Time seemed to stand still.

The five mercenaries stared at me, dumbfounded, as the head flew, a fountain of blood spurting from the neck in a widening circle.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

I swung sharply, my sword parrying at the last second a long cutlass that narrowly missed cutting my throat.

Sparks flew from the contact of our blades as the new steel-blue-eyed mercenary glared at me.

I opened my mouth and a ball of fire exploded from my lips.

The mercenary rolled backwards and the fireball passed over his head, bursting into a mushroom of black smoke on contact with the roof.

Nimble as a cat, the man leapt back in my direction as soon as he was out of danger.

His blade slid towards my kidneys as his elbow threatened to crush my face.

I shoved his blade away with a sweep of my sword and tucked my head into my shoulders, his elbow passing just above my head.

The mercenary dropped his sword and spun, sending his knee to my temple.

I grabbed his shin in an iron grip, preventing him from moving.

He tried to pull his leg away, but I dug my nails into his flesh until I could feel his blood under my fingernails.

His blue eyes bulged, but he made no sound.

Then, without taking his eyes off me, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a grenade, pulling it out with his teeth.

I pushed him back violently and shunshined to the other end of the roof.

The next instant, all the tiles were blown into the air and scattered like shrapnel.

I built a wall of ice to protect myself from the projectiles.

Without waiting for the shower of shattered tiles to subside, I jumped onto the wall of the cottage and ran to the point of impact.

Sheltered behind a chimney, the blue-eyed mercenary, his arms bleeding, looked calmly in the direction of my wall of ice.

The moment my shoe grazed the edge of the roof, he turned his head towards me.

Enhanced hearing ?

Abandoning all desire for stealth, I crossed the distance between us in a fraction of a second.

My chakra-enhanced foot hit the brick chimney just an inch from his face.

The chimney collapsed in on itself, the entire roof shaking from the force of my kick.

The mercenary's blue eyes were narrowed but not surprised.

He shouldn't have been able to avoid this.

He pulled a knife from his thigh's pocket and aimed it at my femoral artery.

A wall of ice erupted from my skin and his knife struck the frozen layer, cutting a diagonal furrow as he lost control of his weapon, still buoyed by the energy he'd put into his last strike.

I raised my sword to skewer his head between the eyebrows, but suddenly the roof collapsed.

A gaping hole opened beneath our feet, the tiles sagging and falling away.

The mercenary fell, my sword cutting a scarlet gash diagonally across his face, from his right eyebrow to the middle of his left cheek.

Chakra at my feet, I remained steady on the thin icy surface that had solidified the ground beneath my feet.

Not wanting to lose the advantage, I dove into the apartment after the mercenary.

The man landed heavily on the floor in a shower of debris.

He rolled onto his side, my sword digging into the varnished parquet, wood shavings flying in all directions.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw an old woman let out a small cry, covering her mouth with both hands.

- Oh my God, oh my God !

A puppy barked, but the woman had the presence of mind to pull it back.

The mercenary jumped to his feet and I sent a chakra-laden kick straight to his stomach.

He clasped his hands to stop it, his face red and swollen, but the force of it sent him flying through the window onto the street.

I stopped on the threshold of the broken window and stared at the man as he struggled to his feet, a hand on his back as if to ease the pain.

His mask had come off at some point, revealing a tangle of medium-length blond hair and the face of a man in his early thirties, with a mask like mine covering the lower part of his face.

A gouged groove crossed the cobbled street, proof of the power I'd put behind that last blow.

A Quirk who indiscriminately enhances all his physical abilities ?

My blood boiled as it rarely did, and I knew the answer didn't matter in the end.

I sheathed my sword and let myself fall from my pedestal.

The man looked at me, his face hard, his eyes determined.

I gave him time to catch his breath, then drew a kunai from my pocket and motioned with my chin for him to do the same.

He seemed to hesitate for a second, then finally imitated me.

His stance mirrored mine, legs bent, knife in reverse hold.

Then, in a flash, both our bodies disappeared.

My kunai and his cutlass met, sparks flying as they touched.

He slid his knife against my blade, risking his throat if it meant cutting my hand.

I dropped my kunai and crouched, sweeping his feet with my outstretched leg as his long knife passed over my head.

The mercenary jumped up to avoid my blow as I jerked up, my open palm colliding with the wrist that held the knife.

The mercenary staggered and released his weapon, taking a few steps back.

I didn't pretend to follow.

With a calculating look in his eyes, he silently scanned me.

His hand went to the gun at his belt.

I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth in disapproval.

Flames exploded on my left, while the ground froze on my right.

- I wouldn't do that if I were you

His hand hovered over his weapon for a moment.

Then he slowly lowered it.

He knew he wouldn't stand a chance against me if I decided to use my Quirks, just as I knew he was only facing me to give his lame little comrades enough time to escape.

He knows he'll probably die here, and yet I read no fear in his eyes.

My flames died and the ice turned to a thin puddle of water.

He was worthy of my respect, and therefore worthy of a quick death.

At my feet lay his cutlass.

I struck the handle of it with my shoe, sending the weapon whirling through the air, then caught it in mid-air.

The mercenary studied me silently but made no attempt to grab it.

I tossed it gently to him.

He caught it without hesitation, albeit with a wary gaze.

I kicked my fallen kunai away with the tip of my foot, then pulled two more from my sleeves.

- A fight to death, I said. Beat me and you'll get out of here alive.

I'd just decapitated a man in the middle of town ; if I was going to waste my life, I might as well take advantage of the only man I'd ever met who could keep me sharp.

The man spoke in broken English.

- I was told you weren't an honorable man.

I smiled, feeling the excitement of a hectic battle making my blood boil.

- I am not. Honor is for the dead.

And the moment those words left my lips, I swooped down on the man like a bird of prey.

The man dodged my first thrust and stepped back while I was about to slit his throat with a thrust from my left kunai.

In a display of extraordinary mastery, the man parried each blow without allowing a shadow of panic to appear in his eyes.

I quickened the pace to a point where no ordinary man would have been able to keep up, striking now to eviscerate him, now to lift his head from his shoulders.

He parried, pushed back, parried again with maddening ease.

I hit him in the stomach with my knee and suddenly he spat out all the air in his lungs.

But at the same moment he raised his knife - as I would have done with my sword - to spear me from one end to the other.

I swerved to the side, the weapon brushing my shoulder.

I elbowed him in the face, which he blocked with his free hand, and swung his saber around to cut my throat like a chainsaw through a tree.

I sliced through the outstretched elbow of the arm holding the cutlass like it was butter.

A jet of blood suddenly exploded and sprayed my face.

The mercenary stifled a groan as his weapon fell to the ground for the second time.

I jerked it back.

He tried to kick me in the crotch, but I parried by kicking his leg away, almost knocking him off balance.

His eyes shone like those of an animal that knew it was trapped, but his gestures were those of a trained soldier, clear and precise.

He dropped to the ground to avoid having his carotid artery slashed, rolling onto his side as one of my kunais struck the cobbled floor where his head had been a second before.

He picked up the kunai I'd dropped earlier and leapt to his feet, swinging his arm wide to knock me back.

He followed with a series of stabbing blows, trying to overwhelm me with the sudden acceleration of his now blurred movements.

I dodged easily, backing away slowly, then parried his stab into the heart with mine, the force of the collision sending both our knives crashing against the wall.

I threw my second kunai into the air, and the mercenary's gaze followed it for a second too long before abruptly lowering to me.

I kicked him in the stomach and he parried at the last second with his palms pressed together.

A flash of pain crossed his face as I heard a sharp crack.

I used his slightly outstretched right leg as a springboard and caught the falling knife in an inverted grip.

The man stepped back, his hands reaching for the knife to snatch it from me.

The blade split the air to his temple, ready to stab him from end to end.

But in a strange stroke of luck, the man stumbled and his head swung to the side.

My knife pierced his face from cheek to cheek.

He let out a guttural howl, a sound borderline between human and animal, his hands on his face from which gallons and gallons of blood were pouring.

He shook his head, jerking, and I let go off the knife, jumping back.

He continued to make high-pitched hysterical noises, looking mad, stumbling away, trying to create distance.

I drew my sword from the scabbard at my back and watched him exhaust himself as he crawled along the floor, his left arm unable to bend and his right hand clasped over his scarred face.

I glanced briefly at the curtained windows, the energies of the civilians hidden in the farthest rooms.

Suddenly I felt the air quiver, as if a barely perceptible icy chill spread out from nothing to brush the edges of my senses.

I hurled myself at the mercenary, who writhed on the ground as a black portal appeared beneath his body.

My fingers slipped into the void for a second as his skin pulled away beneath my fingers.

The portal expanded until it covered the entire street.

In a fraction of a second, an ice platform sprang up beneath my body and attached itself to the buildings on either side of the street, preventing me from falling into the black hole.

The portal stayed open for a few more seconds.

Then it closed again.

*

Author's note :

They say nature is always stronger than the will to change... meh, who knows.

Anyway, tell me if you think things were not clear enough or if you got confused at some point (so I can improve the next fight scenes accordingly).

If you want to read up to 27 chapters ahead of schedule (roughly two months) then go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you in the next update everyone !