The Extra is a Genius!?-Chapter 616: Noel vs Roberto [III]

They moved again almost at the same time, the brief space between them collapsing under renewed intent. Noel came first with pure sword pressure, no spell layered into it, only clean movement and a sequence of tight cuts meant to drive Roberto’s guard higher and steal the center back through force and rhythm alone. Revenant Fang struck low, rose sharply, then turned in his hand as Noel stepped in with his shoulder behind the next swing. Roberto met him without hurry, parrying with that same infuriating economy of movement, turning one blow aside with his blade, catching Noel’s wrist for half a breath with his forearm, then forcing their bodies close enough that the clash became less about distance and more about leverage.

"I’ve been trapped in the cycle for too long," Roberto said, his voice calm enough to feel wrong in the middle of that exchange.

Noel drove a knee toward his side. Roberto shifted his hip just enough to blunt it, then checked Noel’s shoulder with his elbow and slid away from the next cut by less than an inch.

"It’s not the kind of tired that sleep fixes. Rest doesn’t touch it. Time doesn’t touch it. You just keep going until the next loop begins and everything you almost reached gets dragged away again."

Noel pressed forward, blade colliding hard against Roberto’s as sparks flashed between them. He turned his body, tried to break the angle, tried to force the fight into something uglier, something harder to keep tidy, but Roberto stayed with him through every step.

"It’s ending now, one way or another," Roberto continued. "That should feel good, shouldn’t it? Freedom. Release. A conclusion." His smile was faint, almost tired itself. "And yet I feel lost."

Their swords locked for a breath. Noel shoved forward. Roberto gave ground just enough to unwind the bind and kept speaking.

"The worst part isn’t dying, Noel. It’s realizing I may not have any of them anymore. Not you. Not Marcus. Not Garron or Laziel. Not Seraphina. Not Class S. Not the academy." His eyes stayed on Noel’s through the next collision of steel. "Though maybe that isn’t really a loss. I never had anything to begin with. So having nothing again wouldn’t be new."

Something in Noel’s expression changed then, only slightly, a quiet sadness more than anything obvious, but Roberto saw it at once.

His own expression sharpened. Their blades scraped as Roberto forced Noel’s sword aside and stepped in close enough for his voice to drop.

"No..." His eyes found Noel’s and stayed there. "Stop that." A beat of silence. "Don’t make that face." His jaw tightened slightly. "I don’t like it. I hate it." His voice dropped lower, almost quiet enough to disappear under the tension between them. "Don’t... pity me."

Roberto moved first this time, and the change in him was easy to feel. The calm was still there on the surface, but something underneath it had sharpened. His blade met Noel’s with more force than before, the clash ringing harder through the white dimension as he stepped in close enough to turn the duel rough. He caught Noel’s forearm after one exchange, dragged him off-line, and struck with the hilt toward his ribs. Noel twisted with it, took most of the force on his body instead of cleanly, then answered with a fast cut aimed at Roberto’s shoulder. Roberto knocked it aside and shoved him back a step.

"You don’t get to pity me."

Their swords collided again. Noel pressed in with tighter control, keeping his center lower, trying to force Roberto to answer from worse angles. Roberto matched him anyway, shoulder against shoulder for a brief second before they separated half a pace and crashed back together.

"You were like me," Roberto said, his voice no longer as calm as before. "In your other life, you had nothing too." He turned Noel’s blade away, stepped in, and drove a knee toward his thigh. "You were alone." Noel caught the motion and answered with a short elbow toward Roberto’s jaw, but Roberto slipped it and kept speaking through the exchange. "That gray little life of yours... sad and empty. Do you think I couldn’t see it? We understood each other because we were the same."

Steel scraped harshly as Noel forced the bind upward and broke free.

"Empty inside," Roberto said.

Noel’s eyes hardened. "No. We’re not the same."

That answer landed harder than the blows.

Roberto’s expression shifted, irritation mixing with something closer to offense, but Noel did not give him space to breathe. Revenant Fang cut low, then reversed high, forcing Roberto to parry twice before Noel stepped in again and spoke through the pressure.

"You gave up."

Roberto caught the next strike and shoved him away, but Noel’s voice did not lose strength. "That’s why you’re still alone. You had a choice. You could have refused. You could have stopped." A beat, blade meeting blade again. "I could have helped you."

For the first time since the duel began, Roberto did not answer immediately. Their swords met once more, rough and bright in that endless white place, and then he forced space between them with brute control rather than clean elegance. His breathing was steady, but his eyes were not.

"How, Noel..."

The question came out quieter than anything he had said before.

"Go on. Enlighten me." His eyes stayed fixed on Noel’s, and underneath the demand there was something else, something older and more tired than anger. "How would you have helped me?"

Noel forced the bind downward, broke it with a violent turn of the wrist, and cut low. Roberto caught the strike, answered with a short blow from the guard of his sword toward Noel’s face, and kept talking before Noel had even fully reset his footing.

"We’re talking about gods." His voice carried real frustration now, stripped of the earlier composure. "You cannot have more power than a god."

Noel stepped inside the next cut instead of retreating from it, their swords scraping together as he jammed Roberto’s angle and drove a knee toward his side. Roberto twisted enough to take it badly rather than cleanly, then shoved him back half a step and came forward again with a fast diagonal slash that Noel barely turned away in time.

"And you?"

The words stopped Roberto more than the parry had.

Noel pressed immediately, blade flashing high, then low, then rising again as he forced Roberto to keep answering with steel instead of speech. "You created a dimension on your own." Their swords collided again, close enough that Noel could see the tension in Roberto’s jaw. "Do you really think you couldn’t do anything for yourself?" He stepped in, forearm striking against Roberto’s sword arm to spoil the next motion. "Or that I couldn’t?"

Roberto said nothing for the first time.

He still fought, still answered, still moved with deadly precision, but the silence that followed had weight now. The kind that only came when something hit deeper than anger wanted to admit.

Noel felt it and stayed on him. Their blades kept colliding, feet cutting sharp paths over the white ground, shoulders and elbows and raw pressure filling the gaps whenever steel alone was not enough. Both of them still dangerous. Both of them still fully capable of killing the other.

But the balance had shifted in a way that had nothing to do with technique.

Roberto had spoken more honestly than ever before, and Noel had finally struck at something more important than his guard.