Chương 75: Book 2 Chapter 27 - A Duel and A Spar

After class, Henry and Kiara both donned dueling collars.

"Duel, or spar?" he asked. Kiara shrugged.

"Why not both? Spar first?" Henry smiled at the suggestion. They set their collars to sparring rules, with their power limited to a tier 1. Kiara had checked with [Magic Sense 3], and Henry was a tier 2 himself. They started off slow, neither one wanting to overextend unnecessarily.

"You've improved a lot this semester," Henry said, making small talk as they exchanged their first few blows. His voice was much more steady, now that they were on a subject he was comfortable with.

"Thanks!" Kiara said, sidestepping one of his downward slashes. She riposted, but he avoided it neatly.

"This is my third semester in the intermediate class," he said.

"I don't think I've ever seen anyone progress as fast as you have. I bet you'll be with us in the advanced class after next semester." Henry and the student ranked 2nd had both advanced to the finals in the tournament, cementing their spots as the top two students this semester. They would both be invited to the advanced class starting next week. Kiara wanted to reply, but was honestly having a hard time keeping up with his movements.

Their physical speed was limited to the same amount, but his movements were more precise and efficient, with less wasted motion. His timing was perfect, and Kiara was finding very limited openings, all of which he responded to immediately if she tried to take advantage of them. She realized two things. First of all, she had seen more openings when sparring with Handel the week before, and she realized that he had been leaving those openings on purpose as a teaching aid.

Although she had mastered the nine forms, and they felt very second nature to her, there was still room for improvement, as there were different levels of mastery. Secondly, she realized that now that she was being pushed so hard, the social roles had reversed, and Henry was the one carrying the conversation. She tried pressing the attack to force him onto new terrain, but he immediately punished her overreach, landing a hit on her leg. Since it was a spar, they separated for a new round.

"Thanks for the compliment," she finally answered him as they stepped back.

"I've been practicing quite a bit." Henry nodded.

"I noticed." He immediately blushed.

"I mean, I wasn't watching you or anything, I just. I mean… I saw you staying after class and what not…" She laughed lightly, trying to lighten the mood.

"Ready for round two?" He nodded eagerly. This time, she tried modifying her forms, seeing if she could optimize the advantages she would get against whatever form he chose. Since he had also mastered all nine forms, he could easily transition into a form that was technically strong against whatever form she picked, so she just stuck with one that was weak into the form he chose.

The first few exchanges, he was able to find the openings in her defense, but she jumped backwards out of the way each time, giving herself enough space to reset and try again. By the third exchange, he was having a harder time, but he still ended up finding an opening. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. After the fourth exchange, she was able to adjust her movements and positioning just right to avoid leaving any openings.

He seemed either confused or frustrated that he wasn't finding any openings, and eventually switched to a new form. As he did, Kiara adjusted the modifications accordingly. They exchanged blows like that for another minute or two, with her dodging backwards anytime he found an opening to exploit. As they re-engaged over and over, she felt her mind entering a zen-like flow state.

She was spending less and less conscious energy on the exchanges, and was noticing more and more the patterns in Henry's foot placement and body movements. The way he positioned his feet helped determine not only where he was headed, but also what striking options were available to him. His shoulder movements telegraphed his strikes before they came. When he found his next opening, she realized it before the strike even came.

She was able to not just block it or jump out of the way, but to twist just enough for it to miss her, offering a riposte of her own simultaneously. She landed a clean shot to his ribs, while his sword missed her torso by less than an inch. A look of surprise came over Henry's face.

"Wow! Nice shot." Kiara beamed. That was the first time she had been able to pull off what Handel had done that one time without having to think about it too hard. As she'd entered that flow state, the pieces had just clicked in her mind. She hadn't done any conscious calculations about what his next movement would be, or how to dodge it properly, she had just acted on instinct. It had felt so natural, like it was the obvious next step of their dance, something inevitable that had always been bound to happen.

She was leading the spar three points to two, and they began their next round. She tried getting back into that flow state, but was too excited. She tried feeling for that same instinctive knowledge about what would happen next, but couldn't quite latch onto it. It was just outside her reach. Henry eventually landed a shot on her torso, winning the spar five points to three. Next, they took a quick break, then changed the dueling collars to the duel setting, and faced off one more time.

Rather than resetting after each hit, during a duel the hits accumulated, with no break in between, theoretically giving one person an advantage that snowballed larger and larger. Unable to find that flow state again at quite the same depth, Kiara ended up losing the duel. Henry scored a hit on her leg at the same time she hit his non-dominant arm. Her leg wound heavily impacted her ability to properly fend off his subsequent attacks, while his arm wound didn't alter the engagement by much at all.

Pretty quickly after that, he landed a hit on her stomach, then across her neck, lighting her collar up red.

"Thanks for the spar and the duel," she said with a smile after her collar deactivated.

"It was my pleasure!" he replied with a smile of his own.

"I was sad that I missed our second spar a few weeks back," she said, "I was out of town."

"Me too!" He blushed almost immediately, diverting his gaze to the ground.

"I uh… didn't realize you had noticed." She felt bad that he was suddenly feeling so shy again, and wasn't sure how to help the poor guy feel less uncomfortable. Probably just seeing him and talking to him frequently would help. Then again, starting next week he wouldn't be here as much, probably only as an instructor sometimes.

"Well, I'm going to stay and train for a bit more," she said.

"Thanks again!" He glanced up at her one more time, gave a shy wave, and left. She spent the next several hours practicing her forms with her left hand. She had been doing it every day after class this week, and it was slowly starting to feel less unnatural. Friday, she won her spar in the finals of the losers bracket, earning her 14 points to end the semester with 145. Henry won the finals of the main bracket, ending the semester with 230 points. A near perfect run.

She had only seen him lose a couple of times during the semester, one of which had been to Olga, and the other to the same student he beat in the finals. After class, she noticed him lingering for a bit, and asked if he'd like to stay after and spar again. He happily agreed. They sparred a total of five times over the course of an hour, four of which he won. She was able to enter that flow state twice during the hour, and both times led to almost premonition-level results.

Unfortunately, her excitement each time pulled her out of the flow, and she found it difficult to get right back into that flow state. She wasn't sure what the missing pieces were yet.