[center]~| Day of the Sacking, sixteen minutes after the attack|~
~|Jayda and Arix|~[/center]

Arix didn’t weep.

His master had provided him the same platitudes about death as any other, and all of them didn’t address the fact that she was [i]gone[/i]. Trampled by the callous Sith, rent open at side and back with the cauterized black lightsaber wounds that cut far too deep for anything resembling treatment, he did his best to...tidy her, he supposed. Get her hair from her face, close her eyes. If his hands shook during the process, the best that could be said was that he didn’t weep.

But he did feel the Sith that thought to take advantage of his weakness.

“Come to kill me, too?”

Pushing to his feet he summoned his saber to his hand from where it had rolled, snapping the crisp blue blade to life. He straightened his spine, ignored the weariness in his limbs and the burn in his eyes. His blade flicked up in the most vicious Makashi salute of his life.

Pain, anger and spite wafted off the youth before Jayda, her eyes studying the Echani as his hand snapped his lightsaber to life. His arm whipped to the side and back in front him, making a salute she had only seen a few times, showing his emotions on the surface too well. For a strange, surreal moment a memory flickered across her mind causing her heart to crack slightly. A destroyed room, ruins of her brother apartment, with his corpse severed in half at Sish’s feet. The dead eyes stared at her and seemed to blame her for being unable to save him, her pain filling her every fiber at the sight. 

“Preferably not unless you give me little choice.” Jayda spoke in surprisingly unemotional voice, despite the storm raging within her. Guilt pounced at her core the moment her brother’s face cropped up in her focus, temporarily dissolving her stance as she trotted closer. Her hilt still within her grip but not activated yet. “The temple is in ruins and there’s no escape. So your options are limited: surrender or flee. Which is it?” 

She never removed her eyes, her face blank to what her thoughts or state might be as she spoke. Even her body seemed relaxed. At least on the surface, but in reality, her muscles were ready to spring into action at the last second and if the Jedi was anything like she was, he wouldn’t hesitate to attack.  

“I’m sorry, Master Sint.” He said quietly, taking a few steps forward, raising the blade of light in front of him to stare down it towards the zabrak, high guard. “I should be better than this.”

And he charged.

It wasn’t as sloppy as it should have been, for how tired he was and for the braid dangling down the neck of his neck. A Makashi attack is a difficult thing to master, the efficient wrist-flicking slashes and thrusts almost always a trap for younger swordsmen in the tradition, but Arix knew better. This emotionless Sith that stared him down was not expecting a retreat--he could see it in the tension within the depths of her stance, the slight touches that showed her unrest. Many others would have missed it, but to an echani it was as clear as day.

He didn’t care that she wasn’t at ease. It didn’t matter that she didn’t really want to fight him, because there was [i]absolutely[/i] no way he was about to simply let another one of these animals walk on him.

The first swipe was a flick for her wrist, turning easily into a feint-to-thrust at her chest. If he could feel the ache in his leg with his lunge, his breath coming harder and the dull throbbing behind his eyes, well… he’d live.

Or not.

It was quick, circular motion made to disarm at first though Jayda naturally suspected there was more to the move than met the eye. Her thumb jerked and her saber hummed to life, bring her arm up. There was a harsh sound as her blade pulled into the path of the Jedi’s, blocking it with the minimal effort. It skimmed past and missed her wrist, running up to her chest’s left. The Jedi twisted his disarming attack into a stab at her chest causing her bring her blade about, her hand flickering it across her body and redirecting the movement.   

Battle light embered in her eyes for a second, her body feeling the hum edge from her core and outward to her limbs. Her hearts pounded and lungs inhaled deeply as she increased her steady pace to counter the jab. Jayda’s right foot stepped to the side, bring her body to circle him. Her form III showed easily in her blocks to date though her mind was waiting for the perfect time to strike, namely to take him alive. 

A strategy Arix was familiar with, he’d seen the passive-aggression of skilled Soresu practitioners often enough to know how to deal with it. It was, in many ways, why he had mastered Form II--its economy of action, of unshowy, effortless combination of offense and defense against a lightsaber and its focus on footwork allowed him both the time and the precision necessary to bait a Form III user into their own trap as often as not, and overwhelm them with swift strikes when it did not.

It was not going to work this time.

She was planning to wear him out but he was already [i]worn[/i]. She would wait for him to make a mistake and then capitalize on it, but it was clear enough from the tension in her legs, the crouched power she maintained despite the calm required by the form that she had done this before and would do it again, and that she was intending to capitalize on his first mistake rather than his third or fourth. 

“You’re holding back.”

This, more than anything else, frustrated Arix. He was tired, he was beaten, his master lay dead and the temple he had dedicated himself to was in ruins, its enemies at its gates. He had [i]lost[/i], as his Master would have sharply explained, by his surrender to his darker emotions, and now this Sith beast thought him foolish enough to simply waste himself against her defense until she could have his head.

She circled and he circled back, continuing the footwork until their positions were reversed. He would lose, he had no doubt, unless he proved bold--and if he was going to die, he wasn’t going to do it like the mewling padawan she knew him to be.

“Don’t you [i]dare[/i] hold back.” He finally snarled, lunging with another quick disengage to bait the obvious Soresu parry, the effortless motion that would be sufficiently automatic for the saber he tugged from his master’s belt and sent whirling for her back with a quick jerk of his off hand to hopefully come as somewhat of a shock. It was all he had left, the stop-thrust suitably final. Either his ploy would work… or he’d see his Master again soon.

Jayda’s eyebrow raised when she heard him speak, slightly surprised he noticed her restrain in the battle, but held her guard up.  Her eyes caught his tired movements from his sloppy attempts to hide them, his patience unlike many Jedi was wearing thinly. She minded her footing, taking one step to the side then another as they continued their deadly dance. For a moment, a hard one, Jayda merely stared at the padawan, expecting him to become the predicted aggressor that many had in the past.   

With a final snarl, he didn’t take long.

It was almost unnatural to see the unbridled fury within a Jedi. He, like many, didn’t understand [i]why[/i] she held back. Not even Sish, the filthy murder, understood fully why she never let her emotion surface.  

Again her blade flowed into place itself between her and the Jedi’s blade. However things happened differently this time. Instead of smacking it away, she locked with it and pinned it on the side nearest her.. Her body side stepped to his left then her free hand lashed out. Her sharp claws did a quick strike, enough to cause pain but to jerk out of the way should the lightsaber come whipping around. It was risk and unexpected, her hope it would’ve caught him off guard enough to gain an advantage. Each  block and parry had brought her subtly closer and closer during the duel, lessening the gap separating them until he was within striking distance.

Her eyes caught the fingers in his free hand twitch. Instinctively,  her head skirt over her shoulder. Jayda had little time to react and cover her back before the hilt popped her into the back. Pain erupted where it landed, causing her to growl as she whipped her blade about, severing the off saber in half when it went to clatter to the floor. 

That he wasn’t surprised at her physicality did not, unfortunately, mean he was prepared to counter it. With his saber bound by hers it was all he could do to jerk his elbow up and guard his face, taking the brunt of her slashing claws across his bicep and forearm in thin, bright lashes of pain. His breath came hard and sweat beaded at his temples, but his ploy with the saber had worked. As she broke the lock to sever it---he took the opportunity to make a light cut to her stomach with a fillip of his wrist that turned into a stop-cut for her head, his knee hitting the ground and too much of him left open.

He should have had the strength to disengage. He should have played her game, capitalized on Form III’s predictable defense and used her tactics against her, but all that would do now would be to capitalize on his deficit. Trying to draw on the Force was greeted only with a throb behind his eyes, his head beginning to hang.

Perhaps, he thought dryly, bitterly, he should close his eyes. Would it be more in keep with the Code to resist unto death, or embrace it?

Jadya felt her claws wet with blood, even heard his teeth grit in pain, as his robes and flesh were subjected to her wicked claws. One thing about her race’s nails, they could be as strong and dangerous as  their horns, making them ideal improvised weapons. At the moment she countered the saber’s back attack, her waist felt pain sear through her side. It erupted in fire when the blade skimmed her robes and burned into the scarred surface underneath, creating a graze.

She let out a scream but her body didn’t froze up, instead her free hand jerked up and flatten her palm at the lightsaber’s attack. The blade hit an energy barrier, stopping dead in its tracks when the Jedi crumbling to his knee. Not giving him another chance to counter with another slash at her head or risk a sudden burst of energy, Jayda’s foot jerked out and aimed at his chest. She poured her force through it as it made contact, aiming to send him back into far wall.

“You should’ve went peacefully, it would’ve been easier.” Jayda spoke, her tone dead and cold. They were likely the last words he would hear before passing out. 

It was not the strike he expected but no less effective for it--the slam of her foot to his chest toppled him, sent him flying backwards across the sleek floor of the temple to impact the wall with a vicious crack. Something broke--he was unsure what--but as he fell to the floor he wondered idly where his saber had gone. Lost in the assault, of course, he could barely hold his teeth in after a kick like that, but still it had to be…

His head rang, he couldn’t breath, but even that punch of panicked adrenaline was fading into the cold dark of the floor. Absurdly, as her words rang in his ears, his final thought was still to his saber. No proper duelist would let himself be so disarmed.

Damn.