Uncouth Combatants Part 2

It was so fast it barely registered.

Hayato stepped first, the lazy smile wiped clean from his face for a second. His stance shifted, loose like a drunkard, casual and unthreatening, only to suddenly blur forward with a motion that cracked the stone beneath his feet.

To Andrew, Battle Flow took hold like an old friend. His perception exploded outward, stretching every split-second into ponderous hours. He saw Hayato’s body flex, the shift of weight onto the front foot, the tightening of the shoulder before the draw.

Andrew adjusted his grip. With Crossing Block, every centimeter closer Hayato got became a deathtrap for any incoming strike. If Hayato entered striking distance, Andrew’s arms would move faster than the eye could follow, faster than even his mind could fully register.

A black line slashed across the night air.

Andrew stepped back, dragging his left foot, turning his body slightly, blade flashing up to intercept and the steel sang out as the two swords collided.

Sparks burst from the meeting point, a shower of light against the stark Bureaucratic Quarter skyline.

Andrew’s teeth ground together. The sheer pressure behind Hayato’s swing, fueled by his Pure Body Devotions, was monstrous. It wasn’t just refined technique it was raw, amplified martial prowess made tangible.

Even with Battle Flow and Crossing Block magnifying his reflexes and defense to near-mythical proportions, Andrew’s arms trembled from the force.

Hayato didn’t stop. The clash of steel had barely rung out when he twisted, pivoted his rear foot, and swept into a follow-up slash, low and wide. A movement that, under normal circumstances, would have been far too slow and telegraphed.

But with Hayato’s unnatural speed...

Andrew cursed under his breath, bending his knees sharply and slamming his own sword down at the perfect angle to parry.

A ringing impact.

The force blew Andrew back three meters across the gravel-strewn rooftop, boots skidding and scraping loudly.

But he wasn’t caught off-balance. Battle Flow ensured his brain processed every movement. His body was slower, sure, but he knew what he needed to do.

Andrew darted forward.

He didn’t give Hayato a second swing.

Instead, he closed distance fast, locking their swords at the hilts, shoulder to shoulder, straining against each other’s strength.

Hayato laughed, genuine and relaxed, as if they weren’t trading death in every breath.

“Good reflexes,” he said, teeth glinting under the fluorescent rooftop lights. “But you’re a bit stiff, no?”

Andrew grunted and twisted his wrists, trying to disarm him with a leverage break.

Hayato let go of his sword entirely.

In an instant, he stepped in, chest-to-chest, and headbutted Andrew squarely in the forehead.

A heavy thunk filled the air.

Andrew staggered backward, momentarily stunned, blood trickling from his brow. He should've worn his gong kabuto.

Hayato caught his own falling sword with one hand as it dropped, fluid as breathing.

“You think fights are like sermons,” Hayato said, spinning the blade once lazily. “Like a structured ceremony?”

Andrew wiped the blood from his forehead.

"You really don't understand. In the end, this is just judgement." Andrew answered, settling back into a defensive stance, his body low and ready.

“Oh no,” Hayato said, grinning, “I understand perfectly.”

And then he came at him again.

Another explosion of movement.

His attacks flowed from high to low, left to right, back and forth, in a chaotic, barely-predictable onslaught.

Andrew parried, ducked, and twisted, moving with incredible efficiency. Every time Hayato’s blade threatened to touch him, Crossing Block kicked in, lightning-speed reflexes at kissing distance. Slowly but surely, Hayato pushed him back towards the edge of the roof.

And Andrew welcomed it, volunarily jumping back, with his opponent soon following.

The wind howled as Hayato and Andrew plunged down the sheer concrete wall of the Bureaucratic Quarter’s tower, a dizzying hundred-meter descent framed by cold glass and sharp steel.

Andrew gritted his teeth. His boots barely found purchase. His left hand scraped his Regenerating Cuirass across the smooth surface, carving deep gouges to slow his fall, sparks trailing behind him like a comet’s tail.

Above him - or was it beside him now, with the wild tumble of gravity? - Hayato barely touched the wall. His tabi gripped the surface like it was made for him. He ran straight down the face of the tower as easily as a man running down a hill, sword sheathed once more, body loose and limber.

Andrew’s gaze flicked to the side.

There.

An approaching white shape blurred toward them like a missile. Even with his enhanced senses and Battle Flow slowing time to a crawl in his mind, Andrew recognized it only at the last second.

A massive angel, golden armored, wings stretched wide.

And standing atop its back, riding it like a surfboard, was Meliala, her robes whipping in the gale, water pistol in hand, and clinging desperately to one of the angel’s legs was a tattered figure.

Hajun.

Hajun, who even from this distance looked like a stubborn tick refusing to let go.

Andrew's pupils constricted. He jerked his body sharply left, trying to angle his fall and give himself room. Even moving at full speed, even knowing it was coming, the speed of that damned angel was monstrous.

Meanwhile, on the angel’s back, chaos bloomed.

Meliala turned and sprayed Hajun’s face with a squirt of holy water from her ornate gun. Hajun shrieked, a sound of boiling frustration more than pain, smoke rising from his skin as he clambered higher, his nails digging into the angel’s feathers.

He grabbed one of the enormous wings in both shackled hands.

And ripped.

With a horrible wet tear, one of the angel’s wings snapped clean off.

The creature let out a shrieking, metallic wail. Its path veered violently to the side. Like a drunk losing balance, it smashed bodily into the building.

Directly between Hayato and Andrew.

A burst of pulverized concrete, glass shards, and shattered marble erupted outward like a bomb.

Andrew, already mid-dodge, twisted his body unnaturally, to dodge. Even then, the shockwave threw him out of Hayato's sight.

The leader of the Yahata mercenaries planted one foot against the wall, absorbed the impact in his knees like water soaking into earth, and launched himself off the surface, riding the explosion’s edge like a surfer catching the wave.

He landed on the ground with a bone-jarring crack but kept his footing, skidding in a crouch. He raised his head just in time to see the immediate aftermath of the impact.

The building didn’t just shudder, it split. The high-rise cracked in two like an old bone, one half leaning precariously before beginning its slow, inevitable fall toward the street below.

Hayato raised his blade just as the ministry tower’s broken mass began to collapse over him. Thousands of tons of concrete, steel and glass, a slow-motion mountain of death.

Still, he didn’t run.

He simply let out a breath.

Settled into a wide-legged stance.

And focused his aura.

For a split second, causality loosened its deathgrip. Past, present, and future blurred like an impressionist’s stroke. Hayato’s blade blurred not forward in space, but through time, stitching through every potential movement Andrew could make, every step he might take, every dodge he might attempt.

He could see it coming. Andrew's next attack. From among the dust and falling debris.

Every single future where Hayato’s sword missed simply ceased to exist.

The blade moved.

A second later, Andrew was slashed.

A crimson line tore across his chest, precise and inescapable. Yet Andrew didn't flinch.

Even as blood welled up, even as pain should have wracked him, his posture remained immaculate. His hand still clutched the once again sheathed sword at his waist, still, tense, waiting.

It was then that she appeared.

Meliala. Her robes were torn, her skin bruised and battered, one of her legs trembling with the effort to stay upright. But she stood. From her broken lip, a thin trail of blood ran down her chin, blood she gathered with a vicious flick of her hand, hurling it into the air.

The droplets scattered, carried on the collapsing gusts.

One found its mark: Andrew’s wound.

Where it landed, it glowed.

The deep cut that Hayato had carved began to seal, not instantly, but fast enough. The flesh pulsed, stitching itself together under the power of Meliala’s Panacea Specialist talents, the healing agents flooding his bloodstream and bones.

It was then, right before the building reached the ground, that Andrew used his attack.

From his defensive posture, sword still in its sheath, he unleashed the Nimbus Iaido.

A flash of silver faster than lightning, not so much a movement as a pure, vicious concept of motion. His blade became an idea, a blurred memory, and the strike that followed was too fast for human eyes to register.

Only Hayato's body, honed beyond mortal limits by his Pure Body and instincts, even began to react.

But even he wasn’t unscathed.

A shallow cut opened across his ribs, almost an afterthought compared to the deathblow Andrew had intended, but still a cut.

Avoiding the slash caused Hayato's dodging of the falling building to be clumsier than expected, if still virtually perfect when judged by anyone of inferior training. It sent him sliding back a dozen meters, boots skidding twin trenches through the dirt and rubble.

He clicked his tongue, a lazy grin tugging at his mouth.

"Close," he said, voice easy, as if they weren’t standing amid a collapsing battlefield.

"No, it was just enough." said Andrew.

Above them, casting a massive shadow, the wounded angel reoriented itself.

It spread its remaining wings, broken and tattered, and aimed the remnants of its power at Hayato. Even with Pure Body, the summoned angel's physical capabilities outclassed his.

One final, desperate act.

For just a moment, Hayato let out a slow breath, feeling the storm about to break.

"This day's getting expensive," he muttered to himself.

For a heartbeat, the battlefield stood still. And then, a sound caught the attention of both swordsmen.

It was Meliala's voice. She finally buckled, gasping, with her body trembling as she hit the limit. Her Aura Reserve had run dry. The angel began to disintegrate, its last remnants flickering like dust in the wind right before striking down Hayato.

Andrew looked at her for a second before focusing on something else. He stiffened, his instincts sharper than most could even comprehend. His eyes flicked upward.

Hayato, catching the shift, followed the glance.

At first, it was just a faint dot against the endless sky above the District.

But then they heard it.

Something.

Someone.

-booooss!-

A distant, garbled shout growing louder, clearer, gaining shape along with the blur falling straight from the heavens.

Hayato squinted.

Hajun.

Of course it was Hajun.

And he was... screaming something?

"...Get out of the way!" Hayato translated a second later, voice flat with realization.

He clicked his tongue, annoyance threading through the casual exhaustion in his face. Without wasting a second, he turned to Andrew, whose blade was still in hand, whose stance was wary.

"Take the girl and run," Hayato said, tone still lazy, but carrying a sharpness that left no room for arguing.

Andrew hesitated, the old reflex to protest flickering in his posture.

"No seriously. Just go," Hayato added, waving his free hand in a vague shooing gesture.

That, more than anything, seemed to convince him.

Andrew grabbed Meliala, half-lifting, half-dragging her battered body, and bolted toward cover just as Hajun came crashing down.

The impact wasn't like a crash or a thud.

It was like the end of a sentence.

The entire block flattened.

Dust and broken concrete exploded outward in a perfect shockwave, shattering windows and sending debris flying like shrapnel. Anything lighter than a small boulder was ripped off the ground.

The earth itself cracked open under the force.

For a few seconds, everything vanished in a choking cloud of dust and crushed stone.

Andrew, coughing and shielding Meliala with his body, managed to peer through the haze.

There.

At the center of the wreckage.

Hajun stood tall, fists still clenched, breathing easy, the remaining minor cuts and burns he’d sustained already stitching themselves shut with that grotesque, unnatural speed.

He spotted Andrew and Meliala through the settling dust, his sharp teeth flashing in a crooked grin.

"Alright," Hajun said, casually cracking his neck. "Round two?"

Meliala, barely conscious, grit her teeth and tried to push herself upright.

Even with her Panacea Specialist healing keeping her together, she couldn’t last much longer without Aura. The bruises, the fractures, the internal bleeding, they were catching up.

Before anything could escalate, a hand came down sharply across Hajun’s head.

Thunk.

It wasn't hard, not really. Just enough to make Hajun blink stupidly and glance backward.

Hayato stood there, arm lazily draped over Hajun's shoulders now, grinning like a man who just caught his dog digging through the trash.

"You absolute moron," Hayato said, tone light, almost amused. "Look at the mess you made. Overseers are gonna be on our asses in about..." He paused, squinting theatrically. "Eh. Five minutes, maybe two if they send the elite squad."

Hajun scratched the back of his head sheepishly, his long shackles rattling.

Across the square, Andrew and Meliala watched, half in awe, half in horror.

Hayato gave them a friendly wave.

"Look," he called out, voice carrying easily over the ruin. "This guy here? He's real stubborn. Doesn't stay down. Real problem for your plans, if you catch my drift."

Andrew’s grip tightened slightly on Meliala, who was sagging heavily against him.

"So how about this," Hayato continued. "We call it even for today. No hard feelings. You live. We live. Everyone goes home in more or less one piece."

He smiled, genuinely, almost warmly.

"Next time though? We’re charging you."

Hajun, still not quite understanding the situation, just nodded enthusiastically beside him.

Hayato patted him on the head like a particularly dense dog.

For a few seconds after Hayato and Hajun disappeared into the ruined streets, the world seemed to stand still.

Only the distant crackle of falling debris filled the empty space where the fight had ended.

Andrew shifted his grip, supporting Meliala’s weight more carefully. Her breathing was shallow, her skin clammy against his side.
She was staring ahead, or rather, through everything, dazed.

"How...?" she whispered. "How can a sinner like that still stand... after everything...? After all that I did...? Was my faith not engouh?!"

Andrew looked at her for a moment, then let out a slow breath.

"No," he said gently. "This isn't your fault. Not one effort of yours is wasted. Every prayer you spoke, every blow you struck, they were seen. They were heard. And they will be rewarded."

Her head dipped slightly, her body sagging against him as if part of the weight she was carrying finally slipped away.

"And personally" Andrew added, smiling, "I'm grateful. You had faith in me as well, that I'd finish the fight when you healed me."

The words weren't loud, but they seemed to steady her better than any medicine.

"Come on," he said. "Lets get out of here. We'll try again next time."

"You really think they'll charge us for another fight?"

"I... I wouldn't put it past them."