“Gyyyaaaaahhhhh!”
“Hrngh?!”
The primal scream was accompanied by a blow as fast and as hard as lightning. Like lightning, it didn’t give the knight so much as a second to say anything.
In fact, the rhea girl had never been of a mind to give that bastard a chance to open his mouth.
Instead, the coliseum echoed with a cry more monstrous than that of any of the gargoyles.
She flew in—yes, she seemed to move as if she had wings—to deliver the blow faster than the eye could see.
In the space of a breath, that blow was followed by ten more, twenty, thirty.
“This isn’t…! This is brutality… You might as well be wielding a club…! This isn’t swordsmanship!”
It was to the knight’s credit that he was able to bring his weapon up at all. Even if it couldn’t do much more than take the blow, it prevented the stroke from landing on his head.
“Gyyyaaaaahhhhh!”
She’s insane…! Beneath his helmet, the blood had drained from the knight’s face, and he was scowling hard. The opponent pressing in on him—a rhea girl so small he had to look down to see her—seemed far larger than she was. The knight took two steps back, then three, as if he was facing a giant, not a rhea. She’s only charging forward! I can deal with that!
“Hrrah!” He swung his blade down hard—but the rhea girl wasn’t there.
He heard a zhwf as her bare feet scuttled across the sand; the speed with which she put herself behind him was unreal. This was footwork that could only be achieved with the stubborn feet of a rhea. The girl had learned that from her grandfather, a person of few words but much knowledge.
He had been an adventurer himself. He’d delved the dungeon depths beneath the mountain, and his own heel had been pierced. She didn’t know if it had been from a trap or if it was the doing of a monster. She knew only that it had put an end to his career in swordsmanship.
“What we practice, ’tain’t a strong blade. ’Tis a fast one.”
That was what he had told her as he had her strike a tree as fast as she could, morning and night.
“To make a fast blade work, you have to put your energy into every stroke. Otherwise your sword is no better than a kitchen knife.”
She shouted and beat the tree until she was out of breath. She hit the tree as hard as she could. Never letting her stance falter, stroke after stroke.
“A blade needs proper energy—but never put your heart into it. For the sword has no heart.”
He said it was so that she could practice anywhere, anytime—and everywhere, all the time. Even if the people around her mocked her, laughed at her, said there was no way she could do it.
“Swing the sword with your heart, and in time, without even trying, you’ll be like lightning.”
Her grandfather died. There was a plague, and then he was gone. She couldn’t believe how sudden it was.
She heard people talk: “Now that girl will stop with her foolishness. She’ll settle down and get married.” They didn’t ask what she wanted—they just tried to make things the way they wanted.
It made her sick. She ignored them. That was why she was here now. That was how she had gotten here.
“Gggyyaaahhh!”
“Hrk?! What in blazes does she thinks she’s—? I’ve never seen such absurd swordsmanship!”
She didn’t care. She wasn’t listening. At that point, the girl wasn’t even thinking anymore.
There was only one thing in her head—or perhaps two.
Swing the sword. Move forward. Swing the sword. Move forward. Swing the sword. Move forward.
You’ve got to strike! someone cried in her mind. It was the little girl mocked and ridiculed by all and sundry.
You’ve got to strike. For that little girl.
You’ve got to strike. For your grandfather.
You’ve got to strike. For the slightly deranged mentor whose ideas she could never quite follow.
You’ve got to strike. For the older girl on the farm. For the people of that decent frontier town. For her friends.
You’ve got to strike. For him, the one who had brought her this far.
“Gyyyyaaahhheeee!”
“Hrn…?! She—! What?! But how?!”
Her sword blazed with a flare, the aura of the gods. The thoughts and feelings of the people in the Four-Cornered World, their very wills, now imbued her blade through the bonds they shared.
It was a light that would be incomprehensible to those who chose the path of Chaos, who sought to bend the world to their will. Therefore—yes, that was why, as an explosion like the sun lit the coliseum from somewhere far overhead…
“H-hrgh?!”
“Yaaaaaaahhhh!”
The paladin stumbled backward, his eyes seared by the light, and the girl leaped forward with the light at her back.
It was one-eighth of one breath. No, one-tenth of even that. Another tenth. Then another. Then another. In fact, the blade was like lightning as it crossed the battlefield.
“?!?!?!”
The paladin cried out a wordless scream. He raised his sword to defend, and it shattered in his hand—truly, a bequest of good fortune. The attacking blade slammed into his shoulder, smashing the joint clear through his armor. His left arm fell limp, and then so did the paladin, tumbling to the ground.
“Ahhh… A—Arrgh! The pain…!”
Finally, the contest was settled. The rhea girl lowered her sword and replaced it in its scabbard with a trembling hand. She had done it—somehow.
Her body felt as heavy as lead; sweat poured off her in a waterfall. She thought she could see it pooling at her feet.
She fought the urge to fall to her knees. She sucked in oxygen, her chest heaving up and down.
She felt faint, and there was a ringing in her ears; she couldn’t hear anything. Couldn’t hear? No…
✦ ✦ ✦
“!!”
✦ ✦ ✦
It was her name.
The spectator stands were in a terrible state, spattered with blood, riddled with monster corpses. Seats were broken and crushed. Yet in spite of it all, the people were cheering. They were shouting her name.
The adventurers who had finished their fight, the soldiers, the returned spectators. All of them were cheering for her.
“…!”
For the first time, the girl could only stand dumbly. She couldn’t believe it. Was this really happening? She’d never even dreamed about this. It seemed impossible.
She looked around, her eyes welling up with tears, and then finally she shuffled forward. Her first step was unsteady, her second more of a stumble, but with the third, she flung herself onward, hurtling headlong.
We hardly need say where she was going.
She let the momentum carry her straight to the red-haired boy and caught him up in a hug.
“We are the champions, my friend!”
“Whoa! Ack…!”
Unable to slow her down, the boy toppled on the ground. He noticed the girl’s warmth, her softness, her smell. He felt agitation. Excitement. Joy. Embarrassment. It was like he was feeling every possible emotion at once.
Was that her who was crying, or was it him? He didn’t even know. They hugged each other and rubbed their eyes—but the boy still managed to find time for a good rebuke.
“You…you dummy! What do you mean, champions?!”
“Well, aren’t we?!”
She was a mess of tears and snot and weeping—and yet (the thought flashed through his mind) she was still beautiful.
He tried to pretend he hadn’t had the thought by saying, “It’s not the finals yet!” And then he poured all his many emotions into mussing her hair. She shrieked, but soon she was laughing, laughter that echoed all around the coliseum.
To close this chapter, however, it seems appropriate to quote from one of the heroic sagas.
On that day, the coliseum echoed endlessly with cheers for a rhea swordmaster.