THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 269: 269. N’VARU AND YOKA

”Perhaps we should eliminate those two. They don’t belong in this fight.

”You veil blades always think you can kill everyone. I am a sand shade, we don’t die by mere blades,” N’varu said, and there was silence.

”A sandshade? This just became more interesting. But a sandshade is barely a worthy opponent,” the same layered voice said.

”Yet you veil blades have never been able to kill a sand shade before.” N’varu mocked. His voice was unlike what Sagiri had ever heard. He was now a different person.

”Well, you will be the second. right after Yonaka,” the same answered, and N’varu froze for a moment.

His eyes turned white, and the next moment, he was gone.

”Yonaka could never die from such vermin!” N’varu said as he made contact with someone. A moment later, he tumbled from behind the leaves with a veil blade. The two were going at each other’s throats. No one joined the fight for a while as they watched the fight.

N’varu met the Veil Blades without stepping back, and what followed didn’t look like a fight Sagiri recognized. It seemed the southern way of fighting was mostly meant to kill. N’varu shifted off-line at the last instant, his body angling in a way that made the incoming strike slide past him by a breath, and he answered in the same movement, his counter already forming before the first had fully missed.

The assassin didn’t retreat. He turned into it, wrist rotating, blade gliding along a new path that cut across N’varu’s line, forcing another adjustment. Their feet never planted for long. They traced tight, shifting patterns on the ground, half-steps, pivots, sudden slips of weight that broke alignment just as quickly as they formed.

Each attack was short, direct, and immediately answered, deflected into something else, their bodies weaving past each other in close quarters where there was no room for error. The Veil Blade pressed forward with relentless efficiency, his strikes layered and continuous, but N’varu met him in that same language, bending the exchanges instead of stopping them, turning angles into openings and closing them again in the same breath.

”They were using their attacks as defences?” Yoka gasped.

So that was what it was.

To Sagiri, it didn’t look like two fighters trading blows. It looked like a single, shifting pattern, both of them moving through it at a speed and precision that made every moment feel one step away from ending the other.

”I might just say you and Yonaka fight the same way. But you are nothing compared to him. It will not take a whole squad of us to wound you,” the shadow veil said.

N’varu did not look like he was struggling. Sagiri did not know who Yonaka was, but it seemed he was someone close to N’varu.

”He taught me to fight. Of course, I fight like him, and he won’t die to scum like you.” N’varu snarled.

”He will die eventually. The poison we put in him has no cure,” the veil blade taunted. His head was cleanly shaven, just like the other eleven who were now moving from behind the leaves and treeline. Their clothing stuck to their bodies.

They moved, their blades hanging low along their forearms and at the back of their fists. Their boots were laced with blades too, and after hearing what they just said to N’varu, Sagiri could guess their blades were laced with poison. It would be wise to avoid being cut by any of their blades.

N’varu roared with rage and attacked the veil blade. He sent him flying back a few yards with the palm to his chest.

”Your sand palm is not as strong as his,” the veil blade taunted, but he spat a mouthful of blood. Sagiri could not help but think the veil blade was egging N’varu on to anger him so he could lose his cool. He was deadly now, fighting in the southern style, but if he kept going as hard, he could burn out quickly.

”N’varu, calm down!!” Sagiri said before he himself whipped Nokai out of the ground. Time to teach the veil blades some manners. This was the first time tables had turned, and he had had to calm N’varu, and he could only imagine that Yonaka was important to N’varu.

”You bastards better come at me too!!” Yoka roared, losing his spot beside sagiri.

Yoka entered the clash without announcement, slipping between. His movement was sharp and controlled in the way only the Shadow Corps trained. vanish, reappear, strike before presence fully formed. One Veil Blade turned to meet him and found him already past his guard, his blade cutting a tight, precise line that forced him to break stance, but he didn’t follow through.

He was gone before the counter could land, shifting behind the second as he stepped in. Their response was immediate. Two angles closing on him at once, fists flashing in short, lethal arcs, but Captain Yoka dissolved through it. His body folded low, then snapped upright in a pivot that carried him out of alignment and into another strike.

”The shadow corps seems to have one who can actually fight. The others were just too easy to kill,” one of the veil blades engaged with Yoka said.

This was the first time Sagiri had seen him fighting at full strength, and his agility was outwardly.

Unlike N’varu, Yoka did not lose his cool. He was a captain after all, and he had mastered the art of keeping his feelings in check.

He didn’t hold ground. Every movement of his was a disappearance and return, forcing them to chase a position that never stayed. Still, they pressed him harder than expected, their attacks overlapping, tightening the space, forcing his transitions to become sharper, faster, more exact.

Metal met in quick, clipped bursts of contact. Each exchange lasted less than a second before shifting again. The three were moving so fast that their figures were moving in a tight, violent rhythm where a single mistake would end it, and even in motion, even with his speed, it was clear Yoka wasn’t overwhelming them.

Their styles of fighting were completely different. The South used offence as defence, but the North separated the two.

Even so, he was holding his own.

It was time for Sagiri to join in the fun.