22 Days until the E grade Advancement Tournament.

Akira skated weightlessly across a sparkling glacier, his feet floating millimetres above the meltwater. He orbited his opponent, swinging around the giant swordsman that he was up against today.

The swordsman darted forward, jutting in front of Akira's path. He led with his gigantic greatsword, a titanic spine of metal over two metres long and easily heavier than both Akira's swords combined.

Akira stopped instantly.

He held up both blades. Jiki's silent blackness stood out against the near-white expanse while Juryoku's blinding brightness cascaded across their icy battleground. Snowflakes gently drifted between the two fighters, the miniature crystals glinting the arctic sunlight.

The delicate icy shards swirled around both of Akira's swords, constantly drawn towards them yet refusing to settle.

In the coliseum, Akira would've pre-emptively stifled his opponent's strike, not letting him even attempt an attack. Now he met it head on.

As his opponent built up speed, Akira debated how to finish the fight.

He could pin his opponent to the ice, crushing him beneath a relentless gravitational push. He could pry the gigantic sword from his hands, tugging on the iron itself. He could even try subtlety, altering his opponent's swing to generate an opening for his own swordsmanship. But he chose not to.

Akira was here to train, not to fight. He didn't just need to defeat the one in front of him. The two sneering faces of those he needed to defeat were seared into his memory already.

Those motherfuckers killed his best friend. Akira didn't just want to defeat them; he wanted to erase them from existence.

The tumbling snowflakes froze mid-air as Akira raised both his swords in a block.

But he wasn't idly waiting to be attacked.

Their swords met. Brilliant sparks of steel scattered off the three blades, almost igniting the motionless snowfall. Akira twisted his wrists, not simply deflecting the attack, but simultaneously pushing the metal in each blade.

It was a crude technique, one he'd used in his first few fights, but one that he was still far from mastering.

At least according to his new sensei.

The enigmatic woman hadn't given him much but a name, Fang, but he didn't need much else.

There was only one alliance that morphed their weapons into liquid gold. When they came knocking, you dropped everything and said yes.

Relax.

Baby steps.

You've got three more weeks to figure it out.

Fang wanted to iron out the flaws in his swordsmanship. Akira preferred to call them flourishes, but he listened either way.

Close-mindedness earned him nothing. He was wary of Fang's plans for him, but he'd still try and extract what knowledge he could from her.

Akira swept the greatsword aside with an almighty shove. It skimmed across the ice, ripping open his opponent's guard.

Again, Akira waited. He didn't simply skewer Jiki through the swordsman's chest, or slice off a limb with Juryoku.

He channelled his Harmony through his swords.

Both swords sliced weightlessly through the air, Akira almost forgot he was holding them but maintained his tight grip. As his swing arced above him, the swords grew heavier. Akira's muscles strained just to hold them up, he pushed on their blades with the essence of magnetism to force them along.

But he didn't need to push much further.

Once they were above his opponent, gravity would take care of the rest.

Both swords accelerated rapidly. They cleaved through the air, shattering its stillness, before chopping through his opponent's chest. Their descent barely slowed by his sundered flesh.

They impaled the glacier below and sank until only their hilts jutted above the ice.

The huge, three-piece, corpse that fell to Akira's feet didn't bleed, or even make a noise as it smacked into the floor.

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Akira returned the blades to their normal weight and pulled them from the ground. He considered posing, like he'd just drawn Excalibur from its stone, but decided against it. He doubted Fang would find it as amusing as he would.

His opponent's corpse, along with the icy expanse surrounding him, faded into nothingness. Akira returned to the signature pale grey of Fang's favourite training room.

"Better, although still not enough." Said Fang, standing beside the entrance with one hand on the hilt of her sword. "I could see the integration, but it was too fragmented. You need to be at one with your weapon. Your Harmonies should be one and the same."

Akira nodded as he sheathed Juryoku and slotted Jiki into a loop on his belt. It was hard to find nice scabbards for a sword that big. Fang's amber eyes flicked between the two swords and Akira just knew what she was about to say.

They'd already been through it hundreds of times.

"And when will you give up on using two swords? It doesn't simply double the difficulty of bonding them; it makes it exponentially harder. If you're married to the idea of dual wielding, you can clone your weapon, but nobody in the alliance uses two weapons as a baseline. It's counterproductive."

And what if I'm not trying to be like your alliance?

Akira didn't let the thought linger, lest his face reveal it to Fang. While the woman clearly had great knowledge, and could certainly help him grow stronger, she walked the fine line between useful and threatening.

"Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful."

I understand your point, Fang. Musashi agrees with it too.

To you, my style may appear recklessly ambitious.

To me, there's no other way to live.

Fang unsheathed her sword, an elegant rapier with an ornate golden guard. She placed her off-hand against the pommel. When she moved it away, a string of liquid gold followed. It floated in the air, before wrapping around her hand and solidifying into an identical copy of the original.

"Watch me. Focus on my footwork. You'll need to adjust based on which essence you're focusing on with the attack, but that's not the purpose of the footwork. Your feet are what connects you to Eterna. Just as Harmony flows through her to you, you need to control the flow of essence from your soul to your swords. It's easier when you create a continuous link."

Fang launched into an attack, recreating Akira's finishing sequence and repeating it several times. He watched her, although wasn't solely focused on the footwork.

Akira remained cautious of everything his new sensei taught him. Each insight she gave him certainly served a secondary purpose, and she definitely wasn't training him solely for his benefit. Akira had no idea whether Fang even agreed with the theory she cited, or if it was all part of an attempt to influence him.

But, ignoring all the strings attached, Fang knew how to fight. Learning under her might cause him problems in the future, but those problems came after the advancement tournament.

He had a score to settle there first.

Akira focused back on the present, attention narrowing onto Fang's repeated finishers.

Each attack was perfect. Unnervingly precise and identical to the one before it.

Fang dropped low, sliding her lead foot forward as she deflected the imaginary greatsword aside. She instantly shifted her weight onto her front foot before curving both her swords upwards, slicing through the air with ease.

Even if she hadn't told him to focus on her footwork, he would've been drawn to it anyway. Her feet didn't stomp and brace for impact like Akira's did, they glided over the grey training room floor, reaching their destinations precisely when she needed them to apply pressure.

Fang's stance anchored her body, priming her swords for the death blow before they even began to move.

Akira could tell that Fang wasn't imbuing any external essences into her strikes, but the way she moved felt like her swordsmanship had its own Harmony in and of itself.

Maybe it does?

"Work on weaving your essences and swordsmanship together over the next few days." she said. "In three days, come back here, and we'll focus on adapting your techniques against non-humanoid opponents."

Fang sheathed her rapier and her copycat sword dissolved into liquid gold, this time settling into an intricate necklace rather than returning to the pommel.

"Why non-humanoids?" asked Akira, hounding Fang for any information about the upcoming advancement tournament.

She smirked, and a set of knowing eyes told Akira he'd been rumbled. "You know I can't tell you that. Today's lesson was preparing you for when you become a Luminary. The next one's how you get there."

Akira nodded, accepting the half-answer. He said goodbye and walked out of the training room, Jiki banging on the doorway as he left.

As a non-member, most of the training complex was off-limits to Akira. He walked out of the training room and into a hallway with no other doors. He knew they were there but simply hidden at the moment.

He exited through an entrance hall far humbler than the rest of the Big Eight, making his lonesome way out of the front gate with no fanfare and nobody to wave him goodbye.

Akira stepped out onto the paved streets of Chronicler's, shaded from the sunlight by the beech trees lining the Avenue.

He looked up at the basalt front of the building he'd just left wondering what the hell they wanted from him.

The hallowed name etched into the stones above him was one known by every gladiator on the island. The oldest, and most prestigious, alliance in the history of Arenara Fortunis.

Mercurial.

After a short walk down Chronicler's Avenue, another building made Akira stop and stare. Above the façade, plastered in ostentatious gold leaf atop a bright red headboard, were the words 'the Daily Fight'.

But that wasn't what caught Akira's eye.

In front of the building, a diminutive man climbed down a stepladder. His tufty white hair swayed in the wind and he rubbed a leathery pair of ring-laden hands against each other the moment he hopped off the ladder.

The man looked across the street. He sneered when he saw Akira. Squinting his eyes and waving with over-the-top cheerfulness.

But that wasn't what caught Akira's eye.

Behind the man, hovering just an inch in front of the storefront, was a giant system screen.

That had caught Akira's eye.

Because projected across it, in perfect colour and clarity, was Vega's headless body.

Akira read the words headlining the screen. He clenched his fist, resisting the urge to draw one of his swords.

'Overrated.'

'Overhyped.'

The tiny man had stopped waving and gestured at the screen like a proud artist.

Akira lowered his head and began walking away. His hand had automatically dropped to Juryoku. He drew it half an inch before forcing himself to stop.

No use fighting now…

He clenched Juryoku's grip, hand almost shaking with rage.

Twenty-two days. Then I'll show them.

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