One hour later.
"I really have to say you did a good job there, Amon. You even impressed Yumeko."
Ruby did not expect something this amazing. The people who knew what this man did cried out of happiness. They felt pleased that this man died while regretting it.
"Who is Yumeko?"
Amon had a thought that it could be the young woman who carried out the execution originally.
And he was right. Ruby told him that she is a genius when it comes to swordsmanship. She had no problem learning anything that was related to the sword, and she was so impressed by Amon during the execution that she wanted to meet him.
Amon decided that it would be a good thing to get to know her. Ruby also declared that Yumeko was impressed by the way he used his sword and wanted to ask him some things about it.
He walked out of the imperial palace, and as soon as he passed the gates, he saw Yumeko , who was leaning against the castle wall.
When Yumeko saw Amon, she ran towards him and shook his hand with both of her hands, strongly up and down.
"You are Amon; let's go. Come with me."
Yumeko Yumeko was like a little child who saw her friend and wanted to take him home to play with him.
She pulled on his hand for a while, and then Amon followed her. They went straight through the part of the city where only nobles stayed, and before long the two met in front of a huge ancient Japanese residence.
It was the typical design of a house in Senjo; the only difference was that it had small walls and a huge training ground.
Yumeko waved Amon towards her and brought him to the training grounds.
The training grounds looked simple. It was a wide area with a few trees that cast a bit of shadow over the training grounds.
On the training grounds stood three men.
One of the men waved Amon and Yumeko towards them. Amon now looked at the three men. The first one had long red hair. The other one was a man in his sixties, and the last one was a big man packed with muscles all over his body. All of them looked different, but they had one thing in common. Their body trait. It was the same one Yumeko had. There iris is divided into an inner ring and an outer ring by the colors yellow and green.
"I see all of you were blessed by the same god."
This was the first thing Amon said when he arrived with Yumeko at the men's place.
"Yes, you are right. We all got blessed by the goddess Yashahime, the sixth-eyed swordmaster."
Sometimes it happens that a god or goddess only blesses the members of a family. This was rare, but it was the case with this family. Every newborn child who possesses the last name Morioka gets blessed by the goddess Yashahime.
Why? Because Yashahime once decided to do it. There was never a deep meaning behind it. She just didn't feel like finding new mortals to bless over and over again, so she chose what she thought was the easiest way.
"This is not important now. Show me again how you behaded the man an hour ago."
Yumeko had no intention of listening to a long discussion between Amon and her family. The three men noticed that and let Yumeko run free. If they would have seen an interesting sword technique from it, they would have taken something good out of it.
"Alright, place something on the floor I can cut."
Amon asked Yumeko , who then sprinted and brought back a bundle of wood, put it on the ground in front of Amon, and then gave him a katana that she had brought along with the bundle of wood. After all, he didn't have a sword with him.
Amon did the same thing he did before.
He placed the sword horizontally over the bundle of wood and cut it through, cutting through the ground as well.
"I usually don't use this technique towards the ground. It's actually just a normal horizontal cut aimed at the opponent's neck. This time I just used it towards the ground."
Amon wondered why the young genius of Morioka did not know how to do that.
"That is not the problem here. It is not a problem to use the technique. But after you used it, I tried it, and it did not look the same way it did when you used it, and even now it looks slightly different compared to when I do it."
Yumeko showed a demonstration. She positioned herself just like Amon did before and used the same technique. But there it was again. This feeling that it was not perfect. Not the same way Amon did it.
Amon looked towards the old man; he wanted to know why she thought that she could copy a technique this easily.
The old man noticed that and gave Amon his answer.
"She expected it because it always happened. Every time she sees how someone uses a sword technique, she is able to copy it on the first attempt. But now that it did not work, it went against her understanding that she could not use a technique perfectly."
"Let me fight with you, and then I can say it to you."
Amon had an idea why it did not work for her, but he had to make sure of it in a fight.
Yumeko nodded and asked the man with the red hair to bring them two wooden katanas, which he did.
When the two of them had a wooden katana. Both positioned themselves about 3 meters away from each other.
The rules were simple. No magic; only swordsmanship is and the physical body was allowed right now.
The old man worked as a referee.
He gave the starting signal.
Amon made an opening for his opponent. Yumeko knew what he had tried and waited for him to attack.
Amon noticed that waiting for his opponent was of no use. He held his sword to his left, ran towards Yumeko, and slashed from left to right.
Yumeko ducked under the slash and swing.
Yumeko ducked under the blow and swung her sword from the bottom to the top.
Amon took a step back, and Kaori's attack went blank.
He seized the moment and kicked Yumeko's foot.
It was a complete success. Yumeko staggered back before she could even react. Amon rammed the hilt of his sword into her stomach.
She felt like her gut curled up and sank to her knees.
"The reason why I won is simple."
Amon reached out his hand towards Yumeko and helped her get up. It seemed strange to him to fight a woman, but he had to do it to find out something. Hana took Amon's hand and slowly got to her feet.
"Your problem is your eyes. I think that with your eyes, you can see the world in slow motion."
Amon was right. The blessing had many effects on the eyes of the owner, and seeing everything in slow motion is one of them.
"But you have a problem with that. You cannot control when you want to activate the technique during a fight and when you disable it."
The reason she could copy the techniques after seeing them once. Every time someone used a technique and she saw it, her world got slower, and she saw everything in slow motion.
"Wait, grandfather, is that true? She has that ability." The man with the red hair asked in shock.
"Yes, it is true. Even in our family, seeing things in slow motion is rare. It is one of the abilities that the blessing of the goddess Yashahime have given us. But there are hardly any members of our family who had that power."
"But why is that a problem?" The man with the red hair said
"Because she cannot control the power. For her, the power activates randomly and then deactivates. In a fight, that is a real disadvantage." Amon said.
"Brother, I will tell you. If everything is in slow motion during the whole fight, what do you think happens when the power suddenly deactivates? It is like everything moves at high speed for me."
The man in red finally understood it. She could react to all of Amon's attacks during the whole fight, but from one second to the next, she was unable to react to his attacks.
"I use this sword technique often. Your eyes adapt instinctively to the situation and turn on your abilities. My movement was just so fast that your eyes could not react, and I am sure that this was not the first time this happened."
Amon was right when her grandpa fought; she could also not see all of his movements.
"I know someone who could help you with that problem. But for this, you have to come with me to my guild, and you will not come back soon. It will take a lot of time."
Amon wanted to make it clear that she would have to think well about it. She would be far away, in a different country. A place she had never met before.
However, Yumeko was determined that she wanted to come with him.
"I hate this randomness. Please take me with you, even if it takes years. I want to be able to control this power."
Good, take this crystal. If the crystal glows orange, I will leave and go back to my guild. Then follow its light; the brighter it shines, the nearer you are to me."
Yumeko nodded and walked back to the imperial palace.