Mind vs. instinct

With the first match of the fourth round completed, it is time for the final match of the day.

"From the left corner, we have Selena!"

As Selena walks out of the left exit of the field, Unknown, who is in the student stands, watches the field closely.

"I can't believe Kage is going to miss this match! Paul and Selena are two of the most well-known and strongest students at Grava Academy. Well, that serves him right for losing that match. Now he's stuck in the resting area."

"Well, if he wakes up in time, he could watch the match on TV."

Unknown looks behind him and sees that the person talking to him is Aurora, who is standing on the stairs.

"Oh, what's up, Aurora! I guess you would be right about him watching it from the TV."

"Yes, but I have a question for you, Unknown."

"Oh yeah, what's up?"

"Who do you think is going to win this match?"

"Well, Paul, to be honest."

"Why do you think so?"

"Well, I have never seen Selena do something as crazy as Paul, so that was my first guess."

"Well, you aren't wrong. Selena is more of a strategic fighter, and compared to Paul's raw strength, speed, and OGI control, she might be at a disadvantage."

"So you think Selena is going to lose, then?"

"Well, not exactly. I think if Selena can use the new ability she's been working on perfectly throughout this battle, she can win."

"Wait, new ability? Do you mean with her mind manipulation?"

"Yes, but we will see if she's confident enough to use it in this battle."

"Well, Selena is cute as hell, so I got my bets on her."

"Huh?"

Both Aurora and Unknown look to their lefts and see Max sitting.

"Wait, who are you?" Unknown ask.

"He's Max, the number two of class five with the power of "instant dodge."

"Oh, now I remember you're the guy who fought Chika in the second round. The guy who can only dodge but was still forced to forfeit."

"Aye, let's not bring that up right now; that's not my best moment, and Mrs.Doja almost killed me for it."

"Wait, what are you doing here?" Unknown asks.

"Well, since I went out in the second round, I went back home and chilled a little bit, and I returned today to watch these last matches. Kinda disappointed I missed the last match yesterday though. It looked crazy."

Max looks over to Aurora with a smile on his face.

"Why are you standing over there like that? Don't be nervous. Come take a seat next to me," he says with a coky smile.

"No. Unknown has a free seat next to him," Aurora says with a condescending glare.

Aurora takes a seat to Max's shock.

"Damn, she's cold, but I think I like it. Too bad I don't have a chance."

"Now, from the right corner, we have Paul!"

With Mr.Brown's announcement, everyone turns their attention to the field. As Paul walks to Mr.Zane Selena, who is in "Selena battle mode," starts to think to herself.

"Paul. You've always seemed so far ahead throughout this year. I've seen you in vulnerable situations, but I've never had the feeling that you were vulnerable. I can see into that mind of yours all I want. I know your history and your goals, but it feels like I will never truly understand you. Only you, Kage, and Mr.Mink have made me feel this way during class one's time together."

Selena starts to tie her hair into a ponytail.

"Considering it doesn't matter who wins this since class one will be in the finals regardless and the fact that Paul probably wants to be the one fighting Chika, today I'm going to force level two out of you whether you like it or not, Paul!"

As Mr.Zane starts the countdown, Mr.Brown starts to scream on the mic.

"This is a battle between our two highest-ranked students! This battle could be close. Make sure your butts are tightened to your seats because this battle could blow you away!"

"Fight!"

With the battle started Selena instantly backs away while Paul stands completely still.

"You aren't coming straight for me? Well, that's interesting."

"We both know your capabilities, Selena. You already know my next thirty moves before I even attempt to make them."

"Well, isn't that—"

Paul activates the charged accelerate technique and rushes to Selena's front. Selena moves out of the way of Paul's incoming kick before he even attempts the kick, and she puts two fingers from both of her hands on her head.

"Mind shock!"

An electric shock releases from Selena's body, and when it comes into contact with Paul, he lets out a grunt. Paul completely stops all forms of movement, and Selena smiles.

"I know mind shock isn't enough to defeat you like Damiom, but I know it can send your brain into shock for a couple of seconds."

With the flex technique applied, Selena jumps up and kicks Paul in the face. The kick sends Paul flying across the field, and then Selena runs to the other side of the field in preparation to kick Paul again.

While in mid-air, Paul does a backflip and attempts to hit Selena with a kick of his own, but Selena steps to the side before he even reaches her.

"Come on now, Paul. The second your brain was freed from the shock, I knew the attack was coming."

Selena punches Paul in the arm. The punch pushes him back, but he lands on his feet.

"That mind reading is the biggest problem right now. If I want to beat her and get to the finals, I need to stop her from reading my mind, but my OGI control isn't at that level yet to where I can block her out."

Paul grabs his cloak and throws it in front of himself. When the cloak falls to the ground, Paul is nowhere to be found.

"Woah, Paul has disappeared! He did this same trick in his match against Feltzes! Will Selena struggle just like him?"

Selena smiles after hearing Mr.Brown's question to the crowd.

"Feltzes needed an attack from the future to be able to counter Paul's accelerate and sneak technique combo, but for me, this is child's play."

Selena does a backflip to dodge Paul, who was throwing a punch at her while using the sneak technique. While she's above Paul, she whispers something to him.

"You know I can sense brain activity, right? Your sneak technique can hide you from everything else but me. You better activate level two or you will lose this battle."

Selena sends out a mind shock to shock Paul's brain and keep him from moving. Selena then slams her right knee on Paul's back and then uses his back to bounce off of him. When she lands on the ground, she instantly trips Paul, causing him to fall.

"Maybe I might win this match after all!"

Selena attempts to stomp on Paul's head, but he quickly jumps out of the way and retreats to the other side of the field.

"Well, I guess I have no choice."

"What are you going to do now? Stop thinking?"

Selena reads Paul's mind, and her face turns to shock.

"Wait, are you serious?"

Paul takes the thumb of his right hand and stabs himself in the head as hard as he can. He pushes his thumb deeper into his head, much to everyone's disgust.

"What the fu—I mean, what is Paul doing out there?" Mr.Brown screams.

Selena looks at Paul with nothing but shock on her face.

"He just perfectly damaged his frontal lobe. Well, more accurately, his prefrontal cortex. I knew he had an idea in his head to do so, but I didn't think he would go so far."

As Paul pulls his thumb out of his head, Selena attempts to read his mind.

"Yeah, he really did it. He perfectly damaged his prefrontal cortex, which means he can no longer properly think. Which also means—"

Paul uses the accelerate technique to rush at Selena.

"He's going completely off of instinct!"

Paul gets in front of Selena and slams his fist on her face, causing her to be sent flying.

"Shit, who would think he would be crazy enough to remove his ability to think just for one battle? Is he even sure Doc can fix that?"

Selena gets up with blood leaking from her head, but before she can get herself back together, Paul goes in to kick her with the flex technique applied.

"Rahhh!"

Selena dodges the attack, but gets a small piece of skin torn off by the sheer force of the punch grazing her arm.

"Ahhh!"

Selena grabs her arm in pain and, at the same time, jumps up. She backs away from Paul with the accelerate technique.

"Will a mind shock even work at this point? His mind is completely gone; I can't even make sense of what's going on in there anymore."

Paul gets in front of Selena again, and with no emotion in his eyes, he kicks her in the left arm so hard that everyone in the crowd hears the bone crack.

"Ahhh!"

Paul then slams his fist into Selena's stomach, causing her feet to lift off the ground, and then grabs her by the face.

"Rahh!"

Paul slams her body onto the field so hard that she bounces off of it like a rock skipping on water.

"Ahh!"

With Selena on the ground, Paul stops his movements.

While breathing heavily, Selena says, "Wow, your instincts are trained so well that you even know when to stop attacking. That's way too much training."

Selena starts to smile wide.

"Fine, you want to get crazy; let's get crazy!"

Selena's head starts to glow intensely.

As Selena stands up, she starts to mutter something.

"Mind acceleration"

When Selena says this, Aurora looks at the field and adjusts her glasses.

"So she decided to use it after all."

When Selena stands up, Paul instinctively gets into a fighting stance. At the same time, Selena starts to mutter to herself, but it seems her talking speed has increased exponentially.

"His right foot is pointed toward me, which means he's going to swing his left to throw me off, but since it's Paul going off of instinct, he's going to swing the right instead. Then he's going to go in for a kick either with one foot or both."

Selena's talking speed starts to get faster and faster, to the point where she's saying two thousand words per minute.

Paul rushes at Selena with the accelerate technique and swings his right hand at her, but she easily dodges it. Then Paul jumps up and tries to kick her, but Selena once again dodges.

When Paul lands on his feet, Selena continues muttering to herself.

"If I punch him in the calf with eight thousand newtons of force, I could damage it enough to slow him down."

Selena sees Paul's right hand flinch.

"He's going to punch me and then follow up with a grab."

Selena's muttering has increased to five thousand words per minute.

Selena dodges Paul's punch and then slams her fist onto Paul's calf with the flex techniques applied, causing a bone to break.

"Ahhh!"

"Now there's a ninety percent chance I win this fight!"

Selena then dodges Paul's grab and kicks the same calf she just punched.

"Ahhh!"

Selena activates the flex technique in both of her arms and starts pummeling Paul with several straight punches.

"Woah! It seems Selena has somehow turned this battle around!"

In the student stands Unknown turns to Aurora.

"Is this what you were talking about, Aurora?"

"Yes, it is. This is something me and Selena have been working on for months on end. "Mind acceleration." What Selena has done is she has started increasing how fast her brain processes, thinks, makes decisions, and all of the above. Currently, in Selena's mind, everything is moving in slow motion because of how fast she's thinking, which gives her basically all the time she wants to do things like process what's going on or make decisions, but of course, outside her mind, everything is moving at full speed, which gives her a heavy advantage. While using this move, all her moves will be completely calculated because she can spin every scenario in her head within seconds. This new move is truly a scary one."

Unknown looks in awe as Aurora finishes speaking.

"So this match is going to Selena then! Well, that's a surprise."

"Well, not exactly, because there are still some problems that need to be fixed."

"Huh?"

On the battlefield, Aurora's hands are bloody from the number of times she has punched Paul. Despite taking massive amounts of damage, Paul is still standing.

Selena's talking speed has once again increased, and this time it is an estimated ten thousand words per minute. She has started speaking so fast that her speech isn't even understandable.

"Woah, it seems we have a standstill here! Who will go back in for an attack?" Mr.Brown screams.

Paul takes a step, and Selena notices, which causes her to start muttering really fast. Suddenly, Selena stops muttering and falls on her back, completely knocked out with her eyes open.

The whole crowd looks shocked after seeing Selena fall out of nowhere.

"Wait, did Selena just pass out?" Mr.Brown asks.

Mr.Zane runs to the field and waves his hand in front of Selena's face.

"That's it, she's done!"

Mr.Brown grips the mic and starts speaking.

"Well, umm, folks, that's it. The last match of the day ends with Paul as the winner."

"What!" the whole crowd screams.

In the student stands, Unknown looks over to Aurora again.

"I already know you're probably wondering what happened there. Well, you see, mind acceleration is great, but in this state of mind, Selena overanalyzes everything. I think this is a side effect of making your mind think that fast, but like a computer, if you give it too much to process in a short period, it's going to freeze up so it can process everything fully, which usually takes forever. So what I'm saying is that Selena overloaded her mind, and it's probably going to take a few days before she absorbs all that information and can get out of the coma she put herself in."

Unknown looks back to the battlefield.

"You've got to be kidding me."

When Selena and Paul are taken off the field to be treated, Mr.Brown starts to make his announcements.

"With that match, Paul will be moving to the finals. This means tomorrow the final match will be Chika, the number one in class two! Facing the number one student of Grava Academy, AKA the level one demon Paul!"

Chapter 133 end