Dragon In Disguise

"A little bit serious!?" Only a little bit? He was still treating Iris like a child and she hated it.

"You don't sound happy," the man noticed.

"I wonder why..." Iris mumbled. She clenched her fist and charged at the man. If anything, she was going to make him go full serious on her. She will make him regret choosing to hold back against her.

Iris started with a punch aimed at the man's head. He moved his arms up to block the attack but that was a feint. She quickly retracted her hand and changed into a kick, slamming her leg into the man's abdomen. The man grunted and slid across the sand, but didn't fall over.

"Not bad!" he complimented her on her successful attack. "But like I said, I'm going to get a bit serious now." The man for the first time since the start of the fight returned an attack. He kicked Iris back, aiming high at her head. She ducked and counterattacked by punching him in the stomach, but he was expecting her to do that and shifted his body back, barely getting out of the range of the attack. He then grabbed Iris' arm before she could retract it and yanked on it, pulling her stumbling into him.

"Woah!"

The man then tried to grab her other arm but Iris noticed what he was trying to do and quickly elbowed the man in the stomach. "Oof!" This caused him to let go of her arm and Iris pushed him away with a tackle. Iris moved in again for another punch but her opponent reacted in time and countered it by pushing her arm down, diverting the attack away from his body.

"Ha!" Iris attacked the man again but he brushed aside the attack the same exact way. "Hm?" Iris attacked a couple more times and he skillfully deflected them all. "What!?" Iris didn't believe what she was seeing. All of the sudden, her opponent learned martial arts or something. She couldn't land a single hit on him. He wasn't dodging anymore. He didn't need to. He had the skills to fight in close combat.

The rest of the match continued like this. Iris tried her hardest to land a hit on the man, but couldn't after he got 'a little bit serious.' The man didn't attack her back and Iris eventually wore out and couldn't go on anymore.

"H-how..." Iris was out of breath. Her arms and legs were tired. Her heart was pounding and her clothes were drenched in sweat. But somehow, her opponent was completely fine and was just watching her with a smile. Was this guy even human? Considering how long they fought for, he should at least be a little tired, but this wasn't the case.

Wait... Could this guy be... Iris stared at the man. "Are y-you..."

"Am I what?" the man asked Iris to finish her question. His voice sounded a bit concerned rather than curious and Iris found that strange. Maybe he was afraid of what she was going to ask?

"Are you... Human?" Iris asked him quietly so that only he would hear. The referee and the audience around them had no idea what they were talking about and were booing them, encouraging them to continue fighting. They didn't care about what they had to say, they wanted to see blood and nothing else. If it was something other than a good fight, they didn't care.

But the two of them ignored the referees and the crowd. Iris wanted to know... Was he human or not? He gave off a similar aura as Kies which led her to believe that he was the same thing that Kies was.

"Huh?" The man looked at Iris, very confused at the question she asked. "Um... That's not what I expected you to ask... But to answer you, yes, I am in fact human."

"Are you really?"

"Yes. Anyway, do you surrender?" He waved his hand around them. Everyone was shouting at them to fight and the referees were getting mad. The two of them were wasting time which the referees didn't like as other people could be fighting right now. It was obvious who the winner was by now. Even though Iris could still choose to continue, she wouldn't be able to beat him. She was already exhausted and didn't have the energy left to continue fighting with him.

Iris looked around at the crowd who were all booing her. She looked back at the man, and in a determined voice, said to him, "No." She won't give up here. She will fight to the end if she had to. Though this might be a terrible idea, she had no choice but to do it. Iris held out her hands at the man.

"What are you doing?" the man asked Iris, not understanding why she was holding her hands out like that. "Wait..." His eyes widened as he realized what she was doing. "Don't tell me-"

"Go!" Iris shouted at the top of her lungs. A torrent of fire gushed out of her hands, almost burning the man alive. Luckily, he moved out of the way just in time, barely dodging the scorching hot flames that burst out of her hands.

The audience and referees all let out a collective gasp at the sight of the fire. There was no hiding it anymore. In front of tens of thousands of people, Iris just revealed to them all that she was a mage. Iris knew that Sirks was somewhere in the crowd, probably tearing his hair out right now, but this was the only way she could win. She hated to admit it, but her opponent was far too strong for her. She couldn't win with just her skills alone.

"You're not getting away!" Iris waved her hand and three fireballs appeared in the air in front of her. She then shot them all at her opponent who was still in shock from learning that she is a mage. Unable to dodge the three attacks, the man reached for his sword and pulled it out, slicing all three of the fireballs in a single stroke, destroying them before they could hit him.

"D*mn... I would have never thought that you were a mage..." the man said, slowly straightening his back. "That makes things a lot more difficult, doesn't it?" The man was initially surprised by the fact that she was a mage but now he was back to normal. He looked at Iris, standing confidently with his sword by his side. Despite this sudden turn of events, he was still positive that he could win.

Iris, of course, didn't like this and she conjured another wave of fireballs and shot them at the man. "Chase him down!" Instead of going straight at the man like the last batch of fireballs, these ones flew in all directions, spreading out apart from each other before curving and changing directions and converging on her target.

"Oh... Homing fireballs... Interesting..." The man watched them as they got closer. Just as the first fireball was about to hit him, he jumped to the side, causing it to miss and hit the sand, creating a small explosion as the flames extinguished. He looked up and saw the rest coming at him from various angles. He couldn't dodge them all. "Ah..." He muttered a curse and readied his sword to cut down as many of them as he could.

The fireballs all arrived at the same time, giving him no time to cut them all down. The most he could do is destroy three of them, twist his body to dodge two more, and raise his free arm to block the last one, minimizing the damage as much as possible. The fireball exploded on his cloak, setting it on fire. He quickly extinguished it by slapping it against the air to extinguish the fire.

After getting rid of the fire, he let out a sigh of relief. "It's not over yet!" he heard Iris say. He turned back at Iris and saw that while he was dealing with her previous attack, she had already prepared the next one.

"..."

Fire rushed forward from Iris' hands like an extension of her arms. They reached out and curled around her opponent like it was going to grab him. The hooded man tried to cut the flames in half but it didn't work. His blade passed through the fire harmlessly and it wrapped around him. He tried to get out by going under it but the flames followed him and also moved lower to catch him.

"How persistent..." The man stopped moving, allowing the flames to close in on him. For a second, Iris thought that he was giving. The crowd was also confused as he was just standing there and letting the flames surround him. The fire formed a pillar around him, putting everything that was unfortunate enough to get caught in the center of it under intense heat.

Iris looked at the pillar of fire concernedly. She wasn't sure if she should stop her magic or not. She didn't want to kill her opponent but since he didn't surrender, she felt like he had something up his sleeve. Everyone stared at the pillar of fire, even the referees were unsure if they should do something.

A minute passed and the referees moved in, ready to retrieve a corpse or the ashes of what was left of Iris' opponent. Iris didn't understand why the man didn't surrender but she respected his decision to fight to the end even if it was very foolish of him. But just as she was about to cancel her magic, a huge explosion happened in the center of the fire, wiping out all the fire.

The explosion blew away all the referees and almost knocked Iris off her feet. She held her arm up to her face to block the sand from getting into her eyes. When the wind died out, she lowered her arm and looked again, she saw something that left her speechless. Standing inside of a charred ring with his arms crossed, was her opponent. Somehow, he was perfectly fine despite having been inside of a pillar of fire for an entire minute.

"What..."

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