(Ch 38)Shadow

'Fight with my own style… huh' Faith thought to himself, seeing his teacher ready and waiting on the other side of the combat matt.

He honestly had never thought about what his own fighting style should look like. Faith wasn't exactly sure what to do so he tried to just let his body take over. He could remember vividly being forced to fight before and his training back then had always confused Faith, or rather Noah.

Faith grasped onto the fighting style he'd adopted before as all the memories bought back showed only the movements and styles, nothing more.

'It's strange how I'm slowly forgetting who I was… I'm not exactly against it though' Faith thought following the instructions of his past self and getting into the first stage of his self created stance.

Faith's body lowered slightly as he almost perfectly mirrored the stance Ervis had taken, his eyes slowly losing their emotion becoming cold and dead as his focus purely shifted to his body and himself.

'I finally get to see it again' Ervis thought recognising those eyes he'd once feared.

Luna had already hopped out of Faith's vest pocket and was watching from the sidelines when she recognised that face and those eyes. Since this was a spar and Ervis merely wanted to see what Faith could come up with on his own they'd abandoned their weapons to the floor in favour of fists.

'Let's see what you've got, O mighty prince of demons' Ervis thought rushing forward with a left hook.

Faith's response was an almost perfectly replicated left hook of his own. Ervis ducked slightly turning his hook into an uppercut, keeping the momentum with pure skill only to find that his pupil had once again done the exact same.

Though Faith's duck was slower and he'd been scraped a bit by his mentor's fist, not to mention the sluggish movement of his own fist which had lost a fair bit of momentum turning from a hook into an uppercut.

But it still brought them to a standstill, forcing Ervis to sacrifice a hit himself in order to get one in on his disciple before backing up. They exchanged blows and Faith had taken more damage but overall it was much better than any other time he'd ever fought Ervis. Before now he'd almost always had his ass handed to him because of clumsy mistakes.

'So your gonna copy me then' Ervis thought, diving in for another round of assault.

Yet it was met with the same result.

Every move he made Faith would respond in kind. All Ervis could manage were blow for blow exchanges despite his experience. It should be mentioned that Ervis was limiting himself to the same amount of mana and physical strength as the Faith, if he was to go all out Faith wouldn't last a second even with his new copy style.

But that was the thing. On a pure even basis, Ervis wasn't sure he could beat Faith that quickly anymore. Even more worrying was that Faith was doing this despite the height and weight difference between them. To copy a style and stance like Ervis's that had been developed after years of battle was already hard enough but to do it with a completely different build was ludicrous.

'But the little monsters doing it all the same, maybe I should take it up a notch and put a little pressure on him for once' Ervis thought deciding it was okay to make the fight a little more intense.

He started adding kicks and acrobatics from his style of combat into the mix.

At first, Faith was indeed pushed back a little adding more scarps and bruises to his body, failing to block or avoid more and more blows. Slowly though he adapted to it gaining more mobility with each move Ervis used.

'It really is frightening how quick he can mirror me when he tries' Ervis thought, adding more and more intensity to the fight.

Yet he could no longer pressure the boy and eventually the fight started to turn in Faith's favour. When Ervis ran out of tricks Faith didn't just stop improving, no he got faster.

'Faster' Faith thought focusing on every little part of Ervis stance.

Every little part from the way he moved his mana into his muscle fibres to the slight creak of his joints from older age was privy to Faith with shadow sense. The man's style was good and Faith had to give him that, but everything had mistakes, imperfections.

Shadow sense made them all clear to Faith as his stance slowly shifted further and further away from Ervis's. He focused on all those little imperfections that came with either not being the same height or weight as Ervis or simply flaws the man didn't know about his style.

'I can go faster' Faith thought, slowly increasing the number of blows he hit and well as the number he avoided.

Ervis's style was good but Faith was beginning to realise just how amazing his body was now he compared it to memories of his previous one, or even to Ervis's. Unlike Ervis who's mana was drawn statically Faith's flowed all throughout his body, increasing the efficiency and speed he could improve and enhance his physical prowess.

'I can go even faster' Faith thought, feeling all the power he'd been unable to properly use until now.

Faith was at the pinnacle of focus and he could even feel the individual muscle fibres and strands of hair across his entire body. Faith was given access to everything down to the last cell for the first time since coming to this world.

His fight with Ervis got easier and easier and Faith pushed his body harder and harder, trying to peak into the limits of what he was currently capable of. He found that muscles fibres enhanced with mana actually had their stretch quality increased and with the slight understanding of the polymorphic abilities he possessed Faith was able to increase that range even further.

'Fucken hell, this kid is getting better by the second' Ervis thought as his gaze lingered on those eyes, that seemed to swallow up everything and anything around them.

The fight started to draw a crowd but Faith's focus was completely on his own body and his opponent. Faith would've never been able to have this level of Clarity without his experience from his past life or his shadow sense but with it, Faith was able to fully express his unique style as his own shadow slowly attached to him slithering up his body.

Faith's hair started to lose its white colour as streaks of pitch black spread across it, his now slitted pupil's inky black seeping into the whites of his eyes once more.

'What is this' Ervis thought, having long since started to use more power and mana to keep up with Faith.

Yet even as he increased more and more but kid kept up, using his increased efficiency to close the gap. Ervis wasn't close to his limit yet but even being able to push this much power out of such a small body was incredible.

One thought was stuck on his mind the entire time as Faith's own shadow started to take hold of his body.

'It feels like I'm fighting my own shadow' Ervis thought.

No that was exactly what it was. It was like he was fighting a shadow of himself that was improving in real time, slowly overwhelming him.

'FAS-… oh' Faith thought as he collapsed, having completely exhausted himself before his shadow could fully take hold.

Ervis looked at the boy collapsed on the matt and wondered how the hell this training session to see if the boy could think for himself had turned into such an intense fight. He was even sweating slightly despite the massive difference in endurance between them.

"You really are a little monster you know that," Ervis mumbled lifting up the little demon and wondering how the hell he was going to explain this to Eshir.

"I wonder if the new one will be as much of a handful as yourself," He said heaving the boy up as Luna jumped back into his vest pocket.

Faith was completely fine if you didn't count the fact that he'd exhausted himself to the point of being in a neigh coma state for 3 days. Ervis hadn't meant to take it that far but when he was limiting himself more and Faith's own shadow had started to surround him, just for a second, Ervis had felt the fear of death.

As if for just a second if he didn't move or increase the mana he was using Ervis's life would've been ended. It was a paralyzing fear he was rather used to but Ervis had never expected to feel it from his disciple. It wasn't killing or malicious intent either, it was just a plain reaction from his incoming demise.

Ervis did regret it a little though when he was forced to run for his life away from Eshir in her demonic mama bear mode.