How to fight dirty (3)

Edwoyn~~ Thursday afternoon 3:08pm - Outside.

Of all the things she had put me through, I wasn't about to give up on this deranged teenage girl!

Her fearsome stick was attacking me from all sides and it was only getting worse: I almost received several whips that she sent with her long legs in my face. The vulgar mercenary could always intimidate me, we both knew that she would be forced to treat me if she hurt me at all. Bad news, torture was an odious practice that hung over me like a sword of Damocles... Her limbs split the air at once, leaving unpleasant hisses on my bewildered face. Hearing them was not only distracting but also annoying. She was able to make me, a prince trained with the most advanced techniques of the elite, look like a beginner...

A dancer with blades, that is what she reminded me of.

Accomplished with divine grace, the dance she led fascinated me. Her long silver and scarlet hair swirled, her whole body undulated so nimbly that you would have thought she was going to whisper softly in our ears “Majesty, do you even love your family? The nobles are nothing but scum!”.

Once planted in your mind, this cruelty was sure to poison your life. She wasn't completely wrong, and it was this tiny bit of truth that was eating you up inside...

Blow after blow, the rhythm of the sequences became unbearable. His shots were taken from incalculable angles, it was enough to amaze anybody. I could only be fascinated by her daring technique. How many years did she have to perfect it?

The assassin executed her technique mechanically without giving me a moment's rest. I wondered if my opponent was really human; if rational thoughts were running through her mind. The portrait of this girl reminded me of Mother's melancholy.

What does she want? What is she thinking? Do I have the power to give meaning to her existence? This punctuated the questions that bothered me as I watched Mother lock herself in her room to cry at the first opportunity. Thus swirled the regrets and frustration of not being able to do anything to help her, frozen behind the closed door.

My opponent seemed just as disinterested in her surroundings as Mother was. However, she had nothing to do with the queen and did not deserve my pity.

“I pity you, you're just one of their puppets!”

And what do you think you are? Free to kill because we are imperfect? No matter how much you deny it, the truth will follow you: you are a monster, I wanted to answer, now that I knew more about him. I didn't have the chance to do so anymore, this tyrant decided to censor my words with magic when what I said to her upset her.

Could the monsters be saved? Redeem their souls in any way?

What was the point? Nobody likes monsters. No one wants them.

My muscles were gradually going numb despite the hours of training I regularly did in the palace. What power! Everything would be explained if she had forged her strength in solitude and the desire for revenge.

I was envious of the precious energy this mercenary was saving with particularly efficient movements and sequences. She wasn't even out of breath! This trick was the detail that would make the difference between my fatigue and her perfect performance.

To think that she can't be older than me... How is such a difference in strength possible?

Don't be fooled by her slender curves: she had great power inside her, and worst of all, she was not afraid to use it. I found it hard to imagine that someone so ingenious at first glance would be one of the most dangerous criminals in the country. Why had she traded a normal life for this dirty job?

Enough is enough! I didn't care what her reasons were. Whatever they were, nothing justified all the cruelty and harm she was doing to me. I didn't know her, not to mention the fact that I had never done anything to her that warranted such disproportionate retaliation.

I had already lost everything I owned, what a rotten world! I had shamefully lost my place as a prince, my family, my life, everything that was even remotely precious to me. I could not even defend myself during this night kidnapping, your prince was, it must be admitted, a complete coward!

I was tired of remaining passive and suffering humiliation after humiliation! In this outfit, I was no better than a doorman who was erased from his memory as soon as he had cleared our entrance.

Stay focus! You're not going to let a mere mercenary, a girl at that, crush you and mold you to her unreasonable desires!

She was not a ‘mere mercenary’. This thing, whatever it was... had given up purity years ago.

In a way, it was distressing to see that citizens could fall so low into depravity. All that strength, all that talent... it could have been used for good.

Despite her unbearable personality, this teenager was much better than having to kill for a living. I wouldn't have hesitated to make her my personal guard... if I had met such a person under different circumstances. This mercenary was vulgar, yes, but surprisingly talented: a perfect creation of evil... The Revolutionaries seemed to me harmless next to this killing machine. As proof, they had preferred to send her to accomplish the most delicate task in their place. And she had almost succeeded...

In a last burst of courage, I tried to foresee what would happen next. Until then, I had only avoided and parried her attacks: it was time to go on the offensive and prove my worth to her. I was used as a springboard in spite of myself when she sent a kick in my stomach to rush in another direction.

I could feel that her technique had changed. She was hardly using her stick anymore. Her sequences were much more complex and careful. She jumped more often to gain power. All these changes suggested to me that she was trying to defeat me with one final blow because she was losing patience.

Each new blow was the perfect opportunity to finish her off and that's when it became possible to read her movements. They were patterns learned by heart which she reproduced when my position allowed it. The first movements of a pattern were only small strokes to distract me by overloading me with information. What really mattered was to gain momentum with her movements between strokes. After three or four hits came to the real attack, the one aimed at a place she had forced me to leave exposed by her previous strikes.

I naturally tended to protect the areas she had already injured. The perfidious calculator used this reflex to create holes in my defense, exactly where she intended to strike her final blow.

She was not adapting to me, I was adapting to her. She was controlling me like a puppet without me being aware of it.

Jumping into my stomach as she had just done was intended to contract my abdominal muscles, which automatically bent me forward. If she wanted me to go down, it was necessarily a sign that she was going to whip me. So her blow would come from my blind spot, from above.

In the blink of an eye, she was already gaining momentum by spinning around. She would strike to the left.

Your feint won't work this time. Despite what you want me to believe, it's not completely improvised, you're following a logic.

His attack was exactly as I expected. Because I had anticipated it, his movement seemed slightly slower than the others.

I could do it, I could get the upper hand and prove to her that she was underestimating me.

When she turned to face me, I blocked her leg just before she twisted my neck. I had her trapped in my arms, and I was not going to let her go. I pulled forward sharply, causing her to fall backward.

What do you say, are you still so clever?

With a well-placed kick, I kicked her weapon away. Then, with my stick, I attacked her ribs as she had taught me before the duel. I was eager to repay her for her many punishments and sadistic castration.

That's for treating me like dirt! And that's for drugging me! And knocking me out! And insulting me...!

This criminal had it coming to me. She was now going to taste the bitterness of my long-suppressed frustration. I hit her again and again, without missing an opportunity to hurt her badly. It was so easy to forget that I was beating someone because my victim did not react in any way. Her inert body took the blows with a neutral expression. Looking at her like that, no one would have guessed that this girl had bruises on her ribs.

Something was definitely wrong with her: was it me who didn't hit her hard enough to make her feel pain?

Her calmness made me want to knock her out more until I gave her a really good reason to be insensitive.

My fantasy ended when the injured girl decided that it would stop. I think it was my slowness that failed me: the slayer turned away and got up with an impressive stunt that she should never have been able to pull off in her condition. Once on her feet, she threatened me with her fists, staring at me for a long time. With or without a weapon, it didn't seem to make any difference to her.

Her silence was terrible, but the smile on her lips was even worse. She finally gave me her full attention, glad to have a bit of a challenge. Her esteem for me had just increased, I could tell by that nervous smile.

I felt as if I could hear her thoughts “Here we are! This is a bit of potential! I was about to conclude that you were a lost cause.”

Contrary to what I had thought, my teacher did not take training lightly, every move she made pushed me to my limit in order to make me progress. It was strangely gratifying on her part, but I felt even more offended.

Did she pity me?

I thought I had a chance of rising further in his esteem when I instantly broke in two. I couldn't understand what was happening to me, a hand plunged into my stomach so fast that my eyes didn't have time to follow the movement.

Did I have a hole in my stomach? The strange feeling that my organs were leaving me led me to believe that she had opened a passage in my flesh.

A surge of adrenaline shot through me. Pain seized me, my lungs were on fire. I was forced to spit out all my air with a trickle of saliva. I staggered backward, very badly. I had definitely been fooled again...

His smile became even crueler than I had imagined.

You were kidding me all along, weren't you?

Her eyelashes had stopped wrinkling for a while, her dark red locks had stiffened and the trees were no longer waving in the wind. The environment had become... frozen. On closer inspection, I realized that things were still moving, but more slowly. Time seemed to expand.

How...?!

My excruciating internal tearing was echoing in other parts of my body. The pressure went up a notch. I couldn't stand the pain any longer, I was going to explode from the inside!

Helplessly, I was boiling with rage, despair, and determination. Suddenly, things became more intense. The mercenary's face slowly rose, then formed a dumbfounded pout.

What's going on?!

The horrible feeling that imminent danger was approaching gripped me.

I was hot, very hot. I was melting on the spot. I was shattering into thousands of fragments. And I could do nothing but detail everything, to lose myself in bright red eyes and dark pupils. Their blackness expanded to plunge the world into absolute and impartial darkness...

Had I just lost consciousness? What was this empty, creepy place?

Where is the slayer and the clearing?! Will she die? Will her death give me freedom?

As soon as I thought of freedom, the thought that I had no control and could be stuck in this icy blackness for the rest of my life made me panic.

Let me out of here! I want to go back! I want to go back! Please! I'm so scared. I don't want everything to go back to the way it was. Everything is so... so missing here! I have to get back my sight! I have to finish this fight!

Was that the end?

Strange voices of different tones and kinds began to echo in my head

“She has crossed the line, she must be punished, no matter what her rank. We will execute her first thing in the morning. Our survival depends on it, and it always has, Son. Stop fooling yourself, a king cannot rule without sacrifice. These terrorists are a threat we must eradicate immediately. Let me set an example for you.”

My thoughts could not be organized, everything was confusing. The voices were familiar but different, forming a coarse cacophony. One of them was imitating me perfectly.

They made my heart bleed in a whirlwind of conflicting feelings, especially Father's. I turned abruptly, and the voice of Father was the only one I could hear. I turned abruptly, scanning my surroundings for an exit, for a light... I took a step forward. I stopped short. I could move again, but I didn't feel like I was moving forward. I was moving in a vacuum. The blackness took away all my bearings, it was frightening, nauseating, and suffocating.

This black dimension was perhaps the nothingness where the souls of the dead ended up...

“Stop this immediately, I forbid you to oppose my authority. Stop it! Remember! Let me... Let me do it!”

The voices kept struggling in my head as if something was fighting them. It wasn't coming from me? No, it couldn't have come from me. I wasn't doing anything the voices were describing. It didn't make sense. It couldn't be. It had to be a spell from the mercenary to confuse me. With her illegal magic, we were never at the end of our surprises...

“What have they done to you... N-nanah? It seems I can't-“

Suddenly, an invisible force threw me backward. When I opened my eyes again, I had fallen into the sand, which formed a fine cloud of dust. The colors had returned, and the elements around me had started to move again. The relief was so great that it took my breath away.

And my teatch-?

She was no longer with me. How long had I been unconscious?

I saw a figure in the distance. I recognised her by her silver hair, the tips of which were tinged with deep red. The teenager was pinned against a tree at the other end of the clearing. What was she doing there? Was she sleeping?

My thoughts became clearer as time passed. We were in the middle of a sparring match and she had given me that punch in the stomach. I grabbed it suddenly... What the hell had I done after that?

I couldn't remember.

Looking at him more closely, I noticed that his body was not moving, and this time it was not a question of time perception.

One thought took over all the others: did I hurt her badly, or kill her? I didn't know if it was a wish or a fear.

The girl collapsed further against the tree. I realized with horror that she was in a bad way and that it was most probably my doing. Guilt-stricken, I got up heavily and hurriedly approached her.

Her blurred figure detailed itself and I was pierced by her gaze, still in shock.

She did not take her eyes off me for a second. She was not smiling at all. I didn't know that look yet, but it was sparkling with excitement, as if she had won this fight, when in fact she hadn't.

Inexplicably, I understood that I had entered the web of a cold-blooded predator, that I had set a fatal trap... and that this was only the beginning of the hostilities between us.