Return of the Runebound Professor-Chapter 677: An Odd Pattern

“You really are full of surprises,” Garina said, examining her knuckles. “I’ve never seen a fighting style like this before, Noah. It’s fascinating. The thought of blocking strikes repeatedly with my face never occurred to me.”

Her body twisted as a she sent a kick blurring for Noah’s side before he could even try to respond to the question. Noah didn’t even try dodging the attack. That particular option was more than exhausted.

Garina had been far faster than him before they’d started fighting several hours ago. Now, he was tired and worn to the bone. His entire body ached in one giant bruise and his bones were riddled with microfractures.

He’d slowed down even further — which meant getting out of the way was no longer an option. It hadn’t been for quite some time.

Instead he exhaled as the strike hit him, letting himself almost go limp and absorbing the force of the strike. His own foot shot up, converting the momentum that Garina had so generously imparted into his body into a kick of his own.

The blow connected with her stomach. That did absolutely nothing to make the hit Noah took hurt much less. He stumbled back an instant later with a pained wheeze, barely managing to keep his feet out from under him.

Garina didn’t relent. She bore down on him, blows coming from every direction. There was no end to them. It took every single scrap of concentration that Noah had to keep himself in one piece.

He ignored the strikes aimed for his less vital areas. His focus was on keeping her from literally punching his head off again. Any room for rational thought evaporated from his mind. He barely even remembered that this was training.

All that remained was the fight. The rest of the world had long since fallen away. It didn’t matter. Anything but Garina’s attacks was nothing but a distraction. A distraction that he could ill afford.

More and more blows rained down on Noah. His best efforts to defend himself were faltering. There was only so long he could stand around and get the life beaten out of him before his body and mind stopped responding as they should have.

Everything became sluggish. His limbs didn’t respond to the commands of his mind, and his mind didn’t respond to the commands of his soul. It was like there were three different entities all trying to puppet him at once.

But, even as Noah felt himself begin to literally shut down as his consciousness receded further, he found something else happening.

He twitched to the side. It was a command sent by his body itself rather than by a thought from his mind or a command from the soul.

Garina’s fist shot past his face. It brushed so close to his ear that he felt his hair whip against his skin — but the blow didn’t connect. Garina didn’t wait around to let him gather his balance. Her knee was already headed up toward his stomach, but Noah’s body was moving too.

He twisted on the spot, letting the strike slip so close to his stomach that it could have tickled the hairs on it. In the same motion, Noah’s palm slammed into Garina’s chin. It did about as much as kicking a brick wall would have, but the strike still connected.

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His body was moving on its own. Garina retaliated immediately by shoving Noah back and diving for him while he was off balance.

Noah jumped back to keep the space between them, but Garina vaulted off her hands and shot her entire body toward him feet-first like an Apostle-shaped projectile. Noah arched back, dropping to the ground and letting Garina pass directly over him.

He thrust his hands up, driving them into her stomach with all the force he could still muster.

A powerful force suddenly clamped down on his arms. By the time Noah realized that Garina had somehow grabbed his wrists mid-flight, she’d already yanked him off the ground. Wind whipped past his face as Garina landed and swung his entire body like a huge sack of potatoes, sending him hurtling face-first toward the ground.

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Noah’s body spun of its own volition. His core screamed in protest as he pulled himself to the side, redirecting the momentum of the swing to somehow send himself plowing into her midsection.

They collided with a loud, bone-shaking thud. If she’d been a normal human, the force would probably have been enough to send her tumbling to the ground and knock the air from her lungs. But she was Garina — and all Noah’s efforts really accomplished was eliciting a slight grunt.

He didn’t care. He was well past the point of caring. Noah put every ounce of his strength into twisting his body like a top. He found his leg slicing through the air like an axe blow before he even knew what he was doing with it.

His heel slammed into the back of Garina’s head. Her eyes widened slightly and she stumbled forward. She threw Noah to the ground and drove a foot down toward him, but he’d already rolled out of the way.

It was odd. It didn’t seem like Garina’s attacks were coming any slower. She was as fast as she had been at the start of the fight. Her blows just weren’t connecting as much as they had been. More and more of the attacks slipped or glanced off Noah, failing to do any serious damage.

It was like he knew where the attacks would be aimed at before Garina had even thrown them. He was responding to attacks before they’d even started heading in his direction. A part of him didn’t even feel like he was fighting anymore.

This felt more like a dance. Noah could practically hear the tune of a distant song echoing in the back of his skull, dictating the ebb and flow of the movements he and Garina were ordained to take. Every move felt like it had been done a dozen times before. Every step was practiced. Like they’d rehearsed everything for some grand competition until they’d both gotten the fight-dance down to a precise science.

Noah found himself humming along to the tune. He couldn’t have even said what the tune was. His mind wasn’t anywhere near awake enough to register anything beyond a passing fancy. He just knew it — whatever it was — was there.

It was almost as if…

A moment of clarity slammed into Noah like one of Garina’s punches. The separation between his mind, body, and soul shattered as all three of them crashed back together for a flicker of an instant.

And in that moment of heightened clarity, every sound went still.

Garina’s fist slammed straight into Noah’s nose.

He died.

His soul tore free from his body for what was now the fifth time that day. Noah let out a sputtering slew of curses as all the pain from his death slipped away, replaced by the fragmenting agony of his soul being chipped away at.

He practically plunged back into his gourd before it had even begin yanking him back —

His eyes snapped open and he sat upright, rapidly disrobing his corpse to pull the clothes onto himself. They were only a little bloodied up. There was no point wasting a perfectly good uniform when Garina was probably going to ruin his next one anyway.

“Oops,” Garina said, looking down at the blood dripping from her knuckles. “I wasn’t actually trying to kill you there. I think I got a little bit too much into the swing of things.”

“Literally and figuratively,” Noah grumbled as he tugged his jacket back on and rose to his feet. A pounding headache echoed through his skull. It wasn’t going to go away until his magic returned and he could call on the Fragment of Renewal again.

“What happened there?” Garina asked. “That was—”

“I had a moment where everything seemed to click. Then you punched me in the face and I died.”

“Not that part,” Garina said through a snort. “Really, you shouldn’t be stopping in the middle of a fight to ogle at your own genius. At least wait until after it’s done. No, I’m talking about before your little moment of clarity got you killed. You were dodging my punches.”

“I’m… honestly not entirely sure,” Noah admitted. His brow scrunched as he dug back through his thoughts. The song that he could have sworn he’d heard was gone. He remembered hearing the song, but the notes and its melody were completely gone. Nothing remained other than the memory of its passing.

Was that a pattern? I can sense patterns while I have no magic? And what the hell kind of pattern even was that? That’s… odd. Really odd.

“Well, whatever it was, not bad,” Garina said, sizing up Noah like a particularly well marbled cut of steak. “You adapted to physical combat a bit faster than I was expecting. I could see a lot of Lee’s movements in yours, but there was more as well. You might actually be able to make something of yourself if we keep practicing like this. We’re done for today. I suppose I promised to help out with your class, and I hate breaking promises.”

“Thanks, I think.” Noah rubbed his forehead as he tried to organize his thoughts through the angry headache battering at the inside of his brain. “You know, not that I’m complaining, but you didn’t really ask me any questions during the fight. We just fought.”

Garina smirked. “You answer far more questions with your actions than your words. The thing I was most interested in was the kind of person you were, and I’ve got the answer to that. I’ll figure the rest out in time. Now brace yourself. I’m taking us back to Arbitage for your class, and I don’t want to get thrown up on when we arrive.”

Noah’s skull throbbed again, but in spite of it, the corner of his lip twitched up in the faintest of smiles. “No promises.”