ringsel

“Just my friends. They were talking today during practice and were poking fun at me cause I’m not as into this random thing as they are.”

Slowly, and with no shortage of effort, he began to pry off his clone, separating centimeter by centimeter. Sitting on the floor, he resembled an animal shedding its skin. Eventually, he and his clone split like dividing cells, but the seal was trying to pull them back together. Moving his clone forward felt like trying to swim upriver, and it was taking everything he had not to be pushed back, let alone advance further. However, he felt himself closing in on something, a sensation, or perhaps it could be called a state of mind. Whatever it was, it seemed to help him project his mana. If he could make this state of awareness easier to access, then his magic would surely grow much more powerful.

After exploiting a gap in her attack, Noah lunged and swung at her, his blade coming within inches of her throat as she backflipped beyond his reach, kicking his sword to try and knock it out of his hand. He succeeded in hanging on and went in for a thrust, but she parried his attack and countered with a diagonal slash, stopped by him catching her blade with the guard of his sword. The two of them went back and forth, launching attacks at each other while struggling to endure the onslaught they were both receiving.