Swords and Fire vs Water

Shirou and Rai attacked the dragon-blood together. Rai swung his red jade daiklave towards the man's chest but the man blocked it with his own sword, Shirou took the chance to attack at the same time, expecting to hit the man's heart but the dragon-blood stepped to the side and with his spare hand grabbed Shirou's sword and held it away from him. Rai and Shirou both jumped away from the dragon-blood who didn't even seem to have been wounded by grabbing a swinging sword blade.

"How did he do that?" Shirou muttered.

Rai heard him and answered quietly "Supernatural Martial Arts, if he is using the one I suspect he will be able to repeat that at no extra cost." Rai focused "We will have to keep attacking together to have a hope of hitting him."

The dragon-blood stepped forward then and swung his wavecleaver daiklave, Shirou raised his blade to parry but the sword strike was as fast and strong as the previous one, the blade whipped past his guard. Shirou had seen him do this before though so the reflexes developed fighting servants allowed him to move his guard so it was slightly more effective. He was still cut and the wound stung but less so than it could have.

Rai took his chance and swung towards the dragon-blood, when that was blocked he quickly stabbed towards the man's gut but he grabbed the blade and threw it aside. This left him open as Shirou swung towards him. The man smiled however and backed up a few steps, dodging the attack. Shirou wasn't done yet though.

When he figured out what caused most of his tracing to fail he reasoned that he would still have at least one blade that worked perfectly. It appeared in his hand and he swung it; A traced copy of the same sword that Rai was wielding. The man's eyes widened in shock as an artifact appeared out of the air but Shirou completed the strike, the dragon-blood yelled in pain and fury but Shirou quickly saw the man's wound was much smaller than it should of been. The feeling had been wrong, like cutting a scaled creature instead of flesh.

The man struck. He attacked twice, once for Shirou and once for Rai. Shirou took yet another injury while Rai managed to deflect the speeding sword with his own blade that moved faster than it should. Shirou was starting to feel light headed from the blood loss but he wouldn't let his focus break.

Rai swung with a fury launching a flurry of three attacks. The first two were respectively parried with his sword and hand like before and he was forced to dodge the last attack.

Shirou stepped in to launch his own attacks, Aestus Estus Reficio cut towards the man's belly and the man managed to dodge this one only to be caught by a swing from Rai's copied weapon. Again the wound was weakened but the man was starting to tire so Shirou took the opportunity to swing again with Aestus Estus Reficio. The blade cut into the man's shoulder but this time it wasn't weakened in any way. Whatever method he was using to weaken the damage was likely costly and he couldn't afford it while fighting any longer.

The man was fueling his actions with rage now, he leaped into the air and spun once. His blade carried the momentum in an attack on Shirou. He raised Aestus Estus Reficio as he realised his arms were aching. While he was exalted now, wielding two large swords was greatly taxing him. He physically couldn't block with both swords or he wouldn't be able to lift them for an attack.

This attack was going to be stronger than the previous attacks so Shirou had to improvise or be gutted. As the blade hit his own he let go of Aestus Estus Reficio and dropped to the ground. His sword went flying but at least he was uninjured. His blade landed into the ship's hull.

Rai once again attacked first, though it looked like he was starting to tire as well. Again the enemy dragon-blood managed to parry or dodge all of them but that left him open to Shirou he made three attacks with his own copy of Rai's sword. The man said something that sounded like a swear word and dodged the first two attacks before getting speared by the third. Shirou wasn't done yet though. With the last of his strength he traced the man's own wavecleaver daiklave and swung it towards him. The man's eyes opened wide just as the sword cut across his torso letting blood fly. it wasn't a shallow wound.

As the man collapsed Shirou could see some of his guts start to fall out. He would die in moments. Rai didn't wait for that however, he pushed the man over and used his own sword to behead the man. Shirou was queasy, Rai had executed him so easily. True, Shirou had given him a mortal wound and he acknowledged that he would feel less pain this way it still felt strange.

Shirou then looked around, the attack was just about over. The enemy ships were in retreat and their fleet was meeting back up to tally up the dead. He noticed Aestus Estus Reficio was missing from wear it had fallen so he focused and made it disappear so the thief couldn't do anything with it.

Rai brought Shirou to have his wounds healed and he then went with a scribe and an expert on different dragon-bloods. They would try to figure out who he was and add him to the ledger of the dead. There was little hope of identifying the regular soldiers however.

Shirou lay on a mat as a healer tended to his wounds. His wounds were not serious so it was just a mortal healer that could apply salves and other medicines. After that his wounds were wrapped in cloth and he was told to go and rest below deck.

End of chapter

Sorry if the fight got repetitive.

Regardless a new rule for the reforged reality marble; any weapon native to Creation doesn't need to be reforged to be able to be used in combat. He still can reforge them though if he wants to.