My Blood Legacy: Bloodlines

Chapter 176: Two Crazy Maniacs

Victor and Nera were throwing punches without the slightest scruple.

There was no other honest way to describe it. The training field had been opened for a controlled demonstration, a simple exchange so Squad Six could better evaluate the two’s styles before the mission. At least, that was the idea on paper. In practice, Victor and Nera had turned the demonstration into a mutual attempt at recreational homicide, with the naturalness of two people who considered "measuring strength" far too cowardly an expression.

Nera looked like a ten-year-old girl.

That made everything worse.

The small body, the childish face, and the wide smile created a completely wrong image of fragility. Because Nera had nothing fragile about her. She was a compact lunatic, a creature of absurd energy and murderous instinct who laughed while sliding across the field with a scythe larger than her own body. Every movement of hers seemed wrong in proportion, but perfect in intent. The scythe spun around her as if it did not obey the normal laws of weight, and the blade cut through the air with thin, almost cheerful whistles.

Victor held Lilith with one hand, the black sword following his movements with brutal precision. He did not fight like someone trying to impress. He fought like someone irritated by having found an opponent who would not stop laughing when she was almost split in half. His feet destroyed the ground with every advance, and his body entered each exchange with dry, straight violence, without unnecessary flourish.

Lilith’s blade descended.

Nera blocked with the shaft of the scythe.

The impact exploded between them, throwing dust and cracks across the ground.

Nera was dragged a few centimeters back, but her small feet dug into the earth, and she smiled as if she had just received a gift.

"Stronger, Victor!"

"You talk too much."

"You hit too little!"

She spun beneath the sword, the scythe coming in a low arc toward his legs. Victor jumped, folded his body in the air, and descended with his knee aimed at her face. Nera tilted her head at the last instant, and the strike grazed past her hair. Before Victor touched the ground, she pulled the scythe back with absurd force, trying to catch his body from the side.

Victor twisted his body in the air and kicked the shaft of the scythe.

The sound was dry.

Nera spun with the weapon, using the impact instead of resisting it. She completed a full turn and came from above, laughing, with the blade aimed at his shoulder.

Lilith rose to intercept.

Scythe and sword met again.

This time, the shock raised a wave of pressure that made the observers step back half a pace.

Victor narrowed his eyes. "Your scythe holds up well."

Nera smiled demonically, her eyes shining with a joy completely inappropriate for the situation. "Of course it does."

"What did you call it?"

Nera’s expression became even worse.

She rested the scythe on her shoulder as if presenting a princess at a ball and tilted her face to the side.

"Her name is Final Omen."

The silence among the observers lasted only one second.

Someone murmured, "She gave the scythe a calamity name."

Another replied, "What were you expecting? Daisy?"

Victor looked at the weapon. "Dramatic name."

Nera widened her smile. "She likes it."

"She?"

"Do you not talk to your sword?"

Lilith vibrated slightly in Victor’s hand.

Victor went quiet.

Nera pointed at him with satisfaction. "You talk!"

"Shut up."

She advanced.

The battle resumed with even more violence. Nera lowered her body and shot across the ground like a small, furious shadow, dragging the scythe blade through the dirt before pulling it upward in a vertical cut. Victor dodged by a narrow margin, spun Lilith in one hand, and answered with a sequence of three fast strikes. Nera blocked the first, deflected the second with the shaft, and received the third head-on, crossing the scythe against the sword.

The impact made her arms tremble.

She laughed.

Victor kicked.

Nera took the blow on the shoulder and was launched backward like a thrown stone. She hit the ground, rolled twice, and planted the scythe into the earth to stop her own body. Any normal person would have needed a few seconds to catch their breath. Nera stood up in the same instant, her eyes shining as if that had been the fun part.

"Again!"

Victor let out air through his nose. "You are insane."

"Thank you!"

Outside the arena, the observers watched with varied expressions of shock, fascination, and administrative regret.

One member of Squad Six crossed his arms. "Why exactly are we letting two maniacs trade blows like this?"

"Because trying to stop them now seems more dangerous than watching," another replied.

"That is not a strategy."

"It is survival."

Mirella stood with her arms crossed, observing the exchange with a technical gaze, though part of her was clearly calculating how much it would cost to repair the field afterward. She did not look frightened, but she was far from calm. Victor was one thing. She already expected him to fight as if he had been born brawling with the world. Nera, however, was another story. That small, laughing, insane girl turned every movement into a real threat, as if she had been raised in a dungeon and fed with promises of violence.

Natasha stood beside her.

And Natasha did not take her eyes off Victor.

Mirella noticed after a few seconds. At first, she thought it was merely combat analysis. After all, Victor was facing Nera on equal footing, and any decent commander would pay attention to that. But then she noticed the way Natasha followed every movement of his. It was not just evaluation. It was fixation. It was a gaze that lingered too long, watched too closely, loaded with a tension that did not fit military tactics.

Mirella turned her face slightly. "Why do you not take your eyes off him?"

Natasha took a fraction of a second to answer.

"We have a complicated relationship."

Mirella raised an eyebrow.

Natasha continued, without looking away from the arena. "Besides, he is Serafall’s son. My best friend."

"I see."

Mirella looked back at the field, but the thought came dry, immediate, and merciless.

Complicated relationship, sure. I can smell your desire from here, you perverted vampire.

She did not say it out loud.

Not because she was polite.

Because she still needed Natasha functional for the mission.

In the arena, Victor and Nera collided again. This time, the exchange was so fast that some of the observers could only follow the flashes of metal. Lilith cut in dark lines. Final Omen answered with wide arcs and impossible angles. Victor advanced with straight force, trying to pressure her. Nera escaped to the side, bending her body in an almost unnatural way, and returned from below with the scythe searching for blind spots.

She was too small for such a large weapon.

And precisely because of that, she was a nightmare.

Her size made her angles seem wrong. Victor had to adjust the height of his strikes all the time. If he attacked as he would against an adult, she slipped beneath. If he lowered his guard too much, the scythe came from above. If he tried to trap her weapon, Nera spun her body along with the blade and turned her own disadvantage into momentum.

Victor smiled for the first time.

It was not a pretty smile.

It was the smile of someone beginning to have fun.

"Now this got interesting."

Nera stopped for half a second, as if that phrase had fed her soul. "Yes!"

She struck the tip of the scythe against the ground.

Dark circles spread beneath her feet.

Victor narrowed his eyes.

Mirella immediately took a step forward. "Nera."

"I know, I know!" Nera shouted without looking. "No killing!"

"No mutilating either."

"Boring!"

Victor raised Lilith. "Come on."

Nera came.

The scythe disappeared for an instant.

Not by ordinary speed. By technique. The blade vanished behind a dead angle, hidden by Nera’s own small body, and reappeared at Victor’s side like a literal omen. Victor reacted at the last second, blocking with Lilith, but the force of the strike pushed him back for the first time. His feet tore through the ground, opening two lines in the earth.

Nera burst out laughing.

Victor answered with a punch.

She did not expect it.

His fist struck the shaft of the scythe, and the impact wave climbed up her arms. Nera widened her eyes, the smile still on her face, and was thrown backward. But before falling, she planted the tip of the scythe into the ground and used the handle as an axis, spinning her body in the air to return with another attack.

"Does she not stop?" someone asked.

Yvonne, standing a few meters behind, answered with total calm: "No."

The twins were beside her.

Or rather, trying to be.

The two watched the fight with shining eyes, practically trembling with excitement. With every exchanged blow, they took a small step forward. With every explosion of dust, their fingers moved as if they wanted to hold invisible weapons. It was obvious the two wanted to enter the middle of it. Not as mediators. As participants.

"I want to fight too," one of them said.

"Me too," said the other.

"If the little psychopath can, why can’t we?"

"Because you two would turn this into a choreographed massacre," Yvonne replied.

The twins smiled at the same time.

"That sounds fun."

"Sounds efficient."

Yvonne did not even change her expression.

Before they could take another step, she grabbed them both by the collars.

One in each hand.

She lifted both of them like sacks of potatoes.

The twins hung there, their feet swinging in the air, still looking at the arena with indignation.

"Yvonne!"

"Let go!"

"We are missing the good part!"

"You are avoiding the part where Mirella yells at me afterward," Yvonne said.

"But we want to help!"

"You want to commit recreational violence."

The two went quiet for a second.

Then answered together:

"Yes."

Yvonne sighed. "At least you are honest."

Mirella looked back and saw the scene. The two twins hanging by their collars, Yvonne holding them without any effort, and both still trying to advance with their legs like little beasts being prevented from running. For some reason, it seemed less absurd than it should have, considering Victor and Nera were trying to turn the field into dust.

Natasha, however, was still looking at Victor.

Mirella noticed again.

"Natasha."

"What?"

"Did you hear anything I said?"

"Yes."

"What did I say?"

Natasha was silent.

Mirella sighed. "Complicated relationship, of course."

In the arena, Victor finally decided to change the rhythm. Until then, he had been accepting Nera’s madness head-on, trading blows and testing resistance. Now, he stepped to the side at the exact moment Final Omen descended. The scythe cut the ground, and Victor trapped its shaft with Lilith, turning his body to pull her weapon downward.

Nera widened her eyes.

Victor kicked the scythe handle against the ground, locking the weapon for half a second.

It was enough.

He advanced and placed Lilith’s blade close to her neck.

The arena went silent.

Nera looked at the sword.

Then looked at Victor.

Then smiled from ear to ear.

"Did I lose?"

Victor breathed slowly. "Yes."

"Was it fun?"

"It was inconvenient."

"That is almost yes."

"It is not."

"It is."

Victor moved the sword away and took a step back. Nera pulled Final Omen from the ground with a crack, hugging the scythe as if it were a dear friend. The small lunatic seemed happier about having lost to someone strong than many would be about winning.

Mirella entered the arena before the two could decide that "one more round" was a good idea.

"Enough."

Nera pouted. "But I still have about three tricks."

"And I still have a mission to organize without additional craters."

Victor rested Lilith on his shoulder. "She is strong."

Nera beamed.

Mirella looked at Victor. "Do not encourage her."

"It is an observation."

"Observations from you sound like invitations to violence."

Nera pointed at him. "See? He understands."

Mirella closed her eyes for an instant, gathering patience from some very distant place.

Yvonne approached, still holding the twins by their collars. They remained hanging, but now seemed a little more resigned.

"Can I let them go?" Yvonne asked.

Mirella looked at the two.

The twins smiled with false innocence.

"No."

Yvonne nodded. "I thought it prudent to ask."

Natasha finally took her eyes off Victor when she realized Mirella was watching her again. "What?"

Mirella smiled from the side. "Nothing. Just thinking."

"About what?"

"About how complicated relationships must be tiring."

Natasha became too serious too quickly. "They are."

Mirella almost laughed, but held it back. There was something there that might be messier than she had imagined, and she did not have time to dismantle a vampire’s emotional life before the mission. Even so, it was impossible to ignore the way Natasha looked at Victor. Complicated was a very small word for that.

Victor, unaware of the conversation or simply pretending to be, looked at Nera. "Final Omen is a good name."

Nera froze.

Then almost exploded with happiness.

"You liked it?"

"It suits you."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Maybe."

Nera squeezed the scythe against her chest and smiled as if she had received an unholy blessing. "I will remember that forever."

Mirella pointed at Victor. "You just made her worse."

Victor looked at Nera, then at Mirella. "Probably."

"You do not seem sorry."

"I am not."

The hanging twins began to laugh.

Yvonne shook them lightly. "Quiet."

They were quiet for half a second.

Then Nera turned to Victor with shining eyes. "After the mission, another fight?"

Victor thought for an instant.

Mirella immediately said, "Do not answer."

Victor answered anyway.

"Maybe."

Nera smiled demonically.

The twins shouted indignantly because they wanted their own "maybe."

Yvonne continued holding the two like sacks of potatoes.

Mirella looked at the sky, took a deep breath, and accepted, with bitter clarity, that this mission would be carried out with a group of people who were too dangerous, too unstable, and far too excited about violence.

At least they were strong.

That, unfortunately, helped.