I breathed out as I raised my sword in my right hand vertically and my dagger in my left horizontally and crossed the two weapons in front of me with a soft clash.

Then I ignited the one thing I had left.

My fighting will.

Ignite!

Then letting my hands fall to my sides, I flashed forward and reaching her, my right hand swept upward with the sword in a dangerous slash that Deianira avoided by leaning back, only to continue the lean into a fall as my left hand shot forward toward her chest with the dagger.

Moving into a backflip, she kicked out, and I grunted as my left elbow came into contact with her foot, sending my arm upwards with the dagger and sending me stumbling back.

Sword coming up in a guard position, I regained my balance as I stared at her, unblinking.

1 second.

Then she charged at me, sword trailing on the ground much the same way I had charged at her, but she lunged forward with her free hand outstretched, trying to grab my sword with her warforce activated.

Skidding backward, I let go of my sword as her sword swept in an identical upward slash to right where I was a moment before had I not let go of the sword.

Smirking, she dropped my sword to the ground and advanced, her own sword again trailing slightly above the ground.

2 seconds.

Unsummoning my dagger, I raised my gauntlets at her and rushed toward her frenziedly.

I let out a shout as I dodged her sword and then I attacked her with a rain of punches that she deflected with a dull sound of metal on a metal-covered fist as her sword grip, blade, pommel, and guard were used to fend my blows off.

Then I caught her blade hilt, armored fingers over her armored fingers, and stepped in, thundering a vicious left hook into her face - a hook that Bal nearly broke my fist but dissipated the warforce surrounding her face.

Hands occupied, I leaned forward and brutally head-butted her and she staggered backward and wrenching the sword free from my grasp. She let loose with a left hook of her own that caught me hard as I followed her.

Jaw jerking to the left as her hook caught me, I instinctively tried to retreat but a moment later, I almost doubled over as her fist - knuckles facing down-, holding the sword horizontally to her right, caught me and sent me flying while also scoring a line on the left side of my stomach where her sword blade had cut into me.

This time it was I who was trying to open a distance between us, a distance that she allowed me to open as she raised her blade to her lips and licked the line of blood that lay gleaming.

6 seconds.

Grimly, I looked at her and she looked predatorily at me.

She had tasted first blood, and I was on the backfoot.

But so what!

Relaxing my body, I stood taller before I smiled at her.

“Why don’t you show your real form, Deianira?”

“Dame Deianira to you, you brat,” she said as she sinisterly smiled.

Shrugging, I said, “A person going to die really shouldn’t be so picky about what they are calle-.” and without finishing my sentence, I charged at her in a lunge with my summoned dagger outstretched.

8 seconds.

Sneering, she conjured her warforce to the front and met my dagger with her sword.

First contact for the dagger, this fight and it broke Deianira’s blade in two and then cut through half of her chest warforce armor before the momentum was lost and it stayed, stuck in between the layers of warforce as her warforce rapidly flooded the gap.

Crying out in shock and then smiling wickedly at me, she swept a dagger into her left hand and tried to plunge it into my body, but I caught it with an open palm as I reached crosswise with my left hand.

9 seconds.

Her dagger buried deep in my palm, I Smiled back at her as my splayed hand quivered and blood fell.

Behind Deianira, my dropped sword shivered before it flew into the air and unerringly pierced the silver rank in her back, where her warforce was weak.

Gasping out, she lost control of her defense for a split second.

A split second that proved to be very deadly.

My dagger shot forward, piercing the scattered warforce armor and, like a knife through butter, stabbed into Deianira’s heart.

10 seconds.

I stared deep into her eyes as she gasped out in pain and shock. I memorized every detail in excruciating clarity.

Then I sprang back, leaving the dagger still buried inside her.

I expected her to launch a final death struggle, but she kept gasping harder and harder, her warforce armor retreating into her and then, with shaking hands, she grabbed the dagger, only for her hands to fall limp at her sides.

Looking at me in horror, she said, “Yo-You- You’v-” and then she fell to her knees as blood bubbled up through her mouth.

Eyes still wide, mouth struggling to speak, the Silver Rank Knight Deianira - who had nearly killed me before - died with words still unspoken.

11 seconds.

Heaving a deep breath, I walked forward and closed her eyes before silently looking at her for a long time, then I pulled out my dagger amidst a fountain of blood.

Then I turned, and I walked to the door that had appeared in the dead-end alley’s wall.

Standing at the threshold, I looked back one last time at the place where it all started.

Then I walked through the door without looking back.