Time was a memory in the heat of the duel. Clashing metal, and the ragged rush of breaths, the only sounds in the corridor. With each step forward, each swing of her blade there came a precision of movement and intent that came close to speaking of a hardened resolve. Sparks shot out as her blade met Ashkart's, lighting their faces brightly, if briefly. For the first time, her sword didn't snap. For the first time, she wasn't immediately forced back. She had finally become something more-no longer chasing Ashkart's movements but matching them.
As they clashed again, she felt this strange sensation trickling into her muscles, a warm, thrilling energy.
"Ah, I'm melting…"
she murmured, almost delirious with the rush of it. Her voice a murmur to herself now, lost in the din of the fighting. She could feel her brain unraveling to her, her body surrendering itself to pure instinct as if every ounce of her being had come alive at last. Their blades scraped against each other but this time she felt herself hanging steady. Her strikes matched his, but somehow she parried back with a force he couldn't dismiss. It was as if she had unlocked part of herself that she did not know existed. Something deeper than skill, more potent than will.
A sharp sting cut across her arm as his blade glanced off her shoulder, yet she did not flinch. She flung herself backward at him, her sword carving into his side for every hit she took, one by one. Their blood stained the earth, as if painting a tribute to the relentless clash.
'Everything feels so… different.'
She panted, a wild grin spreading across her face, feeling the strange fire that pulsed within her bones. She had always known about the fight—the movement, the strikes—but never like this. The connection she felt with her blade, the visceral thrill of the clash; this was something she had been asleep to all her life.
And with a savagery she didn't know she possessed inside her, she pushed on. Each blow thrust her back down into some primal orgasm, her moves directed by an unthrottled, pounding sense of instinct. For the first time in her life, she felt alive. She had always fought by reason, with strategy and purpose in mind, but now. now, she fought like a savage, wild and unrestrained.
Ashkart met her every move with a sword that arced through the air in flashes. But the impossible grace and precision that had made him unbeatable no longer counted to him. She had given him equal measure with her own fury. Their blades became twin storms, with a sudden relative symmetry to their exchange.
'Have I slept my whole life?'
She thought, piercing through frenzy, making her chest lighten up as much as ever it had. She realized until now she restrained. Took the hit, endured, and tried to survive. This was, for the first time ever, when she didn't want to survive; she wanted to crush her enemy. She wanted nothing more than to overmatch him, to overtake, to finally show herself what she was capable of.
It meant to fight. She wasn't surviving, wasn't enduring. She was living. "This is what fight means!" she screams into the void, her voice raw with the thrill of it, her laughter echoing as her strikes come faster, fiercer. She could feel blood seeping onto her face, hair hanging in tangled strands, her eyes wild and bright.
She would have been completely mad if anyone had seen her. The composed, controlled woman had been nowhere to be found. She was only a madwoman now - almost indistinguishable from the beast she fought against. Movements were reckless, chaotic, and yet impossibly precise. She moved without hesitation. She moved without caution. She moved like a force of nature, relentless and terrifying.
She had long been the one to hold back; she took what was given without complaint, bore the burdens of life with quiet endurance. She had been trained to accept and to bear. But here, in this endless duel with a legend, she learned that she did not have to take anything. She could now let out everything inside without fear or a hangup. Nobody was here to complain, no one to witness or judge. She was free to be everything she'd damped inside herself, pour out every ounce of rage and frustration she'd managed to carry around.
Screaming wildly, she lunged forward, blade crashing against his in a clang that seemed to reverberate through the walls themselves. For the first time, it wasn't her who backed off.
A cut across his chest. Another slash that had grazed his arm. She could see the dents in his armor, the rivulets of blood that marred his once pristine form. Ashkart staggered back, and she could see it - the faintest flicker of acknowledgment in his eyes. She had earned his respect and, perhaps. a measure of his fear.
She charged, every bit of her as one with the blade within her, with the pulse of the fight itself. The composed woman she once was in is now nothing but gone; it's raw, unfiltered power, each swing a testimony to what rage and strength in life were all hidden inside her all along.
They crashed together for one final, desperate impact and heaved at one another with all the strength they could gather. Her sword clashed with his in a single savage bite, and she felt the shock reverberate up her arm, rattling all her bones. For an instant, they were held stellate, blades locked, eyes locked in a moment of shared comprehension.
She pushed forward with a sudden, brutal motion, cutting through him with all she had. Ashkart stepped back, his face easing, his lips curving into a faint smile.
There was near silence after that.
His sword clattered to the ground, his hand drooping limp at his side as he swayed. "No. " she whispered, feeling panic rise in her chest. "No. no. yet you shall not die!
He fell to his knees, and she let the sword fall from her hand as she went running forward to catch him. Her hands shook to shake him as she was trying to rouse him, to pull him back from the brink. "I haven't had enough fun yet! You can't just leave me like this!"
Ashkart turned to her, his slight smile fading, a tiny gleam of peace in the depths of his eyes, as though he had some strange solace in their last battle. And she saw it vanish, losing shape to cold, as it slipped from her fingers.
"No!" Her scream was raw, desperate. She shook him harder, willing him to stay, to give her one last clash, one last chance to prove herself.
But it was over. His body went still, his expression calm as though he had found freedom in the end. She was left holding him, her chest heaving, the thrill of battle replaced by a hollowness that gnawed at her.
Quest Completed!