Det didn’t take the time to question how she could’ve gotten behind him from fifty feet away in less than a heartbeat. No, he spun on the spot, shield up like Tena had taught him, to protect his head, neck, and shoulder area.

  It was the only thing that saved his life, two daggers streaking down with the intent to stab into his soft, squishy bits. Instead, they—barely—got deflected by the ink shield. Still, the power of the blow sent numbing vibrations into Det’s arm. Just how strong was this woman? A question he could ask her after he beat her.

  With her daggers dragging down the front of his shield, Det twisted the barrier like Tena had showed him, then pivoted at the waist. With his longer weapon and the shield pulling her only option of defense out of the way, the horizontal cut would tear right through her. Even if it didn’t outright end the fight, it would hurt her enough to give Det the advantage.

  Except, she wasn’t there when his sword sliced through nothing but air.

  Vanished again?

  Movement out of the corner of his eye had Det scrambling to the side, just in time to move his head out of the way of a slicing dagger. His shoulder, sadly, wasn’t quite fast enough. The knife’s edge parted the not-nearly-good-enough protection offered by the academy uniform, and a spray of blood followed the arc of the blade.

  From where his opponent practically hung in the air upside down above Det.

  She must’ve leapt into the air or something as soon as she struck the shield!

  The impressive acrobatics only continued from there, the woman landing nimbly, before cartwheeling one, two, three times back and out of range of Det’s sword. As soon as she stopped, a smirk crossed her face like she was having fun with things, a flick of her knife flinging his blood from the blade. They both knew that injury wasn’t enough to end the duel.

  It stung, but Det’s body had already stemmed the flow of blood, and mostly shunted the pain to the back of his mind. Nothing really important have been cut, apparently. He still had a full range of motion and strength in that arm, and he used it to lift the shield in front of himself. His other hand cocked his sword back, ready for her to come in again.

  Seeing him ready for round two, the woman winked at Det, then took a step and snapped one of her hands forward. The dagger streaked, glinting in the light, though not at his face like last time. Instead, it angled for his foot, but Det had practiced that extensively with Tena, and he shifted his boot the inch he’d need to avoid the strike.

  A soft thunk of the dagger plunging into the sand was all the sign he needed to know she’d missed, and he turned his attention to her only other weapon. Down to one dagger, what would she do next?

  Vanish in front of his wide open eyes is what she would friggin do, apparently.

  One second she was standing in front of him, an arm extended from the thrown weapon, and the next she was simply not there. He didn’t blink. He didn’t get distracted. He didn’t break his line of sight. Nothing. Was she behind him again?

  More movement, Det twisted, and looked down under his own extended shield arm. The pain reached him before his eyes processed what they were looking at.

  Her. There. Crouched at his side with her dagger now tearing in his side. The last-minute twist had saved him from getting stabbed between the ribs and straight in the heart. Instead, the blade had caught one of his bones—tearing a chunk out of it from the pain—before ripping back out to leave a six-inch-long gash in his chest.

  Pain and surprise fueled his response, his shield sweeping down and around for a backhanded swipe aiming to take her head off. Too bad he didn’t have the angle or strength to really accomplish that, and the woman dove back to avoid the blow. Det couldn’t let her continue controlling the pace of the fight, and he stalked after her as she rolled to right herself in the sand. Next to his right foot, one of her daggers stood standing in the sand, but he ignored it and pressed his advantage.

  Her magic had to be some kind of fast movement? Maybe invisibility or teleportation? He had to stop her from…

  She rose from where she crouched on his right side, dagger coming up in a reverse-grip uppercut. His shield wasn’t in any position to block it, and he had his sword up and ready to strike where she’d been in front of him. All he could do was take a page out of her book, and throw himself to the side.

  Off-balance and without his feet set, the lunge to try and get out of the way of the dagger was anything but graceful. And definitely not completely successful, either. Another flare of pain ran from his waist to his armpit as the blade caught him. Nothing too deep, but he could already feel the grittiness of the sand in the new wound as he rolled on the ground.

  Once, twice, and he was back up to one knee, shield coming across to bat a flying dagger out of the air. The woman was already swinging her arm to hurl her second weapon, and Det brought his shield in line with the angle the throw would take. Of course, it didn’t work out as well as he’d like, with the woman vanishing and reappearing in the air up and to Det’s left.

  There, above his angle of defense, she finished the throw she’d already started. Half of the six-inch blade drove into Det’s shoulder, right beside where she’d caught him earlier, but he took the pain and lunged for where she hung in the air. With all his ReSouled speed and strength, he stabbed out, resistance meeting his sword, before she vanished again without a trace.

  Pressure on his shoulder, then something tore the dagger embedded there out with a vicious twist. That was almost enough to steal the strength of the arm—and might’ve been if his body wasn’t experienced with getting his shoulders mauled—but Det didn’t spin to try and catch her with a shield or sword. She’d avoided every one of those.

  No, Det leaned forward and mule-kicked straight back. A satisfying woof of air getting blasted from lungs and a crunch beneath his boot told him he’d finally connected. The moment of impact sent the two fighters in opposite direction, Det dropping his shoulder into a role that jammed even more sand into the bloody gashes across his body.

  He ignored the sensation, left hand going to a holster on this waist as he found his feet again. Popping the seal with his thumb, he snapped out the scroll to his side and began feeding magic into it. If he couldn’t take her in a one-V-one, he’d tip the odds in his favor by…

  A spinning dagger cut the scroll in half barely a second after it’d been unfurled. Energy twisted within the broken lines, before the whole scroll burst into a shower of burning embers. Worse, the woman was gone again. Which, could only mean…

  Det pivoted on his right foot, elbow going up as he swept his sword across in a wild, downward-pointing parry in front of his chest. Black-ink blade met dagger, dragging just the tip of it across his chest, before his positioning tore the weapon from her grasp. Not willing to give up the advantage as her dagger went sailing off to the side, Det continued his spin, bringing the edge of his shield around to brain his opponent.

  He even got within inches of succeeding at it. Except, she vanished again, reappearing off to Det’s right and flipping in the air. As soon as she hit the ground, she spun, the dagger in her hand streaking toward his face.

  Det’s own spin snapped the shield in front of him, and the dagger pinged off it, bouncing up and to the right over his shoulder.

  Exactly where the woman appeared, her fingers already around the hilt of the weapon, while her other hand snapped the second knife at him. This one, Det intercepted with his sword, the ink-blade batting the weapon out of the air to drive it straight into the ground at his feet.

  One step toward the woman was how far he got before she was down on his right side, hand tearing the dagger free from the sand as she rose. This rising strike, he managed to parry aside with a desperate swing of his own sword. At the contact between weapons, the woman released her hold on her own, and the dagger went spinning up and into the air.

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  She vanished immediately after that, and Det had a pretty good idea where she’d appear. A boot landed on his shield a heartbeat after he swung it up above his head. Weight on his arm—and weakened shoulder—almost collapsed it down on him, but he managed to hold. Another second, another push, and then the weight was gone, the woman backflipping off his damn shield to throw her knife again.

  No, this time she threw both of them.

  Det parried one, knocking it out to the side, and dodged the second.

  Which one would she teleport to this time?

  With his shield on his left—in a good position to turn and block again—that meant she’d have a better angle to attack from his right. Det twisted around, ready for the woman to materialize with the dagger in her hand.

  Instead, it was the dagger that vanished, leaving Det staring at an empty space in the arena.

  Shit.

  His head snapped back to where she’d been standing—where she was standing—now with both daggers back in hand. Correction, she was only holding one, since the second was streaking in Det’s direction.

  His shield swept into place to block it, but the woman pulled yet another trick out of her bag. She teleported to the dagger before it struck his shield, catching it before he could deflect. And, with the motion of Det’s swing pulling the shield across, then out to his side, she returned the favor of blasting the wind out of his lungs.

  Her forward kick caught him square in the chest and hurled him back to slide in the sand. His sword flew from his hand, dissolving in a splash of black ink. Not that he had time to worry about it, another dagger was already on the way.

  What followed were the most chaotic dozen seconds of Det’s life. The woman practically bounced around him like a pinball, alternating teleporting to her daggers, or them to her. She barely held the weapons for a heartbeat before they were in the air again. From the arena floor, the air above Det, near or close, none of the mattered. The more he blocked or parried, the more she used the question of which dagger she would teleport around to gain the advantage.

  She had total control of the fight, except for the surprised look when Det called on something he’d prepared right before entering the arena. Namely the dagger he’d inked on his forearm. Dodging for two seconds hadn’t been easy, but it had bought him enough time to focus energy into the makeshift tattoo.

  Which… unfortunately prompted a mid-fight learning moment. The dagger didn’t appear in his hand. It formed near his forearm, which would’ve been very awkward if he’d been wearing a long-sleeve shirt. That was why he hadn’t, in fact. However, catching the dropping weapon in practice—when nobody was trying to stab him in the face—was much easier than in the middle of a fight. Luckily, his ReSouled reflexes were enough to snag the weapon as it appeared, then dropped, before he squared up again.

  Weapon in hand, he took the fight to Fourth, and immediately got disarmed. Learning moment number two. Even though it was the best-sized weapon for his forearm, Det sucked with knives. At least he knew how Sage felt now. That was fine, though. He still had the temporary tattoo on the other arm—he’d only come in with two—and activated it.

  Fourth was no slouch, though, and having seen what he could do with the first tattoo, she was expecting it when the coiled snake leapt from his arm. Having charged in at her, then thrust his arm directly at the woman’s face as the rendition manifested, he should’ve had the advantage. It was a decent plan, after all. If she couldn’t teleport. Which she did, allowing the spring-loaded snake to sail through empty air

  With the kernel of speed from when Det had painted the snake, it landed and whipped around to slither like lightning in her direction. Only for her to teleport away again, all the while harrying Det so he couldn’t get another scroll out to call on more reinforcements. That back and forth must’ve lasted a good five or six seconds before she skewered with snake with a knife toss as it lunged at her. Without a durability kernel—he hadn’t yet been able to add one during the manifestation process to the temporary tattoos—it didn’t stand a chance against her razor-sharp blade.

  That left him back with his shield and fist. Not great considering all of Fourth’s advantages. He wouldn’t let that stop him, though, and he moved on to his next plan. Trading blows to attempt a grapple.

  Except, when he tried taking a hit to get her in close, she would either simply teleport the dagger back—taking the hit as a temporary win—or play the ‘port to the knife to rip it free game. A chunk missing from his leg showed how well that plan hadn’t worked out for Det. She wasn’t whooping him as badly as he’d beaten Aarak, but she was controlling every aspect of the fight.

  He needed to take some of that back.

  Another block with his shield, a roll, a dodge, and his hand went to his pack at his lower back. Familiar motions brought a bottle of ink from his pack, and he popped the cork with his thumb. Black liquid sloshed out as he dodged another attack.

  “You think you have time to stop and do my portrait?” she asked, the first words she’d spoken since the fight started.

  “Figured I could…” Det said, and dove to the side to avoid a dagger. “… get your good side.”

  “I don’t… have a… bad side,” she quipped, each phrase coming from a different angle as she teleported around him.

  “I wish I could disagree,” Det said, parrying, side-stepping, and most importantly, watching.

  There.

  The dagger came straight at him from the left, and he pivoted at the same time the two seconds he needed to bring a rendition to life passed. In his hand, the ink bottle—with the painting on the glass hidden by the same-color contents—burst into black flame a heartbeat before the dagger went straight through it.

  Another spike of pain bloomed in Det’s poor, abused left shoulder beside the growing number of wounds there. That throw had dug in deep—weakness spreading down his arm—and he risked a glance. Black, inky flame burned across the dagger and its handle, and its owner didn’t immediately call it back to her.

  That’s one less weapon for her to…

  She dashed in, forgoing teleportation to rely solely on her ReSouled body. One that was at least D-Rank by the speed she moved. Up and in, she thrust her dagger for his throat, and Det’s arm felt like it had hundreds of pounds of weights on it, slow and sluggish to intercept.

  He wasn’t going to make it, and he let his right leg half-collapse beneath him to avoid the strike. He was mostly successful, only taking a deep gouge up his cheek and across his head. With her lunge going up and past him—the dagger firmly in her hand—Det wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. Weak though his position was, he twisted at the waist, bringing his now-empty right hand up with all the strength he could muster.

  The angle and position were terrible, but ReSouled strength still carried the punch in the woman’s abdomen with the force of a horse’s kick. She bent around the blow, legs kicking forward a bit, before Det’s fall-dodge pulled him away to roll across the sandy arena floor again. His opponent didn’t immediately follow, her own empty hand pressed against her stomach to rub at the pain of the hit.

  She smiled like that just made it more fun. Putting up a fight just makes the end of the chase more satisfying, her face seemed to say.

  Det was back on his feet a second later, as ready for her as he could be, though his left arm wasn’t working right. He could still move it, but the embedded—and still burning—dagger had caught something important. Maybe even wedged itself in between the joint. His body didn’t know how to deal with it yet, and it made a horrible grinding noise when he tried to move it. His empty right hand would have to do until he bought a few seconds to summon a rendition.

  Time she wasn’t giving him, her hand snapping out in an underhanded throw that shot the dagger for the left side of his face. Maybe she thought the blood running down from where she’d nicked him would get in his eyes, but he had more than enough practice by this point dealing with thrown knives.

  Tracking it like it was moving in slow motion, Det’s ReSouled body lived up to its reputation, letting him reach out and turn with the dagger. If she thought she was going to teleport to it, well, he was going to get to it first. His flingers closed around the hilt, and he used the momentum of the throw to complete his three-sixty spin to fling the dagger right back at her. She’d charged right after the weapon and…

  The second the dagger left Det’s fingers, the woman’s fingers appeared around the hilt, and her leaping foot slammed into the side of his head. The perfectly timed jump-kick rang Det’s noggin like a bell, and sent him careening off to the side. Legs like jelly under him, he stumbled, then fell, landing hard on the knife still sticking out of his shoulder to drive it all the way in and out the back.

  Ignoring the pain as best he could, Det shoved his good arm under himself to push up. For his effort, he got an academy boot to the gut. The kick lifted him off the ground from the power, sending him up and spinning in the air before landing hard on his back.

  Another kick is coming…

  Det continued his roll, getting and arm and leg under him this time, just in time for that same boot to find his face. That… that one hurt, and he suddenly knew how baby-face had felt getting his nose flattened across Det’s shield.

  Air left his lungs as his back thudded to the ground, his whole body weak from the consecutive blows. The arena was spinning under him, like the headmaster had raised it to the sky again, and his left arm was numb from the shoulder down. Assuming it was still attached. It was hard to tell at this point.

  Still, he wasn’t giving up just because it hurt. He had goals. He had a drive that wouldn’t let something simple like pain stop him.

  He flexed at his abdomen, forcing his shoulders off the arena floor, but a new weight fell on him. Pressure on his injured shoulder flared the pain and pushed him back to the ground. That same academy boot that had broken his nose stood on his shoulder, black flames licking up it. His eyes followed the boot, to the bent leg of the woman flexibly crouched on top of him. Her face materialized right in front of him through the spinning haze of pain.

  A second, lighter—but much sharper—pressure appeared against his throat, and he paused. She had her knife there, no doubt about it, while she looked down at him.

  “Hey, Ref,” the woman said. “I think he’s done. How about you call it so I don’t have to slit his throat?”