Chapitre 3: Cave of Spirits

If there were any within the vicinity of these two combatants, one could hear the striking clang of metal as the sound reverberated into the air.

There were two young adult men, swiftly striking the others weapon as steel connected with steel. Ryuma with his duel wielding Katana's. Toga with his oversized greatsword. He dawned a visible scar on his right eye from days past, and a rough and ragged red hair atop his head.

This was their secret spot. A forest next to a cavern too dark to see in. For reasons even they couldn't discern, they always felt the spirit energy here more nurturing than other areas of the island.

Toga pushed Ryuma away, having higher physical strength than him, causing Ryuma to skid several feet away. Toga then pointed his blade forward and charged straight ahead.

Ryuma put both of his blades up in an 'X' formation, blocking the attack. Even though the block was successful, it still pushed him up against the side of a large oak. His back hit it so hard, it even cracked the side of it.

Toga pulled his blade back, and wildly swung the massive sword up against Ryuma who was just recently pinned into a corner. With such a big blade however, the trajectory was easy to see coming, and so he jumped up and kicked off the tree, flipping over Toga.

His swing cut clean through it causing the oak to be felled in one hit. Ryuma followed up with swinging his own sword for Toga's neck, but Toga responded by spinning his body around the blade he had for a perfect defensive block of his attack.

The most troubling thing about Toga's fighting style and handling of such a massive weapon, is that he was exceptionally talented at switching between fighting with his weapon as the focal point of his attacks and switching to using his own body as a way of maneuvering around his opponents. It was a tricky thing to fight against if one wasn't used to seeing it.

Even now in his case. With the block his stationary blade made for him, Toga spun around the weapon, and roundhouse kicked one of them out of his hand, embedding it into another nearby tree in the vicinity. Ryuma, now holding his remaining blade, held it with both hands as a two-handed weapon, against Toga who was unarmed.

Ryuma changed his sword strikes with more spins than the duel wielding style he previously used. Toga dodged all of them and closed the distance to where he was up close and in Ryuma's personal space, interlocking their arms together and bending his elbows to force him to drop the weapon. He flipped over him and used the momentum to hurl him into the air.

Ryuma gracefully landed on the ground with perfect balance. Now both were unarmed, covered with sweat and dirt, and breathing heavy.

Toga balled his fist up and punched with lightning quick jabs. Ryuma instantly put up his defenses to block his face and bobbed his head to avoid the blows.

His quick reflexes allowed him to see Toga's arms stretch out, in real time enough to react to them by pushing one of his jabs off course and throwing the young man slightly off balance.

He took that opportunity to counter, and spin kick Toga in the face. Toga caught Ryuma's leg right before it connected and threw the boy. Before having lost any more balance, Ryuma spun mid-air and again, landed on his feet like a professional acrobat.

Not only did it take a lot of physical strength to wield that sword, but, that physical strength gave Toga an advantage extremely well in hand-to-hand combat.

Even when he was blocking Toga's blows, the damage he suffered was still present, even after having directed at least ninety percent of his force from a direct hit. The bruise on his arm was a testament to that alone.

Despite this, Ryuma smirked. Toga smiled on the other side as well. No matter how much the two fought against each other, there was always a certain level of respect each held for the other. From Toga's overwhelming power and tenacity to Ryuma's technique and calm in the face of danger, the fighting styles of these two although vastly different from each other, managed to help shape the other into a combative force to be reckoned with.

Toga closed the distance again, coming at him with each punch aimed at either the face or the abdomen. Each blow had the weight of a tiger behind them. Any one of them could incapacitate him for hours.

Ryuma reacted to each one of them as if his very life depended on even one of them hitting. With the amount of pain the punches packed, that could very well be the case. He made slight movements from the left to the right, while nudging all his attacks off course even just a little bit to just barely scrape by enough space to dodge the attack by a hair's breadth. To an untrained civilian, the two were moving at bullet speed.

Their matches usually boiled down to this very moment.

Toga would throw almost endless amounts of punches, and the victor would depend on whether he caught one of those punches or tired himself out with missing every one of them. His average, of attacking like this was usually around three minutes, but the way the two were going at it, that bout felt like it was going ten.

Even though it was feint, Ryuma could see it. Toga was breathing harder, trying to hide his fatigue. He was showing signs of slowing down and while most would get impatient at this point and try to counter, Ryuma knew better than to underestimate him and make that mistake.

His own fatigue was starting to show.

He slipped up and let Toga graze his chin even by mere millimeters. That micro touch alone was enough to make him lose all the feeling in his legs. His eyes went wide at the prospect of him taking a full punch to the face. Last time he took one of those, he had to show up to class with a swollen face for a week and vowed never to let that one happen again.

At this moment however, one was clearly homing in on his cheeks. As it neared, his face backed further away as his body fell. Whether it be a stroke of luck, or divine intervention, Ryuma used that momentum to land on one of his hands, and letting his feet do a high kick, hitting a wide-open Toga and knocking him down to the ground.

Ryuma seeing his opponent down, flipped on top of him, pinning him to the ground, and holding his fist out in a show of victory.

Both combatants breathing hard, they made a silent agreement to end the training session here with Ryuma's victory.

"Fuck man! I can't believe you… pulled that off," Toga panted.

Ryuma picked himself up and held out his hand. "Anything could happen in battle. Gotta learn to react to the unexpected," There was no way in hell he was going to tell him that was by complete accident. "I guess you can say that was my twenty-four to your thirteen,"

Toga grabbed his hand and pulled himself up. "Ok, I'll give that to ya. I'll let you have the last win before graduation,"

Last win before graduation…

Ryuma had to wonder if this would be the last time, they'd ever do this. The two walked separate paths, and he wondered whether he was going to have this kind of time with him again.

The two boys dusted themselves off and gathered their stuff. Toga looked at the cave beside them. "Hey Ryuma. You ever wondered what's actually in that cave?"

"I try not to,"

"Oh come on. This might be our last chance to find out,"

Ryuma swallowed a lump caught in his throat. He always had that sinking feeling in the pit of his gut that he wasn't ready to enter that cave yet. Not until he was stronger than he was now.

"I don't know,"

Toga went up to the entrance. "Remember that time I decided to brave going in? We're adults now. We're going to be facing scarier things than this eventually right. Maybe we should see what's at the end,"

Toga stuck his hand through the mouth of it, but was repelled by a barrier, electrifying his hand with force. He pulled his hand back so fast; it shocked them both into silence.

"What the heck was that!?" Ryuma asked.

"I don't know. I don't remember that happening before," Toga said.

Ryuma ran up to the entrance and did the same thing Toga did, only this time, there was no reaction. It completely let him go in it unhindered.

Toga tested his hand again a bit more slowly, only to pull his hand back once the threat of being shocked again was present.

"It's only letting me in," Ryuma said. What was going on?

"What does it mean?" Toga asked.

Ryuma shook his head. "I don't know," Something down the cave was calling to him. He could hear a voice. He slowly backed up out of the cave. "I think we should go before we start running late,"

"You're right. We'll figure this out later,"

The two left their secret grotto, both with questions of what might have gone on with that cave.

L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS

That line where it says "Last win before graduation..." Is Ryuma's thoughts.

It's usually my style to put my character's thoughts like that in italics, but I don't see anywhere on inkstone, it's letting me do that. So I'll have to do it this way. Just a heads up going forward.

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