Vale looked up at the towering Shade before him and took a single step back, deliberately widening the space between them. Two meters, barely anything, yet enough to breathe and move. His fists remained raised, his stance tight, his body coiled like a drawn bow.
As his gaze stayed locked on the shadowed figure, a strange sensation bloomed in his chest, unease, subtle but persistent. He knew the Shade's name. He knew who it was meant to be.
And yet… it felt wrong to think of it that way.
Calling it by its original name felt like a lie.
This wasn't the man who once lived and breathed. This wasn't Leo Lionheart. What stood before him was a remnant, a silhouette carved from memory and instinct, a shadow wearing the shape of someone long gone. Whatever humanity had once existed was buried deep beneath layers of instinct and power.
Vale exhaled slowly.
His fists stayed high as his focus sharpened, his vision narrowing until nothing existed beyond the Shade. The world seemed to pull inward, the arena fading into the background as every ounce of his attention fixed itself on the figure before him.
The Shade looked down at Vale, its expression unreadable, its face swallowed by darkness as always. Long strands of shadowed hair stirred behind it, as if an unseen wind cut through the arena. It stood loose, relaxed, hands low, posture open, utterly unbothered by Vale's guarded stance.
That, more than anything else, was terrifying.
It stood like something that knew it could not be harmed.
And the more Vale thought about it, the more he suspected that might be true.
Last time, he had managed to damage the Shade, but only with a weapon, only by pushing himself to the brink. Now, he was unarmed. All he had were his fists, his body, and whatever he could glean from instinct and observation.
'This is madness,' he thought.
Still, he didn't move.
Vale waited.
He knew better than to strike first against something so overwhelmingly powerful. Acting too soon would mean death, simple, immediate, unavoidable death. So he stayed still, muscles screaming for motion, every nerve alight, his breathing controlled and shallow.
Seconds stretched.
Then, movement erupted.
The Shade didn't rush him. It didn't lunge or explode forward. Instead, it slowly raised one arm, almost casually, as if deliberately allowing Vale to read the motion.
Vale's eyes narrowed. He reacted instantly, leaping backward and bracing himself, forearms crossing protectively over his chest. His attention locked onto the Shade's fist, tracking every fraction of movement.
It wasn't enough.
The Shade released the punch.
The fist never reached Vale.
Instead, the air itself shattered.
An invisible shockwave ripped forward, compressing the space between them in a violent snap. It slammed into Vale's abdomen with crushing force and sent him flying backward as if he had been struck by a siege hammer.
His eyes widened as his body tore through the air.
The pain was… minimal. Strangely so. It felt almost harmless, like being struck by a careless child.
But the impact,
That was another story.
Vale twisted midair, instincts screaming, and planted his feet against the arena wall nearly a dozen meters away. Stone cracked beneath the force as he pushed off, landing hard but upright, boots scraping across the floor.
He didn't break eye contact.
Lowering himself into a crouch, one hand brushing the ground, Vale exhaled sharply.
"This isn't a duel," he said quietly, his voice steady despite the adrenaline surging through his veins.
He shifted lower, his posture becoming almost animalistic, spine bent, chin nearly brushing the cold stone beneath him. His breath slowed, deep and deliberate.
"This is training," he added, eyes narrowing. "Isn't it?"
Without waiting for an answer, Vale exploded forward.
The stone beneath his feet cracked as he launched himself with inhuman force, closing the distance in a heartbeat. The Shade remained still, watching him approach with those glowing crimson eyes.
Just before entering striking range, Vale stopped dead.
In that frozen instant, he inhaled sharply and redirected all the momentum from his leap, twisting his body exactly as the Shade had done moments earlier. Memory and instinct aligned. His muscles coiled and released in unison.
His fist swung in a wide arc.
It slammed into the Shade's massive chest.
The Shade didn't budge.
But behind it, the air erupted, an explosive surge of wind tearing outward from the point of impact. Vale hissed through clenched teeth as pain shot up his arm. It felt like punching solid steel, living steel.
For a fleeting moment, the absurd thought crossed his mind that perhaps that was exactly what the Shade was.
Before he could recover, the Shade's arm rose again.
This time, it was faster.
Too fast.
Vale's eyes widened as the fist came down. He twisted his head at the last possible moment, the attack narrowly missing him, but the shockwave that followed didn't.
A wall of compressed air tore past him, lifting him off his feet and flinging him sideways. Vale used the force instead of resisting it, letting the wind carry him as he leapt backward, forearms raised to shield his face.
He barely had time to recover.
The Shade moved.
It surged toward Vale at a speed that blurred its outline, crossing the distance in an instant. Vale's heart hammered violently in his chest as his body screamed at him to move.
'React, or die.'
There was no room for thought now.
If he failed to respond, even for a fraction of a second, he wouldn't just lose.
He would be crushed,
like an insect beneath a heel.
Vale watched the Shade rush toward him, frustration burning hot in his chest as the truth settled in: his heels still hadn't touched the ground. He was mid-motion, off-balance, trapped between reactions. There was no clean decision to make, no perfect answer.
At this rate, the Shade would crush him. Easily.
Vale grit his teeth, eyes narrowing. Strangely, this feeling was familiar. Every time he was pushed into a corner like this, every time the situation tipped so far into hopelessness that logic collapsed, the same thing happened.
A terrible idea surfaced.
A reckless one.
A stupid one.
And yet, it was always the only idea his body truly accepted.
The Shade's arm pulled back and released a powerful blow, the air screaming as the punch tore forward. It was coming fast, far too fast to dodge properly.
So Vale didn't dodge.
He raised one hand.
At the very last instant, he caught the Shade's fist.
The impact rattled his bones, but instead of resisting, Vale used the momentum. His grip tightened, and he let the force carry him upward, his feet leaving the ground as he vaulted over the punch before it could fully detonate. In the same fluid motion, he twisted his body, wrapping himself around the Shade's massive arm, locking it against his chest.
For a heartbeat, he had it.
The arm was immobilized.
But the victory lasted only a fraction of a second.
The Shade stopped moving.
It straightened slowly, almost casually, and turned its head to look at Vale clinging to its arm. Its crimson eyes regarded him with something dangerously close to confusion.
Vale froze.
For a long, awkward moment, neither of them moved.
Then Vale, still wrapped around the Shade's arm like a particularly determined parasite, met its gaze and spoke.
"…Did I lose?"
An awkward smile crept onto his face.
The Shade stared at him in silence. Then, in a gesture that looked eerily human, it lifted its free hand and buried its face in its palm, exactly like a disappointed parent realizing their child had done something incredibly foolish.
Slowly, the Shade lowered its hand and nodded once.
Vale exhaled.
"Yeah," he muttered, releasing the arm and dropping back to the ground. He rolled his shoulders, grounding himself again, then looked up at the towering figure with honest curiosity rather than frustration.
"…Did I do any good?"
The Shade didn't answer immediately. Instead, it turned its head toward the far corner of the arena where Eskar stood, arms crossed, watching the exchange unfold. Eskar stared for a moment, then sighed and walked closer.
"I think," Eskar said flatly, "he's trying to tell you not to grapple something that big."
Vale glanced at him.
"He's too strong and too massive for it to have any real effect."
Vale nodded slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah… that makes sense. Guess that's muscle memory." He let out a small breath. "Human opponents. No weapons."
Eskar didn't respond. He turned away, already heading toward the arena's exit. "You should keep training," he said over his shoulder. "We only have three days. I plan to use all of them training with my Shade."
Vale raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Sure thing."
Eskar waved once without looking back and disappeared through the doorway.
Vale stared at the door for a moment, then turned back to the Shade.
"…Wanna go again?"
The Shade looked at him, unmoving. Silence stretched between them, heavy but not hostile. Then, after a few moments, it nodded.
Vale let out a low sigh, half exhausted, half relieved, and walked back toward the center of the arena alongside it. Encounters like this were rare. Opponents like the Shade didn't just test skill, they rewired instincts, exposed weaknesses at their core.
He wasn't about to waste that.
Vale planted his feet firmly, boots scraping against stone as he widened his stance for balance. He clenched his toes inside the leather, grounding himself fully this time, and raised his gaze to the towering figure before him.
The Shade stood as calm and unbothered as ever.
Vale smirked weakly, rolling his shoulders as tension coiled through his body once more.
"…After you," he said.