The heat had yet to subside when another tense presence rose from the opposite side.
"Please show me what you've got."
The man at the other end drew a cutlass and an old-fashioned **, his grip on the gun betraying his past of making a living at sea.
"Please."
The young man beneath the spotlight nodded, the soft ring of his longsword leaving its sheath clearly audible.
An explosive report tore through the air.
The ** left pale gray trails, anticipating and blocking his routes forward, yet missing every time.
The figure moved in a peculiar way-not charging straight ahead, but closing in through short, intermittent flickers, as though making a series of tiny jumps through space.
"Hound's footwork?"
Rossi raised an eyebrow.
"He learned it from him."
Jora acknowledged it beside him.
These basic techniques had long since become instinctive to everyone and hardly counted as secrets.
But a few years ago in the North Blue, no one in the Family could use them so smoothly.
And that young man had started from nothing, mastering this rhythm of advancing and retreating in just a few short years. That took more than talent.
Cold light suddenly blazed.
The flickering figure was already right in front of his opponent.
His longsword swept down in a dazzling arc. The man blocking with his cutlass was ** into a stumbling retreat, his boot soles gouging deep furrows in the sand.
"Diamante's sword techniques?"
"Yes."
The swordsman on the other side looked solemn.
"If he were willing to devote all his time to the sword, perhaps he could become second only to me."
The uproar in the colosseum had yet to die down when the figures high in the stands began rising one after another.
"Smooth."
The voice behind the sunglasses was flat. Vergo's