The lower artisan district bled into a sprawling, abandoned logging clearing right at the base of the northern ridge. The high stone walls of Mount Zonia loomed in the distance, blocking out the harsh afternoon sun and casting long, cool shadows across the grass. Tall pine trees surrounded the clearing, muffling the ambient roar of Crocus into a distant, background hum.
Kai unclasped his leather coat, letting it slide off his shoulders and drape lazily over a fallen oak log. He stretched his arms high overhead, his joints popping with a series of sharp, satisfying clicks. Underneath, he wore his sleeveless black tunic, the long, dark cloth wrappings coiled snugly around his forearms down to his knuckles.
Rei stood twenty paces away, his dark travel cloak already folded neatly beside his pack. He unclipped his sword from his hip—still housed inside its ornate, silver-filigreed sheath—and held it casually at his side.
"So," Rei said, his voice flat as his crimson eyes measured the distance between them. "How do we do this?"
Kai shrugged, rolling his shoulders in a slow circle. A lazy smirk touched his lips. "Well, back in the Kaldor Ruins, we got interrupted before we could actually settle things. I say we just finish what we started."
Rei stared at him for a long beat. Slowly, the corner of the swordsman's mouth curved upward into a subtle, dangerous smile. The quiet, unspoken excitement he had felt during their brief exchange in the subterranean ruins flickered back to life in his eyes.
"I can accept those terms," Rei said softly.
Without another word, both men took their positions on opposite sides of the clearing.
Rei's posture shifted instantly. He lowered his center of gravity, bending his knees as his fingers locked firmly around the grip of his sheathed blade. Having already experienced Kai's absurd physical speed and unpredictable shadow arts, Rei didn't hold back for a single second.
BOOM!
A localized gale erupted beneath Rei's boots. Compressed air blasted outward, flattening the grass for ten yards as Rei accelerated forward like a cannonball. Jagged blue lightning crackled violently across his clothes, leaping from his body and engulfing the silver scabbard in a blinding, hissing aura of high-voltage electricity.
Across the clearing, Kai's golden eyes widened slightly. 'Straight to the heavy artillery, huh?'
Kai's body reacted on instinct. His physical strengthening technique ignited, his muscles swelling slightly beneath his skin as faint wisps of white steam began venting from his shoulders and arms. He took one step forward, planting his back heel into the dirt.
Rei reached him in a fraction of a microsecond.
CLANG!
Rei executed a flawless Iaido draw. The silver blade cleared the sheath with an ear-splitting metallic shriek, unleashing a towering torrent of pure lightning. The arc of steel swung diagonally upward from below, aiming straight for Kai's throat with terrifying, mathematical precision.
Kai twisted his upper body to the left, shifting his weight just enough to let the glowing edge cut through the air inches in front of his nose. The blinding flash illuminated his eyes as the sheer wind pressure wrapping the blade sliced clean across his cheek before the metal even made physical contact. A thin crimson line split his skin, blood seeping out instantly.
Rei didn't give him a single millisecond to process the hit. Reversing his grip on the fly, Rei pivoted his hips, snapping the trajectory of the glowing sword back toward Kai's ribs in a brutal horizontal slash.
Kai side-stepped, throwing himself backward to create distance.
THOOM!
Rei's blade didn't even touch the earth, yet the sheer pressure radiating off the edge split the solid ground beneath them for twenty meters, carving a deep, smoking trench into the bedrock.
Kai landed lightly on his back foot, wiping the warm streak of blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. He looked at the smoking trench and let out a low whistle. "Damn. That is some absurd sword work. You really don't like holding back, do you?"
Rei ignored the comment completely, but a dark glint of satisfaction flashed in his crimson eyes. Stepping forward into the recoil, he converted the horizontal momentum into a lightning-fast, linear thrust straight at Kai's chest.
Kai saw it coming. Swinging his left arm downward, he used his palm to swat the flat of the glowing blade away. The heavy, spell-woven cloth wrappings around his arm absorbed the discharge of lightning, shielding his flesh from the shockwave. In the exact same motion, Kai's right hand shot forward like a striking cobra—his fingers locked together in a lethal spear-hand strike directed straight at Rei's exposed throat.
Rei's eyes widened—he hadn't expected Kai to parry live lightning with raw cloth. Rei tensed his neck and jerked his head sideways to avoid the strike.
He fell right into Kai's trap.
Mid-thrust, Kai's spear-hand flexed, snapping instantly into a heavy backhand. His knuckles slammed flush against the bridge of Rei's nose with a sickening CRACK.
Rei's head snapped sideways, blood spraying from his nostrils as his vision flashed white. Disoriented for a fraction of a second, Rei forced his eyes open—only to realize Kai had already stepped directly inside his guard, inside the minimum range of his sword.
Kai grabbed Rei's sword wrist with his left hand, yanking the swordsman forward while driving his knee upward with steam-powered force straight toward Rei's sternum.
Trapped at point-blank range, Rei violently twisted his sword hilt.
A sudden, omnidirectional blast of pressurized wind erupted directly between their torsos.
BOOM!
The explosive gale blew both men backward. Kai, taking the brunt of the kinetic shockwave at point-blank range, was launched high into the air. He tumbled through the sky, flipped mid-air to kill his momentum, and hit the dirt, skidding several meters before springing back onto his feet.
Slightly bruised, with steam rising off his skin, Kai stared across the clearing. Rei had already recovered, wiping blood from his mouth as his sword crackled with electricity again, though his breathing was noticeably harsher.
Kai's golden eyes narrowed, brilliant engineering curiosity glittering in his gaze. 'Intriguing...' Kai thought, watching the wind and lightning dissipate around the blade. 'He's channeling multiple elemental affinities with zero cast time, zero chanting, and no magic circles. That ethernano output isn't coming from his origin... it's coming directly from the internal matrix of the weapon.'
Before Kai could analyze it further, Rei charged again.
A burst of wind exploded behind Rei's heels, propelling him mid-air. He launched himself high above the treeline, his blade once again engulfed in roaring, high-voltage lightning as he fell straight toward Kai like a falling meteor.
Kai smirked. "Not happening."
Just as the lightning-coated blade descended, Kai's body dissolved into fluid blackness, shadow-stepping thirty feet away.
Rei used a sudden blast of wind against the earth to cushion his descent, flipping smoothly through the air to land on his feet. But Kai re-emerged directly behind him.
Without giving Rei a second to breathe, Kai threw his forearms forward. The dark cloth wrappings around his wrists unraveled in an instant, shooting through the air like black serpents to bind Rei's arms and torso.
Rei vanished in a blur of wind and raw speed, slicing through the incoming cloth with precise, micro-slashes as he closed the gap in the blink of an eye.
Kai snapped his hands back to retract the cloth, throwing his body into a side-roll.
SWOOSH!
Rei slashed at the spot Kai had occupied a millisecond prior. A massive, fifteen-foot arc of compressed wind sliced through the clearing, effortlessly cleaving three massive pine trees in half before exploding against the cliffside.
Kai scrambled back up, eyeing the severed trunks. "Okay... definitely note taken on the blade range."
This time, the sword wasn't crackling with electricity or wind—it was enveloped in roaring, crimson flames that radiated intense heat. Rei swung a brutal diagonal downward strike at Kai's head.
Kai reached into his side pouch, pulling out a compact, iron-reinforced lacrima spear. He snapped it open and brought it up to parry the flaming blade.
CLANG-THRU!
The sheer thermal energy melted through the reinforced iron in less than a second. The spear snapped in half. Before Kai could pull back, Rei followed through with a lightning-fast reverse slash.
Kai raised the broken halves to block, but the flaming edge sliced through the metal, cutting into Kai's forearms. The spell-bound wrappings mitigated the worst of it, but the blade still bit into his skin, leaving burning gashes.
Rei planted his boot directly into Kai's stomach, kicking him backward.
Kai winced as he skidded across the dirt, but his mind stayed razor-sharp. As Rei rushed in to deliver a rising uppercut slash, Kai's hands ignited with the pale-blue light of his Tinkerer Arts.
With a flick of his wrists, Kai threw the broken spear fragments point-blank at Rei's face. Mid-flight, the metal dissolved and reconfigured, multiplying into hundreds of microscopic, razor-sharp steel needles.
Rei's eyes widened in genuine alarm. Forced onto the defensive, he unleashed a fierce burst of wind to blow the metal storm away—but several needles pierced through the gust, slicing deep into Rei's cheek and shoulder, leaving bloody trails across his upper body.
Rei hissed in pain, his grip on his sword tightening. That fraction of a second was all Kai needed.
Kai shadow-stepped directly through the gust of wind, appearing right inside Rei's guard. He threw his arms forward, using his unraveling wrappings to tightly bind Rei's upper torso and sword arm.
"Got you," Kai muttered.
Yanking the bindings tight, Kai pulled Rei forward while winding his right hand back, his palm open and his fingers locked flat.
THUMP!
Kai's open palm struck Rei flat in the solar plexus.
Shadow Monk Arts: Piercing Strike.
CRACK!
The audible snap of fracturing bone echoed through the clearing as the kinetic shockwave drove straight through Rei's ribcage. The internal shockwave blasted through Rei's chest cavity, shattering a rib and rupturing his breath. Rei's eyes bulged in agony as he coughed up a violent spray of blood.
Rei gritted his teeth through the blinding pain, his red eyes burning with shock and fierce admiration. 'He hit through the kinetic layer...!'
Without giving him a single second to recover, Kai unleashed a relentless, brutal barrage of open-palm strikes and heavy punches straight into Rei's chest, shoulders, and jaw. A heavy right hook shattered Rei's left cheekbone, turning his face bloody and battered.
Rei was completely overwhelmed, his guard broken as Kai's strikes battered him continuously. Driven into a corner and coughing blood, Rei gathered every ounce of raw magic left in his body and unleashed a massive, violent shockwave of wind from his chest.
BOOM!
The storm of wind loosened the cloth enough to blast both fighters twenty feet apart.
Rei hit the ground hard, rolling across the dirt before forcing himself up on one knee, clutching his broken ribs as he raised his sword to cut the remaining wrappings away. Sweat and blood poured down his face, his crimson eyes locked on Kai with newfound respect and intense focus.
Kai emerged instantly from the shadow cast by Rei's own boots. Before Rei could raise his sword, Kai grabbed Rei's sword wrist from behind, twisting it viciously inward to lock the blade.
SNAP!
A sickening pop echoed out as Kai dislocated Rei's sword wrist.
Rei gasped, his jaw clenching as cold sweat broke out on his brow, but he refused to drop the weapon. Throwing a backward kick, Rei aimed straight at Kai's kneecap.
Kai used the captured arm as a pivot, spinning Rei's battered body in a tight circle to kill his momentum. Loading Rei across his back, Kai bent his knees for a heavy Judo shoulder throw.
Just before Kai could slam him spine-first into the earth, Rei released his grip on the hilt with his broken wrist, catching it mid-fall with his left hand.
The abandoned sword detonated with a powerful blast of compressed air, driving itself into the ground while launching both men backward.
Rei hit the ground, rolling and using the momentum to spring up, switching his sword to his uninjured left hand. He executed a blind, 360-degree reverse slash right as Kai closed the distance.
The wind blade split Kai's leather tunic, leaving a deep gash across his chest. Kai let out a quiet grunt of pain as the kinetic force threw him backward onto the grass.
The moment Kai hit the ground, his body sank into the shadows, vanishing completely into the earth.
Rei tensed, standing in the center of the clearing with his sword held high in his left hand, his chest heaving painfully against his broken ribs as his red eyes scanned every inch of the terrain. 'Where is he...?'
SWISH!
Dark cloth wrappings erupted from the shadow directly beneath Rei's boots, coiling tightly around his ankles, knees, and waist.
Rei flexed his left wrist, unleashing a chaotic storm of wind blades in every direction. The flying air-cutters shredded the cloth bindings, and Rei leaped high into the air, hovering above the shadow-drenched ground.
Spotting the subtle movement of Kai's shadow shifting below, lightning erupted around Rei's body in a roaring column.
Holding his sword downward, Rei plummeted from the sky like a divine lightning bolt, aiming a lethal, diving stab straight at the moving shadow.
BOOM!
The strike detonated against the earth, blowing dirt and shattered rock fifty feet into the air.
Kai rolled out from the dust cloud, tumbling across the grass. Lightning crackled across a fresh, heavy cut on his left forearm, singeing his skin. He pushed himself up, steam venting heavily from his body to numb the sharp pain of his chest wounds and forearms.
"Alright..." Kai panted, wiping blood from his mouth as his face broke into a sharp, unhinged smirk. "Time to stop playing around."
Rei, standing in the crater while holding his broken ribs, locked eyes with Kai. His bloodied face cracked into a rare, exhilarated smile of his own. "Show me, Director."
BZZZZZT!
The ancient runic tattoos running along Kai's arms and back suddenly ignited with a blinding, golden light.
Overdrive.
The atmospheric pressure in the clearing plummeted. Dense white steam erupted from Kai's skin.
Before Rei could process the shift, Kai blurred forward—his speed nearly doubling in an instant.
Rei's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. He threw up his guard, swinging his blade in a defensive arc toward the incoming silhouette. The blade passed cleanly through empty air. He reversed the arc behind him—nothing.
Rei instinctively looked straight up.
Kai was floating directly above him, his right leg extended downward in a falling axe kick.
Rei raised his sword with his left hand, triggering a localized wind blast to blow Kai away. The wind caught Kai, tossing him backward through the air, but mid-flight, Kai's hands flashed with pale-blue light. He flicked a tiny, metallic canister straight into the wind stream toward Rei.
Rei tried to disperse it with another gust of wind. The wind pressure ruptured the canister.
BOOM!
A volatile mixture of pressurized lacrima dust ignited, engulfing Rei in a roaring tornado of fire. Within the inferno, Rei swung his blade in a tight circle. Water suddenly surged from the silver hilt, dousing the flames instantly and converting the fire into a dense, blinding curtain of white steam.
Through the thick mist, Kai materialized at Rei's blind spot, driving a heavy side kick toward Rei's damaged ribs.
Rei felt the displacement of air and swung his water-coated sword toward the attack, his reflexes razor-sharp even while severely injured.
Mid-kick, Kai pulled his leg back, a smirk on his face. A tiny, pale-gold magic circle flared in the air where his foot had just been—and then vanished instantly.
Kai shadow-stepped twenty feet backward out of the steam cloud.
Rei turned around, coughing blood through the thinning mist, his guard raised despite his broken wrist hanging uselessly at his side. "You missed."
BANG!
A powerful, delayed kinetic phantom strike detonated out of thin air right behind Rei's head—at the exact coordinate where the tiny magic circle had appeared seconds ago.
The unexpected shockwave struck the base of Rei's skull, shattering his remaining balance and completely disorienting his nervous system. Stumbling forward blindly, Rei was thrown off-balance straight toward Kai.
Kai closed the distance instantly.
Stomping his boot heavily onto Rei's lead foot to pin him to the earth, Kai slid his left arm underneath Rei's good arm, trapping the weapon tightly beneath his armpit. In the same fluid movement, Kai placed the edge of his right hand directly against the side of Rei's neck.
Dense white steam continuously vented from Kai's body, his golden eyes glowing through the mist as his Shadow Monk Arts locked the battered swordsman in an inescapable hold.
Rei froze, his chest heaving painfully against his broken ribs, feeling the cold, lethal pressure against his carotid artery. He let out a ragged breath, realizing he couldn't move an inch.
"Echo Strike," Kai purred softly, his razor-sharp smirk cutting through the steam. "Game over, swordsman."
Rei stared at Kai through blood-matted hair. After a long silence, the stoic swordsman let out a low, breathy chuckle, conceding completely. "Outstanding."
Before Kai could reply, the distant sound of heavy armored boots and shouting echoed from the forest trail behind them.
"Over here!" Cana's voice boomed through the trees, followed closely by the clanking armor of Captain Arcadios and the Royal Guard.
Kai's smirk softened into a tired, amused grin as he slowly released his grip and stepped back. "Looks like our audience finally caught up."