"Tsukishiro, who do you think's gonna win?"
Harumasa and Sokaku were sitting on the edge of the crater, overlooking the two Void Hunters, while Yanagi stayed standing.
"Yeah, Nagi! You think this guy could give Chief a run for her money?"
The Deputy Chief shrugged.
"I've never seen Chief lose before... But her opponent is one of the original Void Hunters."
Sokaku tilted her head.
"Does that mean he's super strong?"
Yanagi let out a chuckle.
"Well, it'll definitely be a tough battle for the Chief. That's for sure~"
Harumasa peered down the crater and watched as Miyabi drew her blade.
"But would she lose?"
Yanagi thought for a moment.
"If he uses his explosive powers, he might give the Chief a bit of trouble, but since it's just a spar-"
The Deputy Chief smiled confidently.
"Chief Miyabi will definitely win."
--------------------------------
Down in their bona fide arena, Illya and Miyabi got into position.
"Before we begin, I hope you won't be offended if I hold back a little."
Illya leveled eyes with Miyabi.
"I cannot and will not use my more devastating abilities against the descendant of my friend. This is non-negotiable."
The Chief of Section 6 nodded without issue.
"I understand."
Illya allowed a smile to spread across his face.
"Well, with that sorted, I'll relinquish the first move to you."
Miyabi drew in a deep breath as she rid her mind of all unnecessary thoughts.
Not daring to underestimate her opponent, she immediately pushed the red button on the sheath of her sword.
The flaming blue spirit lingering beside Miyabi was drawn into her weapon, coating it in a thick veil of azure flames.
As the swordswoman unsheathed the blade, a wave of blue fire and red lightning engulfed her form, the true power of Tailless being unleashed in an instant.
Illya let out a low whistle.
"No mercy for your senior, huh?"
"It would be disrespectful to not offer a warrior of your caliber my best."
"... If you had 9 tails, you'd be a carbon copy of your grandmother."
"Thank you for the compliment."
Crimson lightning danced around Miyabi as she turned into a blazing blue comet, her movements as straightforward as they were sharp.
Illya allowed a singular ether atom to enter his body, using the energy he gained from splitting it to empower himself.
The two met in the center, fist colliding with blade.
CLANG
Miyabi frowned.
'The force behind that punch was lackluster... but I couldn't cut through his skin.'
Jumping back, Miyabi swung her blade in an arc, sending a dense net of slashes at Illya, but the senior stood still and took the blow without flinching.
Using the net as cover, Miyabi sheathed Tailless and assumed the Shimotsuki Stance (Iai stance) and flooded her body with Foxfire, allowing the unique Etheric energy to flow through her veins.
Watching Miyabi prepare her attack, a tiny smile spread across Illya's face as her figure overlapped with the image of the swordmaster in his memory.
Cloaked in swathes of azure fire, Miyabi's form disappeared, a booming shockwave kicking up a flurry of dust as multiple fiery lines were drawn in the air.
'Mm, probably don't wanna get hit by this one...'
Weaving through the entrapment of slashes, Illya allowed more ether to enter his body, delicately regulating the fission reaction to ensure that the etheric energy wouldn't reach a supercritical state.
Widening his stance, cut the air with his hands, simultaneously releasing a controlled burst of his stockpiled energy to form a thin crescent-shaped wave of raw ether.
The ether wave shot towards the moving Miyabi, forcing her to temporarily halt her assault to deal with the attack.
Deftly parrying Illya's counter, a furrow developed in Miyabi's brow.
"... You know the martial arts of the Yunkui Summit?"
Illya shrugged.
"My abilities are a form of Ether particle manipulation, so I studied there when I was younger."
This time, Illya took the offensive, sending a straightforward punch in Miyabi's direction.
Ducking out of the way, Miyabi attempted to close the distance and dig into Illya's flank, but before she could approach, Illya slammed his foot into the ground and released a burst of energy, triggering an explosion.
Forced back, Miyabi backpeddled and launched razor-sharp beams of Foxfire at Illya, hoping to create a bit more distance that she could leverage.
Unfortunately for her, Illya drew another breath and triggered fission, releasing a burst of energy that allowed him to close in on Miyabi's position in a split second.
Miyabi's eyes widened as she barely managed to guard herself with Tailless, but noticing the unexpected lightness of Illya's ensuing blow, her intuition screamed at her to move.
Listening to it, Miyabi ducked as fast as she could, just barely dodging the column of force Illya fired out of his fist.
BOOM
A trickle of sweat traced down Miyabi's face as she slipped through a gap in Illya's offense, retreating to recover her posture and state of mind.
'His acceleration is too fast for me to reliably react to at close range, and the explosions prevent me from getting too close...'
Miyabi's brow furrowed as she thought for a moment, reassessing her strategy.
Lowering her center of gravity, she sheathed her blade and once again assumed the Shimotsuki stance, though this time without the cyclone of icy blue flames.
Since the saturation bombardment of slashes wasn't working out, Miyabi began to pour her focus into refining the 'quality' of her cuts.
Using the special sealing sheath her father had created as a conduit, Miyabi began to condense all the Foxfire she could muster into the blade, maximizing its destructive power while disregarding efficiency.
Tailless let out a high-pitched hum as Miyabi drew it from her sheath, a blinding, blazing blue light radiating off its blade.
The ground beneath Miyabi crumbled as she shot forward, her form blurring as she drew a fiery line in the air.
Watching from above, Section 6 could hardly make out anything more than a blink of color, a testament to the sheer speed and devastation Miyabi had poured into this attack.
Despite being faced with a slash that would render most non-existent, the ghost of a genuine ecstatic smile haunted Illya's features.
'This- Souichirou, you weren't exaggerating about your daughter's potential, huh~?!'
Illya loosely held both hands in front of himself, assuming a tall L-shaped stance.
He purposefully relinquished his control over the fission reaction for a fraction of a second, allowing the volatile energy to multiply exponentially, only stopping once the Ether atoms in his body were bordering on the threshold of supercritical.
Illya forcibly contained the titanic surge of etheric energy, using it to trigger a pseudo-overclock and increase his specs across the board.
In the borderline nano-second Illya had left before Miyabi's blade struck him, he began to move, following the momentum of the blade while subtly redirecting it with the most efficient movement he could've feasibly made.
Gently grabbing Tailless's flaming blade, Illya tugged, disrupting Miyabi's balance enough to send her flying with her own momentum.
Illya's movements had been so quick that Miyabi had barely registered a flicker of motion before she lost all control of her direction, but Illya wasn't quite done just yet.
Leveraging his current hold on Miyabi's weapon hand, Illya grasped the crook of his junior's neck and dropped his center of gravity, forcing his opponent to do the same.
Suddenly changing the direction of his momentum to oppose Miyabi's, Illya gently positioned his arm around her neck, stiffening his body while leaning forward, creating a sudden, unavoidable obstacle.
With her momentum still carrying her forward, but her head and upper body forcibly stopped, the forward momentum caused her lower body to continue traveling until Miyabi was completely parallel with the ground.
Now, all Illya had to do was apply a teeny tiny bit of downwards force and-
BAAAAAAAAAAAM
--------------
[A few hours later.]
"Um, Chief? Are you sure you're ok...?"
Harumasa called out to his superior, concern evident in his voice.
"I'm fine."
"But-"
"I'm fine."
Yanagi coughed into her fist.
"Ahem- Chief, before you say you're fine, we should probably put a bit of ice on that bump on your head."
"This is... blunt force durability training."
Harumasa shivered.
"More like a forced lobotomy..."
"Yeah! You should've seen the way that guy slammed you, Chief! He made you go like BWOOOOSH, and you went like A-"
Yanagi clamped a hand over Sokaku's mouth.
"That's quite enough out of you, young lady~"
Miyabi sighed.
"I didn't expect him to be so proficient in hand-to-hand combat."
The Deputy Chief gave her boss a bitter smile.
"Even still, couldn't he have been just a little bit more gentle? It was a spar, after all..."
Shaking her head, Miyabi rested her hand on the hilt of Tailless.
"Neither of us was using our W-engines or Disk drives, and if the massive ether fluctuation I felt in that split second was anything to go by, he had probably been holding back quite a bit during the fight. The injuries I received are merely the price I had to pay for challenging someone from my Grandmothers era."
Gently running her fingers over the bump on her scalp, despite the pain, she couldn't hold back the tiny smile tugging at her lips as she remembered what Illya had said to her:
"Hah~ Now, I understand why Swordmaster and Souichirou call you the pride of the Hoshimi family! You truly are a genius~"
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(A/N: Hope you guys are enjoying the story.
Tell me how you guy felt about the fight scene, and if you have any critiques you'd like to throw my way, feel free.
Leave a few comments and add this fic to your collection if you like what I'm doing.
See you guys in the next chapter~!)