Chapter 313 — No Contest
Word reached Chief before anyone had to go looking for him. He arrived a few minutes later, already in full armor as always, crossing straight to where the small group watching Naruto's training stood.
Everyone looked at him.
He turned his head slightly toward Gaius, who had already stopped Training Naruto's Haki and was watching him approach with the same unreadable patience he brought to everything else.
"If Gaius agrees," Chief said.
Gaius considered that for a moment. Naruto, still catching his breath a few feet away, looked between the two of them with an expression somewhere between excitement and disbelief.
"Wait, seriously? Right now?"
"Now is fine," Gaius said.
The ones who'd already been watching Naruto's training didn't need to gather. Fred and Will were still catching their breath from their own round with him. Kelly and Linda stood nearby, having drifted over with the rest of the Spartans out of simple curiosity minutes earlier. Johnson had his coffee in hand, already grinning like a man who fully intended to enjoy whatever came next.
Word of what was about to happen spread past that small crowd fast, though, and it didn't take long for the rest to start arriving. Tony and Halsey crossed over from the workshop together, Tony already pulling up a display as he walked. Tanya also came fast after hearing about it, she was earlier than Mindy, who'd clearly run at least part of the way. Saeko arrived last, sword still in hand, having left her own training mid-form the moment she heard why everyone was moving.
Tony ended up leaning against a support strut, still watching his display, running numbers only he seemed to care about yet. Halsey stood a short distance from him, arms folded. Diana and Naruto ended up shoulder to shoulder near the front, both of them practically vibrating with anticipation for entirely different reasons.
Osman's hologram patched in a moment later, alerted the instant Jarvis flagged the impromptu match on the command channel, and Parangosky joined a few seconds after her, silent and unreadable at the edge of the group.
Gaius, out of his armor as usual, studied the fully armored Spartan across from him for a long moment.
"You've fought things stronger than yourself before," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Regularly," Chief said.
"Good," Gaius said. "Then you'll understand why I won't apologize for this."
Chief's gaze shifted briefly toward Gaius's plain clothes. "You're not going to armor up?"
"There's no need for it," Gaius said.
Chief didn't answer right away. Cortana's voice resolved directly through the neural link, quiet and private, meant for no one but him.
"He's not even going to suit up, Chief." A short pause. "I genuinely don't know if I should be insulted on your behalf, or just insulted."
Chief said nothing out loud. He didn't need to.
Chief moved first.
To any normal person watching, it would have looked instantaneous.
A Spartan-II in full MJOLNIR armor was already terrifying to witness in motion. The suit amplified every movement, every step, every strike, turning an already superhuman soldier into something that blurred across the battlefield.
One moment Chief stood twenty feet away.
The next, he was already in front of Gaius.
His fist shot forward with enough force to shatter reinforced concrete.
Gaius calmly raised an open hand.
Boom!
The impact echoed across the training field like a cannon shot.
The ground beneath Gaius's feet fractured in a spiderweb of cracks, but he himself didn't move so much as an inch.
Chief's eyes narrowed behind his visor.
Without hesitation, he flowed into the next attack.
A left hook.
A knee toward the ribs.
A downward elbow.
Every strike transitioned seamlessly into the next, decades of battlefield experience creating combinations that had ended countless Covenant Elites and Brutes.
Gaius met each attack with the smallest movement possible.
A slight turn of the wrist.
A shift of the shoulder.
A single step.
Every punch was redirected.
Every kick slipped past harmlessly.
Not a single movement was wasted.
Not once did Gaius retreat.
Naruto's mouth slowly fell open, then a grin spread across his face.
"...He's blocking everything."
Fred didn't even blink, watching with complete focus.
"No."
Kelly glanced at him.
"What?"
Fred never looked away.
"He's not reacting."
The realization settled over him almost immediately.
"He's moving before Chief commits."
Kelly's eyes widened slightly.
"Is this Haki?"
Chief launched another combination.
A straight punch became a hook halfway through.
The hook instantly transitioned into a shoulder charge.
When Gaius shifted to avoid it, Chief swept low for his leg.
Instead of stepping away, Gaius simply lifted one foot.
The sweep passed harmlessly beneath him.
Chief immediately reached upward, grabbing for the airborne leg.
His gauntlet closed around Gaius's ankle.
For the first time...
Chief managed to touch him.
The crowd leaned forward.
Then Chief tried to move him.
Nothing happened.
It was like trying to uproot a mountain.
The servos inside MJOLNIR whined as they pushed harder.
Gaius looked down.
"Good."
With one effortless motion, he twisted his leg free, caught Chief's armored wrist, pivoted his hips—
—and threw him.
Chief flew nearly twenty meters before landing in a controlled roll.
His boots dug trenches through the earth as he slid backward.
He recovered almost instantly.
"So fast..." Mindy whispered.
"No," Tanya corrected quietly.
"He simply chose the fastest solution."
Chief charged again.
This time there were no feints.
No hesitation.
Only relentless pressure.
Punches.
Elbows.
Knees.
Low kicks.
Every strike carried enough force to kill an ordinary human several times over.
Gaius answered every attack with perfect precision.
It wasn't flashy.
It wasn't dramatic.
It was simply...perfect.
He stood exactly where he needed to.
Moved exactly as much as necessary.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Johnson lowered his coffee.
"...That's just unfair."
Chief suddenly changed rhythm.
Instead of attacking continuously, he paused for half a heartbeat before exploding forward again.
Then he altered the timing once more.
Then again.
He deliberately broke every recognizable pattern.
Fred immediately understood why.
"He's testing him."
Kelly nodded.
"He thinks Gaius is reading his rhythm."
Chief threw another punch.
Before his shoulder even began to move—
Gaius had already stepped aside.
Chief's fist cut through empty air.
For the first time...
Chief realized.
It wasn't timing.
It wasn't rhythm.
It wasn't reflexes.
Gaius already knew.
Observation Haki.
Tony slowly lowered the tablet in his hands.
"...That's cheating."
Naruto laughed.
"No."
He couldn't stop grinning.
"It's Haki."
Chief didn't slow down.
Instead, he became even more aggressive.
His fist drove toward Gaius's jaw with everything MJOLNIR could deliver.
This time...
It connected.
BOOM!
Several people flinched.
The impact echoed across the field.
For a split second, everyone thought Chief had finally landed a decisive hit.
Then the dust settled.
Gaius hadn't moved.
Not even slightly.
His forearm remained raised between his face and Chief's fist.
The skin covering it has armament Haki.
Chief looked down.
His own gauntlet had a fresh dent running across the knuckles.
The armor had lost.
Not Gaius.
Chief immediately disengaged.
"...Impressive," Gaius said.
Then he attacked.
He didn't disappear.
He didn't blur.
He simply stepped forward.
One punch.
Chief barely managed to raise both forearms.
The instant the strike landed—
BOOM!!
His energy shields detonated in a shower of sparks.
Warning alarms exploded inside his helmet.
Shield Failure.
The kinetic force launched Chief backward like artillery.
He skipped across the ground before crashing through a stack of reinforced cargo containers nearly fifty meters away.
The containers folded inward from the impact.
Silence.
No one spoke.
Even Johnson forgot to breathe.
"...Good Lord," he muttered.
Chief climbed out of the wreckage.
His shields slowly began recharging.
Without a word...
He charged again.
This time he gave everything.
Every lesson.
Every battlefield instinct.
Every ounce of strength.
His fists became a blur.
His kicks struck like battering rams.
His elbows, knees, and shoulder charges flowed together into one seamless assault.
To everyone watching...
It looked impossible to defend.
To Gaius...
It looked slow.
He flowed between every strike.
Each miss passed only centimeters away.
Not once did Chief force him onto the defensive.
Finally—
Gaius sighed.
An invisible pressure rolled outward.
The air itself seemed to grow heavier.
Dust lifted from the ground.
Pebbles trembled.
The weaker Marines watching instinctively stumbled backward.
Several dropped to one knee without understanding why.
Naruto smiled.
"Conqueror's Haki."
Even the Spartans felt it.
Not enough to overwhelm them.
But enough to understand.
This...
This was only a fraction of Gaius's true presence.
Chief remained standing.
Of course he did.
He was the Master Chief.
But even through layers of titanium armor, he could feel the sheer weight of Gaius's will pressing against him.
Gaius lowered the pressure almost immediately.
"There is no need."
Chief answered with action instead of words.
One final assault.
The fastest sequence he had thrown the entire match.
Punch.
Hook.
Elbow.
Knee.
Low kick.
Shoulder charge.
Every attack chained flawlessly into the next.
Gaius avoided every single one by the width of a finger.
Then—
He placed one hand against Chief's chest plate.
Not a punch.
Not a strike.
A simple palm.
The instant he pushed—
BOOOOM!!
Chief became a blur.
He shot backward across the training field, carving a deep trench through the earth before finally coming to a stop nearly a hundred meters away.
The entire field fell silent.
Chief remained on one knee.
His shields were gone.
Warning lights flashed across his visor.
Slowly...
He stood.
Neither man spoke for several seconds.
Then Gaius lowered his hand.
"That's enough."
Chief looked at him in silence.
"You held back."
"Considerably," Gaius replied.
Johnson let out a long whistle.
"And here I thought Chief holding back was supposed to be the scary part of that fight."
Gaius looked toward him.
"It still is."
His gaze returned to Chief.
"He simply isn't the more dangerous person on this field."
A stunned laugh escaped Mindy before she caught herself.
Chief studied Gaius for another long moment.
Then, in the flattest tone imaginable—
"Rematch."
A faint smile crossed Gaius's face.
"Whenever you're ready."
As the others began talking among themselves, Gaius continued looking at the Spartan standing across from him.
His thoughts briefly drifted to one of his own Battle-Brothers.
Demetrian Titus.
If the two ever crossed paths in combat, Gaius had little doubt about the outcome.
The Master Chief possessed extraordinary speed, his movements fluid and efficient, each transition flowing naturally into the next. Even among the many warriors Gaius had encountered, Chief's close-quarters combat skill was exceptional.
But Titus was a different kind of warrior.
A Primaris Ultramarine.
A veteran of centuries of war.
One who had survived battles against Orks, the forces of Chaos, and countless horrors that would break ordinary men. His experience alone far surpassed anything Chief could match, and his physical strength as a Primaris exceeded that of the Firstborn Astartes who had come before.
If they fought, Titus would emerge victorious.
Not easily, but decisively.
Even so, Gaius found himself respecting the Spartan more than he had expected.
Chief was remarkable.
If one of the Chapter's standard Ultramarines, one without centuries of experience or exceptional distinction, were to face him in an unarmed fight, Gaius believed the Spartan would win more often than not. Chief's speed, precision, and mastery of close-quarters combat would prove overwhelming against the average Battle-Brother.
It was a testament to just how exceptional humanity's greatest soldier truly was.
His gaze briefly fell to his right fist.
He could still feel the moment it had collided with the shimmering energy shield surrounding the Spartan's armor.
A remarkable piece of technology.
Few Space Marines possessed an Iron Halo, and those relics were reserved for the Chapter's greatest heroes and commanders. An energy shield integrated into standard infantry armor was an impressive achievement.
Of course, not every Spartan possessed energy shielding either, just as not every Astartes carried an Iron Halo.
Even so, it had performed exactly as intended.
Without that shield absorbing a large portion of the impact, Chief would have suffered serious injuries from that single punch.
It was another reminder that humanity, regardless of the universe it came from, was capable of creating extraordinary weapons and armor.
Before Gaius could dwell on the thought any longer, Parangosky's hologram spoke, cutting through the conversations with her characteristic bluntness.
"As entertaining as this has been, I didn't authorize this demonstration purely for morale."
Her gaze swept the group. "Doctor. Commander Osman. I want a full technical breakdown of that exchange, shield performance data included, on my desk within the hour."
"Already compiling it, Admiral," Jarvis voiced sounded Tony sides.
"Good."
~~~
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