Chapter 5: Young blood.

“I accept.” Ivan grinned.

“What?” Sharron was outraged. “You’re seriously going to fight a teenager?”

“It won’t be a fight.” Ivan responded putting white guillotine back in its sheath. “If this brat can make me move back by one step he wins. I’ll even fight with my sword sheathed to make it fair for him.”

“Looks like this is going to be a piece of cake then.” Okimodo grinned as he went in for a second attack. He launched a sequence of slashes which were all quickly blocked by Ivan

“Quite interesting, your striking power already rivals that of your father, but you still lack technique and precision.” Ivan stroked his beard before retaliating with a kick aimed at Okimoto’s stomach. Okimodo dodged by jumping over the kick which put him exactly where Ivan wanted him. With immense speed Ivan slashed his sheathed sword around intending to hit Okimodo’s right shoulder while he was still in mid air. Much to Ivan’s surprise Okimodo blocked the attack with the flat side of his blade before spinning around to deliver a kick to Ivan’s jaw. Ivan didn't dodge or block but instead took the hit head on. The kick connected with such immense force that a blast of air pressure was produced causing a cloud of dust to arise once again. As okimodo jumped back to create some distance, he saw that the old general didn’t move an inch backwards.

“That kick actually had my head spinning for a second.” Ivan said laughing in a slight daze. “You’ll definitely pass your right of passage with flying colours just with strength like that alone.” Ivan praised.

Shikimodo walked past Okimodo and Ivan before stopping in front of Shipo. “Aren’t you going to challenge Ivan as well? I’m sure he’d be impressed by your swordsmanship.”

Shipo pondered for a moment before nodding to his father. Surely this could be a good warm up before the right of passage ceremony.

“I need a cigar.” Sharron moaned before heading back inside.

“Hey.” Ivan called out to her. “Don’t touch mine, borrow one from Petra.”

Seeing that Ivan was distracted Okimodo took his chance and attacked again. He lunged at the distracted Ivan with a series of upward and downward slashes mimicking his father’s technique.

Much to okimodo’s immediate dissatisfaction, Ivan was successfully blocking all of his slashes without needing to take a defensive stance. Frustration started to build up in Okimodo’s heart and his attacks began to accelerate rapidly.

“That’s more like it.” Ivan laughed before shattering Okimodo’s attack sequence with a mighty swing from the sheathed white guillotine.

Okimodo was sent stumbling back frustrated that Ivan still wouldn’t budge even an inch backwards.

“Once again your striking power is impressive but you still lack technique.” Ivan lampooned. “Try widening your stance and focus on maintaining better posture while striking at me.”

Okimodo sighed deeply. Swordsmanship wasn’t his specialty as he had spent most of his youth training with the bow and arrow, he could only be considered average at best when it came to wielding a blade. Still, he was able to resonate with Heshea while using a sword to an extent, this meant that he had one trump card at his disposal.

Okimodo closed his eyes and fell into deep focus. Around him, the songs and chirping of the surrounding birds became slower and deeper eventually disappearing altogether. The sensation of the gentle island wind blowing on his skin also disappeared and as he opened his eyes he saw that the dust cloud kicked up by his duel was frozen and static. He then looked at Ivan seeing that he was completely static and frozen along with everything else. Okimodo moved to the side followed by over a dozen after images ranging from red to violet. He circled around Ivan looking for an opening to attack, his after images following closely like a horde of clones.

“Is he really going to use resonance to make Ivan step back?” Shipo watched on closely.

“How else can he be expected to faze Ivan.” Shikimodo laughed.

From their perspective it appeared as if countless versions of Okimodo were circling around Ivan at supersonic speed. The technique was named spectrum dash and essentially allowed a person to move much faster than the laws of nature normally allow. This is because it wasn’t actually super speed, but instead a type of time relativity manipulation that surrounded the user with their own flow of time, allowing them to accelerate or slow down relative to the outside world. The name spectrum dash was a reference to how its users create colourful after images when moving.

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Okimodo gritted his teeth having accelerated his relative time to his maximum of fifteen times that of everything else. Despite appearing to be frozen in time Ivan didn’t have a single opening in his stance which frustrated Okimodo greatly.

“Fuck it.” Okimodo cursed internally before closing in on Ivan for an attack. He clenched his sword firmly as he made a slash for Ivan’s back which was quickly blocked as Ivan moved at an incredible speed. He didn’t just block Okimodo’s slash but also grinned at him mockingly before retaliating with a slash of his own. Okimodo jumped back narrowly avoiding the sheathed white guillotine.

He began to circle around Ivan again impressed at the old generals reflexes. Okimodo wasted no time and attacked a second time resulting in him narrowly dodging white guillotine again. While Okimodo was using spectrum dash, Ivan was using nothing more than his raw speed and reflexes to counter Okimodo’s slashes. To the watching Shikimodo it was of no surprise, to still have such an impressive constitution well into old age was expected from a class nine general and his old rival.

Again and again Okimodo attacked to little result and eventually flew into a fit of frustration. How the hell was this old man so difficult to deal with? How the hell could he even move fast enough to counter spectrum dash when most people can’t even see a person who’s using it. Screw it, it didn’t matter anymore, all Okimodo wanted to do was wipe the shit eating grin off of Ivan’s face. With that thought he closed in on Ivan for a final time intending to shatter the sheath of white guillotine with one final strike. He raised his sword high into the air before bringing it down upon the old general with all the strength he could muster. Ivan naturally countered with white guillotine causing the two swords to connect violently. The clash created a shockwave that shook the surrounding trees causing all manner of birds and insects to flee the area.

Shipo witnessed the entire high speed exchange between the two and was blown back a few steps by the shockwave their clash produced.

The severed tip of Okimodo’s sword fell to the ground along with numerous pieces of white guillotine’s sheath. The duel ended with Okimodo as the winner as Ivan had been successfully forced to take one step back. Okimodo on one hand was ecstatic having achieved his victory, but on the other hand he was in a great amount of pain due to a deep slash wound he now had across his chest. He looked down and observed the now shattered blade of the sword he borrowed from his father. There was no way in hell he would ever get an allowance again but that was fine, he would soon pass his right of passage and then he could have access to his own income. Ivan himself looked at white guillotine and smiled when he saw that Okimodo had destroyed its sheath completely.

“That’s my boy.” Shikimodo praised. “Exactly as I expected.”

“Interesting.” Ivan looked Okimodo up and down before nodding approvingly. “You’re swordsmanship isn’t perfect but it’s still better than the vast majority of class ones from back in my country. Compared to them the warriors of the Azurai clan were always superior.”

“Come, Let’s get you healed up.” Shikimodo said motioning for Okimodo to go back inside with him.

Okimodo ignored his pain and discomfort and made his way over towards his father and Shipo.

“I’m sure you’ll do much better.” Okimodo said patting his brother on the shoulder before continuing on inside with Shikimodo.

The two entered into the living room where Petra was already waiting for them.

She immediately gasped when she saw Okimodo’s state before running into the kitchen to get some healing supplies.

“Ouch.” Okimodo groaned as he sat down gently on the couch, trying his best not to get everything smeared in his blood as he placed his broken sword down next to him.

“You’ll be fine.” Shikimodo laughed. “Just walk it off.”

“You never had a good sense of humour.” Okimodo said daring not to laugh as the pain from his chest would be unbearable.

“I’m going to get a sword for Shipo.” Shikimodo said as turned to leave the living room. “Try not to die in the mean time.”

“Wait.” Okimodo said trying and failing to stand back up. “I want to see Shipo fight, dammit…”

Upstairs Shitari watched on from her shattered window as Shipo and Ivan stare each other down. Having seen the wound Okimodo sustained she couldn’t help but feel concerned about Shipo’s safety. Naturally she had rationalised herself into thinking her feelings of concern didn’t exist, but they very much did. She may have been annoyed by her brothers, but they were still her family and it wasn’t like they weren’t ever nice to her either.

“The condition of this duel will be different.” Ivan explained. “Instead of pushing me back you’ll have to draw a single drop of blood from me.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Shipo sighed. “Why is the bar so much higher for me?”

“Because you specialise in swordsmanship unlike your brother.” Ivan explained. “If he, a non swordsman was able to make me step back then I imagine that his brother who’s an actual swordsman can do much better. Show me just how impressive Shikimodo’s eldest son really is.”

“Here catch this.” Shikimodo yelled, throwing his son a sheathed sword.

Shipo caught it and observed that it was one of his father’s more valuable weapons. It was called the Red eel and it had a design that very much reflected its name. Its handle was covered by a layer of red eel skin with the taxidermic head of red eel forming its pommel.

“Are you sure you don’t want to give me a cheaper one.” Shipo wasn’t particularly interested in losing his allowance.

“It’s a gift to you.” Shikimodo said. “Its blade was forged by a class eight blade forger so it shouldn’t break as easily as the blue stone double edged sword. That one was only a ceremonial blade but this is the real deal.”

“Thanks dad.” Shipo smiled before redirecting his attention towards Ivan. “Let’s do this then.”

End of chapter 5.