When Akashi arrived near Kurome, he slashed his sword, attacking her midsection from the left. Kurome took the exact amount of steps back needed to narrowly dodge his sword but Akashi already expected that she wouldn't try to fight him head-on since he was much stronger. The second he missed her, he swung his empty hand, throwing a small fireball at her face.
Kurome narrowed her eyes since it interrupted her planned counter-attack but she still slashed down with her katana to split the fireball in half.
"?!" However, the fireball Akashi sent at her was the only distraction and Kurome immediately realized it once she was his leg attacking her, trying to trip her over. She was definitely surprised by it but her eyes instantly regained calmness and she jumped up, dodging Akashi's kick while also swinging her weapon down at his head.
*Clang* Akashi blocked her attack and both of their hands were shaking a bit.
'She focused all her balance forward while falling down to make her attack much stronger. She is insecure about her strength but she is already quite experienced in using no matter how small things to her advantage.' Akashi thought with a satisfied smile. He was currently limiting his physical strength so when he blocked her attack, he truly struggled a little bit since he didn't expect it.
However, that wasn't everything, once Kurome has fallen back on her feet, instead of getting away from Akashi, she took a step forward, pressing her weapon tightly against his weapon, trying to overpower him.
'I see what she is trying but I guess I should let her have her fun, after all, if it wasn't for me seeing her training personally, I wouldn't be expecting it.' Akashi instantly knew the reason behind her actions but instead of trying to get away from her, he pressed his weapon back, trying to overpower her.
Kurome immediately began struggling when Akashi pressed back but instead of being distressed, she smiled and her weapon suddenly became coated in yellow lighting which immediately traveled across Akashi's weapon into his hand thanks to the direct contact with Kurome's weapon.
Akashi reacted quickly and kicked out at Kurome's midsection, however, since she has done what she intended, she no longer kept contact with him and quickly jumped back away from him, just narrowly dodging his kick.
'It seems that my hands aren't as much paralyzed as I originally thought they would be, however, instead of that, I can feel my entire body being slightly sluggish. If I were to use my energy and flames to cleanse my entire body, I would be completely fine but this way is also good, after all, not every human has the same resistance as me' Akashi discovered what exactly happened to his body in the matter of one second but he chose not to treat his state.
[Paralyzed: -15% to your speed and strength (8s)]
[Health: 800/800]
'Oh? That's new...So it works like some kind of debuff instead of damaging ability, 15% is really a lot but I guess the duration depends on the person's natural resistances. Also, it will definitely lose its effectiveness over the course of battle since the more shocks people receive, the higher their resistance will get.' Akashi thought while Kurome already rushed towards him.
Instead of blocking her attacks, he began dodging them while targeting her legs.
Akashi had to be really careful these 8 seconds since he also matched his speed with Kurome which meant that he was forced to anticipate or react instantly to dodge her attacks that were slightly faster than himself. However, after the debuff disappeared, he had no problem dodging her attacks which pretty much frustrated her.
Kurome stopped attacking Akashi when she noticed that she was only wasting her stamina by swinging her sword around.
"What's wrong?" Akashi asked with a small smile that indicated that he already knew the answer.
"...Akashi Nii-sama, what should I do when my opponent can completely read my attacks? For example, if he can predict the future." Kurome asked after a few seconds of silence with a weak voice.
"Hmm, it's actually quite simple. If someone can predict your attacks, you simply have to become unpredictable, fight only with your battle instinct instead of your techniques and rational thinking. However, if it's not only about predicting your moves and he truly can see the future, you need to push yourself past your limit and never stop attacking him. Even if he can see the future, he will eventually be overwhelmed by the sheer number of attacks. But the best way is still to overpower him with your speed, that's why speed is usually much better than strength." Akashi replied with a smile while watching Kurome who was thinking hard about his words.
However, suddenly while she was wearing that "thinking" expression, she kicked off the ground, attacking Akashi's midsection from the right side.
'Good start of being unpredictable.' Akashi thought and he was forced to block her attack instead of dodging which once again applied the debuff on him.
[Paralyzed: -15% to your speed and strength (7s)]
After getting debuff, Akashi jumped back, trying to maintain distance from himself and Kurome but she didn't let him and constantly followed after him while swinging her sword from completely random angles which made them quite hard to predict, however, they were also unrefined since this was her first time fighting this way. However, unrefined doesn't always mean bad, since they looked unrefined and quite poorly performed, it added to their unpredictability.
Akashi who already had to focus on dodging her attacks when he had the debuff, now began to having problems dodging them due to her unpredictability.
'I guess it won't be cheating using my own ability since she is using it too' Akashi thought and his own sword became coated in flames which partly negated the shocking effect from crossing swords with Kurome. However, that wasn't everything, his flames around his blade were occasionally spouting fire around which forced Kurome to stop her relentless attacks.
[Paralyzed: -8% to your speed and strength (4s)]
'The effect is already weak thanks to my flames and it only lasts for 4 seconds which is really low amount of time. It's about time we finish it up.' Akashi thought and started his own series of relentless attacks. Kurome was trying to dodge most of his attacks but she was still forced to parry some of them, she also had to be constantly on her guard against that spouting fire from his blade.
She began using her second technique, smaller thunderbolts but for Akashi, they were too predictable since Kurome had to point the tip of her sword at the location she wanted to shoot at.
After enduring his attacks for more than 5 minutes, she has finally fallen down on her knee while supporting herself with her sword.
"*Huff* *huff* I guess it's my loss but I learned a lot thanks to this battle." Kurome said with a slightly sad smile but that quickly changed to a satisfied one.
"True but you would have still died if it was a life-and-death battle which means that you still have to face the punishment to always remember this loss" Akashi said with a slightly sadistic smile while leaning forward.
"?!" Kurome's face quickly changed to a scared one.
"W-What do you mean, Akashi Nii-sama? I thought that you were only joking previously." Kurome said while forcing out a smile.
"I was...There is no way you would survive the entire afternoon tickling session, therefore, I decided that whole hour will be enough." Akashi said with a "gentle" smile.
"Wha-! Is that truly necessa-ryyyy?!" Before she was able to ask, Akashi took her under his arm and went back inside the mansion towards his room.
.
.
"haha, please stop!! haha" This was the most frequent sound the maids walking past Akashi's room kept hearing for the whole 1 hour.
Despite her begging, Akashi never stopped but he also used this whole hour to show her suitable location on the human's body to target with her thunderbolt. He also used more than 30 minutes of trying to suggest to her a new technique that might be possible to create with her Kaminari. Although when she heard him for the first time, she was completely confused and had no idea where she would have to start however once Akashi went into deeper details, Kurome began to understand his words and thinking.
It would be mostly a one-time technique per battle and it would use the advantage of her advanced Iaido. [N/A: technique of quickly drawing the sword]
It would use the lighting in her sword to create some kind of cage around her which would eventually expand as she would draw her sword. The barrier itself would follow the speed of her drawing so it would be practically unavoidable, however, as said before Iaido is a technique effective usually only once per battle.
Once Kurome understood the concept of the technique Akashi wanted her to create, she was eager to go and try to create it since it was to her liking.
After Kurome's punishment was over, she immediately went back to the training grounds while Akashi began focusing more attention on Night Raid and Honest specifically. Next few days, Night Raid struck the Capital only once, they were keeping a relatively low profile but Akashi was aware that it was most likely due to training their 3 new members.
4 days after his spar with Kurome, he received a letter from Honest saying that he wants to congratulate him for his 18th birthday and that Akashi has his condolences for losing his fiancee. The letter also stated if he ever wants to marry anyone from the Capital, he has his full support.
'Is he trying to get on my good side? Or is there something else behind this? Maybe he wants to use my strength to hunt Night Raid since Esdeath isn't here. Anyway, there is also an invitation to the party organized by himself. Should I go? I guess I should, not showing up after receiving his letter would be viewed as a big offense and there is no need to do that right now.' Akashi thought while walking around in his study.
---Night Raid's side---
Sayo, Ieyasu, and Tatsumi worked hard but they still haven't gone to complete even one mission which frustrated two boys quite a lot.
They haven't been only training the entire time, they also gained some experience in real battle since there were a few spies trying to locate their base. Although the entire trio hesitated to kill a person once he lost and began pleading, they still learned their lesson when the said person tried to attack them back when they least expected it. Ever since then, they stopped hesitating since if it wasn't for Akame, Sayo would have lost her head.
However, a quite ironic thing happened and that is the person who was closest to death wasn't the one who became the most determined to end everything in 1 slash. Her two childhood friends became much more determined ever since that accident which pleased other members to see them working so hard. There still hasn't been any other similar accident and they have yet to go on the mission but everyone was aware that those two would never hesitate to kill ever again.