And that person certainly wasn't Stella. She had no reason to keep the fight in a stalemate; her goal was to end her opponent as swiftly and decisively as possible.
Therefore, the reason for this situation was simple: Stella couldn't finish Ikki Kurogane. Every one of her attacks was being neutralized, leading to this unexpected deadlock.
Furthermore, Haruki noticed something even more unusual. Ikki's movements were gradually becoming perfectly synchronized with Stella's. It was as if, throughout the heat of battle, he was learning her swordsmanship piece by piece, perfectly mimicking his opponent's style.
"What is this? Some kind of 'Thief's Blade'?"
Haruki clicked his tongue. He knew Ikki wasn't an ordinary person, but he hadn't expected the boy to do something like this. If Haruki wanted to, he could achieve something similar in actual combat, but he would never go out of his way to learn an opponent's sword—let alone mimic it.
To him, it was meaningless. A sword is a sword; as long as it defeats the enemy, it is enough. True Sword Saints are those who believe their own path is the strongest. Mimicking another's blade was, in essence, a lack of confidence in one's own.
However, Haruki didn't look down on Ikki for it. He surmised that Ikki's habit of copying others likely stemmed from his early training. Just as a child who grows up having to steal to survive will instinctively reach for things even when they are no longer hungry, Ikki's survival as a swordsman had depended on "stealing" techniques.
Ikki himself admitted as much.
"I've been an outcast since I was a child. No one was willing to teach me any sword techniques. I had no choice but to watch others and steal what I saw. Because of that, this is the only skill I've truly mastered. Give me one minute, and I can see through almost any style and dismantle it. This is my art—Blade Steal!"
"Are you serious...?"
Stella was stunned, her pride refusing to believe it. Yet the proof was before her. Her moves were being perfectly mirrored, her every intention read, and she was rapidly falling into a disadvantageous position!
"Wait, wait... The Princess is being suppressed?!"
"No way..."
The sight of an A-Rank Blazer like Stella being pushed back by an F-Rank like Ikki was incomprehensible to the audience. To many, it felt like a fever dream. Even Stella herself couldn't believe the turn the duel had taken.
If she could have remained calm, she might have analyzed Ikki's "Blade Steal" and found a way to break his rhythm. But Stella's pride as an A-Rank made it impossible for her to accept being outclassed in a direct sword duel. It wasn't just that Ikki's swordsmanship was superior; it was that he had mastered her style in minutes and was now surpassing her in her own specialty.
To Stella, being defeated like this was more humiliating than a direct loss of power. Driven by frustration, she made a fatal mistake: she tried to use a feint, hoping to trick Ikki into reacting to her standard style while she shifted to a different tactic.
The moment Haruki saw her move, he knew she had lost. Stella was attempting to challenge Ikki on his own turf—the realm of reading and reacting.
Since Ikki could analyze her style in seconds, it meant he possessed a level of visual perception that bordered on the supernatural. It was a talent one was born with, not something achieved through mere effort. To Ikki's eyes, Stella's desperate feints were as clumsy as a child swinging a toy.
As expected, Ikki saw through the fake-out instantly. He pretended to fall for the feint, letting his blade swing wide, only to use the hilt of his weapon with surgical precision to pin Stella's next strike!
"Your blade has grown dull," Ikki said flatly.
"What!?"
"You abandoned the bold, sweeping strikes you're best at. You've become frantic, moving like a coward, attacking and retreating without conviction. Such half-hearted attacks won't work on me. Can't you see? Your sword can no longer push me back!"
Ikki's words left Stella dazed. In that moment of hesitation, Ikki parried the massive Laevateinn—a weapon with far superior raw power—and lunged straight for Stella's chest.
Clang!
The blow landed. But just as the audience expected the F-Rank to claim victory, something unexpected happened. Ikki's blade stopped dead against Stella's body, as if hitting an invisible suit of armor.
"So that's A-Rank Defense," Haruki noted from the stands.
He recalled his own brief clash with Stella in the Chairperson's office. If he hadn't moved so fast that she couldn't react, and she had managed to layer that Mana Shield over herself, he wondered if his casual strike would have pierced it. Of course, Haruki wasn't worried. That strike hadn't been his limit. If he were to put his full weight behind a blow, even an A-Rank shield wouldn't hold.
But for Ikki... Haruki wondered how a boy with F-Rank attack power was supposed to break through such a fortress. Without some kind of "cheat" ability, victory was impossible.
And Ikki Kurogane did, indeed, have a "cheat." It was a move that surpassed even Haruki's expectations.
"I understand your ability now, Ikki Kurogane! Because of that, I will show you the respect you deserve by defeating you with everything I have!"
Stella was no longer holding back. She stood at the edge of the ring and raised her greatsword high into the air.
"Flames of Purgatory, pierce the heavens..."
As she pointed Laevateinn toward the sky, the flames dwelling within the blade surged. The brightness and heat intensified until the fire became a literal pillar of light, melting the ceiling of the dome as it pierced through.
"W-What is that?!"
"This is insane... is she even human?"
A hundred-meter blade of light—shining like a miniature sun—was poised to strike. It was an aurora of destruction that brooked no resistance. This was the absolute weight of an A-Rank Blazer.
"Katharterio Salamandra!"
The blade of light fell like a sentence of execution, splitting the air with incinerating heat.
Ikki Kurogane took a deep breath. "Becoming a Magic Knight is my life's dream. That's why... I've spent every moment thinking: how can the weakest defeat the strongest? What must I do to see my path to the end? Here is my answer."
Ikki leveled his sword at Stella.
"I will use my weakest to defeat your strongest—!"
The moment the words left his mouth, Ikki's entire body began to glow. A faint, flickering radiance, like blue phantom fire, surrounded him. Most shockingly, his mana—which had been as dim as a firefly—exploded into a massive, violent surge.
"What?!"
Before Stella could even process the change, Ikki vanished. He moved with such speed that he seemed to teleport, leaping over the flaming sword. His physical capabilities had multiplied dozens of times over, far exceeding the biological limits of an F-Rank Blazer.
"W-What is this power!? How can you be this fast?!"
"I've always had a question," Ikki said softly as he moved. "In a race, if I choose to run at full speed from start to finish without resting, I reach the end. But am I really giving it my all? If I were truly at my limit, how could I still be conscious when I finish?"
"What do you mean...?"
"I only found the answer recently. It's called the survival instinct. Every living thing is programmed to survive. No matter how much you try to push yourself, your instinct won't let you cross the red line. It reserves a portion of your strength, your stamina, and your mana just to keep you alive. Humans only ever use a tiny fraction of their true potential."
"You don't mean..."
"Exactly. My secret is that I deliberately destroy my survival instinct. I use my willpower to cast aside the shackles of my body. For one minute, I use 100% of my total capacity, even if it means dying the moment I cross the finish line. This is my Noble Art—Ittou Shura (Single Blade Shura)!"
Stella was shaken to her core. In her moment of shock, Ikki appeared at her side like a vengeful ghost. With the power of Ittou Shura, he swung his blade, finally shattering the A-Rank Mana Shield into a thousand pieces.
Shatter!
As the red-haired girl collapsed, the duel officially ended.
Most of the audience was either stunned by Ikki's upset or busy dismissing Stella as a fraud. But Haruki Aizawa's gaze remained fixed on Ikki.
He didn't care about the victory. He didn't even care about the flashy Ittou Shura itself. What he cared about was the concept Ikki had described: "Ignoring the survival instinct and crushing one's self to the absolute limit."
By watching Ikki, Haruki had finally found the entrance to the fourth and final branch of the Ghost Slayer Arts.
He had found the way to cultivate Bloodlust.
Bloodlust was, in essence, Vitality. Normally, a human cannot weaponize their own life force because the survival instinct prevents them from using it as a consumable resource. But the "Bloodlust" path was a defiance of nature itself. It required transcending the survival instinct to turn the very energy that sustains life into a means of slaughter.
Only by entering such a state could one truly master the power of Bloodlust.
The moment the fight ended, Ikki Kurogane—much like the defeated Stella—lost consciousness and collapsed in the ring.
He was in slightly better shape than Stella, though. He had simply used Ittou Shura to dump every ounce of his stamina into a single minute. Having exhausted even the "reserve" energy meant for basic life functions, his body had simply shut down to recover.