They rose as one, grains of sand cascading from their clothes like tiny waterfalls. The cool night air couldn't prevent the first beads of sweat that now traced paths down their temples. Their lungs worked harder now, each breath deeper than the last.
Mirrored across their faces, the sa wild smile that spoke of the joy they were having clashed with each other.
They rushed forward together, and the spar intensified. Every exchange beca a conversation in violence. Scáth would lead with a complex combination of high jab, low sweep, feint to the body, then a sudden real strike aid at the face.
But Reinhard never failed to read it halfway through, countering with guard adjustnts, redirections, and the occasional parry that deflected the force with almost insulting ease.
Neither held a permanent advantage.
Scáth pressed forward, her knees bending as she feinted a sweep, then pivoted to deliver a spinning kick that blurred through the moonlight. Reinhard anticipated, bent backward at the waist until spine nearly parallel to ground, the heel passing centiters from his nose. He responded with a palm strike aid for her exposed hip, but she caught the wrist, used his force to pull him past her, then tried to trip him with her own trailing leg.
He recovered, let himself fall into the trip, using it to roll shoulder-first through the sand. He caught her ankle on the way down, yanked it, trying to topple her, but Scáth simply planted her hands and executed a flawless handspring, dislodging his grip and landing upright several feet away.
They reset, neither daring to break eye contact.
At one point, she caught his wrist in mid-punch, twisted, and sent him spinning. Reinhard rode the montum, planted his other hand in the sand, and kicked upward with both legs, catching Scáth square in the chest with a force that would have felled any human. Instead, she absorbed the motion, staggered, and returned with a dropkick aid at his midsection. He barely rolled aside, the impact sending up a spray of sand where his ribcage had been.
They clashed, separated, then clashed again, each ti learning a little more about the other's rhythm and finding that neither had a rhythm at all; both were difficult to predict.
Reinhard feinted a right, then drove low, shoulder catching Scáth in the stomach. He lifted her, intending to slam her back down, but Scáth clamped her legs around his waist, locked her ankles, and twisted, forcing him to lose equilibrium and stumble sideways. He dropped her, but not before she planted a foot on his knee, using it as a springboard to vault up and over his head. She landed behind him and hooked his neck in a loose choke, but he ducked, rolled, and threw her over his shoulders, sending her tumbling forward. She used the montum to cartwheel through the air and land, catlike, on all fours.
They both froze, panting, then started laughing—a deliriously wild sound, the kind that only ca from being tested at the limits of ability.
Five minutes beca ten, which expanded to fifteen minutes and stretched to twenty.
Their breathing grew heavier, movents slightly slower as they gradually began to calm down. Sweat soaked through their clothing a bit while sand covered both of them, stuck to exposed skin.
Finally, simultaneously, without discussion or signal, both fighters stopped, and both were close to each other.
Then, as if agreent had been reached telepathically, both let their legs give out. They fell backward onto the sand, Reinhard on his back, Scáth spread out down from him, both staring up at the stars while catching their breath.
Scáth's laughter rang out first, filled with pure joy at having pushed herself and having experienced combat for its own sake.
Reinhard's chuckle followed, which was lighter, quieter, but equally filled with joy. For thirty minutes, he hadn't thought about Klein or Anna or impossible futures. For thirty minutes, there had been only the fight, only the mont, only the pure physical experience of the body in motion.
The weight hadn't disappeared, but it had lessened and was manageable.
Footsteps approached across the sand, lighter than Scáth's earlier stomping. Reinhard tilted his head back to see Marie walking toward them, moonlight making her platinum hair glow. She carried two glasses filled with sothing colorful and cold-looking.
She stopped between them, looking down with an expression mixing amusent and exasperation. Her light-gold eyes sparkled with warmth despite the mock-stern set to her lips as she placed the drinks on the sand.
Then her hand ca down, flicking Reinhard's forehead.
"Ow," Reinhard muttered without real complaint.
Her other hand descended, flicking Scáth's forehead with equal precision.
"Hey!" Scáth protested, still laughing.
Marie's own laugh rang out; it was bright and clear and affectionate. She knelt gracefully and offered each of them a smoothie. "Here. You've earned these."
Reinhard took the gratefully cool glass that felt wonderfully against his palm, and he raised an eyebrow. "When did you make these?"
Marie's smile turned slightly smug. "You guys have been fighting for thirty minutes straight, so I had ti."
Scáth laughed again, pushing herself up to a sitting position. She took a long pull from her smoothie, wine-colored eyes closing with satisfaction. "Perfect."
Reinhard chuckled as he sat up, and then he began sipping his own smoothie, cold and sweet and exactly what his body needed. The three of them sat together on the moonlit beach while sipping their smoothies, feeling perfectly content.
Many thoughts still lingered in his mind.
But for this mont, sitting in the sand with friends who'd dragged him out of his spiraling thoughts through peace, sparring, and smoothies. Reinhard allowed himself to simply exist, rest, and enjoy himself under the stars.
The ocean waves continued their rhythm. Stars burned overhead. And on a beach under moonlight, three fighters shared comfortable silence broken only by the sound of smoothies being consud and occasional laughter.
Tomorrow will bring new challenges. New missions. New steps toward impossible goals.
But tonight, tonight was for rest, for friendship, for rembering what he was fighting to protect.
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