Chapter 72 - Analyses & Advice


Sir Kay watched with an impassive face, as the sounds of wood hitting wood rang throughout the clearing, and the pair exchanged blow after blow without any signs of fatigue or exhaustion.

Next to him, Merlin observed the training session as well, before asking: "Are you sure you can even see their swings, Young Kay?"

"Shut it, Merlin." Kay growled, still not having forgiven the Magus for pushing Artoria into a life of suffering and hardship.

Merlin tasted the anger radiating off of him, and innocently asked: "Are you still angry at my actions? Or is it because you finally lost a bout?"

"I didn't lose." Kay reflexively snapped.

"Oh?" Merlin raised an eyebrow, motioning for him to continue.

"He took more steps than me, so it's his loss." Kay stated firmly, in a tone that brooked no argument.

"His blade was tickling your throat a heartbeat after it started." Merlin noted easily.

Kay ground his teeth, and his brow twitched, but he took a deep breath, before finally changing the subject: "Even if I did lose-"

"You did."

"Even if I did lose, which I didn't, his skill with the blade still leaves a lot to be desired, from a knight's perspective."

"Oh?" Merlin found himself intrigued by the young knight's analysis, but as he paid closer attention, the wizard who'd taught Artoria swordsmanship found himself agreeing with Kay. Then again, young as Kay may have been, lacking in skill as he may have been (when compared to his sister), he was still a full-fledged knight and the student of Sir Ector. "You've noticed it too, I see."

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, seeing that this Jaune was trained to be a Huntsman and not a Knight..." Kay mused, having had a few days to examine his loss and the familiar's fighting style, as well as compare it to Artoria's. Then he scowled, and muttered: "Artoria could have really warned me that he was a Huntsman of dragons and demons before I'd challenged him to a bout..."

"... is that why you've forced her to try and attack him?" Merlin asked idly.

Kay stiffened, but immediately denied the accusation: "I don't know what you're talking about."

"They've been at it for three hours already, Kay."

"Such pettiness would be unbecoming of a Knight, Magus."

"Did you not tell her that you would share stories of her wrestling the pigs during dinner if she lost, Kay?"

"I deemed the extra motivation necessary, if she were to stand up to that monster of a familiar." Kay sniffed haughtily.

"Of course." Merlin conceded, clearly unconvinced, before a smirk came to his face that had the hairs at the back of Kay's neck standing. "Well, it's certainly a good experience for her as well. At any rate, she certainly seems to be enjoying herself."

Kay's eyes widened in alarm, as he followed Merlin's finger.

Indeed, even as Artoria stumbled, her blow deflected by Jaune's stick, and a counter-attack smacked her inner arm before she turned and stopped him from bypassing her guard, there was a look of exhilaration on her face that was rarely present when she sparred with Kay.

Merlin could sense that it was the simple joy of finally finding someone to practice against who wasn't her brother (who always insisted he'd won no matter the outcome) or him, her teacher (for some reason).

Kay, however, saw things differently, and while he may have grudgingly acknowledged the Huntsman's strength, he still didn't know much about Jaune as a person, and definitely wasn't going to let them get too close.

Clapping his hands together loudly before the two could lock swords once more, Kay shouted: "Alright you two, that's enough!"

Like a switch being flipped, Artoria immediately fell to her knees, panting from the effort of trying to break through Jaune's guard for three hours, before Jaune knelt down and offered her a hand with a gentle smile and a few kind words: "That was a good fight, Arthur."

"Break it up!" Kay yelled, regaining their attention. "Huntsman... let me guess, the type of foes you're used to facing are either opponents who you can easily overwhelm, or opponents who possess overwhelming strength and speed?"

"Mostly the latter." Jaune confirmed, reflecting that, as a pretty average human (and a below-average Huntsman), his battles against dragons, Deathclaws, demons, and the Grimm did mostly consist of him struggling against stronger enemies.

"It shows." Kay nodded. "I assume that, when facing off against Beasts, your method of fighting them involves enduring their blows and counter-attacking, or allowing someone else to do so?"

"Eh, close enough." Jaune allowed after a brief pause. He was used to handling defense for his team, while also studying the terrain and the situation and coming up with plans of attack, but he hadn't had to do much of that since Beacon.

"You certainly seem to have defense down to an art. I doubt even an army of Saxons could break through your guard, and your ability to counter-attack is beyond any I have ever seen." Kay conceded, but before Jaune could preen at the praise (and Artoria's jaw could drop from shock), he continued on: "However! When it comes to seizing the offensive, your actual techniques are surprisingly basic. Rather than studying your foe for holes in their defenses or analyzing their stances and footwork to guess their next moves, you rely more on your own inhuman strength and speed to overwhelm them with simple blows."

Jaune frowned, but accepted the criticism. To be fair to him, Pyrrha had only managed to teach him the basics before the Vytal Festival, he'd barely even learned about stances and footwork in Remnant, let alone the four other worlds he'd spent a grand total of six months in, and Grimm, demons, dragons, and Deathclaws didn't use swords or have stances to speak of.

At the same time, though, voicing his thoughts felt like he was merely making excuses, and so he merely nodded without a word of complaint, wondering how best to make use of the advice he'd been given.

Artoria, however, disapproving of the criticism of her familiar (especially from a sore loser like Kay), innocently suggested: "Then why do you not give us a demonstration, Sir Kay?"

"Me?" Kay sputtered in disbelief, before glaring at Artoria.

"Of course, Sir Kay." Artoria smiled sweetly. "You are a fully-fledged knight, after all. Who better to teach Jaune than you?"

"You're better than swordsmanship than me, Arthur!" Kay yelped in protest. "And you're being taught by Merlin!"

"But I've never once bested you in a duel." Artoria pointed out. "Don't be so modest, Sir Kay."

Kay and Artoria locked gazes with each other, each trying to burn a hole in the other, while Jaune looked on in confusion, and Merlin watched with gleeful amusement.

Then Artoria's stomach growled, and the tension burst as Jaune chuckled, and offered: "Shall we take a break for dinner? It's getting late, and we can pick this up later."

"Not a bad idea, kid." Kay agreed, placing a hand on Artoria's head and ruffling it roughly. "And while you cook, I can share with you some stories about Young Arthur when he was growing up."

"Don't you dare, Kay!" Artoria growled, trying to smack his hand away.

"Ah, but you didn't win, Arthur." Kay pointed out smugly. "And what does the Code of Chivalry say?"

A crestfallen Artoria's teeth began grinding against each other, but she couldn't refute his statement. After all, she'd implicitly accepted the condition of the bout, and backing out now would be cowardly.

Jaune laughed, unable to help himself, as he stepped in: "Don't worry, Arthur. I'm sure you can't be as bad as me when I was a kid."

"Oh? Are you sure about that?" Kay raised an eyebrow. "Did you ever-"

"KAYYY!" Artoria wailed, knowing that whatever he'd been about to say would not have reflected well on her. She had her dignity as a King, a Knight (in training), and a Master, damn it!

"Tell you what, Arthur." Kay took the advantage. "Go one more round with Jaune, with you focusing on defense and him on offense. If you can last five minutes against him, I won't say another word tonight, and you can have half my portion. Deal?"

"Let's go, Jaune!" Artoria shouted enthusiastically, already drawing her training sword.

"Oh, by the way, Arthur..." Merlin added. "Since you're going to be focused on training his offense, feel free to utilize Mana Burst to the fullest."

Sir Kay refused to even be surprised as the blows the pair began exchanging started whipping up winds that made his hair disheveled, and instead focused on his role as a mentor.

"That was an astute observation." Merlin praised next to him.

"Why did you let her use her magical energy?" Kay demanded, ignoring the compliment.

"It was a good chance for her to practice using Mana Burst." Merlin replied easily, as the pair accidentally knocked over a few trees.

"And it would have been a good chance for her to practice defending without her magic, Merlin." Kay countered, knowing full well that his skill with the blade was nowhere near the point that Artoria would have felt threatened even in a restricted duel. "What if she runs out of magic, and all she has is her sword?"

"If she were to ever run out of Od, then a sword would probably not save her." Merlin countered, holding his hood down casually as a gust of wind almost knocked it off his head.

"... just how much magic does she have, exactly?"

"Did you ever hear of my prophecy, of the two dragons?"

"Something about a white dragon representing the Saxons and a red dragon representing the Britons doing battle, yes? I think Father told it to me once..."

"Artoria is the Red Dragon of Prophecy, Kay."

"... are you serious? First she's the King's Lost Heir, and now she's a Dragon?"

"She is the King's Heir because she is the Red Dragon, Kay. The two legends are intertwined and inseparable."

"... then who's the White Dragon that she's supposed to fight?"

"Her uncle, King Vortigen, the one who slew High King Uther Pendragon."

"That vile usurper is her uncle?! And now he's a dragon that she has to slay?"

"It is the only way to save the land."

"But what about her?"

"... she made her choice, knowing full well what it would entail. All either of us can do, is support her to the best of our abilities."

"... is that why you summoned that dragonslayer to be her familiar, wizard?"

"I did not choose the summoned creature, Kay. I do, however, believe fate had a hand in his arrival."

"... well, if its Artoria, it'll probably work out in the end. More importantly, you're telling me that she has the magical energy of a dragon?"

"Indeed. What intrigues me more is that her familiar seems to possess a comparable amount to Artoria's, and also uses a version of Mana Burst of his own."

"What do you mean? Doesn't a familiar take energy from their master?"

"That is the odd part. For some reason, Jaune simply generates his own. He can also draw on Artoria's as well through their link, but he has no need for it- you might want to take two steps to the right."

"... was that your Clairvoyance?"

"Indeed. Now, four steps back and three steps left."

"... I'm honestly amazed, that his blows can generate such force, despite blows being shallow and glancing at best."

"To be fair, with his usual blade, even a shallow and glancing blow would probably prove fatal."

"That greatsword by his hip? Granted, it certainly seems a strong and sharp blade, but a scratch is scratch regardless- what does the blade do, wizard?"

"I'm sure you'll find out once we reach Listenoise."

"Listenoise?! The Kingdom?! We're barely at Glevum!"

"Don't worry about it."

"What's going to happen at Listenoise, wizard?!"

"I think you've got more pressing things to worry about at the moment, Kay."

"Like wha- OW!"


Author's Note: Just another short chapter, as the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and the party begins their adventure.

Like I've said before, Jaune's method of fighting now can best be summed up as "aggressively defensive". If the enemy doesn't attack him first, he rushes up to them, and forces them to either get hit by a flaming sword or to defend themselves against him, at which point he counter-attacks using his strength and experience. It works against dragons, Deathclaws, demons, and Grimm because they're almost always the aggressors, either arrogant in their power or simply mindlessly aggressive, and the humans he's fought so far haven't exactly been able to match his strength and speed.

When it comes to attacks, however... his entire repertoire of moves is basically "swish swish stab", and while he's good at tactical analysis and strategizing on the fly (and very good at instinctive defending), he doesn't go to the kind of depth of "my enemy hails from Land X and his feet are spaced at this angle and this distance, so he's using Stance Y, which means I can expect Attack Z in the next few seconds". Which, to be fair, would be hard, seeing as how he had no training before Beacon, limited training in Beacon, and absolutely no training afterwards.

And I'm also working based on what the FATE wiki says about Kay always declaring himself the winner of his fights due to his arguments, and Artoria not being as physically strong and skilled and relying a lot more on Mana Burst.