Chương 103: 102 - Merge

Sera was standing on the roof above the courtyard, looking at Alexandra. How long had she been there? Alexandra tore her eyes away and looked at Kashin. Her teacher's expression was unreadable, but she thought that, maybe, he pointed her out on purpose. After all, if she wasn't keeping an eye on her, Sera had no reason to be hiding on the roof. She couldn't have known that Alexandra would come here today. She couldn't have known her skills were ready to merge.

Zamar took a step back, moving closer to the wall, and Sera jumped down into the courtyard. She gave Alexandra a look.

"The Magus will be delighted to learn that your skills are coming along so quickly." Alexandra tightened her grip on her weapons. Paranoia or not, Sera was suspicious. Sera turned to Kashin.

"He'll be less happy about other things, teacher." Alexandra looked at Kashin.

"What other things?" Kashin's expression didn't change.

"The mood of the Magus is of little importance. Grab a spear and a dagger so we can get started." Alexandra saw Zamar's eyes widen at the casual mention of the Magus. She still had difficulties reconciling her image of Raymond with what he had become. Sera picked up the two weapons. She was responsible for the spear and the dagger. Kashin had the sword and the axe, while Alexandra wielded the mace and the sickle.

"Use only Combat Sense and your weapon mastery skills," Kashin instructed.

"I have Sure Footing. I can't deactivate it."

"That is fine. Do not hold back your strikes. We can endure," Kashin said.

"Let's start." Kashin moved, sword rising from his hip in an arc that held no impatience, no excess. The axe was quiet behind him. Alexandra raised the mace and found her teacher had already redirected the blade. She scrambled to raise her sickle. The impact ran up through her arm to the elbow. Sera hit her from the right. Spear butt. Shoulder. Alexandra stumbled forward. Fuck, I need to focus. She let Combat Sense lay both Keepers across her awareness.

Position, angle, distance: she knew where they were, not what to do. Kashin again. His sword cut through the air slowly. Yet, somehow, she couldn't escape it. When she moved, the sword followed. Inexorable. She couldn't widen the distance. She faced it, caught the sword with her sickle, and found the axe already reaching at the end of the sequence. The head of the axe grazed her shoulder. Alexandra threw her body to the side to avoid a thrust of Sera's spear.

The blue-robed Keeper pivoted and planted her dagger into her forearm. Just the very tip. She stepped back. Sera's spear shaft found the back of her knee. She lurched. Kashin was there, the flat of his sword unhurried across her ribs. Sure Footing kept her upright. Her breathing was heavy.

"Fight back," Kashin said, indifferent. She stopped moving backward. She'd been approaching the fight wrong. Just because she was fighting a Platinum and an Emerald didn't mean she had to be on the defensive. She tightened her grip on the sickle and moved for Kashin. His sword came in an arc. She stepped past it and caught the blade on the inside of the sickle's curve and pulled. The axe followed. She leaned into it. Hit his forearm with the mace. He didn't react. Sera closed her retreat with one step.

Alexandra pressed anyway. She threw her weight into the mace, aiming for the spear shaft. Sera pivoted and reached with her dagger, scraping Alexandra's elbow. The Keeper had to take two steps back to avoid a swipe of her sickle.

"Better," Kashin said. She rolled her shoulder out and took stock. She'd landed one strike. The mace and sickle still felt like two separate problems in her hands. She had a vague sense there was something she was missing about how they fit together, but it stayed vague. Then there were the other four weapons to integrate into her style. She gritted her teeth and charged at Sera, trying to close the distance before the spear could find her.

Sera sidestepped with ease, and Alexandra felt the dagger nick her wrist as she passed. She spun. Kashin was already there. His sword came from the left. She caught it on the sickle and shoved it aside. He let the blade carry and brought the axe up behind her deflection. She ducked. The axe passed over her head. She drove the mace at his knee, and he was gone, back two steps, the sword already resetting. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Sera's spear found her shoulder again. Alexandra staggered. You are not going to beat them. So stop trying to beat them. She wasn't fighting to win. She was fighting to merge her skills. Kashin moved. She raised the mace, not to stop the sword but to occupy it, and pivoted into Sera's space. The Keeper pulled her spear back and stepped left. Alexandra followed the step, pressed with the sickle. Sera's dagger came up. Alexandra let it scrape down her forearm and shoved her elbow into Sera's chest. Sera made a sound.

Kashin's axe caught Alexandra across the back. Flat of the blade. She pitched forward, and Sera caught her with the spear shaft across the collarbone, and she went down on one knee, weapons still in her hands.

"Up," Kashin said. She got up. * It was the fifth time she went down. She stayed down for a moment longer than the others. Not from exhaustion. The sun had peeked through the clouds. She wasn't tired. She was looking at the packed dirt in front of her hands and thinking about how she'd caught Kashin's sword on the sickle eight times, and she still didn't know what to do after. She looked at the mace in her right hand. She looked at the sickle in her left. She'd been using them as though they were interchangeable.

As though they'd been chosen at random. They hadn't been. She got up again. * Kashin came in from her right. Sword rising from the hip. She didn't try to stop it. She let it come in and turned with it, let the blade skate off the inside curve of the sickle and slide past her ribs, close enough to feel the air. Her left arm stayed with the motion, keeping contact, keeping the blade occupied, and she hit him twice with the mace before the axe came forward. She stepped back, but kept the sickle's tip in his space.

He accounted for it. Redirected around it. She was already gone. Sera hit her thighs from behind. She'd expected it. She let herself stumble. Fell into Sera's space with her elbow up and hit the Keeper in the jaw with it. Sera's head snapped back, and for half a second she lost the dagger. Alexandra caught her wrist before she could recover it. Held it. She could feel Sera's pulse. Sera looked at her. Kashin's sword stopped an inch from her neck. She knew Sera could shake her off. Her attributes were higher.

"Release," he said. She let go. Stepped back. Her thigh ached where the spear had caught her. She rolled her neck.

"Again," Kashin said. To both of them. * She started to see the weapons. Not her weapons. All of them. She saw the spear's range, the dagger's scrappiness. She saw the sword's grace and the axe's sharpness. The mace had weight, the sickle control. She felt all six weapons move together with Combat Sense. For a moment, everything was clear. Then she stopped seeing weapons. Instead, she saw the fight. All of it.

Kashin's sword telegraphed by the drop of his shoulder before it left his hip, the axe trailing it like a shadow trails its object. Sera's spear betrayed by its length, the dagger always coming in answer to her proximity. There were spaces. Kashin moved. She read the shoulder and stepped into him, inside the arc's origin, where the blade had no leverage. The axe followed, and she turned the handle against her wrist, used the deflection to cross his body, and came toward Sera fast. Sera planted the spear.

Alexandra dropped. One knee on the dirt. She drove the sickle into the gap between the shaft and Sera's forearm and spun. The spear came loose. She rose into Sera's guard with the mace already moving. Sera caught it on the dagger. The lock held only because of their difference in strength. Against someone of her level, the dagger would have flown. No one moved.

"Disengage," Kashin ordered. Alexandra caught Zamar's gaze at the edge of the courtyard. The boy looked conflicted. Surely, he wasn't looking forward to the day it'd be his turn to merge his skills.

"Congratulations, Miss Alexandra," Kashin said. She raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"Why?" he repeated.

"Well, I believe you've got it." She turned to the journal she'd left on the ground. Dispelled it. And summoned it again in her hands. Combat Sense, Sickle Mastery, Sword Mastery, Axe Mastery, Spear Mastery, Mace Mastery, and Dagger Mastery have merged into Manyfold Style.

"How is it?" Kashin asked.

"Fivefold Style? Sixfold, perhaps?" Alexandra glanced at Sera. She didn't really want to reveal her skills in front of her. But she felt like she owed it to Kashin. If Kashin knew, Raymond would eventually hear of it. She hated it. Zamar took a step forward. She exhaled.

"Manyfold Style." Kashin's lips curved ever so slightly.

"I see. Interesting." He turned to his younger student.

"We shall be adding the sickle to your routine." Sera had a wide smile plastered on her face. Alexandra ignored her. She flipped the pages of her journal, looking for her new skill. Manyfold Style – Uncommon Every weapon is a tool. Every tool is a weapon. You see the battlefield for what it is, and the battlefield loves you for it. Each level improves your proficiency with every melee weapon. Each level improves your read of the battlefield. She swallowed. The merged skill was more than the sum of its parts.

Proficiency with every melee weapon was nice, but it was the second effect that caught her attention. Improving her read of the battlefield seemed like a very broad effect. Alexandra closed her journal. She met Sera's gaze. Even if she knew the two Keepers held back, she'd shown she could fight. It was only a matter of time before she reached their level. Perhaps it was more her divine class than her own achievements, but in the end, it was her.

She looked at Kashin, who'd already started showing Zamar how to hold a sickle.

"Thank you for your help, teacher." He turned to her.

"We'll stop the regular lessons, but feel free to consult me anytime. You're more talented than you give yourself credit." Alexandra hid a grimace. She wasn't good with compliments. She turned and walked away. She had a daily quest to complete.