RYN'S POV
Ilya dropped from the sky like a meteor, with her ponytail bunched up.
That was the first thought I had before she tried to punch me into the ground forcefully.
The second thought was that I deeply regretted agreeing to this damn spar.
Her fist came flying down, wrapped in a dense, reinforced Aether, not glowing as violently as that terrifying giant hand thing she liked using, but the weight of her hits was still heavy enough to make the air around it scream. I twisted my body sideways and expelled Ventus-made air from my palms through to my feet, scraping across the training ground floor just as her punch landed where my ribs had been a heartbeat earlier.
The impact cracked the stone.
Not slightly chipped or dented.
But cracked.
A small crevice tore inward from the point of impact, branching between us like the ground had decided to open one of its eyes, if it were actually to have eyes.
I stared at it.
Then at her.
Then back at the crevice.
"Are you freaking insane?!"
Ilya looked up from her crouched position, grinning.
"What are you complaining about? You dodged."
"Yeah, by a hair's width."
"Still dodged."
Ilya didn't give me much time to argue my point as she was already moving, initiating her next attack, but so was I.
"Ventus: Cutting Draft!"
I slashed one arm forward, releasing a compressed blade of wind from my fingertips. It tore toward her in a pale crescent, thin enough to whistle and sharp enough to cut through training armour if I lost control.
Ilya didn't even try to dodge; in fact, she drove her left fist forward and met the spell head-on.
'Of course that fighting sicko wouldn't dodge.'
The impact snapped between us, forming a tiny explosion as smoke burst outward in a dusty grey bloom. The sound cracked through the training ground hard enough to make Randel flinch from the sidelines.
"Ilya!" Randel shouted.
Junio, standing near him with his arms folded, did not move.
"Calm down, that barely affected her," he said calmly.
I hated that he was right.
Especially considering that a second later, Ilya appeared out of the smoke.
She appeared through the grey cloud with alarming speed; her head was low, her shoulders forward, and she wore that annoying grin, like she had been born into reckless decisions and raised by bad ideas.
"Seriously, Ilya?!" I snapped.
"Hey! You wanted to practise!"
"Yeah, practise! Not engage in mortal combat!"
"That's the same thing!"
She charged straight at me.
I stepped back, shaping more Ventus magic around both hands, and released two elongated versions of Cutting Draft. Each stretched into a sickle-like arc: one aimed at the side of her head, the other at her right ankle.
They weren't supposed to be lethal.
Mostly.
Ilya ducked beneath the first sickle so low her hair almost brushed the floor, and then lifted her left shin and slammed it into the second. The wind blade shattered against her leg in a burst of pressure. She slid half a step from the force, but that was all.
A pause opened between us.
It wasn't long, but it was just enough for both of us to catch our breath.
I stared at her shin.
Then at her.
"Hey, dingus! You could've seriously killed me with that punch earlier!"
Ilya blinked.
"Really? You evaded it pretty well, though." She pointed at me. "And if anything, those air sickles could've turned me into a cripple."
I scoffed.
"Nonsense. You know for a fact that none of my attacks has had any effect on you so far."
Ilya's eyes brightened.
My mouth twitched despite the seriousness in my eyes.
Then we both smirked.
The sort of smirk that meant neither of us was willing to admit the other had a point.
Ilya cracked her knuckles.
I rolled my shoulders and widened my stance.
Together, we said, "Let's continue."
Then she vanished from where she stood.
Not in actuality, of course.
She was just annoyingly fast.
I barely caught the movement of her foot before she pushed off the floor and came at me from the right. I fired a low Cutting Draft at her, making her jump. Then I fired another mid-air, angled at her shoulder to throw her off balance. She twisted and slapped it aside with the back of her wrist, but the deflection threw her off balance for exactly a second.
Then, I used a third Cutting Draft. This one was shorter and faster, aimed specifically at her landing point.
Annoyingly, Ilya tucked her knees and spun over it, as if she were some acrobatic animal. She landed on one hand, then sprang forward toward me again.
She either kept dodging or kept deflecting.
Move one.
Move two.
Move three.
It didn't matter where I threw a Cutting Draft at her; she had the perfect solution to get away unharmed. It was almost as if she were taunting me, telling me that it didn't matter what I did.
'Fine. If you want pressure, Ilya. Then I'll give you pressure.'
I released another Cutting Draft, then another, each one thinner than the last. They weren't stronger, but the cast was cleaner. There was less waste in each spell. Kael would probably have said something annoying like "efficiency improves consistency under pressure."
He would have been right, which was even more annoying.
Ilya darted between the blades, her body low and compact. She wasn't graceful like a certain noble I knew, who moved as if the wind personally liked them. She wasn't precise like a certain someone, who made every movement feel calculated in advance.
Ilya moved like someone trying to break a wall by convincing her body the wall had already lost.
She slammed her palm into one Cutting Draft, ducked another, kicked off the floor, and closed in.
Too close.
I dragged the training hall platform through my heels and slid backwards, releasing a crescent-shaped Cutting Draft from my left hand as I moved. Ilya leaned away, the edge cutting a few strands of hair loose from beside her cheek.
Her grin widened.
"Haha, that was close!"
"Not close enough!" I said jokingly, partly.
I began firing again.
Move four.
Move five.
Move six.
Cutting Draft, after Cutting Draft, after Cutting Draft.
Each sequence became faster.
I aimed one at her wrist, one at her knee, one across her path instead of at her body. She deflected the first with her forearm, jumped the second, and had to stop short for the third. That bought me distance.
'Nice.'
Distance was the point of this spar, if you can even call it that.
The Island Exam was coming, and we knew there would be beasts, monsters, particular Aethren, and honestly, whatever terrifying thing Professor Seris had decided was acceptable to place near first-years for "education."
I knew what my priority was. I needed to be able to kill from range.
This wasn't some duel we had to do, or event that we had to make ourselves impressive.
It was a situation that tested our ability to kill.
Or at least that's the way Kael and I took it.
Ventus: Cutting Draft was a simple spell, but simple meant it could be fast. If I could sharpen it, chain it, and place it exactly where I wanted without wasting Aether, then I could carve down smaller beasts before they could even reach me.
That was the idea, anyway.
Ilya apparently didn't agree with the concept of remaining far away.
She stomped down, cracked the stone beneath her heel, and launched herself forward.
I released a wide Cutting Draft at chest height.
Move seven.
She dropped flat beneath it.
Move eight involved me firing downward.
She rolled sideways and kicked up a spray of stone dust that hit my eyes.
"Hey! What the hell was that! That was a cheap move!"
"..."
I decided to stay silent, as I retrospectively understood that what I did was probably not the best thing to do in a friendly spar with your female friend.
I continued with move nine.
Blinking through the dust, I nearly lost my head to a flying knee.
I threw myself back and released a Cutting Draft without full form.
Too loose.
Too wide.
She punched through it.
The impact staggered her, but not enough to matter.
Move ten.
She came in low.
I aimed at her feet.
She jumped.
I aimed above.
She twisted away.
Move eleven.
The Cutting Draft clipped her sleeve.
Finally.
A tiny cut opened in the fabric.
I pointed at it.
"Ha!"
Ilya looked down at her slightly torn sleeve, then back at me.
"That's your big achievement? To see some skin? I never took you as a pervert, Ryn"
"What?! That's not—"
Before I could refute Ilya's ridiculous claim, she started laughing and said she was only joking, then immediately charged at me again.
Move twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
The rhythm changed.
I started seeing it now.
Not just her movement, but where she had to move. Ilya was terrifying up close, but to get there she committed heavily to each approach. If I placed the Cutting Draft not where she was, but where her body had to pass through, I could force her to spend more energy on movement avoidance than advancing.
I angled one across the floor.
She had to hop.
I sent the next one diagonally upward.
She had to rotate to dodge.
I placed the third beside her hip, not to hit, but to deny the clear path towards me.
She clicked her tongue.
"You're getting annoying."
"Gee, thanks!"
"I wasn't praising you!"
Move fifteen.
She feinted left.
I didn't bite on the movement and fired straight at her right side.
Her eyes widened slightly as she had to block with her shin again. This time the impact pushed her back a full step.
Randel shouted from the side, "That was a good move, Ryn!"
I grinned.
'Thanks, Randel, at least someone here appreciates me.'
My gleeful face soon turned to exasperation as I heard Junio's calm voice cut across the training room soon after Randel's.
"Do not get distracted, Ryn."