Ikki

Reacts to a supersonic attack, and flips her so she takes out the other opponent==================================================

Kikyou Hagure, who had materialized a spear-shaped Device, used an instant-acceleration Noble Art and attacked with a supersonic charge. But Ikki, with absurd speed against the thrusting spear, showed no panic at that state of affairs.
「Hup.」
―Stamping on the approaching spearhead, he sent it stabbing into the ground.
「Whoooaaaaah!?」
Kikyou whose spear had been jammed into the ground flipped upward as if pole-vaulting, her own momentum sending her into the air.
And when she flew over Ikki…
「Eh?」
She crashed into her sister Botan, who had been aiming at Ikki's back with a handgun Device and was about to pull the trigger.
「Eek!」
「Noooo!」
And the two were sent rolling across the sandy surface of the ground. Worried, Ikki called and chased after them.
「Are you two alright?」
「Ow ow ow… yeah. I'm fine. How about you, Botan-chan?」
「Uuu… I think I skinned my knee.」
「Shizuku.」
「Yes, leave it to me, Onii-sama.」
At Ikki's voice, Shizuku who was waiting at the side patched up Botan's skinned knee with healing magic. And at the same time, Ikki spoke to the Hagure sisters.
「Kikyou-senpai, you use speed, but there's not much advantage in doing so when you're wielding a spear against me, who has less reach. Doing so relinquished your own reach advantage. I think you should consider offensive tactics a little more. Also, entering your own ally Botan-senpai's line of fire is―」
He pointed out the problems in the fight just now, saying what Arisuin, who watched the situation from a distance, was thinking.
"This mock battle, it feels like Ikki is training the two of them."
Because the mock battle had been far too one-sided. Well in reality, this mock battle had been training that the Hagure sisters had asked Ikki for from the beginning, so Arisuin's discernment was correct.
"…Training, huh? At any rate, he was overwhelming. The Worst One isn't just good at waving a sword."

Knocks someone out with 1 punch===========================================================================================
The man fell face up on the ground with blood flying from his nose in an arc, and he stopped moving. Ikki's fist had rendered the man unconscious with one blow.


The best Swordfighter in the world couldn't find a single vulnerability=====================================================
"Nangou-sensei. Thank you very much for going to the trouble of traveling like this."

At the training grounds of Kyomon Academy, in the unenergetic facility after the students of both academies had gone back, the sword instructor who had been summoned in a hurry, Torajirou Nangou was being sent off by car, and the institution's administrator was giving his thanks to the elderly man.

"I didn't think none of the swordsmanship coaches would turn out to be worthy."

"Hohoho. It's fine, it's fine. I was hoping to have a bout with that boy at least once. It was a good opportunity. …And all things considered, that boy was considerable, wasn't he?"

"Is that so?"

At Nangou's reply, the administrator tilted his head in puzzlement.

"I was also watching the bout between you two closely, but there was only an exchange of glares at range, and you didn't cross blades even once, so I thought Ikki-kun had just been held at bay…."

"Ho ho. Well, it can't be helped that a layman would see it that way."

Certainly, at the training camp, Nangou had three total bouts with Ikki, but neither of them had moved from the beginning of their matches, and they only passed the time until the end of the training. So it was unavoidable for the administrator who had watched them to come to that conclusion.

But Nangou was saying that the truth was different.

Three matches. Sixty minutes. From the start, the Worst One had matched every single approach from the smallest behavior, whether that was gaze or sword spirit.

For a swordsman of Nangou's class, the reach of his sword was the same as a field of certain death. If even a single step was taken carelessly, in that instant, Nangou's sword would've taken the enemy's consciousness. Therefore Ikki discarded any thoughtless approaches, making no move to enter his opponent's range, and stood at the starting line, trying all kinds of ways of testing that reach, challenging Nangou's sword barrier.

But his opponent was Torajirou Nangou, the God of War. He who fought at the highest league, and the only Japanese person who conquered China's famous War God League. Ikki could not step into his range, and eventually backed down without ever having moved from the starting line. But—

But even so, Nangou had a high opinion of Ikki. The reason was—

I didn't believe it, but I couldn't take my eyes off of him either.

Indeed. Ikki certainly could not move from the start of the match. But Nangou was in the same position. The Worst One, in the total of sixty minutes they fought, had not given the God of War a single vulnerability to take. No matter how many times Nangou tried to intimidate or feint with sword spirit, Ikki's heart was not even a bit perturbed, and instead Nangou who was trying to attack could not provoke him into leaving an opening.

From next to them, it seemed like a match without movement. But for Nangou, passing this dark and dense sixty minutes was like waiting through many entire lifetimes.

If we both used abilities, there would be a different conclusion, but….

Nangou's wrinkled face moved in apparent happiness.

"If only in swordsmanship, he's better than Ryouma, huh? What an ominous youngster."

"What a great young man. For Nangou-sensei to judge him that highly."

========================================================= Only Raikou could match Eldeweiss

To deal with the slash that could of Edelweiss's two swords that drew a flash, he mustered all his nerves. Among the techniques he knew, the invisible technique that boasted of such speed as to be invisible. With the seventh secret sword Raikou, which used the power of Ittou Shura that was coiled around his body, he met the approaching attack.

Once, twice, three times, four times―the invisibly entangled steel gave births to white spars in the dark night. Ten clashes in all. Against the invisible chain of attacks that Edelweiss sent out with little pause, Ikki had traced back their movements from her gaze, just barely defending himself.

==================== Fourth technique again
Against the pure white Edelweiss, Ikki set forth. And using a unique step, he created an afterimage by suddenly changing his body's speed as he moved forward―

The fourth secret sword, Shinkirou.

Edelweiss attacked the afterimage brought forth by the illusory footwork. Her two swords slashed toward it simultaneously from both sides in a cross. But since it was nothing more than an afterimage, the blades cut only air. As a result―

Her chest is open!

=================== Insight
I can't see the swings, but I can see through the muscles moving her body!

Edelweiss's breath. Swordsmanship. Tempo. Footwork―

It was the peerless ability of insight, stripping bare the essence of the opponent's habits through the information he gained from the opponent while fighting.

Perfect Vision―using the asset he had besides sword technique, the Worst One saw through Edelweiss's own technique. So he didn't need vision anymore. Because even without something like vision, he could predict two or three moves ahead of his enemy!

============================ Sixth Technique
However―that was nothing to worry about. Because this technique was purposely such that there was meaning for it to be blocked. In the instant that the opponent defended against Intetsu, from his feet to his fingers, all of his muscles worked together, flexing to cast forth a shock wave.

The human body was mostly flesh made of and filled with water. Therefore, it was fragile against vibrations. If a slight ripple was made on a human body that was vulnerable to vibrations, the interior of that body would be disrupted. For example, there was a type of penetrating blow in Chinese martial arts that used this principle.

In other words, Ikki's attack was a penetrating blow using an edge. It would bypass armor and strike the internal organs. If blocked with swords, it would strike both arms. Arriving at the human body through vibration of the sword blade, it was a poisonous stroke that brought disruption.


The sixth secret sword―Dokuga no Tachi[6]


Taking heed of the difference in their strength, and making sure she wouldn't evade. One could say that Ikki had truly made sure of the difference between his movements and Edelweiss's correctly.

However, the secret sword would only be effective in the situation where the opponent blocked forcefully. And exactly as Ikki planned, Edelweiss did not have any doubts―and blocked the poisonous longsword with her pure white blade!

However much she was the world's strongest, Edelweiss was still human. In the structure of a human body, she was no different from Ikki. In that case, she had no way to escape from this poison!

===================================== Dodging supersonic invisible attacks

Ouma struck out with Ryuuzume once again, sending another blade of vacuum hurtling toward Ikki. A slash capable of cutting through air. While it lacked the sheer offensive strength of a fire-user's ranged abilities like Stella Vermillion's own long-range technique Dragon Fang, its supersonic speeds and the difficulty of dodging an invisible strike made it a deadly ability in its own right.
But such a pedestrian technique would not be able to tame the Worst One. Ikki continued to advance without losing an iota of speed, juking his way through the gaps between the vacuum blades, dodging them all by a hair's breadth.

====================================== Durability
But he had taken Ouma's earth-splitting physical strength head-on.
"Gaaaah!"
Ikki was blown dozens of meters of away as though hit by a heavy truck, smashing against a stone wall.
"Gah-hak!"
A gout of bloody mist came forth from his mouth—the impact had reached his internal organs, wounding them. The bones in his arms were broken up to the elbows from taking that slash squarely. But, at this moment, both those things were irrelevant to Ikki.

================== Sidestepping Yuudai's "machine gun like" spear attacks
—he displayed once again his technique, a continuous barrage with Sanrensei too fast for the eye to catch. Spear-tips formed a dense rain of death descending like a volley of machine-gun fire.
It was undodgeable. Or it should have been undodgeable, and yet—
「It's not hitting! It's not hitting! Even with its famed speed, Sanrensei can't even graze him! What graceful footwork! His movements are so elegant as he dodges the spear's point that one would think he was dancing!」
While standing within the range of Sanrensei, a technique that could pierce three points in a single breath, Ikki was—unlike before—moving from side to side and dodging all the strikes.

He had not closed the distance without thinking. Sanrensei was an amazing technique. It could even be considered superhuman. But he knew of something that was faster and keener by far: the Sword Eater's Marginal Counter. Reflexes and speed so beyond human ken that they could create the illusion of eight simultaneous slashes at once. Compared to that, his eyes were more than sufficient to follow Sanrensei, which did not have the same pressure as a technique that could make you see eight simultaneous, illusory strikes. As long as he read the spear's trajectory with a calm mind, he could easily deal with it.
Before long, their engagement had lasted ten seconds, with Moroboshi attacking and Ikki evading. Then, judging that Ikki was handling his attacks with ease, Moroboshi took large strides backward, opening the distance between them once again.

==================== Seeing through the best spearman in the world's technique
The commentators have made it quite clear—the audience can't see what's happening.
If they could see the homing spear, the commentators wouldn't have said what they had. Rather than commenting on Ikki's desperate scurrying, they would have praised Moroboshi's amazing technique.
Which means that the mechanism behind the homing thrust has to be—
"What's wrong? You ain't gonna win just by runnin' away, Kurogane!"
Once again, a flash of steel pierced the air. All this time, it had been this oncoming flash of silver steel that had been the focus of Ikki's attention. Which was normal; a mysterious technique was bound to attract attention after all.
But that's a mistake. I shouldn't be focusing on the tip, but rather on Moroboshi's hands!
In that instant, Ikki saw through the homing thrust. It did not escape his notice that Moroboshi would change the way he angled his elbows and flicked his wrists, changing the trajectory of the spear mid-thrust.
As I thought… so that's how it is!
Indeed. From the first, the spear itself did not bend. The 'bending' phenomena was an optical illusion caused by the subtlety of the switch-up.
To bend as one thrusts, and pierce as one bends. Easily said, but to perform that action while performing a series of three thrusts so swift that an outsider would only see one was no simple matter. This was beyond human reaction speed. It was not something one could do just by dreaming it up in one's head. It was something Moroboshi had carved into himself through an astounding amount of training, into his flesh, his bones and his blood. This spear needed no orders from his brain to pursue the enemy.
This was Yuudai Moroboshi's technique Houkiboshi[2], a martial art so expert as to seem like magic.
What amazing technique….

===================
At this change of pace from Ikki, Moroboshi frowned for the first time since their match began. For a normal opponent, the act of advancing while knocking the high speed thrusts of Sanrensei aside should have been impossible even if they understood the principle behind Houkiboshi.
But Ikki could do it. With his powers of observation, capable of such things as Perfect Vision and Blade Steal, he had already seen through Moroboshi's habits and technique to a certain extent. By chasing Ikki down as far as he had, he had shown Ikki too much.

In a last ditch effort to stop Ikki in his tracks, Moroboshi once again unleashed Sanrensei. But it was no use. Having stolen Moroboshi's technique, Ikki could instantly read the trajectory of Sanrensei from the angle Moroboshi's elbows were set at and the shifting of his gaze.
Deflecting the first and the second strikes, he matched his timing with the prelude to the third—and stepped into range!

But Ikki had already seen this—Moroboshi's habits, his angle of attack, the spear's trajectory, all of it. He could not possibly miss striking this blow!
Once I deflect this last strike, I'll be in range! In one go, victory will be—
—But in that moment, a flash ran through his brain.
No, wait, this is bad—!
And then, something unbelievable happened in the ring. Ikki, who should have succeeded in his pursuit of Moroboshi, was pierced in the shoulder by Tora-Ou and knocked back out of his sword's reach.

But instead he planned meticulously and efficiently, striking at the gaps in his opponent's thought process. If he had not doubted himself in that instant—thinking "If he can destroy Noble Arts, he could destroy Devices as well"—and thus delayed his attack, Intetsu would surely have been shattered and he would have been defeated.

================ Edelweiss's technique
Edelweiss's blade had been so swift that his eyes had failed to even catch its afterimages, but he had just barely been able to read her strokes from her body's movements.
He remembered. No human eye could perceive her overwhelming speed—and the secret to that was that she did not accelerate. Usually, when a blade was swung, it would start out slow. One needed to accelerate the movement in order for it to reach maximum speed. But there was no such thing in any of Edelweiss's movements. The moment she made to step forward, she was already at top speed. As she began to slash, she was already at her maximum. An extreme stop-and-go, racing from zero to a hundred in a flash. But this technique was extremely strong. The extremities of its swiftness and slowness made the blade strokes seem many times faster than they were. It was also incredibly hard to keep an eye on the blade itself, since it had no slow initial speed.
Ikki had seen through that much in their battle. Thus, he had attempted Blade Steal in those final moments. He had not been certain if it would work. But he had done it anyway, if only because that was the strongest swordsmanship known to him at that time.
What he had to do now was the same. Even if he might not manage it in his current state, this was surely the best he knew.
So, at the very least—
As Ikki thought thus, the feelings he had in his battle with Edelweiss returning to him, he gave instructions to his rebelling body.
The world's strongest swordsmanship. It was done like—
"This."
In that instant, his body became light as a feather. Like a rushing wind he weaved through the gaps between Sanrensei's spear strokes—and as he passed he cleaved deeply into Moroboshi's abdomen.
That crossing of swords happened in an instant, a flash. Without even being able to raise so much as a cry of pain, Moroboshi sank to the floor amid a mist of crimson blood.

==================== Self explanatory
Indeed, Ikki movements could not be seen, even by the people in the commentator's booth watching the match from afar. He had simply disappeared all of a sudden, and before anyone realized it, had passed Moroboshi by and cut him down.

「N-No, this isn't Ittou Shura. There was no change in the amount of magic power Kurogane was using. That… was pure swordplay! And while there are differences between two-sword and one-sword styles, I have seen that sort of untrackable instant acceleration of body and blade once before….」

「You can't find it in that place, because… this swordplay belongs to someone whom every country has given up on capturing due to her outrageous strength. This is the swordsmanship of the world's greatest swordsman, and its most wanted criminal in history—Twin Wings Edelweiss!」

Muroto's words caused an uproar in the audience.

「…Whaaaaattttt!?」
「Twin Wings, you mean, that Twin Wings!? But why would the Worst One know how to use her swordsmanship!?」
「No, wait, but I heard that the Worst One can steal his opponent's techniques!」
Surprised cries rang out all around. This time, Ikki's friends joined them in being dumbfounded. They understood that Ikki was someone who often went against commonly-held knowledge, but if what Muroto said was true, then this was incomparable to before.
"Did Onii-sama, really…!"
"So this is to say that he did not just return alive from his battle against Twin Wings, but even managed to steal the world's strongest swordsmanship!?"

"Edelweiss's swordplay isn't normal. Normally, all of a human's motions are created by the coordinated movements of muscles. However, that will not let you use Edelweiss's swordplay. To create that kind of extreme zero-to-one-hundred difference in speed, you need all the required muscles to move together instantaneously, and instantaneously muster the full strength of those muscles. A human normally wouldn't be able to send sufficient nerve signals instantaneously for that to occur."
One could not give orders to all of one's muscles at once.
"To make this possible, one needs to change these nerve signals themselves."
They had to be shaped, shaped into combat signals completely different from the ones normal humans came equipped with, signals that could be sent in shorter, more concentrated bursts. If one could not come to use one's brain signals this way, it would be impossible to command all the muscles of a complex living organism like a human being to release all their power at once.
"Ikki must have been able to touch and then get a hold of Edelweiss's swordplay from the blink-and-you'd-miss-it battle between their techniques. If even he himself did not remember it, his brain still does."
A knight of Ikki's caliber could trace that exceptional technique in their subconscious minds after having seen it but once.
"Thus, whenever he is in the zone at critical moments, his brain will release those combat signals, but like him, his body has forgotten that battle from which he gained them—thus, having forgotten what they were for, he was unable to do anything with the foreign signals."
"So because he could not recognize the signals he could not react to them. Is that it?"
Kurono nodded in confirmation to Shizuku's words.
"Exactly. In other words, Edelweiss did not break Ikki. If anything, the battle with her caused him to evolve explosively, so much so that his own body could not keep up with that growth… but, that was only the case until now."
Faced with imminent defeat, his body had finally been able to recall the power that he had gained from duelling Edelweiss, along with that method of moving his body, so completely foreign from what he had been doing in the sixteen years since he was born.

=========================== Ikki finally unlocked Eldeweiss's technique
"So as we agreed, I'll show it to you—Ikki Kurogane at his full strength!"
Having said this, he vanished from Moroboshi's sight.
He disappeared…!
He did not in fact disappear, of course, but having skipped the acceleration process and achieved maximum output upon stepping forward Ikki got off to a rocketing start that Moroboshi's motion perception simply couldn't follow.
Drawing a curved arc with his sprinting, Ikki went around to Moroboshi's left. Three times Ikki had been repelled by his spear, but now he bypassed its range with ease while stepping into the range of his own blade—
"Guaaaah!"
—and cut Moroboshi's right arm as he blasted by like a black gale.
"You lil' shit—!"
Whirling around, Moroboshi lashed out with Sanrensei, using the burning pain to read Ikki's location. But he could only cut thin air. Ikki was no longer there by the time he turned.
He's already gone…!
Moroboshi was momentarily rendered speechless by the speed. But he had no time to be surprised as another blow struck him, slicing into his back.
"Gaaaaah—!"
「Aah! He's been hit again! Moroboshi is letting Kurogane get into range too easily! He's completely unable to follow his movements! Once again, Sanrensei has struck the empty air!」
「It can't be helped…! Kurogane's extreme highs and lows in acceleration and overwhelming speed is something that even we cannot catch from long range, what more when it happens in front of one's eyes! It's more than likely that the Seven Stars Sword King can no longer see the form of the Worst One!」
He had hit the nail on the head.
Sh…Shit!
Something impossible was happening before Moroboshi's eyes.
He could hear them. The sounds of any number of slashes, and of footsteps moving at a dreadful pace. His opponent was unmistakably close to him, and yet—
What is this, what is going on!?
—no matter where he turned to look, there was no one there.
It was as if he were the only man in the ring.
Was such a thing even possible? Could it even happen in real life? The ring was a round platform a hundred meters across in diameter, and there was no shade or cover in that small space. Yet though his opponent was so close he could hear his breathing, Moroboshi could not see him at all.
This… this is bad!
He could feel another slash incoming. If he continued to take hits like this, it would be dangerous. But he could no longer use his spear to fend off attacks of this speed. So he made a decision there and then.
"Uoooooo!!!"
He crossed his arms, covering his vital spots. Dispelling Tiger Bite, he released all his magic power to form an armor around his body.

===============
At top speed as he is, Kurogane can't dodge that throw!
Kurono could not help but shiver at Moroboshi's battle sense, that which had overturned her expectations and played them all for fools. Beside her, Shizuku and Alice felt the same way.
So everyone in here… was within the palm of his hand all along?
So this is… the Seven Stars Sword King!
They had discerned it. The true strength of Seven Stars' pinnacle—of the man who bore the title of Seven Stars Sword King!
—But in the next moment, everyone in the stadium would once again be shocked into frigid silence.
As Tora-ou's point sped through the air and pierced Ikki's forehead… his form shimmered, and faded.
Wh…at….
Moroboshi was at a loss for words. Just then, a shadow appeared above him. Silhouetted against the sun, the figure of a black swordsman was about to let fly his blade.
This was the secret sword that had eluded Houkiboshi earlier—Shinkirou. But this time, it neither feinted front-to-back nor left-to-right, but rather up and down. Leaving an afterimage below, he had sent himself soaring into the air with his enhanced leg strength. That which Moroboshi had hurled his spear at had never been anything more than an illusion.
In other words, Ikki knew that Moroboshi would choose this moment to try the last. But why? For what reason?
Ah… so that's it….
Looking at the expression on Ikki's face as he brought his blade down, Moroboshi understood. Ikki's face held not the slightest hint of mocking him for having fallen for that feint. There was only overflowing—almost embarrassingly so—respect.
You really believed in me….
Up till now the Seven Stars Sword King had layered stratagem upon stratagem, trap upon trap to make sure he had the worst of it. Kurogane Ikki had not believed for a moment that such a great king would easily allow himself to be defeated. He respected the knight named Yuudai Moroboshi more than anyone else in the stadium, even more than Moroboshi did himself.
This was why Moroboshi lost. He had fooled everyone with that blood-soaked bluff, but only this knight standing before him, he could not fool.
And so, the battle was decided in that instant.
Ikki let fly his blade. Having bet it all on this surprise attack, Moroboshi had nothing left—no magic, no weapon, not even the strength to flee. The blade bit deep, slicing him from the shoulder down. In a flurry of crimson, Moroboshi at least fell upon his knees. At the last, with the final vestiges of his strength, he reached out his arms and grabbed Ikki by the shoulders, and—
—to the knight who had surpassed him…
—to his opponent who had believed in him to the end…
"Don'cha lose now, y'hear?"
—he left his wish.
With that, the Seven Stars Sword King finally collapsed, and the referees gave the signal for the match's end—thus bringing this showdown to a close.