Chapter 85: A Gift in the Desert
As always... I attacked her by surprise.
It had become a silent ritual between us. A cruel game. An unspoken tradition.
Before fights. During. Sometimes just after, as she wiped away the blood or caught her breath. It didn’t matter. There were no rules. Only this unwritten law: as long as she hadn’t seen me coming, I had the right to try.
And I won.
Always.
Well... I still won. But less and less easily.
Because she was changing.
Day after day, blow after blow, her body adjusted, her reflexes sharpened, her reading of movements became more precise, more instinctive. She was no longer that hesitant student, forged in urgency. She was becoming... something else.
A wall. A predator.
She controlled her outfit perfectly — that mythical armor which, in another era, might have belonged to a fallen god or king. She mastered its weight, its density, its energy flow. Each plate had become an extension of herself. Her movements, once somewhat clumsy, had become fluid to the point of near poetry.
And I... struggled.