The Laughing Swordsman

Once Apollo started to disappear, Layla no longer directly looked at him. In fact, she didn't even bother turning her head.

Apollo continued to circle around her, but only glimpses of his figure could be seen. He appeared in one place, then another.

It was as though he was a ghost.

...No, as though he were a group of specters, all surrounding Layla and gradually making their way to her.

And so, when Apollo appeared behind Layla, there was basically no sign of it coming.

Yet before he could land a hit on Layla, she disappeared even though both of Apollo's eyes were right on her.

A cheery voice came from behind him.

"Hehe, I never thought about doing it like this!"

It was Layla.

Apollo preemptively disappeared, reappearing a few meters away. However, Layla hadn't even swung at him. She simply stood there with a bright smile on her face.

Apollo turned around and looked at her closely.

How did Layla even disappear in the first place?

...Did she have the same technique?

Or was she just that fas-

Without warning, Layla disappeared once more.

"Boo!"

To Apollo's dismay, she appeared right behind him. He stepped into the shadow world once more.

Apollo had only ruminated over this for a few seconds. However, it seems he spent too long thinking over it.

Apollo reappeared, only to be greeted by an empty forest.

And a voice behind him.

"This is friend's last chance!"

Layla casually stood behind Apollo as though she was there the entire time. Apollo furrowed his brows. He decided to try the same.

Apollo partially stepped into the shadow world, reappearing behind Layla. Yet, he could only catch a glimpse of her figure. In the next moment, she reappeared behind him.

Like this, the two of them continued appearing behind the other, almost like it was some sort of game.

Eventually, Apollo realized this was going nowhere. Instead of reappearing behind Layla, he decided to teleport forwards and turned around while still partially in the shadow world.

That was when he saw it.

It was the tiniest glimpse, but it was of something he could never forget.

The blue world.

And in the next moment, Layla was behind Apollo once more.

Although Layla could've moved even faster, directly suppressing Apollo with raw strength, she decided to limit herself.

This was just something Layla always did, not that she was looking down on Apollo or anything. In other words, she may be moving fast, but not enough to suddenly disappear from Apollo's vision.

In reality, Layla was tearing open the space and entering the blue world. She was essentially doing what Apollo was, but just entered a different realm.

When Layla stopped following Apollo with her eyes, that was actually because she was using her other senses to find out where Apollo was.

Layla realized that Apollo was able to speed himself up and remove himself from sight by entering some kind of other realm.

She thought that was really cool.

And so, Layla began thinking to herself.

What if she did that too?

However, there were fundamental differences between the properties of the shadow world and the blue world. Just the method of entering each plane was enough to make the basic shadow step technique invalid for the blue world.

But that didn't mean Layla couldn't improvise.

While she would tear open the space in order to enter, she noticed that Apollo would seemingly just disappear into it.

It was as though Layla pushed aside the dirt on the ground in order to go deeper, while Apollo could simply submerge himself as though he was passing through water.

And so, Layla decided to see if she could copy how Apollo did it. Instead of tearing open the space, Layla decided to press herself against the fabric of this realm, and then rip it apart. From the results, it was clearly a resounding success.

There was also another difference. While Apollo had to let himself be taken by the shadow world's pull, Layla had to move herself within the blue world.

She wasn't able to do the strange partial entry Apollo did.

That meant it took her a little longer to exit the blue world, which was what gave Apollo enough time to react to her sudden disappearances.

However, this also meant that Layla could reappear wherever she wanted.

And so, she reappeared behind Apollo as though humiliating him.

Layla swiped with her claw, but Apollo disappeared before it could land. He took back to the trees. His feet pressed hard against the trunk. Then, he disappeared altogether.

Apollo reappeared with his foot on another tree, while Layla was right next to him, swiping her claw. Apollo disappeared once more, just barely dodging her strike.

In the end, Layla hit the tree, blowing it out of the ground and splitting it in two.

Like this, Apollo kept stepping on the trunks before appearing on another faraway tree. However, Layla would appear next to Apollo at nearly the same moment. No matter how seemingly random his path was. Then, she would destroy the tree he was just on.

Apollo no longer had the freedom to attack. The only thing he could do was step into the shadow world the moment he stepped out.

One after another, trees were blown away, scattering large amounts of snow into the air. At this rate, the forest would be littered with broken trees.

But Apollo didn't plan to just do the same thing over and over again.

The more he disappeared, the more he felt in tune with both the real world and the shadow world.

It was as though he had listened to the same song so many times, he could repeat the lyrics by heart.

Apollo stepped on one tree, then disappeared.

He appeared on another, then disappeared once more.

Left, right, forward.

It was as though the stars began to align for Apollo.

Right, forward, left.

...Then backward.

Apollo reappeared behind Layla with a fierce smile.

While his bokken traced an arc towards her back.