บท 24: Victory & Defeat II
Eleven stood shakily, his left hand feeling the dent in his chest as his right hand lifted the handle of the sword by his side.
'What the hell happened?' He thought to himself. 'I had control of it all as I should have, so what the fuck was burst of qi? No not qi, something else.'
Grasping his sword with both hands, he contemplated his next approach. 'This hateful thing isn't stupid, he wont give me a chance to re-exert control to such an extent now that he knows its effects. I'll need to build it during our exchanges.'
Taking a stance, he got ready to re-engage his 'enemy'.
'I wont be able to enter a trance again. The only reason I could do so before, was the time he stupidly gave me at the start of our fight. Since that's the case, I'll build a subtler rhythm throughout our exchanges, and then finish it with one well placed strike.'
The Cloud Soaring Art that Eleven cultivated had two primary methods of combat. The first was to build a tempo, and manipulate the surrounding qi into suppressing your opponent, while forcing them to follow that same tempo. This method though, required entering a trance which took time to do, making it a risk to initiate in the midst of combat.
It's more prevalent method of combat was to build a subtle rhythm throughout a battle, and force your opponent to participate in it subconsciously. Then, by disrupting the rhythm with a sudden strike, one could slay their foe with ease.
As Eleven stood and readied himself for the next round, Thirteen was also thinking about his next approach. 'Lifebringer is ordinarily a support technique, used to bestow and bolster someone's lifeforce. I tried using it like that on a hunch, but it's too inefficient to be reliable.
Eyeing his opponent readying himself, he decided his course of action 'I need to get rid of that sword.'
As soon as they both stilled, the fight continued. Thirteen dashed in quickly, going on the offensive. He didn't wrap Withering around his blade as it held little use in a duel, since he would never land more than three strikes before winning. Instead, he opted to fight in extreme close quarters, deflecting a wide swing of Eleven's sword as he closed in on his foe.
As soon as he was close enough, Thirteen stepped in with his left leg, gripped his own blade with his left hand, and swung upwards. He didn't need this to connect, he just needed to buy time as Eleven inevitably leaned back to avoid the blade head.
Stepping in with his right foot, Thirteen immediately followed with a strike of the pommel to Eleven's face which landed well, bloodying his nose. He then made to shoulder barge Eleven and disrupt his balance to keep an indomitable momentum, but Eleven's senses had finally caught up with him as he pulled his long blade in close, holding it in a reverse grip and trying to run its dull blade against thirteen.
Thirteen managed to step back in time, only for Eleven to grasp his swords pommel his other hand, leveraging the sword to make a swift, reverse grip swing at Thirteen, that was parried cleanly.
'Crap. He stopped my momentum'
'Shit, I cant build a rhythm!'
The two complained inwardly as they readied themselves to engage again.
This time, both combatants moved at once, each wanting to establish their own control over the fight. A series of standard attacks, deflections, and parries ensued as the two would step forth and then back, and then forth again.
From an outsider's view, it would appear that neither could establish control over their foe, but only Eleven knew this to be false.
'One, two, three, clash! One, two, three, break.' He repeated in his mind, his sword and his footwork repeating the simple pattern as gradually, a very subtle rhythm began to build in which they would exchange three blows, clash hard, exchange three more, and then disengage and begin again.
Thirteen, unaware of the subtle manipulation of the surroundings continued to follow this rhythm.
'One, two, three, clash! One, tw– STRIKE!' Eleven yelled inwardly, as suddenly he was stabbing forward with all his speed and a slight upward curve.
Thirteen found himself caught horribly off guard for reasons he could not understand, barely deflecting his opponent's blade and almost losing balance completely. But without even a moment to think about what had happened, Eleven's sword was upon him again.
'One, two, three, clash! One, two, three, break."
The rhythm resumed as if nothing had happened.
'This stalemate is going nowhere good' Thirteen thought to himself 'I refuse to win by a battle of attritio– Wah?!' With a panicked duck of the head and clashing of blades, Thirteen barely avoided the sudden horizontal swing of Eleven's sword that seemed to come from nowhere.
'Get your head in the game Thirteen!' He chastised himself.
On the other hand, Eleven was becoming somewhat amazed 'That's twice now he's reacted in time. I can't do this forever, I expend qi every time I go for the kill, but he's still standing. I need to drop this fool, and soon.'
After the invisible rhythm continued for a moment longer, Thirteen, in his inability to disarm Eleven made a drastic decision. Loosening his grip on the longsword, he focused his thoughts and senses on Eleven's shoulders and legs, employing what he had learned in his spars with his friends to try and predict when he would strike.
It came sooner than he thought, in the form of downward swing packing incredible speed as Eleven expended a great deal of his remaining qi, disrupting the rhythm to strike at Thirteen unannounced.
'His shoulders moved!' Thirteen thought to himself, as he relied on instinct and reaction to bring his sword in from the left and catch his enemies blade with his own. Stepping in quickly as the point of contact between their swords moved all the way down towards the base of the blades.
Thirteen pushed Eleven's sword aside at this moment, and then released his own grip with both hands, instead positioning his left hand under the pommel of Eleven's sword, and grabbing the base of the sword with his right.
He then yanked and twisted his hands in a 180 degree motion until Eleven's sword was pointing at the ground, and his wrists had twisted too far, forcing him to release the sword to Thirteen, who then delivered a swift pommel strike to Eleven's gut before stepping back.
'I did it. I didn't think I could pull off a disarm with my sword, not against someone like Eleven. But he didn't see a barehanded disarm coming at all.'
Looking at the skilled swordsman in front of him making an unarmed stance as wrath spewed from his eyes, Thirteen suddenly felt rather cocky. Tossing Eleven's overly long blade to the ground, he too made an unarmed stance, secretly creating a vacuum within his fists; The Withering technique, as it was meant to be used.
"Now then. We finally get to play in my ballpark" Thirteen was surprised to hear his own gloating voice echoing his thoughts aloud.
Eleven didn't respond, instead he began to approach slowly.
Thirteen matches his pace, with his guard up high, his shoulders raised, and his head tucked.
The moment they were just out of each other's reach they both stepped forward harshly. Eleven was faster, his left hook rocketing in from the side. Thirteen extended his right arm out wide to neutralize the blow early, grabbing Elevens extended forearm, he stepped back and pulled Eleven around to the right, throwing him off balance, before delivering a left straight directly to the face of his foe.
Eleven tried to interfere with his free hand, but the power behind that punch blew straight past any defense, hitting eleven with an immediate impact, rocking his head backwards.
Thirteen brought his left back, and punched forward again, making contact once more, busting Eleven's nose, as with one more yank, he released his right hand grip and brought his own hook to the side of Eleven's head, making powerful contact with his hasty guard.
Immediately the momentum of this fight was established. Thirteen didn't stop, delivering blow after a blow, breaking through any and all defense.
Eleven began to focus on avoidance, dodging wherever he could, but Thirteen was having none of it. A sharp left blow to Eleven's lower rib cage sent him reeling, as Thirteen grasped his head, delivering a right knee to the jaw.
With a push, the two separated, Thirteens fists bloodied as his whole body flexed with an intimidating aura. Eleven's face was a mess as he raised his guard once more.
'This is more like it' Thirteen thought, as he walked confidently at Eleven with no guard.
Eleven took the opportunity, sending a left roundhouse with all his speed, only for his eyes to widen at his faltering balance.
"You noticed." Thirteen commented.
Eleven, for reasons beyond him, felt exhausted. Unable to raise his leg high enough to strike the head, he instead attacked the body, but the force behind it was far too lacking. With a step to the side, Thirteen curled his arm inwards and caught the extended leg before pulling it in.
With a solid thud, Thirteen punched Eleven in the gut, releasing his leg, he began to hit him again and again, draining what little stamina his foe had left with each hit. With every punch thrown, Thirteen would feel that little bit more refreshed as his fatigue dwindled.
Unconsciously, Thirteen began to mimic the rhythm of combat earlier. One, two three, Hook!
As Eleven's defense continued to falter and the fight dragged on, Thirteens movements slowed. He was losing interest. Not in a feigned way of looking down on his foe, he knew that Eleven had very nearly won this duel earlier, but rather… he simply failed to find the motivation anymore. The boiling emotion that fueled him had all but vanished as his thoughts began to wander.
'I'm taller than Eleven…' He realized.
In fact, he was quite a bit taller. As he thought so, Thirteen's offense gradually began to stop. He had treated Eleven like a punching bag for the past 10 or so seconds, without the thought of sealing victory occurring to him even once.
'...This isn't right.' Looking down at the boy clutching his bloodied face as he held out a hand in defense, and then at his own red hands that seemed so much more calloused and strong than he remembered, Thirteen's gaze calmed and his body relaxed. 'I must look just like he did'.
Delaying no longer, Thirteen positioned his foot behind Eleven's own, and gave a fairly gentle push, as if guiding his defeated opponent to the ground.
*thud* he landed.
…
Silence reigned for a moment as Thirteen took in the results of the battle. 'His nose is surely broken and his ribs are likely damaged. He isn't a healing meta. Even with the medics attention, he won't be able to train for a while.' Thirteen realized only now that he had no real hatred for the arrogant boy laying before him, he was merely venting a wounded ego, just as Eleven had when this all began.
Kneeling before Eleven, he whispered an apology under his breath as he placed his right palm on Eleven's chest. Employing the textbook example of Lifebringer, Thirteen bestowed whatever expendable life force he had left to bolster Eleven's ability to heal and recover.
Standing once more, he looked to Eleven's helper, and then to his friends who all seemed somewhat conflicted. In the end, he gave a deep bow to Eleven and repeated his whispered apology, loudly and clearly this time, refusing to protect his pride further.
"I let my ego get to me and took this too far. I'm sorry."
As he maintained his bowed posture, Melia soon approached and quietly led him out of the dojo. His shirt had exploded and his hands and arms were dyed and splattered with blood that left a trial as he walked down the long hallways.
'I'm going to have to clean that, aren't I?' he thought as he walked with Melia in silence.
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