larger portions of the leg.

Even though the blow Shinji delivered looked spectacular, his victory would prove to be painfully short lived - the foot struck home with a dull, bony crack of violent, human contact, but a fraction of second afterward nearly three inches of steel would find itself (presumably) sheathed in the monk's lower calf, carving through fascia, tendon, and simple flesh alike. Shinji was fast, but his black-haired opponent had one equalizer on his side - economy of motion. It wouldn't take any time at all for him to make his move, and efficiency could prove just as swift as pure speed when things mattered most.

When Deitric stumbled back from the blow, seemingly to recover himself, the knife's scalpel-sharp blade most likely would cut itself out of the leg, following the hand that held it as the tribesman quickly backpedaled, leaving a bloody, crippling mess of severed tendon and muscle behind it if the strike had been successful.

Deitric still had his eyes on Shinji as he moved backwards, keeping the knife in front of him, his vision momentarily shaken (not stirred), but not useless. He had no need to try and carve the leg up further; his knife work was minimalist in nature and meant to be efficient and quick. If he had struck true as intended, he would be leaving the monk with only one leg to stand on; the monk had made his gamble, and it looked as though he would be getting diminishing returns, to say the least.

The Khasmin man didn't immediately press his advantage, even though he had perhaps literally left Shinji with only one leg to stand on. The bloody edged knife flickering dangerously in front of him like an ephemeral glint of light, Deitric intended to put a few feet between he and his opponent.

His stony expression didn't change as he wordlessly maneuvered backwards from the kick, bloody knife in tow, now held in a more traditional grip. No doubt, some of the fans might have been perplexed by the turn of events.

Why wasn't Deitric pushing forward? Some may have assumed he wanted to savor the moment, or draw it out, but that was uncharacteristic of him. Or, perhaps, he was seeing if his opponent wished to continue the fight, such as it was. Others would have presumed that he was preparing for another attack, and that backing away was only temporary in nature.

The audible pops and snaps of electrical discharge in the air agreed with the latter-most assumption.

Deitric didn't speak for a moment when Shinji collapsed, for fear that unlocking his jaw would reveal it to be broken, or that a couple of teeth would come out after being on the receiving end of that front kick. The hazy double-image of his opponent slowly coalesced back into one while the monk spoke.

The brave's expression didn't betray whatever emotion he might have felt as he wiped his knife's blade clean on his jeans, sliding it back into its sheath. Pain knit itself through his flesh anew without the rush of adrenaline and endorphins to help dull the sensation. Blood dripped from his face where the flesh of his chin had been cut open from the kick.

When Shinji conceded, Deitric didn't immediately respond, walking over to where the pack of smokes lay. Fishing his own lighter from his pocket, he sat them both down and slid them across the wooden platform to the monk.

"It was a good fight," he offered quietly, only a hint of a grimace touching at his features when he spoke, his jaw aching with every word he spoke. The two tomahawks he had disarmed himself of previously flew to his hands so that he could place them back into their holsters. He only walked a few meters away from the downed monk before turning on his heel and dropping down into a cross-legged position, hunched over to rest his elbows on his knees.

"We will wait for the medics, then," the Khasmin tribesman decided. By right, he could leave the fighting platform any time he chose now that he had won, but doing so served no purpose if he was headed to the medical wing anyways, and Deitric considered it unsportsmanlike to leave his opponent to bleed on the platform alone.

With the fight over, they would sit, and they would wait.