CHAPTER 34

YANG XIAO LONG POV

She snarled, her face a rictus of fury as she punched Jaune in the face. Or she tried at least.

The bastard dodged her attack and sent a punch of his own.

She would've laughed at how bad that punch was if her whole body was not feeling like it weighed a ton from the exhaustion.

And then there was the fact that each of his punches, weak as they might seem on the surface, were probably strong enough to break a tree in half.

She had been punched by him once and she knew better now than to do anything but dodge his attack.

It had been a while since she gave him the ultimatum to either attack her or to let the fight end in a draw from time out.

That had been the start of a game of cat and mouse as Jaune tried his best to hit her and she tried her best to dodge his attacks and take any chance she could get to counterattack.

It wasn't long into the game before Jaune had decided to bring his handgun to the battle.

That had made things slightly harder for her and she had lost a good bit of aura to it before she was able to catch him off guard during one of his attacks and force him to drop his weapon before she had kicked it out of the arena.

That had been a costly mistake on his part as he now had to rely on his shield to attack and defend. A strategy that didn't work out well for him now that he was on the offense.

It didn't take him long to understand that this won't work out for him and he promptly dropped the shield in order to fight him in hand to hand.

She had thought that to be a joke until one of his lucky punches had taken out 6% of her aura and almost sent her over the red.

As it was, she was now sitting at a comfortable 34% and knew that a single punch would more than likely be the end of this match.

And for the past few minutes, she had been trying her best to get his aura down.

And it had worked as his aura was now sitting at 52%.

Except that fighting for so long had rendered her so tired that she could no longer throw a proper punch at him.

What was worse was that Jaune didn't even seem to understand the meaning of exhaustion and had been trying to punch her in the face for the last minute or so.

Sure she managed to sneak in a punch every now and then but his natural regeneration made her weak efforts useless as his aura simply climbed back up every time she hit him.

The bastard just won't stay down!

She dodged another punched from him and then her eyes widened as that punch was immediately followed by a tackle attempt.

She tried to move to the side but the exhaustion and the sudden change in his tactics caught her off guard and she was promptly tackled by him and then pinned to the ground.

"Surrender." He said and her breasts heaved with exertion as she glared at him.

Like hell, she was going to surrender to him after such a long fight.

Yang Xiao Long never surrendered to anyone. Ever. Even if the opponent was a hot Blondie with the potential to become the Greatest Huntsman in living history.

She paused…

Why had she thought of him that way?

She shook her head and glared at him.

"No."

He raised his hands, ready to punch her and she closed her eyes and sighed, waiting for a punch that never came.

She opened her eyes to see him looking conflicted about hitting him.

"What?" she asked, a false smirk on her face "Can't hit a girl."

"Don't feel like beating a fallen opponent more like it." He said.

She immediately buckled her hips, trying to get him off of her so that she could beat the crap out of him for considering her beaten like that.

He moved… just not in a way that she might have expected.

He fell on top of her, his pelvis resting on top of her breasts, something large under his pants buried in her cleavage.

Her mind blanked for a moment before she realized what had happened and her face turned bright red.

"You bastard!" she shouted and with another exertion, threw him off of her.

She got up to see him standing up as well, looking a bit embarrassed at what had just happened.

"Ah… Sorry about that?"

"Sorry, my ass." She said and moved forward to punch him in his face.

Except… spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.

Her exhaustion from the long spar caught up to her and she tripped on her legs.

The last thing she saw was his fist moving to meet her face.

And then the world went blank and for a moment, she was flying.

The lights overhead went past her quickly before she finally landed on the ground and tumbled for a bit before finally coming to a stop, lying face-first on the ground.

She heard the buzzer and knew that this fight had ended.

She let out a sigh, almost relieved that this slugfest of a fight finally ended and a bit pissed that she was the one who lost.

What was worse than he had beaten her in a brawl and that stung her pride.

She rolled around so that she was facing the ceiling of the room and sighed once again.

This was her loss. Through and through.

Then she heard footsteps coming toward her and turned her head to saw Jaune walk toward her before he held out a hand for her.

With a massive effort, she managed to raise her hand toward him and was then effortlessly pulled up by him. As if she weighed nothing.

For a moment, the thought of him carrying her in bridal style entered her mind. How it would feel to be carried in the arms of someone so strong.

But then she shook her head and listened as Professor Glynda announced Jaune's victory and then told her to go to the Infirmary and check up on any internal injuries she might have suffered during the fight.

She nodded and started to move toward the Door but stumbled and almost fell due to exhaustion. Jaune caught her at the last moment and held her up.

She leaned on him for a moment and took in his musky scent.

Since when did he smell so good… So dominating.

"You want me to carry you to the Infirmary?" he asked and her mind went blank for entirely different reasons this time as her mind filled her with images of being held by him.

But… no.

"I'll walk. Just… give me a moment."

He nodded and stood still as she caught her breath and allowed her aura to regenerate some of the exhaustion she was feeling.

Then she sneaked a glance at him, taking in the contours of his face, his deep blue eyes, his thin kissable lips.

She froze as she realized where her thoughts were leading her toward and stepped away from him.

"I feel good enough now. Jaune."

He gave her a skeptical look but didn't move forward to help her, which she was grateful for.

As she moved out of the door, he followed her.

She gave him a side glance and he shrugged "I bit my inner cheek during the fight." he said.

She scoffed. Liar.

She had heard about how he had suffered a stab wound from Pyrrha during the initiation and how he had healed almost instantly from that wound after he got his Aura.

A cheek wound. Couldn't he have bothered to come up with a better excuse at least?

She shook her head and slowly walked toward the infirmary while Jaune followed beside her. And while she would never admit it, she was grateful for the silent support.

Especially since her own partner couldn't be bothered to come and help her.

She sighed again.

It seemed like she won't be calling Jaune Vomit Boy again.

And not only because he had handed her ass to her on a silver platter but also because she no longer wanted to call him that.

He deserved respect. Not only for who he was but also for who he was going to become.

Someone great.