The saber stabs forward, aiming right for my head and shooting past my defenses, but I step backward, just out of her reach. I rear back for a counter strike of my own, but before I manage, Ayame lunges forward, placing the flat of her hand on my sternum, and despite the height difference between us, she manages to put in enough weight and strength when she pushes to make me stumble and fall on my ass, finding her weapon's tip touching my forehead when I open my eyes again. She got out of the hospital after just a couple of weeks, and even though she moves like this, Ember has forbidden her from transforming for at least another two weeks. He and the other Squires never encountered anything that could cause a wound to persist between transformations before our fight with Jeanette last month, and they're worried about the potential consequences.
"You're getting better," Ayame pants, keeping me at sword point for a couple of seconds before offering a hand to help me up. "Almost got me a couple of times there, and I actually had to put in effort to get past your guard." Her compliments make me smile brightly, making little mental leaps of joy. "But our enemy fights dirty. The rules don't matter when our lives, when everyone's lives, are at stake."
"Y-Yeah, I know." I take her hand and get back to my feet, rubbing my slightly sore backside.
"Then why are you sticking to the rules?"
"I... I'm still trying to get the basics, I guess? You still beat me every time we spar, so I'm always playing catch up, you know?" She looks at me with a slightly judging expression. Neither of us is wearing the actual fencing uniform, since even outside our transformed states, blunted weapons like these can't really hurt us. I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt, while Ayame is in yoga pants and a sports bra, exposing the fresh scar that runs from her left hip and up under the right side of her top. She's not embarrassed about it, and I know she's not showing it off to guilt trip or punish me. We already talked about that. She's proud of it. Proud that she had it in her to not hesitate in the slightest when the world needed her. When we needed her.
"No, you're most of the way there. The skill difference between us is down to experience and general aptitude now. It's time for you to start drawing on your unique set of skills. You've got access to your powers as a civilian, right? Why aren't you using that to read my moves, get ahead of me?"
She's right, at least about the first part. "Only in a limited capacity. I- Without Chibi Destiny, I have to concentrate with my eyes closed to see the threads. Even with practice, I don't think there's much I can do other than spar with you and then improvise how to use what I learn here in conjunction with my powers." Ayame has always been easy to read, especially when she felt anything like frustration or anger, so it comes as no surprise when she sighs a little.
"You know why we all want you to take the oath, right?" I blink a little at her. This feels like a sudden change of subject, but I suspect she has a good reason to make the jump, so I humor her for the moment.
"To make sure I don't do something as unexpected as I did last month," I respond, but the words have barely left my mouth before Ayame, moving like liquid, switches into a fighting stance and swings her sword at me. Without full access to my powers, like I said, I can't pick up on it before she moves, and I'm not much faster than your average person, whereas my opponent has been active in some form of sport basically since the day she could walk, and has been fencing for the past three years, and did other martial arts before that. It's almost a miracle that I manage to stay on my feet as I stumble backward and bring up my own saber to swipe her strike aside. "Woah! Take it down a notch!" But of course she doesn't. This isn't about training me or teaching me how to fight. There's a different lesson she wants me to learn.
"No, damnit!" she spits, stepping forward and keeping the pressure up with a set of four more strokes quicker than I can manage to parry them all. I wind up with my back against the wall and the tip of her weapon pressed against my neck. My own drops to the floor, making a loud clattering noise as it lands. "Your improvisation might have saved lives more than once. I'm still grateful you saved mine. And I get that your powers, at least to a certain extent, require that sort of spontaneity. I think we all do. But it's really, really difficult to work around," she explains before taking a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.
"We want some sort of accountability. None of us are quite sure exactly what you can do, because it always seems like you've got some new ace up your sleeve, and if we can't get that, we at least want some assurances that you're improvising things in our favor. You get that, right?"
I nod. It makes sense. As much as my powers supposedly follow some sort of grand plan or at least enforce it, I get how it might seem from the outside that I'm kind of just doing things and then something seemingly unrelated happens. "Y-Yeah, I do. It's a fair ask from you all, honestly. Chibi Destiny and I are just not sure of the mechanics of it and how it works with the reason I was chosen."
"That's fair. I'm sure we can find a way to work with that. None of our Squires ever tried to have anyone outside their chosen to take the oath either. It's a new experience for us too."
She keeps me where I am for a few seconds more, long enough for me to have a terrible thought. I've seen this exact scene in many an art piece on the internet. It might be enough to break the tension a little. "You know, being held at sword point, like this? It's kinda hot. Classic in enemies to lovers-style fantasy novels."
"Oh, please," she scoffs and lowers her weapon, deftly snagging the tip of it through the hilt on mine and flipping it up for me to catch. Very impressive move. "Even if I were into girls, you wouldn't be my type." This story is hosted at novelping dot com.
"So you know what your type would be if you were into girls?" I tease, squaring up for another sparring bout with a cheeky smirk on my face.
"N- W- Yes. I mean. It's rare."
"Well, now you gotta tell me, Ayame!"
She blushes a little, but smirks and gets into position herself. "Beat me, and I might."
We go for three more rounds over twenty minutes, making sure to take breaks for water and snacks in between. I, of course, don't beat her a single time. When we're stretching a little towards the end, she looks over at me with a more serious, stern expression. "That's actually another reason I've been wanting to teach you this. If you have a baseline to work with in battle, you'll have less need to pull miracles out of thin air, you know? Once I'm allowed to transform again, we should go a few rounds with our powers in play, help you get a feel for fighting with them in your repertoire too."
"Yeah, that's a good idea. And you make a good point. If I can fight with you, without relying too much on my powers, I might not feel the need to fuck with the tapestry quite so often," I nod and stretch to touch my toes, managing to reach far enough to touch my heel with the tips of my fingers. That's another benefit of having gotten my powers - I'm considerably more flexible.
"Good work today, though. You're picking this up quickly. There haven't been any monsters around recently, but I have a bad feeling our duty is not yet done, so it's good to get you up to speed in more ways. You sure you never fenced before?"
"Never. But maybe wielding Twilight Point gave me some magical aptitude for it. You never know with Destiny. And yeah, I agree. The Squires haven't moved on yet, so there's gotta be something still out there."
"Hm. Maybe." She's finished packing up her gear and waits for me to finish stretching before we leave the empty gym at her school, the lock of which she picked in order to get us in, and now that we're leaving, she's doing the same in reverse to lock it.
Just as I turn to head toward the nearest bus stop that'll take me home, she clears her throat to catch my attention again, and I turn back around. "Talk to Eden about taking the oath next time you see her. I know she's been excited to hear you say yes."
"Yeah. I planned to."
"And Destiny? The rest of us haven't exactly talked about it, though I'm sure everyone already figured it out. We're a smart bunch. After the thing at the oil rig, I was thinking... You found a way to mess with Aria's magic, right? That's how you got into the network?" I nod, feeling a little embarrassed about my actions, despite knowing she thought it was the right call. "Don't hesitate to do that again if the oath stops you from keeping one of us alive, alright? I don't want to lose my friends like that."
Without a further word, she turns around and leaves, going to catch her own bus home. I'm left behind to consider her words. Now it's both her and Asha who have essentially told me to break the magically binding oath I'm bound to swear if I deem it necessary in order to save any of my friends. I can't help but wonder if those two are representative of the Knights as a whole. Do they regret having sworn that oath a little over two years ago? I probably would have.
The thought weighs heavily on me all the way home, enough that I barely notice mom and dad welcoming me home until I'm in the living room. I give them a hug and tell them I'll be in my room before grabbing a plateful of leftovers from dinner and going upstairs. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
I close the door behind me and take a look around, asking the seemingly empty room, "Hey, Destiny?"
The little doll is watching something on her phone-television, an old sitcom that finished airing a couple of years before I was born, but almost defined a whole generation's humor for a good handful of years. She says it's a little problematic, but mostly good. Chibi Destiny hits the screen with her hand to pause her video and hops down from her shelf before joining me on the desk. "What's up, Destiny?"
"If I take this oath, do you think I can break it?"
"If anyone can, it's you. I know the Knights can't, but the rules aren't as strict for you."
"So could I break them out of it?"
"I don't know. I don't even know if you taking the oath would do anything, honestly. But if you could break their oath, it would likely also take away their powers. And given the state of Jeanette after her contract was severed, I would advise caution in doing something similar again."
"I guess that makes sense. Both Ayame and Asha have more or less asked me to break the oath now," I respond before she can even ask why I'm asking this question.
"I see. Well, you taking the oath already brings about some uncertainties, so we can't be quite sure about anything, but I would assume you can pick apart the magic that binds people to that oath, whether it's them or yourself. But again, I would advise not doing so unless it's absolutely necessary."
"Yeah, yeah. That makes sense," I nod. "Maybe I need to let that one sit on the back burner for a while."
"I think that's a good idea. How did training with Ayame go today?"
"Oh, it went well." I grin a little and lean in almost conspiratorially. "Don't tell the other Squires I said this, but Ayame might not be as straight as she seems," I kinda gossip a little. "That's pretty juicy."
"Destiny, I will never understand your obsession with other people's lives, and especially not who they feel attracted to."
"Oh, come on, it's just interesting to learn! I bet Ayame would do great with the ladies if she wanted to."
We chatter and gossip a little more the rest of the night while I eat cold coleslaw and pulled pork before going to bed, feeling as exhausted as I always do after a night of sparring with Ayame.