Chapter - 7

"Haaaaa!"

The match started, and Stella instantly dashed toward Ikki, swinging down her sword now covered in red flames. The swing might've looked crude to unlearned observers, but it was a precise and powerful strike.

Yet a wide swing was just a wide swing. Ikki saw through her movement and raised Intetsu to receive it―but he immediately aborted that action and took a sudden step back. An instant later, Lævateinn struck the arena floor violently and the entire space shook like an earthquake.

"Wise choice. If you received that blow, it wouldn't have ended with just a few scratches."

"What an outrageous attack. So you weren't being serious in the chairman's office?"

"That's right. If I became serious in such a place, the entire school building would be destroyed."

Grinning broadly, Stella immediately took pursuit, and Ikki drew another step back to widen the distance. If he tried to stop such a swing head on, his arm would be crushed. Stella's weapon was a long sword, a heavy weapon, and it was common sense when facing heavy weapons that he'd have an advantage in retreating speed.

But common sense couldn't apply to a monstrous opponent like Stella.

"Slow. Too slow!"

"Wha―"

*Whoosh!* The wind roared, and Stella immediately caught up to him.

"Did you think you could beat me when it comes to speed? Too bad, but magic isn't limited to offense alone. I can increase my mobility several times over by concentrating magic at the bottom of my feet and releasing it in a burst. And my aura capacity is thirty times greater than a normal Blazer, so it won't become spent keeping up with the likes of you. In other words, you can't beat me in either power or speed!"

If Ikki were to compare her with something, then "ultra-high mobility heavy tank with infinite fuel" would be appropriate. Ikki laughed bitterly at that kind of unfair ability, whose owner was now charging right at him.

So this is an A-Rank, huh?

Even the past generations of Sword-Art Festival winners, the Seven Stars Sword Kings, were mostly B- or C-Ranks. They were the ideal Ikki aimed for, but an A-Rank couldn't be limited to a student knight's ideals. The A-Rank knights up through the modern day have all, without exception, been great heroes who carved their names onto history.

An outstanding talent that appeared only once a decade―the public view was wholly accurate. Towards Ikki, who had just been made aware of that fact, the Crimson Princess brandished her blazing sword and swung it in an inescapable strike that could cleave the ground itself.

Now that he couldn't dodge her strikes anymore, Ikki also responded with his weapon. The swordfight had begun, and clear sounds of clashing metal resounded like music in the ears of the arena's spectators.

「Oooooh…!」

Their cheers rose as they watched the figure creating Lævateinn's burning arcs.

This was a knight who polished her sword techniques. Few mage-knights excelled in martial arts or swordsmanship, because they could become far stronger by training Blazer abilities instead of physical skills. That belief was held by both educators and society, so knight evaluations didn't include such skills, and while only mediocre mage-knights shared such thinking, mediocre knights were the majority.

The minority, the truly strong knights, would master physical skills alongside Blazer abilities, because they had an unflagging will to improve. They would absorb every tactic that could empower them, develop their strength, and reach for ever higher summits.

Stella Vermillion stood among that minority. She, who won the sword tournament of the Vermillion Empire, used her Imperial Arts as if she was dancing, but with enough force to press Ikki. It took Ikki, still trying to open a gap between them, all he had just to defend against those strikes. He kept retreating backwards again and again.

「Of course it'll turn out like this. The repeater, he's being completely overpowered.」

「Yeah, it feels like all he's doing is running away.」

「Just a matter of time now, huh?」

At this unsurprising outcome, a cold mood fell over the spectators. But―

What… is this?

Stella Vermillion felt something painfully off about this situation. Her sword dealt strikes that could produce earthquakes, could crush an enemy in one hit without fail. Overpowering an opponent without crushing him should be impossible, because her attacks couldn't be blocked so casually. But what was happening in this duel? Stella should be one-sidedly battering her opponent, but she was the one sweating.

Turn out like this? Running away? Just a matter of time? Those impressions were dead wrong. Stella herself had realized that.

I'm being… set up!

"Haaa!"

Stella brought her Lævateinn down on the enemy before her. Ikki received that strike with his Intetsu―but without stopping there, he rode the force of the strike and swiftly leaped backward, widening the distance between them once again.

…Again!

From afar it certainly seemed like Stella's strikes were pushing Ikki back, but the reality was different. Against his tactics, her strikes were being completely negated. Using a soft defense that slowly drained away power―that might sound easy, but doing it was quite difficult. If the strength in blocking was even a little bit too high then his arm would be pulverized, and if it was even a tiny bit too low then he'd be cut down. The calculations of power, angle, timing―missing even one of these factors meant immediate failure, yet Stella's opponent handled all that without so much as breaking a sweat. At this realization, Stella felt an indescribable anxiety. It was an alarm bell, her sixth sense warning that the enemy before her was very dangerous!

"Are you only good at running away!?"

As if trying to dispel that feeling, Stella kept on slashing at Ikki.

But he didn't reply. The troubled but warm smile he sported just a while ago had disappeared. Now he wore an expression so serious it could be terrifying, and he was calmly watching every movement Stella made.

What irritating eyes!

As if her clothes, skin, and muscles were being read fiber by fiber, her every little act was being studied. And from that gaze, she realized that Ikki was trying to understand the Imperial Arts from her movements.

"My sword style isn't so simple that you can see through it easily!"

"…No, I already got it."

In an instant, the flow of the battle turned. Only five minutes had passed since the start of the match when Ikki Kurogane began to attack for the first time.