Henry was standing on the side of the training field. My mother was sitting on the bleachers and watching Dominick warm up.
Henry was looking towards the entrance of the house until he saw Jane exit. He brought up his hand and waved it to draw her attention. She spotted it and began to run all the way to Henry.
"Is it true? Did Dominick challenge Zack to a duel?" Jane asked worriedly in rapid succession.
Henry sighed. "It is." He admitted.
"What happened to you promising me that you'd keep him safe?" Jane asked in distress.
"I'm doing my best." Henry replied.
"Clearly! He's going to die!" Jane yelled.
"Lower your voice." Henry whispered. "And he won't die, I promise you that."
"You can't be sure of that." Jane said. "Even you can't interfere."
"I'm well aware of the rules, but we came to an understanding."
"Why didn't you stop this duel then?!" Jane asked.
"He's already the black sheep of the family. We don't need more people looking into him, especially after the assassination attempt." Henry assertively declared.
"No one's going to be looking into him." Jane replied. "You told me people think he's unremarkable."
"Look, Dominick was already suspicious of my treatment for Zack. If I canceled this, he would've kept looking." My father said. "And our secret would've gotten out."
Jane sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Henry said reassuringly. "I would've done the same thing if I was in your position."
-----
As I approached the training field, the gravity of the situation began to set in for me. Winning was near impossible; the gap in skill and biology is far too big. I needed a way to bridge the gap. So the question becomes what is something I'm far better at Dominick at that could bridge the gap?
That question was on my mind as I walked up to the area. It was flat and spacious, only being surrounded by a circular fence. The usual array of training dummies were moved away to the side.
Dominick was standing at the middle, swinging his sword around in a diagonal pattern. He stopped when he noticed me walking into the field. He had a cocky and deranged smile as he stared into my eyes.
"Are you ready?" He asked in a condescending voice.
"No." I answered. "But that's not going to stop you."
Dominick laughed. "You're right, it won't." He turned his back and started moving to one end of the field. I started moving to the other side.
I glanced at the audience while I was walking. Almost all of the house staff were watching. However, my eyes were drawn to my mother. She looked like an evil witch. Don't get me wrong, she looked beautiful. Clear tan skin and medium length black hair. Yet her smile was one full of malice. It was startling.
I turned my head back and reached the end of the field. The wind began to rustle and swept my hair.
Dominick turned to the audience and looked over at his butler. He cleared his throat.
"Ready!" He yelled out loud enough for the both of us to hear.
"Begin!"
I saw Dominick immediately begin to channel mana. He ran at an inhuman speed towards me. I ran to the side as fast as I could without taking my eyes off of him. As he was about to reach me, his foot shifted and he put power as he propelled himself with his sword point towards me.
Out of instinct, my arm began to move. Before his sword reached me, my sword parried the attack. Immediately, I noticed that it felt easier. The force wasn't as powerful as what I was used to with Leo or even the assassin. It felt great.
Dominick had a long sword as opposed to my short one, so I wasn't in a position where I could hit him. This forced me to play passively, which was horrible. He would win a battle of strength or endurance. I needed one decisive strike to end this.
Dominick flicked his wrist to make the sword attack again. I thought I would have no time to parry, yet the sword seemed to be smoother than I was used to. It glided across the air to meet his sword.
CLANK!
I pushed the sword up and to the right. I preemptively ducked, anticipating that he would swing his sword in somewhat of an arc going down.
As soon as I rose up, I put my strength in my sword to hit the side of his sword, hoping to put enough force to make him release. It didn't work as I thought, but it managed to move his sword back a little.
Being left-handed had certain advantages in situations like this. One was that he wasn't used to my attacks. They came in at different angles than he was used to. I was close enough to try an attack and swung my hooked sword towards the right side of his body.
His eyes widened as he immediately channeled his mana and jumped back. He swung his longsword, taking advantage of the awkward placement of my sword.
When he swung, I instinctively moved my arm to stop it from getting chopped off. Unfortunately, it was still going towards my body and made a deep cut.
I instantly felt the pain. It was an intense burning that felt like it was radiating to the surrounding area. My vision began to get blurry and my movements became more sluggish.
He grinned as he went in for another strike. I was barely able to parry the strike in time. Dominick continued with a barrage of attacks and I was left to barely block it.
Every time our blades made contact, I saw purple particles exiting the blade. It was losing mana, and since I didn't have any, it was impossible for me to replace it.
My speed gradually declined while Dominick's speed stayed the same. Not just the same, but faster. He continued his attacks with more and more vigor.
"What's wrong?!" He said confidently. "Can't keep up?"
I felt my shirt get wet and warmer as my blood began spilling out.
"Shut up." I said in between breaths. I was panting heavily.
His attacks kept on coming and coming while I could barely defend. Then, the inevitable happened. One of his strikes made it through and punctured me in my lower chest.
When he removed his sword, he watched me stumble as even more blood began to leave me. I weakly swung my sword that was easily dodged.
"Hahaha! You're even worse than I thought!" He laughed out.
'You're fighting an eight year old.' I thought, but didn't have the strength to verbalize it. My vision was getting blurrier and blurrier by the second.
It then dawned on me. I lost. Going into this fight, I never had a chance of winning. No matter what I did, it was all pointless. I hadn't even left a scratch.
I fell to the floor as I put my hands on my shirt. Dominick was hovering over me.
"What a shame. You didn't even entertain me yet." He said with a demented smile.
I mumbled incoherently.
"Hmm? What's that?" He mockingly said as he tilted his head and crouched to get closer.
If I was going down, I'd try to take him with me.
Your ears control your equilibrium and balance. If you hit someone's ear in the right way, the change in air pressure could cause them to rupture their ear drums and begin to lose their balance.
Using my remaining strength, I cupped my hands and brought them to his ears and clapped on them as hard as I could.
"Agh!" He yelped out instantly as he began to fumble. I stood up as fast as I could as punched him right on the head.
If you, dear reader, thought I would win this fight, then I'm sorry to disappoint you.
After it made contact, my body fell onto the floor again. The last thing I saw before I passed out was Dominick struggling to get up.
'Looks like I lose.' I thought as I blacked out.
------
When I woke up, it was midday. I still felt pain, however it was more of a moderate throbbing than an intense burn..
"Look who woke up!" Hanson said playfully. I heard footsteps running towards me.
"Y-you're okay!" Alex said. I looked at him and he was near tears.
"That's one way of looking at it." I grumbled out through the pain. "How many days have passed."
"Four days." Leo answered. I turned to look at him and Leah.
"Four days?" I asked in disbelief.
"Yup." Hanson answered. "Nothing much happened except gloating."
I left my shirt and examined my wounds. Remarkably, there were no scars. When I touched the areas, the pain flared up.
"You're lucky he didn't hit anything important." Leo said. "And that we had the best medicines available."
I fell back onto the bed. Despite just waking up, I still felt exhausted.
"There's food here if you want." Leah spoke up rather awkwardly.
"I'm not hungry." I grumbled out as I closed my eyes.
"I thought about what you said, and you were right." Leah said. "I only started getting closer to you because of guilt. I-I should've had your back the first time, but I didn't and apologize. Can we be brother and sister again?"
I was silent for a while due to my exhaustion. It took me a minute before I spoke up. "No." I said firmly.
"No?" She said questioningly.
"As touching as your words were, they have no meaning." I answered her in an annoyed tone. "I had to tell you what you should've known yourself. Not only that, but you're only saying that because you want the guilt to go away."
I switched my voice to a more condescending one. "I hope you feel that guilt. Although it may not hurt as much like physical wounds, it'll slowly eat you up. I know you, and if it comes to it, you'll pick mother over me."
Leah was silent. I didn't even bother to open my eyes. I heard her sobs.
"If that's all, I'm going to sleep now."
-----
The scene of unconscious me was replaying through my mother's mind as she went about her day. She just relished the sight of a defeated me.
She looked over at Dominick, who had been wearing a smile ever since his victory. He had been boasting to just about anyone about his victory.
Yet, what no one saw was my mother's smile. No one knew the joy that she felt ever since my defeat.
Her whole life, she had been in control. She had always gotten what she wanted. Until I left the house. It was the moment she lost control. She wanted me to be alienated and isolated from the family. She wanted to turn my siblings against me. Yet, it didn't work. Alex supported me, and she was beginning to lose control on Leah.
That's why even though Dominick may have won the fight, the true victor was my mother. She had orchestrated everything. She knew what buttons to press to get Dominick riled up. She knew how to play her husband. She knew exactly what to do to get revenge me.
She was staring out the window to the training field. The patch in the middle still had my blood stained on it.
Her malicious grin was wide on her face as she was thinking.
"There's only room for one puppet master." She said while staring out of the window. "And before you die, I'll make you lose control over everything. You will watch as everything you care about gets destroyed."