Rain frowns disapprovingly as he walks towards the exit of the training room.
'It...could have been worse...'
He scored a 69, which...means he'll qualify. Unfortunately, it's also a bit flashier than he would have liked. Essentially, it puts him into the realm of the Daemon Bloodlines, while he was hoping for a score that would let him pass as a Titan Bloodline. That will be hard to do now.
As Rain exits the training room, he notices Nik waiting just around the corner, staring at his omniwatch with a shocked expression. As he approaches the Legacy, Nik looks up from his device and locks eyes with Rain, his expression turning curious...studying, even. Nik's tone becomes inquisitive, a trace of shock lingering in it, and Rain can pretty easily guess what his friend was just looking at on the device. After all, their scores are publicly recorded.
"I have to say, Rain...you've kept your cards close these past couple months. When you told me you were planning to participate today, I figured there was at least a chance that you had a Titan Bloodline. But to get a 69...well...there's only about a half dozen Daemon Bloodlines in the Academy. Consider me thoroughly shocked..."
He gives Nik a nonchalant shrug and smiles breezily.
"You're giving me too much credit sensei...I've just had too many hot dates to waste time talking about Bloodlines."
Nik raises his eyebrows at Rain incredulously, preparing to speak, but then his attention is drawn to echoing footsteps behind them, and his eyes widen in surprise. Rain turns, following his friend's gaze, and sees Ronin walking down the hallway towards them.
Her strides are confident and purposeful, and her gaze is clearly fixed on Rain. She slows to a halt a couple meters from both of them, but she only directs a curious expression at Rain, ignoring Nik as usual.
"How did you fare, Rain?"
He returns a polite smile, watching her carefully.
"Pffft...I got a nice tailwind through one of the windows as I punched, and it lifted me to a 69. Nik here got a 72, though, can you believe it? I swear, some guys just get everything..."
The corner of her mouth twitches, and she spares a brief glance at Nik, who is watching her politely but with intense curiosity as always. Honestly, as much as she pretends he doesn't exist, Rain thinks that Nik is overly polite to her. He's tried talking to Ronin about it, but...she just reiterates that no Legacies can be trusted. In retrospect, he's not sure what else he expected from someone as socially awkward as her.
Ronin's eyes return to Rain, a bit of...approval...evident in them.
"That's impressive, Rain. You must have worked hard to arrange it...the tailwind, I mean, since there are no windows in that room."
Rain does his best not to smile at her obvious double speak. In her mind, with 63 being the qualifying threshold and 75 being the highest expected score, a 69 is probably the perfect compromise. She's clearly giving him genuine praise about controlling his strength to fall within that range...a troublesome task that she'll soon be faced with as well.
Rain smiles at her appreciatively and nods.
"Ah, on second thought, maybe it was a vent, not a window. If you just keep an eye out for it, though, I'm sure you'll be able to replicate my daring feat."
He sees Nik give him a pained look over the exchange, then the Legacy interjects politely.
"Uhm...Lady Ronin, I apologize. Rain's sense of humor can be a bit...unique. I'm sure he didn't mean to imply that you require some kind of handicap to match his score."
Fighting the urge to laugh, Rain just smiles at the disappointed-looking Nik, then returns his gaze to Ronin. She spared Nik another glance, but now she's looking at Rain with an amused expression. He flashes her a wide, playful grin, jerking his thumb at Nik.
"Ah yes...indubitably, m'lady...it is as this criminally handsome fellow says."
He sees Ronin's mouth twitch again, the amusement in her eyes persisting, then he turns to face Nik. He gives the Legacy an inquiring thumbs up, like, 'I nailed that, right?', and smiles confidently. Nik, meanwhile, starts to look a little pale, his face heavy with embarrassment. Before he can say anything, though, Ronin casts a lingering gaze at Nik and addresses him evenly.
"Rain visits me every night for tea, so I'm quite familiar with his humor, and it's not something that warrants an apology. He can make whatever jokes with me that he wants."
Her brief, admonishing remark leaves Nik blinking in surprise. But before he can respond, she nods at Rain and departs without another word, disappearing into the training room behind them. Even from outside, he can hear the excited whispers of those within, no doubt discussing the arrival of the enigmatic daughter of Fated Blade.
Deeply amused by the run-in with Ronin, he glances at Nik again. The Legacy is staring at him with an expression that is some amalgamation of confusion, envy, and annoyance. Rain flashes him a smug grin.
"See, Nik...Her Majesty thinks I'm funny. I, uh, guess that makes you the problem, doesn't it?"
*****
After his qualifying test, Rain's day passed pretty quickly. The cutoff ended up being 63 after all, so Tess earned a spot in the tournament and has already messaged him that she wants to celebrate tonight.
Ronin, on the other hand...well. She apparently had a tough time managing her strength, and ended up with a 76. That's still low enough that everyone will assume that she has a Daemon Bloodline, but...it was also the highest score of the qualifiers, making her the center of attention.
Now, the rest of the day has come and gone, and he's in the middle of their evening meeting time. True to her request the night before, they're intensely sparring instead of drinking tea.
Thwack, thwack, thwack! Thwack! Thwack, thwack!
Rain throws blow after blow at Ronin, none of them managing to pass her defenses. As he steps back to reevaluate his strategy, her posture shifts, pulling her training sword into a defensive position in front of her. Her demeanor is the picture of patience, her blue eyes cold and studying as her blonde hair falls back into place around her face, her slender arms simultaneously relaxed and coiled with power as they point her sword towards Rain.
His eyes narrow in frustration.
'With Nik, I can at least catch him off guard sometimes, even when he's going all out. Her though, it's like...she barely has to move her sword to block me. Does she even leave openings?'
As he tries to think of another way to pierce her defenses, she suddenly speaks, her tone almost...instructive.
"Your basic technique is good, and your instincts and reflexes are excellent, Rain. But you're wasting a lot of effort with your sword style, and you seem over-reliant on your reach. It's preventing you from seamlessly shifting between offense and defense...that can be exploited easily."
Without waiting for him to respond, she suddenly lunges at him with a heavy blow. Rain deflects it with some effort, and throws a counter strike at the opening he created...or the one he thought he did, at least. As his blade homes in on her ribs, her own sword seems to materialize in its path, never far from her side. She effortlessly slides his blade along her own, deflecting it away from her while keeping her wrists close to her body.
As his sword's own momentum pulls his hands and blade away from him, Rain immediately begins redirecting it for a follow-up attack on Ronin. However, she has already moved...
She's standing right next to him, their eyes separated by inches, and she has only one hand left on her sword. The other is tightly pressed into Rain's abdomen, her index and middle fingers protruding from her otherwise balled fist. Her gaze is calm and steady, her voice flat and admonishing as she speaks right into his face.
"Just like that, I'd have killed you if this were a dagger. A sword is great for providing some separation from your enemies, but if you exploit its reach to the point that you can no longer defend on a moment's notice...you're as good as dead."
A shiver runs up his spine as he meets her intense, deadly gaze, feeling the danger of her fingers pressing into his exposed abdomen as though they are cold steel. He instinctively jumps back. After a moment for the strange fear gripping his heart to subside, he directs a wary gaze at Ronin, who's still staring at him thoughtfully. His thoughts slowly begin to calm as well, allowing rational thought.
'That was...horrifying...have I really been leaving myself that exposed? She just calmly stepped into my reach...she could have killed me five times over with a dagger. Why hasn't Nik ever mentioned this opening in my defenses!?'
As if reading his thoughts, Ronin calmly starts walking towards him, her tone becoming warmer...consoling.
"You didn't make a mistake in your form, you're fighting just like your Legacy friend. He probably hasn't chastised you for this because he didn't see a problem with it. After all, at his core, he fights like most swordsmen do...just much more proficiently."
Startled by the almost clairvoyant comment, he directs a perplexed look at Ronin, his tone becoming curious.
"What do you mean...exactly?"
For a moment before she responds, the corners of her mouth twist down, as though she's having trouble thinking of a way to explain something.
"He fights...logically...like everyone else. Every action he takes is a carefully calculated utilization of his sword's properties, meant to exploit its tiny advantages with minimal risk to himself. The way he distances and braces himself before his enemies attacks puts him just outside their reach or leaves him leveraged to easily deflect strong blows, allowing quick, effective counters.
"Similarly, the arcs of his own attacks are perfectly gauged so that he's as safely separated from the enemy as possible, to ensure he can adapt to counters, while still allowing a lethal strike to land at the edge of his blade. It's all remarkably strategic."
He feels confusion invade his thoughts and expression. That's...exactly what he thought you are supposed to do, and he agrees that Nik is phenomenal at it. He raises his eyebrows at Ronin incredulously.
"And that's...bad?"
Ronin shakes her head.
"No, it's smart. But in combat, when death is the only outcome, as long as your enemy remains alive, you court death. If you constantly limit their chances to attack you at the expense of decisive offensive opportunities for yourself, you're safer at any given moment, but your chances of ultimate victory are compromised.
"My father was so unrivaled with a sword because he had a different philosophy. That combat is a wager at its core, and you only stand to gain as much as you're willing to risk. When he fought, he didn't hover at a strategic distance, allowing death to be spread across safer exchanges of less severe blows. He fought with lethal proximity, where the first person to leave the slightest opening was assured a swift, uncompromising end.
"Of course, your Legacy friend's approach is better for buying time, and it's easier said than done to live a hair's breadth from certain death while performing at your best. However, for those who can, when a battle is a deathmatch, abandoning a strategic distance in favor of my father's deadly, intimate dance is the best path to victory.
"You'll notice that the sword Relic I gave you is a slightly shorter design, for exactly this reason. If you want to beat someone as skilled as your friend, or defend against someone like me, you need to learn to live on the edge of death in battle like it's second nature, and adjust those sweeping strikes of yours to be shorter, faster, and fiercer. If you undermine most swordsmen's expectations that you'll avoid the risk of instant death, you'll find they have a lot more openings within which to strike."
Rain listens to her words carefully, trying to decide how he feels about them. On one hand, Ronin sounds deranged...proposing that exposing yourself to nothing but life-or-death blows at all times is actually somehow safer during true combat than Nik's strategic fighting style. However, for those like her and her father with Fate Lineage, it also kind of makes sense. After all, her Foresight Talent would allow her to predict and respond to a constant barrage of quick, lethal blows with absolute confidence...no hesitation would weigh her down.
What about Rain, though? Is that fighting strategy really something suited for him, someone without Foresight? He's initially skeptical, but...then he remembers the first time he genuinely beat Nik in one of their sparring matches. Wasn't it by doing exactly what Ronin's talking about?
When attacking back then, Nik left a gap in his inner defenses so huge that Rain could duck inside his reach and headbutt his way to victory. As long as Rain identified the obvious opening and executed the maneuver correctly, he was basically assured victory. So, why had Nik left himself open like that?
Rain thinks the answer is basically as Ronin said – Nik felt assured that nobody would try and exploit it. As Nik pointed out, a single mistake on Rain's part during that stunt would have gotten him instantly killed...he'd have to be insane to try it.
'Or, at least...a bit unhinged...'
He chuckles to himself, realizing that he's been living up to his Nature this whole time, without even knowing it.
His fights with Nik aren't the only illustration of that either. When he thinks back to his fight with the Curse in his Trial...he epitomized risking himself for a decisive victory. He let that damned creature break every bone in his body, nearly fracture his mind with pain, bring him to the very brink of death...all for the chance at that one, intimate blow.
Feeling like he's finally understood something fundamental about achieving victory in combat, he directs a determined gaze at Ronin, the fear he felt earlier washing away like tears in a monsoon. A mischievous smile forms on his lips, his eyes seeming to darken dangerously, and he speaks to her in a willfull tone.
"Alright, Ronin...let's go again..."