The cheering from the previous match still lingered in the arena air like static. Aaron takes Caitlyn to the med bay as the lights refocused and the energy reset, Dean Frederick stepped forward again.

  Dean Frederick: "Students, quiet down! We now begin Round Five.

  Hiruzen Yuki. Skadi Ragnar?ksson. Please proceed to the arena."

  Hiruzen rose slowly, rolling his shoulders, frost curling faintly from his fingers in anticipation.

  Hiruzen: “Looks like it’s my turn.”

  Emma leaned in, voice tight with expectation.

  Emma: “Don’t you dare lose. After all that training? No excuses.”

  Hiruzen smirked softly.

  Hiruzen: “Relax. I’m not planning to.”

  He adjusted his new jacket — the one Reito gifted him. The sigils glimmered faintly, reacting to his heartbeat. The black spikes of his hair, freshly combed, framed eyes sharpened by both trauma and resolve.

  Across the arena, Skadi approached like an omen. Tall. Carved jaw. Eyes like frostbitten steel. A tattered black fur cloak trailed behind iron-rune armor, her presence ancient and sorrow-tainted.

  The crowd hushed.

  The two made it onto the arena as RefBot floated down.

  RefBot: “Combatants ready?”

  Skadi: “I was born ready.”

  Hiruzen: “Let’s do this.”

  RefBot: “Then BEGIN”

  Hiruzen flicked his hand — an ice spear crystallized and launched like a comet.

  Skadi didn’t dodge. Didn’t flinch.

  She raised her hand.

  The spear evaporated into mist mid-air. Not melted — erased.

  Hiruzen blinked.

  Hiruzen: “What—?”

  Skadi: “Entropy.”

  She stepped forward. Each footfall aged the frost beneath her “Your ice is beautiful… but beauty dies. All things do.”

  A ripple of decay surged toward him like reality rotting.

  Hiruzen’s palm snapped open —

  “Radial Snow Burst”

  Air crystalized. Frost erupted outward, halting her wave as suspended grains of decay and ice hung in a frozen halo.

  They met in the gap mid-arena.

  Fists collided. Bones shook. Pressure boomed like glaciers slamming shut.

  Skadi’s punch sent Hiruzen skidding back, boots grinding ice into vapor.

  Hiruzen (thinking): She hits harder than Derrick… and her ability— she’s erasing thermodynamics themselves.

  Skadi tilted her head, amused.

  Skadi: “What’s wrong? I heard you’re the boy who defeated Adam. “You know, the other students started calling you the Ice King, I expected more.”

  The arena air dropped 40 degrees.

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  Hiruzen: “Zero Core — Activate.”

  In a flash his hair turned snow white. Ice claws formed around his forearms, swirling fractal veins across his skin. The temperature screamed downward.

  A blizzard detonated outward.

  Skadi stepped into it, snowflakes dying on contact.

  Skadi: “I do not melt your ice. I erase its future.”

  Hiruzen’s heel slammed down.

  A cathedral of ice erupted — pillars, archways, sweeping frost domes — a world forged in seconds.

  Hiruzen: “In my domain, winter answers only to me.”

  Skadi breathed once — and the cathedral aged.

  Architecture slumped. Symmetry forgot itself. Purpose drained from the frost.

  Skadi: “And I answer to nothing. Not even time.”

  The cathedral faded like an old photograph burnt at the edges.

  Hiruzen lunged with an ice blade. It touched her palm —

  It lost meaning. Became a cracked slush.

  Hiruzen didn’t waver. His hand pressed to her chest.

  “Absolute Zero Pulse”

  Silence. Stillness. Skadi froze mid-breath — entropy halted.

  But only for a heartbeat.

  She exhaled. The frost shattered off her skin like glass dissolving.

  Skadi: “Better. Now bleed for real.”

  She released entropy motes — hovering black spheres thrumming decay.

  Hiruzen moved. Trying his best to avoid the entropy motes dodging and weaving through all of them. But as he dodges Skadi clashes with him over and over while dodging his attacks

  Thunderous collisions. Cracks in the arena.

  A storm of annihilation meeting a storm of absolute silence.

  Skadi raised her hands — tearing open a conceptual rift.

  Not space. Meaning.

  History dissolved above them — raining memory-dust.

  Skadi: “Everything ends.”

  Hiruzen spread his arms — white frost blooming like a lotus.

  “Permafrost Bloom”

  A massive explosion engulfs the arena destroying the entropy motes. Stillness surged — freezing falling entropy into crystalline sculptures.

  For a moment, time bowed to frost.

  But Skadi stepped through the stillness, cracking ice with each stride.

  She punched his chest — entropy fingers burrowing through his cryo armor like rust through steel.

  Fissures spread across his icy form.

  Hiruzen (blood dripping, voice steady):

  “Is… that all you got.”

  His aura expanded. His claws grow and wings of ice erupt from his back, crystalline feathers radiating something ancient as Iskarth’s voice can be faintly heard.He rises into the air, arms outstretched. Everything went quiet as Hiruzen got up and whispered something that echoed across the arena.

  “Zero Core: Stage Two”

  Hiruzen flies across the arena, each flap of his wings sprinkling snow. And then he dives.

  Hiruzen: “Cryo Cataclysm”

  A storm of white frost that freezes entropy itself. Skadi is caught mid-motion. Her body begins to crystallize — not into ice, but into preserved decay, locked in a paradox.

  Skadi laughed.

  Skadi: “You’ve frozen the end…

  but you’re still inside it!”

  She detonated her own entropy field.

  Reality rippled.

  Frost cracked.

  Hiruzen was engulfed in the explosion and was sent flying back with burns all over his body. His hair streaking black again and his claws and wings breaking apart.

  Both staggered up.

  They walked toward each other.

  No tricks left.

  Just resolve.

  One punch.

  Skadi’s fist swung for his jaw — entropy humming.

  Hiruzen moved — faster than instinct, faster than thought.

  He shifted one inch. Her punch passed harmlessly.

  His fist, wrapped in absolute ice, hit her cheek like fate itself.

  She flew back, skidding across the ground before hitting the wall.

  Silence.

  RefBot chimed.

  RefBot: “Winner: Hiruzen Yuki.”

  Hiruzen approached, extending a hand to help her up.

  Hiruzen (softly): “Without that training… I would’ve lost. You really are incredible.”

  Skadi smirked, taking his hand, pulling him close suddenly.

  Skadi (whispering):

  "Skyzen says hello."

  Hiruzen’s blood froze colder than his power.

  She let him go and walked away, leaving Hiruzen completely stunned as he looked back at her but as he is about to chase after her he collapses.

  Emma: “HIRUZEN”

  End Chapter