(Rewrite) Life & Death | Akatsuki no Yona Fanfiction

Chapter 10: My Wounds Don't Heal

So she didn't leave... Mori grit her teeth. Was her warmth a lie!? So, she's just like them— those bandits!? Trappers!?

Ao squeaked from the swordswoman's hair, clinging to the white locks for dear life. Like her opponent's headdress, it whipped unbound with every jagged start.

Their jaws were set as the masked swordfighters shredded their blades into the other's. They shoved each other through the glade, kicking up snow at every stride. They stabbed and slashed in a hurricane of metal.

Occasionally, they met in the middle, pushed up against each other's blades in a bind. In their frustration, they stared the other down from behind their masks. Only difference: she couldn't see his eyes.

It pissed her off to merely stare into the painted markings of his mask. She'd much rather seethe into the real face of her bastard opponent.

She found it far more annoying how he had much more weight behind his swings, however.

She bit her jaw. Why can't I just have the upper hand for once!?

As they met in the middle once again, she dropped her right hand to her second sheath. She struck out her other sword, and he gasped as it aimed for his unguarded side.

With a grit, he jumped back and took a breather. His side twitched from the scar he sustained back in Katan, and he jerked his head.

No distractions. He couldn't get distracted.

Watching her blades flick to position, he raised his own sword in front of him. Quietly, he assessed the new situation.

Breathing heavy, they stared at each other as she stalked around him. He glanced at her arm as she adjusted the grip on her weapons.

The gushing wound Yona was worrying about... did it even exist?

Throwing off his cloak, he bit his jaw and watched both blades as they strayed closer. She was crazy. Hostile. An enemy. If Yona or the others met with her, she'd hurt them.

Both hands, he gripped his sword tighter.

Ao scrambled to the top of the swordswoman's head and squeaked as she dashed towards him again. Her blades shredded in a ruthless rhythm, one that he forced his eyes to memorize.

She abandoned the pattern entirely.

It was chaotic. Frantic. No rhyme or reason other than to cut. Ao always told him that was a stupid way to fight. With a sword no less.

Maybe she was an amateur.

That second sword should've been his first clue.

But even so, he gritted his teeth. He met her blades with his own harsh, slamming her back to keep the twisting death at bay.

Rapid clangs of metal echoed the otherwise quiet forest, and he noted new patterns amidst her fury, changing and switching without reason. It felt calculated to the swordsman, but it shouldn't have been.

It didn't matter. He'd take her down.

He shoved her back with the snow— it shadowed every movement, big and small. She grunted as he swung at her like a crashing wave, each strike lasting on her ears. She noted how he favored them towards her left arm.

The wounded one.

She tisked.

Through it all, their faces never changed. Their jaws remained hard set and frustrated as they crashed into each other.

For the sake of their friends, neither was willing to lose.

"Shin-Ah!"

A voice called from above, kunai raining down with it. With a gasp, the swordfighters shoved apart as the metallic downpour buried into the snow between them. They spared each other a glance.