.hack//SIGN Fan Fiction ❯ the duel ❯ crossed blades ( Chapter 1 )

The same old disclaimer stuff: I don't own .hack//sign. [I thought I'd keep it simple this time around]

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There was only the slightest breeze rustling through the ruins. The derelict stone wall remnants jutted out from the ground seemingly without congruency, but the place was supposed to have been a fortress long ago - which was a stupid concept really, since this was The World, where nothing could have lasted long enough to become a clump of ruins. On the outskirts of the ruins, stood a player. His name was Rolendo.

Rolendo stood indifferently, his arms by his side but ready to flash up and reach for the hilt of his weapon. It was a sword of sorts, long and slightly curved. The hilt was perhaps two thirds as long as the blade, the end of it curving in the opposite direction from the blade, giving the whole weapon the likeliness of one smooth curve. It wasn't really - the embossing running up the hilt did away with that notion. Technically, Rolendo was a Blade User, but the length of his blade, and the fact that two hands were needed to wield it to full potential border lined him between Blade User and Heavy Blade. The sword was sheathed and worn on Rolendo's back, slanted towards the right since he was right handed. Over his simple outfit of dark blue he wore a long black jacket, decorated with gilt buttons. The buckle of his belt bore an interesting symbol, something like a pair of spears crossed over.

There was a familiar noise behind him, and Rolendo turned around to see another player emerge from Chaos Gate twenty metres from the ruins and walk towards him. This player wore clothes that were common in The World: short sleeved top, baggy pants, leather belts and boots. From where he was standing, Rolendo could see the handles of a pair of short swords protruding from either side of the rear of this player's waist belt.

"Sorry I'm late," said the player when he got close enough to Rolendo, "Getting home from school was a little bit icky."

"The buses screw you over, Morg…" Rolendo began to reply, but the player but him off.

"It's Zura, Davy."

"It's Rolendo, Zura," Davy/Rolendo frowned.

"And to answer your question, yes, the buses screwed me over. Now, are we going to get to work? I've wasted enough time just getting here," Morgan/Zura said.

Rolendo smiled, "Saved your game?"

"Yep."

"Good. Then let's get started." Rolendo reached up with his right hand, gripping the hilt of his sword but not drawing it.

Zura, who stood about three metres away, performed a similar action, holding onto the hilts of his swords, ready to whip them out. There was a schwing, and Rolendo held his unsheathed blade with both hands, keeping them close together, somewhere in the middle of the oversized hilt. Zura drew his swords, holding them the way he usually did - with the blades coming from the bottom of his hands, and the pommels from the other side. The pommels jutted out from the end of the hilt, and so for him a conventional stabbing motion was a pommel clubbing.

Weapons raised and ready, the two players circled each other slowly, not willing to rush into a blind attack but knowing that the longer they bided their time the more their weaknesses could show.

Rolendo made the first move, covering the distance between him and Zura in two leaping steps and slashing upwards. Zura sidestepped, and the sword in his right hand flicked out, ringing as it struck Rolendo's blade. Rolendo faced Zura head on, crisscrossing his blade with rapid downstrokes. For Zura, defending was not so difficult - Rolendo was merely alternating sides with his attack, not changing the height or speed…until now. Feinting left, Rolendo struck again on the right side, following up with a quick spin that led him into a left side slash. Zura recovered from Rolendo's feint, cross guarding his follow-up swing deftly. The added momentum of the spin had made the attack stronger, however, and Zura stumbled back from the force of the attack, a piece of ruin stopping him abruptly. He leapt aside as Rolendo's blade came down, keening as it struck into the stone. Tugging it free, Rolendo batted aside a well aimed slash from his opponent, before repeating the move on the other side. Zura's blades were lighter and shorter than Rolendo's, making them faster, and the fact that he was using two would have meant that if Rolendo was any lower level a character then he would most likely be defeated quickly. But Rolendo was far from a low level, and had mastered his blade to extent that the two of them were equally matched.

Zura flipped backwards as Rolendo swept into a low swing. The Blade User moved into a ready stance, and faced off again for the second round. Breathing heavily, Zura raised his swords to a ready position and tried to judge his opponent's next move. During the fight, Zura had noticed that Rolendo put a fraction of his weight onto his left leg before he attacked, and he discreetly watched for it. Rolendo on the other hand had realised the Zura would always commit his defences to the most immediate threats, leaving him open to a follow up attack that was fast enough.

A moment later, Rolendo's leg twitched, and he dashed forwards, bringing up his sword for a neck height slash. Zura's sword whipped up as the longer blade keened towards him, ready to block it. Then Rolendo made his move. Just half a step away from his opponent, the Blade User sprung upwards, executed a perfect somersault and landed behind Zura, whipping around and scything his blade through the air at the unprotected neck. Unprotected only for a moment, though, and with uncanny speed Zura had turned around, locking Rolendo's sword with both of his own. For the past few minutes they had been fighting in the heart of the ruins, meaning that the two of them had to keep a keen eye on the scenery lest they fell over anything. Zura used this scenery to his advantage this time, wrestling Rolendo's blade to the opposite side of him. With a puff of dust and a rasping impact the Blade User's sword became stuck fast in one of the pieces of ruined masonry. Although Zura effectively dug in one of his own swords, he had two, and now he used that remaining sword, lunging forwards triumphantly for the death stroke.

It took a split second for Rolendo to realise that he had been outsmarted, and that something needed to be done immediately. Without a second thought, he gripped the end of his weapon's hilt, flicked a catch with his thumb and drew the dagger from its concealment at the end of the hilt. If it were to be placed separate from the main blade it would look like any normal dagger, such was the design: a section from the end of the sword's hilt - long enough for a single fist to grip it comfortably as if it were any other dagger - made the hilt for the dagger. The blade itself was straight, as long as the remaining sword hilt. It was the one thing that tinkered Rolendo between Blade User and Twin Blade, but more importantly it tinkered him on a knife-edge between legal and illegal.

As his sword descended, Zura's eyes widened as Rolendo revealed his other weapon, and risking decapitation, Rolendo moved forward, dagger held firmly.

Time froze.

"Good job," Rolendo said, not moving his dagger from Zura's throat.

"So what are you? Still a Blade User, or are you a Twin Blade now?" Zura replied, visibly angry at his opponent's concealed weapon, but still not moving his sword from Rolendo's neck.

"Technically I've actually always been a Twin Blade because of this dagger," Rolendo smiled, taking the dagger away now and stepping back, "Because I'm carrying around two weapons in one. But it's hard to use the sword in one hand, so I don't usually use them both at once."

"So it's really a last ditch thing?" Zura sheathed his sword, "Like just then?"

"Exactly. But I registered as a Twin Blade, and if anyone ever contests that when they see that I only usually use one blade in a fight, then I can show them this and tell them to screw themselves."

Zura laughed, "You wouldn't tell a Crimson Knight that, would you?"

Rolendo chuckled, tugging his sword free from the chunk of ruin and sliding the dagger back into the hilt, "Most likely not."

"Well, I gotta run." Zura tugged his other sword out of the ruin, and sheathed that too, "I'll see you at school tomorrow."

Zura made his way quickly back to the Chaos Gate outside the ruins, and disappeared. That left Rolendo alone in the ruins.

"Well, I doubt anyone else will show up here," he thought aloud - a habit that he took from reality into The World, "No monsters to fight, but a nice place to sit down and take a breather. One of many places to sit down and take a breather. Why the hell would anyone want to come to a dust bowl? There are plenty of grassy fields out there. But a dust bowl is fine with me."

Sheathing his sword expertly - it had taken a lot of practice to do it without taking off the scabbard from his back - Rolendo climbed a up an irregular stairway cut into the side of a high section of ruins, sitting down on the flat floor and taking in the view. It may have been perhaps ten minutes when the ground shook ever so lightly, and Rolendo grinned in glee as he saw what it was.

Twelve feet tall and eight broad, the monster - it seemed to be some kind of a minotaur with wings sprouting from its back - stomped into view, wielding a huge axe in one hand and a long barbed whip in the other. It raised its massive, ugly head to the sky and roared.

But to Rolendo the roar could have been a cat's meow, and he stood up, drawing his blade again. The monster was nearly at the foot of his `building', and raising his blade in a two handed grip, Rolendo snarled, "Bring it on."

And he leapt forwards, even as the whip came up…