288: Final Strike

“With two minutes still to go, will Number Four be able to endure miss Ruby’s assault?” Thelicia asked. “Abandoned by his niece whom he could not properly satisfy, with the crowds rooting against him, what chance does he have? Each strike of the dagger could be his last!”

With the ever-increasing speed of Ruby’s dagger that toyed with the floating figure as a kid would toy with a butterfly, the wounds on Number Four’s body grew uncountable. Though Ruby’s dagger strikes cut up the man’s shirt and left enough space for blood to flow, too much of it was absorbed by the brown cloth that turned moist and darkened.

Perhaps because of that, the next dagger strike cut from the old man’s neck and along his spine all the way to his butt, tearing the shirt in half. The next few cuts finished the job and the old man’s ripped shirt finally fell from his mutilated body, revealing a sickening, ghastly sight.

Blood bubbled and seeped through dozens upon dozens of shallow and deep cuts. Most of his abused skin was now varying shades of pink and red with countless open wounds that were given no chance to close by sudden, fresh crosscuts that opened them further. The hairs of the old man’s muscular aging chest turned red while Ruby kept increasing the severity of his injuries.

Beatrice turned away, already sick from such senseless, self-indulgent torture.

Number Four steeled his resolve and resisted giving any emotion to the crowds, but Ruby had long stopped pressing the issue. With the shower of blood increasing in thickness and amount, the no-longer-white-masked girl was so preoccupied with covering herself with blood that she no longer seemed to care or outright forgot to further verbally terrorize the man, leaving that work to the announcer.

“How boring!”

“Stop toying around!”

“Finish him already!”

“Don’t let the time run out!”

“Yeah, I don’t want to see his wrinkly ass in the next round!”

“He wouldn’t live to the next round anyway.”

“Indeed, it seems that Number Four has resigned to his fate,” Thelicia said with boredom. “Subjecting our dear guests to this pathetic display for any longer would be a crime.”

Whether Ruby paid any attention was questionable. However, her attacks now pierced through the old man’s flesh and muscles, unleashing streams of blood from the gaping wounds.

“YOU PROMISED!!” Number Forty, the old man’s niece, screamed as loud as she could. “You’re going to just die like that without fighting back!? You’re going to die a liar!?”

Ruby momentarily halted her dagger attacks and turned her head to the girl. But Number Forty did nothing else.

“Disappointing,” Ruby said and looked back up to the bleeding, cut-up Number Four before launching her dagger straight through his kidney. “Both of you!”

First dagger strike flew up, through the old man’s body, tearing up his insides, and creating a gaping hole in his body. The second strike followed a second later, flying down, piercing through a lung, breaking several ribs in the process, and causing massive internal bleeding.

“Ghurlkh!” Number Four coughed up dark blood, helpless to prevent the attacks.

Ruby paused before the final strike. With one hand, she turned the old man in the air so that his side faced her, his neck—directly over her. With the other hand, Ruby repositioned the dagger, aiming it for the old man’s throat.

Ah! Being one of the few that no longer watched the sickening show that unfolded in the arena, Beatrice saw a familiar object stir on the edge of the arena. The giant metal ball of death shook back and forth for a few seconds while its master regained control and then it launched off the ground at the same ‘blink and you miss it’ speed that it possessed in the very first strike against Ruby.

However, the metal ball flew way off course. Not even close to where Ruby stood. Rising higher and higher off the ground, at its current trajectory the ball posed no threat to anyone in the arena. Less than a second passed since the ball of death launched off the ground, Beatrice’s mind barely had the time to register and comprehend the only other obvious target Number Four’s weapon had, when it already was hurling to the high solitary platform, directly at the announcer’s masked head.

“Ah?—” the announcer’s surprised yelp echoed through the arena just before three walls of flames engulfed the narrow space between her and her metal doom. The ball flew into the flames and was instantly disintegrated. Only metal dust passed through the burning flames on the other side, flying at high-speed right at the announcer.

By the time the little hairball instinctively covered her head from the particles that flew at her, it already flew past her, some of it getting through the holes in her mask.

“KYAAARGH!!” the announcer cried out in a high-pitched voice of pain. She reached to her mask to get rid of the dust, fumbled, tripped on her own hair, and fell over. She rolled and screamed and cried on the floor of her platform.

“AAAAARGHHH! Fucking piece of decaying fucking shit! FUCK! AAH! SHIT! Useless eunuch fucks! Fucking spoiled bloody psycho shitter cunt! Fuck!” the announcer’s cursing, struggling, and crying were aired live through the mines thanks to her enhanced voice.

The spectators were left momentarily speechless. Shocked, concerned, confused.

The first to react, or rather, the one who was not disturbed by this in the slightest, Ruby slowly lowered Number Four from his floating position until he however a food off the ground. The man was barely breathing, barely holding his eyes half-open, but he was alive.

“Well played,” Ruby said. “Go say goodbye to your girl while you can.”

Ruby then moved her arm, rapidly flying the man’s bleeding body to Number Forty, leaving a trail of blood behind him. With another motion, Ruby stopped the old man right in front of his niece’s face.

“U-Uncle…” the pale girl stuttered as she wept at the sight before her. The man she knew. His kind features were scarred, bruised, bloodied, and swollen. Barely recognizable.

“Li... Lilith-GHRULKH—” a bloodied metal blade burst through the old man’s gaping mouth, sending a spray of spit and blood all over the girl’s wide-eyed face.

Ruby’s dagger pierced the old man’s neck from behind, severing the spinal cord. His body went limp, hovering lifelessly in the air right in front of his horrified little niece. The fiery numbers above the arena counted the remaining seconds down to zero.