Kaze and Frey were face to face, only mere metres away from each other.
"Yo~" Frey enthusiastically addressed him with a wink.
"Yo…" Kaze weakly responded, glancing up and down at her weapon.
What Kaze thought was a weird sword turned out to be a scythe instead. The entire thing was black, the blade part fit with weird mechanical structures in between that made it look bendable. It was nothing short of intimidating.
"Ah, don't mind this," Frey lightly swung her scythe forward, creating a purple trail. "It is not as bad as it looks."
"It is!" Kaze facepalmed. "I didn't know you were going to be fighting with a… a…"
"It's common sense to hide these sorts of things from your enemies," Frey smirked, using magic to bend the blade towards her handle. "If I were to show this all the time, people will figure out a counter sooner or later."
"… I'm starting to regret having to face off with you," Kaze sighed, removing his sword from its sheath.
"I will go easy on you, since we're friends~" Frey gestured, the scythe blade bursting open once more into its rigid fighting state. "Plus, you want to look cool in front of a certain someone, right? This is your chance, against the number 2 of the school~"
Since the scythe itself was large in design, Frey held it in the middle part of the handle. She preferred to wield it with one hand instead of two, causing the weight of the blade to increase. As such, her posture for holding it was with the blade facing the ground and the handle facing the sky.
With another purple glow filling the lighter coloured parts of the blade, Frey's eyes flashed a dangerous glare.
"Here I come, Kaze~"
Twisting her wrists to get the scythe spinning, she quickly caught it with her fingers and twirled it around. She then moved on to using her arm strength, going from one hand to another while moving her arms around. The way that it looked like in Kaze's point of view was of Frey setting up the scythe for it to attack.
Since the scythe was such a large weapon, it certainly wasn't any easier to wield it. As such, one of the methods of using it was by what Frey did, starting off with a standard twirl that helped to increase both offensive and defensive power. By offensive, it meant she was able to attack at any time since there wasn't a pre-move, much like how swinging the sword on attack would be raising the entire hand. By defensive, he was unable to carelessly attack as the scythe spinning essentially created a physical barrier capable of deflecting any attacks.
Frey took the first leap, seeing that Kaze wasn't going to make the move. Twisting it to her right hand, she grabbed the handle and swung it vertically downwards, from right to left as if wanting to slice Kaze's body in half.
Kaze responded immediately, raising his sword to block the scythe. Catching it as he would with a normal attack, the scythe bounced off his blade and prompted Frey to twirl her entire body in the opposite direction. Reversing her grip on the scythe, she swung it in a crescent moon angle that brought it from up to down, to upwards again in a vertical slash upwards. Kaze was barely able to block the second attack, considering he had to worry about the curved blade that was perpendicular with the handle.
It helped that the scythe was only single-bladed, or he would have to suffer from the consequence. However, he was already feeling the disadvantage of having not faced such a weapon before. The weight and pressure of facing it was completely different with a sword or magic.
In addition, Frey was actually imbuing her scythe with dark magic, a form of magic that was rarely used by people due to the difficulty in casting it. It wasn't like it was difficult because it was powerful, but it was just the nature of it. For Frey in particular, she was able to match her proficiency in casting dark magic with wielding her scythe, creating a deadly aura from it every time she swung her scythe at another person.
Kaze was feeling the effects of dark magic from her scythe right now. It worked the same way just like how if one casted any other form of magic on their sword, but with different reaction of course. It worked the same as fire magic increasing the explosive power of one, however depended on how the user would make use of the magic themselves.
For Frey, in particular, she didn't use the dark magic to cast any spells on her opponent. Instead, it was just there to help amplify her attack power as her petite self was unable to deal that much damage on her own. It wasn't like this made the job any easier, since controlling magic constantly while moving around wasted a lot of stamina in doing so.
"Hm!" Kaze grunted, fending off an attack at last.
He had been blocking this whole time in order to test the tides facing a new weapon before advancing on Frey. Taking his range up close, he wanted to see how Frey would react when swinging a weapon more suitable for middle range.
Of course, Frey was already used to fighting sword-based opponents like Kaze so she knew how to play the close-range game too. Switching over to grabbing the end of the handle, she began using the handle itself to fight instead of the entire scythe. This choice surprised Kaze because he figured the handle would be the weaker part of the scythe, but apparently that wasn't the case.
"Hehe~ not bad," Frey grinned at Kaze while blocking his attacks with just the handle. "But… can you fight this?"
Incorporating the blade part into the fight by sliding both her hands all the way up, she was now holding the handle part which was closer to the blade. This proved to be even more of a challenge for Kaze, since she was fighting with a curved sword that was aiming at stabbing him each time. The size of the blade was at least two arm's length, making it a devastating weapon on its own.
While the fight was certainly not as explosive and interesting as Lunaria's, it was still enough to draw in the attention of the audience. The fact they got to see Frey in action was already a positive sign, but the rest depended on how Kaze would fight. If he just ended up struggling for the most part, it was without a doubt that people will start to get bored.
"Kaze is struggling quite a bit, isn't he?" Lucentia spoke after watching for a bit.
"After all, he is up against a scythe user who happened to be the second best in school," Lunatea merely shrugged at this, as if it was expected. "Plus, her scythe had been modified so that is no ordinary weapon."
"I would say it is very normal to struggle against it," Reginsleif agreed with his daughters. "So far, what we saw from Yuuji and Albert were quite normal, since their weapons and their opponents were fighting with a rather normal approach. For Shoko and Kaze, they are up against abnormal opponents."
"I see Lunaria-nee didn't tell Kaze what to expect from Frey," Luniel giggled. "Maybe she wanted him to figure it out himself?"
"The case is most likely being that Lunaria-nee simply wanted it to be a surprise," Lunaea answered her twin. "It would be no fun if you knew outright your opponent has a weird weapon."
"Back in my days, I don't encounter people like Frey that often too," Ethan gave his own experience. "While I might be fine now, I would also struggle if I was in Kaze's position. You can tell that Frey is rather skilled with her control."
Another deafening blow came from the scythe striking into the ground. Kaze faltered backwards with Frey continuing to gain on him. Even though she promised to go easy on him, Kaze was aware that he was still struggling to deal with her. Was the gap between their skills that big?
With another ferocious exchange, the two were now fighting on much more equal grounds than before. As time passed, Kaze quickly got used to her attacking patterns and was able to somehow defend while attack at the same time, like a normal sword fight.
The only thing that made Kaze uncomfortable was how she never seemed to run out of stamina from swinging something so huge while Kaze was already starting to get exhausted from just attacking and defending. It was like his daily training was all for nothing, only reinforcing what he already knew but not enough to improve.
"… This is starting to get boring…" Frey made a small yawn while attacking him. "Kaze, are you sure you are using all your strength against me?"
"Of course I am!" Kaze grunted, more sweat trickling down his cheek. "You are just too strong!"
With a huge swing, she knocked Kaze a few metres back. Gasping as he nearly had the wind knocked out of him, Kaze got on one knee on the floor while holding onto his sword as a support.
"Kaze, fight me seriously," Frey rested the scythe on her shoulder and stood in front of him. "Like how you did with the centipede."
"W-What?" Kaze widened his eyes at what she said and looked up at her. "How do you…"
"Use that technique that you did to kill the centipede," Frey swung her scythe at Kaze, stopping when the edge was at Kaze's neck. "Or you will die~"
A shiver ran down Kaze's spine when he heard what she said. It was clear that she wasn't joking, from the way her tone was and how she looked at him. If she was going to make Kaze fight her the way she wanted to, she was willing to do anything to achieve it, even going so far as to kill him in the process.
Kaze jerked his body back instinctively before his mind could process why he did that. A crack appeared where his leg once was, the scythe buried in the ground. When he saw that, Kaze shivered in fear for he knew that his life was truly at risk now.
Looking up, the aura that exerted from Frey was no longer the friendly casual type that she usually had on. Right now, she was leaking a dark red, menacing air around her. With her eyes shimmering dangerously while focused on him, she picked up her scythe and charged towards where he was.
While Kaze defended for his life and ran around the area, he started to consider all the possibilities that he had right now.
It wasn't like he could just fight Frey in the way she wanted him to. The thing was that his abilities involving pure magic wouldn't work well against someone like Frey. It was because there was absolutely no reason to use it, especially when she wasn't using magic but only on her scythe. White Flash was certainly more useless in this scenario, but Phantom Rush might be able to chip off some of the dark magic that had coated her scythe.
As Frey had so requested of him, Kaze began gathering pure magic onto his sword as he fended off the attacks. Frey seemed to have notice this from the way his sword was glowing along with the mana condensing in the air, causing her to get more excited. With Frey swinging even wilder than before now, Kaze could only run for his life while charging up the mana necessary.
Kaze felt humiliated that there really wasn't much that he could do with his current skill level. Despite all that he trained for and prepared, in the end it came down to him being too weak to even face off against Frey who hadn't gone all serious yet. She was already showing him mercy by not using magic to attack, but he couldn't even meet her expectations.
Once he got Phantom Rush in place, he began trying to counter the attacks of Frey. It made Frey act more recklessly too, both of them exchanging blows without anyone backing off. With each attack on Frey's scythe, Kaze could feel bits and parts of her dark magic being absorbed. He wasn't used to casting dark magic before, so it was a little foreign for him when he transferred it over to his body through a process of activating White Flash.
"Is this your technique?" Frey questioned him while still exchanging blows. "I can feel it sapping some of my magic away, bit by bit~"
"I wonder about that," Kaze forced himself to show a smile. "You don't seem to be lacking behind in magic no matter how many parries we make."
Giggling at his words, she found it amusing that he was still able to respond despite the fact he was obviously losing. Frey clad her arms in said dark magic too, forming what looked to be armour for her arms made from the magic.
"Haa~!!" Frey cried and took on huge swing at him, her strength increasing exponentially.
Kaze got flung back from the force of the swing itself colliding on his sword. Being blasted backwards, he used the dark magic he absorbed to slow down his fall. Even so, Frey chased after him relentlessly, releasing more and more of the dark magic around her body.
Each time he collided his sword with her scythe, all the dark magic that was being gathered by Frey was absorbed at a faster rate by Kaze due to how much she was gathering compared to that before. Her scythe, seemingly affected by the magic as well, became even more powerful and exhibited greater strength than before.
With another swing, he dispelled some of the dark magic that he had gathered with pure mana. He was unable to maintain Phantom Rush for too long, forcing him to dispel it out instead. Kaze didn't know how to use dark magic in a way that Frey did, hence why he still couldn't fight back very well.
The main thing that deterred Kaze from performing in his best was that because he lacked the practical experience. This was one of the downsides of him not fighting with the others to gain rank points. One factor that contributed to his lack of enthusiasm was ironically… he didn't have the will to fight others.
For Kaze, who grew up in the countryside where there were not many swordsmen or fields of fighting, they were mainly a very peaceful place. There was no such ecstasy among the children at the area to develop a sense of fighting. This was the contrast of the influence from two different places. In fact, Kaze only ever got into swordfighting was because of his grandfather, not watching other people practice.
Even so, hunting monsters at the countryside was the only thing that swordsmen were ever needed for. In the first place, not many monsters showed up often, contributing to the lack of practical experience. Most of the time, it was farming and harvesting that made up the social norm, not swinging with swords or practicing magic.
Kaze's only mentor and opponent was his grandfather. The first time he came to Tristania, he was shocked by how different the environment was compared to the countryside. Everyone here wanted to wield the sword, everyone wanted to use magic, everyone wanted to be someone who could fight. Over here, strength represented everything. It was completely different from the peaceful place he came from.
It came with no surprise that in such a competitive environment, Kaze still was too naïve to believe that he could keep on training without gaining much experience. He was able to fight against a monster or two, especially when he was already used to slaying them with his grandfather back in his hometown. When up against human opponents, all he had was one person.
It truly was Kaze's own fault that he kept on training without a purpose. No matter how much he refined his sword skills and build on his body strength, it could never compensate for the practical experience of fighting against someone like Frey. He was only able to make it this far because of his training, but he found the end of the road sooner than he would have expected.
Frey, someone who had fought tens, if not hundreds, in order to gain the strength she had right now, was in a completely different league than Kaze. Needless to say, she had even developed the instinct to 'kill'. All Kaze had was becoming stronger, but to what extent?
"… Kaze, I'm truly disappointed," Frey muttered, her entire body starting to form armour made of dark magic as she pushed Kaze back. "Were you always someone like that? Was the test a few days ago with my dummy, was that also due to your luck that you managed to fight that well?"
Unable to respond to her words, Kaze gritted his teeth in frustration at the truth before him. It should have been clear by now that he wouldn't be able to beat Frey the way he was, but he took it for granted. Instead of following what his friends had been saying about fighting, he continued to train and only rarely fought. Even if he did, it wasn't for glory.
What would Ethan have said if he found out about Kaze's 'determination to get stronger'?
It was a joke.
As if a few months' worth of classes and training with people was able to change anything in the short term. His training… it was all for naught. Training could only get everyone so far, and experience was where Frey had Kaze beat.
One could study all they wanted and get as high grades as they wanted. If they weren't able to perform as well as their grades could in the real world, was there any meaning behind it then?
Kaze was in such a predicament, a silent yet deadly realization that created such a flaw in his sword fighting.
Frey was now fully clad in dark magic armour, something that she had developed herself. It wasn't irregular for someone to be able to do this with magic because anything was possible, but it certainly did cause quite the shock for the audience. Everyone cheered out loud when they saw Frey in the dark suit of armour, giving off the aura that she truly was a death-bringer, like her nickname suggested.
One of the bigger flaws that Kaze had, was what Frey just displayed. It was the intent to kill.
While Kaze certainly lacked experience, he would have put up more of a fight at this point if he was facing off against Frey like he would to any normal monster: the intention of killing them.
There was no need for an explanation why the lack of fear of killing helped to increase the chances of survivability for Kaze along with why he could fight Frey. Normally, it was that fear that bound one from being able to perform at their best.
Kaze feared killing and hurting others; Frey naturally lacked that fear.
It was an unconscious fear that held his body back.
Kaze's hands felt numb from parrying all the attacks dealt by Frey. Sweat trickled down the side of his face and down his forehead. With his muscles aching, he struggled against the armour-clad Frey even more than ever. It was a sign that Frey had started to go serious in hopes of making him fight her with his all, without realizing that it was holding Kaze back more instead.
Eventually, the needless struggle came to an end.
"Good night~" Frey pouted, swinging the end of her scythe at him as he stumbled backwards from her previous attack.
The last thing Kaze could remember before blacking out was Frey's very, very disappointed look.