Chapter 175: The Ten-Second Countdown
{Elira}
~**^**~
Minutes passed, five, maybe six, and my body felt like it was made of stone.
Every time I fell, I forced myself up again. My breaths came harsh and uneven, but I kept going.
By the ninth minute, my knees buckled more than once. Sweat ran into my eyes, and my lungs felt raw.
Kallista moved in for the final pin, her weight pressing hard against my shoulders, trying to drive me flat onto the mat.
"Stay down," she hissed.
I shook my head, gritting my teeth. "No."
I could barely breathe and barely see, but I refused to yield. My body screamed in protest, but something deeper inside me—stubborn, burning, kept me upright even if just barely.
And just then, the shrill beep of Rennon’s timer cut through the hall. It was exactly ten minutes.
Kallista’s hold faltered as she looked toward the professors.
Rennon’s voice rang out, calm yet commanding. "There is no victor. There will be an immediate rematch."
My chest heaved as tears gathered in my eyes. Though I had received several intense blows, I refused to give up.
The crowd murmured, a mix of shock and excitement. My heart thudded painfully against my ribs.
Kallista stepped back, brushing her hair from her face. Her smirk returned sharper this time. "Guess you will get another chance to lose properly."
I drew a slow breath and tried to steady the trembling in my hands despite not being sure of what the outcome of this rematch would be.
But one thing I am certain of is that I won’t surrender so easily.
"Begin!" Rennon raised his hand.
Kallista didn’t wait, just like in the first round. She lunged the second his arm dropped.
I barely dodged the first strike as her knuckles brushed my cheek, sharp enough to sting. The next blow slammed into my shoulder, spinning me halfway around.
Pain burned through my arm, but I forced my footing, remembering Rennon’s words: "Anchor first. Always protect your Anchor Cluster."
Kallista came at me again, a flurry of motion and precision. I managed to block one hit, deflect another, then duck and deliver a weak strike to her side, the kind that barely landed but still made her stumble half a step.
It was something, so I followed with another, and another—three, four, five strikes, each one a desperate attempt to stay in the fight.
But the sixth time I tried, she caught my wrist mid-swing with a twisted smirk resting at the corner of her lips. "Cute."
Then, her knee came up hard into my stomach. Air exploded from my lungs, and I fell to my knees, coughing.
The crowd gasped faintly somewhere in the distance, but all I could hear was the roaring pulse in my ears.
Before I could recover, Kallista’s hand fisted in my collar and dragged me up too close, her eyes gleaming. Then, before I could twist free, she head-butted me.
White heat burst across my vision.
I stumbled back, completely dizzy with the taste of iron on my tongue. My knees wobbled, and the mat beneath me tilted and blurred.
"Stay down this time," she said with a calm voice, feeling self-satisfied. "You should have known better than to—"
But her words were what snapped something in me.
Every nerve in me screamed. I could hear Rennon’s voice echoing in my head, calm and firm.
"Last resort. Only when you have nothing left. Strike and release."
Kallista straightened, brushing invisible dust off her sleeve. She was confident I wouldn’t rise again, that she had finished me off, and that there was nothing more I could—no move I could make in this state.
Still, she shouldn’t have looked down on me, or rather, she shouldn’t have underestimated my resilience. And she shouldn’t have looked away.
My breath steadied just enough. My muscles remembered the rhythm Rennon drilled into me, the flow of breath into movement, before my mind did.
I pushed off the mat and moved quickly.
Her eyes barely had time to widen before my fingers found the first cluster—the Anchor point Rennon had shown me, a precise, snapping contact between muscle and energy.
My other hand followed a heartbeat later, pressing into the Hollow Cluster beneath her shoulder.
It wasn’t my strength that did it; it was the accuracy of my moves.
Instantly, the energy between us shivered as if something unseen had cracked open. Kallista’s body jolted once and then went still.
For a terrifying second, I thought I had done something wrong. Then she swayed and crumpled onto the mat.
The hall went utterly still. Then, Rennon’s voice broke it calmly. "The ten-second countdown begins."
And just like that, the rest of the students in the hall started the count.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Kallista didn’t stir, no matter how loud the students’ voices became.
Five.
Four.
My hands trembled, and my heartbeat was so loud I could barely breathe. I wished more than anything at this moment for Kallista to stay on the floor.
Two.
One.
"The match has concluded," Rennon announced. "And Elira Shaw has emerged victorious."
My knees hit the mat hard. I didn’t even feel it at first, just the weight of everything, the ache in every bone, and the pounding in my ears that drowned out the world.
Kallista was still on the floor, still breathing but unmoving.
The crowd was murmuring with distant voices and in disbelief. I couldn’t make out any words, only the rush of blood in my veins and the trembling in my hands.
’Victorious?’
The word didn’t sound real. Not when my body throbbed, my ribs burned, and certainly not when my heartbeat faltered unevenly in my chest.
I stared at my hands, the same ones that had been too weak for years, too soft and too useless. I saw them shaking, covered in sweat and smudged dust.
And then, without warning, the first sob escaped me.
It was small, barely a sound. But once it started, I couldn’t stop it.
Tears blurred my vision, hot and endless.
They fell fast, for every cruel whisper that had branded me "Omega," for every time I had stood at the back of the line, for every silent moment I had wished I was someone else.
My shoulders shook, the sound caught between laughter and sobbing. I pressed a hand to my mouth, but it did nothing to hold it back.
Rennon was suddenly kneeling in front of me, his calm presence cutting through the storm. Then he rested his hand gently on my shoulder.
"Elira," he said softly, almost like he didn’t want to break the moment. "You can breathe now. You have earned it."
I tried, but the air came out as another sob. "I... I didn’t think... I could..."
His expression softened, that quiet kind of pride that never needed to be loud. "You did."
The dam broke again.
All the things I hadn’t allowed myself to feel, the fear, pain, disbelief, and relief, came spilling out until I was gasping. My voice cracked between every word.
"I thought I would lose... I thought I would—"
"You didn’t lose Elira," he said, firm this time. "You fought till the end."
I nodded, pressing my palms to my eyes as I felt the coolness of the mat beneath my knees. My whole body trembled from the force of everything finally leaving me.
When I finally lowered my hands, I saw Kallista being lifted by two attendants. Her body was limp but unharmed.
Relief washed over me, another wave I hadn’t realized I had been holding back.
Just then, Rennon rose first and extended a hand toward me.
"Come on," he said gently. "Let’s get you checked."
For a moment, I just looked at his firm, steady and patient hand. Then I took it, letting him pull me to my feet without the care of other pair of eyes on us.
My legs wobbled, my breath hitched, but my heart was lighter than it had been in years.
As Rennon led me off the mat, I could hear the faint sound of applause from the professors still standing near the stage. It wasn’t loud, but it was real, and that was enough.
Tears still clung to my lashes, but this time, I didn’t wipe them away because I wasn’t crying out of pain or humiliation.
I was crying because I had finally proved to myself that I could stand and fight, and that the girl everyone called ’Omega’ was finally gone.
---
The scent of antiseptic and clean linen hit me the moment I stepped into the infirmary.
The noise from the hall, the murmurs, the footsteps and the clang of practice weapons all faded as the door shut behind me.
I sat on the edge of the narrow bed, my knuckles still trembling faintly while a nurse dabbed at the minor cuts along my jaw. Each touch stung, but I didn’t flinch.
My mind was still somewhere on that mat, still hearing the sound of Kallista hitting the floor.