Strength 6 Volume 6

With keen eye and swift mind Yui perceived all this with precision, that within the shadow of the falling blade a cocked fist laid in wait. Stella likely had this plan in mind: when Yui used Total Reflect on that downward racing blade, it would knock her right side back, and in tandem her left flank would be thrust forward, sending her left fist into Yui's side at speeds beyond her ability to react. It was a plan that had even taken her abilities and their effects into account.

And it's a good one, but that don't mean jack if I've caught on to it!

The tables had turned from the moment she had noticed the trap. The hunter was now the hunted.

To this end, Yui played Stella's script right to the hilt. The instant their blades met, she projected her Reflecting barrier from her body, distorting the vector of Stella's strike and repelling her. And in that same moment, Stella moved exactly as Yui had anticipated. Using the opening that had been created by the Reflection of her blade, she unleashed her surprise attack, her hidden ace: a liver shot.

Her opponent, lured by that opening, had put her full strength into that punch. Seizing the moment, Yui reactivated Total Reflect. That was a blow that had borrowed both Stella's strength and the rotational force she had redirected from the initial Reflection on her right side to give more power to her strike from the left. From this surely her fist, even her entire arm, would be shattered. Having committed for the opening, Stella could not retract her fist either.

Having seen through it all, her opponent dancing in the palm of her hand, Yui's lips quirked upward in dark amusement.

*Crunch*

With the sound of flesh and bone breaking—

"Gah…hak—!"

Stella's left fist―that fist that should have been reflected―burrowed deep into Yui's side.

"And that's one down."