Duel of the Eternal Blade

Duel of the Eternal Blade, pt 2

They spiralled around each other. Studying each other's movements. 

Quan Shia was eager, yet careful. Logan could see that. The elegant grace of a Shaolin master walking before him. It was intimidating. Yet so fluid. Like he was water itself, but moving on thin ice.

Yet, Logan treaded haplessly, like his shattered self. As though forced to do something against his will. A slave to someone else's wish. 

Quan Shia didn't like that. The way he walked. Merely asking him already altered the fight and thus would affect his performance. But Quan Shia smirked. Had to make do with it.

So Quan Shia struck first. He lunged at Logan, whirling his body clockwise and launched an upward strike.

Right away, that shifted Logan's stance. He blocked the blade in an angle, reflecting the offending sword upward. Then blocked a downward chop that came after.

Quan Shia backpedalled, backing off before any more retaliatory strikes come about. 

He noticed Logan had instantly come to life upon that standard assault. Like his shatteredness was a ploy to lure in idiots into think they can dominate him easily.

But Logan wasn't ploying anything. He was shattered, but thought for a moment his life was in danger. Thus, he reacted. A flush of needles flooded his body then receded. He so loved that feeling. Feeling alive.

Quan Shia figured he was just warming up. There was still plenty of fight to be had. So he lunged again. Stabbing. Stabbing. Impaling, before his blade was reflected away.

Logan kept slapping the blade away with flicks of a wrist, but each stab came back quickly, as if to poke at his defenses. He knew Quan Shia was testing him.

So Logan lunged at him instead, twirling his blade in funnels, centering an attack around Quan Shia's hand grip.

Quan Shia's eyes went wide open. He backed away from the complicated attack, then smacked the attack aside with perfect timing.

Clumsy fighters would easily fall prey to such an attack, but Quan Shia was not clumsy. He saw such things before, but only masters employed such an attack to tease their students.

So Quan Shia launched a series of attacks. Very standard chops and slices. But Logan saw a swift warrior spiralling and moving his blade in a flurry of curved swings meant to be parried.

He blocked each attack according to memories that weren't even there. Each strike hit hard against his blade. Feeling the blows pound on his forearm muscles. 

Quan Shia was very strong.

So Logan defended a downward strike, then curved his blade in to a sweeping counter attack as if it were the same stroke as his defense.

Quan Shia barely got his hips out of the way from the suddenness of it. He was surprised Logan could do that. Advanced swordsmanship. Blending two moves into one stroke was a hallmark of a Samurai warrior.

They smashed their blades together a few more times before locking their blades together. Logan pressed as hard was he could against the lock with both hands, but Quan Shia merely held him off with one.

Quan Shia pushed him off and Logan stumbled to the ground. That wounded Logan's pride. 

He should have known better than to try and overpower that ox. But he let it go and stood up again with his blade out front.

Vanis watched with worried eyes. She knew Logan could do way better than that. Quan Shia had yet to see the amazing talent Logan birthed out of oblivion.