The expansive backyard of the estate had been transformed into a temporary arena. The morning dew still clung to the meticulously manicured grass. In the center of the field, two figures moved with a tempo that was both beautiful and violent.

Julianne sat comfortably near the pool in a lounge chair, sipping a steaming cup of tea. Behind her stood Wendy, her posture as rigid as a statue, though her eyes tracked the combatants with a professional focus.

Diana gripped a long wooden odachi, her silver hair tied back in a high ponytail that whipped through the air as she moved. Kurt stood opposite her, holding a wooden dagger in each hand. They moved in a circle, testing the air and feeling each other out before Diana lunged first.

CLACK!

Wood on wood slammed against each other as they clashed.

Diana pushed with surprising strength for her frame, but Kurt didn’t try to match her force. Instead, he twisted his wrists, slid his daggers along the length of her blade and stepped inside her guard. Before she could reset, he hooked his heel behind her ankle and gave a sharp tug while simultaneously shoving her shoulder.

"Ah–!"

Her eyes widened as her center of gravity vanished. As she began to fall backward, Kurt’s hand shot out, catching her by the waist and pulling her flush against his chest before she could hit the damp grass.

Diana gasped as her heart hammered against her ribs. Partly from the exertion, partly from the proximity.

"Haa *huff* You... you weren’t lying," she panted, looking up at him. "You really could beat me... if no magic was involved."

Kurt grinned, pulling her upright and steadying her. "I told you so. Raw technique doesn’t care about mana reserves."

"That’s fine and all, Rosie," Diana smoothed her training clothes when a playful smirk returned to her lips. "But it’s completely unrealistic. In the real world, no one is going to turn off their mana just to make it a fair fight for you."

"To me, the whole concept of magic is unrealistic. Throwing fire from your fingers? Fighting with telekinesis? Teleporting? Don’t get me started."

"Oh, don’t be like that." Diana’s eyes flashed with competitive spirit. "Come, how about we spar for real? No holds barred. Use everything you’ve got."

"Are you sure? It’s not going to be like last time. I’ve gotten a lot more experience since our last... encounter."

He held up his right wooden dagger. Slowly, a shimmering, translucent veil of blue energy began to ripple across the wood. It hummed with a low-frequency vibration as the area around the blade began to distort.

"Mana coating? Rosie... that’s a high-level knight technique. It hasn’t even been long since your body first came into contact with mana. How did you do that?"

"Beat me, then I’ll tell you."

Diana’s arched an eyebrow. "Is this arrogance I’m hearing?"

"No," Kurt replied, dropping into a low, aggressive stance. "Just think of it as... motivation."

He didn’t wait for her to respond back. He blitzed.

Kurt was a blur of motion, his legs reinforced by strengthening magic. But right as his dagger was about to connect with her shoulder, she vanished.

Tingle

’Oh shit–!’

A sharp instinctual prickle at the base of Kurt’s skull made him duck. The wooden odachi whistled through the space where his head had been a fraction of a second prior. He rolled forward, coming up in a crouch as Diana reappeared ten feet away, smiling.

"Nice reflex," she praised.

Kurt didn’t answer and lunged again. He swung a low kick to sweep her legs while simultaneously thrusting with both daggers. His foot connected with nothing but air. Diana vanished again.

He felt the tingle behind him – he spun. Nothing.

He felt the tingle from the left – he dodged. Nothing.

’She’s messing with me.’

Suddenly, the sensation came from directly above. Kurt crossed his arms, reinforcing his forearms with mana.

CLACK!

Diana’s odachi slammed down from the sky, her full weight behind the strike. Kurt groaned as his boots sunk an inch into the soft soil, but he held his ground. Before he could counter, she was gone again.

Tingle

It came from the right, but it was too fast. The wooden blade caught him square in the ribs. The impact sent him tumbling across the grass with a cloud of dust trailing behind him. While rolling, he pushed himself up, coming to a halt. He shook his head and steadied himself.

"Aww~ A little slow on the reaction, Rosie?" Diana taunted, resting her weapon on her shoulder.

Kurt wiped off the dirt on clothes and narrowed his eye as a fierce blue light shone through. He poured more power into his legs, his muscles bulging beneath his trousers and shot himself forward. He moved so fast the grass flattened behind him.

Diana quickly reacted and slammed her foot into the earth.

A thick slab of rock erupted from the ground, blocking Kurt’s path. Without losing momentum, he ran vertically up the side of the wall, flipped over the top, and dove at her.

Diana looked up with an expression of pure excitement. As Kurt’s mana-coated dagger descended, it passed straight through her image.

*Tsk* ’Annoying!’

A prickling sensation came from behind the very wall he had just scaled. Kurt didn’t turn to dodge or block. He channeled every ounce of mana into his daggers and swung backwards.

BOOM!

The earth wall shattered into a thousand fragments. Behind the debris, Kurt’s dagger collided with the tip of Diana’s odachi. Right as they collided, a sickening creak filled the air.

Her eyes went wide as a hairline fracture appeared at the tip of her wooden weapon. It raced down the center of the blade as Kurt’s dagger ran through. She teleported away just as his daggers sliced the odachi cleanly in half. The two pieces of wood falling into the grass.

Kurt stood amidst the settling dust, breathing hard. He looked at her as she reappeared by the fountain. "Aww~ Better grab a new weapon, Ana." He taunted, mimicking her earlier tone. "I’ll wait."

Diana’s smile turned cold with the thrill of the hunt. "Oh, you’re in trouble now."

She vanished, reappearing a moment later with a fresh training odachi from the rack.

"What’s this? Back so fast? I guess you’re feeling... motivated, heh."

She looked at Kurt as her voice dripped with a dangerous, loving edge. "Oh Rosie... That’s enough talking."

Suddenly, the tingle he’s been feeling changed. It wasn’t coming from one direction anymore. It felt like his whole body was vibrating, pressing in on him from every angle. Diana disappeared.

Time stopped.

In the span of a single heartbeat, he saw six different Dianas surrounding him, each one frozen in the middle of a different strike. One was aiming for his neck, two for his ribs, one for his legs, and two more from above. Their blades were inching their way closer and closer.

’Is she seriously teleporting so fast that she’s created afterimages?’

He spotted a gap in the overhead arc and exploded upward, propelling himself twenty feet into the air.

Time snapped back to normal. The six afterimages converged on the spot he had just occupied, their wooden blades clashing against each other with a sound like a thunderclap.

Diana looked up, her ponytail fluttering. "Cheater! Is that your skill at play?!"

"You’re calling me the cheater?!" Kurt screamed from above. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Not giving him a chance to land, she pointed her hand up towards him. Blue mana swirled around her palm until in condensed itself at a single point in the center. Then, its form changed into flames.

Boof! Boof! Boof!

Three orbs of roaring flame shot toward him.

Mid-air and with no leverage, Kurt performed a series of tight aerial spins, his mana-coated daggers sliced cleanly through the fireballs like they were paper, dissipating the magic before it could burn him.

He landed safely on his feet, his daggers glowing brighter than ever.

"Y’know, Diana. I heard you could also use mana coating."

Diana flipped her ponytail back and went into stance. "That’s right, I can. But this is just light sparring, Rosie. I’d rather not use it."

"Don’t be like that. Show me."

"My wooden weapon wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure of my specific mana type."

"My weapons are doing just fine though," Kurt countered.

"Hahaha, oh Rosie. What you’re using is the beginning stage of mana coating. Raw reinforcement. There is so much more to it than that."

"More?"

"Much more. But I won’t show you here. I’d rather not put you or the mansion at risk."

"I can handle it. Come on, don’t pull your punches."

Diana looked at him for a long moment, then turned toward the porch. "Mom! We’ll be right back!"

Julianne just waved lazily from her chair.

Diana walked over to Kurt and took his hand. Then, the world turned inside out and a second later, the smell of fresh grass was replaced by the salty scent of the ocean.

"This is... the island we were stranded on." Kurt noticed when looking around.

"I thought it would be the perfect place to showcase my little demonstration." Diana smiled, letting go of his hand.

She walked away from him, her boots crunching on the sand until she was fifty feet away. She let out a long breath and stretched her arm out to the side.

The gem that hung around her chest began to glow with a blinding crimson light. A rip appeared in the air, and a long, curved odachi with a crimson steel blade slid into her hand.

She fell into a wide, low stance, the tip of her blade pointed at him.

"Don’t worry, Rosie, I won’t actually hit you with this. I just want you to see what the finished product looks like. But... you might want to raise your guard. Just in case."