152 Chat (Prey)

As Ikki’s body hit the ground several things happened. The bell signaling the end of the match rung with Ayase being the obvious winner. Shizuku leapt down towards her brother dragging 50/50 with her to likely heal him. Finally, Ayase acted once more.

A stream of energy connected between her blade and Ikki’s unconscious body. She then started to absorb the wounds that were riddling his unconscious body. Effectively healing her downed foe even if that was not the main purpose.

She was just adding the wounds of his body into her arsenal. Actually, that might be wrong as well as she might be kind enough to heal Ikki. It was not like she had a major grudge against him other than his clear disdain for me that is.

Whatever the case may be she was healing him right now which was all that mattered. At first, when the beam connected to Ikki’s downed frame Shizuku let out a snarl and took out her own device but 50/50 gripped onto her hand and forced her to really look at what was happening.

When she saw that her brother was being healed almost all of the hostility that was radiating from her was eliminated. Instead, she walked towards her downed brother with that urgency not in every step. Now her gait was filled with worry and pain over what was happening to her brother. Both mentally and physically.

Shizuku still felt a small amount of bitter emotions about how the fight went but she was not unreasonable. She was not going to blame her brother’s opponent for fighting to win especially since said opponent was healing him.

For now, all she could do was kneel beside her brother and clutch her brother’s hand with a worried look on her face.

“Oni-sama.” She muttered out quietly as she looked over at the wounds being mended. Seeing that he was no longer needed 50/50 kind of awkwardly left. He saw that the girl that brought him here was too preoccupied to pay attention to him and he had other things to do than watch over a boy he had no connection with.

I walked down towards the arena to talk to my student as she had this sort of dazed look on her face after she beat Ikki. When I got close I got a bitter look from Shizuku as she blamed me for a part of how this went down. Even if she knew her blame was completely and utterly unreasonable.

That’s the thing when your loved ones are in pain what is reasonable is not really at the forefront of your mind.

I left Ayase to absorb the injuries for now as the talk could wait awhile. For now, I was just offering her my presence in hopes that it would calm the mood that was building in here. It seemed to work at least a little bit as the dazed look on her face was replaced with one filled with thoughts.

Not much of a difference but at least with this one it looked like she was making progress on her thoughts instead of being lost in them.

“Okay, he should be fine now. He will wake up after he rests for a while but if you want a second opinion I suggest taking him to the infirmary instead of bothering my sensei.” Ayase spoke out as she finished taking away most of the wounds. Shizuku heard the reprimand for what it was blushed and picked up her brother and took him away in a hurry.

I raised an eyebrow as she could have taken the exhaustion she had forced on him away but she did not. I guess she did not want to deal without Ikki right now so she left him to his forced nap.

She looked back at me saw the questioning look and let out a sheepish smile.

“With Sensei here Ikki-san was likely to make a scene.” She spoke out eventually and that drew a snort from him. That made a certain amount of sense considering how he acted regularly.

“You got anything on your mind Ayase-chan? At the end of all of this, you looked like you were looking at something completely different.” I asked with a small frown on my face.

I knew about some of what was on her mind but I could not really do anything unless she took the first step. This was her problem after all and if she could solve it with her own hands that would take an even larger rock off of her soul.

She let out a deep sigh and an awkward smile.

“Was I that obvious?” She asked with a bitter look in her eyes. I was not expecting her to be so frank about this but I guess I had grown on her a lot more than I thought. Then again she had taken to calling me Sensei pretty quick.

“I would not say obvious. It’s just I am used to seeing only certain expressions from you and that one was a mile away from anything else I saw from you.” I explained even if I was not being entirely truthful. Her expression was out of the norm but I was able to read the gist of the situation from it.

Ayase bit her lip in hesitation for a moment before looking over at me in determination.

“Sensei, would you, would you mind following me for a bit?” She asked with a glint in her eyes that spoke about her determination. I raised an eyebrow as I thought she would have explained a bit more but if she just wanted me to come along I was more than fine with that.

I nodded slowly and she let out a small smile before leaving the arena. I followed along as I said. I thought we would have been walking towards the hospital to heal her Father as she should be capable of doing that herself but she might not feel that confident about it. Instead, she was leaving it to the person she knew could heal nearly anything.

So I was rather shocked when we went nowhere near the hospital. Instead, we walked around the more residential area. Our destination became clear as we passed another house and followed along a path leading towards an elevated position. At the top of that path sat a dilapidated Dojo that clearly looked like it had seen better days.

When she caught sight of the building before her she gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. Anger, Despair, and Desperation danced across her eyes for a moment before she took a deep breath and walked forward. 

I knew what was waiting for us at this place but kept to my position as a witness. She was not asking me to save her after all, this was her battle and all she wanted from me was to see her growth.

She swung open the Dojo door and the interior was filled with various thugish-looking men hanging around. Smoking and drinking in the Dojo, some of them just breaking shit for the sake of breaking shit. 

The anger that was barely being held back was now boiling off of her like a tsunami that wanted to consume this room. While her emotions were directed to everyone in the room it was focused in on one particular asshole sitting around with a bottle of wine in his hand.

If someone wanted to design an antagonistic dick head as a character this guy fit that image to a tee. Spikey hair brown hair wearing sunglasses indoors because he needed everyone to know he was an asshole. Sharp teeth that were shark-like for some god-forsaken reason.

He was wearing a bright red coat with a frilled black edge near the collar. The jacket was almost completely open showcasing a large fucking skull tattoo on his chest. Finally, he was wearing red pants that were kind of like MC hammer pants.

Frankly I kind of wanted to laugh at how stupid he looked but this was not my show. This was all about Ayase.

The Sword Eater himself looked over at Ayase with a disdainful frown and spat out the alcohol he was drinking to address her. As a side note, the fact that he called himself Sword Eater was just fucking crazy. How was anyone supposed to take this guy seriously or did the Author just not know what the connotation of calling someone that was?

“Seriously? You just don’t learn do you bitch? I told you already I don’t have any interest in fucking weaklings. Let alone a crybaby who could do nothing as I beat her father in front of her.” Kuraudo spat out dismissively as he took another large drink from the wine bottle in his hands.

I felt my own blood run cold and anger clouded my mind for a moment. I knew that this guy sucked but hearing that shit was a completely different thing than just knowing it would happen. How in god’s name did this piece of trash become her Father’s student later on and eventually romance my wayward disciple!?

Ayase seemed to agree with how disgusting Kuraudo was as the anger that was radiating off of her reached a new peak. Enough that the various scrubs around here felt nervous even if they had seen their boss take care of Ayase plenty of times.

Instead of saying something she took out her Device and rang the blade. The Bell chimed out and all of the Mobs sitting around enjoying themselves in Her Dojo fell to the ground as blood rained throughout the room.

“There is no running from this Kuraudo, today we will fight and you will regret the day you were even born.” She spat out with all her anger finally finding an outlet.

Kuraudo seemed to freeze for a moment at the sudden change of things going out off his control but a large sharp smile bloomed on his face as he saw the determination in her eyes.

“Well, would you look at that? The bitch does have a spine after all. Fine, I was looking forward to knocking around that pretty head. Same rules as always?” Kuraudo asked with a mocking smile on his face as he took out his Device to fight.

“No, I’m not my Father. I’m not going to face you in a fair duel with no Mana and pure technique. The world is inherently unfair and I figured it was my turn to teach you that lesson. We fight as Blazers with all of our abilities and Mana use in the clear.” Ayase spat out with a calm almost detached look on her face.

Kuraudo froze at those terms. While he would like to believe in his own hype that was just not in the cards. All Kuraudo did usually was bully sword masters by using his inborn reflexes. As a Blazer his ability was pretty fucking stupid and his Mana capacity was not anything to write home about.

Judging from how easily Ayase was able to take out his minions he knew he was outclassed so he probably did not want to accept this duel.

“What too afraid to fight a girl?” Ayase asked with a mocking smile clearly reading the hesitation on his face. Kuraudo being who he was could not take that so he gritted his teeth and faced her.

“Nah, just wanted to give the little crybaby a chance to back out before I put her in the hospital with her daddy.” Kuraudo spat out which was exactly the wrong thing to say as a dark look flashed across her face.

There was tension in the air as the two fighters faced each other waiting for some unseen signal. Kuraudo as expected was the one to make the first move taking advantage of his enhanced reflexes.

His blade was being swung in the air at a truly fast pace. The bone-like blade moved with a mind of its own as Ayase had to face strikes coming from four different directions.

It was impressive for someone I called middling but all Ayase had to do was activate her technique and Kuraudo burst in a shower of blood like his minions. The issue was he was not faced with the small cuts that the rest of them had.

No, Kurado had everything that Ikki had thrown at him tossed at the dick head almost at the same time as the bell rang out constantly. Ayase walked towards Kuraudo, she absently dodged the blade that had lost its movement as Kuraudo had to deal with the sudden bout of pain.

More and more chimes rang out as she tore Kuraudo’s body apart. When she reached the guy he was nothing more than a bleeding puddle by this point even if she was careful to make sure he lived.

“See this is how the world works Kuraudo. The strong prey on the weak and you just happen to be the weak. You and your crew of minions will leave this place and never come back. I want you to remember I could have killed you whenever I wished and trust me I could have been far more insidious with the wounds I inflicted on you.” She spoke out darkly as she faced the downed man who gritted his teeth in pain and passed out from the pain going through his body.

Wait, why did I get involved with another black-haired girl who enjoyed making her enemies bleed!?