Equal Footing

Tomeo placed her hand on her katana as she got into her fighting stance. She charged towards Ayla and hacked her tachi at her.

'I'll use my katana this time even though I don't need it to defeat them.' Ayla remained calm and unsheathed her katana to confront Tomeo's tachi. She struck it out without any hesitation.

Slice! Ayla's katana sliced straight through Tomeo's like cutting through butter, but she wasn't done as she slashed her blade and hit Tomeo with the flat side of her blade. She did this as she had no reason to kill her, but to send her out of the ring.

Just like she wanted, Tomeo was sent flying out of the ring, landing in the stands with a loud boom. She had broken the stands, but none of the spectators had been injured.

The spectators gasped in shock. Before, they were shocked at the swiftness and brutality of Teijo's match—now Ayla won the match with only two attacks. The difference between the two was like the distance between the sun and Pluto.

"The..." The judge had a hard time speaking clearly as he was shocked. When he came to, he said, "The winner is... Ayla."

Shock and fear were visible in the eyes of the spectators. Even the high officials and supervisors had similar expressions. Ayla didn't care about their reactions and returned to the public resting area after sheathing her sword.

She took her seat and closed her eyes, as she rested her head against the wall behind her. Many competitors looked at her in shock similar to how the spectators did, but she ignored them.

Minutes flew by and by the time that Tomeo had been brought to a place where her injuries would be healed. The attendants also repaired the damaged stands. By now, the majority of the audience had recovered from their shock, with some of them giving short glances to the entrance of the public resting area, where Ayla had disappeared.

Seeing that everyone had recovered from their shock, the judge stood up from his seat and announced, "The 5th match, Shota Sutoka versus Ryu Kurasshu!"

Two men stepped out of the public resting area and entered the ring. One had a lean, muscular physique that was shown with his blue long-shirt revealing his chest. He held the handle of his chokuto (straight sword) that was held on his back by his white rope belt. The other man was chubby with his messy hairy chest exposed as he wore his white kimono. He had an Uchigatana held at his waist.

The judge announced, "Match—begin!"

Shota launched himself towards Ryu, drawing out his chokuto, and slashed down at him in two quick concessions.

Clang! A flux of purple and light blue energies scattered around the duo. From the initial clash, they seemed to be equal in strength.

…

Seeing that their strengths were equal, it sent relief through the hearts of the spectators.

"Finally, a match where the two competitors are on an equal footing—this is the type of match I enjoy the most." Sighing in relief, someone in the stands said.

"Yeah, we get to finally see a match where the winner isn't decided in the first few blows." Another spectator commented.

Others also joined in, but the majority of their comments were the same.

"Stop talking; you're taking our attention away from the match." A guy surrounded by four beautiful women shouted in irritation.

They looked in the direction of the man who shouted at them, but immediately turned the other way as they noticed that this man was a rich noble who should never be offended.

'I'm glad I didn't do something I would regret.'

This thought ran through their heads.

Back in the ring, Shota and Ryu kept clashing swords. They were still at a standstill, with neither of them having inflicted a single wound on another. Shota had the lightning element, while Ryu had the ice element.

The ice element was generally weaker than the lightning element, but that didn't stop Ryu. He was able to compete with Shota solely on skill, whereas Shota fought with both skill and his element. However, he was still unable to gain the advantage you'd expect from his element.

Neither side knew who would come out of this match as the winner, but they kept fighting, not daring to give up, even though outside of the ring they were both comrades who had fought many battles together.