The Broken Halo

[A/N: This bonus Chapter is thanks to LordEnigma!!!!!! THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL!!!!! Thanks so much man.]

Sava did not believe Simon’s first evasion meant much.

He had moved at the final instant, and she had only used a small fraction of her speed. Luck, sharp instincts, and the advantage of already expecting hostility could explain the shallow cut instead of a severed throat.

To her, he was still a Supreme Archfiend. And she was a Supreme Greater Demon.

There was no way Simon could do anything to her.

Sava lowered her body slightly.

Crimson lightning crawled down both arms and gathered around her feet. The dark-red floor cracked beneath one heel, then she vanished.

Crackle!

Three crimson streaks crossed the chamber.

The first palm tore toward Simon’s chest.

He shifted half a step, then her fingers passed less than two centimetres from his shirt.

Sava rotated immediately and drove her elbow toward his jaw. Simon leaned backward just enough for the lightning coating it to warm his skin, then turned his shoulder as her knee rose toward his ribs.

The knee missed.

Her heel followed from the opposite side.

Simon ducked beneath it.

Four attacks had crossed the space around him in less than a heartbeat, yet he had not moved farther than one step from his original position.

”This is not particularly fair,” Simon said as another lightning-coated hand cut past his eyes. ”I am merely an Archfiend, and she is a Greater Demon.”

The Second Claw scoffed from her chair.

”A mere Archfiend does not kill the Fifth Needle or survive inside a Furnaceback Centipede.”

Sava appeared behind Simon and thrust two fingers crackling with sharp crimson lightning toward the base of his skull.

Simon tilted his head.

The attack missed by the width of a finger.

The Second Claw’s smile weakened slightly.

”And a mere Archfiend does not avoid every attack by almost the same distance.”

Sava heard her, and her amber eyes could not help but narrow.

The crimson lightning around her body brightened, and her next step struck the floor with enough force to send a shallow web of cracks through the stone.

She was no longer treating Simon as an ordinary Supreme Archfiend.

Her speed doubled.

A lightning-covered fist came from the left. Simon guided it aside with the back of his hand. Sava opened her fingers and changed the fist into a claw aimed at his throat, but he turned with the movement and allowed it to pass beside him.

She spun.

Her leg cut through the air like a crimson axe, and Simon caught it near the upper thigh with one hand.

Sava’s eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

”Your supporting foot is too rigid,” he said calmly.

He lifted her leg slightly, destroying her balance, then released it before she could strike him with her other knee.

Sava landed and immediately attacked again.

Simon slipped inside her reach, placed one hand against her waist, and turned her body a fraction to the right. Her own lightning palm missed his face and struck empty air.

”You rotate your hips before your shoulders,” he continued. ”Anyone watching your waist will know where the strike is going.”

”Stop touching me, you shameless bastard!”

Sava drove her forehead toward his nose.

Simon moved aside, caught the back of her neck, and redirected her past him.

”You are the one attacking me.”

The Second Claw covered her mouth, but amusement had returned to her eyes.

Sava’s embarrassment transformed into fury.

Crimson lightning spread from her arms and formed six thin whips behind her. They struck from different directions while she rushed through the centre.

Simon moved between them.

One passed beneath his arm.

Another cut above his hair.

The third and fourth crossed where his chest had been, while the last two shattered against each other after he turned sideways.

Sava’s palm arrived at the same moment.

Simon touched her wrist, pressed two fingers against the inside of her elbow, and stopped the strike less than an inch from his chest.

”Your lightning reaches the target before your body does,” he said. ”The sound of it announces you. You should factor that in whenever you fight an enemy like this.”

Sava tried to pull her arm back, but it did not move.

For the first time, she realised Simon was not being overwhelmed.

He was studying her.

His breathing remained slow. His sky-blue eyes calmly followed every shift of her shoulders, every contraction in her legs, and every change in the lightning surrounding her.

From a distance, Sava seemed to be driving him backward. But at close range, Simon was a fleeting ghost she could not touch.

The Second Claw’s expression became more serious.

Sava was already using close to half of her true speed and strength. Yet since the first surprise attack, she had not touched Simon’s clothes even once.

Sava suddenly tore her wrist free with a burst of lightning and retreated.

Her chest rose once, then all the crimson sparks in the chamber rushed toward her right hand.

The air became metallic.

A narrow crimson ring made out of lightning appeared behind her, followed by a second and a third. The formations along the walls brightened as the pressure climbed.

The Second Claw’s golden eyes widened.

”Sava, you fool-”

Before she could react, Simon had already moved.

He crossed the chamber before the first ring completed its rotation.

Sava thrust her palm forward.

The three crimson rings collapsed into a single point, preparing to erupt into a beam that would tear through Simon and announce their presence to half of Red Sand Hall.

Simon stamped one foot down and the floor around Sava’s feet became slightly soft.

She lost her footing for a moment.

At the same moment, the space around Sava’s hand hardened and locked the gathering lightning inside an area no larger than her palm. Six currents of wind wrapped around it in opposite directions, peeling apart the unstable outer layers.

Simon caught her wrist with his left hand, and his right palm pressed against her left breast where her heart was located.

Sava froze, and the lightning roared inside the solidified space.

Simon twisted her wrist downward.

The trapped power followed the path he created, travelled through his wind, entered the stone beneath them, and spread across the floor in a brilliant web of crimson cracks.

Then it disappeared a few seconds later.

Silence fell.

Sava stared at the empty hand that should have released her strongest attack of the night before looking back at Simon whose hand calmly rested on her breast.

Simon’s palm remained against her breast, while his calm eyes looked directly into hers.

”You lost control before the technique was complete,” he said quietly before releasing her wrist.

”Remember this, Sava.”

His voice carried the calm weight of someone who had corrected countless warriors long before she was born.

”I could have killed you many times but I chose to spare you. You are not weak... and neither am I.”