Blade and Poetry

"When magic and sword light had not crossed these continents, and linguistics was in its infancy and was still positioned to describe concrete things, people complained about their desire for emotions. As an abstract noun, love is related to water, The visible words of fire, land, and forest flourish together, and surprisingly, they have similar connotations in disparate languages.

Love is undoubtedly all-encompassing.Later it was divided into a small offshoot - called love.

In a certain land there was a myth that Tilard, the goddess of silence, was inadvertently fascinated by the face of a mortal as she looked down from the clouds.She begged Gaia, the king of the gods, to open the way to the mortal world for her, and Gaia waved her a ladder to the sky.The sky ladder is made up of floating wooden boxes, and only when she stands on it and opens the box cover, will the next level of the sky ladder fly over.

The goddess of silence once opened the wooden boxes of 430 eight feet with one hand; they were all empty.And when she opened the 430th ninth one, she was suddenly able to speak, and the long ladder began to shatter from the section under her feet, throwing her directly into the world from midair.According to gossip from the heavens, what is hidden in the 430th ninth box is "love".

The love that everyone has is actually different, from essence to expression, from depth to time.Some people believe that love must be sincere, while others let their instincts lock their hearts tightly.Some people know where love is when their eyes meet for the first time, and so they face the rough and the rough and the difficult.Even if someone is lucky enough to reach the finish line at the beginning, he is full of ignorance about the situation he is in.The above and other moods are varied, and they are all roughly grouped into one category: "love".

However, such a vague division may be the romance of linguistics.

......"

"What are you looking at?" Odd said, coming up behind me.

"Array study." I said.

"Not much." Ode reached out and tapped the corner of the book, and then waved his hand in front of my eyes, "Are you sure, Vicente? I need to use your answer to judge whether you are still suitable for the next competition. "

I glanced at the title of the book in the lower right corner, "I read it wrong. I may have confused the number of the bookshelf. I always thought I was holding a book of formations, but it hasn't talked about formations yet."

Odd closed the pages for me and sat down beside me.

"It's your turn in an hour." He said, "It's no fun to just spread out a book in the library for a long time, and you don't pay attention to what it's talking about."

"I am eager to study." I said to him, "I am too detached in spirit, but ignore the content."

"That's your interpretation of 'mind-wandering'?"

I looked at Ode and smiled.He seemed more worried than I was.

"Let's go," he said, taking my book. "We should go to the venue early."

I nodded.

After the questioning more than a month ago, I couldn't help but sent several butterfly letters to Karajan, asking questions about his identity.But he stopped replying since then, and I simply forcibly suppressed my urge to concentrate on preparing for the upcoming contest.

In the past, the big competition, which would end at the end of the year, was postponed to February this year.The fifth grade has gone through several rounds of one-on-one knockout matches, and it has beaten down a few lower graders who challenged by leapfrogging. It is already the last round.The odd number of applicants won the match in pairs. Yesterday they had a few staggered matches, and now they have finally reached the end—what I said two years ago has come true; the final victory will be between me and Coleman decided.

Odd was lost in a previous round, and in the end he still didn't meet me on the court.He didn't say anything about it, but I could sense his regret and sense that he'd shifted that emotion to another place today.

"I still have doubts about the magic circle you prepared." He said. "It's too clear-cut."

This is the third time he has emphasized so much on the road. During the journey, he and I have verbally reviewed the direction of the magic pattern of this formation several times.

"It's part of the strategy, extra-curricular reading that I picked out," I said. "If you know who your opponent is and don't design countermeasures, that would be a pity."

"But you don't have a solid grasp." He pointed out succinctly.

"Maybe it's enough to fool Coleman," I said. "He doesn't know the magician's characteristics—maybe he doesn't even want to know."

Odego was the only one who knew about my whole design in advance. At this time, he shook his head and smiled: "Your inspiration."

I greet Coleman in the yellow grass-covered arena.The judges in the distance seemed to be similar to those two years ago; Ms. Rogers, the executive principal, and some professors from the West and East Campuses, among them seemed to be Hu Gen, the swordsmanship professor I had seen.Odd and I were not late this time; he was in the front row of the auditorium.It's a pity that Lan Duo is missing there, and the little girl's fluttering curly hair and crisp laughter are missing.

Directly across from me, Coleman's hand holding the knife was steady, but his expression no longer contained the vague joy of two years ago.There are also various disturbances in his eyes, either similar to mine or different.

But those complicated thoughts were briefly detoured before the vision of winning.I looked at him and knew he was making himself think that too.I think one of us is bound to win, so it's time to do whatever it takes to get it -- no matter who it's for.

It should be a testament to rebirth.

There are five steps between us, and we can start our confrontation only after the judges give an order.

Out of the corner of my eye a beam of light shot up into the sky.I sprinted back, and at the same time Coleman rushed towards me without hesitation.He moves forward faster than I retreat.Comet Zhizhi's spell pushed him back a little bit, but he was already very skilled in dealing with this thing, and knocked out the beams one by one with the back of the knife.After about 15 seconds, he broke through the dazzling barrier, and we began to fight hand to hand.

Charon was always by my side.The students are free to choose Dabi's weapon, as long as they don't use the sword soul, no one can tell whether it is an artificial knife.I pulled it out and confronted Coleman, keeping myself low during the fight; my movements were more dodging than confronting, and I even rolled right past him a few times.

I could sense that Coleman hadn't completely let go of his posture either.Although we kept fighting in a small area, he never stepped behind where I originally stood, as if cautiously looking for something.

When my hand No. 12 intentionally rubbed across the ground, I silently said: "Come on", got up from the ground, slashed the knife towards Coleman's face, and at the same time jumped back as far as possible A big step.Coleman didn't guard against the sudden blow, his upper body immediately leaned back to dodge, and his left foot stepped back to stabilize his body.But he stopped moving after that, stood up straight, the knife in his left hand was hanging down, and his eyes were empty.

I saw his reaction and knew it was a success this time.

The first array I set up for him was the "Mirror Array".In the 15 seconds that confuse his vision, its prototype has been hastily laid on the only way he rushed to me.In the ensuing fight, I switched positions with him many times, and my free right hand kept rubbing across the ground to make up for the details.He was always wary of the weirdness hidden behind my initial position, but he never thought that the real trap was set behind him-the road he had walked.

The mirror array can't hurt people, it can only make the people in the array feel as if they are in a space surrounded by mirrors, and they can't find a way out for a while.It will temporarily isolate the recruiter in the formation from the outsiders until the recruiter correctly steps out of the range of the formation.

Its composition is not fine, it only needs to roughly draw the right shape; so its solution is also very simple.The fifth graders in the West Academy are probably familiar with the formula for breaking the formation: "Three from the left, one from the back, fifth from the right, and seven in the front"—keep still after falling into the formation, and then take the corresponding number of steps according to the formula.But at this time, Coleman obviously didn't understand the inside story. He tentatively took a few steps forward, and then turned his footsteps. Several walls of light appeared in front of him and beside him.

I seized the time to set up a few small restraining formations around the mirror formation, and then set up a new formation ten steps away.As time passed, Coleman in the mirror array gradually became aware of the clues.He no longer seeks a shortcut to get out of the battle, but uses force to smash the layers of barriers in front of him.This method was laborious but effective, pushing him to the edge of the mirror array.

The patterns of the new formation gradually became clear on the ground.My hand drew the last stroke of the cross, connected the two ends of the formation, and pressed my palm on the center of the formation.

When Coleman staggered out of the mirror array and fell into a certain restraint array, night also fell at that moment.

The heavy black spread out rapidly with the bottom of my hand as the center, like a cloud that has absorbed the thick ink and got out of its restraint, expanding its edge infinitely.The black color of the surface spread to the sky, covering all the light above our heads.We listened carefully to each other's breathing in the dark.Both the judges' seat and the audience's seat are outside the range of this formation. From their perspective, they can only see a huge black ball on one side of the field.

"What is this?" I heard Coleman's suppressed breathing.

"The Formation of Darkness." I said, kneeling half-kneeling on the ground, with my palm still nailed to the center of the formation. Between us, only it and the effective binding formation were still shining. "The extracurricular readings I studied carefully."

The formation of dark night can completely exhaust the magic power of the recruited in a short period of time.Except for the formation painter in my position, no one within the range of the formation can escape this catastrophe.Its absorption of magic power can supplement the consumption of some array painters, so at this time, I only feel a slight decline in magic power, which is not obvious.

Coleman was different.The temporary restraint formation trapped his feet, and the withdrawal of the magic power made him unable to release the ice blade soul, breaking the formation like the previous year's Grand Competition.I calculated the remaining duration of the temporary binding formation, and my right hand was still clinging to the formation to maintain its operation - this is the disadvantage of the night formation.It is inseparable from friend and foe.I have to maintain this posture all the time, otherwise it will put me in a situation similar to Coleman's in just a dozen seconds.

I plan to pounce on Coleman the moment before the binding formation fails, to withstand the negative impact from the formation of the night, and to fight against him who has exhausted his magic power quickly.

Coleman seemed dazed at first, but now he seemed to have calmed down completely, and Serentian was held tightly against the ground by him.He stared at me with eyes like a lone wolf, and abruptly turned his body to a posture ready to start running at any time.

"Don't be so arrogant," he said.

"Five seconds," I said.

He lowered his eyes, and suddenly raised his movable right hand.

Something broke through the air at that moment, but I inappropriately focused on the smile on his face—it seemed to be a smile with blood on it.Immediately afterwards, I felt a huge pain in the wrist of my right hand. It immediately became numb and swollen, and was moved back by the impact force, out of the position of the center of the formation.

The magic drained from my veins like a tidal wave.The weakness and pain it brought went hand in hand, and I lost my center of gravity for a moment and fell to the ground.The five-second time limit has already receded to the end.I rolled on the spot, avoiding Coleman's fatal second blow.But he had the upper hand; I lay on my back, Charon in my left hand pressed against the Serentian he had regained, and he pushed down, looking down at me.

Desperate, he threw his knife at me—and he succeeded.

I am indeed too arrogant.Even if he really didn't know anything about the tricks of this formation, he still managed to get a hit through observation.My right hand hurts so much when I move even a little bit, not to mention the large formations, even the small runes are probably difficult to draw.The magical advantage I was relying on was gone after his move.

"Give up, Vicente?" he said.His blade was still pressing down, getting closer to my neck.The darkness in the distance is bursting with cracks because it has escaped the control of the painters.

I'm also asking myself the same question.In fact, Dabi is like this—it’s hard to say how complicated it is; if you make a careless move, it will be difficult to get out of the downturn.Just as Coleman strayed into the mirror array before, and then fell into a serial trap.It's just that my situation at this time has fewer turning points and variables than he did at that time.

"What is that, the Fire Control Curse?" Coleman looked to my right.I just tried to draw a complete pattern on the ground by impression, but with little success because of the shaking of my wrist.It only splashed a few scattered sparks, which looked extremely small in this vast darkness.

"Yes." I said. "The beta version is not perfect."

Coleman frowned, expressing that he didn't want to waste time with me.

"Admit defeat?" He confirmed again.

Charon was getting closer and closer to my neck, and the blade gleamed with a dark cold light when it touched Serentian.

——"I will give you Dabi's medal in three years' time."

— "Remember that all I said was 'maybe'?"

— "Then let me take that word out. It's always good to be a little delusional."

I've avoided thinking about my conversation with Karajan ever since, but it pops up now, against dissuasion.And to this day when it goes back to my mind, my blood boils from start to finish.

I gripped Charon's hilt tightly; I seemed to feel the cold temperature of its point on my neck.

"How is that possible?" I said.

Immediately, I felt that the pain in my right hand was nothing, and the sudden influx of magic power from a certain point on my left shoulder made every joint of me groan, and the huge pain exploded all over my body.My soul of the sword sprang out of Charon's blade like a wildfire, across Coleman's cheeks in a flash, and ignited a raging flame behind him.But the number of petals is much more than before, and the rushing speed is so fast, so that I can't tell that their prototype is a piece of flower, and I can't see the trajectory of their emergence.Coleman was probably even more unclear; he looked behind him in shock, where the soaring flames dyed the shattering night red inch by inch.

His hand felt weak, and I escaped from his blade.

I was in pain all over my body, and I still had that overdrawn feeling of suffocation after the magic power erupted, so I could only retreat to a corner of the arena with my arms folded.The shroud of darkness has completely disappeared, but the flames still scurrying in the field, chasing Coleman's figure, and the flames envelop him layer after layer of fiery flames.

"Second detonated 'festival'..." I thought.

I heard someone vaguely saying "fire control spell" in the distance, and then Coleman, whose magic power was exhausted, lost his strength, and this final was finalized.The flames continued to burn unrelentingly, leaving the arena staff in chaos.

There is no suspense about the result of the competition.Ms. Rogers then awarded me the medal and pressed my cheek reluctantly.

"You're wonderful," she said.

Ryan stood aside with a smile, pointing out how to wear the medal - I just realized that the medal of Dabi's name is not to be worn on the chest.It is the size of a thumbcap, delicate and thick, with the Hoftas Academy pattern engraved on the front and my initials engraved on the back, the engraving is still hot; it can be used as a cuff button.

Coleman left after shaking my hand.

"Very powerful," he said, "I didn't expect you to be able to explode with magical power at that time."

The students in the auditorium were already jumping up.I heard someone chanting: "This year's victory belongs to the West Court!" Afterwards, waves of similar voices were overshadowed.The people in the east courtyard were obviously not satisfied, and immediately started a verbal war with the other side.The seats in the west courtyard have been completely flooded by the ocean of joy, and the little flowers and birds rushed to hug me, as if they wanted to lift me up and turn me around a few times, but failed.Odd also put his arm lightly around my shoulders.

I made excuses to leave the party early and returned to the apartment exhausted.Those duels, cheers, and heat of the flames seem to have been thrown into the distant past at this moment, leaving only the traces of the deep-rooted pain.I stroked the medal pinned to my left sleeve, opened the door, and thought about how to throw myself on the bed in the fastest way.

But a closed wooden box stopped me in my tracks.I stared at it for a moment, then picked it up from the ground.The door closed behind me and was firmly pressed against my back.I seemed to have a premonition, and the hand that opened the lid of the box was a little unsteady.

Inside the box was a pale gold short knife—the one I was familiar with, with a beautiful rose engraved on the handle.There is no signature on any corner of the box, only a short note floating on the floor with my actions.

My knees stiffened, as if the magic had been drained from me once again.I couldn't even make a normal picking up action, so I had to lean down to look at it.There was a short line written on the note, facing me, and spread out on the ground from left to right:

"You conquered me, so it's yours."

I rushed to the half-open window inside the house.As the window sash was pushed open by me, there was only the silence of the night, and the shadows of the trees were dancing outside, as if no one had ever passed by here.

Charon has been taken back into my body, and "Molten Flame" is placed on the side waist by me, and the hem of the coat hides its existence.I was running around the academy—it wasn't really late at night, but it was getting dark, misty and steamy, and the moon was half behind the clouds.I stumbled across a few places before I belatedly realized that my search for people was so chaotic.But I was very tired; my steps slowed down and began to lead me aimlessly towards the East Court.

I slipped through the gate of the east courtyard familiarly, and found that I was walking through the foggy Berlin and heading for the back mountain.I always thought there was something there, and then I remembered that I had planted a handful of Charon seeds there two years ago on a run.I picked out the larger patches of lesser terrain for planting, and often tended to them with the eagerness of a half-gardener as I passed.The last time I saw them, they had sprouted a little sprout from the soil.But after my physical training ended, I didn't make a conscious effort to revisit the old places.

I followed my memory and turned around the mountain a few times.I almost walked to the familiar place with my eyes closed.It is not just a field of weeds anymore, after two years, the orange-red Charon flowers have grown into a particularly lush area, and the slender flower stems even grow up to my waist height.I touched the petals of one of them; it looked soft and warm.

But in the overlapping flower shadows, my eyes suddenly passed another group of shadows that did not belong to this mountain.Someone was sitting not far away enjoying the tranquility, and those orange flowers happened to cover his head.I took a deep breath and stepped back.I can feel some charon flowers flicking against my calf.

I heard a rustling sound.The cluster of flower shadows was slowly pushed away from the bottom, revealing the man's face under the moonlight.

"Congratulations, Vicente," he said, looking at me deeply. "Long time no see."

For a split second I forgot how I should react.I asked him about a lot of questions - they all flooded him beyond my senses.I remember I asked him why he came to Hoftas, what kind of past he had, the secret of "fusion", why he gave me his knife... I also mentioned Lando.He just looked at me with his eyes and didn't answer a single question.

"I can't answer," he said. "Why don't you play with me, Vicente."

He undoubtedly acquiesced in those people's judgment on him.My knife fell on my hand with a slight tremor, and I exchanged dozens of strokes with him in a short period of time.Maybe it can't be called an exchange—I'm too rampant, I have lost all the shackles of logic, and I only let fatigue, cruelty and sadness affect my every move.The deliberate planning that I could have made only a few hours ago suddenly became too difficult together.Karajan didn't even have a knife in his hand, and he beat me like he beat the beginner.

But he didn't raise his hand to defeat, barely maintaining a tie with me.

The bones of my hand wielding the knife were creaking, and the sequelae of the detonation of the "section" were constantly reminding me of my inability to continue.I didn't stop there, trying to use up the last of my energy in the process, so that my mind, which was full of doubts, could stop - doubts are always painful.It pained me so much, especially at the moment when Karajan's face irrefutably returned to my "reality."

I finally couldn't bear my own forward momentum at a certain step, and Karajan fell to the ground with me.He seemed to have forgotten to dodge and let me fall on him.

The nearby flowers were overwhelmed by us.I tried my best to prop up my elbows from his side, and found that he was still looking at me, Charon's hair was scattered around his neck, and the moonlight was rolling in his eyes.We were so close that our breaths and eyes blended with each other.

The knife in my hand fell to the ground blankly.I seemed to wake up a little suddenly, and I was able to speak again.

"I don't mind what's behind the 'fusion'. I know you didn't want to open up the soul of the sword for me in the early days of teaching me." I said, "Teaching me the way of the sword is for all your purposes—no matter what— — makes no sense. Why would you do that?"

In fact, even I'm not entirely sure of my own words, but I think I've hit my bet.Karajan froze in place, and I could feel his body stiffen.It seemed to be his first gaffe tonight.

There was a bit of tearing pain in my back - I couldn't hold on to this position, and I might fall down again at any time.I gasped under my breath, trying to think of something else to cover it up.I thought my blood had cooled down in the cold air long ago, but it hasn't yet; it has turned into a more intense and calm madness, covered with a spiked battle suit, let me speak at this moment Nonsense - I know what I shouldn't say.I don't even know what I'm talking about.Coleman was right before, I don't understand anything.

"You asked me the day you taught me how to use the knife why you sacrificed for me. I couldn't give an answer then, but I can try to give you a reason now." I said, "Because you are very love me, right?"

He was silent for a moment, looking at me without blinking.Then I heard him faintly let out a dry, muffled laugh, and his chest trembled under me.

"I, do I love you?" he whispered, "Yes. Yes."

He grabbed my collar, pulled me down, and kissed me deeply.

For a moment I saw the landscape in front of me change from the earth to the sky, but that small gap was quickly filled by Karajan.We seem to have been kissing for a long time, asking for each other, so long that the smell of blood spread from our lips and teeth, and the faint breath of those Charon flowers filled our nasal cavity.I seemed to plunge headlong into a boundless and desperate killing, but a flower fell gently from the bottom of my heart - just like the color that flower should have, fiery and gentle.

Karajan suddenly grabbed my hand and pulled me up from the crushed Charon flowers.Bits of dust slid off us; we stood facing each other, and he put my left hand cautiously to his lips.

"Please fall in love with me too," he said.