A Test of Sorts

"Y’all, these 5 are from that Avoma place. Unfortunately, they’ll be in our care for the meantime." Sparrow said with suppressed exhaustion as she gestured to Xander and co.

"Huh?" One of the half-naked men scratched his head and regarded the group, and Xander noted that he was dark skinned like Sparrow, with bulging muscles and at least a head taller than Curtis, which said a lot. He was clean shaven, though, and on his bare arms were a collection intricate tattoos.

"They’re all kids." He finally said, and Sparrow rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Ragna. That’s how that works." Sha said derisively.

"What’s captain thinking? Putting these greenhorns in our care? Is he trying to get them killed?" The next member spoke. Compared to the large Ragna, he had a considerably lithe build, and on second glance, Xander realized it was a bit hard to keep his eyes on him.

’Someone specialized in stealth?’ He mused as he regarded the other three members who said nothing but inspected them curiously.

There was a young redhead who seemed barely older than them, with bright eyes and freckles. Then there was a substantially older man who looked like he was nearing his fifties, if the wrinkles by his eyes were any indication, but his build was quite sturdy, and he wielded a staff that was made of what looked like an alloy.

The last person was a considerably handsome individual with dirty blonde hair, and he seemed to wield a sword as well, but he kept yawning.

’Geez, they seem almost as odd looking as us.’ Aubrey mused, having gotten over the embarrassment of whatever she saw prior.

’Huh? What makes us weird?’ Falael asked with a clear frown and was promptly ignored, much to their dissatisfaction.

What proceeded was a 30-second staring contest where both sides sized each other, but eventually, Sparrow was the one that broke the silence.

"Kids, these are Ragna, Zeke, Nash, and Bodhi." She introduced them respectfully, then she gave the group a look. Xander quickly understood and introduced.

"My name is Xander, this is Aubrey, Curtis, Falael, and Mia." He introduced his teammates.

"What about your pets?" The elder, Nash, gestured to the two creatures on Xander’s shoulder, and he smiled wryly.

"The lizard doesn’t have a name. This is Mary. Granted, none of them are pets." At being called a lizard, the tiny dragon opened its eyes slightly and glared at Xander, but he kept his expression perfectly straight. Mary didn’t seem to care either way.

His response got the opposite side to look a bit interested, but Sparrow cut in.

"Alright, here’s the deal." She looked them over. "This is an active battlefield. Any training you got in that school? There’s a chance things are gonna get far worse here." She folded her arms.

"Our squad is responsible for scouting, which is very dangerous. So none of us are weak. But we can’t say the same for you. So to be frank, unless you show us what you can do, taking you lot on any tasks is automatically a suicidal endeavor." Her words were, understandably, harsh, but after being subject to Sergeant Alya for over a month, their skin was sufficiently thick at this point.

Seeing that none of them got irritated or defensive at her words, Sparrow nodded.

"Good, now–" Before she could finish, Ragna stepped forward, a smile blooming on his face.

"You talk too much, as usual. We don’t know how strong they are? Why not just tussle to figure it out? Ain’t hard." He stopped right in front of Xander and looked over him.

"Ragna, back off." Sparrow said sternly, but with an underlying exhaustion that suggested she knew exactly how this would go.

"What say you, kid? Think you can swing that sword of yours well enough to keep your head on your shoulders?" Ragna folded his arms, and Xander maintained his smile, but something dark appeared in his eyes.

"Well, we won’t know until we test it, won’t we?" At that Ragna’s smile widened.

"I like that." Behind him, Ragna’s teammates just shook their heads, clearly unsurprised by the turn of events.

’Should I just blow his head off?’ Falael said dryly through the link.

’Please no.’ Curtis sighed. Xander didn’t say anything else and just handed Mia to Aubrey. He glanced at Mary and she promptly took to the sky and circled from above. This left the dragon that stubbornly refused to leave his shoulder.

"Gonna warn you, kid. Ragna fights like a beast." The sleepy swordsman, Bodhi said lazily as everyone made a large circle around the two.

Around them, more soldiers noticed the commotion and started to gather, whispers soon sounding throughout.

"Hey, are those the newbies?"

"Seems like it. But immediately fighting with a member of the lunatics? They must have a deathwish."

"Newbies will be like that." Ignoring all of this, Xander calmly drew his sword and entered a stance, the one Aubrey recognized as the Fool stance.

Seeing the clearly unique stance, Ragna just raised a brow and unsheathed two one-handed axes from his waist.

Xander didn’t move.

’Show me.’ He thought simply as Ragna took a step, then his figure almost seemed to blur as he appeared in front of Xander in what seemed like an instant, one of his axes going straight for Xanders neck.

Xander didn’t panic, instead, he simply moved his sword.

The motion seemed slow, yet it occurred in a moment.

The tip of his blade moved up and met with the blade of Ragna’s axe, and when it did, a melodious sound rang out.

Before anyone could fathom what just happened, Ragna was sent flying like a broken kite, crashing through several tents before smashing into the side of a wall nearly a hundred meters away.

Xander exhaled and flicked his sword to the side.

’I guess I’ve gotten the hang of it, now.’ He hummed thoughtfully, ignoring the stunned looks of the surrounding soldiers.

Off to the side, Sparrow, who looked ready to step in, narrowed her eyes sharply. Not just her, but her remaining teammates showed varying levels of... concern?

But not for Ragna.

Xander noticed.

’What’s—’

"You reflected the force of my swing? Not bad." Xander’s pupils shrunk, and he got on a knee while raising his sword over his head.

An axe crashed down on the blade of his weapon, and terrific force was transmitted from it to Xander, but instead of his body taking damage from the residual force, the ground beneath him shattered in an almost exaggerated manner.

"Not bad!" Ragna roared a swung his leg like a whip.

Xander reacted quickly.

His blade which had been resisting the force of the axe suddenly flowed like water, pushing it aside. At the same time, he pushed himself back, evading the kick that created a gust of wind the caused his hair to flutter.

He finally got a look at Ragna, and was surprised to see that he was relatively unharmed by getting blasted away previously. Moreover, the tattoos on his arms were glowing an angry red, and his body was releasing an unnatural amount of heat.

’A berserker?’ Was what Xander thought before Ragna rushed at him again, and in a few exchanges, he understood what Bodhi meant when he said he fought like a beast.

’He’s completely neglecting defense.’ Xander noted as Ragna unleashed a rain of ferocious blows, his axes creating terrifying gales.

And yet...

’Each of those swings can easily blast apart a building, but they are concentrated in his axes. What’s more...’ He evaded two downward swings from the axes which smashed into the floor, but with a wild grin, Ragna swept his arms to the side, throwing a torrent of dust at Xander and forcing him to close his eyes.

’He isn’t fighting randomly.’ He relied on vibrations to detect Ragna’s position, still expertly deflecting and countering his attacks.

"Yeesh. I was surprised when the kid managed to blow him away like that. But now that Ragna’s fired up, there’s no stopping him." Zeke picked at his ear, but Sparrow didn’t respond, just watched with an unreadable expression.

But inwardly, she was surprised.

’That kid... other than that first attack, he hasn’t attacked Ragna once, completely focused on defense.’ She noted as the two continued to clash.

Ragna was like a maelstrom of blows, each one landing harder and faster than the last. A normal person would have been torn apart in an instant.

However, Xander calmly blocked and deflected anything everything. His footwork was clean and precise, not once moving more than needed. What’s more, in the eyes of most of the spectators, the way he used his sword was strange. Unlike anything they’d ever seen before. Bodhi especially seemed greatly interested.

"You only gonna block?! Come on now. Show me more of that stuff you did!" Ragna laughed as he continued to swing, but Xander didn’t buy the wild act for a second.

Because despite the way he was behaving, the calculating look in his eye told Xander that the larger man was far more meticulous than he appeared, and beneath the surface, the fight was far more complex than it seemed.

’This kid, he’s perfectly countering my tempo.’ Ragna frowned inwardly.

The way he fought and acted was simply a front. In reality, Ragna relied on getting his targets in a disadvantagous position before he landed a finishing blow, and most never noticed because they simply took him for a mindless beast, until it was too late.

But not Xander.

’He’s reading me like an open book!’ And yet, despite this realization, Xander hadn’t once taking advantage of it. That concerned Ragna the most, almost as if he was waiting for something.

At that moment, Xander’s stance changed, and he took the initiative to swing first.

Ragna had noticed the strange way Xander swung his sword. Instead of the large swings he was used to, he always flicked it forward like a whip, yet the power behind those swings exceeded expectation. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

’Still, why is he attacking now?’ Ragna frowned and decided to deflect the blow to be safe.

But what happened exceeded all their expectations.

The moment their weapons collided, an utterly jarring sensation traveled from his axe into his hand and the rest of his arm, and he was shocked to feel several muscles nearly unraveling as his axe almost slipped out of his hand.

’His hit hadn’t been that strong, and yet...!’ Ragna’s eyes widened as Xander exhaled once more and locked eyes with him.

’I’ve gotten your frequency.’ Then he moved.