A few minutes later, I faced off with Red Mama in our garden. We both had our shinken up and at the ready.
Father said we could’ve just used wooden swords, but I didn’t think I could communicate how serious I was to Red Mama like that. For her part, she brought her shinken without saying anything. She understood; I didn’t have to tell her.
I took a bunch of deep breaths as I squared off against her. I was nervous. After all, this wasn’t just a graduation exam. There was no guarantee that I was going to win. I had no surefire path to victory. Red Mama was a powerful opponent.
I’d fought against all manner of people in those four years, but she was the one person I’d never beaten. How was she so strong? Why did others fear her? The question was often on my mind during that time.
I reached a conclusion: Red Mama’s strength came from her tenacity. Her persistence.
People tended to get the wrong idea about her because of her Berserker Sword King alias and her appearance, but she never rushed in headfirst without thinking. She was quick-witted and had a great sense of when and how to attack. She could come at you with incredible momentum, but she actually surpassed the other Sword God Style practitioners when it came to defense. She knew the best way to move her body, and even when she stepped close to you, she never left herself open in any decisive ways. You could never get a fatal blow in on her.
Just like North God Style practitioners, she had a persistence that lent itself to lengthy combat encounters. Sometimes she would provoke her opponent into attacking her, and then, just like the Water God Style, parry them at the last moment.
The biggest difference between those styles and how Red Mama fought was she would attack with ferocity. She just kept attacking.
All Sword God Style practitioners thought about defeating their opponent before being struck down themselves, but she still wasn’t the same as them either. She didn’t try to take down her opponent in one hit. Many practitioners of the Sword God Style put everything on the line with their first attack—the Sword of Light is just that powerful. She made it seem like she was the same, but that wasn’t so. She fought while taking into account what would happen if the Sword of Light missed.
I’d seen the Water God Reida and Red Mama spar before. Reida ended up earning more victories over her in total, but there was never a single instance where she was able to beat Red Mama with one hit.
Red Mama was always so clever in how she used her Sword of Light. She never just stepped in and fired it off. She’d won like that before, but sometimes Reida would get the best of her after parrying it and countering.
Red Mama would take the counter, but it was never a fatal blow. There were times when the hit would lead to her being pushed back and losing, but it was never the decisive moment. She always remained standing, even after winding up on the receiving end of the Water God’s secret technique.
Though Red Mama was always on the attack, that didn’t mean she had weak defense. She always envisioned fighting someone better than her. To my eyes, it looked like she believed my father would handle the rest as long as she toughed it out and kept fighting on the front lines. It was a similar style to Great-Grandmother Elinalise or Ruijerd. She was a swordswoman, but she never forgot she was a warrior. Red Mama had the power to deliver a decisive blow, but she was also a protector who could defend the front line for a long time. That was who the Berserker Sword King Eris Greyrat was.
And that was who I had to defeat. It was no easy task.
Before our fight, I thought time and time again about what I had to do to beat her. How I could land a hit on her.
The first thing I came up with was a surprise attack. I would surpass her expectations with the first move and take her out then and there. Red Mama was persistent, but there were limits. Plus, I could use magic, and she had a number of weak points.
But I didn’t do that. I decided to face her head-on instead. I had to, in order to defeat her properly. I had to surpass her in the same ring.
Plus, my objective wasn’t actually beating Red Mama; it was proving to her that I was a man. It wasn’t like it was okay to lose, but I needed to choose how I’d win. She should be satisfied with the result. Otherwise, it would seem like I was saying, Woo! I won. Now I’m a man, right? But that wasn’t for me to decide. I wanted her to believe that I’d become good enough to stand on my own two feet when I beat her, so I had to face her and tear victory from her hands.
How could I not have been nervous?
I still remember the details of the fight clearly. I was the first to strike. Red Mama waited to see what I would do, so I dived in. I’m certain she wanted to see how I’d grown. However, she was never particularly good at waiting. If I hadn’t attacked after a few seconds—no, a single second even—I’m sure she would’ve taken the initiative.
Thanks to her show of patience, I got the drop on her. Mixing magic in, I closed in on her, one move at a time.