[3rd] Week 340: Academy Days V

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Rob

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Academy Days V
1015 Words


Takes places directly after:
Academy Days IV

As steel met steel in the middle of the dark, round room the son of Akiyama Katsu felt firsthand what kind of weight the words of the Yoshishige heir really held. When she had spoken her words, announcing that he would never be able to beat her, the blond Akiyama heir had found himself stepping back ever so slightly from his prepared stance. Her words had carried with them such an air of authority, such an air of power that he had almost bowed down to his knees on the spot right then and there.


The fact that he didn’t was quite possibly only because it was do or die for him.

In that single exchange, he figured his best odds at surviving were to fight Yoshishige Amaterasu - a feisty, beautiful brunette with startling blue eyes that seemed to drill a hole in your very soul if you so let them. To fight her, but not to beat her. He should’ve been annoyed, enraged even at her words, at her bold exclamation, but as he watched his blade took the better half of its opponent upon itself, the young man knew he had no chance in hell at beating her.

“You never did introduce yourself, Akiyama-san.” The voice of the heiress rang through his mind like a bullet, ringing with an almost irritable sense of humility. She wasn’t even taking him serious. She was just making small talk now.

Still, he found himself unable to not answer to her.

“Akiyama Jirou,” he proclaimed somewhat proudly as the two fighters back off from their locked stances. “Second son in line of the Akiyama household, my fair lady.”

“Skip the pleasantries Akiyama Jirou,” Amaterasu countered, her piercing blue eyes locked intently on the man’s every movement. Though she hadn’t actually fought someone for real in quite some time now, the movements felt natural to her. The way her blade felt in her hand, the weight and the direction it faced with every single one of her gestures made her feel accustomed to her blade once more.

The ground below her feet was surprisingly soft for what it was - considering this was still indoors - and made moving around light and swift. Each step she took, every touch she made with the ground had a purpose. Her eyes shifted from the man’s blade for a second, and went to the man’s feet. She watched him for a few seconds like this, matching the man’s stride, his movements and countering them with steps of her own.

He tried to strife around her, to get on her flanks, but in doing so he set up his own demise. It was not he who was setting the pace, it was not he who was moving around her, but it was she who moved around him. He didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he did but didn’t know what to do with it, and before Jirou noticed anything... he was moving ever so slightly towards a corner.

“What are you doing, Jirou!?” his father cried out from atop his ‘balcony’ seat.

“I... uh, wha-”

Before the man could finish his sentence, or fully realize what had happened, Amaterasu had already closed the remaining gap between the two of them, her feet dancing across the floor like no other. In a matter of seconds, she was upon him and, though he didn’t have the time to properly react, Jirou managed to raise his defences ever so slightly before the hit was executed. He’d seen her raise her blade above her head, and had preemptively made it so he could easily block any attacks from above.

Raising his blade horizontally towards the point of impact, his eyes widened at his mistake.

Just before the brunette would crash into him with all her might, she had stepped back at the last moment and brought her blade down just before his image. She had stopped dead in her tracks for a split second, her blade now at hip height with the tip now facing the man’s abdomen.

“Jirou!” Katsu cried out, “get the hell away from there!”

However, Jirou knew it was no use. The woman in front of her was not just a vastly superior swordsman - unsurprising given her trade - but she was also way faster than him, faster than he had ever seen anyone move before. As such, he could only hope that, as the woman thrust herself forwards with the blade in full range of his vital organs, he would survive the ordeal. All he had to do was survive and he could live to fight another day.

Thinking back on it, maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to do... but at least she had held her word. He didn’t know what was worse, though, the fact that the pain came after the realization that he was still alive... or the fact that he was still alive. She hadn’t hit any of his vital organs, but boy did she pierce him with enough of an emphasis on smiting him with the utmost amount of pain ever to be delivered that it would make even a grown man cry and beg for sweet, sweet death.

Or maybe he was just a baby and he had a really low pain threshold.

He slumped to the floor not too long after that, his strength all but gone from his entire body. He was bleeding, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as he expected a hit like that would end up being. This woman... he thought to himself as his glassy vision made its way to her imposing figure standing over him.

It seemed that she knew exactly what she was doing this entire time. Thinking back on it, if he had remained still it would’ve probably ended up better for him. Not that he had anything to complain now either, though. He was, after all, still alive.

“I have defeated your son,” Amaterasu announced dryly and wihout much emotion. “Now release me from this room, Akiyama-san. We are done.”

 

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