Steel met steel in a storm of motion that left no room for thought. Their blades collided with a violent crack that rang across the molten landscape, sparks bursting outward as if the very air had been set alight by the force of the impact.
The man moved like a phantom given weight. Each strike came not just with speed, but with an unsettling precision that forced Jaune onto the defensive almost immediately. It was not overwhelming strength that pressed him back, but something far more dangerous.
Skill.
Jaune's arms trembled as he redirected another strike, skidding backwards against the heated surface beneath him. The ground burned through the soles of his footwear, heat licking up his legs, but he ignored it. Pain was secondary. Survival came first.
His eyes narrowed.
Something was wrong.
He had already activated both Weakness and Plunder on the man. And yet…
The man was still fighting like this. That alone made Jaune annoyed.
This was not normal for a Rank 1. Not even close.
The swordsman stepped in with a diagonal cut that Jaune barely caught in time, the force of it driving him back as the man pivoted smoothly into a follow up thrust. Jaune twisted his body, letting the blade skim past his side, but even that near miss left a shallow cut along his shadow infused flesh.
It cut him.
Even with his partially merged body, even with the unnatural resilience granted by his connection to Gula, the man's blade had still managed to bite into him.
That was not supposed to happen. For one, his body stat, while suppressed should still be operating beyond the normal Rank 1 border. But what unsettled him most was not the damage.
It was the familiar feeling.
There was something about the rhythm of the man's strikes and the angles. The transitions between offense and defense. It stirred something at the back of his mind, like a half remembered dream he could not quite grasp.
But he had no time to chase that thought.
The man pressed forward again, his blade flickering through the air in a blur of motion. Jaune reacted on instinct, dropping his center of gravity and letting his body sink.
The world shifted.
Heat swallowed him as he submerged into the shadow soaked ground, the molten surface searing against his form even as Weakness activated to mitigate the damage. The sensation was unbearable, like being submerged in liquid fire, but he endured it for the fraction of a second he needed.
Then he emerged.
Behind the man.
Jaune surged upward, both blades already descending toward the swordsman's back with lethal intent.
But the man was ready. He kicked backwards and from his foot, a blade erupted. It shot upward at an impossible angle, intercepting Jaune's strike with perfect timing. Steel collided once more, halting Jaune's attack completely.
Jaune's eyes widened.
He hadn't even turned around.
The man twisted then, seamlessly transitioning into a counterattack that forced Jaune to disengage. Jaune kicked off the ground, using the momentum to launch himself backward, creating distance between them.
He did not pause.
The moment his feet touched the ground, he pivoted and exploded forward again, this time aiming past the swordsman.
Emerald.
If he could take her out, any future illusions would stop. His body blurred as he closed the distance in an instant, blades carving downward with decisive force.
But she only smiled and vanished. Jaune's strike passed through empty air.
His jaw clenched as he landed, already turning. His eyes darted across the battlefield, trying to reorient himself.
Everything was chaos.
To his left, Auberyn stood with both hands raised, a storm of massive stellar constructs forming above him. The glowing hands descended with crushing force toward Coppal, who stood at the center of a furnace like aura. Heat radiated off him in waves, distorting the air as he met the attack head on.
Pyrrha was beside Auberyn, her weapons forming and reforming in rapid succession as she tried to pin Rajah down. But Rajah twisted space itself around him, bending trajectories and redirecting attacks with unnerving ease.
It was a mess and a real dangerous one. Jaune exhaled sharply and split his focus.
Weakness and Plunder surged outward again, latching onto Rajah and Coppal. He felt the connections snap into place, subtle but effective halting them in their steps.
Good.
But the moment he did that, the gray haired swordsman was back on him.
Their blades met again, faster this time. The man's assault intensified, each strike flowing into the next with relentless momentum. Jaune raised his swords to block, but the force behind the blows drove him back step by step.
His current form was being heavily restricted.
That Suppress rune.
It gnawed at him, dragging his strength down, forcing him to fight within limits he had already surpassed. Jaune estimated that he was currently fighting at a level of a theoretical body stat of seventeen, yet the man before him was still able to keep up.
A sharp impact rang out as their blades locked for a brief moment.
Then the man's foot slammed into the ground.
Jaune's senses flared and a blade shot upward from beneath him, aiming straight for his legs.
Weakness condensed on it instantly and the blade softened, its structure collapsing just enough that when it struck, it failed to pierce. The attack dissipated against his form, leaving no real damage behind.
The man smiled.
"Not bad," he said, his voice calm, almost amused.
Jaune's breath hitched for a fraction of a second.
That voice.
Before he could process it, the man continued.
"Now," he said, tilting his head slightly, "how will you deal with this?"
The air shifted and multitude of blades emerged.
Dozens of them.
They formed in a perfect circle around the man, hovering for a split second before launching outward toward Jaune in a deadly storm.
'Sword.' Jaune realized. It was the same rune in which Jaune had once used, almost an entire year ago.
Jaune reacted immediately. Weakness surged forward, condensing onto the incoming projectiles. But something was wrong.
His eyes widened as the blades passed through the effect like ghosts.
Illusions.
"Damn it—!"
His body moved before the thought fully formed. He dropped again, sinking into the burning ground just as a real attack swept through the space he had occupied.
His senses sharpened.
There, behind him.
Emerald.
Her interference had slipped through again.
Jaune clenched his teeth as he reemerged, forcing his mind to tighten around the interference. The haze in his perception thinned and clarity returned.
Across from him, the gray haired swordsman stood still for a moment, his gaze shifting briefly toward Emerald.
"Don't interfere," he said.
Emerald frowned. "He's dangerous. We should handle him together."
"Maybe later," the man replied casually. He lifted his blade slightly, pointing it toward Jaune without looking away. "Why don't you go help your partner?"
He tilted his head toward the ongoing fight where Mercury had joined Sun and Neptune, tipping the scales further in Sleepless's favor.
Emerald clicked her tongue softly but did not argue further. Her form flickered, already shifting her attention elsewhere.
That left just the two of them.
The battlefield noise seemed to dull for a moment in Jaune's perception as he focused entirely on the man in front of him. The swordsman adjusted his grip slightly, rolling his shoulders as if loosening up.
Then he spoke again.
"After all," he said, a faint smile tugging at his lips beneath the mask, "it wouldn't be right for a teacher to skip assessing his student's progress."
Jaune froze.
The words hit him harder than any blade.
Teacher.
His mind reeled, fragments of memory surfacing, half formed and incomplete. Training sessions. Movements drilled into muscle memory. Corrections given in a calm, measured tone.
That familiarity. It snapped into place.
Jaune's grip tightened on his swords.
His voice came out low, uncertain, edged with something he could not quite suppress.
"…Who are you?"
The words lingered for only a fraction of a second before the battlefield swallowed them whole.
"Seems you already know, don't you?"
The man's voice was calm, almost conversational, as if they were not standing in the middle of a collapsing world. That tone alone was enough to ignite something sharp in Jaune's chest.
Jaune did not answer.
Instead, his foot slammed into the molten ground beneath him with a precise surge of Aura Echo. The impact detonated the unstable surface, sending a violent eruption of liquid shadow-soil and lava surging upward like a tidal wave given form. It roared toward the swordsman, heat and pressure twisting the air as the mass threatened to swallow everything in its path.
The man did not retreat. He simply shifted his stance, blade lowering to his side in a controlled motion that carried a quiet finality.
Then he swung.
An arc of condensed energy tore free from his blade, slicing through the incoming wave with absolute precision. The wave split apart, carved into an ankh-shaped void as the divided mass surged past on either side. For a brief moment, the world slowed, molten currents streaming like twin rivers around a corridor of stillness.
Jaune was already there.
He burst through the opening with explosive force, his body moving faster than the eye could track. Both swords came down in a crushing cross strike aimed to end the exchange in a single motion.
Steel met steel.
The impact rang out like a bell struck at the heart of a storm.
The swordsman met him without hesitation, his single blade intercepting both of Jaune's weapons with perfect alignment. The force of the collision rippled outward, scattering droplets of molten shadow in suspended arcs around them.
They moved again.
Strike. Block. Counter. Deflect.
The rhythm accelerated into something relentless, a storm of blades clashing in rapid succession. Sparks and fragments of shadow sprayed with every impact, the air around them turning into a violent tapestry of motion.
And in that storm, Jaune understood how the man was able to keep up with him.
It was not just skill.
He felt it now, threading through the man's presence like an unseen current.
Perpetuity.
The runic energy of it clung to the man. Jaune's eyes flickered, focusing inward as his senses sharpened.
There.
Imbued runes.
Not one, but multiple.
They were imbued into the man's very flesh. Their energy didn't flicker or fade like what a normal imbued rune was supposed to do. They remained, stable and continuous, sustained by the quiet, unyielding presence of Perpetuity.
Jaune's grip tightened.
So this was it.
Sleepless had finally made use of it.
They had taken what was once temporary and made it permanent. Tools meant to be used once had been turned into something far more dangerous. Living arsenals. Warriors layered with abilities that would never burn out and never dissipate.
It explained everything.
The strength, the resilience and the impossibility of the man before him. Their blades collided again, the force sending a shockwave rippling through the air.
Jaune pressed forward, every strike was infused with Aura Echo, each swing carrying the weight of accumulated force. But the man matched him.
Not just in power but in the same execution. Yet he was better than Jaune.
His counters were cleaner. His angles tighter and his transitions were seamless in a way that made Jaune's mind flow with undisguised astonishment.
It should be noted that Jaune Arc's pure combat skill was downright incredible. He had evolved from a normal swordsman to a person that could see all forms of weakness in both himself and the opponent. His style in combat was to constant outpredict, outfight and outright break every move that an opponent could make.
Jaune's pure combat skill was almost as perfect as perfect could be.
Yet the man before him?
He was better.
That realization landed like a stone sinking into deep water.
They locked blades for a split second. Then the man pushed off, flipping backward through the air. In that same motion, his body shifted.
Blades erupted from him.
They shot outward from his limbs and torso, forming a sudden barrage that speared toward Jaune from multiple angles. The attack was instantaneous, a lethal bloom of steel born from flesh.
Jaune did not slow. He surged forward instead.
Weakness flared, melting through the incoming blades as they lost cohesion upon contact. What remained struck his body as harmless fragments, splashing against his chest in fading streaks of shadow.
Above him, the man hung suspended in the air.
And then he attacked again.
A rain of energy slashes descended, each one cutting through the space between them with precision. The strikes layered over one another, forming a descending lattice of force that threatened to carve Jaune apart mid-motion.
Jaune leapt.
His body cut upward through the storm, blades moving in rapid succession as he deflected, redirected and shattered the incoming attacks. Sparks flared around him, each successful block sending fragments of energy scattering like shattered glass.
They collided again in midair.
Closer this time.
Too close for anything but raw instinct.
Their weapons moved in tight arcs, every motion measured in fractions of a second. The space between them vanished entirely, replaced by a violent exchange that blurred the line between offense and defense.
For a few moments, nothing else existed.
Then Jaune spoke.
The words forced their way out, cold and sharp, but unable to fully mask what lay beneath.
"Why?"
The next strike came harder, driving into the man's guard.
"Why are you here?"
Another clash.
"I thought you were…"
The man moved with the question, his blade thrusting forward toward Jaune's neck in a precise, lethal line.
"That I wasn't an awakened?" he replied, his tone even as ever. "That I was just some normal swordsmanship enthusiast?"
Jaune twisted, deflecting the thrust as their momentum carried them apart.
They landed, suspended in the air for a brief moment, the battlefield roaring beneath them as if the world itself demanded their attention.
But neither looked away.
"Come on, Jaune," the man continued. "You should have realized it back then."
His grip adjusted slightly on the blade.
"You had life and death experiences in the Dream Realm. You faced things that would break most people."
A pause.
"And yet you never questioned how I could still beat you."
Jaune's sighed.
"I didn't realize a single thing," he said, his voice quieter now, edged with something brittle. "You hid it well."
A humorless breath escaped him.
"Mistral, huh?"
His eyes flicked briefly to the side, catching sight of another clash in the distance. Sun and Neptune struggled against the combined pressure of Mercury and the red-haired swordsman. The imbalance was obvious.
Jaune's gaze hardened.
"Joining a dojo," he continued. "Blending in."
His eyes returned to the man before him.
"Then that means…"
The thought settled into place, heavy and undeniable.
"That man... he's Adam, isn't he?"
The gray haired swordsman nodded once.
"Yeah."
The admission came without hesitation.
Then, quieter, almost reflective, "For what it's worth, I didn't expect things to come to this either."
Jaune stared at him.
Really looked.
Past the blade, past the mask and past the enemy.
And for a brief moment, he sensed it.
The man's emotions. Clear as his own reflection.
Sadness and bitterness. And something deeper that neither of them could afford to name.
The man met his gaze.
"Sometimes," he said, "choices are taken away before they can even be made." His voice carried a weight that settled heavily in the space between them.
"Something we have in common."
Silence followed like a pause carved out of chaos. A fragile pocket where the past and present collided without resolution.
Then it shattered.
"But that's enough of that, Jaune."
The man raised his blade once more, the air around him tightening as intent sharpened into something final.
"Right now, we're on opposing sides and as enemies there's only one thing left to do."
Jaune inhaled slowly and his grip steadied.
Lux Aeterna lifted and Crocea Mors followed. Both blades aligned, their edges catching the dim red glow of the world around them.
"I know."
Jaune's voice didn't waver and any uncertainty left his tone.
No hesitation.
Only resolve, forged in fire and fracture. He leveled his swords at the man who had once been a mentor at his side.
"Grise."