Log Horizon - Volume 9 - Chapter 5.5

5 
“What is this speed—?! That light—” 
“Shut up!!” 
Two. Three, four! 
Rasfia was no longer silent. Countless mesmerizing blades leapt from the arm she drove forward. She was prepared to go down and take him with her. 
Leonardo took these attacks, and sprays of blood went up from his chest and forehead. 
He evaded with Gust Step, and no sooner had he appeared behind Rasfia’s back than he hit her with his sixth slash. The destructive power in Deadly Dance was already up to 175 percent of the damage in its first attack. As she took nearly double the damage of a normal attack, Rasfia’s limbs crumbled away easily, then immediately regrew. 
Leonardo had no leeway, either. He was an Assassin, just a Weapon Attack class; he wasn’t a Warrior class, whose mission was to take damage from enemies on the front line, nor a Recovery class, who could heal their own damage. He had better defense than a magic user, but there was a limit to his HP. 
Take them down before they take you out. For the weapon attack classes, that was the principle behind solo combat. However, even as the monstrous girl before him smiled with charm, she slipped through Leonardo’s attacks again and again, jabbing him with thrusts cloaked in cold air. 
Ignoring his draining HP, Leonardo paid out more attacks. Either way, as an attack class, there was nothing else he could do. 
—Nothing but attack and silence his target. 
“What is that power?! You poor little lamb! You foolish, lost child of this transient world!” 
“Shut up! I don’t wanna hear that from a lousy raid boss!” 
“Raid boss? Heh-heh! Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh! —Aah! How droll, what comedy! Just when I fancied you were an all-knowing god privy to the secrets of the cycle of transmigration, you prattle like a naïve child playing on the beach. How atrociously soft. That sin is worth ten thousand deaths!” 
“What…” 
…was she saying? 
What did it mean? 
Leonardo couldn’t finish the question. 
Rasfia had abruptly closed in on him, and in the instant his eyes were caught by her glossy lips, sharp pain ran through him. A gnoll head had appeared from a tear in her gothic dress. 
The gnoll, which had sunk its fangs into the top of Leonardo’s shoulder, disappeared, leaving only the inside of its red-stained mouth behind, like an illusion. 
His shredded shoulder could still move, but his HP was nearly gone. 
This is no time for talking! 
Mustering his willpower, Leonardo continued his chain of attacks. 
The permissible input time for Deadly Dance was a bit under two seconds. Unless he executed the next Deadly Dance within that time limit, the increase in attack power he’d accumulated up to this point would evaporate. 
Tearing his mind away from his hot, throbbing shoulder—Quick Assault. Deadly Dance, as if slamming it into Rasfia’s impudent words. 
The attack power had increased to 212 percent. 
Mental serenity led to skill. Leonardo did his best to keep his eyes focused on what was in front of him. The pain, which was like a ringing in his ears, receded. His own body temperature had been in the way, but it receded as well. The world held nothing but the twenty-odd types of special attack skills Leonardo could use. Combining their cast times, motion binds, and recast times, he raced down the shortest route. 
There was no single right answer. The enemy’s defense and evasions, the distance between himself and them, their weight and the positions of their dominant hand and foot. On the contrary, these were an RGB kaleidoscope that shifted with the passage of time with a lowercase t. Seeking the best move within it, avoiding dead ends that would shut down his attacks, Leonardo continued his internal sprint. 
In the midst of a sense of time so stretched out that he could feel the delay in his own physical reaction speed, the method—the “code”—he’d assembled in order to attack caught fire. 
“What ferocity! But even that is mere child’s play.” 
“That’s just fine!” 
Leonardo thought this from the bottom of his soul. 
“Child’s play” was just fine. 
Programs were dense trees and forests. 
He could assemble tiny, simple codes, building functions. The accumulation created bigger, more convenient components, and before long, he had an app. He combined them even more dynamically, had them transmit to each other, and created a service. 
Leonardo knew that, if you wanted results, you had to do very simple work and keep on doing it. In order to create a work of art that was the equivalent of an enormous structure, you had to put together the fragments that were in front of you right now. 
Geeks were the people who understood that distance… 
…and the ones who embodied its nobility were hackers. 
Leonardo happily continued his detailed operations. 

The attack power was currently at 245 percent. 
If Rasfia wanted to call it child’s play, she could do that all day. That child’s play was cornering her. Leonardo believed that. He believed in geeks. 
“As often as you like.” 
Beyond a salvia-like spray of blood that had bloomed in the air, he saw Rasfia’s slender hand. 
As Leonardo layered on another Deadly Dance, she aimed an attack at his neck, but he avoided it by simply twisting the trunk of his body, then pursued her. That counterattack had cost him three of the special skills he could have chosen for his next attack. He had four possible options left. From these, he chose the next attack, the move that would lead to the next exchange, and executed another strike. 
“Paralyze Blow!” 
“Keh-hee-hee!” 
No, even those thoughts were in the way. 
All that existed were nearly reflexive decisions, backed up by vast amounts of experience. Leonardo believed in the branching skills he’d unearthed. His training up on that big boulder was alive here, in the midst of this fight that would spell the difference between life and death. 
“I’ve wearied of this. Die, ignorant lout. Dance, Reckless!” 
Possibly she’d grown irritated: Without even avoiding Leonardo’s swords, Rasfia unleashed a large attack. 
Her sleeves swelled up like balloons, then released a torrent of gnolls. Claws, fangs, swords, and axes hit him like raging waves. It was Rasfia’s certain-kill attack, one made possible by her ability to negate damage using her “names,” and it was meant to take out both of them at once. The torrent was filled with the grotesque resolution to inflict a lethal wound, no matter which attacks he avoided. 
But Leonardo had been waiting for that attack as well. 
“‘Reckless’?! Awesome, bring it!” 
Activating Trick Step, Leonardo leapt into the attack. In the treetops, twenty meters above the ground, he danced fearlessly between life and death. With a calm heart, looking just like the heroes he admired, he unleashed his attacks. 
If this was an attack that was determined not to let Leonardo get away when he fled, then all he had to do was not flee. In a group attack that surrounded you, the eye of the storm held a shot at survival. 
“Deadly Dance!!” 
Just as the name implied, it was a dance of life and death: Rasfia’s switching advances; Leonardo’s attacks. Victory drifted in the space between them. 
“What delight, what joy! However, you’re still—” 
Leonardo had slashed Rasfia with the tip of his sword and sent her flying, and he raced after her. Her name blurred. He’d predicted that already, a moment earlier. He’d taken a lot of hits. Leonardo didn’t have any time left. 
Still, his heart was quiet. 
He could even remember her voice. 
Leonardo had hurt her. He’d treated her like a doll. 
But there was only one way that heroes apologized. 
Just one. 
Rasfia’s expression had warped into a smile. He wouldn’t give her time. 
Her torso disappeared, like a dim shadow. However, that was merely an omen of regeneration, and her eyes, half-closed in apparent delight, reflected Leonardo’s figure. 
One beat. The space of one-fourth of a breath. That was the amount of time Rasfia needed in order to regenerate. He’d gotten a feel for it during their long battle. 
Leonardo sought out, then implemented, an attack with enough speed to force its way into that slight space. 
“Sorry. I’ve got a previous engagement.” 
The fastest, strongest, ultimate secret move, using the residual tension after Deadly Dance as a portion of its activation gesture. 
—Assassinate. 
It was the Assassin’s pride, a single special attack with astronomical output. It boasted the greatest power of all twelve classes. 
“!! ?! ?” 
The sensation of neatly bisecting a crimson world was as dry as if he’d cut a fragile clay vessel in half. Leonardo, who’d mustered all his strength for the pursuit, lost his balance and was left unable to do anything but look at the figure of the lovely girl whom he’d already cut in two. 
“Get lost!!” 
“Ah… Aah! —The hands of the clock—eleven more—” 
The girl’s expression looked taken aback, as if she’d just heard a magnificent joke, but she showed no pain. Leaving behind a delirious murmur, she turned into particles. 
Leonardo watched it happen. A moment later, though, he remembered he’d also leapt off the branch into thin air, and he ended up enjoying a cordless bungee jump to the ground.