"So let me get this straight, if I fight you, I get all the yul you made from me back when we gambled and extra?" Yami asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah." Grim nodded confirming his words.
"Great! Lets go to the courtyard."
---
Gathering out on the courtyard behind the base, Yami and Grim stood opposite each other as Asta and the others watched from the sidelines.
"Who do you think is gonna win?" Noelle asked.
"Captain."
"Yami."
"The cap of course."
Not completely shocked by the outcome but still surprised to actually hear it be so one sided, Noelle asked them why they all thought that way.
Vanessa who had seen Grim's power in the Witches Forest went quiet for a moment before giving an answer that the rest of the bulls nodded to.
"While Grim may be strong... I just can't imagine Yami ever losing."
---
"You better have that money ready brat." Yami grinned unsheathing his katana.
"Heh, I've been wanting to do this ever since the magic knight exams." Grim smiled back and summoned out his flame sword. Letting the orange glow surround his body, the temperature around him started rising as his eyes took on an orange hue.
Standing completely still, the two katana users sized the other up.
As if time had stopped, only the sounds of their breaths could be heard as the two got into their sword stances and remained motionless.
"What are they doing?" Noelle asked confused since no one was attacking.
"They're using ki to read the other's movements." Asta suddenly said much to everyone's surprise.
Unlike his usual boisterous self, the Asta standing before them now was completely focused on the fight in front of him. Even the energetic Luck was scarily focused on the sight laying before him as he stopped himself from blinking as to not miss a single moment.
Just like Asta had said, both Grim and Yami were using ki to read the little movements in the other's body.
While Grim might have access to the transparent world and had an edge over Yami in that regard, Yami's years of experience allowed him to make up for that disadvantage.
Focused solely on Yami's figure, Grim breathed lightly as he stomped down hard and charged.
[Breath of Flames- First Form: Unknowing Fire]
*BOOM!!*
Flashing forward in a blaze of fire, Yami watched as Grim raced towards him.
'This kid... He's stronger than he was since I last saw him fight.'
Surprised at his subordinates sudden growth in power, Yami's grimoire opened up and flipped to a page.
[Dark Magic: Dark Cloaked Avidya Wild Slash]
Coating his sword in dark magic, Yami swung his blade wildly in a disorderly fashion as several slashes of darkness charged out of the blade and shot towards Grim.
*BOOM!!*
Grinning at Yami's attempt to slow his momentum, Grim used his fire magic to combust the area between his feet and the ground to rocket himself into the air and avoid the attacks.
[Rengoku]
Performing several rotating front flips, Grim slashing down from the sky and released a beam of concentrated flame magic downwards.
Watching the attack reach Yami, the smile on Grim's face deepened. Unfortunately that smile was soon wiped off his face.
Not bothering to move, Yami merely raised his head and raised his hand in the direction of the beam.
[Dark Magic: Black Hole]
'What!!'
Gathering a small mass of dark magic in front of his palm, the dark magic formed itself into the shape of a small black orb. Creating its own gravitational pull, the black orb drew Grim's attack into itself absorbing the beam of fire with no issue. Adding insult to injury, Yami proceeded to pull out a cigarette and lit it by sticking the tip into the beam before it vanished inside his black hole.
Closing his eyes and taking a puff out of it, he opened his eyes and looked up at the flying Grim with a mocking expression.
"So how's flying treating ya?"
"Tch." Gathering his mana, Grim abandoned long ranged attacks and used [Dust Whirlwind Cutter] to shoot down and rush Yami.
'Heh.'
*BANG!!*
Clashing swords together, the impact from the collision caused the ground beneath Yami to crack.
Switching to [Breath of the Beast], Grim barraged Yami with an onslaught of [Crazy Cutting]
"Not bad kid." Taking Grim a bit more seriously, Yami used reinforcement magic to strengthen his body in order to keep up with Grim's wild sword swings.
*TING!*
*TING!*
*TING!*
*TING!*
'Dammit! Dammit!! DAMMIT!!! HOW THE FUCK IS HE BLOCKING ME!!'
[A/n: He's Yami.]
Growing more and more annoyed by Yami's ability to counter, Grim didn't realize it but Yami was starting to have trouble keeping up with his cutting speed.
Trading blow after blow, the sound of steel clashing against steel rung out as the black bulls watched in shock as Yami actually took a step back.
Switching from [Breath of the Beast] to [Breath of Water], Grim's movements lost their ferocious nature and became much calmer and serene.
'The hell?'
Having never seen use this spell before, Yami was caught off guard as cuts started appearing on his body.
"Tch!"
"He cut him!!" Noelle yelled seeing the shallow cuts on Yami's body.
"He actually did." Vanessa said unable to believe what she was seeing.
Switching between [Breath of the Beast] and [Breath of Water] in tandem, Grim kept confusing Yami's senses and started landing more and more attacks on his body. While they were shallow in nature, just the fact that he was able to land them at all was motivating. But it was only after managing to leave marks on his body that he realized that something wasn't right.
Pausing his attack, Grim suddenly jumped back much to Yami's surprise.
'Did he figure me out already?'
Landing a bit away from him, Grim cursed in his head.
'This bastards trying to adapt to my style.'
"What are you doing Yami." He suddenly called out. "Stop holding back on me, use that attack that you used to defeat that Vetto guy."
Taking a puff out of cigarette, Yami looked at Grim and shook his head.
"You can't handle that type of attack."
'He's looking down on me.'
Incensed by Yami's answer, Grim grip on his sword tightened as his mana started to fluctuate causing the air in front of him to distort.
"Then I'll show you how ready I am."
Since long ranged attacks wouldn't work with Yami's [Black Hole] being active, Grim had no choice but to stick to close ranged attacks, that being said, most of Yami's spells were lethal and if he wanted him to use them he'd have to force it out of him.
Switching back to [Breath of the Beast], Grim put his arms behind his back and charged him once more releasing a flurry of sword swings once he was close enough.
*TING!!*
*TING!!*
*TING!!*
*TING!!*
*TING!!*
*TING!!*
Defending against his strikes, Yami quickly grew accustomed to Grim's speed and timing.
"Ha! Give it up kid, you won't be able to hi-
*BANG!!*
Weaving in a kick amidst his sword strikes, Grim landed a solid kick to Yami's ribs.
'What!!'
*CLANG!!*
Not giving him a chance to react, Grim went back to attacking with his beast swords adding in some kicks in the process. Using the flexibility and enhance physical buff that [Breath of the Beast] granted him, he continued using this unorthodox fighting style to land hits.
"Tch." Defending against Grim's sword attacks was hard enough considering that he was using two swords, adding in his random kicks to the equation made the situation even worse.
*TING!!*
*TING!!*
*TING!!*
*BANG!!*
"URGH!"
*TING!!*
*TING!!*
*TING!!*
Seeing that Yami couldn't adapt to this new fighting style, Grim took advantage of this chance and sliced through his [Black Hole] with his Beast swords.
*SWOOSH!!*
'Shit, was that his goal!?'
Grinning at the dissipating Black Hole, Grim continued his assault on Yami before taking to the air and raining down a barrage of Mist attacks.
[Breath of Mist - Second Form: 8 Layered Mist]
Seeing the mist slashes descending upon on him, Yami countered with [Dark Magic: Dark Cloaked Avidya Wild Slash].
Unleashing his own barrage in response, the black bull members watching from the sidelines stood in complete shock.
"What the fuck are we watching!" Magna couldn't help but curse as he watched the mist and dark slashes collide in mid air.
"Whoa! Grim's so strong!" Luck laughed itching for some action of his own.
"Is the power that defeated me?" Asta asked not remembering the time he fought against Grim in his black form.
'Dammit! At this rate Yami will end up running out of mana and I'll win by default!'
---
"You're really something kid." Yami said breathing a bit heavily.
"You know I'm not gonna stop until you use that attack right."
"Give it up, its not happening."
"...Fine." Grim relented.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah." Grim nodded lowering himself from the sky and just barely hovering above the ground.
"Since you fought me, I'll give you all the yul I promised."
"What about the extra?"
"The extra is for those who go the extra mile, you didn't do tha-
Before Grim could even finish his sentence, dark magic had already gathered on Yami's blade as he raised it high above his head.
[Dark Magic: Dark Cloaked Dimension Slash]
Slashing down, an invisible slash seemed to cut through space as it almost removed Grim's arm from his body. If it wasn't for him being able to use ki and the transparent world to see what Yami was going to do mere seconds before he actually did it, Grim doubted that he would have been able to avoid it.
"What the hell! I wasn't ready!!"
"I did the attack, now give me my bonus brat!"
"You can't be serious! You almost cut my fucking arm off!!"
"No need to worry, I know a good doctor that could stick it back on no problem." Yami reassured him with a thumbs up.
"I don't want it missing in the first place!"
After a while of arguing, the rest of the black bulls managed to calm the two of them down. The whole thing eventually ended when Grim gave Yami all the yul he promised him plus the extra for the [Dimension Slash].
---
*Sigh*
'So that was the attack that defeated Vetto... Its even more impressive than I thought. I don't think I have anything to counter... Though its not like its not without its flaws. Since the attack could only travel in a straight line, dodging it wasn't really an issue if he used his ki and transparent world to sense when he was gonna attack. That and the stance he had to take to use the spell was an obvious give away.
Satisfied with the spar, Grim pulled out a small notebook and wrote down his thoughts on the fight. While Yami may not have been going all out and used less than 5 spells, Grim was content knowing that he could at least put up a fight against a captain. Since his goal was to become the strongest in this world, defeating Yami and all the other captains was the first step to achieving his goal. That being said, he didn't want to win cheaply by exhausting them of mana, only beating them in straight forward combat could satisfy him.