Don't Look Up, Don't Look Closely, Don't Look Away

1

"It's over. You know that. Stop fighting it."

"I'm... I'm not finished yet."

Of course I wasn't. I still hadn't even begun to feel any mental pressure from my opponent. In fact, his mind was probably the weakest I had felt in a long time.

Which didn't make much sense, considering he had already wiped out twelve people. He was the champion of this tournament, but you wouldn't be able to tell by how pathetic his defenses were.

The problem was, I had to make it seem like he was doing great. I had been drawing a lot of attention to myself and It wasn't good.

I forced myself to breath really heavily. I scrunched up my face in mock concentration, allowing a fake tear to roll down my face.

I was good at faking tears.

My opponent chuckled to himself. "You can't beat me. My fortitude is too solid."

Sure it is.

"You really should just surrender. I'd rather not have to kill you." His arrogance was starting to get on my nerves.

At that point, my patience was starting to fade. The guy clearly liked to drag on the fights for dramatic effect. The match had already gone on for half an hour, and I had to be home before morning. My mother would kill me herself if she found out I was out after dark.

Let alone getting into illegal mental fight tournaments.

"Y-You shouldn't... shouldn't underestimate... me."

His laughing stopped. "W-What is this?"

Ah-ha. You finally sensed it.

Ever since we had made eye contact half an hour ago, I had known where the chink in his armor was. From the second he started gloating about how I wasn't going to win, how I had no chance, I was already snaking thin line of offense into that weakness.

"How? How did you do that?" He was visibly shaking now, and I could feel his mental fortress start to crumble. "When did you find that?"

I let myself smile a little. "With a chink that big, you'd think somebody would've found it hours ago."

"N-No! I won't lose to a mere boy!"

Suddenly, the man switched to offense. He was clearly pissed, the form of his attacks showed that. I would describe them as a barrage of fire red arrows. If he was up against anyone else, they would have died within seconds.

However, it was pretty ineffective against me. I was really good at building defenses while maintaining attacks. I simply put up a blue shield in front of me, shaped kind of like a riot shield, but bent down the middle. The pointed shape would deflect the arrows off to the left and right, allowing me to crouch down and slowly move towards the enemy.

My physical body was, of course, not moving. Both me and my opponent had been thrown into his mind the moment we looked into each other's eyes. Had I wanted to, I could have brought him into my own with ease. But that would have tipped him off too early that this fight was not in his favor.

I had to put on a show. If I didn't, the gang that was hosting the battles would no doubt have killed me as soon as I left to go home. They'd just take the reward off my corpse and dump me in the river.

That would be a bit counterproductive. After all, the only reason I was here is for the money.

As my mind-self pushed forward, my opponent got increasingly more angry and irrational. His arrows were now not only red, but actually flaming. A direct hit would definitely sting, but his aim was getting worse as a result. Only one in ten shots actually hit my shield.

I chuckled a little. I could see his mind-self on top of a sort of castle tower a short ways away. He was furious. The top of the tower had a huge red aura flowing out haphazardly.

That would probably be his undoing though. The aura was so fierce that is was causing his own structure to fall apart. Bricks were falling to the ground and crumbling, and the tower was clearly on the verge of toppling.

I looked down at myself. My own aura was a calm blue, flowing smoothly and naturally, close to my body. My shield was actually being strengthened by it.

I glanced over at my offense. It was kind of a formless tendril snaking towards the base of my enemy's tower. It was thin enough that from the top of the tower it could not be seen. The only reason it had gone unnoticed thus far.

It wrapped around the tower and climbed towards the open balcony at the top, then quietly reached in behind my opponent and lodged itself in the base of his neck. I assume that he noticed it when it stabbed him a few minutes ago.

After a few minutes of slowly approaching him, I reached the base of his tower. He couldn't really shoot arrows directly down anymore, so I was safe to remove my shield and refocus my energy towards making a pair of boots.

They weren't ordinary boots though. They had a special reinforcement I had dedicated weeks to perfecting. Every step I took had an extra force to it, making it easy for me to run quickly up the spiraling staircase to the top of the tower. 

And they were cute too.

Leaping up fifteen steps at a time, what normally would have taken minutes took mere seconds. When I reached the top I let go of my boots and paused at the door. I could feel his fuming aura flowing through the brick walls. It was intimidating to some extent, but not overwhelming. 

I let my formless tendril fade too. It had done it's job. Now that his defenses were lowered a little, I could easily take him out in a one on one fight.

Frankly, I could have defeated him with one good shot from a fortified long-bow at the beginning of the match. It was unbelievably frustrating having to pretend to be weak.

I focused a little energy towards making an guard for my left arm. Now that the fight would be close quarters, he would most likely choose to use a sort of sword. The guy didn't seem to be too creative. He was physically strong though, that much was apparent when I met him in the real world. I wanted a bit of defense in case my speed wasn't enough.

But after a bit of thinking, I dropped that too. Instead of defensive power, I would try to overwhelm him with speed. I was pretty quick on my feet after all, and I had good reflexes. I needed a weapon that could work with that.

Oh. That could work. I grinned. 

This is going to be fun.

Not wanting to leave the man waiting, I jogged up the last few steps and pushed open a large wooden door. His aura had quieted a little, but I could still feel that his anger hadn't faded.

As the door swung open all the way, I spotted him on the other end of an arena looking room with open walls. The tower hadn't looked so large before, but that was the problem with mind-fields. They could be manipulated by the host, so the terrain could change according to the host's will.

Looking at him, the sudden drop in the size of his aura made perfect sense. He had probably focused a lot of energy toward creating his weapon. Instead of a sword like I thought, he had materialized a giant suit of mechanized armor.

I guess I underestimated him.

He was facing away from me as he spoke. "You know, you're really getting on my nerves."

"Um... Sorry?"

He turned around slowly, his steps causing the ground to shake. Maybe my weapon choice was a bad idea.

Once he was facing me, he made the visor on his helmet fade so he could look closer at me. He seemed confused.

"How did you it? You seemed so pathetic when we started."

"I guess looks can be deceiving."

"No matter. I'll crush you anyway."He glanced at my weapon. "A glaive? How can you hope to even put up a fight?"

I smirked. On second thought, my choice was perfect.

"You'll see."