The air was rife with tension as the man in the mysterious trench coat stood opposite us.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Valeria. I think you managed to detect the slight change in pressure before the attacks hit you, right?"
Valeria's face tensed up as she didn't say anything. Not giving your opponent information is key. The man took a step back and pulled out a small metal object from his pocket. "No reply, eh? Guess I'll have to get an answer out of you."
He was twirling the pen around his fingers, and I was piqued as to why he was doing that. Oddly enough, it seemed to calm my nerves a bit, and Valeria also seemed to calm down.
During all this time, though, the unsettling aura around this man never went away, and I pulled my sword out. "Valeria! Don't drop your guard!".
*Swish*
At that exact moment, that small metal object transformed into a magnificent blood-red blade that was the size of a longsword. It was a construction technique using blood manipulation, which I've always wanted to learn but failed to do so because it requires so much precision.
"You're a bloodbearer too?" Valeria asked as the grip around her sword tightened, and she took a lunging stance, her eyes glowing a deadly green.
"Well, you got that right." A small smirk escaped his face as he took a stance to fight too. For a brief moment, I felt like all of us were having a conversation with our minds. Valeria's eyes bore into her opponent, attempting to discern the depth of his skill and his intentions. In response, he met her gaze with an enigmatic smile, a twinkle of challenge evident in his eyes.
"Seems like a bit of a standoff, doesn't it?" The man commented, a peculiar calm in his voice as he twirled the blood-red blade with deceptive ease, like toying with a feather.
Valeria's lips curled into a smirk of her own, her response dripping with a mixture of challenge and confidence. "Standoffs don't suit me. I prefer action."
Valeria shot a sideways glance at me, and that glance conveyed everything I needed to know. We were going to attack in sync. I also moved into a lunging stance, getting ready to follow up with Valeria. She mouthed a couple words, which I recognized were prayers to the fighting god. I readied myself too.
She's stronger than me. So I thought I'd let her lead the charge and go on with the follow-up. In an instant, both of us launched at the man.
As we closed the distance at blistering speed, I could notice the speed difference between me and Valeria. As the fight went underway, a stark realization settled in—I struggled to keep pace with these two. Valeria was already two steps ahead and had started her attack.
Her relentless assault was met with an unsettling ease by the enigmatic man, whose blade danced through the air like it weighed nothing.
Valeria didn't let go of her aggression and continued to press the man on, and I think she hoped that she could drive him into a corner and force him to submit.
I could feel it, and I'm pretty sure Valeria could feel it too. There was this huge power gap separating us. It almost felt like Valeria was adjusting her speed and power to sync it with my strikes, to keep the two-on-one advantage, but I felt like I'm much more of a hindrance as this fight dragged on.
Every swing and every parry seemed to stretch me to my limit, as if I were pushing against a force beyond my own capabilities. The dichotomy was striking—while Valeria's attacks appeared almost effortless, I strained to match the level of skill exhibited by both combatants.
Desperately attempting to match her pace, my strikes seemed sluggish, my defenses faltered, and an unsettling awareness crept in—that in my attempt to assist, I might inadvertently be holding her back.
I don't want to be that person. I want to stand alongside her too. I, too, want to prove it to her. At the present, though, I just wanted to be the least of her problems and let her do her job.
*Ga-shnk!*
In what seemed like a momentary lapse, Valeria had gotten past the man's defenses and, in one seamless move, knocked the weapon out of his hands and delivered a kick to his jaw.
I watched in awe as the blood-infused blade lost its structure and turned into liquid again, falling to the earth, leaving just the small metal object twirling in the air. The man had lost the confident smile he had on his face.
"Guess you're better than I thought, eh? Well, no need to hold back then." He immediately leaped into the air, grabbing the small metal catalyst, and instantly the blade formed around it again.
Valeria's position placed her directly beneath him, an advantageous vantage point to launch an attack. In tandem with her, I launched myself mid-air, my sword poised for a strike. My intent was to catch him off guard and distract him.
"That was so slow, even a tortoise would dodge that," the man's voice dripped with taunting amusement.
In a move that defied body mechanics, he twisted his abdomen mid-air to just dodge my sword, and with a resounding kick to my head, he sent me crashing into the floor.
I landed face first, but I got up instantly and leaped at him again. The thought that I may be holding her back has now evolved, and another thought has held its place. I have a nagging awareness that I might be out of my depth in this battle. The drive to prove myself and to stand beside Valeria as an equal only intensified.
"It seems like you have a lot more spunk than I think. Good! And I like the way just your right eye is glowing!"
As he had all his attention focused on me, a shadow was cast on both of us, and the smug look on his face totally vanished as he realized to his horror that Valeria and I were closing in on him from above and below.
My wrist started to tickle as I harnessed the power that was bestowed upon me on purpose this time. "Now, take him out!" Valeria screamed as we swung both our blades with all our might, resulting in a huge explosion.
As the dust settled, both of us got up, searching for the man.
"Where is he?" Valeria screamed as she frantically looked around. I perused the environment too, and while there were a couple of bystanders watching this fiasco unfold, the man was nowhere to be seen.
"Gotcha." A chilling whisper was all I could hear. I couldn't determine the exact direction, and my eyes were frantically darting around, trying to find this guy.
Valeria and I barely had time to react before his attack was upon us, a storm of blood-red steel hurtling towards us, cutting through the air with deadly precision.
And then darkness.