"So who’s winning?"

Zephyr’s voice emerged slowly, as though the question had to travel through layers of awe before reaching his tongue.

The battle unfolding before him had captured everyone watching—students and kings alike, their attention fixed on the ruin where two figures had become indistinguishable from violence. Zephyr could barely track their movements anymore. This stillness, this absence of motion from either side, felt like the end of a round rather than a pause.

Mesmerized, he could only articulate that single question.

"Khan is winning," Sam answered.

"Kenshin hasn’t used Heavenly Restriction yet," Virelle said.

"I don’t think he will today," Rhaegar added.

"Then will he use that?" Aelric asked.

"I don’t know." Rhaegar smiled at his own attempt at wordplay. "But I don’t think so. It’s too destructive."

The class caught the joke and smiled.

The kings stared at them as though they had witnessed something incomprehensible. Laughing at the word "destructive"? Class of weirdos, indeed.

---

Eden watched the battle junkies standing in the ruins of the training grounds.

Khan had grown stronger since joining the ranks of the kings. He had likely become the strongest student in the academy. A victory against the Star of Destruction would solidify that position.

Wait. Star of Destruction.

Is that why they laughed?

Eden turned his head toward the class.

He caught Dean’s gaze.

Dean slowly pointed at the center of the training grounds, telling him to turn back to the fight, while casually placing a chicken leg into his mouth.

Eden: "..."

---

"Don’t you get tired?"

"I don’t."

"Not physically. Stamina isn’t really a factor once you’ve reached S Rank, to be honest. I meant mentally."

Khan scratched his head as he continued.

"Fist fights are so boring. They don’t stir anything in my soul. Swords, on the other hand..."

"So, in a roundabout way, you want to switch gears."

Kenshin smiled.

"Ah. I like how smart you are. And I can see it in your eyes." Khan’s grin widened. "You’ve lost to me in physical blows. At least try to keep up with swords. That’s what you’re thinking, right?"

Lightning crackled around him.

"I’m usually the chatty one, but it seems I’ve been bested."

"Okay, I’ll humor you. That would be the best way to show you the talent I spoke of."

"Yes. Your talent. I would like to see it as well."

Khan summoned his katana from his storage ring.

"Do you have a sword?"

"Hey, Kenshin! I can lend you Baby if you want. Just don’t break her."

Dean’s voice carried across the field.

Khan turned briefly.

"He named his sword? It makes me feel like I’m not trying enough."

"Don’t worry," Kenshin replied to Dean as he summoned a katana from his own storage ring.

The blade emerged into the light—a traditional katana with a white hilt wrapped in black diamond-patterned cord. Its scabbard was black, decorated with silver cloud-like motifs that seemed to drift across the surface.

"You know swordsmanship?"

"This?" Kenshin smiled as he stared at the katana. "I wanted the sword, but someone else wanted it as well. He was a swordsman, and I wasn’t, so he had the best chance of receiving it—especially since I simply wanted to flaunt the sword, not actually use it. But I would never let someone take what I wanted just because of something like being the better swordsman. I simply picked up a wooden sword and trained until I became an advanced swordsman, one rank higher than he was at the time, and took the sword."

He tilted his head, considering his own words.

"Becoming an advanced swordsman took half a day or so. I had lazy rest in between. Since then, I’ve never touched a sword."

Kenshin looked at Khan. "Does that count as knowing swordsmanship?"

Khan’s lips twitched.

Does that count as knowing swordsmanship?

You just bragged about being a B-rank swordsman in less than a day. Shameless.

"I awakened as an A-rank swordsman," Khan said. "In your words: an expert swordsman."

Two could play at this game. His expression was smug.

"How long ago did you awaken?"

"A year ago."

"What rank of swordsmanship have you reached now?"

"S-rank. Master swordsman."

"Oh."

Khan shrugged. "I didn’t train that much. I played a lot."

"Oh."

Khan’s composure cracked. "You bastard. Come at me. Let’s see if your fake B-rank swordsmanship can save you."

"It might be worse than B-rank now." Kenshin’s voice was thoughtful, almost apologetic. "It’s been years since I reached that. It was before I awakened—in my early teenage years. So around twelve or thirteen."

Khan: "..."

Bro, can you stop bragging?

"Never mind." Khan exhaled. "I’ll come to you."

He unsheathed his katana. The playful energy drained from his posture, replaced by something focused, almost surgical. Lightning spread from his body to the blade, coating the steel in crackling blue arcs.

Boom.

The ground where he had stood cratered inward, dust exploding outward in a ring. He appeared beside Kenshin in the same instant, his katana already swinging.

Kenshin caught the blade with his sheathed katana. Metal met metal, and the impact rang across the ruined field like a struck bell.

Mid-turn, he unsheathed his own katana. The blade came free in a smooth arc as his body rotated fully, and by the time he faced Khan, the swing was already traveling.

Khan met it. Their blades crossed, pressed against each other, edges grinding.

They both smirked.

The bout began.

---

Their movements became flashes of light—silver and blue streaking across the training ground, trailing wakes of displaced air that carved trenches into the earth below. The terrain blurred beneath them as they fought, shifting from cratered stone to shattered earth to ground that had been pulverized so completely it no longer resembled anything natural.

Every clash of their katanas sent rings of compressed force rippling outward. The barriers surrounding the arena flickered with each impact, cracks spreading across their surfaces like fractured glass.

Khan’s blade traced arcs toward Kenshin’s throat, his chest, his hands. Kenshin’s answered each one—parries that became counters, guards that shifted into attacks without a wasted breath.

"You freak," Khan breathed between strikes. "You said it’s been years since you touched a sword."

"I’m a quick learner."

Their katanas crossed again. The force of the clash pushed both fighters backward, boots carving grooves through the ruined ground as they slid to a halt.

They stared at each other. Smiled.

Then Khan vanished.

Boom.

The ground where he had stood collapsed inward, dust and debris erupting in a mushrooming cloud. The crater spread outward in a widening circle, fractured stone giving way to powder.

Khan reappeared above Kenshin, his blade already descending.

Three slashes erupted from his katana simultaneously.

One toward the neck.

One toward the shoulder.

One toward the spine.

Too fast for ordinary perception.

Kenshin blocked all three.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Each impact blasted compressed rings of force through the atmosphere. The air itself seemed to shatter around them, waves of pressure expanding outward and collapsing what remained of the arena’s outer walls. Sections of stone that had survived the earlier bombardment now crumbled into dust.

Kenshin’s feet dug trenches through the earth. The force behind Khan’s strikes drove him backward despite his planted stance, his heels carving parallel grooves deep enough to bury an arm.

Khan pressed harder.

Every parry became a slash. Every slash became a feint. Every feint concealed another killing stroke.

A thrust toward the eye—redirected.

A cut toward the knee—blocked.

The instant Kenshin lowered his blade to intercept, Khan pivoted. The original strike vanished midway and became an upward draw cut toward the throat.

Kenshin tilted back.

Too slow.

The blade sliced across his neck.

Blood burst outward—a dark spray that caught the light and scattered in droplets across the ruined ground. The wound gaped, flesh parted, the edges clean.

Then the wound regenerated.

Muscle stitched together before the blood finished falling. Skin sealed before Khan could withdraw his blade. The only evidence that the strike had landed was the blood already soaking into Kenshin’s collar.

Khan clicked his tongue. "There’s that annoying regeneration again."

Kenshin answered with violence.

His sword blurred.

The world screamed.

Khan’s instincts detonated. He crossed his blade across his body—

BOOOOOOM.

The impact launched him backward. He tore through eight reinforced barriers before he regained control, each barrier shattering on contact, fragments of energy raining down around him like glass. His arms trembled violently. The muscles in his shoulders screamed.

Khan exhaled sharply.

Lightning erupted across his blade—not the passive coating he had maintained throughout the fight, but a concentrated surge of power that made the steel glow. Blue arcs crawled along the edge as mana condensed around the blade, the air around it distorting from the heat.

Kenshin vanished again.

Khan reacted instantly this time.

Their swords collided hundreds of times within moments. The sound was not separate impacts but a continuous roar—a single sustained note of destruction.

The battlefield disappeared beneath them.

Flashes of silver and blue tore across the sky while shockwaves cratered the earth below. Sections of the arena that had somehow survived the earlier fighting evaporated from stray sword pressure alone. What had been a training ground was now a wasteland.

Khan slipped inside Kenshin’s range.

A quick diagonal slash carved across Kenshin’s ribs. The blade bit deep, scraping against bone before continuing through.

Before the blood fully emerged, Khan reversed his grip and thrust toward the liver.

Impact.

Steel pierced flesh. The blade sank deep, angled upward, seeking something vital.

Kenshin’s body jerked. His mouth opened—not in a scream, but in acknowledgment.

Khan twisted the sword.

But Kenshin trapped the blade beneath his arm. Muscle clamped down on steel, holding it in place.

Khan’s eyes widened.

Bad move.

Kenshin’s sword came down instantly. The descending arc was not elegant. It was not technical. It was the swing of someone who had decided that the exchange needed to end and was willing to pay for it.

Khan released his weapon immediately, his hand opening before his brain had fully registered the danger. He leaned aside, his body moving on instinct.

Too late.

The descending slash sheared through his shoulder.

Blood exploded outward—a dark fountain that caught the light, scattering droplets across the ruined ground. The arm separated completely, severed just below the joint, the katana still clutched in its fingers as it tumbled through the air.

The severed limb hadn’t even hit the ground before lightning surged violently around the wound.

Flesh rewove. Bone reformed. Muscle stitched itself together in a web of crackling blue arcs.

A new arm regenerated rapidly—pale, unmarked, indistinguishable from the one that had been lost.

Meanwhile, Kenshin ripped Khan’s trapped sword free from his arm. The blade came loose with a wet sound, blood trailing from its tip. He swung it horizontally with monstrous force, the flat of the blade aimed at Khan’s ribs.

Khan ducked beneath it. The sword passed over his head, close enough to stir his hair.

He reappeared behind Kenshin instantly, his regenerated hand already gripping his original sword—which he had caught mid-fall without looking.

A thrust shot toward Kenshin’s spine.

Blocked behind the back.

Without looking.

Kenshin’s blade met Khan’s thrust at the last possible instant, the edge deflecting the point just enough. The tip grazed past his ribs instead of piercing them.

Kenshin turned sharply.

What followed was not a sequence of strikes but a sustained assault. Heavy overhead slash. Horizontal cut. Reverse upward slash. Every movement aimed to overpower entirely rather than outskill. The sword became an extension of raw force, each swing carrying enough weight to crater stone.

Khan met them head-on.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Each collision bent the surrounding terrain inward. The ground beneath their feet shattered repeatedly from the force transmitted through their blades, stone pulverized into dust, dust compressed into something approaching glass.

Then Khan altered his rhythm.

One clash—

Then silence.

Kenshin sensed danger instantly. His instincts screamed, his body already moving before his mind caught up.

Too late.

Khan’s blade disappeared from his vision entirely.

Not speed.

Technique.

A hidden angle—a cut that did not follow the path his eyes had tracked. The slash emerged from beneath Kenshin’s own sword guard, from a direction that should have been impossible, and carved cleanly through his torso.

For a single instant—

Kenshin’s upper body separated slightly from his waist.

The students froze. Time seemed to stop. Blood hung in the air between the two halves of his body.

Then flesh began reconnecting immediately.

Muscle stitched together across the gap, fibers weaving into fibers. Bone fused, the jagged edges of the severed vertebrae grinding back into alignment. Skin sealed over the wound, smooth and unmarked.

Khan stared.

Kenshin smiled.

"Nice," He said, as though acknowledging a well-played move in a game.

Khan’s eye twitched.

"You’re good," Khan added.

"I know right."

"Yeah." Khan rolled his shoulders, settling back into his stance. "I’m going to amp it up now, Mr. I-Haven’t-Touched-a-Sword-Since-I-Was-Twelve. I hope you understand awakened swordsmanship is a lot more than just clashing blades physically."

His eyes brightened. "Let me show you."

"Parting Rivers."

Khan whispered the name as he swung his katana in a horizontal line.

The blade did not extend. It did not grow. But as it completed its arc, a line of light flowed from it—not a beam, not a projectile, but a severance. The air itself parted where the light passed, leaving behind a thin, shimmering absence.

Kenshin’s instincts screamed. His body moved before conscious thought, throwing itself sideways, away from the arc of light.

Not fast enough.

When he appeared farther away, his right hand side was already regenerating—flesh knitting, skin smoothing, the evidence of the wound erased as quickly as it had been inflicted.

"See?" Khan’s smile returned. "This is swordsmanship."