Chapter 30 – The World’s Ugliest Fight

【Valerius PoV】

This was the stupidest thing I’d ever agreed to.

Mei stood across from me in what I assumed was supposed to be a fighting stance, but honestly it looked like she was trying to hold in a sneeze while squatting over a public toilet.

I probably looked worse.

“Begin!”

Yuna’s voice rang out with way too much enthusiasm for someone watching two complete amateurs try to murder each other.

Mei didn’t move and neither did I because we were both apparently waiting for the other person to make the first mistake.

“Mei, you must commit to the attack. Hesitation is death in our profession.”

Clara stood next to Jin with her hands folded in perfect composure.

“Master Valerius, I recommend not dying. It would create an excessive amount of paperwork.”

“That’s your advice? Don’t die?”

“I have complete faith in your ability to at least survive, if not actually win.”

The way she said it made it clear she had zero faith in either outcome.

Mei finally moved and lunged forward with her knife held out in front of her like she was offering me a very aggressive handshake.

I stumbled backward and my foot caught on a piece of broken furniture, sending me sprawling onto my back.

The knife missed my face by about three inches and Mei’s momentum carried her forward until she tripped over my legs and crashed into the wall with a solid thunk.

“Pathetic. Both of you.”

Jin stood by the window without any emotion on his face.

Clara pulled out a small notepad.

“I would have to disagree. That was impressively pathetic, which is a step above merely pathetic.”

Mei pushed herself off the wall with a groan and I scrambled to my feet, still clutching the bent knife Jin had given me.

“You’re holding the blade wrong. Reverse grip, edge facing away from your body.”

Mei adjusted her grip and looked slightly less like she was going to stab herself by accident.

“Master Valerius, perhaps you should hold your weapon as well instead of waving it around like a dinner bell.”

I looked down and realized I’d been holding the knife by the blade with the handle pointed at Mei.

“Right, yeah, that makes sense.”

I flipped it around and immediately cut my thumb on the edge.

“Oh for the love of—”

Mei chose that exact moment to attack again, apparently deciding my pain was the perfect opening, and she swung her knife in a wide arc that would have been intimidating if it wasn’t so slow I could have made tea while waiting for it to reach me.

I ducked and the blade whooshed over my head, but Mei’s swing had so much force behind it that she spun in a complete circle like a demented ballerina and fell on her butt.

“Mei, what did I teach you about overcommitting?”

“Sorry, Master!”

“Don’t apologize, adapt!”

Mei got up and immediately charged again, this time leading with her shoulder like she was trying out for a sports team instead of fighting an assassin’s duel.

She crashed into my chest and we both went down in a tangle of limbs and very ineffective stabbing motions.

“This is not a brawl. Use your training.”

“What training?”

I wheezed from underneath Mei who was trying to pin my arms with her knees but kept slipping because of all the broken glass on the floor.

“Excellent question, Master Valerius. What training indeed?”

“Whose side are you even on?”

“The side of entertainment, which both of you are providing in abundance.”

Mei managed to get her knife pressed against my throat but her hands were shaking so badly the blade was doing more of a massage than a threatening gesture.

“Do it. Finish the mission.”

“I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“He’s looking at me!”

I was in fact looking at her because her face was about six inches from mine and there wasn’t really anywhere else to look except maybe at the ceiling, but that seemed rude.

“Opponents tend to have eyes, Mei, and those eyes tend to look at things.”

“But it’s scary!”

“He’s literally underneath you and completely defenseless!”

I took offense to that even though it was completely accurate, so I bucked my hips and managed to throw Mei off to the side where she rolled into a discarded chair leg.

“Adequate use of core strength. Though your form was atrocious.”

I scrambled to my feet and so did Mei, both of us breathing hard like we’d just run a marathon instead of rolling around on the floor for thirty seconds.

“Circle each other. Observe your opponent’s weaknesses.”

We started circling and it probably would have looked more intimidating if we weren’t both limping from various bruises and cuts we’d accumulated.

Mei’s nose was bleeding from where she’d hit the wall, and I was pretty sure I’d sprained something in my left ankle during the tumble.

“Mei, he’s favoring his right side, attack the left.”

Mei darted in and swiped at my left arm, but her telegraph was so obvious I saw it coming from next week and managed to hop backward.

The hop turned into more of a stumble that ended with me sitting on the floor again.

“Master Valerius, I believe the young lady is winning.”

“She is not winning!”

“She has drawn more of your blood than you have drawn of hers.”

I looked down and saw that my shirt was torn in three places with shallow cuts underneath, while Mei only had the nosebleed from the wall incident.

“That’s not fair, I’m not even trying to hurt her!”

“How noble. I’m certain that strategy will serve you well when facing opponents with actual killing intent.”

Clara’s sarcasm could have absorbed an ocean.

Mei rushed me again and this time I was ready, sidestepping at the last second and sticking my foot out to trip her.

It worked beautifully and she went down hard, but she also grabbed my shirt on the way down and took me with her.

We crashed into the remains of my desk in a shower of splinters and old paperwork.

“Stop falling down. Both of you.”

“We’re trying!”

Mei and I yelled it at the same time, which would have been funny if we weren’t actively trying to stab each other in a very half-hearted, thoroughly incompetent way.

I managed to grab Mei’s wrist and she grabbed mine, and we ended up in possibly the world’s most pathetic wrestling match where neither of us had the strength or technique to actually do anything.

“This is embarrassing.”

“I find it rather enlightening. It demonstrates that Master Valerius has achieved a level of combat proficiency that can only be described as ‘present.'”

“I hate all of you so much right now!”

Mei headbutted me in the chin, which hurt both of us equally based on the way we both yelled and let go of each other.

I rolled away clutching my jaw while she held her forehead, both of us making wounded animal noises.

“Mei, what was that?”

“I panicked!”

“Headbutts are a valid tactic but you’re supposed to use your hairline against their nose, not your forehead against their jaw!”

“Nobody taught me that!”

“I’m teaching you right now!”

I got to my knees and Mei did the same, and we stared at each other across the wreckage of my room like two exhausted gladiators who’d forgotten why they were fighting in the first place.

“I’m really tired.”

“Me too.”

“Can we stop?”

“I don’t think they’ll let us.”

We both glanced at our respective observers who were watching us with varying degrees of disappointment, amusement, and sadistic glee.

“One more exchange. Give it everything you have.”

“Show some backbone, Master Valerius. Or at least show something resembling a vertebrae.”

Mei and I looked at each other again and I saw my own exhaustion reflected in her eyes, along with something else that might have been solidarity or maybe just mutual suffering.

We both stood up on shaky legs and raised our knives in what were probably supposed to be threatening poses but mostly looked like we were asking very aggressive questions.

“Now!”

We charged at each other and it was the saddest charge in the history of combat, more of a tired jog really, and when we finally collided it was with all the force of two wet noodles slapping together.

Mei swung her knife and so did I, both of us aiming for non-lethal areas because despite everything we apparently didn’t actually want to kill each other.

Her blade caught my shoulder with a shallow cut and mine got her arm in an equally superficial wound.

Then we both just stood there because we were completely out of energy.

“Mei, finish it!”

“I can’t move my arms anymore!”

“Master Valerius, surely you can muster one final attack!”

“Everything hurts and I want to die!”

“That’s the spirit!”

Mei and I swayed in place and I realized with a sort of distant horror that we were leaning on each other for support, both of our knives hanging uselessly at our sides.

“This is pathetic.”

“This is magnificent. I shall treasure this memory forever.”

Clara had genuine delight in her voice.

The room started spinning and I couldn’t tell if it was from blood loss, exhaustion, or just the sheer absurdity of everything that had happened in the last fifteen minutes.

Mei’s eyes rolled back and she started to fall and I tried to catch her but I was falling too, and we both crashed to the floor in a heap of defeated, completely spent amateur fighters.

The last thing I heard before consciousness left me was Clara’s perfectly composed voice.

“I believe we shall call this a draw.”

Then everything went black, and honestly that was the best part of my day.