Duel Don't Go Far

[Bernard]

Bernard’s saber cut through mountain rock, leaving a molten trail where it passed through. He shifted toward the left, half of his foot sticking out over the narrow ledge.

“Almost!” He yelled.

He twirled his blade to threaten any incoming attack as he stepped back to win some distance again. The loud vwoom as it cut the air echoed in the valley. He didn’t delay his response, and lunged forward into a stab.

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

"Almost is a bad word." Ishida chided through a fierce grin, though she'd narrowly dodged an unscheduled haircut. She could smell that some ends of her hair were singed.

The swing seemed to have overextended him, and his sudden imbalance was promising. Even if the drop from the ledge was only a few feet. But riposting into an active windmill never paid off, so Bernard's defence worked. Ishida's follow-up was deterred, and she shifted her momentum to the side to seek out another open strike zone.

She took a step closer to try and penetrate Bernard's whirl of blue. The protective glow shifted and arced fluidly into a forward jab at her torso. She twisted out of the way and shoved her shoulders back, so her chest was perpendicular to the blade rather than pierced. The mountainside was close, and the wall of stone kissed her back.

Ishida grimaced, and a clipped telekinetic burst projected from her palm toward the underside of his wrist, and then a second gesture then flattened another invisible puff at Bernard ‘s abdomen. This space was far too close.

"Don't worry." With the space afforded, she made a zig-zag motion in the narrower part of the ledge's passage to gain momentum and rush him with an upward swing from his hip and press him back to the lip of the rocky rise they'd managed to navigate "I'll catch you if you fall."

 

[Bernard]

His blade impaled only the air that rushed to fill the space Ishida had occupied a moment earlier. Then, an invisible blow struck his hand, and his blade cut upwards in the upswing of his arm. Another blow struck his stomach. He slid back some distance, stepping backwards through the residual momentum to not lose his balance.

The attack didn't let up there. Ishida’s blade followed him, closing the distance between them again in a heartbeat. It came dangerously close to cutting him in half, interrupted only when he imposed his own sabre into the blade's path, awkwardly. The Force of the impact forced him to take another step back, leaving him with half a shoe's length still on the stone, and the other standing on hundreds of feet of empty space.

"Not funny!" He grunted.

Ishida Ashina pushed into his guard. There was no space to manoeuvre, no space to throw his weight forward to push her back as the need to balance himself at the edge of the abyss sapped his strength. But there was no other option but to push back.

He dug into his heels, hind foot almost slipping entirely over the ledge, and threw his weight into the blade-lock.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Normally, one of two things would have happened.

The first, Ishida would have been moved by concern for the very real predicament of the cliff side, proclaimed victory (even in jest) and relented enough for Bernard to find an opportunity to reset.

Or the second, Bernard would have easily overpowered Ishida in a blade lock. And he had done so before, many times. His size and his downward defence gave him every advantage.

Neither expected outcome happened.

This time, she did not relent. This time, she was steadfast, with no need for a follow-up attack or pursuing victory through some other means. There was no ache that burned her muscles, no strain that pulled at her ligaments that gave way to buckling, and no tremble that thwarted her resistance.

Concealed beneath a pair of gloves she didn't usually wear — for it was the only way she could keep the oversized trinket on her finger — was the source of her atypical strength. The Ring of Judgement she had been gifted from her late Master Sardun.

They'd entered this contest to improve their respective abilities and continue developing their knowledge of the others to better fight as a pair. It seemed a controlled enough combat environment for Ishida to feel safe trialling the ring with more intimacy to her person than she had on Teta. She hadn't told Bernard, of course, because she hadn't predicted its effects to be so subtly influential.

She dared another quarter-step forward into their lock, emboldened by the ring's ability to strip all hesitation born from emotion and rationality— The emotion that would have clicked the connection between her heart and mind and offered mercy.

 

[Bernard]

Push was met with push, and the tug of war between their blades didn't budge.

Something was off. The friendly competition they'd entered shifted in his mind into a more combat-like scenario.

In the silence of concentration between them, the small chunks of rock breaking away under Bernard's foot became quiet omens. The click and clack of rock against rock faded into silence as they tumbled down the mountain face.

Bernard adopted a look of complete concentration. Every fibre of strength in his body had to be wielded precisely to maintain the thread of balance between Ishida's blade in front of him and the abyss behind him.

Missteps, here, could be deadly, even if she'd joked about catching him.

Had she intended to fight more seriously today and forgotten to tell him?

Bernard felt the seconds slip with each correction to his posture. Whenever his senses warned him he was about to slip, he nudged or twisted a limb here or a muscle there to regain the threadbare balance. But these adjustments were exhausting, and in his current position, he was at a disadvantage. If nothing happened soon, he'd be done for.

It would be a game of patience.

The faintest hint of a smile crept into his expression. Games of patience weren't Ishida's forte.

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Millimetre traded for millimetre, and each second that ticked by only gave Ishida more familiarity with the ring’s effects. Whispers of victory wormed their way into the fertile soils of her mind. Planting, seeding, rooting. She felt her strength grow, reach deeper, as though it had no unnatural source and had always been a part of her.

And that distant nagging something was starting to become a little fuller, more omnipotently oppressive. The Light demanded victory, and she found herself convinced that deceit was an option.

The shift in the way she gripped the long hilt of her sabre was subtle, just a flex of her fingers. Enough for her to slide the release of her hilt and suddenly eliminate the white rod that contested Bernard 's so reliably powerfully. All that strength, intense focus, and balance he was using against her would go….where?

 

[Bernard]

With nothing in its path to hold it anymore, Bernard’s blade rushed forward, cutting the air towards Ishida.

Bernard drew back, staying the blade's hunger for life before it could bite into the neck of his lover.

The blade hovered a fraction of a length from her skin.

Bernard held his breath, casting a concerned glance at his partner.

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Through their lock, she’d been stopped from getting inside Bernard ’s guard. With her sabre out of the equation, she was free to move and slip inside his defence again.

The part she’d planned was using the liberation to swiftly motion against him, where she planted the mouth of her hilt, unlit, to his chest. In a scenario where she wanted her opponent dead, it would take only the flick of a button. An emotionless gesture, straight for the heart.

What she hadn’t accounted for in her plan was his ability to recover his balance and the trajectory of his momentum landing so near her vitality. Barely an inch of space between her and glowing blue blistered hotly and growled with hungry sounds, emphasizing its appetite for her pulse.

Mercy had them at an impasse.

Ishida was still unused to her newfound strength, and what had worked in the past was unpredictable now. She felt a flicker of gratitude for the safe environment to learn and trial — but it was quickly doused by the greedy demand for victory and how she’d let that slip (she could have just forced him over the edge) and mutated their duel's outcome into something of a negotiation. The temptation for absolute, unquestioning triumph murmured below her skin, fuelled by the need to prove herself to an unforeseen influence.

Being at an impasse secured neither won.

She met his concern with a scowl and quickly glanced to the angle of his sword, then suggestively to the threatening position of her own.

 

[Bernard]

Her scowl became drawn out, exaggerated by the shadows cast on her face by the blade’s glow.

Bernard’s eyes narrowed. Ishida had been bolder than usual. Each strike had carried new weight behind it that had made her movements foreign. And then there was her attempt to trick him, right before their duel came to an end.

“Trakata is a technique for younglings and fools,” Bernard said through the tension hanging in the air.

He drew the lightsaber back, clicking the ignition switch. Their duel was over.

The blade waned and with it the bright glow. The cliffside fell into shadow again. Ishida’s gaze seemed to pierce him still.

“You’re…tense today.”

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

“Trakata is a technique for younglings and fools,”

Where there would have been an eye roll, only her glower remained. Her jaw set a little firmer. Subconsciously, she felt the assurance that he could make quips and jabs as he liked, but it was her blade at his heart and his heels overhanging the cliff’s edge.

The heat at her neck disappeared with the blue glow. Even when he recoiled, Ishida held her position a little longer as if evaluating whether or not their duel had actually concluded. If he was worthy of release or not. If the judgement had been fulfilled and passed.

Finally, Ishida straightened and took another step back to give him more space and her to sheath her sabre. She still had enough of a grip on reality to acknowledge that, yes, it was over.

“You’re…tense today.”

"I'm not." His comment on her behaviour spiked a defensiveness that dismissed and redirected — techniques she hadn't tapped into for years.

“You were holding back. I hate it when you do that. It doesn’t help either of us improve.”

 

[Bernard]

"If I hadn't held back you'd have died," Bernard countered, frowning. "My blade would have ended your life in the same breath that yours ended mine. Trakata is not a viable technique precisely because of that."

Her intensity bristled against his nerves. Moments prior his life had teetered at the edge of a cliff, and had he not acted quickly, they might have both lost their lives as a result of recklessness. The thought still had him shaken.

He stepped closer to her, away from the cliff edge, and looked down at her.

"How would that have helped either of us improve?" He asked, voice flat.

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Ishida glared back up at him.

“This isn’t about Trakata.”

Any choice she’d made in their exchange was justified. By her own means or otherwise. It wasn’t just defensiveness she felt; it was surety in her actions. There was no room for question — so when he posed one, her brow furrowed deeper, and her jaw set firmer.

Bernard must have forgotten how long he’d spent on the cliff’s edge before she gave him an out.

“Neither of us would have died. But be realistic, I doubt you'll meet a Sith who lets you teeter on the cliff's edge as long as I did.

With no threat, there's no purpose. ”