“I don’t remember defeating you,” Yuriko said in a neutral tone. Her side-blade was in her left hand while the Plasma Lancet was held with her right. She wished she had two side-blades instead but the rate at which she broke them in battle cost her a pretty penny.

Seeker flourished her greatsword and continued to grin.

“I’m not surprised you don’t. Why aren’t you wielding your artefact?” Her eyes widened. “Ah, don’t tell me you precious nation took it from you? Hie hie.”

Yuriko shrugged uncomfortably.

It was strange, facing off someone who looked exactly like her. Even worse was that she couldn’t really believe that the one she was facing now was the same Chaos Lord back in Shillogu Woods. That she was a Chaos Lord, Yuriko wasn’t really sure of either. Perhaps if she cut the woman, the blue blood would give her away. Then, there was the matter of the green energy. She recalled that the Seeker back then used green darts that he shot from his rapier to fight.

Why use a different weapon now?

“Done looking?” Seeker chortled. “I know you’re pretty but there must be a limit to how much you can admire yourself.”

Yuriko felt her cheeks redden.

“Ah, such pretty skin,” The Seeker traced a finger over her cheek, “and such a fresh, nubile body. I like it.” Her hand followed the curve of her waist down to her hips, then she pressed a palm to her bosom. “Still small. Hie hie!”

With a growl, Yuriko fired off a bolt from the Lancet.

Seeker sidestepped and dodged it with a throaty chuckle.

“Ahh, hahaha. Such a child still, though I can see you’ve grown a bit. Hahahaha, my Corpus still matches your form from a Season ago and it's amusing how much you’ve grown.”

“Shut it!” Yuriko growled as she fired off a couple more shots.

She felt immensely violated. The Seeker was a man before and now that he wore her form, she felt as if it was her own body that was being fondled.

“Ahahaha!” Seeker dodged easily. “Enough playing! Time to end things!”

A single bound and Seeker crossed the dozen paces between them.

Yuriko stepped back just enough that the blade missed her by an inch. She shot a bolt at the Seeker’s face and spun the opposite way, trying to close in to cut with her side-blade. Seeker’s greatsword was twice the length of her side-blade, and the Chaos Lord wielded it as if it were as light as a feather.

With a jerk of her head, Seeker avoided the plasma bolt, then swept her weapon into a side slash forcing Yuriko to parry. The second dance guided her to deflect the slash over her head even as she crouched.

As soon as the blade passed over, Yuriko sprung into action. She stabbed at the Chaos Lord, the third dance created jagged golden flames that would leave gaping wounds if it hit. The Seeker sidestepped and countered with a knife-hand that Yuriko blocked with a hastily raised forearm. Yuriko kicked at the Seeker’s knee but the other twisted her leg so that her heel struck the meaty part of the thigh. With a twist, Seeker slashed at her head but she used the other’s leg to jump out of the way.

She landed five paces back, skidding another pace, and even as she did, the Seeker swung her greatsword in a horizontal slash that would have taken her head had she not rolled away.

As soon as she got to her feet, she jumped back, blasting a couple of bolts. The Seeker avoided one and parried the other with her sword, the plasma splashed when it hit the metal, but otherwise did nothing.

The Seeker was fast, and it was much more humiliating when the Chaos Lord used Yuriko’s image. The previous time they fought, Yuriko could barely see the Seeker’s movements, but now, though the other was fast, she wasn’t fast enough to lose sight of.

Still, this couldn’t go on. The couple of times their weapons clashed, Yuriko noticed a chip on her blade. Despite the protective coating of Animus, the attacks were still strong enough to damage the metal. Ideally, she shouldn’t smack sharpened weapons against each other and should dodge the attacks instead, but there were times when the only choice was a block or a parry. Her left arm was slightly numb from absorbing the shock.

“You’re much better now,” Seeker laughed. “You were barely a challenge back then, but now you don’t have anyone on your side.”

The barbarians had spread out and are slowly surrounding her and the Seeker. The Seeker took advantage of Yuriko’s distraction and launched another attack, which she barely managed to neutralize. But the Seeker continued her assault. She spun her weapon around her head to conserve momentum, even as Yuriko harried her with plasma bolts. Her movements and strikes looked much like a dance, a graceful and ultimately deadly dance.

She’d done nothing but defend, Yuriko abruptly realized a few minutes later. If she just defended, she would never triumph but if she attacked, she’d leave too many openings that the Seeker could use.

She jumped back to create more distance, blasting away until the cartridge had depleted and she used her own Animus to power the weapon. It wasn’t good. Her use of the sword dances drained a fair bit of her reserve already but each blast used up at least three or so minutes worth of powering the dance.

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“Haah!” Yuriko yelled, abandoning the sword dances to activate Boost as she met the Seeker blade to blade.

The Chaos Lord’s eyes widened when the weapons clashed and bound. Yuriko’s boosted strength was more than enough for her to control the bind. Seeker stepped back but Yuriko followed, pressing down the blade until it was inches away from the Seeker’s throat.

The Seeker grinned and kicked Yuriko’s leg as she fell back, launching herself several dozen paces away.

“Ooof!” Yuriko grunted, falling down to a knee, her calf throbbing in pain. She deactivated Boost lest it drain away too much.

“Interesting, but you’ll never win like that.”

Seeker’s condescending voice served only to annoy Yuriko.

This couldn’t continue.

Yuriko restarted the second sword dance. The flames of her Animus glimmered along the edge, just in time to deflect the dart of green energy that Seeker sent her way by pointing with a finger. The snow dragged at her legs, and more than once, she suffered a glancing blow when her footing turned even more unstable than she expected.

She danced back, catching a green dart on the flat of her blade and managed to deflect it towards a barbarian. The man yelped and scrambled back, even though the bolt only hit the snow by his foot.

Yurio sheathed her Lancet. The weapon wasn’t effective and only drained her Animus. She shifted the blade to her right hand and cut the laces that bound the sheath to her waist. With the wooden sheath held in a reverse grip in her left and the side-blade on her right, carefully shuffled to her right.

The Seeker leisurely threw more bolts her way. Yuriko dodged or deflected them easily enough until he started throwing more than one at a time. The Chaos Lord flipped the greatsword over her shoulder and used both hands to fling green darts.

Yuriko deflected or dodged the bolts, and every time she managed a deflect, she directed it at the nearby barbarians. Soon enough, those attempting to encircle had retreated to a safer distance. Yuriko glanced past the Seeker, but she didn’t see either of the girls.

“Running? Go ahead, make the hunt more…enjoyable.”

Gritting her teeth, Yuriko spun on her heels and dashed towards a thicker part of the forest, while Seeker’s laughter trailed behind.

“Run, little human, run!”

Yuriko channelled Boost, lengthened her stride and was more than a hundred paces away when she looked back. The Seeker was strolling after her, swishing her blade like a baton.

She gathered her strength and leapt up a tree, scaling it up to the branches in a matter of moments. She ran down branches and leapt over to the next tree, and the next, and the next, until she was deeper into the forest. She sheathed her side-blade and stuffed it down her belt, unhooked her Plasma Caster, and took a sniping position. The Seeker was just entering the treeline when Yuriko’s first shot arrived.

Yuriko saw the Seeker’s eyes widen, but she managed to deflect the bolt with a swipe of her greatsword. The plasma bolt, at least three times bigger than the one from the Lancet, splashed its superheated contents into the Seeker’s face. She managed to bring an arm up, and a quick application of her Protective Field saved her from a nasty burn.

The second bolt drilled into her belly, even as she was distracted by the first. It burst on the Field, melting the protective energy to nothing just in time for the third bolt to strike.

“Argh!” Seeker shrieked when the superheated plasma ate into her robe.

“Ahahahaha!”

Crazed laughter filled the still air. Char flaked off the Seeker’s burnt belly, revealing reddened skin underneath. She swung her greatsword and sidestepped at the same time, ensuring the fourth and fifth bolt missed.

“Tsk.”

Yuriko clicked her tongue as she replaced the spent jade cartridge with another. Five shots before she needed to supply her own Animus into the weapon.

With the gap of her firing, the Seeker dashed towards her. Only a couple of hundred paces separated them, and the monster managed to cover it in a few seconds. Yuriko’s sixth and seventh bolts made her zigzag, right into the path of the eight.

Against Yuriko’s expectations, the Seeker blocked the blow with her forearm, the Protective Field over it much thicker compared to the rest of her body. The bolt didn’t melt all the way through, and her ninth bolt was dodged.

“Last shot.”

Yuriko aimed directly between the Seeker’s eyes, but she didn’t fire.

“Chaos!” she muttered as she whipped the rifle over her shoulder and tightened the straps, drew her side-blade and her sheath and waited.

A minute later, the Seeker was looking up at her from the ground next to the trunk. Golden Animus flared on Yuriko’s side-blade, held over her shoulder and ready to slash as soon as the other came within reach. Seeker laughed and shook her head.

Green flames coated the greatsword as she held it at her side. Yuriko’s eyes widened and she ran down the branch.

Shluck!

She felt the tree move and start to tilt. Yuriko managed to reach within jumping distance of the next tree and she launched herself across the gap just as the one she was on fell to the ground with a muffled crash and a cloud of snow.

Shluck!

The new tree she was on started to tilt, and the next one was too far.

“Swarm fodder!” Yuriko howled as the tree fell.

She jumped off before it hit the ground and she rolled in the snow, bleeding off her momentum before she came to a stop with her legs over her head.

“Ahahaha!”

Scrambling to her feet, she barely got the side-blade up before the Seeker’s greatsword nearly knocked it off her hand.

She dropped the sheath and it was all she could do to avoid the hurricane of slashes and thrusts.

“Ah!”

Ripp!

A line of fire across her upper arm when she failed to dodge a thrust completely.

Smack!

“Ugh!” She staggered back as the Seeker used the flat of her blade to knock her back. Yuriko swung and stabbed, but all of her attacks were easily countered or dodged.

A minute later, her hands were slick with blood as it dripped from her wounds. White steam puffed from her mouth as she gasped for breath.

The Seeker continued to laugh even as she struck again and again. Her shaking shoulders were the only reason Yuriko managed to avoid getting impaled or split in twain.

“This is a bit more disappointing than I expected,” Seeker said playfully. “You’re not fighting at your best. You’re holding back aren’t you?”

Yuriko didn’t answer, taking the chance to catch her breath.

“Hmmm, well, if you’re not going to provide a challenge, then I might as well kill you.”

Her Animus, circulating in the second dance’s pattern, was the only thing that saved her. It jumped and boiled in her body, and it wrenched her hand up, jerked her head back, and guided her to stomp with her back foot.

The Seeker’s greatsword, blurred. Green shadows of itself followed the movement, one clearly heading towards her neck, but Yuriko’s block went straight up.

Ptang!

She was driven to one knee as an unseen overhead chop smashed down on her.

Thonk.

A metal shard sunk halfway into the ground. Yuriko’s side-blade. What she had left was the hilt, the circular guard, and about two inches of steel.

“And now, you die.”

Yuriko glared up at the Seeker, even as her Anima flared into golden flames around her body, and an image materialised in her mind.