Rory and
The Dauntless Swordmaster stared each other down intently, hoping to size up each other's power. The man had made not a single bluff when speaking to Rory... She could tell. His swordsmanship was on a completely different level compared to hers, and the gap couldn't be closed with simply passive growth. She needed something else...
"You ready to start, kid?" He asked her, still smiling without end. Rory nodded, smiling as well as she gripped her
Goddess Cleaver tightly. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be..." She said, steeling her resolve for this fight. "Come at me!" That was a very poor choice of words.
As soon as she said that, she could feel the cold steel of a katana run across her chest, creating a large gash down her chest and stomach. "What the hell did you do...?" Most would assume the Swordmaster was just incredibly fast, but no. He hadn't moved from his spot, nor had he drawn his blade in any way shape, or form. So what the hell did he do? "How did you cut me without even moving?" He smirked.
"Willpower." He said to her, "Huh? Willpower?" He nodded, "That's right, kiddo. You didn't know? Strong willpower can be forcefully manifested as a physical phenomenon... I'd say you're wrestler friend has already mastered the technique." Rory's eyes widened, "Then that means..." He nodded once more, yelling out to her.
"That's right! Your wrestler friend has far more willpower than you do!" Rory gripped her blade's handle, blood pouring from her mouth. "So what? Are you trying to teach me or whatever? What do you care!?" The Swordmaster laughed out loud, crossing his arms.
"Kid, you sound like a child when you're yelling at me like that. Calm yourself." Rory hadn't ever gotten this emotional over a fight with somebody she didn't even know... "Shut up." The Swordmaster responded almost immediately, mocking her. "Why don't you try and make me, kiddo!?" Rory yelled out, "I'm not a child!!" Rory dashed forward, lunging her sword towards him violently.
"You won't do any damage with such pathetic skills. You're far better than this, Rory." He easily dodged the strike, not even humoring her with a counter-attack. This was... humiliating. "Why can't I hit him?" Rory tried over and over again. She bent space, teleported, tried to constrict his movements, but none of what she did was enough to scratch
The Dauntless Swordmaster even once, let alone hit the guy? "I'm being... Humiliated?"
"That's right." He said, bluntly. "You're letting your emotions get in the way of your skills. What's going on?" The Swordmaster sounded genuinely concerned for her mental state. "I... What do you care?" She asked, "This isn't the opponent that I had hoped to fight against, Rory. I wanted you strong like you usually are. But I can tell, something is holding you back..." Rory clenched her teeth.
She was desperate to get past him. She wanted to save Belial no matter what, and to do so, she had to defeat the Swordmaster. But being so desperate clouded her mind with complex emotions... "I'm not obligated to tell you anything." She said, "That's right, you're not. But if you don't, expect to die." He said bluntly. It was true, there was a clear difference in their levels.
"...I didn't expect to be getting a therapy session from somebody who's supposed to be my enemy." She said, causing him to chuckle. "It's not a therapy session, Rory. What I want you to do is clear you're mind of all those thoughts that are holding you back and focus completely on the fight." Rory's eyes widened, "What?" He nodded.
"In a fight to the death, thinking about outside things will simply slow you down. Clear your mind, and forget about anything else." Forget about anything else? "It isn't that easy, okay!?" She dashed forward, attempting to cut him to no avail.
"I'm plagued by the weight of my own sins and the sins of others...! I
have to keep my mind on my goals. I have to remember the people that I have to protect!" Clearing her mind was far too hard when she was plagued with so many thoughts... "Then that's just too bad." He said.
WOOSH!
Another large gash appeared on her torso, creating a large
X on her torso. She coughed up blood, wrenching in pain as the Swordmaster walked towards her slowly, sighing in incredible disappointment. "If you can't realize what you lack on your own, then it seems I got my hopes up for nothing... Alright then, die." This would be the end of her if she didn't figure it out. She blacked out.
"What the hell does he want me to do!?" She thought to herself.
How could she possibly just clear her mind and forget about everything she had to protect? How could she forget her own sins? How could she forget that she was a monstrous Apoptosis destined to end this world!? "He keeps asking me to do the impossible..."
Deep within her subconscious mind, Rory ended up on a grassy field. "This is..." Rory looked around swiftly, her eyes widening. "This is the farm..." It was her childhood home in the Real World. She saw the house, along with the barn. "What the hell am I doing here?" Rory looked down, noticing a large wooden sword stuck in the ground.
"That's right... This was my practicing spot." Her parents had never liked the fact that she practiced with the sword, especially her father. So she had to far, far away from the main house to practice. "It's been way too long..." Rory grabbed the handle of the sword, pulling it out of the ground. She looked at it intently.
"Alright."
She swung the sword with all of her might. She breathed heavily for a few seconds and swung her sword once more, and again, and again. Each time that she swung her sword, she felt most at ease. She loved swords and swordsmanship and being born in a harsh environment only allowed her to fall deeper in love with the art throughout her life.
"This feels nice..."
She continued to swing her sword for hours within her subconscious. She continued to swing her sword until those hours had soon turned into days, and then those days had turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months, and those months of her swinging her sword turned into years. And soon, Rory had lost all track of time within her mind.
"This feeling... Every time that I swing my sword, every muscle fiber in my body screams out in indescribable pain. Every breath I take makes my lungs shrivel up and beg for air, and the calluses on my hand hurt like hell as well." But that wasn't any reason to stop swinging her sword. She continued to swing her sword mindlessly, absorbed in the act.
"But even though it hurts so much to train like this... I feel at ease. As if this was what I was meant to do without fail. So... I can't stop swinging my sword." She wouldn't stop. Not now. With each swing of her wooden blade, her mind was more absorbed into the act. This summed up the very roots that make up Rory the 6th as a person.
"I am... A swordswoman."
She fell to her knees, still tightly gripping her wooden blade as the veins on her hands and arms flared up from the extreme exercise. Her eyes remained dilated to the max, a weird mist aura surrounding her body. "I am... A swordswoman." Focus on it, and don't let that feeling go. Every single drop of blood, sweat, and tears. Don't let the feeling go...
On the outside of Rory's mind, in the actual fight, the Swordmaster stopped right before he was about to kill her. "That's it...!" Rory's eyes were still dilated to the max, "That's exactly what I'm looking for!" Her eyes were hazy, but he could tell that she could see perfectly clear in this state. She probably saw more clearly than at any time in her life.
"It's liberating, isn't it? That feeling, I mean. The feeling of being completely focused on the fight, with absolutely no thoughts plaguing your mind. You probably can't even hear me, right?" He asked her, and he was right, Rory couldn't hear a single thing barring her own heartbeat. She was staring directly at the Swordmaster without deviation. "Let's test you then..." He flexed his willpower at her.
"Magnificent!" His willpower had only produced a scratch on her cheek, "You're telling me this girl is strong-willed to the point she can now counter my willpower with her own after only hearing about the technique? I've never seen such talent... Well, maybe I have..." He thought to himself, sighing internally. "Come on now, show me what you've got!" He yelled out, to which Rory gave no response.
And from then, neither of the two exchanged a single word or even a single thought.
(Phase 1 Boss Music:
Rory summoned her two signature weapons,
Durandal and Bakuzan, dual-wielding them. She dashed forward, causing the Swordmaster to immediately draw his katana, something he wouldn't have done if he didn't see her as an opponent worthy of his time. The ensuing clash would shock most people, sending them flying from the pressure of their willpower.
It was an exchange of over 10^1,000,000 blows within a single movement of their blades! How was such an act possible in a single movement? Only the two of them could know how it was possible. The Swordmaster's katana released a blinding light, covering it in orange energy as he cut the very Earth in half with the swing of his sword.
Rory deflected this attack with
Durandal, sending the shockwave flying into the wall as she once again dashed forward, delivering a combination of vertical and horizontal slashes. The Swordmaster skillfully deflected each and every blow, but was slowly being overwhelmed by Rory's sheer focus and tenacity. With each passing moment, she got stronger, topping that with her newfound power, she would soon overwhelm him completely.
Or so she thought.
Rory could feel an enormous sword the length of an entire skyscraper pierce through her stomach. It came from nowhere, seemingly, but she deduced in a mere moment that it was the product of the Swordmaster's ability, most likely. The Swordmaster pressed his feet into the ground, slashing the air and sending a shockwave towards Rory.
Rory forcefully removed the blade, her wounds refusing to heal which greatly slowed her down. Rory and the Swordmaster clashed various times to the point the number of movements they made couldn't be counted within the standard human lifetime, displaying their sheer speed and power.
With each movement they both made, they were passively flexing their willpower, coating their entire bodies in a misty aura that almost resembled steam. This would allow both of them to release slashes even if they weren't using a sword, as they themselves were the blade.
Another skyscraper-sized blade appeared from nowhere, aiming to pierce Rory through her skull. She bent her back backward, dodging the attack, narrowly preserving her life. But that wouldn't be enough to thwart the Swordmaster's assault. The blade immediately changed direction, flying back towards Rory at alarming speeds as the Swordmaster toppled that on with countless slashes of varying strength and speed in order to confuse her.
Rory was capable of once again thwarting the blade by deflecting it with the back of
Bakuzan's blade but was incapable of completely dodging the onslaught of slashes that the Swordmaster had delivered, granting her dozens and dozens of cuts. He clearly had the current upper hand in this fight, until he could feel his stomach pierced by one of Rory's willpower blades. He smirked.
Rory continuously increased her physical statistics via the
Activation Dream, while also toppling it on with using the
Extinction Dream to make her weapons completely weightless to increase the speed of her attacks. What she did next may have spelled her defeat had she not used this properly...
"
Mystic Eyes of Ouroboros, Show me Eternity."
Rory's eyes bled profusely as infinite possibilities of what the Swordmaster could do flashed before her eyes, causing absurd stress and pressure to be applied to her physical and mental state. She viewed various lines of death, hoping to kill him in a single shot. But the Swordmaster's eyes were trained to near-perfection... He was completely aware of where the lines of death were on his body and knew exactly how to keep her from cutting them.
Rory dashed forward faster than he could react, delivering a strike to his neck, presumably where one of the lines of death was. But he was capable of blocking that strike with his katana, causing Rory to deliver various other supposedly unblockable strikes, having no clear patterns that would allow him to predict her movements. But...
He blocked each and every one of her strikes. It was astonishing how trained the Swordmaster's senses were to the point he could continuously block strikes from somebody as absurdly skilled as Rory the 6th... She'd need to come up with a way to get a clean hit on him before long or it'd be too late, as the
Mystic Eyes of Ouroboros wasn't something even most gods could handle using.
At best, she could keep using them for 4.5 minutes before she fried her mind and body, effectively killing her in the process. But she was far too focused to care about something such as a time limit on one of her abilities, those 4.5 minutes would be the final stretch for both of them. If he couldn't continue blocking her, his death was assured. But if Rory couldn't strike the Swordmaster cleanly, her death was assured as well. Now was the time to end the fight...
Well, usually this would be the final stretch of the fight for the Swordmaster, but he had one more trick up his sleeve.
Rory was blown back by an enormous flash of orange light, using her
Extinction Dream to manipulate space and cushion her landing against the wall. But this time, she didn't dash forward, she knew she couldn't for the heat the Swordmaster emitted during his weird transformation went far beyond what she could handle if she decided to get up close and personal.
(Phase 2 Boss Music:
The light and heat that the Swordmaster emitted began to die down and swirl around him, forming two large orange energy swords in his hands. The rest of the light and heat formed armor that covered most if not all of his body... As the heat died down, Rory dashed forward, not paying any mind to his new form.
"
Jin Unleashed."
The man's power and skill were bolstered to an entirely new height, allowing him and Rory to release shockwaves that could turn entire multiverses inside out. Rory and the Swordmaster continued their original song and dance, endlessly clashing their swords. But this time, the Swordmaster got the upper hand with his unfathomably enhanced power and skill.
Rory was being slowly overwhelmed as time went by, her eyes visibly bloodshot and strained to the point that it was hard for her to see his movements. Her focus wasn't wavering, but she had clear physical limitations that wouldn't be overcome with just focus. She needed something more... She need more power.
Rory dissipated
Bakuzan and Durandal, summoning her
Goddess Cleaver which greatly increased her power while also partially healing her wounds due to its blessings. The Swordmaster didn't let up, creating large energy blades which Rory couldn't dodge in time, forcing her to take the full brunt of the attack, which forced her into the now heavily cratered ground.
The Dauntless Swordmaster was truly a prodigy among prodigies, just like Rory. Each of his slashes contained comparable, if not better skill than Rory's attacks, and he was far stronger than her physically. If they could meet again, she would have definitely wished to spar with him to their heart's content, frolicking in combat until their bodies gave out. He would have also wanted to do so... But now wasn't the time for friendship.
Now was the time to FIGHT!
Both Rory and the Swordmaster sped up exponentially, this was definitely the final stretch of the battle. The next few movements would decide whether Rory or the Swordmaster had survived! Rory increased her physical abilities to the limit, and the Swordmaster released all of his power into this final attack! This was a battle between two warriors who put everything on the line for victory! But...
"
Divine Spirit Summoning."
A spellbook appeared in Rory's hand as she dodged the attack. Impossible, was all the power that she put into that attack merely used as a feint to get him to use up more of his energy so that she could execute this attack!? The spellbook opened, glowing dark red from the inside as Rory deactivated her
Mystic Eyes to prevent herself from dying right then and there.
"
Divine Spirit Summoning: Primordial Dragon Bahamut."
She summoned one of the most powerful Divine Dragons in existence to end this fight, sullying her honor as a swordswoman, and she knew that as soon as she decided to use the
Summoning Dream to win the fight. But she wouldn't allow that to cloud her judgment. She had to win this fight via any means she had at her disposal. And the Swordmaster...
"COME ON!"
He didn't even care that she wasn't going to fight him honorably in the end. He didn't care one bit. Instead, he gripped as blades and continued to put all of his power into them to counter the attack. He would only fight until the end, and that was what he planned to do. The Dragon Bahamut was far to large to be seen, and only released a flash of light as the Swordmaster clashed with the Dragon's scales that couldn't be viewed.
"Looks like you I was the one who was holding myself back... With my honor." The Swordmaster said.
His armor and energy swords dissipated as his body broke into pieces, the attack that Bahamut released being far to much for him to handle even if he used all of his power. But in the end, he could only smile down at Rory as his life ended.
"
Let's spar again some time!" Those were the last words of
The Dauntless Swordmaster, who had no true name.
Both the Swordmaster and Bahamut disappeared in seconds as Rory shoved her sword into the ground, falling to her knees while still holding it as tight as she possibly could. "I... Won." She said to herself, her willpower aura not wavering in the slightest as the walls between her, King Tiger, and Gabriel fell down.
"I am... The winner...!!"