Back with another chapter. I'm glad that I can keep this momentum going, even if the chapters are a little shorter. But I enjoyed writing this one.

See you at the bottom.

Chapter 25

The Roar of the Crowd

I swallowed the lump in my throat, looking at my opponent. Already there seemed to be an aura of rage emanating from him, ready to explode right at me.

Apart from my own duel with him, I never really paid attention to Diaz. But Lord Grant's words began to echo in my head. "The Loafian style is designed to wear down an opponent before delivering a final blow. You'll be placed in a test of endurance." My first duel with Diaz ended rather quickly due to the accident that happened. But now we weren't surrounded by people we could hurt, which was both a blessing and a curse. I didn't have to hold back at all…but neither did he.

The sounds of Ms. Azurica introducing us was muffled as I took in a deep breath. The crowd's muttering became white noise.

Let's end this silly little rivalry right now.

I held my sword at my side, removing my heels from the floor. Diaz narrowed his eyes as he pointed the tip of his sword towards me. A cold bead of sweat ran down the left side of my face. It clung to my skin for a brief second.

Then the match started.

I pushed off the ground, taking two steps forward before swinging my sword around towards Diaz. He took a step backwards, leaning back so the tip of my blade barely missed. He raised his sword to bring it down on my head. I smiled slightly as I let go of the grip and caught the sword with my other hand, immediately changing the momentum of the sword to swing back towards Diaz's stomach. He instantly had to make the choice between retreating or continuing the swing and forfeit the match. Unfortunately for me, he chose the former, throwing himself backwards and out of reach.

I took a moment to change my sword back to my dominant hand, not stopping myself from feeling a little bit proud of the fact Diaz looked a little surprised at my quick turnaround. That soon turned to anger however, and he began his assault.

He gripped his sword with both hands, resting his sword on his shoulder and took a huge stride towards me, swinging at me with all his strength. With that speed, I wouldn't simply be able to dodge it by moving backwards. I ducked underneath the swing, sweeping my leg into his. He fell onto his side. I used my momentum to put power into my overhead swing, which I brought down onto where Diaz laid. To my surprise, the only thing that the sword hit was the hard, wooden floor, sending a shock straight back into arm. I felt my fingers protest against gripping my sword, but I managed to hold onto it, taking a moment to breathe while I figured out how a man of Diaz's size managed to roll away so quickly.

The room rumbled with cheers. I shook the shock out of my arm, Diaz standing ready for me. He had that cocky smirk back on his face, probably thanks to the momentum of the crowd turning to his favour. That aura that he had at the beginning seemed to intensify. He was feeding off the crowd.

It suddenly clicked for me. The reason he had gathered such a huge crowd for our duel, the reason he tried to pick a fight in the lunch hall…and the reason he stopped during the second year. He wanted the crowd to see him. He craved the attention. He can feed off it to empower himself.

Not going to lie, for a second, I became discouraged. If this fight continued to go this way, he would only get more momentum. And with the Loafian Style's tactics, it would surely spell doom for me.

Behind him, up in the crowd, I saw Luna sat there next to Becchi. She was watching me with an intense gaze, paying attention to every move I made. That was enough to make any form of doubt wash away.

I took a deep breath and prepared to strike again. Diaz's smirk disappeared, and his aura seemed to falter a little. He raised his sword over his head, mimicking a traditional High Norkian Style single hit Sword Art.

I extended my left leg, bending the right to lower my centre of gravity. My sword was at shoulder height, parallel to the ground. The blade portion began to glow gold. I felt my heartbeat quicken and I sucked in breath, feeling the energy building up in my sword. My muscles felt like they were burning.

"Let's end this."

I leapt forward, the energy built up sending me forward. At the same time, Diaz slammed his right foot forward to send his blade forth with more power. I brought my sword around the front and the two wooden blades clashed.

The energy from each of our strikes seemed to shake the very air around us, static electricity crackling from the two blades grinding against each other. Gold and red sparks flew from the point of contact.

I gritted my teeth. After all the pain from unleashing the Sword Art, the absolute power behind Diaz's strike was almost too much to handle. It almost felt like my arms were being torn apart and the skin was going to split. But despite that, the raw power in my own strike was keeping Diaz's sword at bay.

It was almost enough to break me…

"Don't break."

That voice came back to me.

"You stood at the Crown of Infinity and lived. Nothing will break you, as long as you have a reason to fight."

"I won't let you win this time!" Diaz's voice came from the other side of the sword lock.

"Sorry…" My arms were at their limit, and my legs couldn't support me much longer. "But I've been through far worse than you!"

A surge of strength came from within me, and I used it to push back against him. My sword slid down to his crossguard. All the built up energy was expended, and I used the last of my strength to push up. Diaz was forced onto his backfoot. I broke the sword lock with one last push, and knocked his sword out of the way, throwing his sword up and behind him.

I grabbed his jacket with my left hand, wrapping the fabric around my fist. I extended my sword arm, and pulled as hard as I could. Diaz stumbled forwards, completely off balance, and his gut met the edge of the sword. His body folded around the blade, ripping it from my hand, before collapsing to the ground.

"That's the match!"

It was kind of incredible how quickly who the crowd was rooting for was changed. It kind of made me wonder if Diaz's first match was so impressive to them that they had forgotten my first match. But still, the cheers they gave were nice.

I looked back up at Luna. It was funny. This whole crowd cheering, and yet it was one girl's that meant the most.

It finally settled in that I can fulfil my promise to Kimiko, and I've made it one step closer to my final goal.

Behind me though…I could feel a boiling rage slowly building. I turned around to see Diaz on the floor, clutching his right eye and breathing heavily.

I took a deep breath. Even though he had been a major pain in the ass over the past two years…part of me still felt sorry for him. Another dream was shattered in the pursuit of my past. And judging by his crouched form and heavy breathing, he wasn't taking it well. I walked over to him. If this doesn't work, I don't know what will.

I patted him on the shoulder as I walked past and said. "You gave me a run for my money there. Good fight."

His heavy breathing seemed to cease. The aura of rage seemed to soften a little. By the way he looked up at me, he seemed to still hate me, but the rage that he expected to turn to triumph was at least tempered a little.

I went into the waiting room, where I was immediately winded by Kimiko wrapping her arms around me. "I didn't doubt you, but it's nice to know you succeeded."

"Well, I had a promise to keep." I patted the back of her hair.

The only other person in the room let out a small laugh. "If you two are that close, are you sure you could actually fight each other?"

Kimiko let a cocky grin slip. "It's the opposite. It's because we're close that we can fight at our hardest."

He leaned back on the bench and smirked. "Well, don't fight too hard. Wouldn't want you to fall over from a light breeze."

Kimiko let go of me, letting me walk over to the rack and replace my sword. My muscles were still aching somewhat from using that Sword Art. She seemed to notice, looking at me worried. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just sore." I sat down, rolling my shoulders to try and loosen them up, but it only lead to more pain.

Kimiko grabbed my arm. "Hold still." She held my hand palm up and opened my Stacia Window. "Oh god…what did you do…?"

I looked at her, confused. I moved my Stacia Window so I could see what it read. Then I realised her concern. My Life had decreased to half. "How did that happen?"

Kimiko shook her head. "System Call. Generate Luminous Element." Five yellow lights appeared at her fingertips. They converged to form a larger ball in the centre of her hand. And she pressed her palm against my chest. I was too busy trying to stop my heart rate from increasing to look at the Stacia Window to confirm, but the pain began to sooth. She smiled shyly as she removed her hand. "Can't have you with a handicap. I wouldn't feel satisfied with beating you then."

"I think you missed an 'if' in there." I shot back.

Ms Azurica entered the room. "Kimiko and Aldon, you're both taking on each other first."

Kimiko let go of my arm. "I'll see you soon."

"Good luck." I nodded.

She waved as she walked to the duelling hall. I took a deep breath as I was alone. I could hear the crowd in the distance, but they might as well have been silent, because it was just background noise at this point.

Maybe I should get some more rest…

Should probably mention that I know the conclusion to Diaz's duel might feel a little underwhelming, but this isn't actually the conclusion. When that will be...you'll have to wait and see. But I genuinely enjoyed writing that duel. Incorporating more of Light's physical ability as a swordsman is always a fun way to add to the duels. It's the main reason he is so physical: the duels become so much fun to write. You might say that he resembles Eiji more than Kirito. You can thank Kristina for that.

Reviews:

blackbutterfly1313: Your reviews are always too kind... :)

I looked at my Word document, and this story has now reached page 100. Like...that's just crazy to me. When I get round to doing the actual No Land Beyond, I know most volumes would exceed that, but spending that much time on something I'm passionate about...it's crazy. And thank you all for reading it so I can keep that passion.

Thank you for reading. 25 chapters, 100 pages, 54100 words and we're still nowhere near done. I hope you can stick around until the end. As always, until next time, Stay Cool.