Ragnarök, Eternal Tragedy.
Chapter 111: A cut above a pulse

Chapter 111: A cut above a pulse

Dust drifted between them. A dry wind. The scent of blood and friction hung in the air—burnt leather, exposed steel.

Johnny stood motionless.

His opponent paced opposite him: taller, wild-eyed, muscles corded beneath sweat-slicked armor. He was fast. Fast enough to catch most fighters flat-footed. His Unco left kinetic shimmer trails behind each strike, as if his limbs outran their own intentions.

And for the first few minutes—he had pressed that advantage hard.

But now, his footwork was slowing. The last few bursts came late. The shimmer dragged, dulled at the edges.

He was leaking rhythm.

Johnny saw it.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t blink. Just moved.

The first exchange was clean—two slashes, one deflected, one caught on the shoulder, neither decisive. Johnny rolled his shoulder, stepped off the line, and tapped the edge of his blade against the man’s ribs as they broke apart.

A warning, not a wound.

His opponent snarled. "You think this is enough to beat me?"

Johnny didn’t answer.

He just leaned in again.

Blades locked. Elbows cracked together. A knee missed its mark. Then Johnny shifted low and drove his boot behind the man’s ankle—subtle, controlled, efficient. The fighter stumbled.

Not down. But enough to curse under his breath.

He was tiring.

That’s when Johnny pressed—inch by inch, test by test.

He didn’t overwhelm. He corrected.

Every time the man lunged, Johnny redirected. Every breath too deep, he closed the space. Each mistake, no matter how small, was met with cut and consequence.

The fighter’s strikes became broader. Slower.

And Johnny?

He hadn’t used Moment’s Edge once yet.

He didn’t need to.

Not while his opponent was burning his own time faster than he could command it.

Then, without a word, Johnny stepped into range and activated the edge.

Everything froze.

Two seconds.

He exhaled. Stepped to the fighter’s blind side. Pivoted his stance and raised his Echo Spire Blades—both extended now, gleaming with temporal resonance.

But he didn’t strike deep.

He adjusted—a shallow cut beneath the arm, a twist of the man’s blade to loosen grip, and a sweep of the leg from behind.

He let time resume.

The man hit the ground hard and scrambled upright. Bleeding now. Unco flaring uncontrolled. And—most importantly—panicking.

Johnny could’ve finished it.

Maybe.

But in that moment, the edge wavered.

He felt it.

Fatigue spidering through his focus. That slight crack in concentration—that blink between perfect reaction and human constraint.

The kinetic fighter saw it too.

He roared, threw himself into a reckless charge, and tackled Johnny backward. The blades scattered. Both men hit the ground hard.

Now they grappled in the dirt—no technique, just breath and bruises.

Still breathing.

The pulse of power that had surrounded the man finally broke.

It didn’t end with a flash—just... faltered. His blade dragged by half a second longer. His footwork staggered where it should’ve snapped. The shimmer across his forearms flickered and dimmed like a heartbeat missing time.

Johnny caught it.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. The shift in weight across his shoulders was enough.

He moved forward with no more force than wind curling across stone.

The kinetic fighter swung—wild now, heavy with the loss of momentum. Johnny leaned inside the arc, let the blade slide past his temple, and struck with the butt of his Echo Spire Blade straight into the man’s sternum. The blow wasn’t showy. But it echoed through the fighter’s core.

He stumbled. Johnny stepped left, turned the weapon in his palm, and nicked the man’s thigh on the exit.

Small cut.

Small step.

But something permanent had changed.

The Unco was gone. The man was fighting as he was—tired, angry, human.

Johnny still hadn’t frozen time again. He didn’t need to. Not now.

He adjusted angles. Controlled distance. Drew the blade close in faint arcs the way a calligrapher sets down final strokes. His breathing never changed. His pulse never rose.

And for the first time, his opponent knew exactly what was happening.

He wasn’t losing to power.

He was losing to clarity.

A desperate strike came overhead—Johnny ducked low, swept a leg behind the man’s knees, and tilted him forward off-balance. Another cut—not deep, but marking.

Then a pause.

Both men breathing.

The kinetic fighter’s hand trembled around his blade.

"Damn it," he hissed, backing up. "You’re nothing special. You’re—"

Johnny stepped inside.

The words stopped.

He parried the retaliatory swing, caught the arm, twisted the wrist. The man dropped his sword. Johnny didn’t follow through with a kill. He just stepped past him, letting the man drop to one knee behind him.

Still alive.

Still not over.

But no longer even.

Johnny didn’t look back. He knew the man wouldn’t charge again, not now. Not after that kind of silence.

...

(Kenneth)

It was cratered. Buckled. Swollen with impact scars and split stone. Where Kenneth walked, the dirt no longer dared settle.

His Breaker Gauntlets pulsed with heat—nothing visible yet, but the metal had turned the color of a storm’s breath. Dust curled off his arms with every movement. A warning. A whisper of pressure waiting to be released.

His opponent was no fool. Just impatient.

The man was taller than Kenneth, broader across the chest, body reinforced with plated gauntlets and a reinforcement Unco that buffed every strike with tremorshock. Most would have been crushed by the first wave of blows.

But Kenneth didn’t fall.

He absorbed them. Turned them inward. Let every hit nest in the wiring of his Unco until the gauntlets began to hum.

That hum was louder now.

The brute spat blood onto the ground and wiped his jaw with the back of his wrist. "Still standing. Not talking. You think that means something?"

Kenneth exhaled—slow, deep, measured. Like the whole world still moved through his diaphragm.

"I think," he said, voice level as pressure, "you’re mistaking damage for advantage."

Then he moved.

It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t showy. He stepped forward and let the gauntlets speak.

The first punch landed in the brute’s ribs. A tremor cracked the earth beneath them.

The second came high—blocked—but the energy burst from contact, staggering his opponent back.

The third—Kenneth feinted low, ducked the counter, and drove an uppercut into the man’s gut. This one landed flush. A clean compression wave rippled outward, buckling a tree thirty meters away.

The brute stumbled, coughing.

But not down.

Kenneth’s arms glowed faintly now—orange veins spidering from the forearm to the inner palm. He hadn’t released the full charge yet. Just letting pressure bleed in small, decisive bursts.

His opponent roared and surged forward, throwing a flurry of haymakers that shattered the air around them. One clipped Kenneth across the cheek—enough to ring his head, enough to draw heat from his lungs.

He didn’t flinch. He stepped in again.

Another exchange.

Fists. Elbows. Shocks colliding mid-strike like thunder meeting thunder.

Then they broke apart. Breathing hard.

The brute’s eyes flicked to the gauntlets. They were glowing more now. Kenneth wasn’t even hiding it.

"I’ve been hit harder," the man said, defiant.

"No," Kenneth replied. "You’ve only ever been hit faster."

And then he drove forward with the next swing—not a punch, but a palm slam that thundered into the brute’s chest like a dropped mountain.

The gauntlets went white.

Dust launched upward. The ground cratered beneath them.

The man flew backward, hit the ground, rolled twice—and came up to one knee.

Still breathing.

Still not broken.

But now... the glow in Kenneth’s gauntlets started to stutter—flickering in unpredictable pulses. One gauntlet dimmed faster than the other. His breath caught.

The discharge hadn’t gone clean.

Something inside the circuitry... was off.

The brute rose, blood running down his face, teeth bared.

He saw it too.