Eva was the first to move.
She closed the gap in four quick, graceful steps, raising her wooden sword in a diagonal cut toward Alaric's left shoulder. The move wasn't practised. Anyone familiar with swordplay could see she hadn't been formally trained. Still, there was something about the way she moved that made it hard to doubt her skill. She had a natural ease that seemed impossible for someone with no training. The strike came from the right angle, at the right distance, and with just the right speed to make it hard to predict.
Alaric stepped back and swept his staff aside, redirecting the attack rather than blocking it. The impact was clean. Eva's wooden sword slid off to the right, and her arm took the force of the deflection, the shock running up to her elbow.
She blinked.
The blink only lasted half a second.
This time, rather than wait for her to move, he relaxed his posture and began moving around her, observing her reaction. Curiosity has gotten the better of him. He still hasn't figured out what it is that lets her react to his moves without directly being in her line of sight. For instance, right now he's moving around her quietly, and whenever he sees an opening to take advantage of, she suddenly shifts awkwardly, without any practice to cover those openings. It was truly a curious ability she has.
'Is it like the feeling I get whenever I am about to do something dangerous, like a danger sense or something? Let's call it intuition.'
Of course, he could just use his ability to analyse everything he needed about her, but with the warning from earlier, he chose peace. He would rather put faith in his constantly growing skills than be on that woman's bad side, if he already wasn't. She didn't seem to like him much, judging from the look on her face whenever his perception reached her.
While Alaric was busy trying to figure her out, Eva was on edge. At intervals, she would feel her heart about to leap out of her chest, and her body would instinctively shift into a more comfortable position, which seemed to calm her. This is the same feeling that overcomes her whenever she sees the boy moving around her, about to strike. Truthfully, despite being with her teacher for some time, she hasn't been able to learn anything to do with swordplay, not even how to properly hold a sword. It was this instinctive feeling that guided her to parry all his strikes, not discounting her strength; without proper strength, she wouldn't be able to block them without breaking a few bones.
Tired of waiting, she reset her grip, shifted her back foot six inches to the left, raised the sword again, and the guard she settled into was not the same guard as before. It was better, measurably and structurally better than the last.
Alaric Noticed. Of course, he does. She was his entire focus at this moment.
He stepped forward and brought the staff around in a low sweep aimed at her ankles, testing her footwork. Eva lifted her right foot and stepped through the swing with the calm precision of someone who had already been told it was coming. She just stopped resisting the constant tug of the unknown and naturally followed it. The movement this time was smoother and less awkward than when the battle began.
Her counter cut came down towards his right arm. Alaric pulled the staff back and took the hit on the shaft instead of his wrist.
What happened next was a blur of movement from the mundane eyes.
He moved fast, just enough for her to track his movement with refined footwork he learnt fron Tian during their travels. This was different from his usual stance; he wasn't going to stand by and take her attacks any longer, so to get a better test of her abilities, he became proactive. His movement became irregular. He shifted the staff between high and low lines in a rhythm that had no rhythm, that was almost a rhythm before refusing to resolve, and when Eva's instinct reached forward to read the next moment, she found it difficult to follow.
Her breathing became more erratic, and sweat began to form on her head and palms; her wooden sword almost slipped, but for the texture and her firm grip.
She jumped back, distancing herself from him, but he followed her retreat, calmly, and brought the staff into a flowing guard that had no name in any martial curriculum because it had never been written down, because he had invented it in the last ninety seconds. The butt of the staff traced a slow circle at his side, slowly, and his front hand rode lightly at the midpoint, and the whole posture communicated something that was not aggressive and was not passive either, it was frightenly deceptive in nature, but this attack managed to break through her guard and before she could respond to it, the staff struck her side harshly, not enough to do much damage but to cause a certain level of pain.
'Ick, ' she yelped in pain, making Alaric frown a little, before said frown vanished without a trace.
'If she wanted the fight to end, I am sure she would just surrender.' He thought before stopping that train of thought. 'I almost forgot she is a kid. What if she's too stubborn to accept defeat at all?' 'I should probably say something before she gets hurt from this exchange.'
"I think we should end this here today. We can call it a draw." He tried to use an upbeat tone and smiled a little, but that didn't seem to do the trick, as the girl's confusion turned into a frown.
"Don't you dare look down on me." Her expression turned furious. One thing Alaric didn't know was that dark elves were warriors, ones who served a war god, and that the concepts of defeat and a tie were synonymous. It was a concept that was rooted in her DNA, so what he just said was the highest form of insult one could say to a dark elf.
The already tense air around her grew thicker. Her hair billowed in the wind as she, furious, stepped forward before accelerating with a burst of speed. The atmosphere around her wooden sword distorted, as cracks began to appear around its surface, as though it were being put under a pressure it could not bear.
Alaric, calm as always, prepared his staff to parry her strike, not knowing why she was so furious about a simple draw. But the moment he saw the blade coming from his right, his intuition flared up in high alert, strangely, not from the blade coming from his right but from the empty space from his left, so without any hesitation, he planted his staff on the floor and ducked below, successfully dodging the attack. That seemed to be the right cause of action, as his staff was split twice: once by her wooden sword, which was on the verge of shattering, and the other by an invisible blade that cut just above his hand gripping the staff, turning it into a stick in his hand.
He quickly dodged her follow-up by rolling on the floor in an undignified manner. This all happened in under a second, making him stop to think about what just happened.
'An invisible attack? How did she do that? Is it a martial arts technique? Would I be able to learn it? I hope so. A gleam passed through his eyes at the thought of learning techniques like that, and he couldn't help but wonder what principles such a technique operates by. 'This is the second time today my eyes have failed me. I couldn't see that attack coming at all; if not for my intuition, this match would be over by now.'
Alaric took a deep breath and concentrated on Eva. Since she had shown him something this extraordinary, he wouldn't mind showing her something he had come up with during his time with the old man. He slowly walked towards her; unlike the other times, his footsteps were not silent, but released a certain frequency that travelled through the air. This didn't seem any bit extraordinary at first, but as he drew close to her, she felt something.
Her surroundings began to change, subtle at first, but as the boy drew closer. The colours became more vivid, and the distance between them began to expand and contract repeatedly. The giant tree, some distance away, seemed to grow taller than usual, and its bark began to crack, turning into razor-sharp teeth that spun like a chainsaw. Fear gripped her as she trembled like a child. Her instincts warned her repeatedly to move, but she was too afraid to even respond. Then came the worst: every other sound seemed to go mute, apart from Alaric's footsteps. Her balance began to betray her as she felt the ground tilt, making her stagger forward.
This feeling lasted exactly two minutes before abruptly stopping. Her surroundings returned to normal, and she could once again comprehend the concept of distance. In front of her was the face of the boy she had been battling with for the past few minutes, his beautiful crimson hair billowing in the direction of the wind. The bright sunlight seemed to illuminate his presence even more, enhancing his image in her eyes. Those bright purple eyes seemed to peer deep into her soul, giving her an impression of someone with a good amount of wisdom.
"I win."
This seems to break her out of her reverie; her eyes drifted away from his, and she offered no protest. She has lost, fair and square; she could feel the shortened staff, calmly resting on her shoulder, leaving no room for complaint.
She released her grip on the wooden sword. Immediately after it touched the ground, the bond that kept its broken parts together gave way, and it shattered, as though sensing its wielders' loss.
"You won." She offered a reply, one filled with a good amount of respect, and the once-tense air around her vanished, replaced by a very lively energy. "I want to know the technique you used last. It was so scary. Do you think I can learn it? Teach me, teach me, please."
The sudden change in demeanour took him off guard, but he calmly nodded before replying, "I will, if you teach me the invisible technique you used back then."
This made her hesitate briefly, leading Him to think it might be some secret technique, before she clenched her fists and gave a very serious response: "I will try."
That made him smile a little.