Yours to Hold (An OHSHC fanfic) [Completed]

Chapter Nine

A/N: I randomly searched and found a picture on google that fit our mysterious stranger watching in the balcony. So I put it here!

She had average skill.

When the match started, I was uncertain and cautious. As such, I waited for her to attack first. Not seeming to care, Yumi moved forward and aimed her sword in a bodily strike, which was rather easy to match and slide off course. The moment our swords caught each other, I could feel the strength behind the strike, which to my surprise wasn't much.

Either she was going easy on me or her physical strength was low.

Behind me I could hear the club cheering. Forcing myself to focus, I quickly shifted my sword in a counter attack, pushing it forward to strike at her chest while her own sword was still caught on mine. Yumi stepped back, easily avoiding the movement.

Her footwork wasn't bad at all.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the referees waving their flags below the waist. No valid points had been scored. Relaxing my sword, I walked back to the starting point and resumed my practiced starting stance. I noted at that moment that Yumi still seemed very relaxed, there was no hesitation or shaky movements as she also prepared for the referee to signal the beginning of this point.

When he had, I moved forward, deciding to test her defense. Once she was in striking distance, I raised my sword in a swift cut towards her upper shoulder. Instead of blocking the cut, she avoided it by using a quick turn that put her out of the way. Not giving her a chance to recover from the movement, I simply lunged forward in a strike similar to the one I'd attempted on her in our initial attacks. This time she couldn't avoid it and I felt my sword hit the armor around her collarbone.

Red flags came up signaling my point.

When we began again this time, Yumi immediately attacked. At first the movements were easy to block, but they became progressively harder. It became clear to me that her speed made up for her lack of physical strength. Just as I thought that I'd get the chance to strike, she'd bring her sword forward for another attack. It seemed that while I was testing her, she'd been testing me as well.

The exchange ended when she scored a hit on my right wrist. Despite the armor, I could feel pain spike up my arm. I'd never felt so thankful for the mask, it kept people from seeing how much the point had hurt.

As we walked back to our starting points I flexed my wrist attempting to ignore the pain that came from each little movement. This was the sort of situation in which my lack of experience showed. I knew mentally that when an attack was coming towards the inside of your wrist, you twist it to make the sword hit the outside instead. It reduced the chance of injury. In practice, however, it was much harder to remember such things. As quickly as she was moving I could only do what my body had practiced, the movements that were so beat into it that I could move without thought.

No amount of practice can stand up to having an opponent right in front of you.

The referees signaled the point to be hers. The next point would mean the end of our fight.

I brought my sword up into my beginning stance. My wrist continued to throb, but I pushed it from my mind. If I won here we stood a better chance at moving to the next stage of the tournament. Although, I guess with Fujii and Mori behind me there was very little chance that even if I did lose that we wouldn't progress.

Running these thoughts through my mind, I forced myself to relax.

"You can do it, Nao-chan!" a very familiar voice called out. "And when you win I bet Takashi will let us eat cake to celebrate! Let's eat strawberry!"