Chương 115: [Leo Vs Locke]

Leo heard his name and felt something he hadn't expected. It wasn't nerves; he'd shaken those off in the last round. No, this was closer to the feeling he used to get before a basketball game in school, or while pulling on his boots for Sunday league. The anticipation, the need to win, the drive to be better than the person across from him. He hadn't felt it in years. Depression had taken a lot of things, and that had been one of them: the simple desire to compete, to get out there and prove himself.

He'd experienced flashes of it playing games online, but it had been years since he'd felt it like this. He picked up his sword. Phil told him not to lose before he got to the semis. Kai gave him a nod, then looked at the arena. Shai gave his arm a squeeze and a smile as he turned, and then he was heading for the tunnel. Locke was already at the centre of the arena when Leo came out of his tunnel, looking as relaxed as ever.

His eyes came up when Leo walked out and his expression changed; it was the same way it had in his last bout. Good. Give me your all. Give me the hardest path to the final. I'll need to beat the best anyway, might as well start now. Leo heard the crowd from above and around him. The noise felt a little different to the earlier bout, more anticipation maybe, with it being the last fight of the round. He ignored it and walked to his mark. Grimgar raised his hand.

Leo raised the sarren, blade rested over the back of his neck, both hands holding the grip over his left shoulder. Locke raised the kolven into a fighting stance. The hand dropped. Locke moved instantly, darting at Leo in an attempt to catch him by surprise and get inside his guard. Not happening. Leo brought the blade down in a vertical slash, the edge whistling through the air and narrowly missing Locke as the smaller man killed his momentum and stepped back at the last moment.

He grinned; he'd felt the wind of that strike. He came again, jabs and swipes thrown in a flurry of movement. Leo stepped back, deflecting blows and trying to find the timing to counter. Fuck, he's fast. Locke kept the pressure on, combinations coming from all angles with Leo just managing to keep up. Then Locke's guard opened — just slightly, just long enough — and Leo committed to it. There. The opening closed before he'd finished the thought.

Locke had already redirected, the kolv sliding past Leo's counter and driving into his armoured chest before Leo had registered what had happened. One-nil. Leo reset, breathing. A feint. He'd bought it completely. I'm getting trapped in his rhythm; I can't let that happen again. Grimgar's hand came down again and the fight restarted. The restart came and Leo made a decision. He stopped trying to keep up and started moving sideways instead, cutting across Locke's path rather than straight back.

It meant Locke had to turn to follow him rather than just running him down. It helped. Being at an angle meant Locke couldn't keep striking with both kolven without over-extending. Leo watched Locke's feet while they circled, this newer pace giving him a chance to think. Just before the right kolv came, Locke's weight shifted left. It was small, barely there. Leo let it happen once without doing anything. Then again. He kept moving and waited for the next attempt. The third time it happened, he stepped across it.

The strike missed and Locke pulled back fast, eyes moving to Leo's sword hand. Leo kept moving. He started mixing in attacks while keeping Locke off-centre. I wonder if that'll work. Let's try it. He threw another vertical slash, followed by a slower horizontal sweep. It missed. That was fine. He threw the same combo again — same angle and speed — and watched Locke start to read it. The third time he started the horizontal slash, Locke stepped back then forward, preparing to guard against the follow-up.

Leo let the slash drop short and pushed the blade forward into a stab instead. The guard was in the wrong place, but the blade wasn't. A red mark was left in the same place Locke had placed one on Leo just before. Leo smirked and Locke matched it. The crowd's cheering got louder. One-one. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Leo shifted his stance, blade raised and angled across his chest to the left.

He stepped forward and the blade swept out in a fast horizontal arc. Before Locke had finished stepping back, Leo's wrists were already turning, carrying it upward; the second cut just missed his chin. He pulled his arms in, blade sitting up on the right side of his chest, and stepped back. Locke came forward. The blade swept out again immediately as Leo stepped back, looping from his right side up and across.

Locke got the kolven up and pushed against it, trying to redirect the weight away, and the sarren went exactly where Leo wanted it: sliding up and over his left shoulder. Locke's arms had followed the redirect, pushed out to his right. That's it. Now dodge. Leo once again brought it up over his shoulder. Locke was right in front of him, arms still recovering. Leo's hips turned and the blade began to move with them.

Locke read it; he couldn't step back with his momentum still carrying him forward, and he couldn't bring his arms back in time. His feet went right. The blade didn't come down. Leo pivoted into the turn, the same motion swinging the pommel around with his full body weight behind it. Locke had moved directly into it. The pommel smashed into his forehead. Two-one. Locke straightened up slowly. His hand went to his head for a second before he dropped it and looked at Leo.

"Really? The face?"

"I mean, you could try blocking?" The grin came back. Once again, they reset. Locke rolled his neck and changed his stance. He turned side-on, leading shoulder forward, his back arm dropping behind his body and out of sight. Leo kept his eyes on the forward kolv and tried to work out what the other hand was doing. Nothing about the stance made sense. Side-on meant his reach was shorter and the forward shoulder was exposed. If anything, it made him easier to hit. Leo pushed forward anyway, throwing a testing cut.

Locke stepped back just out of range. Another cut, same result. Leo stepped in deeper on the third, extending the strike to close the distance. Locke sidestepped. The hidden arm came down over the sarren from above. Too late Leo saw it: the kolv was flipped, Locke holding the long end instead of the handle, the right-angle grip piece sitting over the blade like the top of a triangle as his weight came down through both sides of it. The blade stopped dead. Leo pulled back.

The curve of the sarren caught against the handle and locked. He shifted his weight to step back and try again — The forward kolv was already coming. It caught him square in the chest before he'd finished working out how to get free. Two-two. Locke released the hook and stepped back to the centre. Leo stood with the sarren free in his hands, looking at it for a second. He'd been saving that. Leo reset to the centre and looked at Locke. I can do this. I trained for this.

I need to stop thinking so much and just move. The way Kai taught me. He came forward. The diagonal cut came first, Locke getting his kolven up for it, and Leo was already turning the strike into a thrust before the block landed, the blade finding the gap the parry had opened. Locke stepped back. Leo followed without deciding to, a wide horizontal sweeping across as his feet moved forward, one thing becoming the next without a pause between them. Locke blocked it and stepped back again. Leo kept going.

A stab that became a slash that became a feint — his body pulling the strike short before Locke's guard could meet it — then a stab through the opening the feint had created. Locke caught that one, but he was moving backwards faster, always one step behind, not finding the space he needed to throw anything back. Another feint. Another slash off the reaction it drew. Leo didn't notice the crowd going quiet.

He was solely focused on striking and moving — not thinking about what came next, not reading tells or watching feet, just flowing from one attack to the next. The techniques came without conscious thought, each one leading into the next, faster and more connected than anything he'd put together in training. He wasn't deciding what to throw. It was just happening. More instinct than strategy. Locke was handling it, barely.

The kolven were moving constantly, redirecting, absorbing, but he was still going backwards and the counters weren't landing because there was no gap to throw them into. A step. Another. Neither of them tracking where they were in the circle. Locke's heel found the wall. His weight shifted back but there was nowhere left to run. He looked up as Leo drove the sarren through the gap, the blade stabbing into his chest. Leo stopped moving. He took a deep breath as conscious thought came back. He was met by silence.

He looked at Locke. Locke was standing with both kolven at his sides, chest heaving, staring at Leo with a shocked expression. He looked at Grimgar. Grimgar looked back at him, the same shocked look Leo had just seen on Locke's face. He raised his arm slowly. The crowd waited another second before they suddenly came back to life, their roar of excitement the loudest it had been so far today. What the hell just happened? Leo straightened up, hands going to his knees, breathing.

He ran back through it in his head — the diagonal cut, the thrust, the slash, the feints — he remembered all of it. He just couldn't explain how it had connected the way it did or how to do it again if someone asked him to. It had felt inevitable in the moment, each strike finding the next without him having to plan for it. He thought about that Bruce Lee clip he'd seen years ago. Be like water. Flow around obstacles. He'd always thought it was a nice idea. He wondered now if that was what that had been.

Flow state. Not thinking, just moving, everything he'd learned in the last month coming out in the right order without him having to decide any of it. He thought he'd experienced something similar before. Those few rare moments from his thousands of League games where he'd somehow dodged everything flung at him while still putting out damage. Then afterwards, he'd leaned back from his screen thinking he'd never be able to do that again if he tried.

The kind of thing that happens once and lives in the memory because there's no way you're that good. More luck than anything else. Either way, he had absolutely no idea how to explain it. Locke walked toward him. The grin was gone, but he didn't look sad. Impressed, maybe?

"What was that?" Locke said.

"Honestly, man. No idea," Leo said with a shrug. Locke laughed and extended his arm, wrist out. Leo gripped it.

"Never seen anything like it. You suddenly felt like a different person," Locke said.

"I'd be annoyed you were playing with me and hiding that, but the look on your face tells me you're as shocked as I am." Leo nodded. He had no idea what else to say.

"I'd love to share a drink at the celebration tomorrow. You in?" asked Locke.

"Sure, man. Sounds good." Locke smiled, tapped him on the shoulder, then turned and walked to his tunnel. Leo looked up toward the stands. Still couldn't make out faces from here, but he knew where they were. I wonder what excuse Phil comes up with for why that isn't going to stop him winning. He grinned and turned back toward the tunnel.