Resting the blade over his shoulder, Shynerai turned his attention to his arm, while the bleeding had stopped it wouldn't be usable for a while...Still he resolved himself as he tightened his working grip.
"A single ruby-edged sabre, with a dark water-like pattern on the steel. What a strange blade you have crafted." Reiss critiqued Reven's work, drawing his ire with an intense look from him.
"You said he wouldn't want to face your Sword Maiden unarmed, well now that he isn't let's see how much that changes."
"I did, and what of it? Do you honestly believe that Shynerai is a match for her in terms of swordsmanship even if he does happen to be armed now?" She asked, before glancing at Reven.
"Not even close. However, while your confidence lies in her skill with the blade, the Silver Dragon Style you called it? Well, young Shynerai has a style of his own, one foreign for most in this land...but one he certainly has a talent for."
"See for yourself."
'So he has a sword now? That should be something I take seriously, who knows what it can do–' Alleiyna's thoughts were interrupted after realizing that the crash site was now unoccupied. The stumbling figure that was only moments in front of him was now just gone.
"See that, how he erased his presence, stepping outside of her senses, that is Shimmer." His comment came after the young Daumier vanished.
With no idea where he might appear, Alleiyna chose to wait for his next move, remaining unshaken in her stance.
"But that is only the first step. Next comes the sharpening his own senses and enhancing his awareness of the surroundings, allowing him to avoid even the most treacherous attacks even if they are unseen to the eye, that is Argus." Which was shown when his sudden appearance revealed just how fast his reactions were as his instincts put him out of her reach, with her blade passing through an after-image.
"And finally, the ability to travel large distances almost instantaneously, that is the Shadow-step." After avoiding her blade, he returned to his stance before rushing her and deflecting her second faster strike, launching her away as she tried to block an incoming strike.
Bringing up the Silfren shield, only for the blow to send her flying back.
The strike was delivered far too fast for her to recover as it sent her slamming into the Arena
"Having a firm grasp of all three techniques is essential for someone to be able to use that particular kind of swordsmanship. Granted, he seemed to have already had a handle on that before he came to me so all that was left was to improve upon the basics."
Alleiyna tried to catch her breath as she pulled herself away from the rubble pile falling all over her.
Her knees almost buckled from the impact as she stood, she held herself firmly against her sword while her eyes focused on Shynerai, observing and studying him for any detail she could make use of as she too came to understand the foe she was facing.
Realising that her breathing had gotten better through her panting but that her arm was numb from shielding herself, a point that had her wondering if she could handle any other such attack from his weapon without some kind of drastic change.
"Blinding strikes that carry a surprising amount of strength behind them, while moving in a way that makes it challenging for your opponent to counterattack let alone defend, the art of war said to be gifted by the Sea god of Aufruinen–"
"The Vanishing Sword Style. I don't know how you could have learned such a thing but I have no doubt in my mind." Alleiyna wondered aloud.
"Der Verschwinden Blatt. Though it's unsurprising that she would know of it, swordsmanship seems to be of serious study for her." Reven said, his explanation to Ms. Yuria almost matching Alleiyna's own revelation.
"How...when did he learn such a thing...where did he even find a teacher for something like that?" Ren said with a look of glee.
"You just keep getting interesting, don't you." He cheered, surprising the rest of his class.
"Hey hey hey! What's going on with that lousy footwork, you look ridiculous prancing around like that." Surprising everyone, Reven yelled at the boy, who was just as confused.
Leaping back and inspecting the blade, he wondered why it felt so strange.
"Perhaps I got the balance off?" He sat back before opening his Notebook and running through the weapon's blueprints.
"I'm not sure what the problem is, but he seems to be faring quite well." Salazar wondered while the trio of Reiss, Ulrich and Yuria remained affixed on the fidgeting Shynerai.
They found the strange blade delivering shallow strikes despite the new advantage his reach was giving him, something he didn't have the luxury of as each time he tried to parry Clea, the slash pushed him further back.
"No, that can't be, the Gravity Rune Stone I added to the pommel was of the same quality as the ones I made for the Pillar Force Entrance Exams." He murmured as he continued to page through them.
"The Gravity Stones are what alter the weight of the pillars. He must have used it on the SoulArm to deal with some balancing issues." Ulrich hazarded a guess, garnering praise from Ms. Yuria for his deduction.
"Yes and no. Ugh, I didn't have enough time to find the right material to make the blade especially when he ends up ruining everything I handed him. So I got my hands on a hunk of Slane-ore and wore it to something resembling a sword before throwing it into the furnace." He sighed after explaining himself.
"And when you get your hands on something like that, the only place you can mine it is in the..." Said Ulrich.
"What kind of smith would I be if I could find the right materials for a given job. When I managed to finish it, the darn thing was far too dense to do anything with so I added the runestone to at the very least make it possible for him to wield. Don't know why the boy is struggling?"
As he spoke, Reven returned his focus to the battle only to see something shocking.
Shrugging off an attack wherein Alleiyna switched out her sword that had locked Shynerai's before letting out a shield and summoning the coiling dragon spirits that shot out a massive blast.
The fiery volley knocked the SoulArm out of his hands and sent him crashing into the Arena walls.
"Enough of this!" Before he could stand, she ordered the spirits to give chase. Their pursuit summoning even more of their ilk, the serpents rushed to surround him as she drove Clea into the earth, she whispered,
"Flames of the Damned: Prison of Eight Trigrams." Her words spawned the emergence of eight flaming pillars that flashed in a vibrant storm of fire.
Once the burning storm reached the tallest pillar, all that was inside had disappeared. Leaving little but a scorch mark.
"What...what happened?" The Arena filled with a crowd that was slowly growing disgruntled.
"What's going on?"
"Where is the other one, is that it?"
"Eh, would someone start the countdown already, the other one disappeared didn't he?"
"Yuria! You better not–" Reiss shot her a look, but she simply ignored him, standing over the railing to take in a clearer sight of the scene.
"Shynerai Astrapordt is no longer within the bounds of the Arena. If he does not appear within the next ten seconds, he will forfeit the match." Ms. Yuria announced, noticing the increasingly fatigued Alleiyna, whose eyes hadn't moved from where Shynerai last stood.
"1..."
"2..."
"3..."
Her breathing quickened with the sound of rushing blood filling her ears. She was finding it surprising that he was struggling so much.
"4..."
"5..."
"6..."
Her breathing would only continue to falter, with her wiping away the blood that was slowly pooling from the corner of her mouth, appearing more frequently.
'Just how much strength can one person have, if this continues he'll end up burning himself to cinders–'
With the Sword Maiden's dragonlings suddenly being summoned, everyone found her reaction to be unnecessary without an opponent, but this was not under her command.
One by one like flickering flames the pillars were born again in the same formation.
"Oh no!"
Shynerai emerged from the centre of the firestorm, radiating an absurd amount of heat before exploding.
The blast brushed past her, barely shaking her until she saw what stood at the centre of the blasted heath.
Filling his lungs with as much of the cool air as he could, his panting echoed across the stunned Arena, with no one having any clue as to what just happened.
While Alleiyna was bothered by something else entirely, catching a glimpse of his frame through the smoke, she couldn't understand how he seemed to remain untouched.
His flesh merely had a glow to it, with his eyes giving off the appearance of strange flames.
While she did her best to reason out how he escaped, a green light shot past her beyond her notice.
With unbelievable speed, he found himself where she initially struck him, as he reached for his discarded blade.
Taking a look at his sword, he also realised that while his arm had healed somewhat, it took a great deal of strength from his Atash to do so.
Ripping what tattered strips of cloth from the smouldering remains to wrap it. Before reaching for the sword.
He grabbed it while everyone still tried to make sense of his sudden arrival.
While the trio of educators held onto the worries as they believed that he would just continue to struggle with it like before.
Alleiyna returned to face him as he took up his stance, drawing his attention back with several blows that threw off his balance, instead of trying to defend against the finishing blow, he leapt back after driving her blade away from him.
Looking at the blade for a moment before he suddenly started fiddling with it. He gripped the handle and as if expecting her to strike, and drove the sword into the approaching Alleiyna who lunged at him.
Covering such a distance in so little time had her wide-eyed as she noticed the pommel end of his sword descending on her, forcing her to rely on another high-speed command:
'Silfren…' The effect had summoned her shield in the place of her sword. Raising it against him.
The clash let out a blue light upon contact. The scattering light drew Shynerai's eyes to the shield as he gripped the blade's handle even tighter while Alleiyna found her guard nearing its limit.
Despite only using the pommel to strike her, the force of the blow had forced her to kneel.
Letting out a calm breath, Shynerai lifted the blade with surprising ease, and this time, resting his wounded arm in the place of the shattered Rune Stone, points it towards her,
'Strange but...it feels a lot better.'
Reven felt as though all his hair would grey at once from his actions.
"What did he do! The damn thing is useless now!"
"If you truly forged it from Slane-ore, at its size, his sword was probably several times his own weight. He'll be lucky to hit the broadside of the Arena by the time the battle is over." Reiss added, sharing a smirk with the unimpressed Ulrich and a preoccupied Yuria.
She pulled herself from the dirt, and summoned her sword, though this time it was Shynerai who was on the offensive.
She was faced with the storm of slashes that seemingly erupted from nowhere.
So fast were his movements that her weapon switching couldn't keep up, forcing her to summon the draconic spirits more often.
They were little more than distractions, dispatching all that coiled around her shield with a single slash, she tried desperately to defend against him only for his emerald eyes to appear from the smoke as he delivered a devastating kick.
Instantly blasting her away. Her flight had carved a path from his attack.
"You said that it was useless, you called it unwieldy." Ms. Yuria said with a stunned look.
"I don't get it either, at its current weight it should be horribly imbalanced, unless..." A confused Reven answered.
'I mean he could have figured it out but when would he have had the time. Unless the prerequisite for its use was.'
During his adventures as a guardian, Reven served as a Mage for a party composed of him, Shadow and Shynerai's father, Astral.
And through his time with them he decided to honour their time together by penning his experiences.
This is when he wrote books off the experience of his team's adventures as well as what they had each learned before they met.
Among the books, there are those, that detailed the experiences of his friends after their retirement, as a way of noting their achievements in history,
"The Shadow that Roamed the World and the Horizon Beyond." Was one such book focusing on Shadow's exploits and was the primary guide used by Erai when Reven lent it to him.
Learning from it tips and tricks for studying the Vanishing Blade and also discovering hints of the Atash techniques he hadn't learned from his uncle.
Getting Reven to train him as best as he could. While forging his SoulArm, the Warsmith saw no harm in training him according to the instructions from the book.
He eventually learned to sharpen his swordsmanship and even learned Atash Persona, an experience that he took to quite well even after his time mastering Atash Singularity.
Using the Vanishing blade style and the lessons on Atash and combining it with the fundamentals Shadow had already taught him to create something entirely new, something that would work for someone with no magic,
He created the Variant Styles.
This is a type of style combining the Atash Persona ability and some of the basics of the Verschwinden Blatt. Using the arts, the user could summon a spectre that is able to mimic and even replicate the user's movements.
The spectre was called the Shadow.
Meira and Lotarim were dragged along by Luciana to cheer Erai on during his battle, waving at him down below, causing him to hide his flushed cheeks behind his snowy bangs he waved back bringing a similar tinge to Meira .
"Oh, dear did that freshman send your heart aflutter?" Lotarim teased her as she sat quietly, watching the battle.
Realising she wouldn't be able to continue using her dragon spirits, she dragged herself to her feet for their final bout, proclaiming that she hadn't expected him to be such a powerful swordsman.
"While your talent is lacking, you've clearly learned to make up for it. Quite the intuition you have." she teased.
Exclaiming that she was impressed with the battle, but believed it had run its course, she summoned as many spirits as she could, sending him into a guarding stance, only for the beasts to coil around and embrace her.
Setting her alight in flames that turned silver before revealing a change. Wearing a silver crown sporting horns and armour made of draconic scales and membranes.
She summoned her sword to launch after him. Easily dodging it only for their eyes to meet as she appeared in front of him.
She used her scaly shield, knocking him back, but he was able to catch his footing, before searching for her once more.
Catching her approach from the side, he wings at her arrival, only for her to call upon her blade and block his sword.
With each clash, both wore a similar expression,
A hearty smile.
Exchanged blows continued to be traded, him slashing at her and her blasting him. Erai's Atash would slowly emerge.
Now no longer adorned with the emerald haloes or flaming sputtering from his gaze, she was simply engrossed in the aura of Atash.
"So that's your first you show me white flames, now those that are green. Well then let's put them to the test"
That very same glow thinned around him as the vapours coming off him slowly began to form into a figure.
"Atash...Persona–" The jade figure solidified in a shape that was a mirror image of the boy.
The young Daumier now wore an emerald crown before getting ready to face off against her, his clone covering him from the dragons before he was able to get close.
"Remember when I said that he had his own techniques he could rely upon, well this is the first of the Variant Styles. Specifically,"
"Variant Style: The Shadowsteel Sword." Said Reven as he watched the shadow mimic its master's stance.
While they pushed against her, Alleiyna had to account for the new combatant, managing to dispatch him but each time she did, an opening in her speed was left for Shynerai.
Strike for strike, the only thing the audience could see of their exchanges were emerald and silver arcs clashing before blowing apart, while their swords swung with such fury that the only indicator they were armed was how scarred the Arena had become.
Their exchange was not fruitless as she noticed how much easier it was getting to deal with the Shadow, forcing Shynerai to retreat more and more.
Stepping back and away from them, they synchronised their movements, as they flanked, she did something entirely new.
Clea disappeared into a formation of spark as she pulled off her shield and tossed it at the Shadow. Since the figure could not feel fear it pressed on, following is master beat for beat.
As the shield flew past them, the being easily stepped out of its way, only for the sudden appearance of an armoured heel to drive itself through it while Shynerai's eyes glimpsed her arrival, but he was far too slow.
Meeting the end of her blade as she drove the blade into her.
The millisecond exchange sent them flying from where they stood, before kicking off from him with a blade steeped in blood.
After regaining her footing, she summoned her discarded shield before sheathing her blade, with the sight of the armour charring, she knew that she had to end the battle.
"I've got less than a minute before my burns go beyond anything treatable, but after that, I doubt you'll stand–" Watching the mound of dirt shake loose revealing a shaken Shynerai.
Standing with the help of his blade, he noticed his Atash had stopped the bleeding but moving had become even more challenging than before.
Still, he knew that his opponent would not relent, swinging his sword over onto his shoulder, the motion brought the emerald spectre to his side.
Taking a deep breath, she stretched outwards with her hands facing the emerald light, the silver scales on her back shifted and overlapped until two openings were made.
From them, the fire of the dragon spirits began to sputter out...first as a low flame that soon grew to obscure all that was behind her in a blue-reddish fire of exhaust ripping away at the ground behind her.
"Flames of the Damned: Roar of Slain." The volley sent out a shockwave before the blast ripped through the earth and glassed the path alongside it.
Being prepared for another pain in the rear, Reiss stood firm with full confidence in his work securing the Ward, while the scalding winds had the onlookers bracing themselves against the absurd release of magic.
Exhaling as the Shadow got into a stance, he composed himself
"All right, let's go."
Digging themselves into the ground with each step, kicking off in such a fierce fashion that his Shimmer couldn't keep up.
No longer was he unseen, those that could follow the events found the Daumier moving in an emerald haze...though even such a sight would be limited as he charged forth somehow getting even faster.
A sensation that the audience was given the full experience with the barrage each step brought forth.
"Emerald Edge!"
Turning the blast towards Shynerai, only for the Shadow to rush ahead....following its master's lead, it worked to deflect the blast away from him.
Bracing itself against the full brunt of the blast, the Shadow was felled.
Emerging from the flames only to be met by Alleiyna who reached for Clea, ending the blast with a fearsome last strike, the green wisps that bound together to form the Shadow's body disintegrated before being pulled into Stark.
The ruby-edge of his SoulArm morphed, taking on the jade hue of his comrade before they clashed. Unleashing a hued slash in a single instance, blanketing everyone in the bright flash of light.
The struggle of swords was unseen as his sword carved through her in a terrifying fashion.
With her armour being torn apart as the force continued on through her, almost breaching the Ward before the energy was driven upwards in a massive mushroom cloud, blanketing the scene.
From the raining ashes littering the Arena, the sound of iron scraping against the ground was followed by hushed footsteps.
With the dance of smoke and dust showing something white fluttering in the wind on its way towards something.
Shynerai followed the trace of her magical energy as he approached the crater with the battered Alleiyna, now missing most of her armour leaning against her sword.
Who tried to stand but couldn't.
With her legs unresponsive, she lifted her sword while she waited for the approaching footsteps to make their move...only for something unexpected to come through the clearing dust smothering the grounds.
Taking a knee as he offered her a hand. Ms. Yuria announced the end of the battle while Shynerai helped her to the gates.
"You don't have to carry me off you know, or are you just following the trend set by those of Class 1A?"
"It was my fault you got wounded this badly. I'm still lacking when it comes to having control. But it's obvious that my swordsmanship is nowhere near yours."
"It is, but it seems to be working for you. I'll be watching. You have a duty to continue practising for our next bout."
"I will." Shynerai chuckled before heading towards the gates with the thought of how much she reminded him of Sarah bringing a sense of relief to him.
Ren hopped down with a mischievous look, congratulating him before offering him help with Alleiyna.
"Oh ho ho, you look smitten?"
"No...not at all. I'm simply helping Alleiyna to Medical staff." Leaving her in his care.
"I like you, Shynerai, but Lady Alleiyna is off-limits." His scarlet eyes lit up as he spoke.
"You can't keep scaring away our friends. You can protect me but I am still capable." She reminded him.
"I understand. Hold on, don't tell me you're the ones who are smitten?" He wondered.
"Don't look so upset. After all, I only trust you to be my vassal." She rested against him while the medics arrived at the scene.
Vaceris let out a heavy sigh. With Erai looking up at his classmates. She tried to meet his relieved expression without growing beet red herself.
'At least you kept your promise.' Hiding her smile at the thought as she joined the crowds of people clearing the stands for the intermission.