A New Battlefield (5)

"Good evening to every fan who loves Nova Arena! I'm Shinohara Kenichi, caster for NJA. Right beside me is Ito Masanori, the color commentator who has been with Japan's Nova Arena since the very beginning."

"Hello. Ito Masanori here."

"Plenty of you must be wondering why we've been handed an Amateur League broadcast instead of the Pro League. But ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a bout this big doesn't go out without commentary! The moment we heard Akki and Ninja had been matched, we came running!"

"And right from the start, Ninja is the one taking the distance. His positioning is seriously impressive. That looks like movement born of experience. He isn't rushing."

"Akki, on the other hand, is playing it passive and fighting a pure feeling-out battle. He's chosen not to force a clash in the early going!"

"Keep this up, though, and the pace belongs to Ninja. No way around it."

A breath cut itself short, and Ninja's curved blade knifed in.

Go Tae-min set his sword and brushed the cut aside with almost nothing behind it. A bright, needling pain shot through his palm.

That strength is no joke.

If his body had been only half-trained, blocking that strike would still have cost him his neck, sword and all.

Steel rang. In the same instant Ninja's blade kinked like a snake and came for his flank. He had read the line and rewritten the angle mid-swing — and it was not a one-and-done attack, either.

Tae-min gave ground in a long retreat and committed everything to defense.

The technique's as filthy as the physicality.

It isn't the strong who survive. It's the ones who survive who become strong. Ten years of battlefields had beaten that truth into Go Tae-min's bones.

The man in front of him was a fossil among fossils, twelve thousand fights deep in the Amateur League alone. The cuts came in a chain and cinched around his windpipe. Ninja held the range with vicious precision and never once offered a window to answer. He looked ready to commit, then vanished; looked ready to fade, then the point was already coming back in. A hunter, through and through.

Tae-min took it all without rushing, tracing a circle along the altar's outer rim. It wasn't that no counter ever appeared. Every time one did, Ninja was already gone — or he had torn the line of his own attack apart and drawn a new one. As if he already knew exactly how Tae-min meant to answer.

Tae-min let out a thin breath of a laugh.

Twelve thousand fights. Of course he does.

Fighting someone that experienced is miserable work. Never making a mistake is only the floor, and their sense for when to hit and when to leave is sharp enough to raise the hair on your arms. The man in front of him was exactly that.

Now he's fishing, too.

Tae-min played at being beaten and slipped his sword toward the gap Ninja had shown him. Ninja ignored it like he'd been waiting for the bite and drove his point at the space between Tae-min's eyes.

Across his retinas, the red lines wrenched and snarled — a warning.

Give up flesh. Take the bone. The kind of trade you mostly saw from people who had lived long enough to learn it.

Tae-min almost enjoyed the cold kiss of air across his brow. He tipped his head a fraction and let the line go by. A gap no thicker than a sheet of paper. Ninja's curved blade cut nothing but empty air.

"That was close for Akki! One wrong step in and he was a retire waiting to happen!"

"The gap in level is wider than I expected. This isn't Akki being bad so much as Ninja being exceptional."

Clang. A shriek of steel. Another clang.

Ninja crashed in at chest, thigh, and shoulder. A cut. A thrust. A cut again. Each one spare, each one exact, and all of it unnervingly smooth. If it didn't land, he took it back at once. If it was stopped, the next attack was already leaving his hands.

Tae-min caught the blade, bled off the chain of cuts, and thought. Shock ran up the steel and left his arm buzzing.

Not a wasted motion in it.

Another cut, the angle changed, and nimble footwork stapled itself to the strike.

Every single attack is a problem.

This wasn't merely a man who had fought a lot. It was a current worn smooth across countless battles — movement so refined that the words Amateur League felt like a joke. He deserved to be called the strongest.

And yet the longer the exchange stayed airtight, the deeper and quieter Tae-min's breathing sank.

But isn't this too mechanical?

The red lines etched across his vision were drawing a pattern. At the start he had barely been able to chase them. Now, before a line was even drawn, he could roughly guess where Ninja meant to go.

Steel met steel, and Ninja shoved. Tae-min's back skidded toward a broken stone pillar at the altar's edge.

"Ah... what a shame. More than five minutes in, and we still haven't seen a real counter ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from Akki."

"After all that expectation, this pace is a little frustrating. Was the weight of that last win too much?"

Tae-min gave his weight to the blade driving him. His feet slid. His back closed on the stone wall rimming the altar. Ninja, riding the momentum, took one more step in.

That was the moment.

A wet, shearing chop.

"...!"

The left arm wrapped in black cloth shot into the air. Eyes wide, Ninja backpedaled.

"Oh! What just happened?! Ninja's left arm is gone!"

"The instant he stepped into the gap, Akki pretended to be driven back, showed him an opening, and cut the incoming arm clean off! A perfect counter!"

Even with the arm gone, Ninja fixed his gaze on Go Tae-min and rebuilt his stance. Tae-min didn't care what he rebuilt. He closed at once and stepped inside Ninja's measure.

Steel cracked. Ninja barely kept a thrust from punching through his heart, then vanished into the ruin's dark, where the moonlight didn't reach.

Tae-min followed without a heartbeat of hesitation.

The stage is set.

Time to put the highlight on this show.

A short cut first, skimming low. A light check, meant to break his balance. Then, half a beat late, the thrust — a strike thrown to steal the eyes.

Only then did Ninja answer. The curved blade in his right hand came back on a diagonal.

He bit.

The red lines crowding Tae-min's vision all pointed at one place. He leaned his torso back a fraction and torqued the sword, and in the same motion planted his left foot and stepped inside.

Blades kissed and slid past each other. A dull impact traveled out through his fingertips.

And then—

A chop.

In the instant Ninja tried to counter, Tae-min's sword took the shorter line and opened his flank.

"Oh! Ninja just ate a big one!"

"Akki had the timing of that counter read perfectly! He leaked an opening on purpose and cut the exact moment Ninja came in. A textbook feint!"

Ninja gave up a step. Tae-min didn't crowd him past reason, but he never let the distance become something Ninja could escape. He held exactly the gap he refused to surrender, and pressed.

Ninja was strong. No argument. His reads were good and his answers were fast. Twelve thousand real fights had sanded the holes out of his movement.

None of that stacked skill meant anything in front of the answer sheet open across Go Tae-min's eyes.

A machine with enough data on it stops being scary.

His sword cut the empty air along the red lines, almost bored. However Ninja answered, the edge was already past the answer and into the gap beyond it.

The moment that pressure cracked the other man's breathing, Tae-min dropped his level and drove deep inside. Ninja's guard snapped up on reflex.

As if he had been waiting for exactly that—

A horrible sound rode the night air.

This time the wound ran from low on the left to high on the right, carved huge across Ninja's chest.

"A second critical wound! Ninja's been opened up again!"

"Same as the last one. He baited the reaction and took the exact instant it came! Akki has the fight completely!"

The broadcast booth stirred. Tae-min's movement, by contrast, only grew calmer. Cut after cut herded Ninja, though he never clamped down and worried at him. Wherever a red line lay empty he stacked a wound, chewed at the man's breath, and walked him, step by step, to the edge of the cliff.

Steel rang. One arm left, Ninja leveled his sword and barely held. His center was already gone. Tae-min took one more step in. Instead of swinging, he drove a shoulder through and erased the space with his body.

Ninja's back slammed into a broken stone pillar. The room to run was gone.

"Ah! He's been driven into a dead end! This is trouble! There's nowhere left to retreat!"

"The real problem is that even in the dark, Ninja can't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠get a scrap of control! Isn't this the battlefield he likes best? And we are not seeing any of that usual razor in-and-out!"

Ninja clenched his teeth. With only one arm he set his sword and tried to force his balance back. The fight had already tipped a long way.

Tae-min drifted like a ghost along the hairline where Ninja's point almost, almost reached him. One step. Then another. Using the red trajectories as mile markers, he bound Ninja's eyes and breath at once from a gap no thicker than a sheet of paper — a distance the other man could not cut.

"This is incredible to watch! Akki looks more seasoned than Ninja!"

"Look — even now he doesn't go straight in. He's waiting for the moment when Ninja has no choice but to move."

Ninja's shoulder jumped, a tremor so small it barely existed. The tell of a counter meant to steal the fight back. The curved blade came in low.

Hooked.

Once you're on the back foot, the menu gets short. If you can't hide and you can't make range, one option remains. A single all-in. Your life on it.

Ninja's body scattered into the dark and, in the next instant, was in Tae-min's blind side. A last ambush ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that even swallowed the sound of rubble underfoot.

But in Go Tae-min's eyes, one red line had already been drawn clean across that pitch-black — before Ninja appeared at all.

Tae-min turned his body along it. Like a stuntman whose marks were already taped to the floor, he slid into the sliver of space the curved blade left behind as it hissed through empty air.

And then the point sank in.

"Ah...!"

"Akki dodged it! No — not dodged—!"

Ninja's last swing took nothing. Tae-min's sword took his heart, dead center.

The masked man's body locked. Eyes wide, he could not buy himself even one more step. A moment later the blade drew free, and a body that had endured twelve thousand death-matches folded and went down.

The commentators shouted, voices cracking with it.

"It's over!"

"Match complete! Akki puts Ninja down... and becomes the first in Amateur League history to achieve an Undefeated Promotion!"

"Ah... we have waited so long for this. Everyone — Japan finally has a prospect who can aim for the Super League!"

An absurd volume of comments detonated across the stream.

It really was astonishing. Everyone who had watched was losing their minds over a participant who had not even been around for a full month — and this was only an Amateur League match.

The fallen man's body came slowly apart into drifting light, and before long the only thing left on the ruins was silence.

Go Tae-min stood on the altar where the fight had ended and took the falling starlight on his face.

One hundred fights. One hundred wins. Zero losses.

Even on this new battlefield, he had succeeded in carving his name into it.