Chapter 23: Challenge

When the next day came, it had been a week since Thirteen awoke his strength attribute. He had made sure to give his all in practicing with Melia, and had begun the process of refining his internal organs with qi. It was a simple task that he had already started in part when he would breathe qi through the lungs and heart to refine the blood.

There were no major challenges in refining the internal organs like one might expect with such precarious body parts. Instead it was simply a matter of accumulation. It did however, take much longer than refining the blood as excessive cultivation could cause damage.

Today was the first free day of the week, and Thirteen had decided it was finally time to vent that frustrating emotion that clawed at him every day when he saw Eleven in class.

He hadn't planned it in advance, he simply decided the moment he opened his eyes in the morning that he didn't want to wait any longer. 'Screw his injuries' He thought, attaching the longsword in its sheath to his belt 'I've been patient enough.'

The image of his self during their last duel came to mind. He must have seemed so pitiful, flailing around his sword, being completely at a loss faced with Eleven.

'No more' he thought as he looked at himself in the somewhat blurry mirror. He did not wear his cloak today despite the cold. He planned to fight, so he saw no point if he'd simply remove it. Instead he was garbed in a plain white tunic with short sleeves, reminiscent of nicholas' usual attire. His stark black hair had grown a bit long over the months he'd been here, and his arms were now visibly toned.

Icy blue eyes reflected back at him in the mirror, filled with a burning intent.

'My name here is Thirteen. If I want to earn my true name I need to be strong. If I want to serve the King, I must be great. If I want to look Headmistress Helga in the eyes once more, I must be proud.'

Taking a deep breath, Thirteen left the room and made his way to the dining hall where he found Four and Nine.

Having collected his food, Thirteen sat by Four, who gave him a sidelong glance as he ate.

"Finally doing it?"

"You knew?" Thirteen was surprised, but didn't deny it.

"Of course. Since when would you eat so little?"

*Coughcough* Nine choked, as Thirteen smiled and began to eat.

"First thing?" Four asked.

"Yep"

"Good. We'll wait for you in the dojo"

At this Nine gave a nod, and their meal continued.

When he was done, Thirteen left the dining hall. He knew where he could find Eleven. The brat never deemed others worthy of sparring with and always practiced by himself in the open area outside. Only his helper had the displeasure of sparring with him regularly.

When he approached the practice area, Thirteen found Eleven quite easily by the "extralongsword" –as he had dubbed it internally– being swung around in large motions.

'Now that I'm here I dont actually know what I'm meant to say' Thirteen realized.

"Eleven!" He called, but the child kept swinging his sword. "Eleven!!"

The child's helper had turned his attention their way and seemed to recognize what was happening.

Grinding his teeth, Thirteen drew his sword and swung upwards, not to strike at Eleven, but rather his sword. With a clanging noise, Elevens sword was knocked up high, pointing to the clouds as a result of Thirteen's one handed swing.

Sheathing the sword once more, Thirteen tried to appear amicable so as to not let the Helper interfere. "I want to spar with you. In the the dojo." He said stifly.

"...I'm good." Eleven responded dismissively.

"Eleven." The Helper's voice echoed deeply. "Go to the dojo."

The boy noticeably flinched at the voice before turning to look at his helper.

"Tsk. Fine" He said to Thirteen as he took a few steps in his direction.

"But If I win, I'm taking the Fundamental Refinement pill you won yesterday."

Thirteen moved his gaze to the Helper. Seeing no intent to stop the bet, Thirteen agreed, feeling challenged.

"Fine, but not just one. Winner takes next week's refinement pill as well."

"Fool." Eleven states as he began to walk towards the mansions western wing housing the dojo.

Unknown to Thirteen, he had begun to consider it ordinary that he would win three spars consecutively. In fact, since sparring took up the entire fifth day now, there were much more than three spars in the day, and the best reward was instead a resource unique to the art the winner cultivated, but that was only given for 5 consecutive wins which for Thirteen and Eleven both was not a guarantee.

When the two filed into the dojo with Eleven's helper following, Thirteen noticed Melia was in the great hall waiting for them. 'How did she find out?' he thought to himself.

"Let's get this over with" Eleven commanded arrogantly.

Thirteen draw his sword with a tight grip as he stared daggers at Eleven, remembering their last fight, the helplessness he felt when spared from a winning blow just so he could be hit harder.

"Fine then. Thirteen. Strength and healing. Body refiner."

"Oh? So that's why you suddenly got so confident?"

"Bow Eleven" his helpers voice echoed deeply.

Eleven clicked his tongue and gave as shallow a bow as acceptable.

Holding his longsword lower than usual, Thirteen waited for the moment Eleven would take action.

Sure enough, it came quickly. With his longer than ordinary sword held in both hands, Eleven started to shift his feet in deliberate rhythm as his body began to sway slightly. His sword too began to slowly sway with his body, like waves or clouds with an intrinsic smoothness.

Thirteen simply watched and waited. If Eleven looked about to start a graceful dance, his face a mask of indifference, then Thirteen was a warrior, tensed and primed to strike, his eyes spewing the intent to battle.

Gradually, Eleven closed the distance between them, one small step at a time, as Thirteen recognized the surrounding qi being brought under his opponents rhythm of movement.

'Not yet. Not just yet…' He thought silently as his hands gripped his sword low, leaving his upper body unguarded.

Finally, the moment he waited for. Eleven began to exaggerate his swaying motions, he swept his sword out to the side, far away from the center of combat. His whole body seemed to sway with the sword, as if dragged along by its weight, leaving himself completely open.

Thirteen knew Elevens sword art was extremely easy to predict, ridiculously so, and assumed there was a trick to it that was left invisible. For this reason he decided to end it quickly at the first opportunity given.

Closing the distance and stepping down hard with his left foot, Thirteen focused all of his intent on his first attack, employing his great strength for all it was worth as he swung his blade in an upwards, diagonal trajectory.

He realized too late however, that his movements were lacking all ferocity. They were slow!

He felt stuck in a quagmire, or dazed among a cloudy mind as he watched the smooth and graceful blade that had been wound back so far away from the battle, curve around and sweep with incredible speed!

*Clash!*

As Eleven's sword picked up speed, the quagmire around Thirteen vanished, and he pulled his sword back to defend in the most basic, hasty way possible.

With an incredible force, Elevens large sword blew past Thirteens guard, knocking him a pace back as it continued on, now once again being raised high as eleven leaded to the side once more.

'What the hell was that?' Thirteen thought as he recovered and once again tried to attack Eleven who left himself wide open.

Again, he felt as if surrounded by dense water, trying to push his way through the air to strike at Eleven with anything resembling speed. And once more, Eleven's sword began to fall back down, swooping once more like a bird in flight, granting Thirteen his speed back only while the sword built its downward momentum.

With one more hasty guard and another loud clang, Thirteen was knocked back, his arms feeling the brunt of the clash.

'I think I get it.' he thought as he again felt the quagmire encompass him, while Eleven's sword slowed and was once more held high in the air.

'His sword is like a fat bird, it picks up speed as it swoops down, but then slows incredibly when it flies back up. Whenever it slows, I slow. Whenever it dives, I regain my speed.'

Once more, Eleven's very long sword came swooping down from on high, and Thirteen confirmed his suspicion, as his own speed picked up along with the speed of the sword.

With one more clash however, Thirteen realised it was worse than that. 'There's a constant suppression. Even when his sword is at its fastest, I don't regain the entirety of my speed. That's why I'm stuck in such a defensive position, I need to do everything I can to react in time.'

The clashing of swords continued for some time. With Thirteen forced to allow Eleven's incredibly telegraphed, powerful attacks, and yet barely having time to defend himself under the suppression of the surrounding qi.

Eleven showed no signs of a skilled swordsman during this battle, He moved his entire body along with each swing of his sword, leaning everything into each blow, never worrying about his defense. He was certain that Thirteen could not muster enough resistance to that invisible quagmire to capitalize on the opportunities given.

'I need to do something. If he's manipulating the surrounding qi to perform this feat, then I need to disrupt that control.'

After one more clash of swords, Thirteen began to test some ideas.

First, he projected withering in a very minute aura around himself in hopes to somehow disrupt the surrounding energies but to no avail.

'Wait… rather than withering, perhaps–' His thoughts were interrupted by one more heavy swing of Eleven's sword.

*Clang!* Having barely defended, Thirteen was pushed back even further. The unique sword wielded by Eleven began to give off a distinctly fearful aura. Like it was a mighty dragon, slowly waking as it danced in the clouds, becoming ever fiercer, ever more dominant of its surroundings.

In fact, with Eleven being pulled around by his sword with each blow, it gave the illusion that Eleven served as the tool to his weapon, and not the other way around.

'Lets try it!' Focusing his expendable life force, Thirteen gathered a large amount of it under his control, condensing it as best he could as he watched that executor-like blade begin to turn in the sky to swoop down once more, his vision no longer recognizing Eleven seemed to have entered a type of trance.

'Closer… closer… NOW!'

With a booming thud and the sound of the air tearing, the white tunic on Thirteens body was torn to pieces revealing a muscled frame as the usually invisible lifeforce ejected from him, distorting and twisting the air as it rushed to equal out its presence in the room.

Immediately, Thirteen felt that quagmire disappear, as he was once again in full control of his movements, he gripped his sword tightly and with more than excessive strength, he bashed aside that once incredibly daunting blade opposite him, before closing in on eleven.

The opponent in question suddenly opened his eyes and looked up, his expression astonished, like he had just been awoken from a midnight dream by the clapping of thunder. Trying to rein in his overly long sword, Eleven put up a hasty defense, his smooth and swooping motions of earlier all but vanishing with his control over the surroundings.

With a downward slash, Thirteen baited the still dazed Eleven into the only defense he could manage at the moment, the most simple of blocks with his weapon raised horizontally.

But their blades never clashed, instead only scraping against each other as Thirteen put strength into his arms and thrust! Interrupting his downward momentum to stab at his foe.

With a solid impact, Thirteen felt his swords rounded tip sinking into the skin and flesh of his opponent, not piercing through, but denting them as he shoved hard, sending his foe tumbling to the ground in a fit of wheezing coughs.

With a flourish of his longsword, Thirteen began to pace around as he waited for his opponent to get up. His anger hadn't vanished with that first score, instead flaring greater as he realized he had almost lost again, and so easily too.

As Eleven found his way to his feet, he directed hateful eyes at Thirteen who stilled and readied his stance.

'I will win. I will win overwhelmingly.' Thirteen demanded inwardly, tensing the grip on his sword.