Illusion of Integrity

Dancing Dragon

"Hahahahahaha! Again oh my goodness!" That annoying laugh from Maha is truly pissing people off in the morning.

"You are an ass, you know."

That reply stuns him completely. Never did he expected such words coming from a 10 year old girl. Even though her mind is on a completely different maturity, it's still unfamiliar.

"Ah my bad, then how is she?"

"She goes silent."

"Okay, then you must have a reason for coming here, right?"

"Yeah, we need to learn more."

"Then this time, try not to run away as soon as you can after learning a thing or two, okay?"

"Yeah, no worry."

"Let's go then."

Again, they come to the usual place. But this time, Maha picks a wide enough space. He will be teaching Riss something new.

"Eh, open space? Are we going to fight?"

"Nope, I want to show you something. This is not something that can be copied."

"Wow, something that can't be copied."

"Watch me." Maha unsheathes his sword.

Suddenly, he slashes move forward, deflect, move aside, and does a lot of movements. But something is entirely different about it. Riss just watches there trying to find something. In the end, she is unable to grasps what she is looking for.

"How was it?" Maha stops his movement and sheathes his sword.

"Some kind of.. dance?"

"Dance? Hmmmm, I won't call it a dance but, yes even a dance need some kind of footwork."

"So, a footwork, huh? No wonder I can't copy it."

"Yeah, the reason you lost was because you lack the footwork. That is normal actually. No one taught you. Even if a human teaches you a sword footwork, it doesn't apply to you, because you have wings."

"So all that I need is some kind of body movement."

"Yes, but how to find that body movement, I can't help at all. I never found any Xagan that wields a sword like you. But I think I will understand something if you try show me how you fight mid air. You are too used on fighting in the ground with that sword like a human."

"Okay then." Riss unsheathes her sword and flaps her wings. She stays mid air and readies herself.

After that she tries different angle of slashes, deflects, and movements like how Maha did. But it feels like she is wasting a lot of energies doing those movements. This annoys her a lot. But Rainbow Riss has a completely different personality, so instead of getting pissed off, she stays mid air and think about things.

"How is it? Have you found something?" Maha yells from below.

"I think there was some kind of... wasted movements?"

"Yeah for sure, that was a lot of wasted movements. What I found was, everytime you finished a s***h, you flapped your wings for just trying to stops the sword swing. What if you just let it go and continue the movement, like doing combos. Try to connect different kind of movements and you will understand something. Maybe a new battle movement, who knows?"

"Hmmmm, continual movements..."

Riss then uses different kind of movements but still tries to maintain continuity between movements. She gets better and better with every movements, but sometimes she is stuck when connecting certain moves. After she does about 30 minutes of movements, she goes back down to the ground with heavy panting.

"See? A mere 30 minutes and you are panting heavily."

"Of course, this is a body of level 15 little girl."

"No, that is not the reason. You still need to learn on how to connect those moves so you will waste less and less energy between each moves. And don't forget another thing, you need to learn on how to move in the battlefield and not being locked in a position by the opponent. Use a combination of deflects and attacks for that."

"Hmm, I see. That helps a lot."

"Try to come to me after school hours. I will be watching your training."

"Okay."

Just like that, Riss spends her after school hours doing different kind of combinations. With every movements connected, her body is akin to dancing in the air. Those movements rely on rotations to keep the momentum. That way, Riss can use less wings flap to keep her body moving in the air. Sometimes she lunges, sometimes she swirls while deflecting, sometimes she do some kind of body rolls for a vertical s***h.

Those movements brightens Black Riss's mood. Such swordmanship is truly beautiful like a dance. It's easy to do, but it's effective on doing her attacks and defense. After a couple of days, Rainbow Riss decides to let Black Riss takes over to encourages her.

"Wow! I love this!"

"Haha, truly beautiful. Too bad your body is still that of a kid." Maha remarks.

"Heh, wait for a few years."

["Haha, you are getting ahead of yourself."]

"Hmph."

"Anyway, there is still a problem." Riss murmurs to herself.

["Yeah, connecting the royal skills into these movements."]

"What problem?" Maha asks.

"How to connect these movement to my skills?"

"Oh? What skills?"

"These." Riss shows her Cross s***h, Zero Point, and lastly, the Deflecting Domain stance.

"Hmmm, those are solid skills you got there."

"I know, but should I stop and do these skills when I activates it? Isn't that kind of thing is obvious? Like, I'm telling my enemies that I will be using skills."

"Yeah that's a problem. You need to 'ready' yourself because the momentum needed for those skills."

["Wait, try to use Eyes of Time. Let's find the gap between movements to connect these skills."]

"Hmmm, that makes sense."

["To be honest, we still need to learn more about this Eyes of Time. Back then at Big Bro's place we found out that it can perceives time slower than usual. Maybe there is another use for it."]

"Okay, let's try."

Doing the Eyes of Time continually is tiring. She needs to pour her energy into her eyes everytime she activates it. But with Rainbow Riss helping, there may be a solution to it.

"No, nevermind, weirdo. I can do it myself, just watch me."

"Hmmm, okay." Maha continues to sit down.

["Try to use Eyes of Time just enough before the gap to reduce the usage of MP."]

"Wow, that is going to be hard."

["And that is why there is a need of training, a lot of it."]

"Okay..."

Under Rainbow Riss's guidance, bit by bit she can connect those movements and even the skills. Her MP pool is massive, so it takes hundreds of those skills to actually depletes her MP. But the problem is, her body doesn't allow the spam of those skills. Even though she has the MP, her current strength is too weak to sustain the fatigue accumulated. Things will be different if she uses the Limit Break though.

In those last few days before the match, she perfects her own movements, resulting in a very different kind of sword movement unique to Xagan. Even after she come back from school, she continues her training until midnight. She keeps repeating until the very last day before the match, where she rests herself completely as Maha suggests.

And finally, the third match day is here. She can't lose anymore, or she will be in a dangerous spot by failing to enter top 2 in her group.

["You ready, girl?"]

"Yeah, let's do this."

["Let's rock."]