A Genius's Defeat

Sabito crouched among the loose stones on the mountain behind the house for the time it took half a stick of incense to burn.

He turned the stone with the smooth cut face over seven or eight times, then clenched it in his palm and ran all the way back to the house.

Master Urokodaki was already waiting in the middle of the courtyard.

"We're changing today's lesson." The old man's voice came from behind the Tengu Mask, so flat that no emotion could be heard in it. "Sparring between fellow students. Go all out. No holding back."

Sabito was about to answer when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yaha saunter out of the side room.

His hair was a mess, his uniform jacket hung halfway off his shoulders, and a blade of grass dangled from his mouth. He looked as if someone had just dragged him out of bed.

"Master, what's all this first thing in the morning?" Yaha spat out the grass, dragged his feet to the edge of the courtyard, and found a pillar to lean against.

Urokodaki ignored his complaint.

"Sabito, Giyu, you two first."

Giyu came around from behind the house, a wooden sword already in his hand.

They sparred for three rounds. Sabito won two, and Giyu won one. Urokodaki nodded, then turned his gaze toward Yaha, who was dozing against the pillar.

"Next round. Sabito against Yaha."

Sabito tightened his grip on his wooden sword until his knuckles turned white.

The stone he had picked up on the mountain was still in his pocket. The cold of its cut face seeped through the fabric against his skin.

Yaha lifted his eyelids, glanced at Urokodaki, then looked at Sabito.

"Master, let Giyu fight for me. I'm sleepy."

"That's an order."

"All right, all right." Yaha slowly straightened up from the pillar. Without even touching the wooden sword at his waist, he slipped his left hand into his pocket, let his right hang loosely, and ambled into the middle of the courtyard.

Watching him, Sabito felt his temples throb twice.

The broken stones on the mountain kept flashing through his mind. Those cut surfaces. Those breaks so smooth they could reflect a person's image.

He wanted an answer.

"Begin." Urokodaki stepped back twice.

Sabito made no probing move. With his very first strike, he drove Water Breathing to full power.

First Form: Water Surface Slash.

His wooden sword swept sideways, blue currents wrapping around the blade. It was a whole notch faster than when he had fought Yaha yesterday. He had adjusted this strike, lowering his right shoulder two inches and planting his weight firmly over his rear heel.

Yaha shifted his body a fist's width to the right, and the blade skimmed past the outside of his left shoulder.

Sabito did not stop. He followed with Second Form, sweeping his wooden sword upward, then immediately turned his wrist for a horizontal cut, flowing seamlessly into Third Form.

Three sword shadows covered every angle in front of Yaha in almost the same second.

Yaha leaned back, stepped sideways, then leaned back again. The three movements were so small that he seemed merely to shift his shoulders where he stood. All three attacks missed.

Sabito gritted his teeth.

Fourth Form: Striking Tide.

Eighth Form: Waterfall Basin.

Sixth Form: Twisting Whirlpool.

He chained together every form he knew, sending layer upon layer of sword shadows crashing toward Yaha. His attacks came faster and faster, until even Giyu could no longer follow the transitions.

He pushed Water Breathing to a limit he had never reached before. The air in his lungs felt scorching hot, as though it had been burned, and every breath fell precisely into the gap between two moves.

He knew he could not keep this up for long.

This was the full force of two years of effort.

Yaha walked through the all-encompassing curtain of blades.

Yes, walked.

His steps did not even speed up. He moved as though strolling through a market, one step left, one step right, occasionally tilting his neck or shrugging his shoulders. Every strike missed by the tiniest margin-an inch, half an inch, sometimes less than a finger's width.

Sabito's blade wove a blue net around him. Sabito could feel the wind pressure from his wooden sword brushing Yaha's clothes, yet it never touched his skin.

"You're toying with me," Sabito forced out through clenched teeth.

Yaha tilted his head to avoid a downward slash, his voice lazy.

"What do you think?"

Sabito's eyes reddened.

He drew one final breath deep into his lungs, and the currents of Water Breathing swelled inside him to their breaking point. He intended to compress the essence of the previous six forms into this single strike.

He leaned forward, pushed off with his rear foot, and traced a perfect arc with his wooden sword from the right side of his body, aiming its tip at Yaha's chest.

The instant he thrust the sword forward, Sabito felt it.

The transition between breaths.

At the point where he switched from Fourth Form to Sixth Form, his breathing fell into a void lasting less than three-tenths of a second. He had exhaled the old air but had yet to inhale the new. For that instant, his chest was empty.

Yaha moved.

Sabito saw only a brief distortion in the air before him. Yaha's figure, which had been directly ahead of his sword tip, vanished.

The next thing he registered was a gust of wind brushing his left ear.

Then came an impact against the back of his neck.

It was not hard, but it was extraordinarily precise. The edge of Yaha's hand struck where the thick blood vessels on either side of his cervical spine converged, with just enough force to momentarily cut off blood flow to his brain.

Sabito's vision darkened at the edges. His knees gave way, and he pitched face-first into the dirt.

His wooden sword flew from his hand and bounced two meters away.

The courtyard was so quiet that the wind passing beneath the eaves could be heard.

Giyu stood at the side, gripping his own wooden sword, his lips pressed tightly into a line.

Urokodaki stood motionless where he was. The eyes beneath his mask had taken in every detail of what had just happened.

Standing beside Sabito's prone body, Yaha withdrew his right hand and casually wiped it against his trouser leg, as though it were dirty.

"That's all you've got."

He stuffed both hands back into his pockets, yawned, and turned to Urokodaki.

"Master, we're done, right? I'm going back to sleep."

Urokodaki was silent for three seconds.

"Go."

Yaha turned and left. As he passed Giyu, he patted his shoulder without a word, then ambled straight back into the side room.

Giyu ran over to help Sabito up. Sabito had already regained consciousness and lay on the ground gasping for breath, his forehead covered in dirt.

"Are you all right?" Giyu pulled him into a sitting position.

Sabito did not answer. He stared blankly at the door through which Yaha had disappeared.

His swordsmanship, two years of swordsmanship, every ounce of strength he had put into his blade-none of it had even grazed the hem of Yaha's clothes.

From beginning to end, Yaha had not drawn his sword or used a Breathing Style. He had even used his right hand only once.

One knife-hand strike.

All two years of his effort had amounted to one knife-hand strike.

Urokodaki stepped forward and looked down at Sabito, then at the wooden sword lying on the ground.

"Go back and rest."

Sabito clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms. He pushed himself up from the ground, brushed off the dirt, and limped toward his room without saying a single word.

Giyu stayed where he was, his gaze shifting twice between Sabito's retreating back and Yaha's door. In the end, he said nothing and silently followed Sabito.

Urokodaki was left alone in the courtyard.

The old swordsman stood there for a long time.

He recalled every detail of the sparring match. He had smelled Yaha's scent clearly. From start to finish, Yaha had given off not the slightest trace of impatience or fighting spirit. He had been as steady as a sleeping man. That calm had not come from a Breathing Style, because there had been no trace of water vapor or disturbed air currents.

It had been nothing but sheer physical superiority.

Urokodaki turned and went back inside.

He sat at the table all afternoon, his mask set beside him, revealing a face covered in wrinkles. His tea went cold twice, and he never drank it.

Night deepened.

The moon over the mountain was round and cold, casting a bluish glow over the snow.

Urokodaki picked up a paper lantern and climbed the path behind the house. His footsteps were light, his breathing reduced to the barest minimum. He blended into the darkness like a moving shadow.

After walking for about half an hour, he stopped before the huge boulder.

The lantern illuminated the fresh damage on its surface. More than a dozen cuts where edges had been sliced away lay neatly arranged in the warm yellow candlelight.

Urokodaki reached out with his right hand and pressed his fingertips against one of the cut surfaces.

Smooth.

So smooth he could barely feel any friction.

His fingers rested on that surface for a full ten seconds before he slowly withdrew them.

No expression could be seen on the face beneath his mask in the lantern's shifting light. Only the hand holding the lantern's handle tightened, knuckle by knuckle, until the bamboo gave a faint creak.

[Roleplay level +6%. Current roleplay level: 18%.]

In the side room, Yaha lay on the tatami. Hearing the mechanical voice in his head, he rolled over and buried his face in his pillow.

Up six points. Not bad. Worth leaving the room today.