Chivalry of a Dark Knight [Batman x Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry]

CH8: The Worst One and the Tenkousei (prt 5)

After a decent work out and a relaxing shower in the girl's locker room, Stella let out a content sigh as she made her way towards the dorm building. There wasn't much on her schedule today so she decided to spend the remainder of the day relaxing.

Just as she was about to wonder if Ikki had returned from whatever training he was doing, she noticed a bunch of students rushing past her. First it was three of them, followed by a group of five and the numbers kept increasing until she realized that she was caught in the middle of a traffic of Student-Knights all running towards the same direction.

The princess's mild curiosity turned to a frustrating need to know what was going on and so she intercepted a First Year girl by grabbing her elbow as she was about to run past.

"What's happening!? Where's everyone running off to!?" Stella demanded.

The First Year girl responded with panted breaths.

"Ikki Kurogane and that gaijin tenkousei**...they're having a duel!"

That was all Stella needed to hear to chase after the crowd.

There were a series of clangs echoing throughout the arena and the majority of the Student-Knights have already gathered at the Practice Arena's stands by the time Stella arrived. They were mostly standing, spectating and gawking while whispering amongst each other as their attention were drawn towards the ring below and when the red-haired princess focused her attention at the ring, her jaw too opened with astonishment.

Intetsu and Branwen clashed at a steady rhythm within every possible space between them while their wielders, in a to and fro manner, tried to close in and then increase the distance between them in their attempts to control the field of battle. Neither Ikki nor Bruce gained an advantage nor did they seem to notice the crowd they attracted, their focus was only on breaking the other's defense.

"Look at them go." one of the students at the stands said.

"It's like I'm watching an old samurai movie." another commented.

And more them began to talk among themselves.

"That's the Worst One, right? He defeated Stella Vermillion. But who's the other guy?"

"Don't you know? He's that new foreign student who's bad at magic, what's his name again? Blues?"

"Hey wait a minute, isn't Kurogane scheduled to face Kirihara-senpai tomorrow?"

"You're right! Looks like now's the chance to see if he's for real or not."

Bruce and Ikki broke away from their sword skirmish and began to slowly circle each other while holding their stances. There was a grin of excitement on the F-rank's face, the whole time during their exchange Ikki was trying to figure out his fighting style but to his surprise, Bruce was trying to figure him out as well. Their approaches were similar but Bruce was more methodical...like a detective! A detective trying to draw out clues and deduce his opponent. Ikki still didn't know much about him except that he was not just some student and was certainly no ordinary knight.

Bruce matched Ikki's grin with his own competitive smirk, it seemed he was enjoying this as much as Ikki.

Their warm up were over, now the real fight begins.

Bruce took the initiative by charging with a wide slash. Ikki reacted with a parry but Bruce quickly followed it up with a flurry of slashes, all of which were parried but barely. It wasn't that Ikki couldn't see the slashes coming, he just wasn't prepared for the sheer power Bruce put into his attacks despite witnessing it before. Indeed those muscles weren't for show; when Bruce hits, he hits HARD.