Shinsou danced in time with Felicity’s unrelenting assault, smiling as her sword and dagger bit into Enpera’s edge with increasing ferocity. The sheer momentum forced his heels to backpedal and give ground on the polished arena surface, but even as the redhead pushed him back the Telgradian relished each thrust and parry, every jarring vibration and metallic clang. Closing his eyes, Osiris started to sense the girl’s swings as they occurred, and he almost imagined himself as the lead in one of the Winchester family’s productions as he tried to synchronise his movements with the redhead’s.

Lift, stroke, parry. Lift, stroke, parry. Lift, stroke-

Suddenly, a sharp pain ricocheted up the outside of his forearm, and Shinsou hesitated as a streak of crimson dripped down his sleeve.. He’d been caught by a swing out of time. Or, accurately, more in time. Quickly, he knocked away the follow up, and span away to put a few feet between them.

She's getting quicker, or less predictable...

Stupid. The moment’s thought had wasted precious seconds and voided the entire purpose of putting distance between them. Like a hungry wolf she pounced, close enough that the Telgradian was able to see her pupils, and only with considerable effort was he able to force his body into a swing with Enpera. Pure adrenaline overpowered Felicty’s growing presence, but her instincts served her well; she feinted past the first cross-sweep from the left, before slipping the downwards swing from the right.

Time for a response.

His eyes opened. Those gold irises shone with suppressed power, as if the light of a thousand fires were carefully harbored within. Felicity’s form blurred in front of hm as she continued to swing at him, although Shinsou was not quite sure whether this was because of her speed or the power that nigh tangibly throbbed through his mind and flowed through his veins.

Hakai: Enpera Shinkotei

With a whisper, he began to channel the power though Enpera and melded the energy into the precise amount needed to unseal some of the sword’s potential. The alien metal throbbed an iridescent white as it grew, stretching out to almost twice its length to no-dachi proportions. The process was so sudden that the momentum of the growth forced a small distance between the pair. The power that didn’t make it into the sword simply leaked from where he stood; bright, white whorls coalescing into intricately formed wisps that curved around him and evaporated beyond the mirror ceiling.

Shinsou’s concentration never wavered when the release was complete. Channeling magic in this way was not an overly difficult process, and sustaining the Hakai was not inherently sapping to his mental reserves, either, but the act of switching between maintaining Hakai and tapping into more offensive power from the conscious part of his mind took more effort than people may have given him credit for. This was the portion of his Telgradian sword art at which most novices of his race struggled and failed, but a part that he had years of experience in.

In moments, his mind turned to a counterattack. If Hakai was the vessel, his Berlioz Edge was the means. There was no time for dawdling.

There was movement; swift, almost frantic, like watching a falcon swooping for the kill, but the way his hands crossed the guard of the newly formed anti-cavalry sword was masterful and practiced. His left quickly flipped the hilt so that the sword’s cutting edge faced outwards, towards Felicity, simultaneously imbuing his dark matter into the blade until the edge glowed with a purple hue. Each of his movements was deliberate, accurate, perfect; but even those movements paled in comparison to the stroke that followed. With the grace of a master painter, the Telgradian wove the blade firstly down by his side and then ferociously brought it upwards in an arc across Felciity’s person in one fluid motion. The dark matter edge flickered before releasing into a powerful, razor sharp shockwave.

Never once did Shinsou’s eyes leave the girl, even as the dark magic crescent threatened to consume her, and the black and purple wave faded ever so slightly. Drops of scarlet blood dripped neatly to the mirror floor between his feet, the wound from his arm reminding him that although he wielded power, he was still just a man.