This time, when we charged at each other, something changed.
The shift was immediate.
Everyone watching felt it.
Bang! Bam! Thud! Crack!
Our fists collided again and again, but unlike before, my movements were no longer wild or completely reliant on speed. Every exchange flowed into the next. A punch became a palm strike. A missed kick turned into a spinning elbow. Every dodge naturally positioned me for another attack.
The rhythm of the fight had changed.
I was learning.
No...
I was remembering.
Without realizing it, my breathing slowed into a steady rhythm. My stance lowered slightly, becoming more balanced. My shoulders relaxed while my feet moved almost on their own, tracing unfamiliar yet strangely natural steps across the reinforced floor.
Aqualad noticed it instantly.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he adjusted his own stance.
The pressure he gave off increased.
I unconsciously began imitating Benimaru's combat style.
Not the techniques.
Not the flames.
Not Crimson Moon or Sun Wheel.
Just the fundamentals.
The way he positioned his body before striking. The efficiency behind every movement. The balance between offense and defense. The smallest shifts in weight that allowed each attack to flow seamlessly into the next.
Weeks of endless simulations inside the training room hadn't been wasted after all.
The knowledge had always been there.
The difficult part wasn't learning it—it was making my body understand it.
Now, under the pressure of fighting someone who could genuinely challenge me, those memories began surfacing naturally.
I wasn't mastering Benimaru's style.
Not even close.
But for the first time...
I was actually using it.
"Interesting..." Aqualad murmured, blocking another strike before redirecting my arm with considerably more effort than before.
His expression remained calm, but I caught the faintest hint of surprise in his eyes.
The gap between us was still obvious.
He still had more experience.
Better timing.
Sharper instincts.
But unlike a minute ago...
I had finally become someone worth teaching.
Aqualad finally decided to take things up a notch.
The change was subtle at first.
His stance lowered ever so slightly, his gaze sharpened, and the playful atmosphere from earlier completely disappeared. The next instant—
Whoosh!
He vanished from where he stood.
I barely raised my guard before his fist came crashing toward my face.
Bang!
The impact sent me skidding several meters across the reinforced floor, my boots screeching loudly before I regained my balance.
"So... we're done warming up then?" I muttered, rubbing my cheek with a grin.
Aqualad didn't answer.
Instead, the twin Water Bearers in his hands began to glow. Streams of water spiraled around the blades before stretching outward into long, flexible whips that danced through the air like living serpents.
Fwoosh!
One lashed toward my shoulder.
I ducked underneath it.
Crack!
The water whip struck the floor instead, carving a shallow groove into the reinforced surface before immediately changing direction.
"...Seriously?"
A second whip came from my blind side.
I twisted in midair, narrowly avoiding it before pushing off the ground into a backflip. The first whip followed almost instantly, forcing me into another somersault before I landed on one hand and sprang backward again.
"Seriously? We're using powers now?" I asked between dodges.
No response.
Only another barrage.
Whoosh! Snap! Crack!
The water lashes attacked from impossible angles, sometimes stiffening into blades, other times flowing around my guard before striking again. Every time I thought I'd found an opening, Aqualad would alter their shape and force me back.
It was overwhelming...
But strangely enough...
I wasn't panicking.
My body moved almost entirely on instinct now.
Each leap was perfectly timed.
Every backflip created just enough distance.
Every twist avoided the strike by mere centimeters.
Had this been a month ago, I would've been hit dozens of times already.
Now?
I was weaving through them one after another, courtesy of my ridiculously enhanced physique and reaction speed. My eyes tracked every ripple in the water while my mind processed each incoming attack almost as fast as it appeared.
"...Okay," I admitted with a nervous chuckle as another whip barely missed my nose. "This is actually kind of awesome."
Across the room, Wally whistled.
"Dude's getting juggled and he's complimenting the experience."
Having jumped around enough, I charged in, activating Shinra's speed—instantly moving at a far higher velocity with a flame-heated fist aimed straight at him. But he seemed ready for it, dodging my attack by barely an inch.
I smiled. This is what experience looked like. The fact that he somehow knew I was faster than I should've been.
I could attribute it all to him having witnessed my fight against Flaming Katty. I mean, I remember that fight, but it wasn't like we weren't moving at supernatural speeds back then. I'm guessing he had been testing himself as well—measuring how he would do against me, especially since I was, in a way, his natural rival when it came to powers.
But Atlanteans… they had a weakness. High-temperature environments. Extreme heat conditions—deserts, dry heat, anything that disrupted their water-based adaptation.
I say dry heat because, if I remember correctly, Atlantis itself should be somewhere close to an underwater volcanic region. That kind of environment would shape their tolerance, but it still wouldn't make them comfortable outside of water for too long.
And I intended to take full advantage of that.
But then—
He changed.
The water around him didn't just move anymore. It responded. Like it had weight, like it had intent. It rose in thin spirals around his arms before collapsing into solid, compressed streams.
I clicked my tongue.
"So you're done testing too, huh?"
Aqualad didn't answer. He just stepped forward—and the ground beneath him darkened as moisture was pulled from the air itself. The temperature in the space between us dropped slightly, just enough to dull the edge of my flame.
Then he attacked.
A spear of water shot forward, faster than before—denser, sharper, like it had been refined into glass under pressure. I twisted mid-air, barely avoiding it, but another came immediately after, then another. The rhythm changed. This wasn't reaction anymore. This was control.
I leapt back, boots scraping the ground as I steadied myself.
"Okay… that's new."
The water didn't return to him this time. It hovered, reshaping in the air above his shoulder like it was waiting for orders.
He finally spoke.
"You rely on heat. I adapt to pressure."
The words were calm. Too calm.
Then he raised his hand slightly—and the water expanded outward in a sudden burst, not an attack yet, but a warning. A radius. A boundary being drawn.
I exhaled slowly.
"Yeah… this just got a lot more interesting."
And I lowered my stance.
Because now, it wasn't just a fight anymore.
It was a war of conditions.