BOOM!
A thunderous explosion rocked the street, the sheer force of the shockwave shattering the windows of the surrounding buildings and leaving deep scorch marks on the pavement.
"Good grief... she's really overdoing it."
Sisigou rolled into a narrow alleyway, his heart pounding as he sought cover from the blast. He had explicitly told Mordred not to act rashly, but as usual, those instructions had been tossed out the window the moment the fighting started.
"Well, I'm not exactly in a position to lecture her," he muttered, tossing his half-finished cigarette to the ground and crushing it under his boot.
He peered around the corner, taking advantage of the chaos to put some distance between himself and his opponent. He still couldn't believe that the young Master he was facing possessed such an incredible level of swordsmanship. To find a true swordmaster in this day and age was beyond belief.
'Is he a descendant of some legendary swordsmith or a forgotten samurai clan?'
Sisigou's thoughts were cut short by the sound of faint footsteps above him. He didn't hesitate. He raised his shotgun and fired toward the second-story window.
BANG! BANG!!
Fujimaru leaped from the window just as the bullets tore through the frame. He didn't assume they were ordinary rounds. He swung the replica sword in his hand, and a surge of water suddenly manifested around the blade.
The fluid motion acted like a whirlpool, catching the magic bullets in mid-air and redirecting them. Fujimaru then slammed the blade downward, sending a localized water spout crashing toward the stunned Sisigou.
"!"
Sisigou dove forward, narrowly avoiding the impact.
CRASH!
The torrent of water, despite its seemingly soft appearance, pulverized the stone floor and left a jagged crater in its wake. Before Sisigou could even scramble to his feet, Fujimaru was already closing the distance.
WHOOSH.
Sisigou threw a piece of treated animal hide to obscure his opponent's vision. Fujimaru slashed through it in a blur of motion, the leather turning to dust in an instant. But the moment the view cleared, he saw Sisigou tossing a small, pulsating object that looked remarkably like a human heart.
"!"
KABOOM!!
The blast was deafening. Both Sisigou and Fujimaru were thrown backward by the force of the explosion.
"Cough! Cough!!"
Sisigou landed hard, immediately feeling a sharp, burning sensation on his arm. He didn't waste a second, pulling a small knife from his belt and carving out a chunk of his own skin where several dark fragments had embedded themselves.
The pain was a minor annoyance. He had protected his vital organs, so the damage was mostly superficial,the real danger was the curse associated with the weapon.
He stood up, staring through the settling dust. To be pushed this far by an unknown youth... it was a testament to the boy's strength. His versatile sword techniques and sheer speed were unlike anything Sisigou had encountered in over a decade of combat.
Fujimaru was nothing like the formal, rigid magi of the Clock Tower.
"I really hope that was enough to keep him down," Sisigou muttered, gripping his weapon.
If the fight continued as a battle of attrition, he knew he would eventually lose. He was running low on specialized tools, and the boy's [God-speed] bladework made it suicidal to engage him at close range. The "water sword" style and the sheer depth of combat experience the boy displayed were baffling. It was as if he was fighting a seasoned sword saint in a teenager's body.
"Ugh..."
As the smoke cleared, Sisigou heard a faint groan and looked toward the crater.
"Heh..."
Fujimaru was kneeling on one leg, using his sword for support. A jagged hole in his trousers revealed a gruesome wound on his thigh where the "Heart Grenade" had struck. Blood was already pooling on the ground, and he was holding a small, blood-stained knife in his other hand.
"This kid..."
Sisigou stared at the discarded fragments on the ground, his eyes wide with shock.
'Did he just use a knife to dig out the "hair" and "teeth" himself?'
The [Heart Grenade] was a specialized magic tool made from the hearts of magi. It was far more powerful than a standard grenade, and the fragments,teeth and hair,carried a potent rotting curse. Once they entered the body, they would begin to liquefy the surrounding tissue.
Sisigou had survived because he knew exactly how to treat the injury. He had cut away the affected skin immediately.
But this boy... he had shown an incredible amount of willpower. He had literally performed surgery on himself in the middle of a battlefield to remove the cursed elements before the decay could spread.
'Is this some kind of modern-day Sōkaishi (Scraping the bone to treat poison) technique?'
Despite his bravado, Fujimaru was in a bad way. He had blocked the brunt of the explosion, but his leg was effectively useless. He knew he had made the right call in removing the cursed fragments, but standing up was proving to be an almost impossible task.
'Is this what a real battle between magi is like?'
'It's much more brutal than anything Artoria or the others described...'
'If I hesitate for even a second, I'm dead.'
Even though he had backed Sisigou into a corner with his swordsmanship, the older man had still found a way to turn the tables with a single well-timed gadget.
Sisigou, however, wasn't moving. He remained ten meters away, his shotgun aimed squarely at Fujimaru's chest.
"I take back what I said earlier."
"To be a Master of an English Heroic Spirit... you really are an extraordinary individual."
"If you had another year or two to grow, I honestly don't want to think about what you could become."
He squeezed the trigger.
Sisigou didn't believe in honorable duels. As a Necromancer and a mercenary, he used every tool at his disposal,guns, grenades, and curses. He had no interest in "the path of a proper magus."
"Goodbye!"
BANG! BANG!!
The twin barrels of the shotgun spat fire. These weren't ordinary buckshot. Sisigou had crafted these rounds from human finger bones, combining Nordic runes with necromantic magic to create "Guided Finger Bullets." They could track the body heat of a target and would explode into a localized curse upon impact. Usually, a single hit was enough to put a magus down for good.
But Fujimaru hadn't given up. He gripped the [Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi] and slammed it into the ground with everything he had left.
A violent geyser of water erupted from the earth, launching him into the air.
'Yes... this is my only chance...'
'If my legs won't carry me...'
'I'll use their techniques to close the gap!'
"What?!"
Sisigou looked up in horror as the boy utilized the momentum of the water to propel himself forward with terrifying speed.
'He's too fast! I cant track him!
The projection of the [Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi] allowed Fujimaru to access the memories and skills of those who had wielded it before. And as it happened, he had read the techniques of two legendary swordsmen from that blade's history.
One was a practitioner of a fluid, unrestrained "Killing Sword" style that used water as a medium.
The other was a master of a God-like [Battojutsu] style that prioritized sheer speed.
Fujimaru had spent years practicing these techniques under Artoria's supervision, refining the "memories" he had extracted from the blade.
"[Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu]!"
"[Ryusuizen]!"
Combining the two styles, Fujimaru descended from the sky like a falling dragon, his blade trailing a wake of shimmering blue water as he struck.
"Ngh!!"
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]