The Referee

Now, this wasn’t usual. Ever since he fell short in his duel against Carr the Swordsman of Zero, Fedal the Hero was consistently chasing after his opponents. Yet here he found himself standing at the top, he stood as the champion and Katherine was the challenger. To him, who spent most of his life chasing after a glory that never let his fingertips grasp it, it was an entirely new situation.

What does one do when being chased after? Does one perform differently when being chased compared to being the chaser? The answer is, quite frankly, yes. Part of it is the simple fact that the scoreboard is not something you can or should ignore. A fencer who is fencing from behind will have to forego defensive moves in favour of the offensive ones. While it was true that Katherine’s team was still in the lead, her pride was clearly hurt that a new fencer like Fedal had scored twice against her.

There is also the inner enemy to consider.

Do you keep fencing like usual if you are ahead? By every sort of logic and every god, you damn right you should! Fencing like you did just earned you the lead, so why change it up before your opponent gives you a reason? There are, of course, a few reasons—such as spending all your stamina to get the lead and being forced off your aggressive style—but generally speaking, you must not change tactics.

Why, then, do athletes change their tactics when ahead?

It is because of an intruder, the demon that whispers in your ear, What if you mess up?

You attempt to play it safe, and in your concerned mind, playing it safe is to reduce the number of actions you take. Your lead becomes a shackle, reducing the efficacy of your fencing and allowing the opponent to catch up.

This is something that hurts all athletes, of all levels. It takes considerable experience and mental training to be able to fight against this instinct, and your resolve is tested every time the pressure increases.

Fedal had never been in this position before.

Thus, it didn’t surprise me—and shouldn’t surprise you—that despite his small lead, Fedal lowered his knees a little and adopted a slightly more defensive stance. I must be doing something right, Fedal thought. What is it?

Katherine, however, had nothing but mental fortitude.

Her memories from Earth were of nothing but struggles. Katherine was a difficult fencer to understand. Her style often—but not always!— saw her losing a few points at the start, in a manner that usually indicates a skill gap between the two competitors. Yet rather than allow the score to snowball, she would use what she learned from those points to formulate a plan of attack.

He’s much faster than me, Katherine thought. Even if the difference between our stats isn’t big, he knows how to use them. I haven’t really learned how to.

Stats were like learning how to write—you hardly forgot how to do it, but you had to do it often enough to learn. Katherine hadn’t really spent any time learning, given her pitiful stats.

My body isn’t working the way I think it will either, Katherine thought. This time she approached the thought with a cold rationality rather than an existential concern. Right now, to her, it mattered very little whether she was Katherine or not. What mattered was that her body wasn’t moving right and she had to accept that. My flexibility is shit. My lunges are really short right now….and my speed is awful too. It takes a long time for me to start my attacks and even longer to recover. He’s faster than me. He’s stronger than me.

She glared at him. But I’m still the better fencer.

Katherine stepped forward.

I have to get ready! Fedal readied his blade for a parry. His stats were ever so slightly superior, meaning his reflexes were ever so slightly sharper—the moment she tried to attack, his blade was ready. Focus, Fedal told himself. As soon as she starts the attack, move the blade!

Katherine’s front foot left the ground, then it moved forward. Immediately, Fedal brought his blade arm to the left, in a parry quatre. For a moment he thought he had been early enough—and then it occurred to him that he had been too early. Katherine’s front foot had left the ground, true, but it moved only a few inches forward before her heel had made contact with the ground again.

A memory of Carr’s explanation flashed in Fedal’s mind, a moment before the attack completed.

A half lunge.

Here Katherine’s back leg, which had remained mostly stationary and bent in the en garde position, exploded forward, bringing her front foot—and indeed her entire body—forward by a few more inches. Fedal’s blade was safely out of the way, as he had failed at parrying her blade, and could not block the strike.

Katherine finished her lunge to Fedal’s chest.

The New Bladewolves:

Fedal the Hero — 2 (12)

The Real Bladewolves:

Katherine the Duellist — 2 (17)

The half-lunge Katherine used had a few uses. The first step is moving your front foot forward while keeping your back foot where it is. In practice, this means your heel is past your knee. The forward movement feels like a lunge, so there’s a chance your opponent will parry too quickly and open themselves up as Fedal did. One use for the half-lunge, then, is to invite a reaction and exploit it.

But that’s not the only use.

You may also use it to see if your opponent reacts at all, and if not, then you commit to the lunge. It’s a good move to rely on if you can’t rely on your own speed. I’m slower than him, Katherine thought. But I’m a better fencer. If I bait him out with half-lunges, I can make up for my lack of speed…at least for now.

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT FEDAL!” Carr shouted. “YOU GOT THIS!”

Of course I messed up, Fedal thought. Couldn’t hold on to that lead for too long now, could I?

Here many fencers would collapse. It might seem minor, a lead of only one point. But giving it up feels like watching the waves devastate your painstakingly built sandcastle. It is a mixture of wondering if your efforts had any point to them at all and if you have reached your limits.

But Fedal didn’t react like that.

He drew a deep breath and readied his blade. I have always been a bit of a fuckup, eh? Not surprising.Fedal smiled and readied his en garde. Time to make up for it.

Fedal had few expectations in the way of victory. He had grown to be self-deprecating enough that setbacks did his psyche little harm. This wasn’t always the case, I imagine, I thought. For a time, I know that this young man’s failures must have haunted him. But now, though he doesn’t hold a high opinion of himself, it doesn’t bother him much.

The memory of his friends celebrating his single hit moved him forward. Even if I’m a failure, my friends are still behind me every move. He stepped forward. So let’s try everything. Worst case scenario, I mess up. But if I do, my friends are right behind me to clean up my mess.

Fedal advanced toward Katherine and attempted a beat four against her blade, hitting it from right to the left. She did not allow this to happen, quickly disengaging around his blade in a circle to avoid the move, and attempting at picking off his exposed target.

Try this exercise: point your first forward. Now, keeping your elbow in place, bring your fist to the left as if pushing something out of the way. You see now that the outside of your arm going down to your elbow is exposed?

It was this that Katherine aimed for. Fedal’s beat had been relatively concise, only exposing the side of his arm slightly. But the opening was there. I CAN GET THERE! Katherine thought as she extended her arm. Had it been the Katherine from Earth, she would have landed the hit. Had this Katherine had a few more months to practice, maybe she would have too.

But this Katherine, at this angle, at that moment, at that place—her blade bounced off the guard of Fedal’s blade, unable to hit the small target.

Here Fedal didn’t panic and stepped backwards. Katherine’s pride willed her forward, but Fedal felt a certain calmness that comes with knowing you’re outmatched. There was no stress at all on his side. I am weak and I embrace it, Fedal thought. I REFUSE TO ADMIT I’M THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW! MOVE BODY, GODDAMN IT! Katherine thought.

Katherine gave chase.

Fedal’s arm wasn’t extended, but he had the tip of his blade pointed at Katherine’s sword arms’ shoulder, as Carr had taught him. Katherine’s blade approached as if intending to do a beat four, approaching from her right. At the moment steel was meant to collide, however she disengaged off her own beat!

Katherine’s blade circled around Fedal’s so that it stood to the left of the Hero’s blade. Then, in the same motion, she used a beat six, where the blade comes from the left trying to push the opponent’s blade to the right. Because Fedal had been bracing for a hit coming from the opposite side, the beat attack caught him completely unprepared.

His blade was pushed aside, leaving his entire upper arm and torso unprotected. I GOT YOU NOW, HERO!

Fedal didn’t try to bring his blade back to a safe spot. The moment he felt the beat attack, he gave up on his arms and relied on his legs, retreating backwards as fast as he could. A single memory flashed in his mind—

“If your arms fail you, believe in your legs!” Carr shouted at him. “Doesn’t matter if you can’t beat their bladework. They can’t hit what they can’t catch!”

He ran. Before he even knew what he was doing, without even sure why, Fedal retreated at such speed that when he halted, his thighs felt like they were going to split open. But the pain seemed like a distant thought at the time. His legs ached, his throat was dry and he was sweating more than he ever remembered doing before. But the only thing that mattered was Katherine, giving chase after him.

I should parry her, Fedal thought, absently. He was focused enough his thoughts became less like plans and more like vague instructions his body chose to interpret for him. The tip of his blade shifted in the air. Instinctively, as he saw Katherine approach, he thought, I can’t parry her. Her disengages are too fast.

Retreat, then? No. He had reached the end of his own piste, if he retreated any further he would leave the arena and forfeit a point. Forward, then, he thought, as if the idea was natural.

And he stepped toward Katherine, who stepped forward after him. What can I do? Fedal wondered. It seemed almost like an academic question like there was no pressure on him at all. I can’t take her blade. She is going to disengage before I can. A beat four, then?

It sounded like a wise enough decision so he went for it. His blade started the beat motion, and he realized it instinctively: the move wouldn’t land. Ahh…that’s too bad…I don’t know what else I can do,Fedal thought. It was like he had entered a sort of domain where concerns or worries didn’t exist. His eyes flickered to Katherine’s half-extended blade for a moment and he remembered, a second ago, what she had done.

The disengage beat from before… .

She disengaged off her own beat and went from a different direction, Fedal thought. Carr never taught me to do that. But…right now, I feel like if I try it, I just might… .

Fedal disengaged off his beat four, pulling back the attack at the last moment and circling Katherine’s blade, counter-clockwise, so that his blade ended above hers. This is going to be a messy beat six if my blade is coming above hers, he thought. So then…beat eight?

Without thinking, without even being fully aware of what he was doing, Fedal brought his blade downward and beat Katherine’s blade so that it pointed to the floor. Ah. The target is open, Fedal thought, as if noticing that the sky had cleared.

He only became aware of his own thought by the time his blade had already made contact with Katherine’s torso.

The New Bladewolves:

Fedal the Hero — 3 (13)

The Real Bladewolves:

Katherine the Duellist — 2 (17)

“FEDAAAAAAAL!” Carr shouted with glee. He looked like he was about to cry tears of joy. “THAT WAS FUCKING HOT MY DUDE!”

Carr wasn’t just celebrating the single point. A few fencers in the arena had come to this realization now—Carr, the False Carr, and especially Katherine, understood a very important point that could be vital not just for the single bout, but for the outcome of the entire team match.

Fedal was growing.

Growth in sports isn’t always a gentle curve. Sometimes, you improve rapidly, then you hit a wall and fail to improve for months until that wall comes down. Scariest of all are beginners, especially the athletic sort. Fedal wasn’t athletic, but his stats made up for that. His fencing knowledge wasn’t perfect, but he had been working hard. Though he was still far from an expert, his biggest wall had been mental, and something about his duel against the False Carr had helped tear that wall down.

Too new to the sport to know how daunting his task was, too supported by his friends to feel afraid of making mistakes, too eager to try something new to wonder if he was ready, too thrilled to score a beautiful point to feel scared to fail, too ignorant to know he shouldn’t have been able to move his body like that.

Too unaware of his own limits to obey them, attempting techniques that should have made him hesitant.

Today, this was Fedal the Hero’s—no! Fedal Norray’s fencing!

“GOD—FUCKING—DAMMIT!” Katherine shouted. “SHIT!”

Katherine hardly lost her temper on the piste back on Earth, but this was hardly Katherine.

Fedal’s improvement made it so Katherine to make her gameplan around his limits, simply because even the man himself didn’t yet know what they were. He was testing the limits of his abilities with every move, growing stronger, bolder. Out of the eight fencers in both teams, Fedal is without a doubt the weakest. But...that bastard, not knowing exactly how weak he is keeps surprising me, Katherine thought, then cursed under her breath. I have to calm down…I can’t keep getting surprised…what if he gets better? What if he stops being the worst fencer here?

It wasn’t simply his sudden improvement.

A perfect mental storm had honed Fedal’s mental state into a fine weapon, if only for the moment. He was attempting moves at just the edge of his ability, where he was challenged enough to need his full attention, but not so challenged that he felt scared at the mere idea. He felt muscle pain, but his body still moved fine. He wasn’t hungry, but the food didn’t feel heavy in his stomach. He felt confident but didn’t fall prey to arrogance.

The perfect mindset athletes fall into, nearly always by accident.

Fedal was, as Carr would describe, in the fucking zone.

Bring it, Fedal thought, getting in position.

“Ref?” the False Carr asked. “I would like to request a medical break for my fencer.”

The fencing stopped and every single person in that arena looked at the False Carr, who managed to make his expression relatively blank. “When my fake fenced her earlier—he injured her a lot. We would like to use our medical time-out to make sure her fencing isn’t impacted right now.”

“BULLSHIT!” Carr shouted from his side of the piste. “You’re just trying to break the pace!”

The False Carr grinned. “The rules allow a medical time-out in case of a previous injury—and you did injure Katherine pretty badly, faker.”

I grimaced for a moment, but then nodded solemnly. “You may have your break, but make haste.” The rules were on the side of the False Carr, but the Swordsman of Zero’s accusation was not baseless. It was very difficult for an athlete to reach the state Fedal the Hero had, when they feel on fire, unafraid of attempting any moves and as though nothing can stop them.

A stoppage like this would likely knock Fedal out of his state of supreme concentration, and that was what the False Carr had been aiming for.

“Carr, you know I’m fine right?” Katherine asked. “The magic from earlier healed me enough and I haven’t been hit at all. I just got inside my own head, I haven’t lost points because I’m injured just—”

“Yeah, I know.” The False Carr laughed. “But I’m not going to let the magic fuckboy over there run away with the score when you’re the better fencer. Guy’s just taking advantage of you being nervous, ‘is all. Just gotta break up the pace a little, he’s going to self-destruct after that. No way he can keep that level going.”

“But Carr that’s—that’s not right!” Katherine exclaimed. “I could have won that match by myself, I don’t need your help!”

He smiled at her. “I know you could have. But we’re not just here to have fun. Johan wants us to win, so we’ll do whatever it takes.”

Here Katherine stopped abruptly and I knew something was wrong. Ah…beautiful. Johan, you like to do everything yourself, don’t you? I thought. But you couldn’t have been in charge of the memory manipulation yourself. You gave instructions, of course, but there was a limit to how much you could do—and how much you could confirm was done properly. Seems like the old Nameless made a mistake, did he not?

No, it was even worse than that! Looking closely…Johan himself had likely been the root of the mistake. The False Carr had been made to think that he regretted his fight with Johan. At the nationals, when Johan paid off the other team to lose on purpose, the real Carr was mortally offended but the copy—! Ah, the copy thought differently! You see, the copy regretted getting upset and understood the bigger picture, as Johan had intended.

But Katherine—oh, this was too much! Her memories were mostly unchanged, derived from the dormant memories in the piece of her soul Johan had eaten to enter this world. Johan had never been able to access those memories by himself, he merely made use of Nameless to implement those memories, with very few alterations being done upon request. He had never understood how they felt; from his perspective, everyone else on the team agreed with his decision, except for Carr.

It hadn’t occurred to him that the others felt just as betrayed but did not lash out like Carr had done. They felt like they owed Johan something. They admired him more than Carr did. But none of them agreed with his actions. They all felt he was wrong in what he had done.

But Johan never suspected they felt that way—his accident took priority over their annoyance, and save for Carr, none of them ever voiced their complaints.

So it never occurred to him to change Katherine’s memories there.

“Whatever it takes?” Katherine repeated. She felt her stomach sink, but willed herself calm. This was still possible—abusing medical breaks was lacking in sportsmanship, but it was still within the rules. Carr could have been okay with that, maybe. She could leave it at that. She could forget it. No, that wasn’t true. She couldn’t do that. “Carr, are you okay with cheating?”

The False Carr looked up at her in surprise. “I don’t need to cheat. But if it comes down to it, whatever it takes to win, right?” He flashed her a sheepish grin at the end.

Katherine took a step backwards as if having just stumped upon a monster. The False Carr held out his hand, appearing genuinely distraught, saying, “Katherine? You okay?”

Carr punched Johan because he cheated, Katherine thought. Am I crazy? Is—is this weird just for me?

She looked at Max, who had his arms crossed, and looked at Carr with raised eyebrows, quietly nodding to himself. So this one is definitely the fake, then, Max thought. His eyes met Katherine’s, and he felt incredibly sorry for the horror he saw there. If this Carr is a fake, then the story Gilder told me must be accurate…meaning you’re not the real Katherine either. I’m sorry. All he could do was smile sadly at her and shake his head.

It was enough for her.

“Yo, Katherine!” the False Carr shouted. “Wait up, we still have a minute of medical break. No need to head back there yet, eh?”

She smiled at him sadly. “Hey, Carr?”

“Yeah?”

“No matter what happens, no matter who we are, you’re still my friend, you hear me?”

“I—of course I’m your goddamn friend! What do you mean?”

“When this is all done…let’s go grab lunch or something, alright? Talk about things. Figure it out.”

“What the fuck do you mean? Of course, we can go grab lunch anytime, whenever you—”

“I want to learn more about you,” she said, as she stepped onto the piste. Katherine cast one last glance at the False Carr, smiled, and said, “But first, I have to learn more about myself.”

Fedal was already waiting for her at the other end of the piste—he hadn’t left it the entire time she was on medical break, trying to maintain his mental state. This had been in vain, of course. You couldn’t stay in the zone for that long while waiting for your opponent to come back. He had been keenly aware that his arms were shaking in nervousness now and that whatever state he had been in before wasn’t likely to come back. I don’t know if I can hold on to this lead, he thought. More confidently, he took a deep breath and thought, But if I don’t win now…then I’m going to keep telling myself next time. Next time, next time, next time…shit, I want to win now!

He had thought of every move he was confident in and he couldn’t find a plan to score. Before, he had scored with his unwavering mindset which he knew wasn’t something a fencer could just flip a switch and fall into. He had been thinking of Carr’s old coaching story.

“My coach used to say,” Carr told him, a nostalgic smile on his face, “that your top condition doesn’t mean shit.”

“How the flying fuck doesn’t your top condition mean anything?” Fedal asked. “Isn’t the point of all this training so I can do all o this shit when I’m fencing?”

“That’s the ideal outcome, yeah. But not really feasible, you know? Most of the time you are only fencing at the peak of your strength for a few minutes…maybe a few seconds every bout. For the rest, you are fencing at around a 7 out of 10 of your max level, you know? You can’t expect to be firing on all cylinders at every second of a bout.”

“That’s…discouraging.”

“You think so?” Carr grinned. “To me, it just means that the better fencer wins in a longer bout.”

That was certainly true.

The weaker fencer could be on fire for a few moments, but he would eventually be brought back down to earth and the stronger fencer would prevail. That’s me right now. I had my moment…but I can tell my level has dropped. Fedal shook his head at the thought. That’s not the time to be negative! I have scored more points than Katherine has! I have the advantage! He took a deep breath and brought down his forearm to swing against empty air once, then twice. I will not let my focus drop, even if my level has. I’m already losing in skill and experience. I can’t lose in mindset!

“I’m ready,” Katherine muttered. “Sorry for the wait.”

She fell into en garde position, and after making sure all proper rules were being followed I thundered, “ALLEZ!”

Fedal wasn’t in the zone anymore. He was back to the level he had displayed against Martim, perhaps a bit lower due to the soreness he felt in his legs. But he had decided to focus on making the best of the few skills he had available to him.

Meanwhile, Katherine’s mind was anywhere but on the match itself. She had much better skills than Fedal, but her body was too slow for her to apply them. Aching muscles slowed her moves, and intrusive thoughts halted her quick reflexes at every turn. Carr is fake, she thought absently. So the one who I fenced before…he really was the real one. I must be a fake too then, huh? That’s why my moves don’t work. Shit…

Who am I?

Fedal’s lunge came, and Katherine parried it in quatre without a riposte. The opening was there, but she didn’t take it. Shit…I guess if I’m worrying about things like this during the match, the result must be pretty clear huh?

The match continued for the following minutes. Unlike the matches that came before, the last few minutes were devoid of dramatics. Though the False Carr had intended for the break to break Fedal completely, results differed slightly. Fedal, though out of the zone, fought off the discouragement and summoned whatever remained of his skills back into the match. The False Carr’s biggest miscalculation was Katherine—he didn’t anticipate her to also suffer from the break of pace.

And so, both fencers’ levels steadily dropped compared to the start of the match, struggling to execute their moves.

It happens, sometimes. Fencers get tired, distracted, and for whatever reason cannot execute their usual gameplan. For Fedal, it was his exhaustion and knowledge of how inferior his skills were. For Katherine, it was a combination of what she had just found and a struggle to execute moves she knew her body wasn’t meant for.

In a match like this, it usually comes down to a very basic, a very primal factor.

Who wants to win more?

The final result, then, didn’t come as a surprise to anyone in that arena.

A few more hits were scored—unimpressive, messy even. Far from beautiful, they came as the result of badly executed parries that ended in messy infighting, or lucky strikes. But they were all scored by the same fencer, and there was no doubt in the mind of anyone watching that bout that they were the more deserving of them.

A lucky point only happens if you dare to put you blade forward and bet on yourself.

There was no dramatic end to the match.

Only a series of points scored by the one who, at that moment, stood as the better fencer. The one who deserved to win the most.

“HALT! That’s time!” I announced.

The New Bladewolves:

Fedal the Hero — 6 (16)

The Real Bladewolves:

Katherine the Duellist — 2 (17)

“THIS BOUT HAS CONCLUDED!” I announced. “6-2 individual score! The Real Bladewolves lead 17 to 16!”

A thunderous cheer greeted Fedal, who turned around to face his team with a blank expression. I…I did okay, didn’t I? But I didn’t fence my best, and she was the better fencer. I just scored more because she was distracted. He shook his head. No, fuck that. Just today I’m not going to be negative. Who cares how I did it, I won. We take those.

When he was about to walk off the piste, however, something made him stop. There is something else to address, he thought. “Katherine?” he asked.

The woman stopped. “Yes?”

This is gonna be a shitshow the moment I open my mouth, Fedal thought*. But I can’t ignore it.* “You know already, don’t you?” he asked. “About yourself?”

“I…yeah. I do.”

“Then come with us!” Fedal shouted. “Your sister is here.”

“My…I have a sister?”

Katherine instinctively reached for the locket in her pocket, and opened it. Warm feelings filled her, though she could not place them. Instinctively, she looked at the young girl who had yelled earlier, who locked eyes with her. Neither of them looked like the women pictured in the locket. Yet something about this felt right.

Glancing one last look at the False Carr, Katherine smiled and walked toward the New Bladewolves’ side of the piste.