Marilyn held up her weapons in a defensive stance and asked. "Are you sure that you wish to go ahead with this? We are using real weapons after all. Although I will stop myself before the strikes land on you there could always be accidents during combat. It's not too late to back out now."
Ki shook her head and raised her sword prepared to start. "No thanks, I welcome this spar since it would be very beneficial for me."
Leon raised his hand before counting down from five, upon reaching 1 he dropped his hand towards the ground. "Start!"
Leon and Evie looked on in excitement as the exchange of swords started.
Both made lunges forward to connect their blades, both had a similar style but was different in some ways.
Ki focussed more on cutting movements and little thrusts added in while Marilyn was the opposite.
Every one of the strikes was met with resistance and as Ki parried Marilyn's sword she drew closer to be able to land a strike.
With a twist of her blade she sent Marilyn's sword to the side leaving her unable to properly use her swords thrust because their distance had shortened.
Marilyn looked a little shocked at first at how Ki had managed to close in on her but did not give in as the dagger in her other hand began to counter and stop Ki's advance.
This gave her a chance to pull back her sword to use both sword and dagger to stop Ki's sword as they were positions in a cross shape.
She twisted her dagger and sword and swiped them both outward pushing Ki backwards once more.
Ki feeling the opponent was stronger than her and was very experienced began to smile. 'This is way better than the previous battle. A battle of swords suits my style best and I can make up for different flaws when fighting against master. She makes up for close combat with a dagger while I can use my blade to make cuts at a close distance, her attacks can come piercing from many tricky angles to push me back again and her cross guard style helps to stop any strong attacks. This will be fun."
Ki walked back out of the distance of her opponents blade and began to examine her opponents guard, she did the same as before but this time she moved towards Marilyn's outer body side.
If she moved inside the blades path then she would have to deal with both blades but if she continued to move around the outside of the opponents sword then Marilyn would have to turn around to keep Ki within her sights and the range of her sword.
Marilyn noticed Ki's movements and began to change her footsteps to match Ki so that she could not leave her range of attack and defense.
Ki nodded in thought. 'It looks like I will have to get serious, I expected she was experienced considering her feats in my previous life and the information acquired but it seems I have underestimated her talents. I wonder if the person who raised her noticed her talents early on. If so I have picked up a formidable ally.'
There are many types of people within the martial arts world, those who learn best from experience, others from watching others, simply reading a book about martial arts can help them gain further improvement and those called geniuses who were simply born to become someone great.
It's as if they had been born to breath martial arts, smell martial arts, hear martial arts, feel martial arts and taste martial arts, they have the best physique to practice martial arts and they are so in tuned with everything involving it.
Some people would call them geniuses or monsters within the world of martial arts, many clans would recruit such people to raise as their own because not only do they have strong potential within their body and their ability to learn but some also have an incredibly firm and strong will.
With the best training resources such a person could potentially reach the transcendent realm around the age of 18 which is considered to be quick even for a sects personal disciple of the sect leader or a sect elders child or grandchild which has access to high resources of the sect.
Even with such support the person needs to have high talents and a strong will to continue with their training, if they become lazy they will begin to fall behind.
Ki believed her master was one of those people but lacked the support, she grew up in a poor environment so could not maximise her potential properly and had not had enough food to strengthen her body to the limits.
However she did grow up in a place with constant conflicts, she quickly grasped her techniques taught to her and honed them to the best of her abilities to not die within a small dark corner of the world.
Ki however was not such a genius, she had gained what she had on the edge of life and death after living through many life threatening situations until a very old age.
She was merely using what she already knew and adapting it towards her new martial arts style and her small body which was a little unsuitable for combat against adults.
Clash after clash both of them got closer to perfection with their attacks and defence, some moves became more simplified while others more delicate or fierce depending on the person attacking.
Ki's attacks continued as she took steps forward and back again and then to the side, every time she closed the distance she was pushed back again.
Marilyn's attacks were straight towards Ki's vitals, her arms, legs, the neck, waist or her shoulder each strike was aimed with precision but Ki would always find a way to step out of the strikes way or parry the attack before countering.
She did not give up though and continued with the flow of her movements and kept searching for weaknesses to point the tip of her blade at but Ki seemed to become even more difficult to deal with as time went on.
Ki placed her hand at her waist and held a flask, as she received an attack she leaned to the side with her blade receiving another thrusting strike while sending the sword away from her body, she lifted the flask to her mouth and took a sip.
Another attack came and another sword blocked Marilyn's thrust and again did the same, Ki slowly began to integrate small actions into her movements of lifting her flask to her mouth in during or in between parrying a strike.
After taking a sip she would sidestep away from the path that the sword would travel after the parry, then if the sword came to cut her as it travelled back towards her she would narrowly avoid it and close the distance once more.
Her movements became a little more unpredictable as some movements were precise and strong in order to defend or attack but others seemed more sluggish and relaxed.
This made changing her attack and defense a lot easier and her sluggish movements helped to avoid attacks unpredictably and also allowed her to change the way she made use of her flexibility too.
Her movements seemed a little more like a drunken sword dance as she got used to the movements under the high pressure.
More explosive power was able to be released when her body was relaxed, she made use of the softness and gentle nature of swordsmanship to defend herself and the explosive power was released upon seizing the best moment of attack. [1]
The integration of hardness and softness along with the sword dance and staggering movements helped to create many openings for Ki to strike.
She began testing her bodies movements along with her sword movements as time went by during the fight making sure that she was keeping her enemies sword away from her body until she took another drink of her flask to prepare for the next plan. [2]
All this time she had been drinking her own brew of serenity wine which helped to put her in a greater state of calmness and enlightenment while also being in a light drunken state.
Ki knew that her master would end up being the best opponent for herself right now and she was right, however her greatest fault was that her size was still too small… her legs and arms were still small so her reach was not that great.
Ki decided to make up for that by using unpredictable movements to get closer and target Marilyn's legs but Marilyn seemed to of expected it so stepped out of her reach or blocked with her sword and dagger once more.
Ki however expected this and raised her face to smile towards her master when suddenly she sprayed wife from her mouth while giving way to the power of her masters sword and dagger while bending away from the angle they were travelling and turned her sword towards Marilyn's stomach and stopped as she made a small cut into the clothing and moved away.
The cut happened so suddenly that Marilyn had missed it because of the so called dirty tactics of Ki but she could not find fault with her because although it was duel they did state their weapons before the match and Ki chose her flask and sword.
Ki stepped back from Marilyn and took another drink of her flask before sitting down in contemplation over the results of the fight.
Leon stood back with Evie who had witnessed the whole battle which was very fast paced, both of their eyes were wide upon witnessing the battle. 'So cool!'
After he saw his sister had withdraw he saw a torn part of Marilyn's clothes and spoke up. "The fight is over! Sister Ki wins!"
Evie walked over to hand a cloth to Marilyn to wipe her face to remove the wine which had been sprayed within her eyes.
[1] https://youtu.be/FchiEwv_uQU
[2] https://youtu.be/n5X8i8plCA8