Chapter 12: The winner is...

Fuck, this is really terrifying. Being on the receiving end of all of his captains glares is a very harrowing experience. It felt as if they are staring directly into his soul and peeling it off slowly, a little at a time.

He wished the emotion called fear or nervousness never existed. Unfortunately, the incubus race did not come with any emotion suppression traits, instead they can sense and manipulate the emotions and use it to their advantage. Merlin can feel the full brunt Esdeath bloodlust and excitement.

Still, he refused to back down now. If he win or lose, he looked back at Morgan and the rest of his captains, the way they started breaking the stone with their bare hands. He started to sweat alot; either way, he is screwed.

The two stood in the middle of the clearing. They were separated from each other by a distance of approximately twenty meters.

"…"

"…"

For some reason, they just stood there, staring at each other. It was a bit awkward, so Merlin decided to ask Morgana to be the referee. He turned around and decided against it, as she had a gentle smile on her face, but he could see something dark behind her.

*Shudders*

Merlin slowly turned around and ignored what he just saw. He is eager to test himself against a strong opponent. He pulled out a sword from his inventory and drew it out. ''Are you ready, yet?" Esdeath said impatiently. He decided to examine her, tying to remember her data.

Name : Esdeath

Level : 100

Title: Battle Maniac, The strongest Woman, Ice Queen

Alignment: Nuetral Evil

Racial Levels:

Yuki Onna: 40

Job Levels:

Charisma: LV 5

Sword Master: LV 15

Sword Saint: Lv 10

Knight of Niflheim: LV 10

Valkyrie: LV 10

Commander: LV 5

Gun Master LV5

Total LV: 100 (Racial Class: 40/ Job Class: 60

Ability Chart:

HP: 800

Sp : 700

PHY ATK: 160

PHY DEF: 175

AGILITY: 80

MAG ATK: 70

MAG DEF: 40

RESIST: 70

SPECIAL: 80

Total Stats: 675

"Then, shall we begin?" He asked as he entered what he thought was a decent combat stance.

She mimicked his actions and entered a stance of her own. She held her sword in a two handed grip, while her body slightly hunched forward preparing to run towards him. Esdeath looked like a predator about to pounce their prey.

In order to test the waters, he decided to open the battle with a teir 3 fireball spell. As it started to form; it felt so familiar as if he had done it a thousand times and yet it is impossible. He looked down at his hand as he felt the heat radiating. It was a mistake, which almost cost him the battle.

Esdeath suddenly lowered her center of gravity and jumped up so fast, she disappeared from his point of veiw. The ground beneath her feet cracked and exploded into dust.

It woke him up from his trance and he threw the fireball at her. She jumped up over the fireball as she went down towards him, with her sword going in a downward slash.

Merlin barely had the time to widen his eyes and raise his sword to block it before the blue-haired swordswoman was upon him. It caused his knees to bend down on the floor as his arms started to shake from the pressure she caused.

Unfortunately, he was less prepared for her follow-up attack.

He was about to play a spell, when she reared back and kicked his stomach. He tried to twist his body to dodge, but he was still weak as his body was numb from the attack. She sent his body flying in the air. He bounced along the plain like a skipped stone in a pond. His vision distorted in different colors of blue with white and green. After what felt like an eternity, the world came to an abrupt halt. More accurately, his body finally stopped moving as he stared at the sky.

He groggily lifted his head up, only to discover that he was currently lying within a meter-deep trench in the ground. It was no doubt a result of his sudden and entirely unwanted landing.

Merlin glanced over at his opponent, planning to cast a spell, as he heard a few gasps from the stands.

Esdeath's eyes were cold. She went out of her stance, and stood up with her sword on her shoulder. She sighed as she shook her head, ''Haaa, I thought you would be at least a challenge, guild master. I guess, I'll have to kill you and be the new guild master.''

''Sorry about that, I just wanted to test your reflexes; it seems I underestimated you." Merlin said, as he gritted his teeth; as he slowly picked himself up from the ground as he pat his clothes, getting rid of some of the dirt.

"Finally, you better get serious, if not, then I won't be responsible for your death." She said as she put her sword infront of her again. She created icicles and sent them at him.

Merlin frowned as he casted a magical shield. It appeared in front of him and stopped them. She nodded her head, a little pleased that he started to use magic.

He watched carefully as Esdeath once again reared her right foot back and lowered her center of gravity. She was planning to attack again. He could see it not only in her actions but also in her eyes; a steely glare practically glowing with bloodlust. He refused to give her the chance.

Now, let's see if this works…

He widened his stance, multiple cards of different color's started to spin around him. Merlin picked a red card and sent mana into it.

The card started to shine blindly. Esdeath stayed where she was; she wanted to see what the spell would do. Unkown to her, Merlin put a card down a few feet behind him when she focused her gaze on the red card.bAn ephemeral blue light suddenly danced around him. The lights gathered together, forming a gun.

This large revolver is big and has some weight makes it fairly easy to handle. It has a heavy amount of firepower with great accuracy.

It comes with decorations made of ivory and a standard barrel.

Its official name is the 5P-DSS, but generally its called Comet.

Name: 5P-DSS (Comet)

Weapon type : Pistol

Attack damage : 205 pts per shot x prana input

Accuracy : 96%

Recoil : 32%

Durability: 100/100

Bullets: 10/10

''Is that supposed to impress me?" Esdeath just shook her head as she scoffed.

All he did was just smiled as he aimed the gun at her. When he fired it, the bullet glowed a bright blue color at a fast speed.

When it made direct contact with her sword, the blast was more than enough to lift her off her feet, directly onto the path of another bullet. For the next few seconds, Esdeath was bombarded by over eight magically enhance projectiles.

Merlin jumped up high into the air for the final attack. He put mana into ten more red cards. All of them different types guns as he fired them all.

The final attack came in the form of 100 bullets streaking down from up above her. Each bullet, drove her further into the hard earth. After the hundredth and final blast, Esdeath was practically barried 10 feet in dirt.

''Wow, that was awesome, right mommy?'' Mylaela shouted with sparkles in her eyes.

Morgan just scoffed, ''He's just showing off. I can't believe him, not even using his full might."

Nimue nodded, ''Of course, did you forget who this is? It's the same guy, who does stupid things which charmed the ladies. An idiotic playboy."

''What's a playboy?'' asked with her head tilted to the side.

They all stiffened at the question, remembering that there is a small child here. They all looked at each other and silently agreed to not to say anything about that.

"It's nothing important, sweetie. Look, Esdeath is starting to get serious now." Morgana said pointing with her finger, towards the field.

Still, despite taking the full brunt of his most favored spell, Esdeath was moderately harmed. The only thing remotely out of place about her was the small gashes with blood on her uniform and the ripped pieces of her combat outfit, which showed that she's not wearing a bra. She has a light blush on her face as she saw what happened to her clothes. She used her ice power to cover herself in her uniform.

He can see her breasts sways when she's breathing. He got destracted by her light pink nipple. Merlin could feel a different case of bloodlust coming from the stands. He started to sweat heavily, scared of finding what's behind him. He shook his head as he turned his focus back to the battle.

Although he had prepared himself for failure, it was still a bit disheartening to see his weapon's spell less than desirable outcome. He needed more time to think of a better plan, but Esdeath decided to get serious, as the air started to become cold and ice slowly started to appear on the ground.

Merlin decided to stall her with another salvo of bullets. It worked well enough as a distraction; he can build up mana to summon one of his more powerful fire card. Hopefully, it'll only take a few minutes for it to work.

Unfortunately, the moment Esdeath heard the familiar sound of bullets whistling through the air, she immediately made her move.

Instead of heading straight for him like last time, she jumped to the right. She ran around the perimeter of the field, narrowly avoiding the magical projectiles. None hit her, but it did not end there, as the bullets either exploded or did nothing.

Esdeath made pillars of ice to block the bullets and to cover her next move. She shot out shards of ice, forcing Merlin to move away from where he was.

Merlin couldn't help but be impressed by her. Esdeath zigzagged across the courtyard making obstacles to hinder his bullets; with streaks of blue ice trailing her. She briefly glanced back, taking stock of the enviroment. The corners of her lips slightly twitched upward, as she took stock of his postion.

Without warning, she changed directions. The light blue haired woman made a beeline towards Merlin.

He briefly wondered what she is planning, when his eyes widened in panic as he lost her. She simply melted into a puddle when one bullet grazed her.

He narrowed his eyes and he reloaded his gun. He checked his fire card. It needed 10 seconds more before it was ready.

He looked to the left amd right but he couldn't see where she was, with all the pillars giving her the perfect places to hide behind.

In less than a second, Esdeath was on top of him, literally. She placed her new guns down towards his head and heart, ready to shoot him. Sadly, she miscalculated his reaction speed.

She looked down, feeling something poking under her chin and chest. It was one of his gun poointing at her chest and a knife is pointing under her chin. He smirked as she let loose a growl.

The two stared at each other for a minute. At some point, they had entered some sort of weird stand-off. They can each hear each other breathing hard, sweat running down their faces, as they looked into each others eyes.

Now would have been a good time to speak up and call it a draw, but a part of him hesitated.

Not like this; he couldn't call it a draw. It wouldn't feel right. It wouldn't be right. Beaten and bruised, opening his mouth feels like a defeat. What little pride he had left, prevented him from following through with his original plan.

He shook his head. For now, he needed to find a way to get up from under her and... 'What's that smell? It's sweet.' Merlin thought, as he looked where the smell is coming from. It's from Esdeath.

Her eyes started to soften a little as she looked at him.

Merlin decided to use this brief respite to assess the damage to his Hp. While he wasn't entirely sure if the concept of Health Points still applied to this new situation, it did not hurt to check. With a subtle use of Discern Life, Merlin soon discovered that he was down by a little less than 80% of 100%. So he took a 20% damage in the battle.

Using the skill was weird. In the game, the spell would normally just directly show him the HP, but here, it was different. It only gave him this vague feeling, similar to someone tracing an outline on his back.

He also used the spell on Esdeath. Much to his shock, she is closer to full health; he had barely shaved 10% percent off. Apparently, she can recover her health using the surrounding ice; he can see her health slowly going back up.

"Heh, I thought I had you there, you know." Esdeath said, slightly out of breath.

"You were close. I almost didn't have time to react." Merlin nodded as he looked at her face before he closed his eyes, ready to cast the spell and end this.

Esdeath suddenly smirked as her whole body suddenly became an ice sculpture. The area surrounding Merlin, all became ice as it trapped him. Merlin opened his eyes wide as he couldn't move anymore; nor could he cast any magic. He heard a clicking sound slowly coming towards him, and Merlin tensed up as he saw Esdeath walking. She stopped 10 feet from him.

''How did you like my ice clone? I created her to trap you as I set up this spell.'' Esdeath explained, the ground started to shake heavily and they heard something coming up from the ground underneath him. Esdeath continued, ''I guess this is the end master, admit defeat and I'll stop. If you don't well, I always wanted to have a frozen sculpure of you.''

Merlin tried shooting at the ice covering him, but it keeps growing back. Before he could do anything else, the large pillar of ice broke out from the ground making a large dust cloud and cover him completely.

Esdeath heard screams coming from the stands, ''Master! Daddy! Honey!'' They are all shocked at how the battle ended. Before Morgan and the rest jumped down to the arena to save him, they heard Esdeath exclaimed loudly, ''Don't interfere, he's not dead!''

They went still with wide eyes hoping to see him safe. They waited for a few minutes, the dust cloud finally disapated and all they saw was a pillar of ice with a lot of blood on the tip dripping slowly downwards. They all breathed in relief that he isn't dead but worried at the large amount of blood.

Esdeath frown wondering where he is hiding. She slowly walked foward, her sword is in her hand and the gun is slighty raised above her waist. She slowly went towards the back of the pillar; when she got to the corner, she moved fast and shot a couple of bullets hoping to hit him, bit all she hit was air. Merlin isn't there, she laxed her guard and blinked.

Merlin smirked and slowly went down behind her. He thought, 'For some reason, they always never looked up. He thought she knew he could fly. Well, easier for him.' He raised his sword and was about to slash at her, but she suddenly turned around and blocked it.

''Heh, nice try, but not good enough.'' Esdeath said with a smirk as she tried to overpower him. They locked in a stalement for a few moments, before she raised her leg and kicked him. Merlin moved backwards with the kick; he took in the result of the battle as he caught his breath.

It should have surprised him, but truth be told, he had subconsciously come to expect such an outcome. From their brief exchange, he understood several things. First of all, Esdeath was pretty knowledgeable of Yggdrasil skills.

Not only was she powerful, but she was also skilled. The way she moved around on the battlefield and utilized everything to her advantage spoke greatly of her martial prowess and tactical capacity. Esdeath was not just some NPC brought to life less than an hour ago, she was a commander with a lifetime's worth of experience on the battlefield.

He wanted to stop, but held himself back at the last minute. He doesn't think she would stop if he call it a draw. Fortunately, it wasn't entirely hopeless. His trump card was ready to be played. All he needed to do now was to get back there.

Less than five seconds had passed since he first started analyzing the situation, Esdeath once more moved to attack.

She raised her hand casting ice spears, it moved fast and then she charged towards him.

He fired off quick shots, hoping to throw off or destroy the spears. Unfortunately, she just made more when he destroyed some.

They surrounded him, blocking his exits as she struck out with her sword. Eveything slowed down for him. Merlin slowly drifted to the right, barely avoiding the initial blow. One ice spear went towards his head, but he turned his head to the side, making it miss as it passed him. The second went to his chest, but he bent his body backwards; he saw his reflection as it slowly sailed passed him.

Time went back to normal as he stood back up. He was unprepared when she did a follow up attack. She swept the weapon to the side, the shaft colliding with his exposed abdomen. Merlin breathed out a quick gasp, but unlike their previous exchanges, he managed to maintain his footing.

The incubus reared his hand back and pulled out a divine-rank zanpakuto from within his inventory space. The sword was an item he created after he saw the anime bleach. It gave him so many ideas about creating weapons after he saw the zanpakuto turned into humanoid. Before he could call out it's name, Esdeath moved to stop him.

Merlin struck out with his weapon as he tsked. Esdeath was quick to respond, blocking the blade with the edge of her own sword. The duo exchanged blows for a while, but it quickly became clear that he was outclassed in terms of skill. Skill was pretty obvious, he obviously wasn't a sword guy.

The short exchange left his body scarred and bleeding. While his high-speed recovery racial trait was already working hard to heal him, he needed to find a way to turn the tides. If the situation continued as is, then he was guaranteed to lose.

Just as he was about to force her back, she stepped into his guard and disarmed his sword. His weapon went flying, sailing past them and stopped 21 feet behind him with the blade pointed down.

Merlin gritted his teeth, he quickly used a spell card 'Time stop'. A violent wave of invisible energy swept through the courtyard with him as the epicenter. It froze through the grass, the earth, along with everything else within a ten-meter radius, even Esdeath.

Time Stop

Spell Card

Cast time: Instant

Cost: depending on the area and people affected (10-999... mana)

Duration: depending on the area and people addected (1-999... seconds)

Merlin did not let the opportunity go to waste, it would only last for a few seconds before she would move again. With a quick Burst, Merlin practically threw his body backward, further increasing the distance between the two combatants; he reached his sword and he could see that she had already recovered. Even now, she was preparing for another lunge. Merlin grapsed it as he raised it infront of him, he called out it's shikai, ''Reduce All Creation to Ash''.

BOOOOOM!

They watched as a large amount of fire went out of the sword and they felt the huge surge of mana pressing down on them, before it disappeared. Merlin had never felt anything like it before, he can feel the power of it's shikai. He absolutely loved it.

He could hear the distant sound of heels clicking within the arena. He felt the minute changes in temperature brought about by the fire. Even from here, he could see each strand of light blue hair that cascaded over Esdeath's face. He had never felt so alive. It was almost overwhelming.

Merlin snapped out of his reverie when he noticed that she started to move again. She laughed, ''Hahaha, now this is a fight.'' She pulled out her zanpakuto and said the shikai release, ''Sode no Shirayuki.'' After saying that, she was covered in a tornado of snow; he could feel the temperature starting to get cold on her side. It lasted for a few seconds until it died down. Esdeath looked the same but her blade is completely white; it was reconized as the most beautiful zanpakuto ever.

He saw the way her body tensed, her heels slightly dug into the dirt, just as her body slightly leaned forward. She was preparing to use one of the ''Dances'' of Sode no Shirayuki. He did not give her the chance. Without hesitation, he shot forward; in the blink of an eye, he was upon her with a sword already in his hand.

Her eyes widened in surprise, not expecting him to be fast as she hastily brought up her sword to block. Merlin's blade clashed against hers as steam hissed when they made contact.

The two exchanged blows, although it was mostly him trying to break her guard. Each strike erupted forth with devastating force. Small arcs of fire and ice flew through the air as they tried to overpower each other. Unfortunately, despite all the flashy fireworks, they were still evenly matched.

Merlin decided to try something crazy; he didn't block the next attack when she aimed to stab his face. He caught it between his teeth. It caused Esdeath to widen her eyes surprised at his daring.

A small smile stretched his lips as he held the sword. He sliced at her chest. Without a doubt, it would be a direct hit.

Before he could start celebrating though, Merlin suddenly felt a heavy blow impact his stomach. It stole his breath away and forced him to let go of the sword. Wind rushed past him as he found himself flying through the air. Unlike before, he immediately twisted his body and propelled himself back down to the ground with his zanpakuto to slow him down.

Still, for Esdeath to retaliate immediately after my attack, it was something he had not expected.

He looked up at his opponent. She looked unbothered as she put her leg back down. In fact, she stared back at him with a frown on her face.

The following exchange was the longest within the entire fight. The difference was almost jarring.

A single clash resorted in her flying nearly halfway across the courtyard. In the blink of an eye, he was upon her. With a downward swing of his sword, he slammed her straight into the ground, creating a big hole in the process. He jumped backwards and said, ''Do you give up yet? We bot know I will win eventually.''

Esdeath let out a gasp and replied, ''No, never, I never give up. Only the weak give up and dies.'' Her arms trembled as she got out of the hole. Although she had managed to block his swing at the last second, it did little to actually mitigate the damage she received. Blocking just one of his blows already took so much out of her. She did not want to imagine what would happen if she were to receive any more of them.

No, confronting him head-on was inadvisable. Esdeath stood there in a familiar combat stance. Her breath ran ragged, but her eyes shined with determination. She said, ''Tsugi No Mai, Hakuren.'' After a short pause, she puncture the ground in front of her; holding her sword out in front of her, it generates a large amount of ice, which surges forward towards him.

In response, he said, ''Taimatsu.'' It created a great inferno with a wave of his zanpakuto meeting her attack, head on. When they clashed in the middle, it caused a great explosion pushing them back and destroying the arena. It caused a big dust cloud to form completely hiding them from view, but they could feel each other, still.

Merlin decided to end this fast. He used the surrounding fire as fuel for the card. It glowed orange red for 2 seconds before it exploded and formed a dragon. It was 10 meters high with a wing span of 4 meters.

Esdeath laughed, "Ha ha. I got something hidden too." Next to her a blizzard of ice tornado appeared. It started out small, then it grew bigger a d bigger until it took shape and formed a dragon.

He frowned at how she made it look. He said nothing and the fmdragon ran up to it's counterpart.

They started to bite and scratch eacher other. The ice dragon bit at the fire dragon's arm. it caused it to slowly freeze up and travel towards the rest of the body. Merlin frowned and Esdeath smirked before she blinked as he sent more mana to the dragon.

The ice started to recede as the dragon grew stronger and bit at the ice dragons neck.

Esdeath saw that Merlin was starting to heal up, she sent some ice spears to stop it. Merlin jumped back and missed him. He blinked as the spears went passed him and gone towards the card. His eyes widen and he casters a level 9 spell and used multiple spell cards to protect the stands.

Esdeath grew confused until she felt the fire dragon become unstable.

A bigger explosion erupted when the card was destroyed. The fire dragon went unstable and grew bigger and bigger until it popped. The surrounding area and the ice dragon dissapeared causing a small earthquake to appear throughout the osland; only leaving a giant crater on the ground where they used to be.

Merlin breathed in relief that everyone was safe. He looked into the hole to see her looking up at him. They both silently decided that the next attack will decide the winner.

Their mana suddenly grew stronger as they held their zanpakuto and said,

"Ban-"

Before they could release their bankai, they heard a voice yell at them, "What are you two doing!?''

Which knocked all the wind from their sail as they remembered that they had an audience.

The duo turned to the source of the noise, only to see a familiar silver-haired maid. It was Grayfia. She was glaring at them, and they saw the rest behind a blue shield, protecting them from the blast.

"Ah, Grayfia what are you doing here?" Merlin was the first to break the silence, he scretched his head confused.

"For what reason did you interrupt us? I was about to win, you know?" Esdeath quickly followed suit, looking more than a little peeved at the interuption.

Grayfia maintained her glare for a few seconds longer, before she begrudgingly responded. She turned to face him. "I finished setting up the dining hall, so I came to fetch you, Master. That and to stop you battle maniacs from destroying the island."

"Ah, my bad. I got carried away. We were just sparring and it got a little away from us.'' He sheepishly scratched the back of his head. By now, he had deactived his shikai and put it away.

"Mn," she nodded her head a few times, before she slapped their heads with a paper fan and yelled out, "Why on earth did you think it was a good idea to use the zanpakuto's?! It's dangerous, you could of hurt your daughter, Merlin. I'm disappointed in you, I thought with you being the guild master, you would have set a better example than this.'' She forced them to sit down in seiza position while scolding them.

A resigned sigh leaked out from her ruby red lips. The silver-haired devil looked at the courtyard, Merlin and Esdeath followed her gaze. There were craters everywhere, large patches of grass ripped out from the earth, and giant fissures that seemingly extended halfway across the island. Grayfia was right, they did go overboard.

"Um, I apologize…" Merlin stated. He really did feel bad, Grayfia was the head maid, so it was her responsibility to keep the castle clean and orderly. He basically made more work for her.

Grayfia let out another sigh. "It matters not. Fixing it is a simple issue, just don't do it again."

With that said, the silver-haired maid raised her arm and activated the ninth-tier spell, [Time Reversal]. Right before their very eyes, the courtyard started to repair itself. It looked as if time was going backward and considering the name of the skill that she had just used, that was pretty much what happened.

Lohan breathed out a sigh of relief. With this, he did not feel so guilty anymore. Although Grayfia's glare did still hurt a little. After some consideration, he turned towards Esdeath, "I guess we can end the spar here."

''So who won then? Merlin or Esdeath?'' Akeno asked as they reached the thee people.

''That's a tough question for sure. I think Merlin did.'' Rais replied.

''No, I think Esdeath won the fight. She did cause more damage to him at the beginning, remember?'' Morgana reminded everyone.

''That's not right, my husband lost the battle.'' Morgan said with a smile as she sent a glare towards Morgana. Thinking it would be better for him to feed her than him losing his first to that ice bitch.

Mylaela said excitedly, and did the poses with sound effects, ''I don't care, daddy that was awesome. You were like fwoosh, look at my fire sword, it's on fire and Aunty Esdeath was like, yeah well, I got an ice sword. Then when you threw that last attack, it was soo cool. Do it again, do it again.''

Grayfia was watching this byplay with an annoyed look on her face as they all stood there in awkward silence, lighting shooting out of all their eyes, trying to intiminate the others in backing down. She sighed, ''Ah, yes. The winner of the bet is..."

Author's Note:

I'm not all that confident in writing a fight scene. The reason it took me sooo long to finish this is because my computer didn't save it and I had to start all over again. Happy New Years.