“…Well, you’re a tenacious one, I’ll give you that. I wouldn’t have expected you to last through five attacks,” Madiath said, looking astonished.
“Haaah… Haaah… Haaah…!”
Ayato could only pant in response.
He’d just endured five encirclement attacks from pieces of the Raksha-Nada.
Thanks to his shiki state, he had managed, albeit barely, to protect his head, his vitals, and the tendons in his limbs necessary to move freely, but the rest of his body was completely shredded.
The pain was already mind-numbing, and the bleeding was even worse. It wouldn’t be long before he couldn’t move at all.
Before that happened, he had to—
“Well then, let’s try it a sixth time.”
Once again, a cloud of shimmering crimson shards appeared all around him.
The fragments maintained their distance at first, but the net they formed around him slowly closed in, and no matter how he moved, they simply shifted along with him, trapping him.
“It would really help me out if you just gave up now,” said Madiath in a calm, emotionless voice, just as the fragments dove toward Ayato. Their movement now felt less like an attack and more like a rote task.
Ayato desperately countered with the Ser Veresta. At times, he deflected them with the edge of his blade, while at others, he twisted his body to evade their attacks. All the while, he withstood the storm, his dance-like movements scattering drops of blood.
Throughout it all, Ayato continued to observe Madiath.
This feat was only possible thanks to the fact that he had given his body over to his shiki state, allowing it to reflexively perform a variety of automatic maneuvers.
“Dear me, what a waste. You’re only prolonging your suffering,” Madiath said with a sigh.
Had he noticed?
Of course, Madiath was by no means complacent. He had the overwhelming advantage here, but if Ayato was the type to let his guard down, this fight would have already been over.
Though he was one-sidedly toying with Ayato, it was clear that Madiath remained firmly vigilant, ready to deal with any unforeseen possibilities. Above all, he wasn’t devoting the entirety of the Raksha-Nada to his encirclement attacks. Small crimson pieces continued to glimmer in midair, ready to protect him from any unexpected counters.
That was why Ayato had to time his move perfectly.
No opportunity had presented itself during the first five attacks.
If he had been fighting anyone else, anyone besides this man with his formless, patternless combat style, he would have long since seized his chance.
Just because he had managed to withstand his opponent’s strikes so far didn’t mean that he was able to conquer them. In fact, Madiath’s style of fighting was impossible to conquer.
Ayato just had to take his time, probing for a weakness.
Monitoring Madiath’s breathing, the direction of his gaze, his every movement.
…And finally, a chance presented itself.
“Oh? Did Riessfeld use her special technique? In that case, the match will soon be settled—”
At that moment, Ayato dashed forward, closing the distance between them in a single breath—charging like a blinding sword flash.
“Amagiri Shinmei Style, Ultimate Technique III—Uwabami.”
Without warning, blood gushed from Madiath’s chest as his left arm fell limply to the ground, separated at the elbow.
“What…?”
For the first time, he looked surprised.
At the same moment, Ayato collapsed to the floor.
He managed to catch himself with his hands, but if he dropped his guard even for a moment, he risked slipping out of consciousness. Gritting his teeth, he fell back, putting some distance between himself and his opponent, and leaned against the wreckage of a fallen pillar, readying the Ser Veresta in front of him.
He had brute-forced his way through the Raksha-Nada’s encirclement attacks, and the fragments had torn through his body, leaving considerable damage to some of his vital areas.
“…So you pulled it off,” Madiath said with a glare as he called the fragments back to his sword.
Several other shards locked together to form a tourniquet, wrapping around the stump of his arm to stem the bleeding. It was a convenient tool, that was for sure.
“I didn’t think you had another ultimate technique up your sleeve. So what kind of trick was that, then? I never would have expected you to pull off something I couldn’t respond to.”
“…I’ll leave you guessing,” Ayato replied, brushing the question off with a forced smile.
The Amagiri Shinmei style had three ultimate techniques. Among them, the Tsugomori was the perfect counter, the Wazaogi the perfect defense, and the Uwabami the perfect move for taking the initiative.
Precisely what it meant to take the initiative when countering and attacking tended to differ from one martial arts school to another, but in the Amagiri Shinmei style, it went beyond simply attacking before the enemy—it meant striking before they were even aware of the attack.
In other words, to deal an utterly inescapable blow.
However, it went without saying that once a battle was underway, pulling off such a feat was extremely difficult. After all, it was folly to let yourself get distracted in such a situation.
But people weren’t machines. No matter how skilled they were, complete control over every detail of one’s physical and mental self was beyond the realm of possibility. The human body isn’t controlled solely by the conscious mind, just as one’s heart doesn’t stop beating when one goes to sleep. No one can consciously process every iota of information that they take in.
No matter how vigilant and prepared one might be, there were always fluctuations. The blink of an eye, for example, or a momentary distraction caused by a piece of debris falling behind you. Small details, out of one’s control.
Of course, you would need more than just one such distraction if you hoped to take the initiative. But when they piled up—when those details came together, they created gaps in one’s awareness that even the person in question wouldn’t notice.
But such moments tended to last less than a thousandth of a second, and with the individual themselves unaware of them, it was well-nigh impossible for others to catch on. Even if they could, by the time they thought to launch an attack, the opportunity would have already passed. It should have been impossible to exploit such an opening.