When had it been? On one of those ordinary days of survival, with snow falling as always.

The coniferous forests tangled along the front were still stained with blood. As they always were. Before the warriors' hot blood could cool beneath the winter storms, another fresh layer would be painted over it.

The darkened forest consisted of only three colors.

The sky, pitch-black without a speck of light.

The earth, pure white beneath the snow.

And all around, everywhere the eye could reach, the vivid red of corpses and blood.

If anything there shone with colors entirely its own, it was that woman.

Her proudly lifted eyes were always gold, full of hope and joy.

The blade in her hand shone blue, dispelling the darkness and weaving an ideal in its wake.

Once, he had watched that sight, utterly entranced.

["Like this... was it? Like this?"]

With hands not yet fully grown, he struggled to swing his sword along those remembered paths. At the time, Ivan's swordsmanship had scarcely gone beyond standard military drills. Most of it was rough, formless technique picked up while fighting to survive.

His first encounter with swordsmanship as a discipline had felt like having his eyes opened.

Alone in the military camp, Ivan struggled to imitate the swordsmanship he had seen that night.

But it was not enough. Seeing it once was not enough. This was more than a difference in skill; they were on entirely different planes. His frame was not developed enough, and his swordsmanship was so rudimentary that he could see no further than the act of swinging.

Every time he raised his sword and swung, he was left dissatisfied. He could not reproduce even a fraction of those brilliant arcs.

Common sense said swordsmanship was ultimately just swinging a stick around. How could he fail to copy even that?

Ivan grumbled under his breath. This goddamn premodern fantasy world.

If this was how it was going to be, they could at least have dropped him into a martial arts novel.

["Hmm."]

["Gah?!"]

A low hum sounded suddenly behind him, making him jump.

Not far away, Edel was watching him with an inscrutable smile.

["Not bad at all."]

["D-did you see?"]

Did this world have some tradition of murdering people who spied on training to silence them, like in martial arts novels?

Ivan broke into a cold sweat at the thought. He had, after all, secretly watched Edel practice.

But the deranged, sword-addicted elf with dementia merely smiled and approached.

["Try imagining something."]

["Y-yes?"]

["Could something made of nothing but bones move?"]

["Uh... Hmm. No?"]

["Think of swordsmanship as an entity. Could it move if it had only bones, with no muscles, ligaments, tendons, or blood vessels?"]

Edel gently took the sword from Ivan's hand. Before he could react, she was holding it.

Had she intended otherwise just then, he would already be dead. The thought sent a chill through his chest.

["The path of the blade is the skeleton of swordsmanship. It must stand straight, but standing alone accomplishes nothing."]

SWISH.

The blade traced a line through the air.

["The inner vision behind it, the true purpose of the technique, is its muscle. You cut your opponent. But how? For instance, this form means this."]

SLASH!

From high to low, but at a diagonal. Halfway through, she snapped her wrist and stepped back a beat, tracing a clean arc.

["Against an opponent in a high guard, you break the guard itself, slip through, and strike the throat. That is the meaning of the form I just showed you. Did you see?"]

["Pardon?"]

["Pay attention. These are expensive lessons. Now, there is an opponent before me. A knight. He is 1.8 meters tall. A large man—easily a hundred kilograms with his armor. He carries a longsword. Much like mine."]

Listening to Edel, he stared into the middle of the nighttime camp.

He could see the opponent.

A knight in crude armor, taut with tension, his breath steaming.

Adel walked lightly up to the knight, offered a brief sword salute, and settled into her stance.

["If the blade's path is the skeleton, and the true purpose of that path is the muscle, what are the tendons?"]

Without waiting for an answer, she struck. The same form as before: a blow to pierce a high guard.

But at the final motion, she bent her wrist back and retreated a step.

["Now, my opponent has barely blocked the attack slipping through his high guard. My sword has been knocked away, so it is his turn. Here comes the attack. A straightforward thrust with all his weight behind it. Very powerful."]

SWISH.

Adel stepped lightly back, drawing her shoulder away. With a metallic whisper, her blade slid back, swept a circle along the ground, and rose.

It circled to the side of the knight thrusting at her body, passing smoothly across him twice—below the shoulder and at the waist.

["Attack and defense have a flow. Reading that flow and making the right judgment to attack precisely and defend precisely—you might call that the sword's tendons."]

SLASH!

Adel raised her sword as she continued speaking. A stroke. A cut. She swung, struck, retreated, then struck upward again and cleaved.

The drifting snow became a storm around her alone. Merely standing there and swinging her sword, she was transforming her surroundings into an entirely different world.

She established her intent at the utmost limits of perception.

Demonstrating it before his eyes, Adel finished speaking without the slightest change in her breathing.

["If, in learning swordsmanship, you become able to respond to all those situations—if you have ceaselessly disciplined yourself to reach that level—then the unbroken flow of attack and defense itself could be called the sword's blood vessels."]

Adel stopped and handed him the sword. The hilt she had held was warm with her body heat.

["If swordsmanship is an entity, this is how it is put together. Do not look only at the skeleton. Train while watching the body and its movement as a whole. Do you understand?"]

["If swordsmanship is an entity rather than a means, Sir Coenwulf, what should we use it for?"]

["... What?"]

If it was not simply a means developed to block an opponent's attacks and kill more efficiently—if swordsmanship itself had to be seen as an entity, what was that entity's purpose?

Ivan had asked the question before he knew it.

Adel laughed and looked up at the sky. Then she smoothly drew the sword at her waist and raised it high.

["To reach the sky."]

["Pardon?"]

["No one can say what lies at the end of the sword... but that is what I think. The reason a sword has this shape..."]

Held in both hands, the sword extended straight upward, tapering elegantly toward its point. Like a person reaching for the heavens.

A snowflake settled on its edge, split in two, and fluttered away.

["You look to the sky, hone your craft, and pile up the years to draw closer. Perhaps that is what lies at the end of the sword. Not a mighty blow that splits the world, or those miraculous curses wielded by beings called gods. Not some divine feat that destroys, in a single stroke, demons swarming across the land."]

Freedom.

Movement bound by nothing.

Sword energy flowing as one willed, like clouds borne upon the wind.

A blade cleaving the blue heavens, shearing the wind, dancing lightly at play.

And so the intent to infuse into that whole was the sky itself.

["You have eyes that promise greatness. What is your name?"]

["Ivan Petrovich."]

Ivan laughed in disbelief. He had told her so many times, and she still did not even know his name.

Adel studied his face, then reached out to brush the snow from his hair.

["John. A good name."]

["I am honored, Sir Coenwulf."]

["No. I have called you my friend, so you must do the same. Adel. Call me that. Everyone whose name I remember has that right."]

That had been his last meeting with Adel.

Afterward, she marched to the northwestern theater, lost an eye, and retreated in defeat. Yet despite her injury, she returned to the front again and again, earning the name "Adel the One-Eyed."

Even so, Ivan remembered every detail of that lighthearted elf who had gazed defiantly at the sky with both eyes.

* * *

"Waaaaaaah!!!!"

The coldly falling snowflakes became a shower of flowers.

The wind that had bitten at his ears became the roar of the crowd.

The woman whose two eyes had burned so brightly now had only one lonely eye remaining.

The hazy recollection passed. Ivan squeezed his clouded eyes shut and drew a breath.

"Adel."

He opened his eyes. Their brilliant blue light was very different from those days.

The longing for hope, the belief that things would improve, the desperate struggle to survive—he had left them all on the battlefield.

Two remnants of the war, still living as though on a battlefield in an age of peace, stood with swords in hand, facing each other with changed eyes.

"Your eyes have grown fine. They are truly a swordsman's eyes now."

"Are they?"

"Yes. Did you reach toward the sky?"

"No."

He had never harbored such lofty ideals. Ivan shook his head. To him, swordsmanship had never meant anything beyond one means of survival.

Thus, what he desired, the intent he held in his heart—the purpose and true meaning of his swordsmanship—was ultimately one thing alone.

Home.

Just as Adel swung her sword with the sky in mind, seeking freedom, Ivan swung his sword wishing for home.

"Home."

"Good. You have established an intent entirely your own. You are no longer beneath me. So..."

Adel spun her sword and brought it to the ready. Her stance changed.

Brilliant blue mana surged in a sudden rush, pulsing within her body.

"Come. Leave your intent upon me, John. Impose your will upon me. We shall pit our intent against each other's—establish its supremacy and claim victory."

Ivan slowly drew a breath and assumed the same stance, copying Adel's guard like a mirror print.

Yet would two painters depicting the same landscape ever produce the same painting?

No. Never.

The same still-life subject evoked a different inner vision through each pair of eyes. Even if they shared the entire structure of swordsmanship as an entity—its muscles and bones, blood vessels and tendons—the direction and goal toward which that entity moved were not the same.

A clash of swordsmanship infused with true purpose was thus nothing more than the process of imposing one's intent upon the other.

CRACK.

He slowly severed his senses. With a thump of his heart, mana surged forth, precisely blocking neural pathways to hone his combat senses alone.

His overloaded nerves divided the seconds and entered the time between them.

The cheers subsided. More precisely, time was stretching.

Within the realm of superhumans, time lay fragmented. Flowers drifted slowly down, and even the heat pouring from the excited crowd cooled by degrees.

The nobles moving their mouths in the stands, the people excitedly throwing flowers, the shower of blossoms dancing on the breeze of a clear summer day—all blurred and warped.

Amid it all, only the gazes of the two shone with perfect clarity.

SLASH!!

Only the paths of their blades flowed proudly through that time all their own, enfolding, clasping, catching each other's strikes as they began to dance.

* * *

"Beautiful, Vanka."

Elizaveta watched the arena below, her fists clenched tight.

Her anxiety over the outcome, even her desire to cheer him on, no longer mattered.

Victory or defeat—neither meant anything to those two knights now. Their struggle itself was the result, the purpose, and the reward.

Everything a warrior with a sword could show, everything those who bore swords dreamed of, was before her. She could say that with pride.

Even a skill created for war and survival became art when mastered to its utmost limits.

Those who knew swordsmanship and those who did not—all were cheering, weeping, and crying out in excitement.

Amid them, the two knights extended their blades toward each other alone.

Beautiful. No finely chosen words could express this fight. It was a dance, an exquisitely arranged orchestral performance.

Years spent staking their lives to attain mastery. The mere friction of those years colliding evoked an emotion beyond sound, an emotion belonging to music.

"I am proud of you."

Elizaveta smiled quietly and nodded.

* * *

"We cannot let him live."

Duke Sheretif clenched his fists, feeling even fear.

A warrior ought to be a tool. Nothing more than a tool, useful when put to its proper purpose.

Hammers, punches, and chisels must not have wills of their own. Tools must not be objects of reverence.

Peace had no need of heroes.

The age when a single hero with a single sword reigned over the vast majority had to pass. That age of blind fanaticism had to end. It was the barbarism of wartime.

People must not become anyone's followers.

That was the Crown Prince's teaching. Though he had now departed without warning, his ideology had taken firm root among Prizhenkaya's great nobles.

Therefore, the man the Princess had brought was dangerous. He had the makings of a hero. Had it been wartime, he might have stood shoulder to shoulder with the hero himself.

How had such a man remained unknown? It was deeply puzzling, but that was not what mattered now.

Whatever the outcome of this duel, the man had already made far too powerful an impression on the people of Prizhenkaya.

He had to die. A tool one could not control was no longer a tool.

"Make the preparations."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

Countless legacies lay dormant within Prizhenkaya's great noble houses, ancient families that had grown alongside the nation itself.

One man's valor could never overcome the strength of many. Had even the Demon King not fallen before the Hero's Party?

Then that made him the nobles' hero, stopping a new Demon King.

At the thought, Duke Sheretif shook his head with a bitter smile.

War was not a duel. It was not that empty pageantry of pitting martial skills against each other fairly and squarely.

How many knights accomplished at dueling had he seen meet futile ends on the battlefield?

That man would be no different. He had to be.