Ephemeral Ability Reflects the Heart

The next two weeks passed in the blink of an eye.

During that time, Chihiro went to school every day to take classes, and after school, he trained hard in his private training room. When he finished, he would go back to the apartment, have dinner, take a bath, play with the PC, and embrace Maria and the others.

It's a hard schedule, but the fatigue of the day is gone when he slept.

Maria and Riko, on the other hand, took care of the housework and sometimes accompanied him to train, so he could concentrate on training without thinking about anything else.

The training menu consisted mainly of swinging and kendo forms. In addition, there is running and muscle training in between. Of course, he did not only train after school, but also did his best to participate in physical education and matches during class hours. --tinytranslation.xyz

The results of his efforts became evident slowly but steadily.

As usual, he did not gain much muscle, but he gained a lot of physical strength. Although at first, he could not walk even a step after the training, but now he can walk back to his apartment even after the addition of the menu.

When training with Riko, he became more durable to feints and irregular attacks.

When training with Maria, he became more accustomed to pain than before.

And so, he torments his body to the limit and then recover. It's like a short-term replication of the kind of training that athletes do every day.

Because of its origin, the effect is limited.

But, the winning rate of the matches, which had been close to zero, has increased to about 20% only recently.

「I'll tell you what, I won't go easy on you」

「Yeah, I know」

Then, after school on Friday.

Chihiro confronted Riko in the private training room. After all, after this week, there will be a regular exam, and a period for judging ranks. In order to fight Kamishiro before that, Chihiro and the others had decided that tomorrow, Saturday, would be the time to fight.

So today is the final touch.

Chihiro will have a serious battle with the illusionist, Nishizaki Riko, to see how well he can fight. Just as in the past, it's anything goes, and it's one-on-one with a wooden sword.

Maria is watching from the corner of the room as a signaler.

Of course, she won't be the one to stop him like before.

「Are you two ready?」

「Yeah」

「Me too」

They both stand with their weapons in their eyes.

Riko wore a dark yellow outfit with a red jersey. Chihiro is also wearing a dark blue jersey with a black main color.

The wooden swords they are using are covered with a thin cloth. The main aim is to take away the opponent's physical strength by impact, while keeping the direct force of the blow as low as possible to avoid injury. Even so, if they go at it with all their might, there is enough risk of injury, and the fatigue afterwards must be considerable.

Still, Chihiro and Riko both agreed on this.

「Then... start!」

Maria's command echoed in the room.

Immediately after, Chihiro and Riko stepped forward at the same time. Riko, like before, covered her eyes with black sunglasses, making Chihiro unable to read her mind.

But Chihiro had expected this.

So, instead of relying on his mind-reading, he tries to predict the trajectory of the attack from Riko's movements. Also, he should be careful of blindness and feints caused by illusions.

Just as he thinks this, something flies at Chihiro's face. Riko didn't seem to make any throwing motion, so he judged it to be an illusion and tried to go straight.

「Huh?」

But, Chihiro realized that the "thing" he saw is a woman's underwear, and let out an unintentionally stupid voice.

This is a serious game, and that's why he hadn't anticipated an attack like this.

Realizing this, he took a step to the left to avoid the pants that are about to cover his face. But――

「I have said I'm serious, haven't I?」

Riko's wooden sword struck Chihiro's side without missing a target.

「Huh!?」

Even with the cover, it's still a hard-wooden stick. But Chihiro managed to endure the sufficient impact on his body.

He thought that as he retreated with the wooden sword being pulled back.

Riko certainly seems to be serious. Even though her opponent is Chihiro, with whom he had embraced many times, and Maria is the only one in the audience, it's hard to imagine that she would use the illusion of her underwear as a distraction. It seems to be the result of putting the match ahead of shame.

In addition, there's no way Riko would underestimate Chihiro now.

After all, she had already been beaten and humiliated by Chihiro once. So, there's no such thing as pride, and she can't be expected to let her guard down easily.

「...Of course, I understand」

Chihiro replies, regripping his wooden sword and moving toward her.

He attacks with a wide, swinging sideways attack. But Riko dodged backwards. He dodged a thrust to the shoulder, and returned with a diagonal slash to Riko's shoulder. --tinytranslation.xyz

「Ouch!」

Riko lets out a small scream and moves away from Chihiro. She must have decided that it was not a good idea to hit each other in close proximity.

Probably, her decision is correct.

Now a baseball comes flying at Chihiro from his eye level. And ignoring the ball and moving forward, he rush to guard against a big blow. Though he succeeded in keeping the ball from reaching his body, his hand became numb from the heavy blow.

Riko's illusion is quite a frightening ability in such a one-on-one combat.

Even if he knows it's just an illusion, if his line of sight is blocked, his attack and defense moves will be slowed down. Just by taking advantage of this, Riko can easily gain the upper hand.

It's a good thing that there are limits to the size and detail of the illusions that can be created due to the problem of concentration, but even now, there aren't many actions that Chihiro can take against her.

As example, get as close as possible.

Then, attack as wide as possible, not with pinpoint attacks.

And, Ignore the damage even if he takes some.

Therefore, he has to move without stopping.

「Okay!」

Chihiro grabs the wooden sword again and swing it wide. Even if it's blocked, don't worry about it.

He ignores all illusions of a large cloth over his face, a second wooden sword, or a tub falling from above. This is a large swinging attack to make sure that he can hit even if his vision is somewhat blocked.

Also, as long as Chihiro keeps moving, Riko has to deal with it. After all, if the movement takes up too much of her mind's resources, she won't be able to make accurate illusions, and her use of illusions will be limited.

The rest is a matter of patience.

Riko attacks Chihiro while showing him the illusion, and steadily damages him.

Chihiro, on the other hand, continues to attack while enduring Riko's attacks, taking away her physical and mental strength.

*Pant* *Pant*

They continued to swing their wooden swords, breathing hard, and the fight gradually turned into a brawl like a child's fight.

The first to reach the limit is...

「...I give up」

It's Riko by a small margin.

As soon as she announced her surrender, she sat down on the floor and dropped the wooden sword in her hand.

「I can't do it anymore. I really can't. Let me rest for a while before I go home」

Seeing this, Chihiro also relaxed his body with a deep breath. While wobbling, he walks to the edge of the room and rests his back against the wall.

Maria, who saw them, smiled and told them.

「Good work, both of you. Let's call it a day」

「Yes. I'm going to bed early today」

It's only been thirty minutes since the HR meeting on the way home, but it's still a lot of work to put all the energy into a match after a class.

However, in the sense of seeing the results of the training Chihiro had done so far, today's purpose had been fulfilled, so there is no problem in calling it a day.

「Shall we do that? ... it's been a while since I've been home this early」

Maria looked back at Chihiro as she muttered.

「Yeah. Let's take it easy for the first time in a while. Nishizaki-san may not be able to, but I'm fine. I'll give you plenty of time to enjoy yourself」

*Flick*

Maria's tongue peeked out from her lips and moved lustfully.

Chihiro, who saw it, shuddered, remembering the feeling of fellatio he had experienced so many times.

「Hey! What are you two doing?」

「Well? It's just a matter of time... Right, Master?」

「Uh, yeah」

Chihiro wondered what he should do today to satisfy Maria and himself. Riko, who nodded thoughtfully, puffed out her cheeks.

Maria chuckled.

「Nishizaki-san, don't worry about it, just get some rest, okay?」

「Of course, I will, even if you don't tell me!」

Riko shouted sulkily and turned her head away.