Shalltear - Sword Catch

Shalltear casually stepped forward. Her gait showed no caution whatsoever. Her steps were so light she might as well have been heading to a picnic.

It wasn’t the walk of a warrior, and Brain suppressed his wry smile. He could only consider her foolish, but he wasn’t about to give her any chances.

***

Your head is mine! He spat the words in his mind as he flung himself at her.

“Tsut!” His exhalation was sharp and short.

The katana flew out of its sheath and stretched toward Shalltear’s neck, cutting the air itself. If one was to liken its speed to something: a bolt of lightning. By the time the flash registered, the head was falling—that’s how fast he was. Millions of repetitions had created a strike that truly reached the realm of the gods.

Got it.

He was sure——

and his eyes widened in spite of himself.

He had cleaved through the air. If his strongest attack was completely dodged, then he would’ve admitted that an unimaginably strong enemy had finally appeared before him. But—

Shalltear had caught it—his strike that was as fast as a bolt of lightning.

As gently as if she were pinching the wing of a butterfly.

Brain felt as if the air had frozen. He breathed desperately in and out.

“...That...that can’t be...,” he panted in an almost silent whisper.

He felt like his whole body was going to start trembling, but here strained himself with everything he had. He couldn’t believe what he’d just seen, but Shalltear’s two slender, snow-white fingers—a thumb and an index finger—were right there, on the end of his sword.

She didn’t catch the cutting edge, in front of the tempering pattern, and instead pinched the ridge on the flat of the blade, with her wrist bent at ninety degrees. She hadn’t stopped it in its path but caught up with it from behind—caught up to his Divine Strike.

It looked like she wasn’t putting any effort into holding it, but when Brain tried to push out of it or pull back with his full strength, the sword would not budge. It was as if he was pulling on a chain connected to a massive boulder hundreds of times larger than himself.

***

Volume 3, Chapter 2.2