Miss Rikka had dawned with young Riochiro, both were eagerly awaiting my arrival. You could say it was the same as every day, a practice training with young Takanashi.
But this time it was different. Today was the last day of Riochiro's training, so this match had meaning.
The air of tension between the two young men was palpable, I'm not going to fool myself either. I was also dying of excitement.
This not only represented the end of a common training for this young man, it was the closing of a cycle which had taken up a large part of his short life.
I let young Takanashi prepare for our confrontation. He dressed in a sports uniform and put bandages on his hands so he could get a good grip on the sword.
Then he got into position. I caught another glimpse of his gaze full of courage and determination. Then I tried to project my reflection next to him. A reflection of a young me, when he started fighting on the battlefields.
The image of my dead and angry eyes bounced in my mind. Comparing it to now the image of young Riochiro.
"How much he has grown up." I thought to myself.
Silence drenched the center of the labyrinth at that moment. Miss Rikka watched expectantly from one of the entrances to it, Riochiro held his posture waiting for one of my attacks, the ivy leaves that had fallen to the ground were rocked by the wind.
At this point all three of us knew what this represented. All the effort we had made to get to this point. But there was still one question to be answered.
Would Takanashi Riochiro be able to break his limits?
The constant defeats, the wounds that were in the young Takanashi, the countless fights we had throughout this year, all his determination to get up again and again from the ground? Now in these precise moments, in the next 5 minutes, it was going to be decided if all that had been worth it or not.
With a deep breath, I filled my lungs with oxygen and I ran forward, moving at a great speed.
For this fight, I decided to take the power of a Magnis, so the speed achieved by my steps was fast, but not fast enough to reach Riochiro in a matter of fractions of a second.
I waved my sword, making an arc of fire and imbuing it with a warm flame in passing. I covered my body in intense crimson flames. All this was nothing more than a presentation, an attempt at intimidation to see the young man's reaction.
In front of me, stood that same young man I had tried to intimidate, with an immutable expression, following my movements with his gaze, analyzing every step I took.
Riochiro raised his sword towards me and then took a large step forward to extend the reach of his straight cut.
As if it were a guillotine, the wooden sword swung at me with great power, but it was a blow easy to dodge and predictable at the same time, it was enough for me to use my practice sword to deflect his blow to another side.
Then with a certain agility, I lunged towards one of his sides, making a lateral cut upwards, but clear. I was aware that the young man was going to do this, so in effect, I simply dodged it.
But the true nature of my attack was hidden in my right hand, in which I had a large, volatile flare charged to its fullest. Once I opened my hand, a halo of fire spread to my surroundings, causing the air to buzz and hiss, turning into vapor.
The young Takanashi was also aware of the nature of that attack, so he dodged it without any apparent difficulties.
However, normally, once the young man recoils he instantly attacks again, but now the flames engulfing me and my surroundings made the white-haired boy rethink whether to approach or not.
This caused me to give myself a few seconds to express myself.
-Not bad, young Takanashi. But it's strange that you're not using your casual aggressive and constant fighting style.
The young man didn't say anything to me, he didn't even seem to have paid attention to my words, instead he seemed to be looking at the hand where the fire came from, anticipating for the next attack.
So this was going to be a silent combat, I liked the idea.
I was going to position myself to attack again. But suddenly the young man quickly flexed his legs and jumped on top of me with a leap, almost as if he was teleporting in front of my nose, it was a curious and explosive footwork.
A quick slash grazed my lower jaw without much success, then, another slash passed over my shoulders almost impacting me, lucky that my skill with the sword had not rusted in all these years. Thanks to it I was able to deflect all these deadly blows that the young man was throwing at me.
He began to attack me without boundaries, his attacks were accelerating as he was doing them. With each blow, much more power was being added and I was having more and more difficulty deflecting them with my sword.
Then I knew that the young man was trying to stop me from attacking. He knew that for every attack I launched, he was going to expose himself to a fire attack. A very clever boy.
It was true that I planned to launch a fire attack for every sword attack I made, taking the battle to a middle distance terrain, where I was clearly going to have the advantage.
It seems that young Takanashi foresaw that and approached me as fast as he could, vowing never to get away again.
And it is a feasible strategy, fire attacks have a disadvantage and that is that it takes time to charge them. The body has to release its fluids, it has to heat up to go into combustion and after these two processes, you can finally launch a fire attack.
So getting close to your opponent is not a bad idea, but it is only a temporary solution. Because if you give a Magnis enough time to heat up his entire body, you're going to get a general blast.
So I executed that same plan, I immobilized my own skin, causing a wave of fire and heat to cover everything within 10 meters of me. The young Takanashi dodged this blow, although by the skin of his teeth, if he reacted a thousandth of a second later, he was going to get scorched.
The flames covered everything around him, they began to expand more and more due to the dry leaves that covered the floor near the labyrinth, clearly he was gaining advantage in the terrain. So the young Takanashi began to retreat.
But when it looked like he was going to stand still he adopts a crouching posture. he puts his left foot in front of his right, his right shoulder in my direction, his body covering his sword.
He was going to make a lunge.
Quickly, as if he knew I was going to react, he rushed towards me, like an arrow just out of the bow, through flames and fathoms with agile and long steps. Once in front of me he spun on his own axis using the momentum that the run had given him.
There were many ways to dodge that blow, but I opted for one of the most aggressive, intensifying the flames around me.
But the white-haired boy didn't care about the searing heat that roasted his skin and entered his eyes. He didn't care that his whole body burned, he clung to the idea of sticking to me and pulling me out of that embracing circle with a powerful lunge.
He succeeded, he pulled me out of the circle, but the lunge generated a distance between us, one that would give the advantage of the fight to me.
A minute has passed.
The young man stood before me, panting and sweating, with some slight burns around his face. Sure, catching his breath to attack me again would only take him a second, but no matter what he did, any next move would give me time to charge a powerful fire attack.
How was I going to get through this?
Well, it seemed to be quite clear to him, now he was simply standing at attention, with his legs half-open, well on the ground. He was preparing to receive the attack, or perhaps not?
He in his own way seemed unpredictable, even with all my combat experience, I had never seen anything like it.
Was he trying to quell the attack with his body as I had first thought?
Or perhaps this is one of the "anticipations" Miss Rikka was talking about?
Perhaps a desperate and not at all contrived move?
I didn't know, anything could be the young man's own. I had seen him use every possible tactic in my fights against him. One thing was for sure, he knew how to surprise.
But I only had two seconds to think, any delay would make him attack me first. So I set out to attack him by quickly pouncing on him, this was a feint.
At first glance my attack could be a lunge or a charged attack with speed. At a deeper analysis, I could know that it could be a charge of fire or a blow from above accompanied by a flaming area attack. But for nothing in the world I was going to complicate it so much, it was just a simple feint to attack in a straight line with the sword and take advantage of the momentum to touch his body and explode the attack near him.
As if the boy had seen through me, he lay down on the floor with a fluid movement of his feet and took advantage of the little momentum that the crouch gave him to execute an attack to my ankles.
It was a good move. But he had also anticipated it. Now all that was left was to unleash the charged attack on the ground, taking advantage of his limited mobility, and then he would put an end to the fight.
But when things are put in front of you in such an easy manner, there always remains the question:
"Is that all?"
Of course it wasn't.
With a movement of my feet, Riochiro managed to trip me. Riochiro managed to trip me and deflect my explosive attack from him, just a few centimeters away from his body. But that was enough for him to fly away by the momentum of the explosion, getting out of the range of any attack that could hit him next.
The white-haired boy did not take long to quickly get up and then get back on his guard. Now the right side of his torso was badly burned. But that did not seem to mortify him at all.
Inside his eyes, the gleam of determination still burned brightly.
A small smile escaped me, I couldn't help but let it show on my face. Pride overflowed from inside me.
I had in front of me a full-fledged warrior.
Without wasting time, again the boy approached me, this time without giving him time to charge any attack. So now there was only close combat left, he was no longer going to give me any chance to get away.
Then, the blows began to fly between us, the speed of his mother's sword began to catch up with mine for only a few moments, the boy was beginning to get used to my pattern of blows.
He knew my tendencies every time I was going to attack. A small slow movement, a gesture of a charged blow, my casual leg movement. All that was already learned by him.
Without giving me a single opportunity to attack, the boy began to gain ground near me.
But...
Was that enough to exceed the limit he had set for himself?
Of course it wasn't.
It had already been 2 minutes and 45 seconds.
The boy's attacks were becoming more agitated, his posture was becoming unsteady and certain movements were slower than normal. But he knew within himself that he shouldn't stop. His only leverage against me was running out, but leverage nonetheless.
However, there were only seconds left before he could charge another self-immolation, then, this battle would be won.
As if he could read my thoughts, the boy used his few remaining forces and began to condense them into powerful blows. Each one of them made the grip of my sword tremble, a dull ache ran through the old bones of my hands.
That was his biggest mistake.
With his whole body focused on the attack, he forgot the posture and analysis he had used so much before.
The young man's stance became unbalanced and I did not waste the opportunity. I took advantage of every second that this opening was in front of me and agilely charged a concentrated attack towards the middle of his chest.
The young man's eyes turned white from one moment to the next and the force of the blast sent him flying backwards. Miss Rikka's expression was not altered at all by this attack.
Strange, I thought she would react to her wounded friend. But apparently she was certain that Riochiro would get up again to give me a fight.
And so he did.
With all his strength, the resilient young man got up from the floor, standing firm in his stance.
-This can't end like this, can it? Mr. Kawashima.
I stood on guard as he did.
-I would expect nothing less from you, Takanashi.
Then that young man began to give a strange footwork, as if he was dancing on the tip of his toes. His steps were quick, agile and precise, he approached me in a matter of seconds.
Then the combat started again. The fire intensified even more around me. But the young man didn't care.
He danced among the flames, dodging their heat, avoiding being burned, hissing through them like a snake. Something only remained fixed on me. His gaze, he was still analyzing me.
It had already been 3 minutes and 26 seconds.
Our swords clashed with intensity, our movements anticipated each other, the flames made the young man approach and move away by extended and quick steps.
My visibility was gradually being affected. The flames were so intense and high that they distorted and covered my vision. I could only see a shadow steadily approaching and moving away from me.
Was that his plan since he got up from the floor?
I quickly decided to get out of my own circle of fire, I never thought I could be at a disadvantage inside it. In my left hand, I charged another fire attack so that I could hit the young Takanashi as soon as he came near me.
But that was the question
Where was he going to approach me?
I didn't have time to think of an answer. I only knew that leaving the center of the circle without first analyzing the situation had been a big mistake. Blows from everywhere began to hit my body.
On my back, on my ribs, on my chest, on my head and legs. They weren't strong enough to be considered definitive attacks, but they were strong enough to be able to unbalance my posture.
Once I gave in on that, it was going to be very easy to immobilize me.
It was time to get serious.
I amplified the combustion force out of my body's reach, making my surroundings more volatile, numerous explosions began to happen around me.
In that state it was clear that the young Takanashi could not approach me. However, I still had to get out of the circle of fire that I had created. So I used my right hand to create another explosion that propelled me out of the circle.
When I came out of the flames I could see again without any difficulty. The young Takanashi was wasting no time, once he saw that I came out of the circle he ran towards me so that I would not move away from the range of his attacks.
However, I now used the amplified expansion of the combustion force to throw explosions at him. They were enough to contain him, causing him to slow down.
I also used this to my advantage to corner him and finish him off with a concentrated blast. But Riochiro managed to get out of my corner.
He quickly advanced towards me, dodging explosions and imminent flames. Once again he was close to me, close combat was the only option.
I imbued the wooden sword with flames. But once it crossed with the young Takanashi's sword, it exploded into pieces, it was already burned.
So, to defend myself in this duel, I had only my bare hands left.
It was not the first time I found myself fighting without any weapon, so I put myself on guard again, ready to fight barehanded.
4 minutes and 15 seconds had passed since we started the duel.
I covered the blows of the wooden sword with my forearms, while I waited for a concrete opportunity to attack and connect some blow to the young Takanashi. That opportunity was fortunately given to me, very soon.
At this point in the fight, the young Takanashi was very tired, too tired. His attacks could be precise and fast, but there were times when he had to step back for a moment and stop attacking.
That was my chance.
So I approached him and with my fists impregnated with fire, I gave him a right to his ribs, a hook to his chin, an attack to his sides and an infinity of other blows began to reach various parts of his body.
The young man tried to cover himself and retreat clumsily without any success, while he was hit again and again by the embracing heat of my blows, with no escape.
4 minutes and 30 seconds had passed.
But I was tired too, so when I saw that I was running out of air, I stepped back to catch my breath.
The young Takanashi could barely stand up, the forceful blows had left him dizzy, and on top of that, his compression shirt was largely burned all over.
Only simple strips of elastic fabric were left running all over his torso, revealing his totally burned and scorched body.
Still, the young man did not fall to the ground.
Even with his eyes wobbly and faded, the gleams of determination did not leave his gaze. Once again, he stood on guard, ready to end the fight once and for all.
4 minutes and 42 seconds had passed
My flaming fists collided with the sword of the young Takanashi, at this point, neither of us was in a position to dodge the blows of the other, so we attacked each other without relying on blocks, only receiving the blows of the opponent.
The one who could stand the longest was the winner.
4 minutes and 45 seconds.
The blows began to intensify more and more. The young Takanashi had nowhere left to draw strength to attack, but he was still raising his sword again and again, giving more and more powerful blows, using his own momentum and weight of his body.
4 minutes and 50 seconds.
The attacks did not stop in any second. The blows begin to feel like heavy stones. Blood begins to pour from our wounds, splattering both us and the floor.
4 minutes and 56 seconds.
None of us can do it anymore, our blows start to give way and become weak impact, the strength of our arms starts to leave them.
4 minutes and 59 seconds.
While facing me, Takanashi Riochiro, loses consciousness standing up.