It was a warm autumn day, likely one of the last of the season, Carman and Ryuzu were out in the middle of a forest, falling leaves dancing through the air as they stood on opposite ends of a small clearing.
Pulling a Condescence Crystal out of his storage, Carman held it in one of his hands and drew upon the elemental energy stored within it as he stuck out the index and middle fingers of both his hands and placed them in a cross shape.
[Shadow Clone]
Elemental energy was siphoned out of the crystal and coalesced into a familiar form, Carman, the energy somehow forming a perfect visual replica of the boy.
The clone yawned and stretched, "Ah, so you're going to have us fight Ryuzu instead of you now, huh?"
Ignoring his clone, Carman pulled on the elemental energy once more, forming a second and then a third, after the last one had formed, the once blue crystal in Carman's hands had lost all of its color, looking more like a chunk of glass, then with a crack, the crystal shattered and dissipated into the air.
One clone picked up a spear, one a sword, and the last one was handed the Fan of 500 winds.
Ryuzu stood there, watching, Carman had surprised her when she had come across him fighting a copy of himself for the first time. It had been the first time she had seen anything of the sort happen before, it was even more disconcerting when the clone had exploded into a shower of water when carman had stabbed it with a wooden sword. However, she had quickly adapted, this was another, much more magical world, and Carman was far from normal as well.
She had since overseen the spars Carman was having with himself, working on a variety of styles, swordsmanship, spearmanship, and even learning how to shape the air around him to create vacuums, pressure blasts, and many things that defied the conventional laws of physics.
At first, his growth had been impressive—unnatural, even.
He rapidly improved his footwork, how to properly guard vital areas of his body with his weapon, the importance of using multiple parts of his body in tandem to improve his strikes, and how to keep an opponent at a range using his magic.
But then came the plateau.
His clones, though effective training tools, shared his exact thought process. In time, they began predicting each other's moves too well. Sparring sessions devolved into mirrored chess matches, both sides stalling or countering in near-perfect synchronicity. Carman had tried spawning more clones to increase the unpredictability, but the results remained the same: predictability bred stagnation.
The frustration had begun to show. He was fighting himself—literally and metaphorically—and losing not because he wasn't skilled, but because he was literally fighting a mirror, and there was only so much one could improve on when fighting someone on the same level as themselves, one that mirrored their every action, whose entire skillset you knew like the back of your hand.
It was then that Ryuzu offered to step in, since he had reached the end of what self-study could currently offer him, Ryuzu would fight them, as she was a completely separate entity they would not be able to predict her movements and attacks as easily, additionally her higher strength and speed would give him experience in battling a being who outclasses him in physical aspects.
This idea had come to her as she learned that the clones relayed memories back to the original for some inexplicable reason. Since that was the case, the original Carman could focus on just producing clones as she demolished them. In theory, as she fought against them, and their experience was transmitted back to the original who would then produce a new clone with that experience, they would know how to fight better and more efficiently.
With her lack of need for rest to recoup stamina, they could go as long as they needed to and had the resources to produce clones for.
However, a problem that Carman had pointed out was that while they could return memories to him upon being dispelled, they were incapable of gaining or improving existing muscles, nor would their physical exhaustion be reflected onto him once they dispersed, meaning that he could not have a clone constantly doing physical conditioning before dispelling and transferring the results to him. However, with his daily training regimen, that should not be an issue.
"Are you ready to begin?" She asked as the trio of Carman clones took up a formation in front of her.
The three nodded in almost choreographed synchronization, and proceeded to move towards her, the sword wielder taking the front, spear just behind him as the catalyst user stood in the back.
Moving forward, Ryuzu limited her speed to one the clones could react to, her strength however was not as limited, with a quick slash of her current claymore arm, she deflected the sword user's attack, and sent the blade flying into the other end of the clearing.
The spear clone moved to attack, and she rotated the claymore so the flat of the blade blocked the dull spear tip.
Moving in closer, Ryuzu drove the toe of her boot into the first clone's gut, folding him over as he was lifted into the air from the force and exploded into water. The spear clone made a jab at her, however instead of blocking or parrying, Ryuzu stepped to the side as a heavy gust of air breezed past her. Kicking up a stone, she used her weapon as a bat and sent the rock flying towards the catalyst clone, who had to duck in order to avoid being hit by the stone.
The original Carman felt a short burst of memories flood into his brain, fighting ryuzu close up, then feeling her kick him in the gut with the force of a train. With a sigh he pulled out a new crystal from his storage and used it to create a new clone, and handed him another training sword before he dashed off towards the fight. The clone, using Carman's Anemo Manipulation skill, coved the sword with Anemo energy and made a few quick slashes towards Ryuzu, who promptly ducked and threw a handful of dust from her pocket into the spear clone's eyes before kicking him in the gut as well and dissipating him.
Another burst of memories and Carman summoned a new clone to take the spear position.
The sword clone kept a decent amount of space between himself and Ryuzu, working hard to keep her attention on himself. So far Ryuzu had mainly been passive, taking defensive stances, dodging and parrying attacks more than actively attacking.
This time, the clone tried to keep some range, sending Anemo slashes through the space between him and Ryuzu.
Ryuzu moved smoothly, slipping like water through the gaps in the clone's offensive, then the catalyst clone made an attack after she was forced to jump into the air, stretching his hand out and forming a handful of feathers out of Anemo energy and shooting them in Ryuzu's direction like a volley of arrows.
Ryuzu, hearing the movement, looked over in the feather's direction and quickly extended her sub arms to stab her claymore into the ground, and use it to leverage herself back to the ground.
The feathers altered their trajectories, changing their direction midair to keep their aim on her, and chasing her no matter how much she dodged, Carman's sword clone used the distraction to his advantage as he moved in closer and was promptly smacked with the side of Ryuzu's sword and dispelled into mist.
The spear clone finally reached the fight and pressed on where the sword clone had failed, ducking and dodging Ryuzu's counters, but quickly getting hit once she got serious.
The cycle of creating clones and sending them to be destroyed in combat repeated again and again for hours, Carman could feel the difference, new pathways in his mind being connected, combat experience being gained, new strategies being unlocked, and faulty interpretations of spear and bladework being violently purged one shower of water at a time.
Soon it was nightfall, and Carman Collapsed, exhausted and his mind full of memories he had not personally experienced countless minutes of combat added to his memories fo the day, in total, while he the original had only spent an afternoon creating clones and watching them bet beat again and again, he had memories correlating to close to two extra days worth from all the clones he had summoned.
Ruyzu caught him as he teetered on the edge of consciousness, his brain demanding sleep to deal with the huge backlog of memories.
"You did well, rest now, you need to sleep."
-To be continued