Rigdis

The fight is actually going better than I thought even though my muscles are trembling like a horse’s after a hard sprint and my left thigh bone is being re-set painfully by tender nimble hands. I grit my teeth and grunt as the gentle hands of Kuyoki pull and align my leg in a fluidly smooth single motion quick and hard. I grunt, veins bulging in my head in time with the pulse of my heart in time with the pulse of the pain .My eyes watery as I look at the slender woman whose strength can be very easily forgotten until it’s needed. I yawn a few times due to the pill I swallowed taking up a lot of the air in my body, I’m sweating and overheating with a broken leg but by the gods do I feel good. Mira is still standing in front of me I try to get a peek past her at Sachi again but he is off somewhere, I drink what is placed on my lips and let Nikita split my leg and everyone else fuss over me with their attention.

It feels good to fight him, it feels very good to get my licks in and only once was I close to succumbing to the Rage the entire fight. He is as good as I thought he would be but I also don’t think he showed everything he has even with how quickly he was shifting styles that last 20 minutes or so, I swear the man seems to have eyes at the back of his head.

I grab the hand Mira offers, she hoists me up with the splint keeping my left leg firmly straight and in place. I grin openly unable to contain my joy at the whole thing as the frustration that has been simmering within my chest slowly melts replaced by the joy of the fight, fire in my loins, the sweet ache of battle pain.. As petty as it seems even to me I have been feeling underappreciated for years now, a frustration exacerbated by the fact that I do not have a child of my own blood amongst this family I have found myself part of.

I’ve never really had a family before this and I had no idea it could look this way from the little I knew about families growing up and though I love all the kids in my own way I have craved something for myself for some time now.

‘’What are you smiling about, it was a stupid fucken’ challenge you know!’’ A pissed Mira hisses at me with a venom in her eyes and aura but I can’t help but be happy. She is here with me instead of with Sachi, most of them are here with me instead of with Sachi. Though I did not plan it nor even realise I wanted it it feels good to be the centre of attention for once. I lean on the woman that bewitched me with her womanly whiles as short and small as she is compared to my much larger frame she is as solid as a tree not even swaying or compensating but keeping me steady with a slender arm around my waist. I stand against Mira putting slight pressure on the leg as I wait for the healing potions to work so we can resume the rug.

Its almost 30 minutes before I can limp and another 20 minutes as the high level elixir and my natural Awakened constitution finish their work and I am again walking into the circle. I have my daggers with me this time, one a silver bladed slender seax sharp enough to trim a boar’s hair and the other a thick sharp ugly thing that can stop an axe swing and hack into rocks without structural damage. He stands on the other side of the circle coolly with his single hand axe as his choice of weapon.

My heart is pounding and my battle instincts are activating as I get ready for a bloody fight, the excitement is palpable in the air I can hardly keep myself from rushing him. I take a low stance with one dagger forward in a stabbing position and the other read in a reverse grip, I’m better at small blades than he is I’m sure. I’ve never even seen him spare with a knife.

I tiptoe towards him while keeping my centre low, he nods once flipping his axe in his hand playfully making ready for a throw. I clad, enhance bunching up my leg muscles then I explode towards him like a liger launching at its prey.

*

Sachihiro ducks and dodges then a clank as weapons collide with enough power behind the strikes to maim sounds, Rigs uses his strange movements to be everywhere all at once if not with one bladed arm then with the other. Sachi kicks out his previously injured leg elbows him on the side of the head with crunching sound as he loses his balance. Kata descends, the axe going for the side of the body but Rigs blocks Sachi’s forearm early enough to only feel the blunt force causing stress fractures on two of his ribs instead of sinking deeply into him as it would have had he moved a moment later.

Rigs still receives a front kick to the chin for his trouble that knocks his head back with another crunch as somehow Sachi’s attacks seem to have much more force behind them that they should even for one using aura to increase power. Seeing stars and on wobbly legs Rigs tries to retreat a step only to have to pull his head back to prevent being eviscerated and stabs forward with his seax as Sachi moves forward for another attack.

Rigs is able to keep Sachi back for the most part discouraging him with his deceptive movement coupled with aptitude with his blades but he keeps his eyes on the vicious hand axe after feeling a shadow of its bite on his ribs. He has to as he knows that to bleed here tonight is to have the Rage upon himself and that will be a loss in its own way if it comes to the fore and one way or another this would turn into a match to the death.

They move fast attacking with minor probes seemingly cancelling each other phenomenally but once in a while Sachi moves faster, his strikes pack more power or he just outright does a deadly combination that seems choreographed to a perfection that leaves rigs perfectly open to receive a cut, a kick or a punch somewhere on his body. Rigs bleeds slowly as cuts gap like puckering lips all over his body, shallow in the greater scheme of the fight as the racial traits that keep Barbarians from bleeding profusely make themselves known. But each time that axe bites into his skin even by a fraction the power behind it causes blunt force damage that causes internal bleeding and stress fractures that compound upon previous ones.

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The audience watches with batted breathes as a completely uninjured Sachihiro completely dominates a Rigs that fights both his opponent and his bubbling Rage, preventing it from making this a zero sum game. Sachi is silent as he weaves left and right in and out, his lips a stern line, his eyes on Rigs’ eyes the whole time as though he doesn’t need to look where to attack next, he doesn’t need to look where his opponents limbs are, he doesn’t need to look at anything except his opponents eyes as though every move is already scripted there and he’s just reading it as though an oracle reading fate lines.

Rigs focuses on keeping that deceptively small axe away from him and as he gives most of it his attention he much easier able to dodge, block, swerve away from the deadly strikes that have been adding up edging him closer to the end of this fight or the berserker rage. The shift in focus those allows more kicks to land, more punches to surprise him and ultimately much more damage to pile up as Sachi is hitting much harder somehow than he was not even an hour ago when this all started.

What the fuck is going on? Rigs asks himself as he roars bringing his superior strength to the fore as he counters after just barely getting a shave. Only his strength isn’t superior he realises as he is almost contemptly swung aside and whiles off balance and spinning gets kicked by a fucking horse through the air to land somewhere outside the circle completely out of breath as his diaphragm spasms betraying his lungs. Even as unable to breath as he is he is up in a roll with his weapons held in front ready with battle instincts honed and killing intent in his eyes that foreshadows the Rage coming to the fore.

‘’You have lost this rug-’’

Something comes at him and he lashes out but Gaia is quick enough to raise his arm to have the dagger slash viciously opening his forearm to the bone as flesh splits open eagerly as though a tight wineskin that was just ready to burst. Rigs has taken a step back a second later the Rage again bottled and his breath having returned as his tunnel vision recedes and he realises what he has just done, he takes a deep breath. Shame fighting with anger as he turns to look at a Sachi coolly eyeing him from within the circle twirling that hated axe from palm to palm with practiced ease.

Rigs nods to Gaia in apology and storms off to clear his head having expected to win that fight had he just gotten a few scratches on Sachi that would have eventually ripped his muscles and tendons easily. How does someone not get cut in a knife fight? He asks himself as he walks into the night comforted by Mira’s presence he can sense coming towards him as he leans against a tree completely stumped as to how that went so badly.

*

Sachihiro

‘’Go to him,’’ I send to a visibly conflicted Mira and she is off slicking into the shadows behind Rigs. I watch her go trying to assess how I feel about her comforting of him and I find I pity him more than feel any form of jealousy or possessiveness over Mira.

I look at Gaia trying to get his arm back from his quiet mate who is fussing over it without a word, she realises like I do how dangerous the cutting talent Rigs’ Awakening can be. I stay in the circle a few minutes watching everything as I really don’t want to be bothered by questions or conversation right now while I listen to myself and try to assess this whole situation and replay the fight with a divided mind.

There are several additions to the property besides the few mages that came to watch the first rug of the fight, I’m sure ma has a reason for allowing these people to watch this though to be honest I’m not sure we can stop them from doing whatever they want considering where we are. The kids have different reactions to seeing me as they currently have with excitement and worry in equal measure as they see a side of me I doubt any but Iki have seen before. Thandeka and Soal are skulking in the shadows watching the Sandorians watching us ready and trying to keep tabs n any suspicious activity.

I can’t find the fae with my senses but I have a feeling he is close, Onimorē, Cyrus, Edward, Sway and Dewan are out of my range which hopefully still means at the periphery of the property keeping an eye out the mundane way as no barbarian travelling party only ever relies on magical senses. Ma, da, Zhen and Aurora are talking to the new arrivals and there goes Niki with needle and thread into the night towards Rigs and Mira, Michael is not far behind her. Diligent young man but very quiet lately especially for someone that has just recently come into his power.

Others are in small groups talking or just standing around, John is excitedly chatting on at Mirabalis and Max but that Max guy is staring at me sitting here intently with a thoughtful frown on his face. Another mostly quiet one but his aura tells of a killer yet strangely in a completely unthreatening way but I’m yet to have a conversation with that one that was deeper that a puddle and so I hardly know anything about him even after having him as a guest in my house for long.

The fight went as I expected it to from what I know about Rigs from the first rug and what I know about myself. It has been over 20 years since I Awakened and if I haven’t been in the sparing rings or Arena training my small blade or hand to hand proficiency it’s just because I have so much more to assimilate than the average warriors that have been awakening in much narrower paths but I’m still no slouch in the circle. Had Rigs ever been invited to fight club he would know this but again he is yet to really show any two people already members what he is really capable off when he lets loose.

Physically I know Rigs is stronger, has more stamina and is physically more durable and can do multiple things with his aura at the same time. But aura against Kata is nothing at his level and with a little afterimage activation here and there I can hit twice as hard and move twice as fast as my fasted speed and I’m yet to even activate my limit-break.

So yea I think I have him fairly well covered because I know the true advantage of his awakening is that cutting ability of his. Somehow if he uses a sharp edged implement it really finds very little to no resistance against flesh like a hot scalpel through butter and worse it exaggerates the wound it inflicts. Yet again the next rug will be any weapon of choice and I know his primary weapon to be that dwarven made artifact long-sword he loves playing with so much. We will see how that goes, maybe I should choose a shield and axe...