Chapter 28: Seven Stars Sword Art Festival Part 3
(Chivalry of a Failed Knight)
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"You should be careful Ren-kun that guy..."
"Your next line is 'can even calculate what you're going to say' yeah got it."
"...can even calculate what you're going to say." Ayase gives me a deadpan look.
"It is one's sacred duty to spread the Jojo." Touka sagely nods on the background while I make my way to the arena.
It's the last day of matches before the grand finale and I am zoning out Byakuya's talking he started talking about how much he was stalking me and how many moves it would take him to win.
I think he's trying to kill me with boredom...
Byakuya is your cliche asian smart guy type, you know with the short hair, the glasses with the high chance of being in the student council. Imagine Issei from Fate Series and you're %90 got the appearance.
"Hey are you even listening?"
"Yeah totally!" I make a nice guy pose to look extra believable. He didn't get to speak again since the match started.
[LET'S GO AHEAD!]
Now Royal Guard style, it's all about blocking at the right time to store some kind of energy inside the body that acts similar to demonic energy but it doesn't mix with my reverses.
I honestly didn't think there was a real Royal Guard gauge in real life but it's not a big deal I just have to block the attacks right.
If not it consumes Demonic Energy pretty straight forward. That's how it works for me, so I quickly activate Royal Revenge.
My lack of offense is surprising but Byakuya is not surprised, he must have watched my fight with Kirihara but what he doesn't count is that Royal Revenge move that is an auto counter attack.
It doesn't matter how much he struggles, he will be hit by it without fail.
Byakuya approached with his device to test the waters, in his mind he can teleport with his placement manipulation so it won't be hard to run.(His device is not known and I didn't make up something)
Poor Byakuya was shocked beyond belief when his placement manipulation failed as he tried to get out of the way of my smoking punch that's aimed to his head.
Punch connects and Byakuya loses his conciseness, fight is mine, although I might have to give more cinnamon rolls to Ayase for making it look easy.
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Since my fight ended up finishing too early than expected they decided to fill it for runner ups you know.
Kuroudo fights Ayase, Touka fights Renji Kaga and the winner of those matches will fight tomorrow before the finale.
"You owe us like 20 packs of pudding for this."
"and cinnamon rolls."
"Got it now go win your matches." I shoo the gluttons away to have some rest people's stares are wearing me down I need to seek comfort from my wife's bosom.
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Matches of the girls went as I expected, Ayase won using Tenn-i Muho, it would be better if she did that at the beginning since she got some pretty gruesome wounds now.
Touka didn't even have to try, Electricity plus Steel Skin is not a fun combination, unfortunately Renji learned that the hard way.
So those two are going to fight each other for the third place tomorrow.
On the other hand Yuudai vs Ouma fight was intense if you were to ask the those who were watching, Yuudai was able to pierce Ouma's wind armor making it a dead weight.
On the other hand Ouma didn't even bother to remove his armor and systematically countered Yuudai until he tripped on a pebble and fell out the arena...
It was recorded as the most unfortunare fight of the history. So how's that E Rank luck working for you?
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Next day Ayase vs Touka fight was intense Ayase was able to deter Touka from using trackless step by wounding the air around her and their mastery of the sword is at a similar situation.
For some reason Touka is not trying Raikiri... Oh she used it, only for a wound in the air to suck it up... I am not even going to question how that works.
After about fifteen minutes Ayase gave up due to exhaustion while Touka was still breathing calmly.
Ayase's physical stats are much lower compared to Touka so she couldn't handle the battle of attrition.
With this Touka officially became the third and Ayase became the fourth ranked in 61st Seven Stars Sword Art Festival.
Pretty good compared to the canon since I am going to take the first place.
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It's time, I am finally in the finale and I can feel the chains surrounding me. I can't see them yet but I believe I can get there during the fight.
Nodding to my friends I went to the arena where Ouma is waiting thankfully he's a man of few words so we calmly pulled out our devices and nodded to each other.
[LET'S GO AHEAD!]
Starting from here was a mix of Trickster, Swordmaster and Royal Guard.
It was surprisingly hard to dodge his attacks, most of the time I had to teleport out of close combat or do some tricks in the air before going back in.
My style is not something made with discipline, it's more like whatever works type deal and his style is rigid but he somehow moves like the wind.
I can honestly feel myself getting better with each strike, another mistake fixed another way of improvement seen and made on the spot.
It honestly reminds me the time I was sparring with Merlin but without the whole losing limbs part.
While we fought I finally started seeing the damn chains, I nodded to myself time is right I made my preparations, I am ready.
Taking some distance I increase my gravity bracelets settings putting more pressure onto my body.
After all if you want to make diamond you need pressure...
also did I mention heat?
"Devil Trigger!" Following my word my eyes go red and my hair goes white. Although my devil trigger is hateful I can't really complain.
My current bloodline is pitiful, so it can only produce a pitiful Devil Trigger but it's enough.
Devil Trigger was timed at the right moment, just before Ouma's hit is about to connect. I use Royal Release, powered by the trigger it's going to hurt Ouma like a bitch.
*Crack* *Shatter*
I hear my chains brake, it feels so liberating like the first time I used flight spell unfortunately I lost the feeling right away but for the first time I honestly felt free even if only for a second, once I opened my eyes I saw that Ouma is out of the arena and he's flaming...
They're already handling it, looking at my body I can see that my Devil Trigger turned into Nero's DMC 4 version there's a phantom warrior behind me, nodding to myself I turn it off.
I got what I wanted, it's time to sleep.
*Thunk*
[The whole Desperado deal is more of a spiritual thing than physical, so Ethan put his soul into a smaller container(Ren) and started applying pressure (Training etc.) and eventually his soul broke out of the constraints it was put into.]