MIZURI

Mizuri made a few trial slashes on the wall of wind in front of her, but of course it was stronger now than it had been. Clearly he wanted to stay in one place to prepare.

He had his eyes closed, and he wasn’t moving, but Mizuri felt a ton of pressure from him, nonetheless. She’d successfully broken past his wall of wind earlier and narrowly missed his neck, but she felt that even that was good enough.

Even he hadn’t expected her to break past the wall of wind.

But it was stronger now, which meant he’d been holding back when he’d made the wall earlier. Serves him right for holding back.

But of course it could have just meant he’d been placing his energy somewhere else. Mizuri knew very well that he was a tactical fighter even she could barely match. She wondered if he was a prodigy, just like her. And if he was, then how did he handle it?

Her kusarigama bounced off the wall of wind one more time, so she decided to give it up. She jumped back to the other edge of the concrete and once more dug her feet into the ground. She hadn’t had an opportunity to use her bullet-propulsion a second time yet.

Then she closed her eyes and concentrated. She called forth more flames, and there they were.

Her flames encircled her, licked at her clothes and her skin, but she felt nothing.

Mizuri. Angel of Fire. Prodigy.

A flash of movement caught her eye, and she reacted before recognizing what it was. A tongue of her flame intercepted a barely visible blade of wind. The two canceled each other out, but produced a shockwave that cracked the concrete below.

His eyes were now fully open, and he was smiling. Mizuri smiled too. She moved her arms in as fluid a motion as she could muster, guiding her flames around her.

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She’d always been twitchy. She was the opposite of graceful, and if what she was doing was originally meant to be a dance, then she was sorry to whomever taught her these moves. She didn’t remember who, though.

Another blade of wind.

Another tongue of flame.

Another shockwave.

The concrete cracked again.

His blade was moving a lot more, now, though it was only a few inches out of its sheathe. He deftly swung it and flourished it, entrancing Mizuri. How long had he trained to reach that sort of skill with his blade? Mizuri knew talent alone wasn’t enough. She herself had had talent with any chain weapon, but it had taken her as long as she could remember to master the kusarigama.

But she felt his wall of wind weaken. That made her smile, but at the same time, she felt a bit disappointed. Here was the one person she’d thought could beat her in an all-out duel.

But he was tiring. She wouldn’t forgive him if he dropped unconscious form overexertion and forced her to another few years of living out the same day.

She remembered now. Every single day of her three years stuck in that clearing. She didn’t want to forget again and have to continue her punishment.

But that came second. Never in her life would she hold back on an opponent, especially against an opponent this strong.

She clapped her hands together, and her flames burned brighter and hotter than ever.

Then she noticed his left eye, how its color had changed drastically in just a few seconds.

Her flames dimmed for a moment, but she steeled herself and poured more into her flames.

His left eye was an electric blue, a blue she instantly regretted looking at. She furiously looked away, her cheeks burning despite her immunity to heat.

Really? His eye just had to change its color.

She’d managed not to be attracted to his looks because of the one unattractive thing about him, his eye, but now that his eye was that shade of blue...

Then she noticed something off in the air, and something in her, maybe her instincts, maybe her weird reflexes, told her to run, to hide, anything.

She panicked as she smelled the unmistakable smell of incoming rain.