Chapter 315 - Ah, This Is Fun

Ah, this was fun. She, too, had roamed battlefields and heard every kind of insult, from slurs against her parents to obscenities barely fit to utter. But this was something she had never heard in her life. Never had anyone spoken of her people's blood in such insulting terms. Above all, Aya was a knight, and she loved her skin. She was proud to be an Easterner. "... What?"

Aya tilted her head. "You stink. Wash yourself." Ragna was merely doing as he had learned. Encrid always knew how to strike an opponent's weak spot. When it came to provoking people, he could arguably claim to be the best on the continent. Ragna might not be his star pupil, but he had picked up a few things from years of watching. "... Did that thing just say I stink?" Aya was a knight, and also a woman. Brown shit, stench—every word grated on her. Worse, he said it all so calmly, his face utterly expressionless, as though it were plain truth. That made it even more offensive. "No. You don't stink. You smell lovely. Like flowers." The squire hurried to speak, but the damage was already done. Aya's face hardened. She clenched her molars, the taut muscles standing out along her jaw. "You fucking bastard." Even in her anger, Aya did not abandon all composure. She had built up too much experience for that. She converted her rage into strength. She would kill that thing. "I'll cut out your tongue first."

Aya drew her swords. SHING! Two blades, one in each hand: one short, one long. The sword in her left hand was close to a standard longsword; the one in her right was shorter. "You won't die eas... No. Never mind."

The squire behind him broke off and drew his own weapon. SHING! The sound of the blade leaving its sheath behind him was enough for Ragna to identify a longsword. Meanwhile, his eyes swept over the weapons in Aya's hands. The squire applied subtle pressure from behind, leveling his sword and closing in. Ragna had enemies on both sides. "Did you think you'd get a fair duel? Watch your back, you moron." Aya's words had a vicious edge. She was furious. Ragna accepted her advice. He intended to be careful. The squire moved his feet.

SHFF, SHFF.

He skimmed them over the ground as he changed positions. Ragna took several steps to match him. Aya in front, the squire who had been running away behind him. How should he deal with them? They had him caught between them. Aya moved first. She closed the gap in a flash and followed with a blisteringly fast stab. Ragna raised his sword to block. CLANG! Her attack was merely meant to keep him occupied. The real attack came from behind. The squire's sword descended toward the back of his head. Honed senses roused every part of Ragna's body. He bent his knees and thrust his upright sword higher. The Heavy Sword Technique was built on strength. Naturally, he knew how to put his strength into a blow. Even a movement this short, along so brief a path, could deliver ample impact. The squire did not complete his downward stroke. He made a great show of his intent, then withdrew. The instant Ragna thrust his sword above his head, he flung himself sideways. Aya's sword shot up through the place he had occupied—a terrifyingly fast rising strike. WHIZZ! The blade cut the air with a vicious sound. The attack was swift and unhesitating. "My name is Aya. Sweet-Smelling Aya of the Ruling Prince's Knight Order."

Bestowing the nickname on herself, she charged. Ragna sensed another slash coming from behind. Even without seeing it, he could detect disturbances in the air and killing intent. Front and back—he saw no way to block both. 'Hup.'

He wheeled his sword around. If he could not block them, he need only knock them aside. His blade, broader and longer than an ordinary sword, traced a spiral. It cut through the air at twice its usual speed. Both the squire's sword and Aya's lay in its path. CLANG! Once again, only Aya's blade met his. Whatever else might be said of him, no one assessed a fight faster than Ragna. 'Illusion swordsmanship behind me.' And it was illusion swordsmanship backed by something close to Will. Squire was merely his title; he had the skill to crush those who barely qualified as proto knights. He used intent and determination to carry his movements right up to the verge of a real attack. An imaginary blade flew at Ragna after that. Sensing it and dodging was not an option. It was hard to distinguish the real from the false. Let his guard slip even slightly, and the squire would truly cut him. It was illusion swordsmanship, but a real blade stood ready behind it to cut flesh and bone at any moment. Aya's swordplay was dazzling. It emphasized speed but carried weight as well, somewhere between the Heavy Sword Technique and swift-sword forms. Her proper training showed. She seemed to have inherited an established school of swordsmanship. Above all, the two worked together perfectly. He was in danger. Utter danger, as though one wrong step would send him plummeting to his death. And that was precisely why Ragna was satisfied. Listening to the voice within, had he not been waiting for a moment like this? Nothing could have pleased him more. "You're smiling?"

Aya spoke in disbelief at the look on his face. The emotion his expression stirred in her was more unpleasant than any swing of his sword. She gave an incredulous snort of laughter. Ragna, by contrast, smiled in earnest. He let the smile spread. He savored the moment. "Do you scream with pleasure when someone stabs you?"

Aya asked in disbelief. Ragna quietly enjoyed himself. Danger was a catalyst, an opportunity. He simply had to leap beyond his current limits, right here. He recognized the moment he had been waiting for. He had needed a catalyst. "Shut your mouth. It stinks."

Along the way, he wielded that other blade he had learned to use from Encrid: his tongue. "Fine. Fine. I'll kill you. I'll chop you into tiny pieces." Aya's swords moved again. They swept left and right, leaving afterimages. This was a different kind of Swift Sword from Lycanos's. Ragna realized he had been mistaken. It was not simply halfway between the Heavy Sword Technique and swift-sword forms. 'There's illusion swordsmanship mixed in, too.'

In short, it was a highly polished sword art. That pleased him all the more. CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

He blocked Aya's swords countless times.

CLANG!

Blocked the blade coming from behind. Found openings and knocked their weapons aside.

CLANK!

CLANG!

CRANG!

Now and then, steel struck steel and threw off sparks. SCRUFF!

He pushed off the ground with his soles, keeping his body in constant motion. No—he had to keep moving. Pause for breath, and he would be cut. So he reduced even those pauses to the bare minimum. That was how he endured. "Hah!"

The shout came from behind. Ragna reacted the instant he sensed an incoming attack with a presence he could not ignore. He raised his sword vertically and turned to block. BOOM! The loudest sound of the fight erupted as he blocked the squire's blow. The man had not only illusion swordsmanship but a crushing Heavy Sword Technique strike as well. Ragna needed to lift himself off the ground as he blocked, but failed to disperse the impact properly. His knees ached. Then Aya's sword descended above his head again. It was a cut to the crown, like a swift bird snatching a fish. With no time to swing his sword up, he twisted aside. RIP, RRRIP! Aya's blade swept across Ragna's shoulder. Blood sprayed into the air. He was wearing armor, flimsy though it was, but the blade sliced through it without resistance. Her sword was no ordinary weapon. Its cutting edge was exceptional. Even then, Ragna swung. His sword, roughly half again as long as others, bent like a whip and tore through the space before him like a shaft of light. KRA-BOOM! Thunder rang from the swinging sword. Aya dodged instead of blocking. She knew, too: this was not an attack to block. Her eyes were a little special, and they let her see all of that. "Whew."

Ragna used the brief opening he had earned to steady his breathing. He had employed every sword technique he knew, and had a stab wound behind his thigh and flesh gouged from his left shoulder to show for it. He was outmatched, on the defensive. Yet he did not retreat. The possibility of losing did not exist in his mind. It held only the sense that he was approaching something that hovered just beyond his grasp. And he was not imagining it. Ragna stood before a wall only he could perceive, and he had found his catalyst. "Ah, this is fun."

Ragna murmured the words between exchanges. "You crazy bastard!"

Aya grew angrier still. Aya was winning, yet she was the one growing anxious. Of course she was. She possessed the Will of Sight. To her eyes, this Ragna was catching up to the two of them in real time. 'You fucking monster!'

She felt his swordplay gradually changing. She saw it. Naturally, her urgency grew. "Fuck."

The squire, Bill, swore. Ordinarily mild-mannered, he grew vicious when put on the defensive. Harsh words from Bill meant something was going wrong. The man who should have died long ago kept holding out. On and on he endured, while Bill's superior, the proto knight, signaled with her eyes that things were going to dog-dick shit. Bill was burning with anxiety. Aya felt much the same. 'Seriously, what the hell is this bastard?' The swords in both her hands moved faster. For an instant, they deceived her opponent's eyes into seeing four arms. An illusion born of speed. Ragna's eyes tracked it. THUNK! Unable to block everything, he took a blow to the abdomen. But he did not simply let it hit. The stab only half landed. He retreated and twisted at the waist, avoiding a mortal wound. 'He pulls away while he's being hit?' As he twisted, Ragna extended his sword to its full reach. Aya could not follow up. His intent was obvious; why stand her ground and let his fangs sink into her? She pulled back as well. The stab she had so deliberately aimed into an opening had only torn his skin. Bill moved to reposition himself. In the brief moment Aya drew back, Ragna staggered several times. It was no deception. He had simply overstrained himself dealing with that last strike. Aya's body reacted of its own accord. His opening lay exposed. Her eyes saw it. Bill adjusted his grip to match her. 'We finish this now.'

They had to. They absolutely had to. Foreboding coursed through Aya's entire body. Had she not felt for herself that they had to kill him now? What kind of bastard... 'Gets better while he's fighting?'

It was impossible. What talent could allow that? Just before Aya and Bill lunged in, Ragna understood.

'So this is it.' It had been a long fight, or a short one, depending on how he looked at it. Ragna reflected on his battles until now. He recalled the swords he had swung. Ever since he had first taken up a sword as a child, Ragna had seen the path his blade should take. He knew where to swing. It was not an ability he could explain. He merely swung along the path he saw, and his opponent was injured or killed. Ragna was a genius born with all of those instincts. But between this woman knight and the squire, the paths broke off. They did not connect. He had been surviving by forcibly linking those fragmented paths together. Then he understood. Until now, he had walked only the paths given to him. He had merely followed the way his talent revealed. It was a passive, defensive approach. What, then, was its opposite? 'With the sword I swing.'

He would cut a path. Forge his own way. The swords in the woman's hands traced two arcs. A thunderous presence charged at him from behind as well. Caught between two skilled opponents, Ragna did not connect the broken paths. Instead, he took a new one. CREAK.

His arm muscles responded. Muscles moved throughout his body, and his heart beat.

THUMP!

His body moved in time with that heartbeat. To forge a new path, one first had to take a step. Ragna did so. He blocked Aya's first sword with his right forearm. THUNK!

With the blade lodged in his arm, he tensed his muscles. The shorter blade came up from below toward his abdomen. He raised his knee and struck her sword hand, knocking its aim off. SWISH!

The blade grazed his flank and passed behind him. At the same time as he used his knee, Ragna turned, gripping the sword in his left hand. Ragna, too, possessed superhuman physical strength. Strength training was essential to the Heavy Sword Technique. Aya's sword was still lodged in his forearm. Pivoting on his right foot, he swung his left hand behind him. A backward spinning cut. 'Cut.'

He imbued it with the Will of Scission. The blade swept through air and sound alike. Before Bill's sword could descend from behind, the sound-devouring slash reached his torso. CRANG!

THWACK! His body split in half in midair. Blood and entrails spilled out. His blade had been just about to reach Ragna. With its last remaining force, it struck Ragna's shoulder. A short thud and a jolt shook his entire body, but it did not matter. The new path he had forged still stretched on. THUD! He had blocked a sword with his right arm, struck a sword hand with his knee, spun back to cleave an enemy's torso, and taken the dying force of a blade on his shoulder. Immediately afterward, Ragna drove his forehead into Aya's helmet. Striking its visor split his forehead and drew blood. It did not matter. CRUNCH!

Aya wrenched at the sword caught in his right arm. Ragna relaxed his muscles and let her have it. Instead, he drew his left hand back and raised it. The sword that had cleaved Bill came crashing down. Aya's eyes darkened.

'Insane.'

For just one instant, the man before her had shown an ability similar to her own. Like the Will in her eyes, he had found and executed the best move at every turn of the fight. Aya crossed her swords, but Ragna's descending blade was heavy.

BOOM!

An explosive report burst from the point where their blades met.

CRACK!

"Aaargh!" Both of Aya's arms broke. And with that, the outcome was decided. "Ah."

Blood streamed from Ragna's right arm, shoulder, and thigh as he let out a short exclamation. He swayed as though he might collapse at any moment. Slowly shaking his head from side to side, he steadied his breathing and tried to stand straight. Still, his body listed halfway to one side. That was how exhausted he was. In that state, he spoke.

"Thank you."

He meant it. Aya realized he truly was insane.

"Y-you, you, this isn't—" This isn't over. Do you know who's behind me? I didn't come here alone. None of those words followed. Instead, Ragna's sword struck her helmet squarely.

THUD!

The helmet crumpled and her skull shattered. Thus a proto knight of the Ruling Prince's Knight Order died.

* * *

Encrid did not think this was over. Even as he followed the path through the dust, he prepared for whatever might happen. Hadn't a rope flown out and bound him tightly just a moment ago? Of course, it had been useless. The Isolation Technique: making the body look bigger. He contracted his muscles, then expanded them all at once, layering the Heart of the Superhuman over the movement as he spread both arms. CRACK!

No sooner had it caught him than the rope snapped, scraping his skin. The arrows had begun coming less and less frequently after that, but he still could not let his guard down. What would he become if he stopped doing his best now simply because he could repeat today? He would no longer be the man called Encrid. So he gave it everything. The pursuing soldiers' footsteps grew distant. Still, he did not relax his guard. 'To the very end.'

He would keep going. Find allies, discover some sign—his steps carried him onward as he waited for a change. No, as he sought and pursued one. Six quarrels were lodged in his back alone. He had been stabbed in the thigh. And that was not all. His right boot had been torn away, and he had taken a thrown rock to the forehead. He had lost a fair amount of blood. The half-dried scab on his forehead broke open under the violent movement and bled again. Every strand of muscle trembled. He had reached his limit long ago. Did that pose a problem? No, it did not. So Encrid ran, thinking this was not yet over. He could not let his guard down. As he ran on and on, a four-legged beast suddenly sprang out in front of him. Encrid took a defensive stance. Deflect with the sword in his right hand and stab with the one in his left. The brief preparation came reflexively. Someone carrying a long sword accompanied the beast. Encrid instinctively started to draw his sword, then stopped. Seeing that, the other man spoke. "Let's spar later. I've sprained my arm."

It was Ragna. GRRR.

Beside him stood the Lake Panther, Esther. He had escaped the encirclement. Encrid could not tell when that had happened. In truth, he did not need to know. Run until he died, or walk until he got out. He had simply never intended to stop.