.
I kicked the ground in order to meet him with a parry while moving forward.
The trick to fighting an opponent with great weight is physics. Momentum equals mass times velocity. Force A times distance A equals force B times distance B. Power equals energy divided by time.
In other words, you can match greater mass with greater speed. You can compensate for a disadvantage in force with an advantage in leverage. And the swifter you deliver your blow, the greater its impact.
That wasn’t Robert’s knowledge. I was an English Lit major, you know? Daq R’mion was the technical guy. But math is math in any universe.
I was using Fan Li’s technique for strength enhancement, the one I had told Ryuu about previously. I was genuinely shocked at how fast my body moved. It was fortunate that I had my blade in the right place the first time I tried it, because I seriously had not expected quite as much effect as I received.
Once I slammed into his sword with mine, I actually spun around him and passed him with the impact. Thanks to our opposing manas, Earth vs. Wind, our contact resulted in a thunderclap and a shockwave that pushed us away from each other.
I used Will to control my path in the air and spirit enhancement to brace my legs for the landing, clawing the ground. Will also kept me upright as I slid to a halt.
I charged forward again as Ryuu began “[Spirit…”
“[Fireball]!”, I called, pointing my outstretched palm at him.
He was forced to drop his skill and parry instead, dumping the Wind he had gathered for the attack back into his sword. I got my hand back on the grip so I could meet his blade two-handed, again using Will and leverage to maximize what my smaller body and sword could do.
The opposing manas were still clashing, shockwaves buffeting our faces as we met. Since he hadn’t been charging this time, the blowback wasn’t enough to force us apart, once I added in the Will that now kept me holding my ground. We stood trading blows for several swings.
“Forget about [Spirit Shot]!” I yelled into his face. “Use your swordsmanship!”
My rebuke aggravated him and his power increased drastically. I don’t know if it was adrenaline or if he added mana to his [Strength Enhancement]. Actually, in retrospect, it was definitely the latter. He began pressing me, literally driving my braced feet backward with the power of his blows.
Finally, my brain managed to work out why Will and spiritual strength enhancement seemed to be having a greater effect than I had expected. I had already factored in this spirit-rich environment, but it seemed to be far beyond that.
Fan Li’s physical strength, even though she had been a half-spirit, a life-form parallel in that universe to the magic creatures of this universe such as fairies, had been no different than if she were human. Or at least, a human cultivator.
The result of using the same techniques on a fairy vampire physique was dramatic. Fairies acquire great strength by having bodies with half their physical substance being manifested mana. Monsters get it from overloading mana within their physique beyond biological limits, the characteristic that forces them to need mortally-stabilized mana in order to keep their substance stable.
Elders are simultaneously magical creatures and monsters. Thus they add together the monster’s and the magical creature’s physical enhancements. My strength is far greater than human common sense considers possible.
Now, load Fan Li’s techniques on top of all of that and…
I was barely holding my own against the hero. Ryuu was far stronger as well. His sword was now far heavier than it had been when we left Oseri, thanks to the improvement in his mana [Strength Enhancement] and the growth of his pneuma. Frankly, I think he could now kick Allia’s butt.
Without my new techniques, I would have been swatted away as well. Even so, I was moving backward a little bit with every blow.
I poured additional Water mana into my [Strength Enhancement] and reversed our directions, pushing him back, then poured more Earth into my sword. The thunder increased, with massive gouts of soil and turf flying out from under our feet and around as we battled.
Was he channeling twice as much mana as before? Three times as much? More? And now he redoubled his mana flow yet again, and again drove me back like one of those tackling dummies Robert used to have to throw his body into, during football practice. I came to the conclusion his increase in strength was even more than that much. A grin started spreading across my face.
I couldn’t keep letting him push me around, though. After parrying the fifth blow, I began strategizing how to change my situation. I prepared to grow my wings…
– Leave that to me. Just keep matching his blade
The source of the non-voice that came to me was immediately clear, but it was still shocking. One of the other personalities in the back of my mind was now interacting with me?
– My friends are gathering. They will assist.
Buried within Sirth’s thought of ‘friends’ existed the added information that those friends were the Wind spirits in the area.
Her calm manner, that somehow combined the warmth of a mother’s care with the rock-hard resolve of an airship captain, wasn’t coming in words like a spiritual voice. Instead, it came as complete thoughts, identifying itself as a communication by the fact that the thoughts clearly belonged to Sirth.
I responded by simply continuing to (almost) hold my own against Ryuu, but I was confused. Didn’t she need the feather-like antennae within her hair, that I most decidedly did not possess, to communicate with them?
– Where spirits are involved, any sentient entity has the potential to communicate as long as they can manage the language. Sirth’s pseudo-feathers merely decrease the effort required.
That response came from Daq R’mion.
My brain seemed to have acquired a certain spider’s capacity to have more than one mind active at a time. And I realized as I understood it why it was so. The capacity to host Fan Li’s thoughts was also sufficient room to host two or three of us youngsters at a time.
It had suddenly become a bit crowded inside my skull.
In my fairy sense, the Wind spirits were gathering at my back. I could feel the communication from Sirth to the little flock, although it couldn’t be described in words. Wind mana flowed at quantities I could never hope to produce, producing something like a wall behind me. It was nothing like a [Wind Wall] though. It was some other concept entirely. When I swung my blade back, it didn’t connect with it, yet it was undeniable there in my fairy sense.
Ryuu swung and our blades met, but this time I had the endurance of a mountain supporting my back. Our blades locked and I was able to hold, despite the thunderclap of force feeding back into my hands from the Earth/Wind backlash.
“Why are you grinning?!” he demanded as he glared into my eyes.
“The training seems to have given you some benefits, Mr. Kowa,” I said through gritted teeth as we continued pressing into each other. “This trip was no waste of time!”
Then I sent Sirth a request.
– Have them release their hold on me on my signal.
The response came immediately.
– Ready.
I grew my wings, then signaled. With a heavy wingstroke, I broke away, sailing backwards.
“I will concede to you the point on that one, Mr. Kowa,” I said as I settled to the ground a few paces distant. “You made me give way.”
I was breathing pretty hard. I circulated Healing mana– Holy mana– and cast [Restoration] on myself.
“You suddenly got a lot sturdier on that last swing,” he said, sounding annoyed, and also a bit winded. “What was that?”
“A little spirit magic,” I said lightly. “In one of my lives, I used the same technique to steer ships through the air. It takes a lot of force to push a ship around. Are you going to call it cheating?”
“I know you’ve got a lot more tricks than that,” he groused. “If it’s your skill, you should go ahead and use it. If you hold back on me, you’re just mocking me.”
I understood his point, but I shook my head.
“I definitely have to seal some of my skills, Mr. Kowa. I haven’t yet trained you in how to resist Dark powers like Vampire Command, for example. You’ve got the spiritual strength to do it now, but you haven’t learned how to shield your mind with it.”
He pressed his lips together, then relaxed. “And you intend to teach me?”
“It may not be me teaching, but I’ll make sure it happens,” I stated. “Neither me, nor a vampire, nor the Demon King, nor Astaroth himself will be able to trick you with cheap mind tricks, if you accept the training.”
The corner of his mouth quirked, but then he nodded.
Then he brought his sword up to the basic kendo guard position again. “Well that thing you did just now wasn’t one of the things you need to seal, right? If it isn’t sealed, don’t hold it back. The difference in weight I felt, that was your sword’s real strength, right?”
I hesitated, being unsure how to answer. Rather than being my blade, it had been more like he had suddenly been hitting a solid mountain.
The list of other tricks I could pull, with Sirth’s help or by digging into Fan Li’s bag of tricks, was too long. I didn’t have the goal of crushing his spirit by overwhelming him.
– Allow me to fight him, Sirth suggested.
Somehow I kept my eyes from growing at the idea that had just come out of the blue at me. Then I realized that using Sirth’s body would be a good way to keep the powers that I had been holding back from overwhelming him. Except for the fact that the humans of her world frequently had odd variations like her spirit feathers, Sirth was a normal human. I would not be combining my powers and knowledge with my excessive Elder strength.
Ryuu scowled at me, as I apparently was lost in thought, but he waited.
– My spirits always helped me in my fights. And I think I can use the techniques from Fan Li and you with my cutlasses. It’ll be just like fighting an especially strong pirate, right?
After the idea of equating the manly hero in front of me to some pirate made me grin briefly, I ceded my consciousness to her.
… is what I expected to happen, and then I discovered my misunderstanding as my mind grew slightly. I had been imagining other minds in the back of my skull, or lurking in my spiritual vessel, watching as I fought.
I saw now that I misunderstood because of my experience with trading consciousness with Fan Li. As I told Gaia, I can only barely accommodate Fan Li’s millennium and a half of memories as I am now, so I truly do switch places with her. I’m not conscious of being Tiana while she’s driving, because her long life plus my meager handful of years is hardly different from her long life by itself.
But when I attempted to do the same thing with Sirth, a very different thing happened. I discovered myself still aware as myself, while she was also me. I wore her personality, while her memories added to my own. It was simply a question of which personality I should use, just like when I would go Tiana FBM to stop Robert from interfering with Tiana’s battle instincts.
When I traded back, my current self should still have full access to my– Sirth’s– life, just like I-as-Tiana have full access to Robert’s, only with my own personality in charge. She was still a separate personality, but no longer as much a ‘separate being’. I had simply been having thoughts as her in addition to having thoughts as myself. The Sirth thoughts had simply been running in parallel to the Tiana thoughts.
Mr. Kowa was waiting, so I needed to act. I decided to accept this new capacity and be Sirth for a while.
Miss Curator, I sent, I am Sirth, a prior incarnation of Miss Tiana. Miss Fan Li deduced our various bodies for you while she was teaching Mr. Kowa. Can you grant me a simulation of my old body? With my blades and fighting garb, if you would.
This outfit was embarrassingly scanty, after all. And I didn’t feel that confident about fighting on these blade-thin stilts that were masquerading as shoes, either. My Tiana skills might not be sufficiently automatic with this personality.
To my relief, I felt my form changing. My body grew taller and older, while the stiletto heels became proper sailor’s boots. I gripped a cutlass in each of my hands. That embarrassing skirt grew into respectable knee breeches. And most important of all, that dreadfully lewd top transformed into a proper half-sleeved blouse under a leather armor corset that squeezed my tits in the same uncomfortable way mine had always done before. During my life, I never did find an armor that actually fit my bust. Although it helps keep them stowed in a fight, I should see if I can correct it later. It should be possible in this place.
My hair was in a long braid, then coiled into a bun, to keep it from becoming a handle for the enemy. My feathers extended from my temples and fluttered in the breeze as I communed with my friends.
I couldn’t wield magic in my own life, unless one considered the spirit trade of the Wind Seeker tribe to be magic. In my world, sorcery was a mysterious thing practiced in secluded towers and caves. I never had any business with it. But I felt I could manage Tiana’s magic swordplay skills. I filled my blades with Earth, then swept my forearm across my waist and bowed to the bemused man whom I had come to fight.
“Greetings, Mr. Kowa. I am Sirth of the Wind Seeker Tribe, a prior incarnation of Lady Tiana. I wish to fight you for a while, so she can become accustomed to my spirit arts.”
Then I crossed my blades in front, drew my right foot back, settled into my fighting stance and gave him a broad smile.
