Another weekend passed, and Ariyama was on his way to actually making some progress with his mana location.

  Once again imagining the sea of red dust covering everything, Ariyama felt the grip on his sword tighten, his arms shaking ever so slightly. Heat burned through his head, and he felt the blood as it rushed through his veins, his laboring breaths tearing dry coughs from his parched throat.

  He felt like he was suffocating, like a dome of heat covering the air around him, pressing down onto him like an invisible elephant stepping on an ant. Ariyama was sure he was on the verge of collapsing in on himself.

  And after three full days of attempts --this last day without the help of Matsune, as she supposedly had an ‘assignment’ to complete for the Pilgrims’ Society – Ariyama Saato finally saw the blue among the red mist.

  They looked like specks of cobalt, like distant shining stars in the crimson space. When Ariyama noticed them, he almost lost his concentration and dissipated the imaginary fog around him. But he caught himself and focused on his surroundings. He tried to see how the blue sparks flickering in his mind.

  Ariyama wanted to reach out, to grab and feel these blue dots in the air. They felt ever-more tangible and corporeal. Almost like glowing golf balls. Ariyama imagined how they'd feel, like smooth or squishy or rough or rubbery.

  And as his mind wandered, he lost focus.

  And the whole mental world was exposed around him. He felt weightless for a few moments, as if floating in nothingness. His heart raced as he recalled his first meeting with Idolseus, back when he touched the sword. But before he could have a panic attack while semi-conscious, the world – the real world – fell into place around him and he could suddenly feel the pillow he was sitting on and the rough handle of the sword he was clutching. Clutching so tightly, he realized that blood dripped from his palms, making a small stain of red on the floor.

  His breath rushed back to him like a speeding meteor, and the force nearly knocked him onto his back. He just blew out a long breath and leaned back with his hands on the floor behind him.

  “Wowzers.”

  “How is it coming along, Ariyama-kun?”

  The voice speaking suddenly made Ariyama jump and he turned to his right with a look of terror on his face.

  Matsune closed the door behind, set down her bag on the floor, then froze as she saw his expression. Her face scrunched up, hand flying to cover her mouth, and she turned away from him. As her shoulders began to shake, Ariyama worried that she was crying for some reason.

  “Um… Matsune, are you OK…?”

  But instead of any choked sob and quiet hic, Ariyama heard a low chortle. Matsune slowly turned back around, her face red, eyes watering, trying to keep in her laughter as politely as possible.

  Realizing what was at play here, Ariyama sagged and blew out his cheeks.

  “You can laugh at me if you want, you know?”

  “Hmph… N-no, no, it's OK. Sorry, it's just… the look of your face was so… funny–”

  A little giggle escaped and she clamped both of her hands over her mouth, looking mortified.

  “Matsune, seriously, I'd prefer if you'd laugh instead of trying to hold it in. I know you're trying to be nice, but still.”

  Matsune just blinked at him.

  “Matsune, I don't want to get cranky.”

  Matusne pulled her hands away and swallowed.

  “Yes, of course. Sorry, Ariyama-kun. I was at the headquarters of the Pilgrims Society here in Japan, and one of my teammates was being extremely funny. I suppose I got here in a humorous mood.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Ariyama just smiled up at her.

  “I gotcha. Don't worry about it. I was just messing around. In other news–” He gripped his sword in his hand and pumped it in the air. “– I did the mana thing! I was able to visualize it as the blue dots in the red mist, as you first mentioned.”

  Matsune made a proud face and clapped her hands together.

  “Oh, Ariyama-kun, congratulations! I'm so happy with your progress. If you weren't already sure, those blue dots were the residue mana in the atmosphere. It was mostly leaking off my aura, as well as yours, but to a lesser extent.”

  Ariyama crossed his legs and stretched his arms above his head.

  “Yeah, thanks for the rundown. But I can't lie and say I'm not absolutely beat after all that work. Nearly four days non-stop, and it's about to come crashing down on me. I'm just too tired.”

  Matsune nodded in understanding, but as she knelt down to surf through her bag, she adopted an innocent yet playful smile.

  “Hm? So, too tired for a little spar?”

  The tone of her voice made Ariyama's heart skip a beat. Why was she suddenly acting like this with him all of a sudden? If she did this in school, everyone would be falling for her – girls, boys, and everything in between.

  Ariyama told himself he'd never be like everyone else and ruin his self-respect by asking her out, like every guy in a ten kilometer radius. But when she acted like this, a mix of innocence, kindness, and underlying playfulness, it made Ariyama feel things he wasn't liking.

  “So?”

  Her voice snapped him back to reality.

  “Ah, uh, yeah. No, I think I may be able to manage one spar. So, how are we gonna do this?”

  He got to his feet and put his real sword away, replacing it with the wooden sword on the rack that most resembled its length and width. Ariyama had only seen it as a full, non-shattered blade when using it in tandem with Idolseus’s searing, white-hot energy cuts.

  As he did so, Matsune brought out her rope-and-rubber-kunai contraption from her bag, wrapping the end of the rope around her forearm, grabbing the rest in her other hand, and giving it a few swings. Even the way she tested the weight and practiced a few different ways of lashing the weapon around made Ariyama's stomach churn with anxiety. She was nice enough not to beat his ass with that rope, right? Before, he would've instantly thought so, but ever since she began randomly acting weirdly, he became less sure.

  Ariyama took one step back, raising his sword up in a two-handed grip. He swallowed thickly and narrowed his gaze, shifting his stance ever so slightly.

  “OK. So, what are the rules?”

  Matsune paused from gazing lovingly at her makeshift weapon and looked up at him. She had a frown on her face.

  “Rules?”

  The way she said it – as if the concept of rules was the silliest thing in existence – made Ariyama decide to just go along with it.

  “Actually, nevermind. You wanna count us in?”

  Matusne nodded once and also adjusted herself into a stance. The rope was wrapped around her right forearm, the rest held in the tight grip of her left hand. Her ebony eyes half-closed with determination, the look of pure focus on her face made Ariyama begin to regret making this decision.

  But before he could stop to think about stopping…

  “Three… two… one!”

  And with that, Matsune Sasya attacked.

  She was like a bullet, if the bullet was propelled from a rocket launch site and poured with kinetic energy. One moment, she was halfway across the room like she had been before, and the next, she was right in front of Ariyama, crouching low and swinging the rope knife up in a sharp arc.

  It was either she was so fast, Ariyama couldn't keep up, or she was just fast enough that Ariyama's untrained eyes lost sight of her. Either way, she was right in front of him now, and he had about .2 seconds to respond with a counter if he intended to keep his teeth intact.

  Luckily, his sword skills seemed at least relative to her skills with that rope, so he was able to just manage to bring up the wooden blade and block the slash of rubber.

  Ariyama hissed at the reverberations that ran up the wood and over his hands as the impact occurred. He took another step back with his right leg and swung the sword, maneuvering like he did when he practiced in this room. Like he'd done for the past five years.

  A slight bend in his knees, his elbows kept close to guard his ribs, his hands gripping the smooth wood of the handle, the blade pointed up and out, set at a diagonal angle.

  When Matsune came at him again with a lash of the rope, Ariyama blocked again and then it was his turn to move in. As he approached, the flash of dull shock on Matsune's face told him she wasn't used to dealing with guys with swords.

  It seemed her main gimmick was how quick on her feet she was, how dexterous she was. She moved in to scrape opponents with slaps from her weapon, then rinse and repeat until the damage stacked up and her opponent eventually became overwhelmed.

  Realizing this, Ariyama came up with a plan. If Matsune relied so heavily on her maneuverability, all he had to do was overwhelm her first. It probably wasn't plausible to try and out-speed her, but predicting her movements and moving to intercept them before she executed them.

  It could work.

  All Ariyama had to do was focus up and–

  He missed a parry, and was rewarded with a lash of rubber across his face – which stung like crazy – and another hit across his belly.

  Feeling like he was about to throw up the food he'd eaten that day, Ariyama backed away before falling to one knee.