Who was this man standing in front of me? all though I was sure I had never met him before, at the same time he seemed familiar to me.
The man started to bow.
"Perhaps I should introduce my self first? My name is Harry Delbert 1st and oldest son of the Delbert family and the person you defeated today was my younger brother."
The similarities to his brother and father were quite present now that I knew they were siblings.
"So you're here for revenge?" I asked.
"Revenge, no. Not for a petty reason like that, in fact, if anything I'm here to thank you. My brother was arrogant, he never took his training seriously since he was the top of the class. He needed to be put in his place sooner or later."
"Then why are you here?" Although his words sounded like he didn't want a fight, I could feel the pressure and aura coming off from him, and that said something else entirely different.
Harry drew out his training sword, in response, I drew out mine ready for him to attack.
"As I said, I'm here to teach you a lesson, the 1st year students this year were the weakest students we've ever had, I can't let you get ahead of yourselves now can I. At the same time, I might as well get a bit of revenge for my family name."
I then noticed on Harry's blue sash he had a single gold ribbon attached. The ribbon was there to differentiate between the different years in the school. No ribbon meant the first year and one ribbon was the second year and so on.
The ranking matches were separated into years and you weren't allowed to challenge the years above. It meant if we were to fight this would be off the books.
"Come on, show me what you got." he gestured his hand telling me to come at him.
I wasn't usually the one to initiate the attack first but I wanted to get this over and done with. I went forward and put my full strength into my first attack swinging from above. Harry put up his sword to block but I wasn't worried.
When testing out my strength using the training equipment I knew the force I was using now would allow me to break straight threw his weapon and hit him.
When my sword met clashed with his, both swords came to a standstill midair. I was surprised, but what surprised me more was it felt like my weapon was going to break not his.
I quickly pulled my weapon back then jumped to make space between the two of us.
"Oh, I'm surprised you made the right decision. I guess this is the first time you've fought a Ki user?"
Ki? that must have been the force I felt in his sword. Ki was something I had yet to learn and hadn't been taught by the academy yet. Regardless, if I couldn't use my power to beat him I would use my skills instead.
I started to use the black sash footwork, allowing me to move in unpredictable patterns towards my opponent. Swordsmanship was a lot about guessing what your opponent was going to do and reacting to it. The black sash skills we had learnt taught us to become unpredictable.
Left, right, above, behind, below. Damn! it wasn't working. Every place I would attack it would be met with his sword in return. It was strange how he was able to tell where I was attacking from. It didn't seem like he could follow my footwork but he still could tell where and when I was going to attack.
I stopped attacking, all I was doing was wasting my energy at this point, clearly what I was doing wasn't working.
"Is that all you've got?"
I hadn't felt this way in a long time, it took me back to when I use to train with my father. I didn't want to admit it but Harry was stronger than me. Even if I used my beast form I could tell it wouldn't make much of a difference. There was still one thing I had left that I wanted to try though.
I relaxed my grip on the sword's hilt. Then lept towards him again similar to when I went to strike Sebastion, I swung the sword form below. Harry went to block it but this was what I wanted.
When the two swords were about to meet, it looked as if my weapon had vanished and then reappeared, phasing through his. It had worked but just when I thought it was a success. Harry managed to move backwards in time avoiding the strike. My Phantom Strike didn't work.
Harry now had sweat running down his face.
"Phew, that was a close one. you actually managed to make me move."
When he said those words if finally made me realise how big the gap was between me and him. During this whole fight so far, with only me attacking I hadn't made him take a single step until now.
"I'm guessing that was everything."
Harry then changed the grip on his sword and lifted it above his right shoulder as if it was a spear. He threw it towards me, the sword was flying threw the air at great speed, it was too fast to dodge. The sword was coming at my stomach. I lifted it in time to protect myself, but it was no use. The sword carried on going snapping my sword in two, the momentum carried on into my stomach.
Blood started to appear from my mouth. His sword had fallen to the floor. I wanted to move but I couldn't, the strike was too powerful. Eventually, my legs gave in as I fell to the floor.
Harry went to pick his sword off the ground and started to walk away.
"Wait!" I shouted.
"Just tell me one thing, you're rank 1 right?"
As Harry continued to walk away he lifted his arm, his communicator displayed the number, 50.