Shadow Slave

Morgan moved fast... much faster than she had moved in the Dreamscape. One moment she was standing calmly a dozen meters away from him, the next she was already there, delivering a downward cut aimed precisely at his temple.

Luckily, Sunny was prepared for her.

He sidestepped, raising his shadow tachi to intercept the training sword. The two blades met and bit into each other, connected in a bind. He felt the shock of the impact travel through his bones and pushed the sword away - at the same moment as Morgan raised her hands, changing the angle of her weapon and pushing it forward over the tachi.

The tip of the training sword barely missed his eye.

But now, momentum was on Sunny's side.

He took a step forward, past their two blades, and rammed her with his shoulder. Morgan was thrown back, and a split second later, it was her turn to deflect a cut... only the cut had never come.

Instead of trying to twirl his tachi into a downward cut that was not too different from the one his opponent had delivered a moment ago, Sunny simply kept its position - raised above his shoulder, the blade facing back - and struck her in the face with the pommel.

No matter how fast Morgan was, no matter how strong, the distance between them was too short, and that strike was too swift - better yet, the blade of the tachi remained between his neck and the enemy's sword.

Sunny saw no way for her to escape.

And... she didn't.

Instead of awkwardly trying to avoid the strike, Morgan simply lowered her head and received it with the ridge of her brow, where the bone was strongest. She didn't seem phased by the powerful blow, either. In fact, Sunny felt as if he had struck steel... he almost heard a metallic ring.

The two of them pushed away from each other, ending that first, probing exchange.

Sunny was pleased with himself.

...Morgan seemed pleased, too.

A wide smile bloomed on her face. She briefly touched her forehead, then glanced at her fingers, where a drop of blood was smeared across her alabaster skin. The smile turned into a grin.

"Wonderful. Simply wonderful. Nephis, Cassie, and you... I've been starved of good opponents for so long, and now there are three. And you are all so different, as well!"

She looked like a starving glutton who suddenly found himself choosing between three exquisite dishes.

Sunny raised an eyebrow and glanced at the blind girl, who sat quietly by the wall of the dojo.

'What, that battle maniac got Cassie involved in her training regime, too?'

Noticing his gaze, Morgan chuckled.

"Cassia might not be the strongest Master out there, but in terms of pure technique, she is among the best. And with how potent her precognition is... fighting her made me exercise skills and muscles that I had never had to exercise before. Which is a rare boon, for me. Why? Have the two of you never fought?"

Sunny lingered for a moment, then shook his head.

"No. Not with swords, at least."

Morgan gave him a curious look.

"Ah... it's your loss."

She raised her sword and prepared to launch another strike. Her smile turned from charming to dangerous.

"I won't hold back, then."

With that, Morgan attacked, turning into a furious whirlwind of steel.

'Curses...'

Sunny had been pleased with his performance in their first exchange, but his satisfaction quickly evaporated. Now that Morgan was done testing him, the onslaught of attacks she unleashed was... simply unreasonable.

In terms of raw physical strength and speed, the two of them were about equal - granted, Sunny was only using three of his shadows to augment himself. He would have had an advantage if he used all five. But then again, his enemy was probably holding something back, too.

In terms of technique, combat intelligence, and experience... to his deep dissatisfaction, Sunny realized that he was still inferior to the Princess of War in that regard.

He had already known that Morgan's skill was near-flawless, honed into a perfect tool by decades of practice and chilling killing intent. She was the epitome of what a Legacy was supposed to be - a person born and raised for the sole purpose of being a fighter. The people who forged her into a deadly weapon were some of the best warriors humanity had to offer, as well.

Subjected to Morgan's inescapable sword, he felt... suffocated.

Back in the Dreamscape, he had been simply crushed. He had felt as if his enemy was not a person, but a hurricane. The thirty-six seconds he had lasted against her seemed like a miracle.

Today, the situation was different. Sunny was at a disadvantage, but he could confidently defend himself. He was older, stronger, and more experienced... his mastery of Shadow Dance had improved a lot, too.

That said... the problem was...

'What the... the hell... she is insane!'

Although Morgan's battle style was too sophisticated and strangely elusive to be absorbed by him in a short amount of time, he did manage to glean a few things about it - enough to be able to predict the general flow of her movements.

However, that flow was flawless, entirely devoid of any vulnerability he could exploit. What was the point of knowing her moves in advance if he couldn't do anything about it? She fought in a way that left him with no choices. It was as though there was a steel cage around him, and its sharp bars were slowly constricting. Soon enough, he would be caught and cut into pieces by them.

Sunny knew that if the enemy had no vulnerabilities, the best way to defeat them was to create some. So, he tried to lure Morgan into several insidious traps - to no avail. She seemed to see straight through them, solving the puzzles he presented in an instant.

Even all this time later...

She was still like an insurmountable obstacle for him. The savage, but simultaneously chillingly calculating deadliness of her perfectly lethal skill was like a work of art.

Its theme was war, violence, and destruction, and Sunny was both the subject and the sole member of the audience for whom that art was being created.

As well as its victim.

At that moment, he realized something...

Sunny realized that this was the worst possible way for him to fight someone like Morgan.

Direct confrontation, contests of strength and skill... all of that was not his battlefield. The most dire battles Sunny had fought, he won with cunning and guile. He employed underhanded tricks, used every single resource available to him in unexpected ways, and tore victories from the claws of fate through sheer force of will and boundless spitefulness.

He was good in a fight, of course. Much better than most. But while being a sharp sword was an important conduit of his will, it was not what made him truly deadly.

'What a... fine realization...'

The question was - how could he turn this duel around and push it toward a direction where he held the advantage? There were ways to overcome Morgan's furious, cold, suffocating might, surely.

A more important question, though...

Was if he even wanted to.