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Ryu vs Murai pt. 2 of 5

Murai and Ryu began walking towards each other. When they began getting closer, Murai began to show off his powers as his body began to glow the familiar neon blue color Ryu has seen before. They both readied themselves in their fighting stances, and just stared at each other, not to intimidate, but to study each other. Murai's eyes shined the blue color as the two just stood their waiting for the other to attack.

Hayate put his hand on Kasumi's shoulder. Kasumi gave a quick look at her brother who kept his eyes focused on the two fighters. She did the same, holding and squeezing her brother's hands as her sign for hope.

The fight started with Ryu throwing the first punch but was easily blocked by Murai. The two went at it. Punches were thrown, kicks were blocked. Neither fighter was able to land a hit. They both showed each other how evenly matched they were so early in the fight.

Ryu almost managed to land a hit, but Murai swayed away from it as quickly as he could. He tried to counter with a backhand, but Ryu caught his arm and twisted it behind his back. Murai grunted at the slight pain and Ryu only pushed his enemy away. This angered Murai, he knew this was Ryu's way of taunting him.

He turned to face Ryu again and saw his foe returning back to his ninjitsu stance ready for the next attack. Murai jerked his head side to side, making a loud bone cracking sound from within his neck as he returned back to his position.

"You're turn." Ryu said signaling Murai to throw the first attack.

Murai's eyes lowered in anger as he obliged to Ryu's request and attempted to strike the first blow. Again, as if they were back to square one, the two fought, but no punches were landed and no kicks were hit. This process continued up to the point Ryu tried to land a punch, but Murai simply caught his arm, threw him forward and quickly gave Ryu a strong backhand to the back of his head as he passed him. Ryu fell to the ground, but got up quickly and turned to face his enemy. Murai then returned back to his stance as Ryu shook the pain away and did the same.

"Are you ready to quit these games and really get things started?" Murai asked.

"Whenever you are." He answered back.

Without hesitation, the two charged in attempting the deliver left and right blows. And though the outcome was still the same, it was easily seen the two were very much more aggressive in their battle. While the strikes were attempting to be made, Ryu did manage to land a hard right punch to the jaw of Murai, but when he countered with his second hand, Murai caught it, picked up Ryu over his head and slung him as hard as he could. But Ryu managed to land on his feet to avoid any pain, as he slid against the ground using a arm to hold his balance, he immediately stood, ran after Murai and began his attack again.

The two continued their battle for sometime while Hayate, Kasumi, Ayane, and Rachael watched on. Even both guards looked on watching the main event that will tell the fate of the world. Finally, the blocked hits came to an end as Ryu began to get the upper hand. For every punch Murai threw, Ryu slapped his hand out of the way and delivered a hard backhand to the mouth of Murai. For every, kick Murai attempted, Ryu blocked it with his own leg and quickly, with that same leg, Ryu kicked his lower shin. When Ryu saw his opening, he took quick advantage of it as he began delivering hard lefts and rights to his enemy. Ryu ended his attack and assault by, with all of his might, giving Murai a hard double palm punch to his chest. Murai fell to the ground and rolled till he was flat on his stomach.

Murai gathered himself onto his knees, spitting out the blood that formed inside his mouth. Surprised, Murai ran his finger along the inside of his jaw line. When he pulled his finger out of his mouth, he noticed he was indeed bleeding. His neck snapped at Ryu.

"I am still stronger than you." Ryu said.

Murai stood. "Yes, you are." He said spitting out another mouthful of blood. "But I hope you realize this is not even nearly the full extent of my powers."

Ryu looked on. "I know, I'm waiting on you to show yours so I can show mine."

Murai responded as his body began to glow even brighter. "Then let's say we make this a little more interesting."

Then as if his skin shattered away from his flesh, Murai began a somewhat transformation. His veins in his arms and neck bulged out along with his enlarging muscles. His complete body was now a dark shade of blue as Ryu quickly realized this was the same form he remembered from the Vigoor Empire. The same form when Murai held the Dark Dragon Blade in his possession.

Hayate and Kasumi were shocked to see the new transformation, but Rachael and Ayane has seen this before. They were all too familiar with the power Murai was about to release.

"What's going on?" Hayate asked.

"Murai is beginning to show his true form." Ayane answered still focusing on Murai finishing his transformation.

"He's beginning to show his evil." Rachael said. "But it's no where near what's really inside of him."

When Murai was done, he looked as the same monster Ryu remembered. Murai taunted him with a smile. "Do not be fooled, Ryu. Remember, I am much stronger than you may have remembered."

Ryu got into his fighting stance. "Then show me how strong you are."

Murai kept his smile as he obliged Ryu's request. "As you wish." With quickness, Ryu couldn't follow, Murai didn't dash nor run, but somehow ghosted his way to Ryu position, delivering a hard punch to his gut. And as if there was a second person on the battlefield, Ryu felt and elbow smash and dig into his lower spine. Murai continued his ghosting techniques to full advantage, hitting Ryu in his most vulnerable points, before he finally ended it with a strong uppercut sending Ryu flying a good distance away from the monster.

"Ryu!" Kasumi frightfully called out.

Ryu rolled himself over onto his stomach and removed his mask. He coughed up his own amount of blood as coughed even more trying to regain his breath. Before he could even turn to look at his enemy, a knee hit his face as Murai ghosted to Ryu's distance. Ryu fell to his back as Murai gave an evil chuckle.

"I thought you was going to put up more of a fight, Ryu." He said putting his foot on his neck. Murai gained a pleasure out of watching Ryu grabbing his foot trying to push it away from his neck. "Now who's the more powerful one?"

"Ryu! NO!" Kasumi yelled out as she tried to make her way onto the fighting arena.

But Hayate grabbed her to hold her back. "Kasumi! No!"

She jerked away from her brother. "I can't let him die, Hayate."

"Please Kasumi," Hayate said. "This is what he asked for." He looked at the battlefield looking at his struggling friend. "I hate it as much as we do. But we must have faith in him."

Kasumi hated it. She didn't want to stand by and watch her friend die. She didn't care what Ryu wanted. If it meant saving his life, she would risk her own to do so. After all, he has done it for her so many times. Her brother insisted that she stayed but she wanted so much to disobey him and take matters into her own hands.

She also didn't want to make matters worse. She knew she was not powerful enough to fight Murai and she wouldn't want Ryu to be distracted worrying about her safety. Or even worse, she wouldn't want Ryu to feel guilty during the match if she were to die by the hands of Murai. She whispered to herself in hopes of Ryu sensing her voice. "Come on, Ryu. Please get up."

Meanwhile back, on the battlefield, Ryu was still struggling to free himself from Murai's strangling foot. Murai only continued to laugh at his victim. Ryu then managed to free himself when he used his feet to grab Murai's free leg. One foot on his ankle, one foot behind his knee, and forced his knee into the ground. This caused Murai to loose his balance as Ryu put the foot off of his neck.

Ryu attacked while still on the ground, by kneeing Murai in his gut then using both feet to deliver a hard face kick, knocking the monster to the ground. Ryu quickly stood and performed a few back flips, attempting to get some distance between him and his adversary. Murai composed himself and stood with a smile. "Nice strategy. But do you think that will help you win this fight?"

Ryu said nothing but continued to give Murai an angered and exhausted stare from his bruised and bloody face. Our hero then reached for his Dragon Sword and slowly began to pull it out of its sheath, tightly holding it waiting for Murai's next attack.

This angered Murai a bit. "So we're using weapons now?" He said as he opened his palm, and with nothing but dark magic, a glow formed in his hand.

The glow extended into a sword-like formation, and then the glow performed its own transformation. When it was done, the glow was gone and in Murai's hand was a complete exact replica of the Dark Dragon blade.

Ryu did not flinch at the surprise, but Rachael did take a second gasp at the blade.

Murai looked at Ryu with anger. "Now I will end this quick."