The Twins

"It's absurd how hard it is to take you down." Talo said.

Though he spoke right in front of him, Ryuma could barely hear him correctly. Between the damage that occurred and all of that spinning, there now appeared to be three Talo's in front of him, and it was hard to keep focus.

He stayed planted in one spot, less he gives out his state of mind right now. It's going to at least take a couple seconds for him to align everything.

"Yeah well, you guys are relentless yourselves." Ryuma held onto his head as his vision now came into focus. It was a slight headache he had, but it was enough to let everyone know how weakened he was.

"TALO QUICK! DON'T LET HIM RECOVER!" Shio yelled. He tried to get up but lost too much energy to be effective.

Talo either got the message or concluded himself. He dashed forward closing the gap. He began jabbing with a flurry of blows.

By then, Ryuma was recovered enough to at least be able to dodge outside of his strike zones. He moved those things with incredible speed and precision for such a heavy weapon like that. The balls at the end of them were at least twice the size of his head. If he were to take a direct hit it could easily shatter his ribcage.

It was a terrifying weapon indeed.

Not only the weapon itself, but the style he used and the stance he took. Both fists were guarding his face. His footwork shuffled back and forth. He leaped forward fist first. His range was deceptively longer than Ryuma expected. He managed to deflect some of the blows thrown at him just enough to keep him from hitting his face using his katana's, but as fast as they came at him, they were already pulled back.

Such a momentum-based weapon like that should slow him down, but the fact that he's able to make such rapid-fire executions was indeed impressive.

Talo was a lot less of a threat to deal with when he had most of his energy on him. Now it seemed like he'd gotten faster.

Or maybe it was Ryuma that had gotten slower.

One of Talo's tonfa punches was a little harder than necessary, causing his return to trail behind. That was an opening that Ryuma took advantage of. He used his katana to knock his arm off balance and plunged his sword into Talo's chest.

At the last moment, Nuna's spinner met Ryuma's katana, knocking it off from a direct hit as well.

Then a javelin came flying at him this time from ground level. Ryuma simply spun around the projectile and made a mad dash to where Shio was.

It was better to eliminate the weak one now.

Talo, unable to keep up with Ryuma's speed because of the weight of his weapons, could only watch him close the gap on his target.

Nuna whipped her spinner back over towards her, and in one fell swoop, launched it out again in Shio's direction.

Just like Talo's deceptive range, that thing was faster than previously thought. The retraction on that thing and how it made it back to its owner was insane. Ryuma thought he had more time than that. To shoot it out again, and now it was already heading him off.

As it spun towards Shio, Nuna whipped her rod like a fishing pole, forcing the wire to curve the spinner towards his direction. It spun itself as it was heading towards him.

Ryuma jumped and spun in the air himself. He narrowly managed to sidle past it, slipping his blade into the middle, and flipping upright to kick Shio in the chin.

With his body launched up, he had no defense for Ryuma to jump up and round house kick him further away. The force of the kick was powerful enough to send him flying up and out of the arena.

Ryuma's feet slid on the ground as he landed, and he took the momentum of the slide spin around and hurl the spinner, right back at its master.

She expertly whipped her rod around, defusing it as a defective weapon that was used against her. Now that was three down, all that was left were the twins.

Ryuma had to admit, if they didn't create the opportunity, they could have beaten him the long and surefire way. Their plan backfired, but it wasn't something he was going to tell them. He couldn't have the next team fighting him that way.

Even so, all that was still risky, and at any point in time during, he could easily have lost this one. Now that there were only two of them left, he could see it. The path forward.

After Nuna got her spinner back towards her rod, she skipped over towards Talo who's stamina was also questionable.

"It's just us two now." Nuna said

Ryuma swung his sword for extra measure before taking another duel stance towards them.

"Man, that sucks. I was hoping we was going to fare better than this. He just may end up going to the final round if it's like this." Talo said. His eyes glared with fire.

"Don't count it over yet. We've weakened him a considerable bit. This should be more than enough for Toga's and the group to handle him. Any more than this and it's a bonus."

Talo smiled. "You always find the bright way of looking at things."

She flipped her golden, long hair back. "Talo, you can be really sweet sometimes." Her smile sent all the men in the area all giddy. Any of their girlfriends in the vicinity would either grab their ears in jealousy or abuse them.

Ryuma's face grimaced. Maybe it would have been smarter to take at least one of these two out before it got to this point.

Nuna and Talo stopped smiling at each other and turned back towards Ryuma. They finally got serious again.

The siblings charged at him, both coming in close this time. They each split up to pincer him on either side.

Now that Nuna was using her weapon in close quarters, it resembled more of a pinwheel. Even close, her reach was longer than his and the double-sided weapon kept spinning even when it was attached to the rod.

Her weapon was annoying enough to evade by itself, but he had to also worry about Talo's tonfa's on the other side of him.

Spinning, blocking, and evading all simultaneously was starting to take a mental toll on him. He's been going at this for five minutes non-stop.

There were times where both was wide open to counterattack after a double successful parry, but those times were few and far in between, and often came unexpectedly. Their synchronization was his biggest issue.

{There's no doubt about it that these two are twins.}

Seeing them interact you wouldn't think so, but their timing was monstrous.

Then that magical moment came. They were about to attack him at the same time from opposite directions at a perfect angle for him to parry both weapons.

He parried the two, throwing both off balance. He immediately spun his body around to where the point of his blades was directly at their stomachs.

Wind Artes: Point Blank Thrust

Nuna raised her rod and flipped her spinner off, while Talo spun at the last second. Although Nuna took a direct hit, her spinner latched around Ryuma's katana's, spinning him around and making him trip in the air.

Talo, having evaded a direct blow, was able to recover fast enough to close the distance between him and a confused Ryuma. He righted himself and dashed at Ryuma.

Ryuma saw the kid coming at him with full force. Talo took his right hand tonfa and punched Ryuma directly in the face. Before he was allowed to hit the ground, Talo switched hands and punched with his left tonfa hitting Ryuma's ribcage

He felt a crack and was blasted towards one end of the arena. Digging his swords into the ground slowed him from going over the edge. His heavy breathing was something he couldn't even hide. It hurt like shit to even do so.

He looked at Nuna. He didn't know how or when, but out of the three, she was the only one sitting out of bounds. Was it his last attack that knocked her out? Shit… what was his last attack?

Either way, he picked himself back up. There was only one person left to deal with. Dammit his chest hurt. "Moving is going to be a bitch."

At least he still has a range of movements. Not much was lost there. He wasn't hit as hard as he thought he was.

Talo dashed in again. It was clear that he didn't want to give him time to recover or assess his damage. It didn't matter at this point. He already got an assessment of how damaged he was. He can continue.

With his flurry of blows, Ryuma deflected all of them slightly off course enough for him to evade. Talo was far easier to deal with when there wasn't a worry of random shots coming at him and his sister not here to back him up,

"YOU CAN DO IT TALO! COME ON!"

"WE'RE ALL COUNTING ON YOU!"

He forgot he was the bad guy in this situation.

Talo made one wrong move which allowed him to twirl around him whilst sticking his katanas in between them. He flipped off the edge they were fighting near, sending him off the arena.

It got quiet after that. The only sound that could be heard, was the sound of Ryuma breathing. It was like, he didn't even acknowledge that he'd won against Talo. More like, it was expected that he would.

Ryuma quietly walked towards the middle of the arena and sat down crossed legged. However long it would take them to realize they lost their team; he was going to take that moment to recover.

Because anything he could get against this last team, he was going to need it.