"The mont of truth," Sunny thought, looking at the masked guy standing in the arena.
He was rather excited to watch the fight.
After all, these were the two strongest students of the current batch.
Then he heard Senrix say sothing that bewildered not only him but also the Sleepers around them.
"Can we fight using mories?"
Nephis looked at Instructor Rock, who openly frowned, seemingly deep in thought.
'It might be dangerous, but these two are siblings anyway, so they probably won't try to kill each other. Plus, it's an opportunity for the other Sleepers to see a real fight with real weapons.'
He shook his head for a mont, then said in a rough voice that everyone in the dojo, including Sunny hiding in the shadows, could hear.
"Allowed, as long as you don't threaten each other's lives."
Both Nephis and Senrix nodded.
Why would they even threaten each other's lives?
They were siblings who had lived together for most of their lives.
Instructor Rock exhaled hard before raising his hand.
"No lethal intent."
"This is a spar."
"Begin."
The ring went quiet because both of them knew the rules, and both of them had been sparring since they were kids in the courtyard behind their ho.
Nephis drew the [Dream Sword] with a soft hum, her grey eyes calm and empty of emotion because that was how she always fought, especially against her brother.
Senrix rolled his shoulders and the [Crimson Engine] ford over his hands, crimson black gauntlets venting heat as golden flas rolled up his arms, and he didn't charge like a speedster but stepped forward like a wall that had decided to move.
He threw the first punch, and the air itself seed to ignite around his fist as it ca down where Nephis had been standing, lting the reinforced mat into slag and sending a wave of heat that made the front row of Sleepers flinch back.
She was already gone, sidestepping with the kind of precision that ca from knowing her brother's reach better than anyone, and the [Dream Sword] flashed out to kiss the side of the [Crimson Engine] in a spray of sparks.
The tal didn't part but a scorched line appeared across it, and Senrix shifted his weight without surprise because his little sister had always been able to cut things that shouldn't be cut.
His left gauntlet ca around in a backhand that tore the sleeve from her uniform even though it missed, and Nephis ducked under it without a change in expression, flowing into his guard because distance was death against Senrix.
She thrust for his ribs, trusting him to stop it before it was lethal because they were siblings, and he caught the blade between his gauntlet's fingers as golden flas imdiately began crawling up the steel toward her hand.
Nephis answered with white fla of her own, the kind that could heal and burn, and when the gold and white t there was a sharp hiss that made her grit her teeth against the familiar pain that was never gut-wrenching but deep enough to lock her jaw.
She pushed through it, the white fire eating into the gold for an inch, and Senrix shoved outward with a force that sent her skidding back ten ters, boots carving glowing trenches through the mat.
She landed in a crouch with smoke rising from her palm, and white fla washed over the burns to seal them because showing injury ant he would pull back, and neither of them wanted this to end early.
Senrix slamd his gauntlets together and the vents on the [Crimson Engine] roared, golden fire forming a halo around him that warped the air until the Sleepers couldn't tell where he ended and the flas began.
Nephis advanced without hurry, because rushing her brother was how you ended up in a wall, and when he threw a straight punch that hit like a flaming train she angled the [Dream Sword] to deflect it instead of blocking, letting the force tear a furrow through the barrier behind her.
She stepped inside the opening that created, closer than anyone else had been to him since the spar started, and her sword flickered three tis with surgical precision toward throat, heart, abdon.
His left caught the first, his right caught the second, and he took the third on his chest where the blade bit shallow before the wound cauterized instantly against skin that glowed faintly gold.
He brought both gauntlets together with her between them, and she dropped flat to the mat as they crashed together above her head, the shockwave blowing out every light in the dojo and leaving only gold and white flas to see by.
In the darkness she rolled between his legs, knowing his balance was weakest when he overcommitted, and ca up behind him to slash at his hamstring with the [Dream Sword], feeling the blade part muscle even through his tank-like body.
Senrix grunted and pivoted on the injured leg, backfisting her with enough force that her guard didn't matter, lifting her off her feet and sending her into the reinforced alloy wall hard enough to dent it.
She coughed once and tasted blood, and the white fla that flared to nd her ribs made her grit her teeth again because the healing was never gentle, but she stood anyway with her expression blank because her brother hated it when she stayed down.
He was limping slightly now with golden flas leaking from the cut on his leg, but his stance didn't change as they t in the middle of the ruined ring, and the fight stopped looking like a lesson and started looking like two siblings who knew every trick the other had.
Gauntlet against sword, gold against white, each clash turned more of the mat to molten slag, and her cuts were accumulating across his arms while his blows were breaking her guard down piece by piece until her left arm hung wrong from a glancing hit.
She healed it imdiately, jaw tightening at the sharp pain, and Senrix's mask cracked down the middle from the force of their exchanges, his breathing heavier now but his smile visible through the split.
Nephis stopped healing after that, let the burns stay and the blood run down her chin, because holding back against her brother was worse than losing, and her white flas changed to sothing edged and desperate that he recognized from childhood.
She spun inside the arc of his next double hamrblow, closer than close, and brought the [Dream Sword] up, but Senrix was already moving, one gauntlet catching her wrist before the blade could rise, and the other driving forward into her guard.
The impact folded her around his fist, and the [Crimson Engine] discharged a point-blank burst of golden fla that blew her off her feet, sending her over the edge of the ring to hit the floor outside the boundary.
She lay there for a second with her chest heaving, the [Dream Sword] still in her hand but the white flas around her flickering out, and the pain in her ribs and arms was enough to make her grit her teeth as she pushed herself up on one elbow.
Senrix stood in the center of the ring with his mask having cracks and his gauntlets smoking, golden fire still rolling off his shoulders, and he didn't move to help her up because they both knew the spar was over the mont she left the ring.
Instructor Rock stared at the molten crater where the mat used to be before he finally spoke.
"Winner. Senrix."
The dojo was silent except for the hiss of cooling slag, and Nephis exhaled once before letting the [Dream Sword] dissolve, white fla crawling over her skin to start sealing the worst burns while she clenched her jaw against the ache.
She didn't try to use her powers to burn during the whole fight so she could practice her control over the healing factor of her Aspect.
If not for that, the fight would have lasted longer.
She still would have lost, but not without destroying Senrix's mask first.
"What in damnation did I just watch...?" Sunny thought. He wasn't just shocked, he was speechless.
That fight had actually burned the arena down.
Unbeknownst to everyone, the man who had previously talked with Elysia was watching intently with his... no, her eyes.
'Even his fighting style is the sa.' Elysia smiled for a mont, then severed the connection between this man and her main body, leaving the man confused as to why he was in the furthest east seat when he thought he had been in the middle seats.
Elysia had been watching the whole exchange and had even noticed the divine shadow.
_____________________________________________
A/N: for information to those who didn't play honkai impact 3rd
Elysia is inspired by the main heroine of the elysian realm arc in the ga honkai impact 3rd, aka Elysia.
Elysia in lore is the herrscher of origin also called the herrscher of humanity or herrscher of human:ego
For context in that world a herrscher is a demigod level threat.
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