Chapter 17: vs Zahard's Princess (7)
"Hi?"
She just stared at me with that bright smile of mine, not returning the greeting.
Haha, still so cold as ever, huh—
"...Yeah."
Her unexpected reply made my eyes widen a little.
Even though she answered me, she looked away as she spoke — somehow, that made her look cute.
I couldn't help but grin as I drew my sword.
"Oh? You're actually waiting until I draw first now?"
"I want to fight you at full strength. The least I can do is wait for that."
"Haha, then as the princess wishes—"
"—I'll go all out."
Boom!
The moment I finished speaking, both of us — me and Maschenny — dashed toward each other at the same time.
Our bodies, strengthened with shinsu, exploded off the ground, leaving only the traces of our shinsu and cracked floor tiles behind.
Once again, Maschenny Zahard took the first move — her speed overwhelming.
Just like last time, sharp silver needles rained toward my heart.
But unlike before, I didn't defend.
Instead, I struck the side of the needles with force, deflecting them away.
As expected, the needles lost direction and flew into the distance— wait, what?
Maschenny was still holding the wires.
Then why are they flying off—?
No way.
I snapped my gaze toward her — just in time to see it.
She had already released the needles and was swinging an electrified fist straight at me.
"—Kugh!"
A violent impact slammed into my body, followed by a second wave — electricity surging through me.
My body was blown back, barely managing to regain balance.
She… predicted I'd deflect the needles from the start?
Unbelievable combat sense.
"Heh, still lacking experience, aren't you?"
"Even if he's the strongest among the Arie of his age, he's not a Ranker or a Regular yet. He's too strong compared to his peers — meaning he rarely gets to fight anyone truly equal to him."
From the audience, Arie Leblile, my assigned Ranker, quietly watched the match.
Beside her, Maschenny's Ranker spoke with a smug tone.
"The boy's talent is outstanding, but he still can't overcome the wall that is a Princess of Zahard.
Let's hope the Arie family's rising star doesn't get too badly hurt today."
"...You. You sit next to me uninvited, run your mouth like that again, and I'll kill you before the match ends. So either shut up or get lost."
Leblile gave a sharp warning, then turned her eyes back to me.
....
"Damn... that hurts."
I gripped my sword tightly.
No time to breathe — Maschenny was already upon me, forcing me to swing rapidly.
First strike — a diagonal slash.
A cut bloomed across her shoulder and collarbone.
She took it head-on.
Second strike — I twisted my blade upward in a half spin, cutting her across the abdomen.
Blood splattered.
Her eyes widened, but she endured — then unleashed another surge of lightning straight at me.
Or rather, she tried to.
— Reverse Flow Control.
Her movement froze — maybe a second, maybe less.
But in this situation, that was all I needed.
She tried to back away, but it was too late.
One of my hidden cards — the Arie Hybrid Swordsmanship.
With a single swing, invisible slashes tore through the air, shredding Maschenny from all directions.
The attack wasn't as powerful as when I used it against Arie Lune, but it definitely dealt damage equal to what she had inflicted on me.
"—!"
While she was retreating, trying desperately to minimize damage, an unexpected lightning strike shot toward me.
Her shinsu attribute — electricity — raced across the arena, but I wasn't off guard this time.
I deflected it with my sword.
Crackle—
Yet, just as I did, another bolt came flying, striking my shoulder.
She shouldn't have been able to use two fields of lightning at once — how?
"Hiding your trump card is basic strategy if you want to win. Just like that sword technique of yours earlier."
(Truth is, I practiced it after teasing you for not being able to use shinsu properly. But if I say this, you'll think I was already this good back then.)
"Haha, you're a sly princess, aren't you? But hiding things — that's fair game. I can't exactly complain."
I smiled and formed three shinsu swords, launching them at her.
She didn't seem interested in trading ranged attacks, dodging or cutting through them as she charged toward me instead.
A few connected, but her body — reinforced with multiple shinsu fields — could easily take that much.
To maintain distance, I stepped back and kept firing shinsu blades.
Those that missed or got deflected dissolved into the air.
"Didn't you say you wanted to test your improved shinsu control? If you don't fight me at range too, won't that be a waste?"
"What? I—I told you I could use two from the start!"
"Haha, sure you did."
"Ugh..."
Maybe to shut me up, Maschenny surged at me far faster than before. I kept firing as many shinsu-swords as I could until she was almost on top of me, then signalled them off and let them rise and drift away.
As I thought, a normal field can't really hurt her. Her attack had closed to point-blank range. For a long-reach blade that close, that should be a blind spot—but an Arie blade has no blind spots.
I spun the sword I was holding and blocked her first strike, then moved the blade to parry the follow-up flurries. The volley never stopped, the arc of the blades kept shifting. Maschenny and I traded blows in an endless give-and-take, each hunting for the other's opening.
Found it…!
In the middle of that never-ending clash, I spotted Maschenny's opening first. Was it accumulated fatigue, lack of stamina, or—did she bait it on purpose? Not important. What mattered was that I had a chance to land a strike.
My blade darted straight for that gap in Maschenny's defense.
At the same time she thrust a fist at me.
As I thought—she'd deliberately created that opening.
Alright. Let's see which of us hurts more.
Slash—
Crack—
Both of us abandoned defense and went all-in on offense. Electrocutions-laced fists and kicks hammered the white boy again and again, while white shinsu blades left a lattice of cuts across her body.
Cough!
Guh…
At some point, without either of us really deciding to, we simultaneously broke off and put distance between us. I was coughing up blood; she was staunching a deep cut.
It was the first time since fighting the barracuda on Floor 1 that I'd felt pain this intense. Maybe my life had been on the line back then, maybe I'd been at the limit—my body had even coughed blood—but just like then—
I enjoyed it. There's nothing like swinging a sword to the limit and releasing shinsu in a life-or-death duel.
Maschenny, ever the battle fiend, was grinning with the same joy. I wondered if my face looked the same to her.
Crackle—crackle—
Stronger sparks began to dance off Maschenny than before. Small spheres formed at her fingers.
"You know… I really enjoy being with you."
She swallowed the small orb in her palm—the thunder-core—and said it as the shinsu inside her body burst outward.
When she ingested the thunder-core and erupted into dazzling electricity, the audience looked at me like I had nothing to show. Well, I don't have an awakening like that — a little embarrassing.
"How honored I am to hear you say that."
I gathered my shinsu as well and let it rise in white radiance, sending it heavenward in a purely flashy display. It did nothing but look spectacular, but a flashy effect is still something—enjoy the show, crowd.
Rumble—
At Maschenny's fingertips the electricity condensed, or rather, concentrated into lightning. A terrifying density of lightning gathered at her hands.
From now on, complacency would mean defeat—or death. I lifted my sword high, preparing for whatever technique she'd use.
Vrrrrr—
With the crack of thunder, Maschenny closed the distance in an instant. It was a speed that felt like teleportation. The compressed lightning at her fingertips surged and then detonated as it struck.
— Apertura de relámpago (Aperture of Lightning)
An enormous, unfettered torrent of compressed lightning charged at me. I slammed my raised sword down.
— Shizaryeokjeok
A white, radiant slash burst from the blade and cleaved the incoming electricity in half.
That white strike slammed into Maschenny as well. She countered with an attack of her own: a blue lightning spear shaped like a lance.
— Lanza de relámpago (Spear of Lightning)
This time the blue lightning spear punched through the white flash and hurtled straight for me.
Rumble—
"Kraaagh—!"
Blue lightning scorched and seared my body with brutal force. I tried to blunt it with my blade, but soon heard the one sound I never wanted to hear from my sword.
Crack—
There was no time to spare. In the blue glare, Maschenny launched herself high toward me.
Even while trying to fend off the blue lightning, she leapt in and swung a punch at me—an impact charged with far more concentrated thunder than any punch she'd used before.
This is insane—if that lands, it's over. I scrambled to twist my blade and block it. The blue discharge made precise defense harder; I couldn't set the ideal parry angle.
"Sahroe!"
She screamed as her electrified fist crashed down upon the foible—the weakest third—of my blade. And—
Crack—!
A dull sound rang out as my sword snapped in half, and Maschenny's strike landed squarely on me.
"Gah—!"
Even then, Maschenny didn't stop—her second attack was already on its way.
"This is the end, Hoaqin—?!"
At that moment, a massive sword came crashing down toward her head. Maschenny immediately stopped her attack and leapt aside just in time. The sword struck the ground and exploded on impact.
"This sword… it's—"
Cough, cough.
"As you can see," I said, wiping the blood from my mouth, "it's a Shinsu Blade—my Shinsu attribute. My sword just broke, so I figured I'd try switching to the Fisherman position."
"Hah. I don't know when you managed to prepare that, but you just used it up. What now?"
"Who said I'm out?"
When I raised my hand and pointed toward the sky, Maschenny followed my gesture—and a dumbfounded voice escaped her lips.
"…Huh?"
"You're not the only one who improved your Shinsu control over the last two months, Princess."
Far above us, three enormous Shinsu Blades floated in the sky—each one far larger than the previous one.
The reason I'd been firing off those earlier Shinsu Blades, even though they hadn't done much damage—the reason I'd gathered all that energy, seemingly just for show—was actually for this.
While the audience thought it was for flair, I'd been secretly channeling Shinsu upward, forming those colossal blades at an altitude high enough that Maschenny wouldn't notice.
A fusion of my unique Shinsu attribute and my unparalleled control—my signature technique:
– Heavenly Judgment Blades
"The one before was just the unfinished version. Those up there? Those are the real deal."
As I spoke, the three gigantic Shinsu Blades plummeted toward Maschenny at incredible speed.
Kugugugugu—!
They sliced through the air, closing in on her in an instant. Maschenny clenched her fist, activating a counter-technique.
– Grand Blade (Espada Grande)!
But it wasn't enough. Even with her power boosted by lightning, the hastily formed technique couldn't stop all three blades.
KUUUUUUGHH—!!
The colossal swords tore through her defense effortlessly and slammed into the ground, shaking the entire arena.
A thunderous explosion followed, kicking up a massive cloud of dust and debris.
...
"It's over," said my assigned Ranker, as the three Shinsu Blades struck the ground. His words reflected what most of the audience believed as well.
However, Maschenny's Ranker didn't seem to agree.
"I wouldn't be so sure. The Princesses of Zahard have always defied common sense."
"And our princess," he added with a faint smile, "is among the best of them."
(Honestly, no matter who wins… it's a gain for me either way.)
As those words were spoken, Maschenny burst out from the cloud of dust caused by the explosion, charging straight toward Hoaqin.
'No!'
Right now, Hoaqin was at his limit. He had already used up all his prepared Shinsu Blades, and his body was in shambles. There was no way he could withstand even a single one of Maschenny's attacks.
'Besides, his sword was broken in that last attack... wait—?'
'A sword…? He has one?'
....
When I unleashed Heavenly Judgment Blades, I already knew Maschenny would survive it.
It wasn't some logical damage calculation—it was instinct.
A gut feeling born from fighting an opponent who had gone all-out, just like me.
That's why, the moment I activated the technique, I focused on gathering Shinsu into my hand.
'Just a bit more… a little more…!'
What I had spent the last two months training in the chamber wasn't the Heavenly Judgment Blade.
That technique had a theoretical basis and came to me naturally as I grew stronger.
No—what I had been preparing was something different.
....
Boom!
Maschenny burst out of the dust cloud, even faster than I'd expected.
The lightning surrounding her fist was far weaker than before, but in my current state, even that was enough to finish me off.
Damn it. Not yet… not yet…!
Got it!
The thing I'd been preparing—the true Shinsu Blade.
Not my attribute's Shinsu Sword, but a blade formed purely from condensed Shinsu itself—an intangible weapon that could nonetheless be held and swung.
Just like the original White's sword.
....
"…"
I looked at Maschenny. Her pupils were unfocused—she'd already lost consciousness.
Only her fighting instinct was driving her body now.
"You probably had something important riding on this festival too…"
"But so did I."
– Messenger's Execution
You did well, Maschenny.
A white flash enveloped her body.
Though it was a deadly strike that surely left deep cuts on her flesh, the light somehow felt warm—gentle, as if consoling her rather than harming her.
Thud.
Maschenny collapsed, defeated.
The moment she fell, I dropped my blade and rushed to her side, pressing down on the deep wound across her abdomen to stop the bleeding.
"MEDICS!"
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