//------------------------------// // CH34: One Sided Battles // Story: Kingdom Hearts F.I.M: Rise of The Elements // by Spirit Shift //------------------------------// After accepting her challenge, Kirito led Dash outside to the back of the cabin. The backyard of his home sat near the edge of a large lake. In between the lake and cabin sat a short by wide grassy plane where Kirito liked to relax in the sun. It was there that the fight would take place. Everyone else decided to watch from the back porch of the home. None of them were all that surprised by the turn of events. Dash’s friends knew about her competitive nature and Asuna was confident in her husband’s abilities. In fact, Twilight was a bit excited to watch Kirito fight. If what they were said was true, Kirito must be an impressive fighter to have been stuck here five whole years and survived. Kirito stood right in front of Dash. Flicking a wrist, he selected a few things from his menu. “Are you ready?” he asked, scrolling through a few things. “Just so you know, I’m currently the strongest player in SAO. Beating me won’t be easy.” Pushing a button, a black sheathed sword appeared on his back. “I know that you’re wondering, and yes, I have fought Spike. Just so it’s fair, I’ll impose the same restrictions that I put on Spike, on you. Only sword attacks, no guns, if you have them, no magic, and no flight.” Kirito smirked at Dash’s surprised look. “Spike told me all about your speed and flight ability. I can only assume that you’ve only gotten better since then.” Dash frowned, she was planning on using her flight to her advantage and take him by surprise. No matter, AJ often imposed the same kind of rules on their fights so she had learned to be just as quick on her feet. “What about hand to hand combat?” she asked. Kirito raised a brow. Of course he had a high CQC level, he just didn’t expect her to ask that. He’d need to be on his guard for quick and sudden strikes from her fists. “That’s fine. Now let’s see if this works.” He selected a few options on his menu and a small screen popped up. He pressed a button and glanced down at his shorter opponent. Dash flinched at the sight of a small screen that appeared in front of her. She read the message that it displayed. “‘You have been challenged to a dual, do you accept?’ Do I hit yes?” Kirito nodded. “It seems that in some ways the game sees you as an NPC. Normally, most are auto-programed to immediately press no. Either way this will make things a bit safer.” “How so?” “Well on the off chance you’re stronger than me it’ll stop the fight if my HP gets too low.” Kirito couldn’t help the smugness that crept into his tone. Dash pressed the button and, to her surprise her Keyblade appeared in her hand without her calling it. It was as if it knew that she was about to fight. She turned back to look at Kirito only to find that he had already put some starting distance between them, and that he had taken his battle stance. Dash took her own wide stance in response. “If Spike could beat you without magic then I sure as hell can! Kirito’s stance involved him not immediately removing his sword from the sheath on his back. He had one foot far out front and another bent behind ready to push off. Like Dash, he had one hand out front and seemed to forgoing all defense in preparation for a speedy attack. “Who said he beat me,” he chuckled. “Though I will say that he taught me a few things though.” Slowly his left hand gravitated to his back. There was a shimer and another blade appeared. Before Dash could react to a second weapon, Kirito cleared the distance between them in an instant and slammed both blades against hers. She grunted as she struggled against his strength. In addition to his black blade he also wielded a pure white single edged longsword. Kirito didn’t even look to be exerting himself as he easily caused Dash to buckle down. “I’ll also be evaluating your skills while we fight. So far I can’t give your strength a passing grade,” he teased. However this only served to make her angrier. “Don’t…” she struggled, slowly pushing him back, “underestimate... ME!” In a burst of strength she shoved Kirito back and went on the attack. Before he could recover, she slashed at him from the right side. Kirito quickly flipped his black blade so that it was held backhandedly. He blocked the attack, but instead of pushing the blade away, he moved in close with his blade sliding along the length of hers. With one blade keeping Dash’s away from her body, she had no way to defend herself. “You’re wide open,” he whispered. Holding the tip of his white sword to her neck. Dash panicked and quickly put a good length of distance between them. Kirito nodded approvingly. “Well at least your reaction time and speed seems up to par. But you need to learn how to fight dual wielding enemies. The key is to never leave any openings, and to be faster than your opponent. You might have speed on your side but you need to learn how to use it.” Dash bit her lip in frustration. He was toying with her. She hated that more than anything else. “Shut up!” she yelled. In a blur of motion, she moved from her spot to directly behind him at his back. There was a clang and she was shocked to see that he had blocked it with his black blade without even turning around. She moved once more to his front and continued to attack. When he blocked she moved once more, she growled furiously. “Like I was saying, you need to--” “Stop toying with me!” Moving faster, she attempted to attack from each and every direction. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to work as Kirito effortlessly blocked each and every strike without so much as moving from his spot. Over by the porch everyone’s jaws had long since hit the ground. To them it looked like Kirito was encased in a monochromatic blur of movement, and nothing but the striking of metal and Dash’s frustrated grunts reached their ears. “H-how is he doing that?” Twilight gasped. She had never seen anyone take on Dash’s top speed with such ease. “It’s amazing.” “He’s so cool!” cheered Pinkie. Asuna nodded, not the least bit surprised. “He is, I guess… Though I suppose you could blame me for that one.” Everyone turned to look at her with confusion. “You see, with my rapier, I have the highest attack speed in the game. Kirito, on the other hand, has the fastest reaction time in the game. He took that skill and pushed it to it’s limit. Kirito continued to challenge me until he could he could react in time to block each and every one of my attacks. At this point it's simply not possible to hit him with speed alone. You have to have a good amount of strength behind your attacks, or a talent for misdirection. Not only that but, like he said, he’s the strongest player in the game. He’s currently level 246 with the supposed level cap being 300. I would measure your friend at around level 200 on speed, agility and stamina alone, but factoring in her apparent strength and endurance, I could probably lower that to around 175.” Yui, whom had been standing at Asuna’s side and holding her hand, cheered for him. “Daddy’s the strongest!” AJ lifted her hat and whistled impressively. “An’ what level are you?” “Level 205,” she answered. “Most of the other high level players are still around 180.” “My word,” breathed Rarity. “Why is he so much higher than you.” Asuna’s expression fell as she recalled the scare a few years ago. Yui glanced up at her when the grip on her palm tightened. “After we discovered Heathcliff’s identity, Kirito challenged him to a fight and lost. Heathcliff took pity on him and let him live so that they could fight again. Something in Kirito broke I think, and he disappeared for months. A game wide search went out, and when we he was finally located we found that he had cleared three whole floors by himself trying to get stronger. He was power leveling, having gained 30 levels in that time. He was exhausted and nearly dead from a recent boss fight. But even when I spoke to him he didn’t want to stop leveling. Finally, we managed to talk some sense into him and calm him down.” She looked out at Kirito with a melancholy look. “Though, mysteriously, that level distance never went away.” “He must really want to end this game,” muttered Twilight, turning back to the fight. Asuna nodded. “He really does. He may act calm, but he’s more determined than any of us, and he’s probably really happy that you’ve all offered to help.” After three straight minutes of attacking, Dash finally started to slow down, and the second she did Kirito’s leg kicked out and Dash went flying away from him. By this point she was breathing heavily after exerting herself. “Damn you!” she growled, skidding to a stop. “I don’t care that you’re stronger! Just don’t toy with me like that. Fight me seriously!” “Are you ready to listen to me?” he asked calmly. Dash stood up and retook her stance. She began to rush forward in a rage. “Not until you--” Dash stopped when she felt a palm on her shoulder. She turned to see that Twilight appeared behind her. She was shaking her head. “Don’t,” she advised. “Listen to him. He’s only trying to help you.” “But he--” “Rachelle!” ordered Twilight. She looked over at Kirito who hadn’t yet moved. “He’s had more practical fighting experience than all of us combined and then some. I doubt even if we teamed up to fight him we’d win.” She turned back to her frazzled friend. “It’s not that he won’t fight you seriously, it’s that he can’t. If he were to fight you seriously, he’d kill you.” Dash flinched back. “But the game--” “Rachelle, think about it. You don’t have a life gauge. If what he said is true, the game wouldn’t know when to stop the fight.” “Well that’s not completely true.” Both girls turned just in time to see the tip of Kirito’s sword zooming straight towards Dash’s forehead in a speeding piercing attack. However, the weapon never made contact with her. Instead a red rectangle appeared in front of the blade, blocking the attack. It read, “Immortal Object.” “See, I noticed it when I kicked her. Apparently, even in a duel the game reads you as an NPC, an immortal object. I guess since it can’t get rid of you it’s trying to incorporate you into the game’s mechanics. Nothing in this game can harm you.” He took back his sword and lowered it to his side. “Really?” asked Twilight, surprised. “Then can you fight me seriously now?” asked Dash, though it was more of a demand than anything. Kirito sighed. “Fine, I’ll fight you seriously... but afterwards you have to listen. “He turned to everyone. “I’m going to do my best to help all of you train. You all need to get stronger if we’re going to take on the final floors. Even if you can’t be hit you still need to be able to do damage. If Rachelle is anything to go off of. I would put you all at around a base average of level 160 on physical ability. You all have Keyblades so I’ll first be teaching all of you how to fight the same way you would in this game, without magic that is. Afterwards, I’ll fight you with magic. Asuna, you’ll help me right?” Asuna nodded determinedly. Kirito turned back to Dash who was still glowering from her defeat. “Rachelle, I need to know your damage output so I’m going to let you hit me a few times. I’ll turn off my regeneration skills. Afterwards, you need to take a rest so we can have a real battle, alright?” Dash frowned at him and nodded reluctantly. Standing up, she raised her weapon and prepared to attack.