Siris parried a heavy strike aimed at her head with relative ease as she responded with a quick series of jabs. Ophelia was becoming quite interested in their fight as it progressed. Siris was fast, and she found that out the hard way. Only a minute into their fight and she'd already taken a gash along her thigh by misreading her opponent after being parried. The two exchanged blows, with Siris attacking with speed and technique while Ophelia had strength and pure aggression. It had occurred to Siris that her enemy wasn't all too concerned with safety.
Ophelia spun the huge axe around and jabbed at blinding speeds with the spiked end of the weapon. Siris deflected the blows with the flat of her blade, with a couple of jabs making her have to move her head to avoid being skewered. While the axe wielder made to spin her weapon again, Siris dashed forth and took advantage of the axe's cumbersome length and maneuvered her sword to jab at the red-head's exposed throat. Ophelia's eyes widened as she saw the blade coming, however her reflexes were on par with Siris'. Blood, the same dark, luminescent blood gushed from the wound. Siris' sword had met flesh, the flesh of Ophelia's right hand. She brought her axe up and swung in a defensive arc, forcing Siris to withdraw.
Siris leapt away, still with her sword raised and examined the blood coating the tip of her sword. While it wasn't a pressing matter, the odd quality of the girl's blood piqued her curiosity. She'd heard that it was mostly creatures created through Alchemy had odd blood. Dragons and some bestial races were exceptions to this rule, but the girl was certainly no dragon.
"So you're a Homunculus. To be honest, I'd never have suspected a thing." Siris commented, gaining a disdainful snort from Ophelia.
"Then clearly you don't have much knowledge about magic. If you did, then you'd know that Homunculi typically don't look like me or the other two. You could say that when it comes to Homunculi, we're top of the line." the axe wielder grinned.
"And that master of yours. Is he a Homunculus too?" Siris inquired.
"Well if you'd asked any earlier I'd have just ignored you, but he's made it pretty clear it's not much of a secret now. That version of my master is a Homunculus, yes. But he said it himself that it was a cheap knock-off compared to anything he put any real effort into. In other words, it was made to get the job done, that's all." Ophelia explained, but was quickly growing tired of standing around.
So that guy can make powerful Homunculi on the fly. Damn, so that means we don't know just how many of these things there could be. Siris thought. She was suddenly broken from her thoughts as her opponent's axe blade lightly glanced her cheek. The Swordswoman was startled by the speed at which the attack came.
I never even saw her move, and with a weapon that big too. Siris steeled herself for the tough fight ahead. I'll have to give it my all if I wanna keep my head on my shoulders.'l
"You done staring off into space. Geez, and I thought you were some kind of disciplined warrior." Ophelia taunted. "Come on already!" she lunged at Siris and launched a flurry of savage swings which seemed to split the very air. Siris found herself hard pressed to dodge the attacks, sometimes taking very minor glancing blows, while barely managing to parry and deflect others.
Where the hell did all of this speed come from!? she thought frantically. She braced her blade with her arm as she blocked another incredibly powerful swing. Though it didn't breach her defence, it did send her tumbling to the ground. She managed to recover quickly with a backward roll and slid to a stop in a crouched position.
"Come on!" Ophelia whined. "I though you had more to you than that! You have that big sword, yet you're doing jack shit with it. Disappointing." she spat. Siris merely smirked and stabbed her Zweihander into the ground and stood.
"Don't even think you've got me figured out yet. You think I've been a Knight in the peerage in on of the most renowned and successful Devils for as long as I have and not picked up a few things? Think again." the spot where Siris was exploded, leaving a large patch of torn up earth.
Ophelia noticed Siris had vanished and raised her axe defensively. She cautiously looked around, straining her senses to detect the slightest sound or movement. After a few moments, a slight feeling of paranoia began to creep up on her.
That bitch couldn't have gone far. I mean, she was just there, and I'd know if she ran off, right? she asked herself. She shook her head and stood firm as it wasn't the time to start doubting herself. There was a sudden and shocking sound of steel screeching, flesh splitting and blood spilling as she staggered forward and quickly turned, only to see nothing.
"What the fuck?" she bit out. She cast a cursory glance at her left shoulder to see her steel pauldron completely split down the middle, with blood spattered on the edges of the gash in the metal. She was struck again, this time down the right side of her face. She screamed as her eyeball was split open. A sanguine waterfall coated the left side of her face and she clutched the wound. She growled like a savage beast, all while keeping her remaining eye trained on her surroundings.
"Alright bitch, that's it." she hissed, slightly drooling as her white-hot fury came to a head. The world around her seemed to slow as she heard a ringing sound from behind her, she turned and saw a strange ripple of air rushing towards her, and behind it was Siris with her sword in both hands, having just swung the large blade.
She turned her body to the right, feeling the blade of wind rush past her face, just short of the tip of her nose and cutting a short trench into the ground. She watched Siris move towards her, seemingly in choppy, stop-motion movements, and when the moment came, she struck with absolute wrath. With the force of a cannon ball, the back of Ophelia's right hand struck the Knight in the stomach.
Using her momentum against her, she lifted her off of the ground and gripped the front of her top. She then twisted back around and threw Siris with astounding force. Siris crashed through several trees before coming to a stop when she hit a lamp post, warping the base of the it. The light flickered and then went dark. She groaned painfully as she pushed herself out of the large "C" shaped bend in the lamp post and fell to her knees. She felt a dull but burning pain in her chest before she hacked up some blood onto the pavement. She wiped the blood from her lips with the back of her hand before shakily standing again.
Alarm bells sounded in her mind as she instinctively looked up to see Ophelia descending with her huge axe raised and ready to split her in half.