Noble Art 1.

"I'm of the same mind, but I do have one thing I'm concerned about."

Going along with Ikki's words, Stella looked at Touka with a gaze that carried a slightly dangerous mood. She had something she needed to ask Touka no matter what. That was―

"Touka-san. We saw the situation just a moment ago, when you had the kind of eyesight that lets you see almost nothing without wearing glasses, but you didn't put on glasses during the match, right? Why was that?"

Indeed, why did Touka, whose eyesight was so bad, take off her glasses during the match?

"…Can it be, you were going easy on her?"

"N-No, dat ain't true!"

"Eh?"

"Eh? …Ah. …Th-That's not true at all~"

Was she agitated by Stella's question? A huge accent had appeared just now. With her cheeks reddened, Touka's confused attempt to gloss over it was already rather too late. But nevertheless, Touka cleared her throat a bit and returned her tone to normal.

"How should I put it, it's instead the opposite. Because Shizuku-san was an opponent who couldn't be dealt with by ordinary means, there was no way I could accept her challenge while wearing my glasses. If I didn't improve my perception's accuracy by cutting off my eyesight, matching an opponent of Shizuku-san's class would've been very difficult.

"Perception, you say… what do you mean by that?"

"Me, I become able to sense the subtle signals of my opponent's body moving by cutting off my eyesight. Such a thing is a practical application of the ability to use lightning, you know?"

As Touka said. Humans are living machines. Their movements are based on autonomic transmission of signals coming entirely from the brain. Being able to perceive those signals was extremely beneficial.

The opponent's movements from the signals running down his nerves,
The opponent's line of sight from the signals controlling his eye muscles,
The opponent's mental status from the signals in his inter-cranial matter,
One could understand all of them quite distinctly.

"That sort of information, it's the opponent's true and naked feelings that can't be falsified. The opponent's state of mind. How the opponent is planning to act next. There are many things I understand beyond what the eye is limited to seeing in the opponent in practice. And if I grasp those things, reading and analyzing what my opponent is thinking becomes very simple. Thus I can see through both traps and surprise attacks."

"…I see. That's how Touka-san was able to avoid Shizuku's surprise attack, then?"

Touka nodded "yes" at Stella's words.

"That's my Noble Art, Reverse Sight. I suppose it resembles Worst One-san's Perfect Vision, yes? Although if Worst One-san's Perfect Vision is the fruit of discernment, mine is an ordinary cunning. …Well, that's how it is, but it's not like I never ease up on an opponent, you know?"

"Yeah… I get that well, sorry, it was an odd suspicion."

"No, no. Hahaha."

"You seem somehow delighted… right?"

"Yes, Stella-san was worried about her friend―was what I was thinking."