Completed Sword vs Uncrowned Sword King (Shichika Yasuri vs Ikki Kurogane)

[Firephoenixearl]

1. Ikki also does, that, but he also learns the history. So basically they only perfect. Ikki perfects and learns his story and ideas along with it. Also Ikki learns the entire style, not just some techniques. It would be aching to learning Kyotoryuu from seeing it's stance of clashing twice. A feat no one in verse is capable of.

2. That's not the same. Ikki used insight before the technique was used. As in "it was the first time and ikki had used insight on it", not "saw it once". And "not seeing it well" is casual trash feats Ikki did on volume 2 when he copied trackless step even though trackless step as an ability is to literally be unperceivable. Though what is Shichika's feat here? On the copying without seeing.

3. Yes but that's what ikki does too. What's the point of addressing this? Ikki learns the history and ideas that lead to a sword style and once he understands the entire style he removes all flaws perfecting the technique.

4. Citation. And it's really just semantics. It's not about instinctive reaction at that point. It's just dodging with less. Ten I Muhou is literally exactly that but by dodging with the least possible amount of movement.

Kaito's gave an answer to that question. All one had to do is take the opponents attack with one's body and ward it off without shifting the opponent's sword along with the place one wants to attack.

A peerless stance to evade the enemies attack by taking the most minimum possible movement, dispelling everything of the material world while feeling every physical existence around.

"Ayatsuji single-blade style final secret, Ten'i Muhou!"

It using less than a milimeter as opposed to micrometers while i won't say "ikki's is superior" it's really not much of a difference, it's just wording "minimal movement" differently. And Ten I Muhou is literally dodging by having the attacks slide off of you. That's way less than micrometers.

5. That's not a skill feat at all. He somewhat reacted, to something fast, not exactly what you call a skill feat, but if you wanna count that. Ikki reacted to Edelweiss' slashes who he couldn't even perceive and he beat 4 of his clones all of which has 48x all his stats (including ap and speed). So, whether you count this or not, doesn't really change much, but it's not exactly a skill feat.

6. Ikki can yes. He was knew what stella was gonna do 100 moves ahead before even she knew what she was gonna do. And Stella has the level of skill where she cannot fail if she wants to. Insintive Reaction is not "better than ikki's", not by a long shot, he just dodges for less. Ikki's instincts are good enough to literally show visions of the future and make calculations and info analysis while he's compltely unconscous. Ikki's instincts far outdo Shichika in every other category (even if we don't count Ten'i Muhou).

7. My bad i meant to say "this is Desperado Ikki im talking about". As in "not even desperado ikki could do it, let alone Shichika". I know this is base Ikki.

8. This is the arc where he gets SSSAF. He just gains it by the end of the arc, so this same key can be given desperado stuff just fine. But since he literally gained it in the last slash for the final battle of the arc, it's ok to assume this is not desperado Ikki. So it's not desperado ikki, but it's the same arc.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

You are really overestimating what copying the inferior history of a technique that you just perfected actually means, especially when the technique also gets adapted somewhat.

I mean, Shichika is also more than capable of precoging a technique and can more than likely copy it from there. I'd need to check, but i believe it was basically an extension of him dealing with a full speed Zantou Gari with his usual precog on top of Completion's general bs.

Ok so, in Katanagatari, "Perfection" is the absolute strongest one can even theoretically become through the use of an art, such as the Perfect Swordsman or Perfect Ninja. "Completion" is a state beyond that, and while what it really entails isn't fully known, anyone who has achieved Completion is completely beyond the advantage of sheer strength, skill, numbers, or power, with each and every attribute and ability analyzed, copied, and countered to the usual standard instantly. Completed Shichika is also ludicrously superior to Nanami, who's instinctive movements were greater than even Perfection, to the point that absolutely no one at the time had any chance against her whatsoever, not even Sabi who was himself a creation of Shikizaki and part of a family that directly countered to Yasuri's, on top of a being to a Deviant Blade user what a Deviant Blade user is to a wielder of the other 988 swords that Shikizaki made. tl;dr Completion is when you take bullshit skill feats too far.

I'm working on that, but it is instinctive movements. Also fair I guess, although i'm pretty sure that Shichika has dealt with someone who tried something similar.

Even at absolute worst it's aim-dodging, which against such a ludicrously fast attack is still quite the feat. Shichika also reacts to attacks he can't percieve, regularly at that, he even did it in episode 3 against Sento Tsurugi since he couldn't sense any of the swords aside from the original iirc. Also unless there are some really good explainations for that, that feat is resistance to power copy, or at the very least an unconventional resistance, even if it was through skill.

That's a different feat from what i was asking for, that's just good precog. I'm fairly certain that Shichika should be capable of something similar, since Nanami was capable of shredding entire armies while lost in thought and not even consciously attacking because she's distracted by memories of her parents talking shit about her. Shichika copied that, and should be more than capable of copying Ikki's instincts.

It's np.

I mean fair i guess.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

1. History is not about "perfected" or "not perfected". History is history. It's the past, how perfect the style is doesn't mean it's easier or harder to understand it's story. It's still proving Ikki's copy is far better than Shichika's.

2. No "insight" it's his Info Analysis (or U N D E R S T A N D if you know it like that). He understood a technique on it's first use. And the Zantou Gari one is not only as i said not as good as the previous users, but he has seen it many times from the first guy. And he never did anything to it, he just grabbed it.

3. That's just in verse stuff. The verse doesn't treat "prefection" as the peak, but rather "completion". Rakudai when says "perfection" means peak, and again it's not like Ikki stops at perfection, he perfects the technique and addapts it to his own body so that it suits his own fighting style. So none of that is quantifiable, just in verse semantics.

4. Idk, what to say here. I guess you concede until you find proof?

5. Not really. He was just reacting from the hand movements like he did when he saved Togame from Ginkaku slicing her in half. And even after that he never dodged the sword, just used afterimages to trick Ginkaku into slashing. Also not resistances. The copies were made, 4 copies. All copies used Ittou Shura. Ikki beat them all, rather quick.

6. Shichika is not capable of such a feat without feats. Nanami shredding armies is just Ikki toying with the entire army while avoiding to hit them, all while thinking of how he was gonna tell Stella's father he loved stella. Feat on his profile. And shredding armies is not a feat of skill. Nanami was just that much superior to them in everything including AP, speed, skill, martial arts etc. And Ikki's senses cannot be copied. It's not something you learn, as it was stated "It's ikki's body noticing danger from being at death's door so many times". Due to suffering several near death experiences he now senses danger and stuff like that. And shichika has never copied senses.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

My point was that what you actually gain from copying the history is almost definitely less than you would gain by just perfecting what you've seen.

So which is it for Ikki, seeing it once or not needing to? Also I was refering to his fight with Uneri, since Shichika was able to get in and out of Zantou Gari's range before Uneri attacked again.

That is true, although a Perfect being was also stated to be able to copy and counter the abilities of anyone else in their field iirc. Also the statement of skill, strength, numbers, and powers not mattering against a Completed being is still definitely something, if not the skill that it vastly upscales from. Sabi, for example, is capable of doing things like extending his sword, which is so fragile that any unnecessary movement at all will cause it to shatter, yet he casually uses it with no issues in the middle of a fight with a person that could genuinely kill him if he landed a clean hit with certain techniques, which was Shichika, through technique alone, as well as being obscenely more skilled (like i genuinely don't think i can really describe the skill gap here) than Meisei, who can effectively use 1000 different swords simultaineously, and Kyouken, who has the skill and experience of at least 2000 other Maniwa ninjas, each and every one of which is at the absolute minimum skilled to the extent of being able to reliably assassinate any normal warrior without using their hands or feet. Shichika beats a restrained Sabi early in the series and later casually mentions that he went out and killed him, with 0 hits taken, both of which were far before he became Complete.

Not really concede, just saying that i'll be back with it if i can find it. Katanagatari is one of those series with a lot of "blink and you'll miss it" abilities.

He actually did dodge once, before he used Iris to try and trick Ginkaku. Would you mind elaborating? Because that seems like another one of those "there had better be a really goddamn good explaination for this" feats.

I was explaining her instinctive movements and how she doesn't even need to want to fight or anything for her body to automatically lash out at people, although yeah none of them stood any chance. The rest of the guys were just ****** because she can copy their shit and her instinctive movements were not only superior to Kyotoryuu at the time, but also Sabi who's own innate movements were superior to non-Complete Kyotoryuu, so strength didn't matter and she outskilled them all by a massive ******* margin. I said instincts, since Shichika replicated Nanami's instinctive movements and they should've only gotten better over time, plus that explaination doesn't really help you since it's the body doing things which Shichika, as already stated, copied as well as instinctive movements not being able to be learned either, but guess what happened.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

1. It's not that you gain, it's what you're able to deduce. He's able to deduce how people thought about creating the style then perfects it. Not just copy and perfect it, but also understand it's history. Something Shichika cannot do. How much Ikki can gain isn't the problem here, it's how much he can figure out from some clashes.

2. "On it's first use" I mean the first time a technique was used, Ikki understood it (used insight) and came up with a counter play. Never having seen the technique beforehand. He didn't do anything doe. He just got out of range, something that anyone can do by judging the length of the blade. The rest is just reading the hand movements.

3. The reason statements like "skill, ap, speed etc don't matter against X" is cus everything has that. "You can't beat ikki while he's on the defensive", "Ikki won't lose to just mere raw power". It's just flowery writing to describe how good someone is in comparison to the rest. And about Sabi, Shichika stated "I had trouble against Sabi because i had to be wary of breaking the sword". Togame stated that he shouldn't break the sword even if by mistake, and with it being as fragile as it is, as much as blocking or grabbing would risk breaking it if not break it. Shichika was far more at a disadvantage cus he had to hold back.

4. That's what i meant with "concede until you find something else". As in right now, you have no arguments, but may have in the future. And right now i don't even remember what this point was about.

5. He used Iris the both times he closed in. And read the hand movement when saving Togame. That's about it. About that, well...he knew his own weakness better than anyone so he knew exactly what to do, that alone is good enough to make him win vs 4 clones that were 48x better than himself. (Feat on the profile)

With a speed even faster than Ikki's and Edelweiss's swords, she drew a fake Ikki—four of them. Ikki's eyes widened in surprise. He had rushed in because he thought Sara had nothing left, and such a counterattack was beyond expectations. But he wavered only for an instant.

"Take this!"

Though the four fakes had Ittou Shura, Ikki decapitated one immediately, and on his next breath cut down another. It was simple, since he was facing himself and he knew the strengths and weakness and moves and habits better than anyone. These half-hearted copies were no match even with four of them attacking in unison, no matter how exact their reproduction.

6. That's not all that "instinctive". It's just that she doesn't need to pay attention to slaughter them. Basically same as how you can keep doing push ups even if you start thinking about your fav TV show and not focusing on doing the push ups. And again, instinctive reaction, is not the same as copying the senses. Ikki's senses cannot be replicated because Shichika lacks the "near death experiences". His senses cannot sense danger, if he's never been close to death before. They lack the experience Ikki has. There is also the fact that instintive movements are not senses.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

I mean, I'm pretty sure that going in the opposite direction like Nanami and Shichika do is comparable, if not in the nature of the deduction.

Shichika has done that as well. That is technically true, but he was also able to near-immediately deduce that Ginkaku can't use Zantou Gari on opponents directly above him and exploited that to OHK him.

The point of that statement is just showing how far above everyone else Shichika is by that point, plus likely the nature of his copying. That actually only strengthens my case, because Shichika beat Sabi with the handicap of not just being able to immediatly remove the sword from the equation.

Well i can't exactly rewatch a decent section of a 12 hour series in the middle of a debate, at least not easily.

No actually, I distinctly remember him using Iris after nearly getting insta-diced by Ginkaku. Is it ever explained what that weakness might be?

Neither is restarting your heart or fighting while unconscious, but what can you do. Also, if needing a "near death experience" is what's needed to copy Ikki's instincts, Shichika has that since he nearly died a lot throughout the series, few examples are:

• his first few attacks against Ginkaku
• his entire battle with Sabi basically
• his entire battle with Nanami. She specifically had to hold back in order to not kill Shichika with the first attack she used on him, and Shichika knew that if she wanted she could kill him at any time
• the second half of his battle with Emonzaemon, granted that was his own actions and he did regen it off

If those instincts end up being equivalent to senses, that doesn't suddenly negate their origin.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

1.They don't "go in the opposite direction". They just see and perfect something. They don't understand the ideas or history behind it like Ikki does.

2. When did Shichika do this? Not really. That was literally the last attack of the fight, after having seen the slash about 4 times if not more. It's not a brain cracker to understand that something that uses a horizontal drawing stance cannot be used directly above. Where did you get the "near-immediately" that was when the fight ended.

3. Yeah but as i said before, being better than people in your verse, isn't quantifiable without feats on your own. And yeah Shichika was better than Sabi, when did anyone say Sabi is better?

4. You and your pathetic limitations, mortal

5. Nah, he used iris (the attack where he takes a running position) the very first time. So it goes like this: Shichika saves Togame > Leaves > Comes back > Uses Iris > Lands a hit > Gets back because he notices Ginkaku trying to slice > Hears from Ginkaku that the sword just got faster > Uses iris again > Jumps on Togame, Jumps above > Lands the finishing blow.

I don't think they ever meant to say "1 weakness". It's more like "Ikki knows what he has trouble facing". So just minor weaknesses in range, style, form etc idk just making stuff up. That in the hands of someone as skilled as Ikki is enough to end a fight against 4 clones which had 48x all his stats and had skill equal to him.

6. Restarting his own heart wasn't "Instinctive" though. And fighting while unconscious is literally "muscle memory" as it was explained. But as i said, what you said has nothing to do with instintive reaction. It's just that she doesn't need to pay attention. None of them are near death. He never got hit a single time, even while holding back except against Emonzaemon, but even then, he wasn't in a near death experience. He just got some cuts and lost some blood, he was walking just fine after and even shattered the whole palace in that condition without caring much. And no he didn't heal. And to top it off, even if Shichika did have near death experiences, the fact that he doesn't have senses on Ikki's level just means he needs more. In verse, it was normal for Ikki to gain all those senses, because his senses had experienced that moment before.

Also instinct and senses aren't the same but ok.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

You do realize that in order to perfect a technique you'd need to know what it's trying to do and the idea behind it, right?

His fight with Shikizaki. Shikizaki literally took a sword style superior to Sabi's from 150 years in the future, and Shichika understood it after dodging one attack. Not being able to draw your sword upwards is certainly not normal considering how you could literally just bend backwards and do it if you really needed to. I'm fairly certain that Shichika figured it out pretty quickly, he just didn't get the chance to exploit it until right then.

Read that part again and get back to me, since there are skill feats for Completed Shichika and i've posted at least a few. The whole idea of Perfection is that you have reached a level where you've refined yourself to the point that there is no further improvement possible, like shaving off every unnecessary millisecond off of an attack to the point that it is physically impossible to make it faster. That is usable outside of the verse, granted it's as quantifiable as most of Ikki's feats but still and at this point we're basically debating shades of grey. The bit with Sabi is basically a skill feat, because all of the shit that Sabi does didn't let him get a single hit on Shichika even when the latter wasn't allowed to just break his main weapon.

implying i was ever alive

He was still within range of the attack and was able to react and back out before getting diced, although following what this particular argument is about is starting to become difficult lol. Also whoever thought that having Ikki's skill circularly scale above itself was a good idea needs to be slapped vigorously.

Muscle memory is having your body move without the thinking normally required, so yes it is and acting without even thinking about acting is also instictive. Near-death doesn't necessarily mean that he just gets thrown around like a ragdoll, but that you came close to death a lot. Shichika repeatedly states that if certain people got clean hits on him he would be very dead, it's just that they never will. Also Shichika got hit in basically every vital organ against Emonzaemon, and in the literal first scene after that whole deal we see him 100% fine.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

1. Not unless stated. It was a specific case that "ikki copies the whole style" not a technique and not only that but he learns it's history. Shichika copies at best 1 technique. Something Ikki far outdoes.

2. "After he dodged". Im saying he understood it as it was being used. And the Uneri case. "Pretty sure" falls into specific opinion. It was the last thing he did in the fight. And it was never stated when he would be able to do it. So no, cannot be used.

3. Yeah i read them, just nothing all that impressive, that's why i didn't comment on them. That's just saying how much more skilled Shichika is than Sabi, not a quantifiable skill feat. It just says that Shichika could dodge for some time, before landing a finishing blow on Sabi, since the fight was off pannel there is nothing to say how the fight exactly went so it's not something that can be used all that much.

5. I think the point here was "skill cus he dodged" let's try not to forget that from now o. But yeah that's not skill, he just sees the hand movement and deduce he's gonna slice. Not all that impressive. Well circular skill feat. He's better than himself in a sense. As in so much better than himself he can beat 4 48x himselfs, so like idk. The author really likes to point out how skilled Ikki is.

6. It's a bit different cus muscle memory happens from heavily repeated actions, not random actions (but ikki has acted instinctively even unconscious in other cases but like, let's not talk about that cus he stopped the god tier of the verse in a heavily wounded form, unconscious and a broken blade so...). That's what near death means, having experienced death's door. Not "oh that was close", that's not what they are talking about. And again the fact that Shichika doesn't have that just means he hasn't suffered that at any point and again Shichika was "never" in any case in the series completely, 100% serious, with the exception of the time against Nanami, and against Emonzaemon, but that case doesn't count cus his life was never at risk. He was just walking normally after trashing Emonzaemon. And again, Shichika cannot copy anything way beyond his feats, like Ikki's senses.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

I just realized i used "And again" like 3 times in that last paragraph.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

I'm honestly annoyed over the circular skill feat thing, so i'll get back to this later probably at least

 

[Firephoenixearl]

It's basically a middle finger to all "fought comparable people" skill feats And the best part is it's not even possible to argue that the clones had less skill cus otherwise they wouldn't even be able to use ittou shura.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

respond to me on discord coward

 

[Firephoenixearl]

I'm on my phone so I didn't get notification from it.

 

[Ionliosite]

Can I vote Incon? I don't see this match going anywhere.

 

[Creaturemaster971]

I say we wait until stuff has been cleared up about Shichika. I'm gonna cross-reference some stuff with the light novel to remove any contradictions and hopefully pierce some of this vagueness.

 

[Firephoenixearl]

Can I vote Incon? I don't see this match going anywhere.

Technically you can but you need a reason cus like "earl and h13 don't seem like they're gonna give up" doesn't seem legit enough.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

I'm pretty sure that's a common reason but to each their ow

 

[Firephoenixearl]

Common reason is not the same as being a legit vote

Though i love how this turned into a skill battle even though there are other things to consider. Which just makes this fun.