(AUTHOR'S NOTE: SHIZU AND AZI ARE BOTH DRUNK AND SLURRING)
Azi and Shizu exited Kajima's house with weapons in hand, they took position in an area that Kajima had called his weapons testing area. It was a large flat clearing covered in inch deep snow, plenty of room for a fight or messing around.
The pair stood roughly 10 meters away from each other, a standard gauge of comfortable distance for the start of a duel. How they could know that while drunk puzzled Kajima. For a second he thought they had sobered up suddenly, but the daze in their eyes were evident. He sighed and looked up. By the sun's position and darkening hue of the sky it was the late afternoon, almost night but not quite yet.
He told the two of them to only do one match. Then he moved to stand to the side to oversee their upcoming bout. He was worried that Shizu might kill Azi due to her drunken state. But, he gave only a warning, hinting to Shizu that she shouldn’t risk the plan she had for him, or what King Ozen had in store.
Drunk as she might be, Shizu was at least in her right mind.. somewhat. Kajima sighed hoping nothing bad would come out of this. Just don’t drag him into danger, Shizu.
Azi glared at Shizu with a ferocious look, his young face twisting into an expression unlike his usual upbeat self. He was similar to a hungry beast, ready to fight, which got Shizu’s fighting spirit fired up. She wanted to wipe that smug and prideful expression off of Azi’s face. In fact, she wanted to thrash him to blow off some steam.
In the last few months, before they met, she hadn’t had any good fights with other ordain knights and mostly hunted monsters for her father to support the stability of Kujyuri. It was beyond borning, more boring than watching Azi study. Only opponents like her father, Kajima, and her brothers had any chance, if any, of delivering her a satisfying fight. She liked fighting, the kinds where two true warriors put their mettle against each other and see what falls out. Kujyurian military culture centralized around strength and resilience. Those were the qualities needed to make it out here in the freezing climate.
When she had seen just how fierce Azi was during the Kengiri fight and how he presently was, she saw the parallels and her battle maniac tendencies started to come out. A crazed smile crept onto her luscious red lips. She’d take whatever came her way. Shizu's eyes then widened with an intense focus and a small wickness took shape at the corners of her mouth.
"ARE YOU READY AZI?” She said, “I'M NOT HOLDING BACK SO YOU BETTER DO THE SAME."
"HA HA HA, THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN." Azi laughed as he swung the greatsword in a provocative jest. The unreal heft of the weapon was disproportionate with his thin arms. Off to the side, Kajima started to feel that a future headache was going to land in his lap and decided to hurry this along.
"Alright, A few ground rules. No use of foul moves or the intent to kill. Besides that.." Kajima paused to look at Azi and Shizu, he then raised his arm. The two of them nodded to Kajima and tensed.
"BEGIN!!!"
At his call, Shizu rushed forward with her blunted katana and closed the distance. She focused magical energies into her legs to increase the speed of her dash. Covering 10 meters took her less than a second. When she was only a few steps away, she saw Azi take a defensive stance with the flat of his greatsword.
The weapon he held was 6 feet long, 6 inches in width, and 2 inches thick. The sheer size of the thing was a joke, in fact Kajima had only made it in his free time to challenge his smithing skills. Shizu knew about it and had never guessed that it would ever be wielded, a sentiment she was sure Kajima shared.
To their even greater surprise, Azi was able to wield it with a single hand. They had no idea where he got this sudden strength. They soon got their answer as a blue glow came from the veins on Azi’s wrists.
Basic body strengthening, yet.. Kajima and Shizu were bewildered even after figuring out how he could wield the weapon.
To this extent? Kajima blinked. A small boost in speed or strength was par for the course with body strengthening thaumaturgy, but only to a degree. Definitely not to the lengths Azi was going.
The glow that emanated from Azi’s wrists responded to him moving the greatsword around to defend himself from Shizu. She swung her katana and locked her blade against the flat of his greatsword. Holding each other back they pushed against each other, but this did not last long as Azi let out a loud war cry.
“Rah!”
He pushed and parried Shizu's katana to the side with a strength Shizu hadn’t thought possible of him. This wasn’t the usual weak willed and cowardly Azi she knew from the last few spars. This Azi was a beast, and uncouth one. His parry was unskilled and if she hadn’t been taken off guard she could’ve countered and struck at his open side.
But that glow, that glow from his wrist. Shizu couldn’t take her eyes off it. Becoming brighter, the veins on Azi’s wrist shined as he attacked with his sword in a vertical slash aimed at Shizu's raised and off balance stance.
She attempted to recover to evade in time. But her momentum had been broken entirely by Azi’s monumental and weighty parry, her legs had almost left the ground. Bearing witness, Shizu saw her katana's blade get sliced into two pieces as Azi's greatsword passed through it like a hot knife through butter.
In a matter of moments, Azi's blunted weapon had somehow done the impossible. Either by immense weight or a technique wholly special to Azi, no one knew how he had cut a sword with that hunk of metal. In the end Shizu was disarmed in less than a second after the first exchange of blows.
With the handle piece of her katana left in her grip and the other piece now laying on the snowy ground, Shizu and Kajima again gawked at what they had witnessed. On the other hand, Azi cried out in gleeful cheer.
"HA HA HA! I TOLD YOU I COULD TAKE YOU ON. I WIN! HA HA HA!"
Shizu pouted and retorted in a childish tone as she waved a pointed finger at him. "NO FAIR, I DEMAND A REMATCH. THIS TIME! LET ME USE MY OWN WEAPON."
"FINE, I'LL TAKE YOU ON AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT." Azi stuck his tongue out tauntingly and Shizu was ready to slap him across the face.
Before the two could do anything more rash, Kajima intervened, staying Shizu’s hand.
"Wait!” He said. “I said only one match, it’s getting dark. If this goes on, you’ll be at it until morning."
"DON'T WORRY KAJIMA!" Shizu patted her chest in assurance. "I’ll take this Annoying PUP DOWN. ANd then We caN get some.. sleep."
"NOT IF I WIN." Azi barked back.
Shizu glared at him and he did the same. The pair's drunkenness was bringing out both of their competitive spirits, all of it going unchecked. The imaginary sparks were more than flying at this point, they were erupting.
Kajima sighed, he knew this would be trouble. But, it would be an even bigger trouble to deny them their fight. They might just ignore him to go off and fight somewhere else. Being drunk led you to do dumb things and going by Shizu’s history of rashness and Azi’s uncharacteristically brash attitude, they were a recipe for disaster waiting to inevitably unfold.
He also knew that Shizu could use the silver seal to order him to comply, it was her right as a noble, which was highly likely due to her now illogical state of mind and somewhat childish underlying nature. Sighing again, he resolved himself and nodded in acceptance.
In silence he retrieved Shizu’s metal umbrella from the house while the two glared at each other.
"Alright, but you are going to pay me back later for this and it's going to be with interest.” Kajima tossed her weapon over. He then looked at Azi. “The same goes for you as well, Azi."
While their glares were locked to each other, the two nodded to him and then began to position themselves for another round.
"THIS TIME! THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT!” Shizu declared, her slurred tone making it hard for anyone to understand what she was saying. “PREPARE YOURSELF! AZI!”
Even with how unintelligible she was sounding, Azi smiled arrogantly. It was like he could smell the victory ahead, or was that the alcohol, either way, he felt already assured and was proudly presenting himself in a posh manner that served to only fuel Shizu’s growing fury.
"BEGIN!"
At Kajima’s call for their second round, no one moved at first. Shizu took up a defensive stance and waited for Azi to attack. Pondering on if he should go first, Azi decided to be the one to get the exchange going. He wanted to see what he could do on the offense.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Oh what fun could I have!
With surprising speed, he ran forward at a pace slower than Shizu’s earlier charge, yet he still closed the 10 meters of distance between them in a couple seconds flat. In response, Shizu opened her metal umbrella to defend herself. There was a brief pause and then she heard Azi’s pace slow from the sounds of stomping snow.
Suddenly she felt a hit shake through her unfurled umbrella and sent a numbing wave up her hands. This didn’t feel like a slash, no, it was like a strike as if Azi had punched her umbrella with an enormous rock.
Shizu’s guess was right in some respects. From Kajima’s perspective, Azi didn’t strike forward with the greatsword or rock, but instead with his fist. Initially Kajima was about to shout to stop the match since concern flared that Azi was going to break his hand if he tried to punch the flat solid side of Shizu’s umbrella.
But as soon as Azi was within range, the veins on his fist glowed an even brighter blue color than before as it impacted and clang against Shizu’s defense. The hit was so hard and weighty that a shockwave hit Kajima.
The sound of metal creaking and screaming under stress was painful. Immediately, Shizu saw the umbrella start to slightly deform from the force of Azi’s continued punch on her side of the exchange. Before the umbrella yielded, she backstepped in an attempt to ensure that her weapon wasn’t destroyed. The umbrella was custom made to her specifications and it took a huge amount of money to maintain and make. The only one that could repair and make such a weapon was Kajima, who was not only trusted but had the talent in making odd weapons like her own.
Shizu began to change gears into defense. Blocking with her umbrella wasn’t an option anymore since she couldn’t let it suffer longer. Instead, she began evading Azi's amateurish strikes. As strong as he was, his skill with the blade was subpar and hadn’t changed much.
Unfamiliar with the weapon in his hand, he swung wildly, throwing out a couple punches to mix his pattern of attack. He jabbed, slashed, jabbed with the sword, and punched forward in an organized flurry. At times, he would accidentally hit a tree and it would be jaggedly sliced by his swing.
The fight continued and he soon broke more and more of the nearby boulders and foliage as his attacks became frantic and uncontrolled. He was getting impatient, but his movements were powerful. They had a heft and were braced with so much force from his body that his leather boots left deep imprints in the ground. When he struck the earth on accident it would crater.
Witnessing the strange power and strength exuded by him, Kajima was now finding himself surprisingly concerned about Shizu's well being. Noticing that she had a big grin on her face, more alarms blared in his head.
Oh no! I think he flipped that switch of her’s.
To those close to Shizu, that look of hers meant she was going to get serious, even if it meant sacrificing something to win.
"WHAT'S THE MATTER AZI?” Shizu said as another one of Azi’s swings flew by her, only touching air and not a hair on her. “CAN'T YOU HIT ME? Come on!"
"SHUT UP YOU PSYCHO."
"OH HOW RUDE!!!"
Ducking, Shizu got under Azi’s swing and landed an uppercut to his face with a full forced punch. Azi grunted in pain and reeled back. Momentarily he was stunned as his brain rattled in his head. Abruptly, he felt the odd sensation and strength in his arms travel up into his head. His vision cleared and he recovered quickly, proceeding to charge again at Shizu.
Leaning forward into his rush, his head coming down, he got under Shizu as she tried to swing at him. In a hunched tackle, he landed a headbutt into her stomach. The wind was knocked out of Shizu’s lungs and coughed, the contents of her stomach almost coming up.
She swallowed hard and was disgusted. "UGH, WHAT IS WITH YOU! WHY WON'T YOU GO DOWN!" She punched out and Azi evaded, having already read Shizu with those eyes full of odd fascinated focus. They were creepy, as if he was peering into her mind.
"HA HA HA NEVER!” Laughed Azi, hysterical mania tinged his wide smile. “I PLAN TO WIN."
For the next couple of hours, Kajima watched as the match became an absolute slugfest. While Shizu wanted to initially wear Azi out by dodging him, Azi seemed to never stop attacking, he was relentless as if unlimited stamina poured from him.
Looking up to the sky, Kajima realized that their bout had gone on for so long that the sun had already started to disappear over the horizon. His training area was additionally becoming a mess. Holes dotted the grounds, broken boulders littered the area, and the little winter foliage around was ruined.
It was a wonder how Azi’s strange and unnatural strength could bring about such devastation. This was probably what caught Shizu’s attention. It confirmed to Kajima that Azi had a background in the mystic arts, or had a deep uniqueness to him. No one else but a trained professional could use body strengthening thaumaturgy to this effect. Azi had likely forgotten but his body remembered.
By now, Kajima would be putting his bets on Azi. Except, surprising as it was for Azi to have the upper hand in physical strength for a change against Shizu, his speed and technique were outclassed by Shizu’s years of training.
She had honed her skill with the blade since childhood and was a prodigy in the eyes of the citizens of Kujyuri. An event of note was when she won a hard-fought sparring match against her own father when she was only 12. It was a feat like no other since that was when Ozen was in his prime. Shizu was given military command for that success, and during one of the previous wars she earned enough merit on the battlefield to gain the title and duty of an Ordained Knight of Kujyuri.
The bodies she had piled up during the war terrified her enemies. Retellings of the sight of a 12-year-old child with blood-stained clothes as she sat atop a mountain of corpses had ingrained itself into her next batch of subsequent victims and the allies who stood in awe beside her. With years of technique, footwork, and her natural speed to boot, Shizu continued to easily evade Azi's attacks. But not all of them. Azi’s sudden trickiness showed itself.
At moments they hadn’t expected, he would fake Shizu out and change up his attack style. Instead of attacking with the greatsword, he would throw out a punch or a kick or a headbutt at random moments. He fought like an unorthodox brawler, something wholly different from the sword play Shizu had grown used to counter. Whatever Azi thought he could use, he used it. At one point, he even packed a snowball to throw at Shizu.
These attacks took her off guard with the sporadic and random nature behind them. In a sudden counter, Shizu was able to retaliate and landed a clean hit into Azi's exposed flank.
“Huh? Why aren’t you.. ?” Shizu ducked from one of Azi’s punches. Azi looked as if her hit had no effect. As if it were only a tickle, he shrugged it off and showed no sign of pain. Had Azi gotten so drunk that his sensations were dulled? Kajima wasn’t sure.
In reality, Azi had this.. Odd.. sensation. As if innately knowing how to dull his senses on instinct. It felt like a familiar skill he had picked up from somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where. His brain was too delirious to delve any deeper, he could only focus on one thing, and that was to win the fight.
With the moon on the rise, Azi and Shizu huffed labored breaths in the growing cold night. They stood across from each other, right back to where they had begun.
Misty breaths continued to puff from everyone’s mouths. The pair of drunk fighters had just back stepped away to take another breath after going into an exchange of blows. Azi stabbed his greatsword into the ground and was leaning on it for support.
The stars and moon helped to illuminate the night air. With its help, Azi glanced up to spot Shizu across from him, or what faint outline of her. His vision was getting hazed and twisted. Shizu was in the same state but at least had the resilience to stand up straight on her two feet. A noticeable amount of sweat poured from her brow. They were both bruised and scratched up. Kajima was glad that neither of them had any lasting wounds.
In Shizu's mind, she felt she could end this now. Azi seemed at the limits of his stamina. After a moment of contemplation and quick planning, she thought.
Why not?
And used her trump card.
She withdrew the katana hidden within the handle of the umbrella and wielded both the furled umbrella in one hand and the katana in the other. This was her unique style of dual wielding not two swords, but her unorthodox metal umbrella and the standard katana. Her unique stance allowed her to make use of the blunt force of her umbrella in concert with the slashing and thrusting attacks of a blade.
Noticing the change, Azi responded by withdrawing the greatsword from the ground. He took up a mock sword and shield stance with his left arm raised as if it were holding his usual kite shield. His right hand hefted the greatsword up with its point facing towards Shizu. This was an unbalanced stance so he compensated with the unconscious use of body strength thaumaturgy. More and more glowing blue veins appeared on his legs and arms, intensifying in brilliance the greater his exertion.
Shizu eyed him top to bottom, looking for a way past whatever he would throw at her.
His stance is a defensive one, but he lacks his shield. He must be trying to fake me out again by pretending to go on the defensive. He’ll likely use the sword to block and parry me again, so let's see if I can slip in with speed.
A few moments of silence passed between the two and then a sudden impact rang out.
Shizu dashed with as much speed as she could. Her steps cracked the frozen ground. In half a second she was on Azi and began to swing out with her umbrella to attack his side. It seemed that Azi was unaware and hadn’t even acknowledged she was in front of him yet, she was expecting her strike to land.
With her focus on aiming this singular quick attack, she failed to notice that Azi had already preempted her. Her eyes stared straight forward but hadn’t noticed the few inches of distance his body took to change his stance.
Both of Azi’s hands now gripped the greatsword in a kendo stance. He tilted the flat of his greatsword and met Shizu’s attack, blocking it as its flat slid up his sword. The recoil of Shizu’s attack worked against her. Shizu realized the situation she was in. Not letting herself falter or lose control from the redirected force pressed her off balance, she pushed power into her legs in an uncomfortable position to leap forward at Azi.
Successful in forcibly regaining her posture, she sent a flurry of attacks with her katana. She spun on her heel and slashed twice, adding in a low kick for good measure. Her other arm had recovered as well in the split second that had passed and she increased her pace. Countless strikes assailed Azi, except all of them were fruitless in their endeavor.
A keen light grew in Azi’s eyes. His eyes trailed the path of her strikes as if in slow motion and he deftly swayed and countered the onslaught.
He’s moving like Shizu. Is what Kajima thought as he then brought a hand to his chin in contemplation.
“Did he learn it by watching Shizu fight? Or did he practice some martial arts in the past?”
As he pondered aloud, Shizu was taken aback by this sudden increase in agility and evasion on Azi's part. Her focus was dulling from her exhaustion. In a moment of inattentiveness, she had swung with her umbrella carelessly. It missed Azi by a hair's breadth and was too wide, which left her open.
Azi closed in and quickly slashed at the opportunity. He intended to hit her in the side so she would be blown away into a patch of snow a couple paces away. Even while drunk, he still held onto his conscious to ensure that neither of them would get overtly hurt from this fight. Shizu hastily moved her katana to intercept and was successful in making it in time. She blocked Azi's heavy slash but, like earlier, her katana broke as an audible crack cut the air.
"ENOUGH!” Kajima yelled and the two froze like statues.