Foxtails and Fairytales: Facades and Fables of the Phantom Prince

[Arc 12] Ch. 8 Inari's Curse

[Sebas]

I take a deep breath and feel the magic coursing through me.

I feel a surge in magic from Nerinin. Her affinity for wind magic isn't that much lower than mine which means I can't pull any tricks against her like I did against the ice princess.

"ON MY MARK!" I heard Professor Turner's voice echoing within the sphere. "3," it's a really good defensive sphere if I... "2," ...say so myself. "1." it makes me proud. "Fight!"

Nerinin was all too ready for the match to start and stomped the ground to create a smokescreen with... Nerinin uses sand-attack. I said it okay!

She then used my tried-and-true burst powered winking to zig-zag toward me... like she was using Quick-attack.

Dammit Sebas take this seriously. Use double team!

I dodge Nerinin's first strike but not without the mental damage taken from my own cringe nerd narration. It's super effective.

As effective as Nerinin's heel kick that sent me flying.

She had even mastered the awkward weight shifting movements that made it hard to read your movements.

Instead of letting myself collide with the barrier I wind shifted as I spun and created three wind duplicates.

"I've seen this trick before." Nerinin said as she walked out of the sand cloud. "It won't work on me." she grinned.

"You ain't seen nothing yet." I answered.

"Good."

I circled around her with my duplicates and used a claw attack with wind blades scoring the air from each fingertip. The attack had a max effective range of a meter which made it the shotgun-like variant of the wind slash.

I have gone to great lengths to hone my martial arts and I'm pretty good, especially compared to my last life at this age. But Nerinin really is in a class of her own. Her mom is a close-quarters-combat specialist and her number one mentor was a Magus.

Nerinin dodged and deflected every attack. She even counterattacked with chantless wind slashes. What she didn't expect right away was that her attacks went right through my duplicates and me without causing any damage. And so we reached an impasse, I was someone she couldn't touch, and she was someone that resisted my every attack. It lasted for about a minute, but it was very clear to both of us that in a fight of endurance... which meant that she had the edge.

I had a flashback to when she lost to Lancelot. Where she tired out when forced against Lancelot's composure and defense. Nerinin was definitely one to learn, and she had.

My speed, my strength, my size, my magic, my tricks, me. She could counter everything.

Don't get me wrong. She wasn't on the defensive in the least, quite the opposite actually.

She was skillfully on the attack as we used the whole area as the battle continued on. Or should I say it was more of a hunt than a battle. She chased me as if she were tracking her prey, learning from every moment. She was in the moment but... I was just counting down the seconds.

I knew I was pushing myself. But a part of me was trying to prove a point... and I was the idiot that fell on my sword to prove a point. I doubled and then tripled the number of my wind duplicates.