Water Magician-Chapter 651 : Ryo vs Marie I
Chapter 0651 Ryo vs Marie I
Translator: Jay_Forestieri
Editor: Tseirp
But the first action Marie Cloche took was a strange one.
She sheathed the sword she had drawn—the blade she called ‘Kotetsu’.
And slipped it into her belt.
She loosened the mouth of the scabbard, bent her knees, lowered her hips, and leaned forward.
Her left hand held the scabbard; her right hand only barely touched the hilt...
“No way... battoujutsu.”
Ryo muttered.
Battoujutsu, or iaijutsu.
A technique found almost only using the Japanese sword, anywhere in the world.
Some say “iaijutsu isn’t fast”, but that comes from not understanding the folded-arm structure and wrist mobility.
To be blunt: it’s fast.
Though surprised, Ryo quickly calmed himself.
As usual, he took a seigan* stance. (TLN: A fundamental kendo sword guard)
At no point would Ryo adopt a battoujutsu stance himself.
To trade battoujutsu blows would be reckless... or rather, impossible with the Murasame...
Ryo noticed Marie’s presence changing once she took the battoujutsu stance.
Gradually, deeply, and with increasing density.
The very air around them felt it...
Slash.
Ryo’s abdomen was sliced in a straight line.
He leapt back in panic, but it was too late.
However, that was not the end!
Battoujutsu is a set that includes the attack that follows.
Clang.
Ryo received Marie’s downward cut.
Because he knew the sequence—the cut following Battoujutsu, the second strike—he was able to react. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚
But...
Clang, clang, clang...
Marie’s flurry continued.
Contrary to the single flash of battou, she forced the exchange with power and speed.
Ryo withstood it.
(A flurry combining power and speed, and with a katana, no less! )
A Japanese sword’s nature is to cut and to thrust.
Simply pressing a blade against something won’t cut. You must pull or push.
Each of Marie’s strikes performed exactly that.
And then a thrust from below, after a diagonal slash and a slight pull of the blade.
That thrust, woven into the flurry, was surprisingly troublesome.
Still, this was Ryo.
Unlike the initial battou, he began to show an ironclad defense.
After having all her strikes parried, Marie jumped back once to create distance.
“Amazing, Ryo.”
Marie praised him.
But Ryo could not answer.
He had no room to reply.
Only five minutes had passed since the clash of swords began.
And yet they had exchanged about twenty clashes.
The belly sliced by the first battou no longer bled.
He had formed an ice membrane to stop the blood.
Of course, he couldn’t fight a long battle.
He exhaled deeply.
As a result, he inhaled deeply.
A forced deep breath.
“Fine. If you want to speak, speak with the sword.”
Marie said and once more she sheathed Kotetsu.
If Ryo could strike at that moment, it would be ideal... but of course, impossible.
It wasn’t that the physical damage he suffered was so severe.
It was impossible because Marie’s interception posture was already set.
If he plunged into Marie’s range now, even in this condition, he would be literally cut in two.
Her bending of the knees, lowering of the hips, the changing air—these were nothing more than the shift from intercept to attack.
There was no opening.
Ryo returned to seigan.
He had been in a half-open gaze, but now he closed his eyes completely.
Marie’s step-in was a godspeed so fast that even the sound of the wind she cut lagged.
The draw was superhumanly fast—impossible to track with the eyes.
Clang.
But Ryo’s Murasame accepted it.
He stepped forward as if to fall and countered with a diagonal slash.
That prevented Marie from delivering the second cut.
Marie again leapt far back to create distance.
“To think you can react even to iaijutsu.”
Her astonishment exceeded praise.
“I could see it.”
Ryo answered.
“No way. You had your eyes closed, didn’t you?”
“Yes. In any case, I couldn’t catch it with my eyes.”
Marie pointed out, and Ryo agreed.
Of course, he didn’t close his eyes out of mockery.
“Could it be water-attribute magic? Using water vapor in the air or something?”
“Yes. No matter how fast something moves, it ‘pushes’ the water vapor. The pushed vapor is transmitted forward in succession...”
Simply put, Ryo had been continuously applying an <Active Sonar> on Marie.
So the moment Marie moved—when the distance changed—he could detect it.
“Impressive.”
Marie nodded in admiration.
Yet she still seemed to have some leeway.
“Against strength and speed, your reactions were perfect, Ryo. In other words, you’ve fought many opponents like that before, haven’t you?”
“Indeed, I may have fought that kind of opponent many times.”
The Duke Helb taken over by a phantom king, the Djinn Garwin, even the Akuma Leonore—all fell into that sort of category.
“I thought brute force would be impossible, but if it came to finesse, maybe I could win.”
“That was Battoujutsu, then?”
Battoujutsu isn’t something you learn that easily.
Where on earth did she pick it up?
“Before I came here, my grandfather ran an iaijutsu dojo.”
“What...?”
“I wanted a job where I could make use of that, but it was hard to find.”
“Is there such a job where you can use iaijutsu?”
“There wasn’t. So being able to use it here like this might make Grandpa happy.”
“Ah, I see...”
Marie said this while nodding, and Ryo could only nod in return.
Aside from kendo, jobs that make use of iaijutsu... yeah, he really couldn’t think of any.
“They recommended the police, but even in the police, you’d need to be a riot police or something. And apparently it’s hard for a woman to get into riot police.”
“I don’t think riot police need iaijutsu...”
“Is that so?”
Marie tilted her head.
“Um, excuse me for asking, but what was your job back on Earth?”
“A doctor.”
“Eh... What specialty?”
“Cardiac surgery.”
“I see...”
Marie seemed good at delicate work.
Ryo had heard it long ago.
Cardiac and neurosurgery require people good at fine work.
“So it helps in this job—knowing which tendons to sever so something won’t work, how to pass a blade without hitting ribs, things like that.”
“Your job...”
“I get paid, you know, as a Seven-Star General. Ryo, you do your job properly too, right?”
“Ah, yes...”
Marie said that properly doing one’s work was, as a member of society, the obvious thing to do.
Ryo could only nod.
“Still, even within work, there are tasks you like and tasks you don’t.”
“Y-yes.”
“To be honest, I don’t like imprisoning the Emperor to draw his blood.”
“You’d think not.”
“But I love fighting strong foes like this. Regardless of work.”
At that, Marie’s mouth curved up.
A smile appeared.
But it exceeded beauty; it was a savage, ferocious smile—one should call it a dreadful grin.
“Then, shall we go to round two? You can apply a potion to that belly wound, okay?”
“No, it’s not necessary.”
“Really? Well, the bleeding seems stopped... huh? I meant to cut you in two with that swing, and you evaded it, but I still cut quite deep... why has the bleeding stopped?”
“I’m a water-attribute magician.”
“...Can you control blood too?”
“I can. Haven’t you heard the story about General Yun being frozen solid?”
“...I heard.”
Ryo said this with a smile; Marie’s smile shifted into an expression of surprise.
“Could you control another person’s blood flow too...?”
“Shall we test it?”
Marie grimaced; Ryo wore a confident look.
Marie’s Earth-born medical knowledge told her this:
The water-attribute magician before her was dangerous.
If he could control another’s blood flow, he might be unbeatable in one-on-one combat!
“This might be a troublesome fight.”
Yet, contrary to her words, a cruel grin returned.
“The prime example of someone whose words and actions are completely different.”
Ryo’s mutter, sadly, reached no one’s ears.
“<Fire Machine Gun>”
“<Layered Ice Wall: 10 layers>”
Round two began with magic.
Marie’s fire-attribute magic against Ryo’s water-attribute magic.
Over a thousand flaming rounds assailed Ryo.
They shattered and were annihilated, emitting light of mutual destruction, but the overlapping ice walls continued to block them.
“Still no good.”
“I’ve seen that spell before.”
Confirming that Marie couldn’t get through, Ryo answered.
“How about this? <Freya Sphere>”
The world around Ryo was sliced into a semicircle in an instant.
A hemisphere of ten-meter radius...its boundary was searing heat.
“<Layered Ice Wall: 20-Layer Package>”
Around himself, Ryo automatically generated overlapping layers of ice outward.
The wall of flame and the wall of ice collided; lights of mutual annihilation danced.
“Not just a hemisphere, you know?”
The instant Marie muttered that, the ground exploded.
Flame spouted from underground as well.
But that, too, was countered by an ice floor.
“I figured as much.”
Ryo had already countered with <Ice Bahn>.
“Nice! Hey, water magician-san, do you know what happens when you layer flame on flame to increase pressure?”
“Eh?”
“This happens! <Fusion Plasma>”
At that moment, lightning streaked.
It was the light of plasma.
Electrons freed from atomic nuclei—plasma.
Released immense energy.
In an instant, the piled ice walls vanished.
Of course, the center too...
Dust and dirt danced.
After a while, the center became visible.
“Amazing...”
Marie murmured.
At the center stood an ice object.
“Did you freeze yourself to prevent getting evaporated by the plasma?”
Marie murmured, shaking her head slightly.
She was not careless.
She was genuinely surprised.
But surprise meant the thread of tension had been cut.
Thud.
A blade bearing an ice edge thrust into Marie’s left chest.
More surprised by the result was not Marie, who had been pierced, but Ryo, the one who had stabbed.
His face immediately distorted—his expression showed that he had struck in error.
Marie reacted and moved just a fraction to the right.
Ryo’s thrust had aimed precisely at Marie’s heart, yet...
“<Flare>”
A fist-sized fireball swelled instantly.
“<Layered Ice Wall package>”
Ryo deployed an icy package to wrap the fireball.
Of course, he knew he couldn’t fully suppress it.
What he needed now was not to suppress it completely.
He needed to buy a little time.
Marie cast magic to create distance from Ryo.
So he must not let her get away!
Ryo pursued the retreating Marie.
He leaned forward.
“Foolish.”
The next moment, Ryo’s right arm was severed.
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