The Miscalculated Blade
Kate looked at him strangely when Kate showed up for the sparring class.
“Nice to see you again,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, arms crossed, the morning light catching the edge of her practice blade.
“Sorry,” Fate answered, a faint smile tugging his mouth. “I needed to calm down. After our last conversation, I wasn’t sure I could look you in the eye without killing intent resurfacing “
A few students gasped at the bloodied bluntness of it. Kate only smiled wider, unbothered, the kind of smile that promised trouble.
“Okay then,” she said. “I’ll offer you a chance today. I’ll be your sparring partner. Let’s see what you’ve got, boy.”
Even Fate was caught off guard by that. Still, he stepped up without hesitation, boots scuffing against the packed dirt of the training ring. This time he didn’t bother coating his sword in its usual protective shell of ki — bare steel, bare risk. Kate noticed. She said nothing. Her smile only deepened.
The rest of the class went quiet, drawing closer, sensing something worth watching.
“Ready, boy?” Kate asked, rolling her shoulders.
Fate didn’t like the tone one bit, but he nodded anyway.
Before he could brace, a beam of light tore through the air toward him — a blade of pure ki, faster than sight. He barely caught the center of it on his own sword, but the strike split around the block and lashed across both shoulders. Two shallow, diagonal scars opened, hot lines of pain blooming under his shirt.
Kate hadn’t moved an inch from where she’d started.
“That was ki slash,” she said, voice calm, almost lecturing. “The theory’s similar to the mana cannon heavy knights use. But finer. More refined.”
She lifted a finger, ticking off the steps like she’d taught this a hundred times before.
“First — you learn to move your ki into an object. In this case, a sword. While it sits there, we call it a ki-blade. It sharpens the edge, adds weight to every strike.
“Second — you force all of that ki out of the blade in the shortest possible burst, right as you slash. Same theory as the cannon, but far easier to control. You can shape the amount, the timing, with much more precision.”
She never finished the thought. Fate’s next strike came fast enough that she had to break off mid-sentence just to defend herself. A thin red line opened on her shoulder, blood beading dark against pale skin. She stared at him, wide-eyed, genuinely startled — he now stood twenty meters back from where he’d started, the distance covered in a blink.
Fate looked down at his own blade like it belonged to someone else. Confused. Then he swung again, dumping every last drop of remaining ki into the strike.
The second slash came four times faster, four times harder than the first. Kate was forced back a full step, bracing the sword with both hands just to hold the block.
Fate smiled at her, breathing hard. “You’re right. It’s simple. Way easier than building a mana cannon.”
He’d learned the cannon technique in a previous life, back when he was hunting for anything compatible with his life-force matrix. The shared theory made this variant almost trivial by comparison.
Still, the whole class was staring at him now like he was something that had crawled out of a nightmare.
Before Kate could say another word, Fate dropped into a meditative crouch right there on the packed dirt, beginning the slow work of pulling his ki back together. It never usually took him long. This time it did — his reserves were bone dry.
Long silence stretched across the training ground before Kate finally spoke again, arms crossed, eyes scanning the rest of the students.
“Everyone — training grounds one through thirty-five. Try to replicate what Fate just did. He says it’s not that hard, and trust me, it can save your life against mages or archers. If you’re struggling, don’t be shy — ask Tivi. She already knows the technique. Tivi Go help the others who don’t.”
By the time Fate’s ki pool had grown ten times larger than it had been the day he first met Kate, he could pour all of it into a single strike and still only push her back one measly step. After the fight, kneeling in the dirt to recover, he kept his eyes shut and let his mind work through the numbers.
He wasn’t as strong as he’d though . How many more techniques were the Light Knights hiding? How strong was Kate, really, beneath the surface? If it ever came to it — if she decided he was a threat worth killing — could Pan, at his current strength, even slow her down? And if Pan can kill her, what about Kate’s own teachers?
He’d underestimated them. Badly. Until today he’d assumed Light Knights were nothing more than a workaround for people who couldn’t open their mana pools — a lesser path. Now he wasn’t sure they weren’t equal to Heavy Knights. Maybe even stronger.
He could still feel the weight of that second slash humming in his palms. Unimpressive to look at, sure — no flash, no roar of power — but strong enough to gut a drake that wasn’t paying attention. And Kate had shrugged it off with a single step back.
He made himself a quiet promise, kneeling there with sweat cooling on his neck: more caution from now on. More contingencies. An escape route, always, in case things went sideways. Right then and there he began sketching changes to his ki matrix in his head — better circulation channels, faster distribution through his limbs.
By the time he finally opened his eyes, the sky had gone fully dark, stars scattered thin behind drifting cloud. Only Tivi remained on the training field, alone under a lantern’s weak glow, still running drills. He wasn’t sure if she’d stayed to wait for him or just to grind her own technique into shape. Either way, curiosity dragged him over.
“How are you making it so small?” he asked, nodding at the tight, controlled burst she’d just released from her blade tip.
She didn’t look up right away. “First time I tried it, the blast was five times bigger than my target. Wasted so much ki I could barely stand afterward.” Her tone was flat, guarded. “I’ll tell you — if you tell me how you moved so fast in our last spar.”
Her face gave away nothing. For half a second Fate wondered if Kate had put her up to this. But then again, he’d be curious too, in her shoes.
“The finer the ki, the better the ratio,” he said. “I refined mine down until even a small amount gives a real boost to speed and strength. Higher quality’s easier to control — but you get a lot less of it to work with.”
He rubbed his shoulder, remembering the ache. “I only held that speed for about three seconds. After that my whole body felt like it’d been left in an oven.”
Tivi tilted her head, lantern light catching the sharp line of her jaw. “Is that why it took you so long to recover just now?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I just got caught up in a new idea and lost track of time. Happens sometimes.”
A beat passed. “So how do you make your ki-slash so small?” he asked again.
Long silence. Crickets somewhere in the dark tree line. Finally she answered. “You only use part of the blade — not the whole sword. Try releasing it just from the tip.”
He tried it right there. It worked better than he’d expected, the burst tightening into a needle-thin line of force.
“You’re right,” he said, almost impressed. “That makes sense.”
“Do you want to spar?” Fate asked her.
“What’s the point?” Tivi said.
“We both know you’d win.”
Something shifted in her expression then — strange, unreadable, enough to catch him off guard.
“It’s not like I can hold that speed for more than a few seconds,” he admitted after a moment.
“But in those few seconds,” Tivi said, voice level, “I’d still die. If it were a real fight.”
Fate opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
Tivi’s smile turned wry. “Why do you look so surprised? I’ve thought about this a long time. Nothing you say changes the fact that if you used your full speed and strength, there’d be nothing I could do to stop you.”
Long silence stretched between them, the lantern flame guttering in a stray wind. Then Fate started laughing — confused, unsure why the observation had struck him as funny.
“So what now?” he asked. “You just give up because someone’s stronger than you? That’s pathetic.”
Her face twisted with sudden fury.
“Pathetic? You don’t understand anything.” Her voice cracked with barely-checked rage. “I come from a family that can’t be anything less than the strongest. Not weaker. Not equal. The strongest, period. I’ve trained every single day since I was five years old. Do you even know what a sword means to me? While you were off playing games, I was bleeding from my own fingers on the practice grounds. While your mother loved you, I had a harsh instructor who drilled me from dawn until dusk with a switch in his hand. And you — you just walk in and steal it. Steal my strength, like it costs you nothing.”
Tears welled in her eyes, glinting under the lantern light. Fate sighed, and slapped her — hard, the sound sharp in the quiet field.
“Stop blaming everyone and everything for your pathetic nature,” he said, voice cold now. “Do you really think you’re the unluckiest kid in the world? You don’t have the faintest idea what real hardship looks like. Today I’m talking to a spoiled brat who blames everyone else for her own misery. A few weeks ago I talked to an orphan with no bed, no food, nothing — and that kid smiled more than you do in a week.
“Rich girl, instead of staring at everything you don’t have and crying about it, try looking at what you do have and actually enjoying it for once. Half the class would happily be your friend if you dropped the cold act for five minutes. You’re rich — spend some money and have fun with it. You’re strong — go beat up someone you actually don’t like instead of moping. You’ve got so much. Use it. Enjoy it.”
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