Ordinary

Chapter 21: The Destined Battle

In the middle of the crossroads-shaped cage with sakura blossom borders clashed the Dreamernails with the holy hexagonal shield of no name. Their hollow scrapes one after another penetrated the loud curtain of noise-canceling focus in Kaze's head only as affirmation that this was indeed reality. The weeks of training that he'd tempered and tormented himself with had turned him into something more than ordinary, in more ways than one. Blood pumped within him with an intense beat. Anything beyond a few meters of his vision disappeared into the flat darkness of this finite battlefield against the great adversary he'd longed to decimate for months, no, years. And even at his tallest, he appeared so small before the exalted man, shorter by a head, but his technique did not falter. After Kaze's inital rush where he'd immediately landed two consecutive blows from different angles he slowed down the attack. He already had a plan; it was too early to push it. Not yet...

Kaze was beyond all the previous challengers. Neither in speed, strength, nor in skill and stamina was he comparable to the 'others.' This was his battle. Where one fell to the Knight's counter-strike, he disengaged in prediction of it. The crimson knight of benediction gave chase like he had with Ryuu. In return, the knightslayer pivoted around the shieldless side of his opponent and struck again, quickly prying the blocking sword away. With the sound of a shatter, he followed through with his ongoing movement's direction toward one of the four corners of the field, and Alister backed off to the opposite corner.

Similar in discipline, yet differing in approach, the two apexes of combat stood against each other. Kaze huffed. He was still only human, and was only testing the dark waters. From the first exchange alone the soles of the tryhard's feet burnt from the friction-force of his sudden moves. He stole a fraction of the calm to feel out his enemy. Somewhere behind the shadow of that helm hid a face with its own expressions. If it did, Kaze hoped it didn't feel guilt, but anxiety, fear. Alister's health bar had plummeted from the three clean hits by a third and was barely creeping back up. Not yet...

Neither of them uttering a word, the hounds of war circled, keeping full eye contact from the contrasting sides of the arena. The twinbladed Kaze leapt back in without tell, engaging another short trade of blows and efficiently pulling out of danger after the first instance of damage he took. A lethal and precise jab from the purgeless sword of echoes erased a quarter of his health. But Kaze landed a doublestrike of his own – enough of a retaliation to compensate for his enemy's regeneration for the next seven seconds or so. This gave him ample time to reinitialize his own battle healing (that went on a short cooldown whenever he was hit) and undo the damage of the attack.

This routine of steps repeated – once, twice, thrice – all to keep at bay the nearly invincible Knight of Echoes, slowly and surely chipping the monster's health down. The way Alister maneuvered himself around some of the strikes with intentful and disciplined fleet footwork bothered Kaze to no end, for he made little effort to counter the boy's onslaught. Maybe the Knight didn't wish to waste his effort and Purge, for his every attempt to hit back was met with an even swifter vengeance, or maybe he was still just testing the boy. Regardless of the reason, the Knight kept on the defense, blocking, sidestepping and retreating from every imperfect attack. Worse yet, he had yet to release a single yelp, a single grunt that betrayed signs of effort. Kaze considered pausing the assault, but he could not let the opportunity slip. He'd already made up his mind on the only viable method of victory before the battle had even begun. Confidence surged from within Kaze with each exchange that taught him more about the enemy, the screams and screeches of his weapons twisting into and binding with his heart's pounding. Thump-ting, Thump-tchk. Both he and his enemy accelerated from one beat to the next, the interval between their exchanges grew shorter and shorter no matter how much the Knight tried to force a retreating stalemate through his healing, and so the Knight decided to hold his ground. Whereas the battle had begun at the heart of the crossroads, the cold dead asphalt, the warriors of fate parting for ever more impermanent pauses between their engagements began to steer their ordered chaos closer to one of the four sides – the one farthest from Runa – and onto the sidewalk pavement. Scarlet neon marked the passing motions of Kaze's form, trails created by his special armor shader that reacted to movement. The faster he moved, the longer the trail would grow.