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Neither of them moved.
The gym went silent. The reinforced walls absorbed the sound, leaving nothing but the low hum of the overhead lights.
i stood at the far end, with her claymore resting on her shoulder. She wasn't even in a proper stance. She was just standing there, the way you'd stand in a queue.
Akira, on the other side, was locked in. Left blade forward, right blade high. Overdrive burning through his body, every muscle burning with power.
He studied her, trying to look for an opening.
Alas, he found nothing.
Fine. I'll make one.
Akira launched forward.
He crossed the distance in the blink of an eye. Overdrive launched him forward like a slingshot, his feet barely touching the floor, the flas trailing behind him in twin ribbons of blue.
He ca in low, left katana sweeping upward in a diagonal slash aid at her torso. A fast and clean strike. The kind of move designed to force the opponent to move.
But not when the opponent was the Blood Dancer.
She tilted the claymore off her shoulder. The massive black blade dropped into the path of his katana like a falling gate.
CLANG.
The impact shook through Akira's arm and into his shoulder. It felt like he'd swung into a wall. The claymore hadn't moved; it had simply been there, in exactly the right place, at exactly the right ti.
i looked at him over the edge of the blade.
"That's all?"
Akira twisted his body as he pulled his left katana back and brought the right one around in a horizontal arc, targeting her exposed side. A classic two-strike combination. The first to test, the second to punish.
i's free hand ca up.
She caught the flat of his katana between her palm and her fingers.
"Interesting," she said.
She let go of her blade and landed a punch.
Akira flew backward. His feet skidded across the gym floor, blue flas flaring as he braked himself. He slid ten tres before stopping.
He looked at his right katana, and then at her hand.
She hadn't even used the claymore for that one.
Okay. She really is super strong.
He adjusted his grip and went in again.
This ti, he didn't commit to a single line of attack. He ca in fast, weaving left, and opened with a feint. His left blade flicked toward her face, pulling back before it connected, while his right blade drove low toward her knee.
i stepped back. The feint passed through empty air. The low strike missed her knee by a centitre.
She grabbed her claymore and swung in a wide, horizontal arc that covered the entire space in front of her. The black blade cut through the air, which sounded like tearing fabric, trailing veins of pink energy.
Akira ducked. The claymore passed over his head, close enough to ruffle his hair.
He rose into the gap. Both blades coming up in a scissor strike aid at her neck.
i brought the claymore back. Impossibly fast for a weapon that size. The massive blade reversed direction mid-swing, and the flat part slamd into both of Akira's katanas simultaneously.
CRACK.
Akira's arms buckled. The force pushed him down, forcing his knees to hit the floor. The shock-absorbent flooring cracked beneath him.
He felt the gap. The raw, undeniable difference between soone who had trained alone and soone who had spent a lifeti fighting people who wanted to kill her.
"Your movent and transitions are good," i said, standing over him. "But you are easy to read. Your eyes go where you want to hit before your blade does."
Akira rembered the ti when he taught the sa thing to Momo.
There is always a bigger fih.
i stepped back and raised the claymore again.
"Again."
Akira gritted his teeth and shot towards her.
He ca in faster this ti. Overdrive surging, his body blazing with blue fla. He attacked rapidly. Left. Right. Left. Overhead. Low. Diagonal. Each strike flowed into the next without pause, his dual blades weaving a web of steel around i's guard.
It was his best swordwork. The kind that had dismantled combat droids in seconds.
i, however, parried every single one.
Her claymore moved as fast as Akira's blades. She deflected his left blade with the flat side. Caught his right on the crossguard. Redirected his overhead with a twist of the wrist that sent his montum past her. She wasn't just defending. She was reading him.
Every pattern, every habit, and every instinct he had drilled into his body over months of solo training. She saw through it.
Akira pushed harder as he found a rhythm. A three-strike combination: low left, high right, thrust centre. He had used this sequence against the combat droid a hundred tis. It was fast and had no gaps to exploit.
i stepped into it.
She didn't parry the low left. She let it pass, shifting her hip so the blade cut air. She didn't block the high right; she ducked, the katana whistling over her head. And the thrust — which was the killing blow, the one he had bet everything on — she caught between the side of the claymore and her forearm, trapping the blade in a vice of steel and muscle.
Akira's eyes widened, while i grinned.
Her fist ca up again.
She punched him in the chest.
But this ti she was channelling sothing through it. It looked like an energy.
The punch launched Akira across the gym.
He hit the far wall. The reinforced panels cracked, and he slid down, landing on his feet.
His chest hurt, he could feel the bruise forming already, deep in the muscle.
He looked up.
i was walking toward him. Claymore resting on her shoulder again.
She hadn't broken a sweat.
"You're fast," she said. "Faster than most people I've fought. And your form is solid for soone self-taught, plus you have good instincts."
She stopped right in front of him.
"But you have one problem."
She raised the claymore and pointed it at him.
"You fight like you're in a hurry."
Akira wiped his mouth. "What does that an?"
"It ans every attack you throw is designed to end the fight. Every combination is ant to find the kill shot as fast as possible. You pour everything into your opening exchanges and pray that sothing lands."
She lowered the blade.
"Against weaker opponents, that works. Against villains who can't match your speed, it's devastating. But against soone who can survive your opening attacks? Soone who can fight you as an equal?"
She shrugged.
"You will lose."
Akira stared at her. As much as it annoyed him, she was right. Overdrive had boosted his body, but if they had kept fighting, he was sure she would have outlasted him.
"One more," Akira said.
i raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"
He raised both katanas. His flas burned brighter.
"Yeah."
He charged in,
He ca in with everything he had left. A final burst of Overdrive-fuelled speed. He feinted left, then spun right, bringing both blades around in a sweeping double slash that targeted both sides of her body simultaneously.
i watched it co.
She swung the claymore.
One swing.
The black blade burned with pink energy, t both of his katanas at the point where their arcs converged. The claymore didn't deflect them, it overpowered them.
The impact blew through Akira's guard like it wasn't there. His katanas flew from his hands, spinning through the air, embedding themselves in the gym floor twenty tres away.
The claymore stopped an inch from his neck as the pink gem pulsed.
Silence.
Akira stood there, disard. The edge of the black blade rested against his throat.
He looked at i.
i looked at him.
She pulled the claymore back and let it dissolve. The black tal shimred, the pink veins faded, and the weapon disappeared into nothing, returning to wherever her quirk stored it.
She held out her hand.
Akira looked at it, and then he took it.
She pulled him to his feet.
"You're strong," he said.
i shrugged. "Well, you didn't use your flas offensively. So it was easier for ."
Akira looked at her. "Would it have mattered?"
i smiled. "Maybe yes, maybe no. We'll never know."
Akira laughed. Then he let it settle down and looked at her.
"Okay. So tell what to do."
i crossed her arms.
"Well," she said. "I've got just the thing you need."
Akira grinned and comnted jokingly, "Let guess. I have to ditate."
He laughed.
But then he saw i's face.
She wasn't laughing. She was staring at him with a completely blank expression.
His laugh died.
"Please tell it's not ditation."
This ti, i burst out laughing. The kind that made her double over, slapping her knee.
"Yeah!" she wheezed. "It's ditation!"
Akira's head dropped. "It's always ditation."
i wiped tears from her eyes.
"Let give you the reason," she said, straightening up. "You use your energy very inefficiently."
"What does that an?"
She asked a question instead. "Do you have a way to combine your sword and fire?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Two of them. Cleave and sh. Both use my red flas to launch superheated slashes."
"Exactly," she said.
He looked at her, confused. "How is that a problem?"
"Because that's all you have," i said. "Two techniques for combining blade and fla. And both of them are designed to do one thing: hit as hard as possible in a single shot."
She started pacing.
"Your fighting style is fast-paced. As I said before, you always go for the kill. You want to end every fight as quickly as possible."
He kept listening.
"And yeah, that's a great thing to have against low-level threats. But what about the stronger ones? Those who can take your best shot and keep standing?"
She stopped pacing and looked at him.
"What if you can't one-shot them? Then what?"
Akira opened his mouth. Then, it closed it. He had never really thought about it.
"For that," i continued, "you need to manage your stamina properly. Even if you have a lot of it. Because it doesn't matter how big your tank is if you burn through it in the first thirty seconds."
She pointed at him.
"And for that, you need a calm mind. Which, from what I've seen, you lack."
Right where it hurts, Akira thought.
i held up a finger.
"So. For the next few days, you'll be ditating with . Learning to breathe, learning to centre yourself, learning to fight without wasting energy on aggression and adrenaline."
She held up a second finger.
"And if you do that well, I might teach you a thing or two about swords too."
She looked at him.
"Got it, kid?"
Akira sighed.
This is going to be annoying.
"Got it."
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Guess our boy got a master. Level up coming up. Hope you all liked it.
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