A blade flew, cutting across empty air as it struck the bark of a tree behind Thirteen. Cutting close, too close. The thrower followed suit, one hand grasping the blade as a tail came spinning and impacting heavily into Thirteen's arm.
The knife dislodged itself as Five followed up with it, hoping that the tail covered Thirteen for long enough for an opening to be made. But as the knife came down, the arm holding it was caught just shy of cutting into Thirteen's skull. But before Five could follow up with another strike, Thirteen landed a punch on into the solar plexus, knocking out any air that previously presided there.
The invigilator was quite impressed,Five was showing a lot of mastery of the skills the Blood children were taught in their time. He could put Five at the top ranks of the recruits throughout the History of blood children, but the mastery of those skills were being beaten by simple and effective counters.
Unlike Five who was using the mastery of skills to kill, Thirteen was using the mastery to counter the very thing the child was taught. If Five could be called the perfect Blood child, then Thirteen could definitely be called the perfect Blood child killer.
Even though the fight went on, it was quite boring for him to watch as he knew the outcome. Five came in to stab at Thirteen's abdomen only to find the arm twisted away as a knife quickly arrived near the neck. Just before it pierced however, it stopped and pulled back, the blade facing upwards, cutting the flesh underneath the chin.
Tail strikes, strangulation, knife switch, feints, aerial maneuvers, tactical methods, Five used almost everything that was taught and yet Thirteen would easily circumvent these methods as easy as if it was a walk in the park instead of a life and death battle, and yet a killing blow was never struck.
"Why won't you attack!? Do you look down on me? Do you think this can go on forever?" Five snapped watching Thirteen's nonchalance at the task at hand.
"Your opponent is right child, as much as I'm impressed at both your performances, I still have things to do, if this does not end, I will simply have to disqualify the both of you, and you know well enough what that means." An indifferent speech came from the invigilator, but finally Thirteen's face turned grim.
Five understood the standing very well, be it skill or power, there was no way Thirteen could lose. But if this fight allowed Thirteen to grow beyond the limit of moral conscience it would shape the most perfect killer, and just to see that she was willing to fight, to direct her killing intent at Thirteen and make sure that the killer was drawn out from the body of the child.
But it was quite frustrating how easy her moves had been dealt with, she was always scoring the highest amongst her peers with Thirteen lagging behind by one or two positions. But she knew that unlike her, it was because Thirteen never exerted effort into the fight instead of not being capable enough to beat her. But even then she believed that the gap couldn't possibly be that big.
She lunged forward with her knife, but in the next moment she could only feel pain in her hand as the webbing between her thumb and forefinger was turn and the knife was flung far away. She smiled as her body moved forward into the incoming knife, at least in her final moments she could have Thirteen treat her seriously. As their bodies collided, the knife sandwiched between. Five's face scrunched up while Thirteen could only give a sad smile. Slowly their bodies parted as Thirteen fell to the ground.
She'd known that Thirteen had been looking for a way out for the both of them. But she knew that there was no way they could escape with the invigilator watching them closely, that's why she wanted to force Thirteen to fight, because she knew only one of them could come out alive.
Even in their camp, Thirteen had always been the one teaching her. When she first started, she was much smaller than all the other children, without mastery of the skills yet, Five was easy pickings. In a harsh environment with no one taking care of them, children would look for anyone they could lash out at. And yet she was saved the moment he stepped forward to defend her, to teach her.
In this final battle she only hoped to make sure the kind Thirteen could grow up so he didn't die as an assassin. And yet in that final encounter, just as the knife was about to pierce her, he spun it. As their bodies collided, their combined weight pressed the knife into his chest.