Back to the battlefield. Hearing Fuli say she was inferior to the creator of the move, RIN's aggressive movements came to an abrupt halt.
Ignoring Kiana, whose face was full of frustration, she turned her head and stared at Fuli, laughing neurotically.
"Yeah, I'm inferior to her. What else?"
"Also, there's the issue of the technique itself. You only grasp the form, not the spirit," Fuli said. "You're just forcefully simulating it with your superior physical fitness, rather than truly mastering this swordsmanship."
RIN didn't deny his words because that was the truth.
The Iai slash just now, its true name was Setsuna Blade · Avici, a move from her sister's original swordsmanship style "Setsuna Blade."
It was a highly advanced Iai technique that instantly turned stillness into motion.
If it were RIN's sister, she really could have severed Kiana's head in just an instant (a Setsuna).
But RIN could only watch helplessly as her attack was blocked by the two of them coordinating tacitly.
Because she didn't know swordsmanship at all. She just liked to sit in the courtyard at home, cupping her face, smilingly watching her favorite sister practice martial arts over and over again.
Fifty thousand years ago.
Fifty thousand years...
RIN closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the originally bewitching purple was instantly dyed scarlet!
"Fifty thousand years!!! AAAAAAHHHHH!!!"
The girl leaped up, smashing the demon blade in her palm down on Fuli's head as if venting her anger!
BOOM!!!
The ground beneath Fuli's feet was instantly smashed into a crater over ten meters deep, and this was merely the aftershock of the force transmission.
"Hahahahaha! Die, die, die, die!!!"
The two Trailing Shadow Swords Fuli used to block shattered in the blink of an eye. The last one barely managed to block this furious blow together with Mikazuki Munechika.
"Don't block it, you damn brat! Weren't you acting all high and mighty just now? Huh? Hahahahaha!!!"
RIN grinned savagely and extended her other hand, grabbing at the chest close at hand with a whistling sound.
Fortunately, a white meteor flashed by in time, picking Fuli up in a princess carry and fleeing into the distance.
Kiana had a massive headache. "No, bro, how exactly did what you said just now provoke her?!"
"How should I know? I haven't even exerted force yet, and she's already fallen down!" (Meme reference)
Fuli, being princess-carried by her, was also bewildered. He had output less than one ten-thousandth of the vulgar language in his belly. How did this person directly transform into a crazy woman?
This was the fun of information asymmetry. Neither Fuli nor Kiana knew that RIN held more hate than love for her sister.
In the girl's eyes, at the end of the Previous Era, it was her sister and that damn cold-blooded woman who joined forces to seal her, the Herrscher of Corruption, in God's Box for a full fifty thousand years!
In the last century, British scientists conducted an experiment. They locked six volunteers into separate sealed rooms almost isolated from the outside world to observe a series of changes after being deprived of sight, hearing, and touch.
37-year-old comedian Adam Bloom was one of the six volunteers.
For two full days and nights, he sat in a completely dark, absolutely quiet room, while researchers observed his behavior using night-vision cameras.
In the first half-hour, Bloom kept talking to himself and singing, but soon got bored.
After 8 hours, Bloom showed symptoms of delusion and cried bitterly from time to time.
After 30 hours, he began pacing back and forth in the small room like a trapped beast.
After 40 hours, he began to hallucinate, becoming almost desperate.
When he finally walked out of the room, he almost collapsed.
He said, "It was terrible. I almost thought I would never be able to smile again in my life."
That's right, this was merely the consequence of 40 hours of confinement.
And RIN was alone in such a confined environment for a full fifty thousand years!
Even if I am a Herrscher, am I not your sister?
I was clearly killed once for no reason, and in the end, not only did you want to kill me a second time, but you also made me unable to live or die?
Under such circumstances, if someone opened their mouth to mock RIN as inferior to the sister who sealed her, it would be truly scary if this girl didn't go berserk.
But in any case, Fuli's goal of attracting RIN's attention had been achieved.
He patted Kiana's waist, stuffing a red crystal along with two Healing Bullets into her pocket. "Put me down."
Dodging the several blood-colored blade lights that followed closely, Kiana frowned and asked, "Are you confident?"
RIN was currently using Yae Sakura's body. To avoid interference from the other's memories, she had been forcing herself not to browse that part of the memory.
However, perhaps due to the fearlessness brought by going berserk, the current her was gradually merging with that part of the memory.
Yae Sakura herself was a super expert in Kendo. This directly resulted in RIN not only not dropping in combat power due to going berserk but actually becoming more proficient in swordsmanship.
Can't win.
Kiana thought.
Senior Mei, whom she admired, inherited the family's Hokushin Ittō-ryū. Her era-transcending Kendo talent allowed her to reach the realm of Menkyo Kaiden (full mastery) at a young age.
The Raiden family's secret transmission wasn't the namesake swordsmanship school currently popular in the Far East.
Supernatural Ancient Swordsmanship—just this classification alone destined the status of Hokushin Ittō-ryū.
And even such a Mei would pale in comparison to RIN in terms of swordsmanship alone.
Can Ah-Li do it?
"I can't?"
Facing the girl's seemingly questioning concern, Fuli laughed.
He didn't answer the question but whispered something in her ear.
Then he leaped from her embrace, stepping forward to meet the blade-wielding RIN.
Clang!
Blade collided with blade. The clashing white blades reflected their faces, one crazy and one calm. Ear-piercing buzzing washed over their eardrums.
Kiana moved away quickly due to inertia but couldn't help looking back.
RIN's will and body were increasingly synchronized. The Yae-style swordsmanship inherited from the Stigmata gene memory originally came from the Setsuna Blade.
The previous girl was indeed mimicking the form, but the current her, in every gesture, already possessed the peerless might of the 8th Flame-Chaser.
However, even such a RIN was suppressed by Fuli in every aspect.
His swordsmanship was neither flashy nor cool. He simply "delivered" Mikazuki to the perfect position time and time again. Subsequently, RIN's moves would experience a disjointed interruption, exposing just enough space to allow him to maneuver.
The beast form was indeed difficult to deal with, but in human form, it was a contest of sword skills. Wouldn't that just be Fuli fighting however he wanted?
Kiana bit her lip.
She knew she shouldn't think too much during battle, but Fuli's current performance didn't look like a rookie who had just awakened abilities at all. Instead, it was becoming more and more like her joking remark about "body snatching" earlier.
Her movements didn't become chaotic with her messy thoughts. She acted firmly and orderly as Fuli had just instructed in her ear.
Fuli, catching a glimpse of this from the corner of his eye, felt relieved.
To be honest, he was also afraid Kiana would overthink things and go off the rails.
His current behavior pattern was indeed vastly different from before his rebirth; it was excusable to be suspected.
But to be fair, he really couldn't figure out how this girl noticed the problem and followed him specifically.
After his rebirth, he ran away early in the morning!
Although he went back to the rental room to sleep afterward, he only met her once in the corridor. It could be said to be seamless!
Of course, this was only from Fuli's own perspective.
If someone stood from a third-party perspective and watched the actions of the boy and girl the whole time, they could easily solve his doubts:
Fuli thought he was just a transparent nobody no one cared about, unaware that Kiana cared about him far more than he imagined!
...