Ch.8 Sparring

Looking at the fallen figure of Sir Vayu I couldn't help but sigh, after all, how can someone get knocked out by knowing the girl they love also loves them back? Shouldn't he be jumping for joy and shouting his heart out?

Well, I guess It's good for him that he was knocked out, after all, I was going to say something like 'It was a joke' after seeing his happy face, and after waiting for his reaction I would have followed by 'And that was also a joke.'

Well, I guess it's a waste of good opportunity, anyway, I squat down as I poke at his cheeks trying to wake him up.

"What did you do to make him knocked out."

My sister asks as she walks towards me and stands right next to me, I can feel curiosity in her voice.

"Well, just that Agni loves him."

I reply casually as I continue to poke at his head.

"Whattttt!!"

My sister shouts as she is surprised by the sudden revelation I just gave, well I guess she didn't know about it. I wonder how she managed to do that.

"Are you telling the truth or lying? You know if you are lying Sis Agni will kill you."

My sister asks in a hurried and concerned face as holds my head with both of her hands and turns my head toward her.

"Why would I lie?" I ask as I look at her eyes.

"So, you are really saying that Sis Agni loves him.. then why aren't they in a relation yet, from what I noticed Sir Vayu loves Sis Agni."

She asks me as she goes off her hold, there are no remains of the facade of her cold face on her now and I can safely see that she is currently showing her true personality. A curious child, well it's good that at least she knows of Sir Vayu's love for Agni, otherwise as a younger brother I would have been really worried about her future.

"Well, both of them are as dense as a blackhole,.. what I mean is they are idiots that don't realize that the other loves them." 

I reply to her question as I continue to poke Sir Vayu's face.

"I see.."

Sister replies it seems like she has understood the situation, at least I hope so. After that, she looks at me poking at Sir Vayu's cheek and then she also squats down and starts to poke him took.

I can see curiosity, joy, and child-like innocence in her face, elevating her cuteness to another level than the time when she had her fake cold face.

She must have felt my gaze as she stopped and her face turned red due to embarrassment, so to deal with that she tried to make a cold face but failed spectacularly. It seems she isn't good at acting, well understandable she spends most of her time training. I should teach her in the future after all it is one of the most important skills to have when in our political position.

"hm, um,.. Ahhh"

Sir Vayu wakes up as he stands upright and shouts, from the look on his face he must have had a bad dream or something.

"Haa, haa, haa."

He collects his breath as he cleans the sweat from his forehead, after a while he returns back to normal and then looks at my figure. He is giving me a gentle smile but his eyes are giving me the look that promised pain.

I seem to have fu#ked up, looking at my sister who swiftly runs away leaving me to handle the angry figure of Sir Vayu. But I am not one to be scared after all, the only thing I need is to say a word.

"Sir Vayu, ab..."

"Now, now we can discuss that letter why don't we train now, Neo? You know what even though today is your first day of training I will teach you how to handle killing intent."

He said as he gave me the kindest smile humanly possible but his eyes were of the most wicked demon, It seems my plan has failed and I have no choice but to face the consequence of my action.

"Ok"

I reply trying to act calm, well I was mostly calm after all from the memories of the past I got I have been used to being close to a lot of pain and facing death.

So holding the sword with both of my hands I point at him, feeling my mana I let it flow through my body as it naturally reinforces me, and on top of that, I cast a magic spell.

<Reinforce >

I can feel my body becoming a little lighter and my strength increasing, seeing this Sir Vayu doesn't react and just looks at me. Till this point, he hasn't even used a little bit of mana and that's good for me.

"Are you ready?"

He asks as he looks at me.

"Yes."

I reply as I also look back at him.

There is silence in the air and that is broken as I attack him.

...

Neo charges at Vayu with all of his strength and like a charging bull he attacks Vayu with full strength, seeing such an attack Vayu simply blocks it and counters with his own sword strike.

From the way he is moving his body, it can be said that he is holding back his strength to a level lower than Neo.

Neo dodges the counter barely as he continues with his strike, without even moving from that place Vayu continues to attack Neo. Although his main goal of this duel is to beath Neo up, as his teacher he must also look at his physical ability and make a perfect training plan for him.

With a swift motion, he destroys Neo's center of balance and gives a strong stab at his chest, since the weapons are dull it doesn't leave a cut. But due to the strength of the strike, Neo was sent flying back, falling to the ground Neo picks himself up as he vomits some water due to the attack he just tanked.

Calming his breath, he again charges at Vayu but this time his his movements are more precise and well-structured than before. Although only by a small amount it can still said to be lots of growth for him.

Vayu smiles at that but doesn't say anything anymore as he continues to block Neo's attack and counter them. He hasn't moved from his place and doesn't plan to.

As the battle continued the more damage Neo suffered, while he wasn't even able to land a single hit on Vayu. Even so, even when feeling all the pain and going through all the setbacks he didn't stop and continued to attack Vayu.

Vayu blocks it and doesn't say anything, normally he would have stopped the duel already after all he had beaten Neo enough but seeing that he wasn't giving up and was still willing to fight Vayu stayed silent.

"Huu, huu, huu"

Neo takes a deep breath as he stands up from the ground after being knocked out an unknown number of times. Making himself used to the pain he calms his body down as he stares into Vayu's eyes.

He knows for himself that the best decision currently would be to stop and rest, but he doesn't want to after all he has his own pride.

Before the match ends he will at least land a single hit on Vayu how weak that attack may be, he will make his blade touch Vayu's body.

Taking a deep breath he charges at Vayu, his movement is better than he currently started but by the knight's standard, it is still lackluster. His current sword skill is still weaker than the weakest knight and he needs to improve on that a lot.

Vayu looking at Neo's current physical condition knows that it is but a last-ditch effort on his part and matches his blade to simply block and counter it.

As both of their blades are about to clash and the match is about to end Neo opens his mouth.

"Agni, behind you."

A simple word, but that word was able to make Vayu lose focus for a moment, and at that moment Neo moved his sword and dodged the sword that was about to block his own sword.

Making a beeline toward Vayu's hand there was nothing in the way to stop the sword, but Vayu reacted already as just before the sword could make contact he moved his upper body to dodge it.

But he was a little slow to react as the tip of Neo's blade touched his body and then Neo fell to the ground.

"I hit you."

Neo said in a tired voice as he lay down on the ground.

"That you did."

Vayu commended as he looked at the fallen figure of Neo, remembering the time he was young.

"Hehehe"

Neo laughed as he celebrated his victory even though this wasn't a competition, suddenly Mana started to surge around him.

His body started to greedily absorb the mana of the world present around him as his rank started to climb.

With a huge burst of mana, his rank jumped from "Mana core: Initial stage" to "Mana core: Middle stage."

"Finally, it was already long overdue."

Neo muttered as he fell asleep due to all the fatigue he had accumulated.

"Is Neo alright."

Alicia asks as she runs toward her brother and checks his condition with a concerned face.

"Don't worry he is just tired and should wake up in about an hour or so."

Vayu says as he pats her head, hearing Vayu's words Alicia gives a sigh of relief as she gently picks him up and lays him down on the bench near the training ground.

Cleaning the dust and mud from his face she looks at his sleeping figure as she gets lost in her own thought. Vayu doesn't say anything and lets the pair of siblings be, after all, he has more important things to talk about like the situation with Agni, which Neo told him about.

If that is true then he promises to himself that he will man up and confess his love to her, if Neo had heard his thoughts he would have laughed like a third-rate villain and shouted 'All according to plan.'