Separated by a few meters, Alphonse and Miya advanced slowly toward each other, their footsteps echoing against the metallic floor of the arena. Their eyes met, heavy with tension, like two invisible blades already engaged in a silent duel. The air seemed to tighten around them, each breath becoming heavier.
Alphonse stopped first. His demeanor was almost defiantly calm. One hand behind his back, the other holding his sword firmly forward, he stared at Miya without blinking. His body was motionless, perfectly balanced, as if he were waiting for the world to make the first move for him.
Miya, on the other hand, took a deep breath and grasped her sword with both hands. Planting her front foot firmly on the ground, she adopted a resolutely offensive stance, the blade aligned straight ahead. Her gaze was cold, focused, devoid of the slightest hesitation. She wasn't waiting; she was preparing to strike.
Alphonse finally broke the silence.
"I recognize that kind of stance…" he said calmly. "You adopt the same guard as all the Japanese sword masters I've had the honor of facing." A slight smile stretched across his lips, a mixture of respect and defiance.
Miya didn't look away.
"And you," she replied calmly, "you're clearly a European swordsman. Your stance… it resembles that of the royal guards. Solid, disciplined, but rigid." Alphonse gave an amused grin.
"Rigid? Perhaps. But it's this rigidity that has allowed me to survive hundreds of duels." Miya tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword.
"Then let's see if it will allow you to survive this one."
Suddenly, they vanished.
A moment later, the clash of their swords echoed through the arena. The clashes were so swift they were almost invisible to the naked eye. Each collision unleashed a shower of blinding sparks, and the shockwaves from their blades shook the metal walls as if the entire structure were about to collapse. The ground cracked under the pressure, marking the brutal rhythm of their confrontation.
Miya suddenly changed course. After deflecting Alphonse's frontal attack, she pivoted sideways in a fluid, precise movement, using the momentum to strike her opponent's back. Her blade flashed, sharp and relentless.
But the attack never reached its target.
Without even turning, Alphonse slid his sword along his back and intercepted the blow with a sharp crack. The metal squeaked under the pressure. He had blocked a blind, lethal attack, his composure undiminished, as if everything had been perfectly calculated from the start.
The two swordsmen separated with a leap, moving a few steps apart. Miya assumed a new attack stance, lower, more tense. Her breath was controlled, but her gaze burned with fierce determination.
Alphonse raised his blade slightly and declared calmly,
"Deflecting a sword to strike a different spot... a classic maneuver."
A slight smile played on his face, tinged with cold confidence.
"But you execute it with remarkable precision." Miya didn't reply immediately. She slowly slid her foot along the ground, adjusting her balance.
"Classic or not," she said finally, "it's the basics that determine the outcome of a fight."
Alphonse slowly closed his eyes.
A dense aura immediately erupted from his body and enveloped him completely. The air around him began to howl, compressed and then released in gusts of wind so violent they tore at the ground and lifted metal plates. He swept across the space with a single swing of his arm.
A single gesture.
And yet, hundreds of invisible slashes sliced through the air in a fraction of an instant, all converging on Miya like a storm of blades.
Miya, in her head:
_ In barely 0.000001 seconds… he launched that many slashes?!
Her instinct screamed. Without hesitation, an aura burst forth around her body, more compact, more focused. She inhaled deeply, stabilizing her mind, her breath, her center.
— Frontal attack technique… the Inevitable Breakthrough.
She lowered her sword slightly, then struck.
Her blade literally pierced the storm. Alphonse's slashes were split, scattered, annihilated one after another in a succession of compressed-air explosions. The ground hollowed out behind her under the pressure of her charge, as she advanced straight ahead, relentless, as if nothing could impede her path.
Alphonse opened his eyes at the last moment.
"Impressive..." He executed a perfect front flip, his body pivoting in the air with surgical precision, narrowly dodging the tip of Miya's sword. Taking advantage of his momentum, he immediately followed up, bringing his sword down in a heavy, slashing vertical strike.
CLANG!
Miya blocked the attack with both hands. The impact was titanic. A circular shockwave rippled around them, cracking the ground and hurling shards of metal against the arena walls. Their blades vibrated under the pressure, almost screaming in pain.
The two combatants found themselves face to face, inches apart, teeth clenched, their auras clashing violently like two opposing storms.
Alphonse and Miya rushed towards each other.
Their swords clashed again and again, so fast that the blades seemed to multiply. Each clash generated ever more violent shockwaves, distorting the air, cracking the arena floor, and making the metal walls vibrate as if they might give way at any moment.
Then, suddenly, something changed.
Miya expanded her Flow territory.
The space around her transformed imperceptibly. The air became denser, slower, as if frozen in a dimension that belonged entirely to her. Within this territory, Miya perceived everything: the slightest movement of atoms, the variation in air pressure, the minute contraction of Alphonse's muscles before each of his movements.
Nothing escaped her.
Alphonse attacked again, unleashing a flurry of swift and precise strikes, but it was all in vain. His blades met only empty air. Miya dodged effortlessly, pivoting with a single step, tilting his head slightly, gliding between attacks with an almost insulting ease.
His gaze fell upon him, cold… and mocking.
Alphonse gritted his teeth.
"Impossible…" It was then that Miya activated his technique.
Simultaneous Slicing.
In the territory of Flow, this ability became monstrous. Before the present even existed, Miya was already slicing through the future. His blade traced thousands of trajectories into the future, slicing Alphonse again and again before time caught up with the real moment.
Then the present came back to strike.
In a fraction of a second, Alphonse's body was covered in multiple gashes. Lines of blood spurted everywhere. His flesh ripped, his muscles were partially severed, his clothes torn as if they had exploded under an invisible pressure.
"Gah…!" He recoiled abruptly, gasping for air, the ground shattering beneath his feet. Without waiting for the next wave of slashes to reach him, he activated an emergency teleportation and vanished in a flash of distorted light.
Dozens of meters away, Alphonse reappeared on his knees, panting. His body slowly began to regenerate, the flesh reforming with difficulty, the blood returning beneath his skin as if sucked back in.
Alphonse transformed.
His body vanished in a distorted glow, then reappeared seconds later, entirely covered in massive, dark armor adorned with ancient lines. A heavy sword rested in his hands, its point directed straight at Miya. The air around him vibrated with the pressure of his pent-up rage.
Without a word, he accelerated.
The ground exploded beneath his feet. Each stride crushed the metal of the arena, propelling Alphonse like a projectile of pure fury. His mere presence bent the air, and his blade traced a deadly trajectory, destined to annihilate Miya in a single blow.
Miya, however, did not move.
Calm. Immobile.
Her sword held with absolute serenity, her gaze fixed straight ahead.
She waited.
When Alphonse came within a meter of her, the world seemed to freeze for a brief moment. Then—
An invisible slice ripped through space.
No flash. No sound.
Just a perfect line, silent, implacable.
Alphonse's body split cleanly.
The upper half slid slowly forward, separated from the lower half with surgical precision. The armor split cleanly, as if it had never existed. A stifled breath escaped his mouth, his eyes fixed in utter incomprehension.
His body collapsed into two distinct masses on the ground.
Silence fell heavily over the arena.
Miya took a step forward, then sheathed her sword in a fluid, controlled motion.
"Battle over." Her aura gradually faded as Flow's territory dissipated, leaving behind a frozen battlefield… and an opponent definitively defeated.