Chapter 9: Confrontation

November 30 (3rd year)

 In the last few days, Riochiro has been training and fighting to the point of exhaustion, so much so, that even I am getting physically tired of our constant dueling.

 It has become a habit to see the bruises and small wounds left on his pale skin at the end of the training sessions. Injuries that although, part of the training, make me feel guilty just seeing them.

 Today's training doesn't drop in intensity either, my punches intersect with his blocks over and over again, as I adjust the electricity inside my body depending on the attack I'm going to use.

 Riochiro has fought me too many times in the last few days, so much so that the practice bout that used to be twice a week has now become a daily occurrence.

 Today's practice bout doesn't seem to be slowing down either. We start the day with breakfast and a casual chat and then get ready to start the hardest part of the morning. The first bout.

 Riochiro takes off his shirt, making his injuries more evident, while he rolls a bandage between his hands so he can better grip the sword.

 I recommended this to him when I saw the state his hands were in the other days. While he was eating breakfast, I noticed that his fingers were trembling when he grasped his fork, and when I asked him to hold out his hand, I could see the reason for it.

 The palm of his hands were full of scrapes and part of his skin was raised, while at the bases of his fingers stood calluses as deep as they were hard, his own fingers were stiff and rough to the touch as if you were touching the eroded stones of the sea. This was clearly not normal.

Doctor Yamagushi inspected him, saying that there was nothing wrong with this, that at some point in his training he would develop these lesions, which, being superficial, would recover quickly.

 But as the days went by it was clear that they did not close, not because something bad happened to Riochiro, but because Riochiro himself did not let the wounds on his hands close.

 Day and night, he trained and trained, he did not rest until it was finally time to sleep, it was a great sacrifice he was making to achieve his goals. So much so that the wounds on his body and hands were just trifles to worry about.

 It was all about becoming strong enough to protect his sister Kyouka.

 That's why Riochiro never backed down even one day of the 3 years we've been training, not even when he was diagnosed abnormal, and today was not going to be the exception either.

 When Riochiro stood at attention, I could see the conviction in his eyes, I could see that he had practiced his stance so many times to be able to do it perfectly, I could see that his muscles were not just from his physical exercises, but also from his tireless effort.

 Today he was more determined than ever to train, all this set showed it without him having to speak. Riochiro was already a full-fledged warrior, one who still needed to mature, but a warrior nonetheless.

 When I also put myself on guard and activated my Skill, I prepared to launch another attack at hyperspeed and that's what I did.

 At the speed I'm going it's hard to notice the things around you because of how fast they pass by you, but I could see perfectly that when I jumped on him, Riochiro hadn't dodged my attack, he hadn't even made the gesture of dodging it, he just stood in front of me.

 This did not stop me, my sword was already on its way to one of his sides when I was able to position myself in front of him, ready to impact, my sword rushed quickly almost like a gust of hypersonic wind.

But there was something I hadn't noticed until it began to stab into my ribs. Riochiro's sword had already reached me.

 With a hard thrust and a constant pain in my right side, I lay on the ground as I bellowed from the pain, while Riochiro stood in front of me, still on guard.

 He said nothing, even if he wanted to say it, he just stood silently looking at me with a hint of concern in the back of his eyes, though of course he was fighting his expression not to show it.

 I smiled lying on the floor and quickly got up, showing him that everything was fine, I got into guard position again. Too bad those moments were not to show anything, but inside me, joy filled me.

 Riochiro had finally been able to strike a blow. And not only that, Riochiro's blow was an early one.

Before I had even started to move. Riochiro, a split second before, was already swinging his sword at me, as if he knew what I was going to be.

 This is only accomplished by knowing your enemy as well as you know yourself. Within the world of fencing, this is a feat of a level simply above average.

 That someone as young as he is, especially as an abnormal, was able to hit a Skiller user moving at supersonic speed makes this feat twice as great.

 Grandpa, I'm probably the best fencing teacher there is in history.

 Grandpa's notes: Humility Rikka, humility...

 Once the tension was evident in this little practice bout, again, the battle had begun. It was time to get really serious about it.

 I quickly imbued my body with electricity, making my nerves react twice as fast as they normally would.

 I followed the consecutive and agile blows with footwork to surround Riochiro, he dodged my attacks almost instantly, although there were blows which he could not dodge, he only received them with his body and counterattacked, landing 2 blows on me.

 But it was too late for him, one more hit and my victory would be imminent.

 -Well," I asked in a somewhat exalted tone, "Four to two, it is clear that it is my victory dear student, why don't you give up and let's get it over with?

 Riochiro gave me a cold look and looked me up and down as he analyzed me and at the same time looked for signs that I was continuing with my attacks.

 -I don't think so," he said as he had a confident smile on his face, realizing how agitated I was.

 -Then die.

 I quickly moved towards his position with electricity distributed all over my body. However, this time Riochiro did not wait for me to attack, he swung his sword at me from above.

 I quickly blocked it, leaving my abdomen exposed. I knew perfectly well that Riochiro was going to throw a kick towards that opening, so I reacted quickly and stepped back.

 As if it was a reflection of myself, Riochiro rushed at me with a big stride forward. Positioning himself in front of me.

 The action I should do was clear, a simple punch down and I would not give Riochiro time to react, without even giving him time to reposition himself to block or to dodge.

 And that's what I did.

 But Riochiro's goal was not to position himself in front of me so he could pounce his sword at me, on the contrary, he rammed my torso and then pushed me with all his strength, almost sending me flying backwards, but making me crawl to my rear.

 Then I saw it, an opportunity to finish the last blow. At the distance we were at, I could do a Hypercharge and end this in a quick way.

 But it was clear that Riochiro had calculated this move, since he was in the same position he used to snatch the sword from my hands several weeks ago.

 Hands and sword up, body rigid and abdomen exposed. There were 3 options which I had to take into account when I saw him in that position:

 The first was the most superficial, a provocation. But it was not that at all, Riochiro had one blow left to lose the fight and he was clearly going to hold on to that last blow with everything he had. He was clearly not in a position to provoke.

 The second was a misdirection, he just wanted to make me hesitate and analyze for a moment his sudden pose to make me hesitate and slow down my attacks. Giving him time to get himself together at least a little.

 The third was an anticipation. Riochiro had stopped in the middle of an anticipation attack, knowing I was going to use Hypercharge, but seeing me back off he simply stayed in position.

 Whichever of the 3 I was I couldn't take any chances, once in range of Riochiro's attacks there was a chance I could get 3 attacks in a row in one move.

 I also couldn't get too far away and give him too much room to recover, once recovered it was clear that Riochiro would regain some of his dexterity and balance.

 It was one or the other. If I used Hypercharge, I was exposing myself to possible preemption, so I was going to end up on the ground again and this time Riochiro wasn't going to be kind enough to wait for me to get up.

 If I let Riochiro recover, I was going to be at a disadvantage in a close fight, where my speed only served to increase the speed of my punches.

 The perfect point was the middle distance combat, that was the one I opted for at that precise moment.

Approaching Riochiro with considerable speed, Riochiro was preparing to anticipate, but I didn't count on the fact that in reality, he was only increasing speed briefly.

 Stopping midway as I reached his blow, Riochiro reacted in vain, wasting an attack. Just at that moment when his sword hit the ground, I withdrew the electricity from my legs and concentrated it all on my torso, getting into a lunging position, as if I were a wild boar, I propelled my body forward at full speed.

I quickly distributed the electricity in equal parts to my whole body, I turned my body agilely and put my feet on the ground, these acted as a brake, making me stop right where I wanted, Riochiro's back.

 With an attack as fast as lightning, I imbued my waist and shoulders with concentrated electricity to boost him even more.

 To my surprise, Riochiro's reflexes and instinct acted faster than my strike could reach his back, as his sword positioned itself between my blade and his rear, deflecting my blow.

 Although that did not ensure that my blow would not hit, in less than a second Riochiro spun forward dodging the edge of my wooden sword by only a few millimeters.

 Not giving him time to even get up from the ground, I concentrated the electricity of my entire body on his upper torso and lashed out towards his position with another sonic onslaught.

 This time I was not going to give him time to react.

 But as if he expected it from me, Riochiro lay down on the ground and raised his sword upwards, it was another anticipation, but at this moment it was useless. He could not stop the sonic onslaught that was halfway to his sword.

 Rather, it's not as if I couldn't, I just didn't have time to react.

 As if I had hit a wall, my man touched the wooden sword that lay raised in Riochiro's hands and the very laws of physics made my speed proportional to the intensity of the impact.

 Quickly part of my momentum stopped and the remaining part caused me to fall rolling to the ground. At tremendous speed, my thoughts bounced and my neurons began to synapse with each other.

My reflexes kicked in and made me put my hands on the floor and with the speed of the rolls, I propelled myself upwards, making my body spin and my feet touch the floor again.

 I ended up prostrate on my knees, and quickly got up, to see Riochiro standing again, in the same guard pose as me.

 That he had also been on the floor helped buy me time to recover from my fall. If I had taken a few more moments to get back on my feet, I would have surely had Riochiro pouncing on me.

 -Three to four, Master Rikka, are you up for a tiebreaker," he asked with a cheeky tone and a confident smile on his face.

 I smiled back and simply burst out laughing.

 -What a nerve seeing from a rookie.

 Riochiro just chuckled and looked at me.

 -My chutzpah is because I may have a teacher who gives me the confidence to have it.

 -Ohhhhhh"-I looked at him for a moment with wide eyes, then pulled myself together-"Rest assured I do."

 Once we finished our dialogue, silence prevailed between us, again the clash of swords was going to be present. With a thud in the air, the battle resumed.

 My sword was lunging towards Riochiro, while his was lunging towards me, time seemed to go in slow motion, as the wooden sticks approached each other to make a devastating clashing sound and....