Chapter 68 - Duel between father and son, or not

After being asked that sudden question, Gina hid behind Marc as she was afraid of Rofta's creepy father.

"Enough! Let's begin." Rofta said with a little anger in his voice.

"You sure are impatient. Do you want to fight here, or outside the village? It makes no difference to me and I don't want to be seen bullying you by giving you a disadvantage." Asked Rofta's father.

"Outside the village." Replied Rofta before walking off on his own. His father looked at his son before placing his katana over the shoulder before following.

Watching the confrontation with a crazed smile, Marc couldn't help ask Ihwach. "That's you son right?"

"That's right. His name is Nakoto. In pure swordsmanship, he hasn't met an equal. He's even better in that regard than me." Answered Ihwach.

"Well… He sure doesn't look like you." Stated Marc while following Rofta and his father together with Gina and Ihwach.

When they reached outside the village, the two fighters looked at each other with a little distance between them. Rofta made the first move and pulled his nodachi out of its scabbard and charged with an over-head swing without using any magic.

In response, Rofta's father, Nakoto, did nothing before the last moment. Gina's eyes nearly bulged out with shock. Rofta blade was caught with his bare hand. A feat that takes incredible analysis and calculations to do without getting hurt. If he had rotated his hand with three millimeters, he would have lost his thump.

"You will have to do much better than that." Stated Nakoto and continued to hold onto the blade, making Rofta unable to pull it back.

To get him to release the grip, Rofta quickly unsheathed his sword cane and stabbed at his heart.

Makoto showed no fear and just released Rofta's sword and tilted his unsheathed sword over his shoulder to block the stab.

*Cling*

When his attack missed, Rofta pulled back to create some distance again.

He was unhurt, or so he thought until a shallow cut appears over the mid direction of his body. It shocked him greatly as he didn't understand how it got there. Looking at his father he just stood at the same place, but he was holding his katana at his side, still unsheathed.

"You would be dead already." Stated Nakoto with his red devil-like eyes shining out of his bandaged head.

Rofta frowned, as he couldn't refute his fathers' words. Even if his father was a bastard, his swordsmanship is something else. He was inwardly glad that his father's talent in magic was lower than average, or he might not have an equal foe in the world he thought.

Rofta is very clever like his father that only takes one exchange to analyze his foes. They excel at seeing through their opponent's nature and reading their attack patterns, and likewise effectively counter an enemy's attack after seeing it once if not neutralize the threat completely.

Knowing that just competing with swordsmanship alone was a sure loss, Rofta used his Inverted World Magic. A domain was expanded and Nakoto felt that.

"I see you are still wasting your time with that incomplete magic. What a waste of time when I offered you multiple strong magic to choose from." Said Nakoto.

Rofta didn't want to waste his breath with his father and intended to show how wrong his father was. So he sheathed his cane sword again before attacking with an over-head diagonal slash this time around. Just before Nakoto could block the attack with his scabbard again, Rofta used [Reversed Direction] to make the slash at his father's back instead.

*Cling*

"You know. It's pretty easy to counter this crappy attack for people that are combat orientated. I already know your magic can reverse senses and I know if you attack from the front, there's a chance you attack from the back instead. So all I have to do if I can't differentiate between real and fake is just protect myself from both sides. Easy, right?" Explained Nakoto, but his action is not something that seemed easy at all. Nakoto was holding his sword with his right hand, and had reached over to his left shoulder and placed it on it. Defending his shoulder from over-head slashes from his front and back at the same time. Again it showed his ability to read opponents' attack patterns.

*Cling*

Rofta didn't listen to his father's words, as he knew his father was a master of mental fights too.

Nakoto was just about to ask his son if he didn't learn anything new while being outside the village, but then Rofta disappeared from his vision and the pressure on his word was removed too.

Rofta had used [Reversal Light] to make himself invisible by reversing the direction of the light waves from himself.

As a seasoned fighter, Nakoto didn't panic. Instead, he didn't move and observed his surroundings with his devil-like eyes. In the snow were multiple footsteps and Rofta was standing still to not reveal his position by making more. He was getting ready to use [Reversal Slash] before his father would find him.

But he was still a step too late, as Makoto decided to kick the snow in the air so the wind could take it. Then he found a spot where the snow disappeared and revealed Rofta's position.

Nakoto charged while pulling his sword out of its scabbard. When the end of the katana got out, sparks were made from the frictions between the blade and sheath and the katana lit up with flames. He ran towards Rofta with the sword pointed to his side. Some of the fire around the sword dropped on the ground, making a trail of fire.

Instead of completing his attack, Rofta abandoned his plan and used [Position Reversal] to change his position with an ice shard from Esdea and Marc's fight.

Where Rofta stood, Nakoto reached and jumped and spun around making a fire swirl wind and burned everything around and melted the snow.

"So you learned to use that wasteful magic to flee? Pitiful." Said Nakoto while looking around as Rofta was still invincible. Though Nakoto had already found him again as he already remembered all the tracks around, and where Rofta appeared, he created a new set of footsteps. The flame around his sword had already gone out after his missed attack.

This time around Rofta used [Reversal Slash], making a purple horizontal sword slash by reversing the wind flow around his sword at his father.

The slash was really fast, but Nakoto just raised his katana and took one step forward, and cut it into two. It made Rofta's attack divide and fly by Nakoto and hit the snow behind him.

With a frustrated expression, Rofta used his trump card [Axis Reversal] that changed his domain into a grid with three axes. X, Y, and Z. By picking two coordinates he can reverse them.

Sensing a little change in the surroundings, Nakoto turned a little serious and waited for his son's next move. He tried to comprehend Rofta's thought process and was fairly sure that he was up to something tricky.

When he saw Rofta charging with the same over-head swing again, he was sure something was up and was as vigilant as he could be on the inside, though on the outside he still only held his katana with one hand at the side.

Before Rofta reached his father and cut from his neck down, he raised Nakoto's Y coordinate and made him stand in the air 2,5 meters in the air. Now instead of the sword reaching his neck, it would cut his leg off from the knee.

"?! What is happening? I'm standing in the air?" For the first time, Nakoto's momentum was broken and he was forced on the defensive. He parried the slash on his leg, but then Rofta kept changing his coordinates over and over. His attitude changed and he was beginning to get angry and felt he was being played by his own son.

"I have to finish this quickly before he figures out my attack pattern and the limits of my spell." Rofta thought before he changed the Z coordinate to make Nakoto stand horizontal in the air like he was standing on a wall. It surprised him greatly again, then he boiled over when Rofta appeared in front of him with two hands on his nodachi in a stabbing form.

"No more playing around!" Exclaimed Nakoto before he quickly let his katana scrape the scabbard to ignite it.

Nobody knows what happened and how Nakoto burned his whole body under the bandages he's wearing other than his father. The truth is he once tried to learn Fire Magic when he was younger. But failed badly at it— the stronger the magic, the more it tends to select its wielder; if the Mage's mind is frail or incompatible, the Magic will take over and destroy them— because of his low talent in magic, the Fire Magic tried to consume him and burn him alive.

After that incident, Nakoto feared fire greatly. But he overcame his fear and learned the highly combustible Oil Magic. A mediocre magic that he made really dangerous added together with his supreme skill in swordsmanship.

Nakoto raised his sword that was just ignited with one hand high in the air and chanted "Melt down the marrow in your bones!" While still standing horizontal. The fire around the sword turned into a miniature fire cyclone.

[Final Secret Sword: Kaguzuchi]

With a wave of the sword, the cyclone fell down on Rofta. He was about to change his place to evade, but suddenly the surroundings turned on fire too.

Only around the place where Nakoto stood was devoid of fire. While he was on the defensive against Rofta's position-changing spell, he used his Oil Magic to spread oil around before setting it all on fire at this moment. It made Rofta unable to evade the fire cyclone and got burned up.

"Arrrrgggg!!!" Rofta screamed in pain as he was getting cooked inside the fire.

Rofta's domain collapsed, and Nakoto weird position in the air turned normal and he fell to the ground on his feet. He let the fire burn his son for a second before he jumped inside it himself. Then suddenly the fire dispersed and flew to the side and continued burning for a while. When the fire was gone, Nakoto was standing on Rofta's head. Rofta had burns all over his body and was still conscious. Seeing his father standing on his head Rofta got angry and tried to stand up, just to be kicked down again by his father.

"No more bullshit. You lost. Fulfill the deal and show proof of contribution to the village in 6 weeks. Don't look at me with those scary eyes. You choose this outcome yourself by being adamant about learning that silly magic of yours. You made it really sneaky- I will admit that. But in the end, it sorely lacks power." Said Nakoto while looking down on his son that once again tried to get up. So he lifted his leg once more to make a kick, but somebody appeared crouched under his leg and stoped his foot from descending.

It was none other than Marc that was smiling like a maniac while stopping the foot with his palm. He was angry that any parent would treat their child like this. His modern mindset and the memories of the lovely care from his own parents when they were alive surfaced.

Out of Nakoto's eye corner, spears made out of dark sand started to appear.

He looked at Marc and questioned, "What's the meaning of this?"

Marc locked eyes with Nakoto's devil-like eyes and said "Rofta never stated he would fight you alone. Did he? So he hasn't lost yet."

The spectating people also heard Marc and they were gobsmacked and the less clever people found it kinda…reasonable.

But the others that weren't just battle maniacs thought "But a duel is a fight between two people?" Though they didn't voice it out as things were getting more interesting.

"Hohoo. Things are getting more interesting. They are good kids these three. And Rofta has come a long way with the incomplete magic I made on a whim years ago and couldn't finish. Remarkable. But he still has a long way to go with it."

Unknown to everyone, the creator of Rofta's magic that he named Inverted World Magic, was in fact his own grandfather, Ihwach.

***

(A/N: Yes, Oil Magic. The thing is, Rofta doesn't know how strong his father is, he doesn't even know his grandfather's strength, making him miscalculate his chances of winning. Rofta's calculating mind doesn't have enough experience yet.)

(Words: 2136)