Amane shot forward immediately, Azures held at the ready in both hands.
“Aha ha ha! Let’s see how well you fare against me in a sword fight, Ikki-kun!”
“Holy crap, is he really gonna challenge Another One to a close-quarters duel?!”
“Is he secretly a master martial artist or something?!”
The audience muttered excitedly to one another, surprised by how aggressive Amane was being. Once he was in range, Amane swung his right arm down.
“Take this!”
“Tch!”
It was an amateurish swing, with no technique behind it at all.
“Wh-What the heck?!”
“His stance is all wrong, and so’s his footing!”
“Wh-What a sight! I never thought I’d see such low-level swordplay at the Seven Stars Battle Festival! Shinomiya’s more like a child playing at sword fighting than a real swordsman!”
Even Iida was stunned by Amane’s pathetic display. Everyone thought Ikki would easily counter him. Saikyou quickly disabused them of that notion, however.
“It’s true that he has no technique or power behind his slashes, but look at how seriously Kuro-bou’s taking them anyway.”
Everyone turned to look at Ikki.
“What’s with that guy?” Stella muttered, still focused on Amane.
“What do you mean, Stella-san?” Shizuku asked. From her perspective, it seemed like Ikki was managing to evade Amane’s attacks well enough. But Stella had spent enough time honing her swordsmanship to know that there was a lot more going on beneath the surface.
“From this distance, you can easily tell. His swings look stupid, but they’re all coming from the perfect angles, with just the right amount of force in them. Each attack is perfectly calculated to give Ikki the most amount of trouble. That’s why he hasn’t been able to counterattack.”
“R-Really?!”
“Ikki hasn’t counterattacked, has he? There’s your proof.”
“Now that you mention it...”
Indeed, while it looked like Ikki was easily handling Amane’s attacks, he was actually so hard-pressed that he couldn’t find a single opening to strike back.
“I never knew he was such a skilled swordsman...” Stella muttered, shaken.
However Kurono shook her head and replied, “This is all probably thanks to his Nameless Glory.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shinomiya isn’t putting any thought into how he swings his blades. That said, because of his power, they all just ‘coincidentally’ happen to be perfectly aimed, coming from angles that are the hardest for Kurogane to deal with.”
No matter how low the possibility of such a string of coincidences was, as long as it wasn’t zero percent, Nameless Glory could twist fate to make that possibility an inevitability. If Amane wished to beat Ikki in a sword fight, fate would bend over backward to make that a reality. As the exchange of blows continued, the rest of the audience started to realize what was going on as well. Though Amane looked like he was full of openings, Ikki was the one being pushed back.
“Even in A-league matches, fighters sometimes get lucky hits in,” Saikyou continued. “And it looks like Ama-chan’s able to throw out lucky hit after lucky hit like it’s nothing. If any of those connect, Kuro-bou’s going to be down for the count.”
“No wonder he’s earned himself the nickname ‘Bad Luck’!”
“Yeah, that power’s even harder to deal with than I thought.”
After another exchange of blows, Ikki was actually forced to back out of melee range—a first for him in the Seven Stars Battle Festival.
“Kurogane’s being pushed back! He wasn’t able to fully block that last swing!”
“Y-You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
“It looks like he’s just swinging those around willy-nilly to me!”
When Ikki leaped back, he landed off-balance, giving Amane the perfect chance to finish him off. But he didn’t take it.
“Phew. I’m beat.”
Instead, he dropped the Azures he was holding in both hands, letting them stab into the ground.
“Sh-Shinomiya’s dropped his Device?! What for?!”
“You really are good at sword fighting, Ikki-kun!” Amane said with a cheerful smile. “No wonder they call you the Uncrowned Blade Master. I don’t think I’ll get anywhere this way. So let’s change things up!”
He summoned a new set of Azures between his fingers and threw them all straight up into the air. As they flew, they split into dozens of smaller blades, and a storm of steel rained down on the arena. Not a single one fell toward Ikki, though. The blades instead bit into the stone ring, making it look like a graveyard of steel crosses. No one could figure out what Amane was planning.
“How about this?!” Amane shouted, materializing two more Azures in his hand and threw them at two of the Azures sticking out of the ground. The thrown blades bounced cleanly off the ones in the ground and started ping-ponging around the arena.
“M-My god! Amane’s blades are shooting around like pinballs! H-How is that possible?!” Iida cried.
“The blades just happen to land at the perfect angles so they can bounce Ama-chan’s Devices around without any loss of kinetic energy,” Saikyou explained. “They’re not just bouncing at random either.”
“Ngh!”
Just as Saikyou finished her explanation, the two Azures shot toward Ikki at the same time, one from either side. Of course, Ikki could block an attack of this level easily enough.
“Aha ha, you gotta be more careful than that, Ikki-kun!” Amane said with a wicked grin. For as Ikki batted aside his blades, they collided with another set of Azures on the ground and started bouncing around him again.
“Tch!”
Thanks to his honed reflexes, Ikki managed to leap aside before the blades came at him again. But of course, that meant they hit another set of Azures in the ground, and the process repeated itself once more.
“U-Unbelievable! No matter how many times Kurogane strikes them down, the blades end up hitting one of the gravestones in the ground and start bouncing around again!”
“Aha ha ha! Amazing, isn’t it? As long as I keep wishing for them to pierce you, they’ll keep going after you no matter what you do. And I can always add more blades to the mix.”
Immediately after saying that, Amane summoned another set of Azures in his hands. He threw them all into the air, and as they fell, they collided perfectly with the crosses in the ground to start shooting toward Ikki as well. There were now over thirty blades flying around the ring, which was more than even Ikki’s exemplary swordsmanship could handle.
“I’ll predict it now: You’ll lose without landing even a single hit on me, Ikki-kun!”
At Amane’s signal, the blades all shot toward Ikki from every conceivable direction. There was nowhere for Ikki to dodge, and even if he could strike them all down, there’d be no point since they’d just ricochet and come at him again. Amane grinned, confident that this would end the match.
“Huh?”
A second later, though, his jaw dropped open in shock. Just as the blades reached Ikki, he ripped his coat off and twirled it around, controlling the garment like a dancer’s veil. In doing so, he made it so that every single Azure got wrapped up in the soft cloth. If he couldn’t deflect the blades, he simply had to catch them.
Ikki calmly shook his jacket out, and the thirty-odd Azures clattered to the floor. He then leaped forward, closing the distance between himself and Amane.
“Ah!”
Amane hadn’t been expecting a counterattack, and Intetsu grazed his cheek as he dodged at the last second.
“You’re a pretty terrible fortune teller, Amane-kun.”
The cut was so tiny that it barely bled, but it was proof that Ikki had landed a hit. Amane was so stunned that he didn’t even have a retort for Ikki’s taunt.