"I guess it's my win this round too~!" Kisuke said with a grin.
Ais was frozen in place and still couldn't believe what just happened. No matter what she tried, she couldn't find an opening while Kisuke could easily drill holes in her defenses despite him moving slower than her.
It's as if he already saw through all of her movement before she could even start. Even a spar with Gareth and Finn couldn't render her so helpless.
"Second round is Kisuke's win," Yoruichi announced.
Kisuke took back his blade which was pointing at Ais' throat and jumped back while cleaning the dust off his hat, "Just one more win for me~. You better not hold back anything anymore~."
"Ais..." Riveria muttered as she started to get nervous.
Ais stood back up and picked up her rapier, "Don't worry, Riveria... I won't be holding back anymore." Going into her usual stance she muttered, "Tempest."
A strong gust of wind surrounded Ais, strengthening her attacks, defense, and speed. Even if Kisuke could poke holes through her defenses, with her wind, he shouldn't be able to touch her with his blade. This is the reason why Ais didn't want to use her magic. She thought that it was too unfair and that it couldn't be called a spar anymore.
Her confidence was understandable because if she used her wind, even Finn couldn't do much in a fight against her. No amount of planning could circumvent her winds aside from pure brute force, which had to be strong enough to render her defenses ineffective.
However, seeing this, Kisuke's smile only grew deeper which made Ais' brows furrow, 'He still has the confidence to win? Let's see what else you can do.' While thinking that, Ais dashed towards Kisuke, brandishing her rapier.
Kisuke tried to poke holes in her swordsmanship's defenses again, but this time, any opening she made was covered by her wind, and Kisuke had to dodge all of her attacks and was unable to counter.
Kisuke backed away using Flash Step after his efforts were rendered useless. This was the technique that worried Ais the most, as she couldn't follow him while he was using it.
But instead of disappearing, Kisuke's smile only grew even deeper, 'What...?' She questioned herself, 'Is he trying to fool me? Or is there something else he can really do in this situation?' The growing unease in Ais' heart prompted her to be more careful, but she still initiated the attack.
Ais did another dash towards Kisuke, but this time, much slower as she was very conscious of his movements.
While she was coming to him, Kisuke raised his free hand and a small green magic circle appeared in front of it. Ais carefully watched him as a gust of wind emerged from the magic circle, 'Wind magic? What is he trying to do? My wind is stronger so that wind magic can't do anything to me.'
But the moment Kisuke's wind hit hers, the wind in front of Ais suddenly weakened, "!?" And soon after, Kisuke sword came in through her weakened wind, aiming for her neck, "Kuh!!!" Ais had to do several emergency maneuvers to evade his blade and immediately backed away while asking, "What was that!?"
But thanks to her question, Kisuke was even more surprised, "Oh? You don't know? Are you serious? It looks like your proficiency with your wind is a lot lower than I thought."
"What?" Ais didn't like what she heard. She was known as the best wind magic-user in Orario yet Kisuke just told her that her proficiency is low.
"Don't get angry. I'm just telling the truth. You don't even know how my wind magic back then worked against yours." Kisuke then feigned a cough and started explaining, "Since I can't pierce through your wind (without using my real Zanjutsu), I had to weaken it first and the first obvious choice is to generate a wind with an opposing force . So when they met, my wind countered a bit of your wind for a brief moment and I used that chance to attack. Simple, right?"
"Opposing force?" All this time, Ais had been using her wind as it was and never met someone who could use such variations of her magic.
"Yep~. If you spin your wind clockwise, then I need to counter it with a counter-clockwise spinning wind to negate it." Kisuke nodded enthusiastically. He really liked to tell his opponents how his moves work, "And now that we're on the topic, let me show you just how non-proficient you are with your wind."
Not waiting for Ais to react, Kisuke proceeded to cast wind magic on his own blade and a few seconds later, his blade was enveloped by the wind before the blade itself disappeared from everyone's sight.
" "Huh!?" " Ais and Riveria simultaneously exclaimed.
Meanwhile, Sona thought for a moment and started muttering, "I see. Using high-pressure air containment, Kisuke was able to refract the light to hide it from plain sight. However, this seemingly small and simple spell needs constant calculation input from the user to keep it hidden."
"R-refract the light?" Riveria asked as this was the first time she heard of it.
"In other words, bending light. Since our eyes use the light which is reflected from objects to see, any light manipulation could fool it. As you can see, Kisuke is bending the light around his sword which resulted in it being invisible." Sona explained.
Riveria understood the logic behind it, but what she didn't understand was how Kisuke was able to achieve it through wind magic, 'Is he really using wind magic? How?' Temporarily forgetting that her 'body' was on the line, Riveria became excited at the magic that was never seen before.
Although this magic could indeed hide things, for Kisuke and Yoruichi who learned how to feel air currents, Kisuke's blade was still visible as ever in their senses and this spell didn't have much use in high-level fights aside from the surprise factor.
On the other hand, Ais didn't have a single clue on what Kisuke just did. But as an Adventurer, she observed everything she could. However, it was also thanks to this that she couldn't make any further moves.
It was Kisuke's turn to initiate attacks. Doing a big leap towards Ais, Kisuke slashed his invisible blade towards her. Ais put up her rapier to block his attack but she was shocked yet again when Kisuke's blade suddenly punched a hole through her Ariel, "What!?"
Aside from that, even though she blocked his attack, small cuts appeared on one of her arms thanks to the blades of wind coming from his weapon. Ais had to jump back to gain some distance and think through what just happened.
Instead of following her, Kisuke also stopped his pursuit and explained it to her, "How could I easily puncture your wind? The same principle from earlier. Using wind in the opposite direction of yours, I'll be able to render it useless for a moment."
Ais bit her lips. She didn't know what to do anymore.
"Now then, with which hand do you think I'm holding my blade?" Kisuke then played with his hands in front of Ais and as he asked, Ais didn't have any idea which hand was holding his weapon.
While incredibly confused, Kisuke initiated his attacks again as if he was holding swords in both of his hands, "Try to guess which one, alright~!"
Afraid that he would be able to puncture her wind again, Ais kept dodging his attacks, which was pretty easy for her to do since Kisuke was just wildly swinging his arms.
"Ais! Increase the intensity of your Ariel! Then he shouldn't be able to puncture it that easily!" A bit of advice came from Riveria.
Nodding to her, Ais gathered more magic power and the wind around her became a storm gust. However, Kisuke still continued his attacks.
With renewed confidence, Ais tried blocking his left arm's attack. However, she didn't feel anything and the right arm immediately came after. Ais already predicted this result and used the shortest path she prepared to intercept the other arm.
But the result is another shock for her as she didn't feel anything too, "!?" Confused at this result, Ais immediately jumped back in fear of something unknown.
Kisuke, on the other hand, just let her go. With an even bigger grin, Kisuke opened both of his palms, "The answer is, I'm not holding anything~!" The moment he said this, his blade reappeared in the spot he was before, stabbed into the ground.
The incredibly stoic girl, for the first time in years, became irritated and frustrated, "Tempest!" Renewing her spell, she used the majority of her magic to create a tornado surrounding her. She intended to finish this fight in one go.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Kisuke clicked his tongue in disappointment, "And this is why I told you, that you have poor handling of your own wind." He then turned his back to Ais and picked up his sword and started walking to the referee, "I won~!"
Yoruichi looked towards Ais, trying to figure out what Kisuke did and a moment later, she realized what he had done, "I see... I guess this round is your win too."
"..." Ais' irritation finally became seething anger. She was at her strongest and Kisuke hadn't done anything yet, 'Why is she already deciding the match!?' As a proud Adventurer, she couldn't take this humiliation despite how apathetic she was most of the time, "Haaah!!!" Dashing for the last time, she attacked Kisuke.
To the side, Riveria was already too late to notice what was going on, "Wait! Ais!!! Stop!!!"
Not listening to her Ais continued and Kisuke finally faced her, "How can you call yourself a proficient wind user when you didn't even notice what I planted inside your own wind?" And with a snap of his fingers, multiple invisible explosions occurred inside Ais's tornado, "Kyyaaa!!!"
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Comments?:
28th00: This is just plain old bullying now…
Alexander: I say it again, he didn't learn anything. Even after Riveria's case, he couldn't hold back his bullying. So I guess, that Ais will start to cry at the start of the next chapter and Kisuke has to start another coaxing session with cups of hot chocolate and cookies while receiving a blaming 'you serious?' look from his wives.