The Simulacrum - Chapter 79~ Part 3

“I finished the inspection,” Sir Griffon declared with frankly unnecessary gravitas after making the rounds inside the small Purple Zone. “I’ve found no anomalies that could prevent the commencement of the Arbitration. Do you have any objections?”

It took Josh a solid second to realize he was talking to him, but then he hastily shook his head.

“Erm, no, nothing. It can certainly commence and whatnot.”

The Griffon Knight apparently wasn’t fully satisfied with his response, yet didn’t dwell on it and turned to us instead. As the most senior Knight present, in both meanings of the word, he was given more or less full reign as far as setting up the Arbitration was concerned, and he took his sweet time inspecting every tree and clump of grass around the clearing. I didn’t really mind, as I was planning to drag things out a little anyway, and as for my opponent…

“Are you certain you thought this through? You can get hurt really bad! I-I mean, I wouldn’t hurt you on purpose, of course, but this is serious, you know?”

… Well, she was way more nervous than me, and considering that she was the one who threw down the gauntlet at me, unexpectedly reluctant.

“Why didn’t you think of that before you challenged him to a duel then?”

Josh’s snide, but otherwise perfectly reasonable, comment earned him a fiery glare as Miss Unicorn crossed her arms in front of her breastplate and exhaled a throaty groan.

“This has nothing to do with you! It’s a matter between the two of us!”

“I’d say I’m plenty involved, considering I had to come out here into the cold to witness this overblown sibling quarrel of yours.”

“Youuuu…! Keep this up, and I might just teach you some manners!” she hissed with a hand on the pommel of her weapon, and oddly enough my friend responded with a devil-may-care smirk.

“You keep this up, and I might just take you on.”

“Slow down a bit, cowboys. How about you resolve this after we’re done here?”

Both of them huffed at me more or less in unison, but they also stopped heckling each other, so I considered that conversation over. Since the opportunity presented itself, I used the momentary lull to Far Glance around a little, and once I concluded that things were proceeding relatively smoothly, I turned to the increasingly impatient man quietly staring at us from the side.

“How about we get started? My witness is right about the cold, and we still have a long evening ahead of us.”

“I can imagine,” Sir Griffon noted, and I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of smug satisfaction about the fact that no matter what he imagined, he was in for a surprise. Insert ominous cackling here. More importantly, after a long beat, the man also glanced between me and my alleged sister and added, “I expect you to explain the reason behind this Arbitration in detail.”

“No, we can’t do that!” Miss Unicorn interjected in a spell of panic. “E-Even after I defeat Leo, we cannot talk about it! Never!”

“After you defeat him? Confident, aren’t you?” Josh quipped on the side, and when the girl simply nodded, he let out a jaunty little whistle and turned to me. “You know what? I’m actually starting to see the family resemblance.”

I simply rolled my eyes at him in lieu of a proper answer, eliciting a couple of chuckles from the guy. Seriously now, where did all that prior nervousness go? Or maybe this was his coping mechanism? Either way, it wasn’t important at the moment, and after a second of silent consideration, I gestured for Miss Unicorn to follow after me. She complied, if reluctantly, and we made our way to the middle of the clearing, leaving our witnesses to observe us from the side.

“As the witness of the challenger, I swear that I’ve found no obstacles or any circumstances that would interfere with the process of fair Arbitration.”

After saying so, he turned to Josh, and it once again took the guy several seconds to realize it was his turn and hurriedly proclaim, “Same here. No problems whatsoever.”

“If so, then let the Arbitration commence. Are the participants ready?”

“I, Penelope Pendragon, am ready to undergo Arbitration.”

When she said that, the already present ambient magical light around her went up a notch, and I could once again feel the same light heartburn as when she challenged me. I figured that was probably meaningful, so I promptly nodded along.

“I’m also ready for the Arbitration.”

The moment I uttered that, the uncomfortable warmth in my chest immediately vanished, but before I could breathe out a sigh of relief, it was replaced by a new unpleasant sensation that kind of felt like my entire upper torso was being constricted by one of those scary oversized snakes. Thankfully this only lasted for a short while, after which the extra enchanted lights died down, leaving us in tense, deafening silence.

I used the momentary lull to observe the conditions of the battleground for one last time. The clearing was fairly spacious, about twenty meters in diameter, though it was only my ballpark estimate, as it had an irregular shape. There wasn’t exactly a clear perimeter either, as the trees at the edge were spaced loosely. The ground itself was mostly level, and the ninja maids apparently liked gardening as well, as even though we were at the tail end of autumn, there wasn’t a single fallen leaf on the ground.

More importantly, while it was no longer raining, the grass was still wet and the soil a bit loose, so I made a mental note to pay attention to my footing. The lighting conditions were… pretty bad, to be honest, but bearing in mind that the armor on my opponent was literally glowing (at least to my eyes), I doubted I could lose track of her in the twilight even if I tried.

All of these things only took a second to consider, during which my opponent made no move at all. In fact, she still had her sword sheathed. So did I, now that I thought about it, but in my case I was planning on playing a defensive game, so I would’ve really preferred if she made the first move.

Now, the simplest way to get her moving was to taunt her, but how should I go about it? Now, if I was an arrogant young master type, I could say something like, ‘Hah! Your Kung fu is weak! You’re courting death! I will give you face and let you make three moves! Something-something face slapping your ancestors!’

…

Yes, I’ve only skimmed some popular Chinese books in preparation for the Asian Draconians coming over, what of it? More importantly, that didn’t sound like me at all. How about a more western approach? Something along the lines of ‘Come, you cur! Your mother was a European swallow! Now, come at me, or I shall taunt you a second time! Something-something elderberries!’

…

What? So what if most of my knowledge about how knights talked had more to do with Monthy Python than troubadour tales? I sincerely doubt researching the latter would’ve made me sound any better. I have a terrible French accent anyway.

Okay, so fancy taunting was off the table, how about something simple, like…

“So, are you coming or are we going to stand here all night?”

“Hey! I just wanted to say that!” I complained and pulled out my sword before facing my quippy opponent with it.

Miss Unicorn solemnly acknowledged my comment and wielded her blade as well before taking an aggressive stance by pointing the tip at me and lowering her center of gravity.

“Get ready. Here I come!”

Oh, she actually warned me before she came at me. How nice. More importantly, I readied myself by shifting my posture and focused my attention on her feet. I expected a long beat to raise the tension, but she didn’t play along with the trope and lunged forward at once. I was half a breath faster though and stepped forth first. Honestly, after all that buildup, I expected something flashier for the first move, but that was probably just the meta-awareness speaking.

Anyhow, my plan was to deflect her initial thrust by relying on my sixth sense and close the distance. This was something I came up with while watching her sparring matches with Sir Griffon; she preferred to use the physical boost given by the Knight gear to bounce around the opponent and try to catch them in their blind spot. I figured that so long as I could deny her the opportunity to do so by sticking close to her and gradually wearing her down, I could come out on top with relative ease, at least in theory, which of course meant it probably won’t work, like ninety percent of all plans ending with ‘in theory’, but hey, I had the time to experiment, so I figured I might as well go for that ten percent and see if I could get a jackpot.

So, I stepped fort, right towards her incoming charge, and was immediately stunned by the fact that the eyes visible behind her visors opened wide as saucers and she immediately tried to change the direction of her thrust. In the meantime, my dodging reflexes told me that I had to do absolutely nothing. That was so weird that for a split second I also froze up, afraid that it ‘conveniently’ ceased to function at a critical moment, and by the time I recovered my wits, she was right in front of me, the tip of her blade sailing past my head on the right by a huge margin. Ah, so that’s why I wasn’t given a preemptive warning! However, unlike me, Miss Unicorn didn’t consider the terrain before she made her charge, and with the combination of her last-minute swerve and the slick ground, she continued to barrel towards me in the company of a panicked yelp.

I, of course, already set my feet in preparation to parry, so when she collided into me, chest first, I instinctively braced myself and pushed back with my full body weight. Predictably enough, she bounced off me with a series of metallic clanks and magical sparks, after which she landed on her back with a frankly pathetic ‘Nyeh!’ noise. Then, silence.

…

Okay, first off, what? Secondly, the hell? Finally, and most importantly, just happened?

After overcoming my initial shock, I glanced down at the sprawled out knightess, and for a moment a cold spike of apprehension lodged itself into my spine as I beheld her. Please, please tell me she wasn’t knocked out just from that! This whole exercise in chivalrous roleplay was for the express purpose of avoiding an anti-climax; we can’t have it end like this! This is worse than winning by disqualification!

“Uuuu!”

Oh, thank god! She was actually conscious. Damn, I dodged a bullet there.

“Are…?” I began, but then my shock-addled grey matter finally managed to sort itself out and forced my mouth shut so hard my teeth clicked. Crap, I almost asked her if she was all right. Focus, Leo. This is supposed to be a big, climactic battle with high stakes and emotions running high! I couldn’t risk changing the tone into some lighthearted slapstick, or the dreaded Narrative might decide that this isn’t climaxy enough and throw some more crap at us.

So, how do I salvage this? Lending her a hand and restarting the whole duel was the most straightforward option, but that would also shift the tone, so I needed to motivate her to get up on her own. Not only that, but I had to motivate her in general. Based on the first strike’s trajectory, it almost felt like she was trying to do one of those clichés when a speedster stops the tip of their blade just a hair’s breadth away from their opponent’s neck to demonstrate dominance, but when I moved in, she became afraid that she would stab me and lost her balance. That just wouldn’t do. This had to be a proper fight, or we might just end up with another slapstick situation right after this was resolved. As for how I could do that… Well, I had an idea, but it was kind of nasty, and… Ugh, no choice. I’ll apologize later.

Thinking so, I took a deep breath and directed a glare at the girl on the ground, and roughly cleared my throat.

“Are you serious, kiddo? Is that really the best you can do?” I purposefully lowered my voice a little to give it a threatening edge. “You make me feel like an idiot for worrying about my sister’s safety when this is the extent of your resolve.”

Now, that did the trick. In a display that felt borderline anatomically improbable, Miss Unicorn rolled to the side and out of the reach of my sword before she sprung to her feet and raised her sword at me again.

“She’s not your sister!” she hissed, but didn’t seem to be about to come at me again, so had no choice but to prod her a little more.

“Neither are you, no matter how much you want to pretend it’s so,” I told her, and to be honest, even I winced a little at my own words. I hoped this would be enough to rile her up, but apparently, it had the opposite effect…

“Brother…”

“Don’t ‘brother’ me right now,” I cut in, adding some carefully faked disgust to my voice. “Enough with the charades.  I don’t acknowledge you as my sister. I never did. I merely played along with you, but if you think I’ll keep losing to you just so that your feelings wouldn’t be hurt, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“You… I knew something’s wrong with you…” Her voice was soft and fragile, as of on the edge of crying, but then a moment later it was all wiped away by her bellowing, “The brother I know would never say something like that! It must be that Seducer’s influence!”

“Oh, yes, blame my actual sister again, because that doesn’t make you sound like a clingy kid at all.”

Oh, come on, attack me already! I’m running out of vague insults. Fine, here’s a direct one.

“You’re pathetic.”

Here, are you happy now? Could you please get riled up already? Pretty please? Also, stop giving me those hurt puppy eyes! Get angry, goddamit! You’re making this much harder for both of us than strictly necessary! Arhg, I can’t believe this!

“What? Cat got your tongue, kiddo? Good. This is supposed to be a duel, not therapy. Come at me, or I’ll cut you down without any remorse.”

Ah, finally! Following my direct challenge, Miss Unicorn raised her sword and assumed another offensive stance, much to my relief. Now, I just had to keep the tension up and her passion burning for a while longer, and we were set. With that intent in mind, I held my sword with both hands and lunged at her. It was only a feint, but she actually fell for it, dodged out of the way, and launched a counter-attack at me…

“AAAAARGH!”

… In the company of an anguished cry. I could do without that one, but to be fair, this was the bed I made, so I figure it was only fair that I got hearing damage in it. Tortured idioms aside, the strike she aimed at my leg was sharp, and this time I got a clear warning about it from my dodging senses, so I took a step to the side and then immediately moved forward to close the gap. It was not a moment too soon, as she was already trying her best to put some distance between us.

“Yes! That’s what I’m talking about!”

Oh, snap. I was still in character. I quickly shut my mouth and focused on defending myself. It was quite a strange situation, as I was the one pushing, yet at the same time I was on the defensive. My earlier prediction was also spot-on, as she continued to do her best to break away from me. Our swords met over and over, sending ethereal sparks flying with every contact, and after a while, I was starting to feel like I was surrounded by a miniature fireworks display. However, this very mobile stalemate only lasted for a few short seconds before she did something unexpected.

As we got closer to one of the trees loosely surrounding the clearing, she abruptly turned her back to me, and before I could capitalize on the opening (not that I would; we were still early) she kicked against its trunk. What followed was both neat and something that would make a physics teacher cry, as somehow that kick made her soar over my head and land a fair distance behind me. The whole process reminded me of something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it a documentary about grasshoppers? Or maybe trapjaw ants?

Not that she gave me the time to think things through, as a moment later she was upon me again, using a rushing thrust reminiscent of the first move he made today. More importantly, she was fast. Seeing her through Far Sight was one thing, but actually facing her head one was something else entirely, and I wasn’t certain I could do it without the boost I got from my own armor. I parried her strike to the side, sending another cluster of magical sparks cascading through the air, and by the time I restored my balance, she already pulled back and got ready for another lunge.

Now that I had my feet firmly planted, it wasn’t too hard to defend against her, but she was also getting quicker with each subsequent strike.

“Hya!”

Also, she was making high-pitched noises each time she struck. I had no idea why. Not even Rinne did that. Speaking of which, I was starting to wonder why Mountain Girl had such a hard time with her. Even in her full gear, and sufficiently riled up, her attacks were fairly predictable. Like, that was a feint. That’s a feint too. Oh, that’s an actual strike, but she tried to make it look like a feint and ruined her posture, so I used the opportunity to punish her by whacking her sword down after parrying in, eliciting a pained hiss and forcing her to retreat even further.

Okay, so where was I? Oh, right. Rinne. Now, granted, she wasn’t exactly a great duelist, as she was too used to just cutting everything into tiny pieces without any resistance, and the less said about her super-special-awesome named techniques, the better, but I honestly expected more. Maybe it was the armor, or the adrenaline, but Miss Unicorn’s fighting style appeared downright basic to me at the moment.

Though again, now that I think about it, maybe I was the problem? I mean, sure, apparently she was a super-prodigy while I used to be some third-rate who got into the Botherhood of Dragon-Bothering, I was doing a lot of one-on-one training in the past month. As in, a LOT. Like, on average two hours of Dominance training with Brang every night, using an average of six specters. That’s around three hundred and sixty hours of training, by my ballpark estimate. That was definitely food for thought.

Also, that was another feint, so I only lightly batted it away and took a step forward to put some pressure on her, and she immediately backed away and towards the center of the clearing. By the looks of it, she wanted to avoid getting bull-rushed again, but because of this, she had to move much more than I did. That was already in my favor, as it meant she would tire out faster, but I also had a range advantage due to both my size and my longer sword, which meant she had more distance to cover each time she attacked before she retreated, giving me more time to parry or block her. All things considered, I was fairly happy with the current stage of the duel, and I was willing to draw it out for as long as she had the patience.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t for long, as after I punished her for another opening the size of the Grand Canyon by hitting her on the upper arm (she was armored, so it didn’t draw blood), she abruptly jumped back a good two meters, which was both impressive and another one of those ‘makes physicists cry’ moments, and right after that, she let out a high-pitched battle-cry as she held her slender sword in both hands. As she did that, the glow of her armor slowly but steadily rose in intensity, and even the grass began to rustle around her feet, which told me that the warm-up was officially over and we were getting to the second stage of the duel.

“Here I come, brother!” she exclaimed, putting a lot of extra emphasis on the last word. For a moment or three, I sincerely considered whether I should just nod at her, or continue my act to piss her off even more, but before I could come to a conclusion, we were both startled by a loud, thunderous noise coming from our left. Neither of us moved a muscle, but we both sneakily glanced at a nearby tree that fell into the clearing not too far away from us.

“What the hell!?” Josh cried out a moment later and jumped over the fallen tree trunk, followed by Sir Griffon brandishing his saber in one hand and some kind of semi-transparent circular energy shield on the other.

“Continue as you were,” the man in the griffon armor told us like there was nothing out of the ordinary. “I’m just going to ask a few questions from this wyrmblood collaborator.” He paused here before sending me a sharp glance and adding, “I can’t interfere right now, but once you’re finished, you’ll have a lot of answer for, Leonard.”

“I told you we’d have a lot to discuss tonight,” I told him with a jovial voice, only to get cut short by Josh butting in.

“Seriously, what the actual hell!? This guy almost took my head off!” I turned to my friend and gave him a ‘Why did you think I gave you special training?’ kind of look, which he may or may not have even seen, but he let out a long groan all the same. “I knew this would happen! I just knew it!”

So did I. I didn’t know exactly when, how, or why, but I pretty much expected something like this to happen. As a matter of fact, I had an ulterior motive when I asked Josh to be my witness. I mean, he’s the protagonist, right? And you can’t exactly have an action-climax without a protagonist, right? And if I didn’t take him with me, he would probably get entangled in some unrelated conflict somewhere else and I would have to divide my attention again, right? And this way I could give him a leg-up against the obvious opponent at the scene so that he could score a victory and complete his small character arc after his defeat at the hands of Sahi, right? I’m totally right and not underhanded at all, right? Right. I’m glad we had this talk and we all agreed.

In the meantime, Sir Griffon once again brandished his blade, and to Josh’s credit, he didn’t dwell any longer on the circumstances and immediately threw one of his usual explody air-balls at the Knight. It was blocked (he had a shield, after all), but it bought Josh enough time to use another Abyssal spell to give himself some momentum and he practically flew into the more densely wooded area outside of the clearing, and he was soon followed by a very annoyed Knight, leaving me alone with Miss Unicorn.

There was a long moment of… well, not exactly silence, considering the very loud altercation between the two guys nearby, but it was certainly a lull in the duel.

“Aren’t you worried about your friend?” the Knight girl suddenly asked me without breaking her posture, and I promptly shook my head.

“Nah. He’s going to be fine. He has plot armor.”

“… He was wearing a school uniform.”

One wry look later I let out a shallow sigh, limbered up my shoulders, and told her, “It’s an inside joke. You wouldn’t understand it even if I explained it to you. But more importantly…”

At this point I took a deep breath and began to circulate my mana in earnest. I don’t know if she could see it, feel it, or if she was just reacting to my body language, but my opponent also tightened her grip on her sword.

I waited for her to fully rev up her internal engine, and once we were both eager and mana-saturated, I signaled the continuation of the fight with, “… it’s time for round two!”, and a moment later our blades clashed, filling the darkness of the Purple Zone with colorless magical light once again