Reincarnated into Two Bodies

We returned to the others to praise and shock. Kyro was shaking Clarissa by the shoulders as he showered her praises, utterly amazed at her marksmanship. Clarissa looked like jelly the way he shook her, though.

On my end, Eve, Lionne, and Villius weren’t shy with their praises either.

“Your reaction speed leaves me in awe as always, Lady Carine,” Villius admitted.

“To swat arrows as if they were mere flies, you truly are the true heir of the Sareid style!” Lionne added, her eyes beaming.

“Day by day, I grew more impressed by your feats, Lady Carine,” Eve added.

I offered a humble nod as Carine, still shocked that I still managed to underestimate Clarissa, even to this day.

I’m a bad friend, aren’t I?

After the whole hype died down, however, the next one up was…

“Me next!” Attila shouted, raising her hand high up in the air. “I’ve been wanting to fight Feyt properly for a while now. Mind if I take him on?”

The room went silent for a moment as everyone’s eyes turned towards me, Feyt. It wasn’t in an awkward way like last time, but more so of them waiting on my decision.

I straightened myself as Feyt, rolling my shoulders and plastering on a confident, easygoing smile. “I’m fine with it. After watching a fight like that, I’m pumped up too!" I said, stepping onto the mat. "Let’s do this!”

“Great!”

—

The two of us stood on the mat, facing each other. Each of us held a standard-issue wooden blade, both held firmly as we collected our breaths.

I remembered how Attila fought in the past, mainly from the previous combat classes. She relied on heavy, overpowering attacks meant to break down someone’s guard, or make them hesitate to even do so.

She had the potential to be even stronger than Lechter, but I wouldn’t know anything until I got a taste of her style myself.

Besides, a strong opponent was the perfect test subject for me to test my theory.

To keep things fair and to train myself, I had Carine lean casually against a pillar by the wall, closing my eyes as I “dozed off”.

I channeled all the focus I had directly into Feyt. I needed all my focus if I was going to develop this strategy of mine.

Lionne stepped up to the edge of the mat, her hand holding a towel high. She was our referee again. Both Attila and I kept close attention to both the opponent before us and the makeshift flag Lionne was holding.

Then, after a moment passed, Lionne’s arm swung down.

She flew forward, a bright, thrilled smile on her face as she instantly closed the distance. The sheer momentum she generated was enough to make the training mats groan beneath her boots.

I rushed forward to meet her, my mind racing. I knew from past experience that blocking a heavy hitter head-on was a fool's errand unless I wanted my arms to be completely numb for the rest of the week. I needed to evade.

And so, I strained my ears, hearing past the rushing wind, reaching straight into her very skin. Amidst the ambient noise of the room, I could hear it: the sudden, violent contraction of her muscles, the shifting of her weight.

Through her muscles, I could hear her movements before it even happened.

She swung her blade with blinding speed, a downward cleave meant to shatter my guard. But because I already knew exactly where it was landing, my body anticipated the trajectory.

I stepped smoothly to the side. The wooden blade whistled past my hair.

Attila’s eyes widened in genuine surprise, but her reflexes were terrifying. Instead of letting the momentum of her missed swing throw her off balance, she effortlessly redirected the entire force of her muscles. With a brutal, fluid twist of her hips, she converted the downward drop into a sudden horizontal sweep aimed directly at my guts.

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Shit, no time to dodge!

I brought my sword down, bracing my posture to block the strike.

The moment her attack landed, a violent shockwave traveled up my arms as I expected, rattling deep into my bones as the sheer force pushed me back.

I shook the numbness away from my wrist as I kept my eye on her.

She was strong, monstrously so. In terms of raw power, she wasn’t at Lechter’s level. But, unlike Lechter, who was admittedly untrained, Attila lived by the sword. As far as I knew, she was undoubtedly the strongest opponent I could potentially face in the tournament.

But, I wouldn’t let that stop me.

I lunged forward, capitalizing on the momentum of my recovery. Attila’s confident smile didn't waver for a second as she instantly shifted into a rock-solid defensive stance.

I swung my blade with everything I had, but she readied her guard perfectly. Rather than bouncing off her defense and wasting energy, I intentionally let my sword slide smoothly off the edge of her blade, using the momentum to spin out of her immediate range.

I didn't give her a moment to breathe. I pressed the offensive, unleashing a rapid flurry of strikes meant to close off any chances of attacks.

Attila parried and blocked every single one, her feet firmly rooted to the mat.

Suddenly, amidst the clattering of wood, my ears caught a distinct shift in her rhythm. It wasn't the sound of her blade; it was the sudden, heavy straining of the training mat beneath her, followed by the heavy compression of her thigh muscles.

Is she preparing to jump?

No, she’s lunging at me!

Instead of retreating to avoid the oncoming bash, I braced myself and gambled everything on a split-second dodge.

The exact moment her leg muscles exploded with terrifying force, launching her forward like a heavy spring, I was already gone. I pivoted sharply on my heel, slipping completely out of her line of sight and sliding right into her blind spot.

Attila rocketed forward, her wooden sword thrusting into empty air. For a fraction of a second, her eyes blinked in utter bewilderment at the vacant space where I had just been standing. The sheer momentum of her explosive jump meant she was physically incapable of stopping herself mid-air.

In other words, she was wide open.

I swiftly swung my blade before she could fly out of my range.

The wooden sword landed a clean, solid slash right across her back.

I landed safely on both feet a few paces away, instantly dropping back into a defensive guard, in case that didn’t count as a win. Attila hit the mat a few steps ahead of where I had just been, her footing faltering for a brief moment as she stumbled forward to absorb the impact of her missed lunge.

She quickly spun around to face me, her steps coming to a halt. Her eyes were wide, blinking in shock.

Silence descended on the training private chamber, broken only by the sound of our heavy breathing.

Did… did that count as a solid hit?

A wide grin broke out across Attila’s face as she shook off the shock, lowering her weapon. “That was incredible, Feyt! You were so fast! It’s like you could read my mind!”

Oh, thank God.

I lowered my own wooden sword, letting out a sigh of relief as tension was released from my shoulders. My hands were vibrating slightly from the residual shockwaves of her strike, but a deep sense of satisfaction welled up in my chest.

The chamber instantly erupted in awe and claps.

“Sir Feyt, that was awesome!” Kyro barked. “I could barely even see how you moved!”

“To have such great footwork, Sir Feyt truly is destined to be Lady Carine’s… uhh… bodyguard…” Lionne said, her words trailing off as if hesitant to finish her thoughts. She shot a quick look toward the pillar where Carine was standing, as if she worried I might hear her.

“So, even Feyt has incomprehensible reaction speed… What am I missing?” Villius mumbled to himself, rubbing his chin.

I rubbed the back of my head as I offered a humble chuckle.

“It was just the results of my training, haha…”

But as the others kept chatting and eventually turned to praise Attila, I tuned out their voices, focusing back on the tingling sensation in my palms.

It actually worked.

Using Feyt's ears to listen in to my opponent's muscles… I had done it before a few times, but mostly doing so by hearing their muscles twitch to expect when they might move, not necessarily predict what they were going to do.

This was the first time I put true focus on my opponent’s muscles, where they were coming from, what they might be aiming to do… and the payoff was undeniable. If I refined this even further, I could theoretically predict and outmaneuver almost any attack before it even happened.

Of course, Carine’s eyes were still the more reliable tool for reading an opponent’s movements, but Carine’s eyes were mostly used to react the split second a movement happened. Using Feyt’s ears, I could anticipate the movement before it even began, perhaps before even the opponent themselves knew what they were planning to do.

Still, a small, stubborn doubt crept into my mind.

It was easy enough to pull off in a private, enclosed training chamber like this, where everyone held their breaths. But what about the actual tournament? Would this technique still be useful in a massive arena filled with countless deafening roars and cheers?

There was also the chance that the only reason I could focus entirely on tuning in to Attila’s muscles was that I was “dozing off” as Carine. What if I was distracted like last time whilst trying to predict my opponent with my ears?

Many questions still lingered about it.

That’s exactly what this joint training session is for, right?