The two remained locked in a silent standoff for several seconds before suddenly exploding into motion!
Without the slightest hesitation, Sakura drew back her blade and immediately attacked again. This time, her target was Kevin, who stood in her way.
Sakura was extremely confident in her martial skill. Even members of MOTH's Special Operations Unit could not last ten moves against her.
Both of them moved with incredible speed. In the span of only a few seconds, broken blade and baseball bat collided dozens of times, the heavy metal bat and elegant blade grinding against each other and scattering countless sparks between them.
If her katana had not been broken, or if Sakura had not suffered internal injuries from the infrasound attack, she could have moved even faster.
Even so, the opponent before her astonished Sakura. This white-haired young man, whom she had met only once before, was actually keeping pace with the skills she had honed to their utmost limits through nothing more than his physical capabilities.
Within MOTH, Sakura had only ever encountered one other person capable of such a feat. That person also had white hair, and his name was Siegfried.
"Don't you intend to say anything?"
Kevin spoke with effortless ease beneath Sakura's relentless assault.
It seemed Sakura's offensive could not place Kevin under any pressure whatsoever.
At Kevin's question, Sakura's gaze sharpened.
"Your strength is indeed formidable. You remind me of an old acquaintance. He once caught my full-powered strike with one hand."
(One-Armed Bro Siegfried, the eternal legend.)
After blocking another horizontal swing from Kevin with her broken blade, Sakura simply discarded the shattered weapon.
"But if this is the full extent of your strength, it still isn't enough to protect the woman you love behind you. The malice hidden within MOTH goes far beyond anything you can imagine."
Having frequently carried out missions assigned by the higher-ups, she had also guessed what Dr. Mei intended to do.
She likewise deeply admired Dr. Mei's choice. Only someone with extraordinary resolve would dare challenge higher-ups who had already strayed so severely from their original ideals.
However, Sakura was an assassin known as Forget-Me-Not. Everything else was something she needed to ignore and forget.
Sakura understood perfectly well that this was sin. If she did not selectively ignore and forget such things, she would never be able to raise her sword against them.
Sakura had already killed more than one innocent person like Dr. Mei.
There was no need for discussion. Her mission had only one objective: kill Dr. Mei and Dr. Newton, while taking care of Vill-V along the way. (Vill-V: I've been demoted to "along the way"?)
Other than completing her mission, Sakura had no other choice.
"My apologies."
Sakura's long, pale fingers rested upon the hilt of Frozen Naraka.
Ordinarily, Sakura would not casually use Frozen Naraka.
Those killed by this weapon often had their consciousness frozen, infinitely prolonging their perception of the instant of death.
But her katana had already broken, and this was now the only weapon she had left.
And the man before her was worthy of her full strength.
Setsuna Realm!
A faint sakura-colored glow flickered in the girl's eyes. This was something achievable only after one's martial cultivation had reached the profound realm of perfect clarity between mind and intent.
If Sakura had been a pure martial artist, perhaps she would have exchanged insights into the martial path with Kevin before using her ultimate technique against him.
But Sakura was not a pure martial artist. She was an assassin who followed orders, a MOTH assassin who would stop at nothing to accomplish her objective.
Memories of cherry blossoms surged through her mind as the girl who carried the proud spirit of the flower reached the instant of her own blossoming.
The girl whispered softly. The spirit blade at her waist left its sheath. Only the flash of steel could be seen, not the person wielding it. Cherry blossoms danced through the air like a snowfall of countless petals, settling upon the lake and forming a thin layer of ice.
"Iaijutsu—Zero-Time Blade Flash!"
The blade's radiance froze the night sky like blue lightning, froze the reflection upon the lake, froze the beautiful sight of snowflakes drifting through the air.
It was a strike that vanished in an instant. A strike so fast it seemed capable of severing everything.
Enemies who had faced this technique in the past had only enough time to see a dark crimson flower of blood bloom across their chests before collapsing onto their backs.
This was the strike of the woman who, in the Previous Era, had yet to receive the Signet of Setsuna as a Flame-Chaser.
Like an epiphyllum blooming for a single instant amid ice and snow.
Before the blade's radiance even reached him, a layer of bone-chilling frost had already formed across Kevin's body.
It's even faster than the Herrscher of Wind's wind blades!
Alarm bells screamed through Kevin's mind. Sakura's attack this time was completely different from everything before it.
Compared to this attack, all of her previous techniques seemed more like deliberate displays of weakness.
This slash was the true deciding blow.
Faced with Sakura's iaijutsu, Kevin no longer had time to dodge.
Besides, Dr. Mei was directly behind him. Kevin could not dodge even if he wanted to.
The thick metal baseball bat was severed in an instant by that streak of blade light.
In Kevin's eyes, Sakura's iaijutsu seemed to move very slowly, but that was merely an illusion created by his retinas. Sakura was already moving so quickly that an afterimage remained in front of him.
Kevin could guarantee that no one could dodge a slash delivered in such a fleeting instant.
The strike was simply too fast, completed in the space of a hand's turn.
It was the culmination of Sakura's skill, the essence forged through centuries of Hokushin Itto-ryu.
It was difficult to imagine how the person Sakura spoke of could possibly have caught such a strike with one hand.
But modern combat was hardly limited to the clash of cold weapons.
Kevin had never been a pure martial artist in the first place. He was a soldier.
Kevin withdrew his hands and folded his arms across his chest, calmly reciting the code phrase Vill-V had given him: "Reject the sickly son-in-law."
A rock-hard plasma shield instantly appeared around Kevin, blocking the incomparable strike for him.
Plasma shields were the natural bane of metal, and Sakura's spirit blade was no exception.
The battlefield Vill-V and Dr. Mei had jointly tailored specifically for Kevin allowed him to unleash his power here without restraint, with abundant resources available to counter every method Sakura might employ.
Sakura had never anticipated such a move from Kevin. A plasma shield that could be activated and dismissed at will like this was unheard of, and Sakura had certainly never known Kevin possessed such equipment.
The suddenly deployed plasma shield caused Frozen Naraka to slam directly into its solid surface.
Sakura was not yet a MANTIS, after all. Her strength was only somewhat greater than that of an ordinary person. Faced with a solid high-tech shield that even large-caliber artillery shells could do nothing against, there was naturally no possibility of breaking through it.
Worse still, brilliant golden plasma currents instantly traveled through the blade and into Sakura's body.
Although the hilt was insulated, the plasma current still pierced through it and struck Sakura directly.
"Hmph."
Even through the pain, Sakura did not release the sword in her hand.
But because of that, she also lost the strength to resist.
Clang.
Kevin tossed aside the broken metal baseball bat, then drew a pair of pistols from his waist modeled after the Judgment of Shamash and pressed them against Sakura's head. "I admit you're very strong. My victory wasn't exactly honorable."
"...As expected, the inventions of Engineering Department Head Newton truly live up to their reputation."
Sakura acknowledged that, with technology enhancing Kevin's abilities, she was no match for him in a direct confrontation.
But Sakura was not a pure martial artist either. She was a merciless assassin.
As she spoke, Sakura pulled a smoke grenade from her waist and detonated it at point-blank range.
Caught off guard, Kevin grabbed Dr. Mei and immediately pulled away from Sakura.
As an assassin, Sakura likewise carried MOTH's technological equipment. It was merely her martial artist's heart that made her dislike using such things.
Never underestimate the equipment carried by an assassin.