Miscalculation

“Minerva won against the Dark Lord?”

We where still in Hebi-sans tower, waiting for Estelle and Mindi to be done with whatever grizzly punishment they had on offer for the Galmon. With little else to do I decided to catch up on Fight Number two.

Checking the magic vision recap of the fight, I could hardly believe me eyes. With that, the greatest threat just got obliterated.

I did feel slightly bad for Ben. But only slightly.

Minerva, huh? In terms of speed I should have a slight edge. She definitely had me beat in strength. We’re about equal in skill?

The real issue is that cunning mind of hers though. She reminded me quite a bit of Cassandra in that regard. I managed to be victorious in that fight but that was Femto’s victory, not mine. Cassandra completely crushed me.

“That is most wonderful news, my Lord!” Sanakia gushed while feeding Uni a carrot. “Naturally, I had no doubt that you would have vanquished the fell fiend. But this will lighten your load and make your imminent victory even more assured!”

I wish I was that confident. Tomorrow will be a new draw for the Semi finals combinations. But no matter who I would end up against. I wasn't exactly looking forward to my chances.

No, I shouldn’t think like that. I trained in that void for forty days. I am considerably more powerful now.

“My Lord! Shall we watch your spectacular victory against the Hebi-san next?”, Sanakia suggested further. You have yet to witness your divine performance yourself. Your eyes were closed after all.”

“Aaachhh! Who cares about that! Lady Sylphid's match’s about to start! Aren't these lasses finished yet! We got to switch towers right now!”

That was Fisti. Obviously. The girl looked very antsy.

“We can just watch it here?”, I suggested. Yes, this tower has retreated back in the bowels of the Colosseum again, but Magic Vision still worked.

“Ugh! I wanted to watch Lady Sylphid’s glorious, elegant form in person. Fine!” Pouting, Fisti sat herself down on the sofa as I switched magic vision from replay to life coverage.

It was just in time to see the two fighters be teleported in the arena. Sylphid her usual cocky self with her opponent clad completely in black, including a mask that obscured her face. “Anybody know anything about her?”

“Shouldn't ya know the most?”, Fisti replied. “Yer both assassins.”

I'm not...ugh. Lets just give up on trying to correct that one.

“I am privy to some information!”, Sanakia exclaimed, beaming with pride. “This is Black Cuckoo, a member of the nefarious Black Swan assassin's guild. Sworn enemy of the church!”

At this point I was frankly wondering who wasn’t an enemy of the church.

“In fact, she is one of the four great avians”, Sanakia continued. “As a foe, she is not to be underestimated.”

“So, a big deal huh?”

“Assassin smashin! Lady Sylphid will squash her. Like a bug!”

“And if not, my Lord will squash the fiendish assassin. Also like a bug!”

“Uni!”

Can the match just start already?

THE QUARTERFINALS

FIGHT 4

SPEED SYLPHID VS BLACK CUCKOO

BEGIN!

Sylphid made the first move, dashing towards Black Cuckoo with her trademark speed. Usually this would already be plenty to overwhelm a lesser opponent, but Black Cuckoo was anything but.

I glimpsed a flash and a white cloud of smoke billowed up around the assassin and just like that she disappeared from sight.

It wasn’t just smoke either. An obnoxious, irritating sound emerged from the magic vision that made all of us wince.

It wasn’t loud enough to do any damage, that would effect Ben as well, after all. No, the intent was clearly to disrupt Sylphid’s sense of hearing.

“Eh? E-eek?”

At the same time the smoke grew wider and wider. Before long it had engulfed Ben as well and within seconds it covered the entire bottom half of the arena.

Sight and Sound.

In the blink of an eye, Black Cuckoo effectively sealed of two of her opponents senses.

It goes without saying that these restrictions did not hinder Black Cuckoo in the slightest. Even through the smoke I could tell that she was moving supremely fast.

Only that annoying beeping noice was heard, as we stared at nothing but thick smoke.

“Umm….my apologies folks...I can’t see much either but...eeek! Who just touched my butt!”

Glad to hear Sylphid got her priorities straight.

“W-well anyways! Fear not dear guests! For we have a solution for that! Please direct your attention towards one of the magic visions screens!

The view switched, now showing one of massive screens showing the fight, the smoke was still present but this time you could see one, no two red outlines through it. One of it was stationary, while the other was moving frantically.

“W-what is this, my Lord?”, Sanakia asked perplexed.

“Detection Magic most like”, Fisti explained. “Sometimes’ the tourney is using it for fights like these so the regular folk get to see the action.”

Oh. That made sense.

There was just one problem. There were only two figures. One of them belonging to Sylphid. And the other...was Ben. It was easy enough to tell with that ridiculous tutu he was wearing.

In other words, not even detection magic was able to pick up Black Cuckoo.

And yet, despite that fact, Sylphid was able to fight back against her invisible opponent. It didn’t appear that she was just flailing aimlessly around either. She clearly saw the attacks coming.

“That’s Lady Sylphid for ya!”, Fisti beamed proudly. “She’s not gonna let some nasty assassin get the better of her!

For a few minutes the fight continued blindly like that. But eventually the sound dissipated and the smoke had cleared to a degree that the arena was visible again.

And at this point, neither of the two combatants were moving.

“Phew!”, Sylphid whistled, breaking the silence first. “You are one tough customer!”

“Yer kidding me”, Fisti mumbled in disbelief.

While both combatants were still standing, Sylphid was in much worse shape. Her clothes were torn in various places and she had received numerous cuts.

Meanwhile Black Cuckoo looked as pristine as ever.

“I am impressed myself”, Black Cuckoo gave back. “I did not just block your sense of sound and sight, I also concealed my presence. Would you care to tell me how you saw my attacks coming?”

In response Sylphid grinned and rubbed her nose.

“...smell?”

...

“RIDICULOUS!”

This was so absurd, I lost my composure for a bit. Is Sylphid a Galmon or something?

“W-we don’t all have a keen sense of smell, my Lord!”, Sanakia defended(?) herself.

At least Black Cuckoo seemed to been just as taken aback by that. “I conceal my body odor. Not even a Nekotamata or Doggie would be able to pick up my scent.”

“Yep”, Sylphid nodded eagerly. “You have absolute zero smell to you. Which is why I wasn’t sniffing for you but the dislocation of scent you caused.”

…

What?

“Not sure if you noticed, but this place reeks. Probably a given when you have guts exploding on an hourly basis. And don’t even get me started on Ben’s pungent perfume.”

“I-I wear the newest scent from the Dark Lord Warg collection, thank you very much!”

“So, the moment all those strong smells shifted I knew an attack was coming”, Sylphid casually explained. “Weeeell, I couldn’t do it perfectly as you seen. You got some nice hits in. This round goes to you.”

Meanwhile we in the audience were just left speechless.

“M-My Lord, you...surely you could have smelled or uh not smelled her too!”

Are you kidding me?

No way.

This was beyond insanity.

“You never used this ability in any of your prior matches”, Black Cuckoo stated.

Sylphid shrugged. “Well, yeah, wasn’t aware I could do it either. That was...I guess you could say a split second decision? Not sure I would call it an ability either. Isn’t this just common sense?”

…

“Marvelous.”

It wasn’t mocking praise. Black Cuckoo spoke that word in earnest.

“You have managed to exceed my threat estimate. That is something no target of mine has ever achieved. “

“Awesome!”, Sylphid grinned. “Does that mean you wanna surrender?”

Upon hearing that, the lips beneath the black face mask formed a thin smile. “Unfortunately for you, you are still well within my margin of error. My victory is still assured.”

“You do know…”, Sylphid smirked as she assumed her stance again. “That people who say that always lose.”

“Then I will strive to be the exception.”

And just like that the battle raged on

What surprised me the most in the upcoming fight was how orthodox it was. After this opening, I expected Black Cuckoo to employ a manifold of different weapons and illusions but instead she pretty much just fought Sylphid head on.

Actually, that wasn’t quite correct.

The fight may look normal but I could tell that Black Cuckoo never even attempted an earnest attack. She was fighting defensively and playing for time.

The reason for that should be obvious.

Black Cuckoo was an Assassin after all.

It would be stranger if her blades weren’t coated in poison.

And in that opening salvo she got plenty of strikes in.

Even for someone as fast as Sylphid, it was difficult to deal with an opponent that left no opening. She tried numerous approaches, but none of them succeeded. She did manage a few glancing blows, but these were either not strong enough or Black Cuckoo managed to minimize the impact.

Still, the fact that Sylphid could keep up to such a degree made me wonder if my assumption about poisoned blades was wrong after all.

This lasted for over an entire hour.

And then...

“Shit”, Sylphid finally cursed as her latest attempt of getting a good strike in failed again. “Ah, this sucks! Why am I so weak!”

“L-Lady Sylphid…” Fisti had deflated more and more as the fight was going on.

At a first glance nothing was wrong with Sylphid. But a closer inspection revealed that she was sweating profusely now and her face has reddened. Her breathing appeared slightly painful as well.

And Black Cuckoo? If the fight was draining her stamina she certainly showed not a single hint of it.

At this point it had been more then half an hour since Sylphid managed to land a punch.

The outcome was obvious.

“Not at all”, Black Cuckoo replied. “The fact that you managed to withstand Pious toxin to such a degree is remarkable. You ended up exceeding my threat estimate by 20%”

“Only by twenty?” Sylphid winced. “Wow, talk about lame.”

“On the contrary. I pride myself on my accurate assessments. To not only miss but miss by such a huge margin can be considered nothing but a complete failure on my part. I almost consider throwing the match as punishment.”

“Oh, now you are just being cute”, Sylphid pouted.

Black Cuckoo's lips curled into a smile. “My apologies. Shall we end this then? We are running out of time and I doubt surrender is an option.”

Despite her **** situation Sylphid grinned. “Oh yeah, that’s definitely not gonna happen. But maaan, this really sucks!”

"We are in agreement then", the assassin readied herself for the killing blow.

Sylphid took a deep breath and nodded. “Yup, just have to accept it, I guess. There is no way I'm going to get you to surrender.”

“...what?” The assassin gave a low, confused chuckle.

“So, let’s see what that threat assessment will say...” Sylphid's smile turned somewhat feral. “...when I fight to kill.”

And then Sylphid was gone.

Black Cuckoo reacted immediately. She slashed to the left, but all she got was an afterimage. The assassin turned at once but it was too late. A tremendous ****(Punch? Kick?) smashed her through the arena, causing her to crash into the wall on the opposite side with enough power to crack it.

The assassin grunted but despite the inherent pain she must have been in got back on her feet tremendously quick. While in mid air she even still managed to activate another smoke bomb.

However, all the smoke did was conceal the beast.

And then the smoke was moving. Black Cuckoo barely managed to avoid her own bomb turned projectile as it crashed and exploded against the wall just inches above her helmet.

And then the monster was coming.

With impossible speed it moved, accompanied by swirling sands. Black Cuckoo tried to avoid something by escaping to the left, but all I could make out was a flash.

And then the assassins head flew high through the arena, splattered against the blue magic barrier and crashed to the ground.

For a few moment everyone was stunned into complete silence. Even Ben was incapable of saying anything. In fact he collapsed to the ground.

A few seconds passed like this, before Ben finally managed to pull himself together again.

“T-THE WINNER IS SPEED SYLPHID!”

“That's a win I can do without!” pouted the beast, pointing at the opponent that was just headless a second ago. “Just look how cute she is!”

True, that was the first time we saw Black Cuckoo's face. She had tanned visage, immaculate in her cold beauty with two piercing blue eyes. Even if said eyes where currently frozen in terror.

Sylphid bowed deeply to her opponent. “Sorry! Really didn't want to do this! But there is a cutie in the tournament that I just have to get. Wanna join me at the bar later? Drinks are on me!”

I really hope I didn't just wet myself.