Chapter 2067: Anchor

"Stay near the wall," Ning told her. "Keep dodging the way you have been. When I tell you to, pull me in."

Naysha finished the knot and gave a short nod.

Ning wrapped the other end of the rope once around his own wrist, leaving roughly eight meters of slack between them, and then he pushed off the wall and launched himself out into the open chamber.

He flew straight toward a ball drifting several meters away from the wall and caught it as he passed, and before the instructors could close in on him, he felt the rope pull taut at his wrist.

"Now!" he called.

Naysha braced her feet against the wall and pulled.

The rope yanked Ning back toward her, reversing his direction almost instantly, and as he swung back across the chamber, he twisted his body and threw the ball at the nearest instructor.

The throw came from an angle the instructor had not expected, and he only barely managed to avoid it, drifting aside a moment later than he would have liked.

Ning landed against the wall beside Naysha and caught his breath, even though he did not really need to. When he glanced at her, he saw that she had understood exactly what they were doing.

The rope gave Ning a range of roughly eight meters before it pulled tight, and with Naysha anchored firmly against the wall, he could launch himself out to grab a ball and be hauled back again in a matter of moments, throwing on the way in. It was like casting out a lure and reeling it back.

The instructors seemed to understand it as well, because they began adjusting their positions to cover the space the rope allowed him to reach.

But the arrangement suited the two of them better than either could have managed alone.

Naysha took pride in her dodging, and she was very good at it. She moved along the wall with quick, precise shifts that kept every incoming ball from touching her, and with Ning’s weight on the other end of the rope, she could even use him as a counterweight to swing herself out of the way faster than she could have managed by pushing off the wall alone.

Hitting a target, on the other hand, had never been her strength. Her throws earlier in the game had mostly served to move her around rather than to threaten anyone, and she was well aware of it.

That was what Ning was there for.

He launched himself out again, caught a ball rebounding off the ceiling, and waited until the rope began to pull him back. Then he threw it as he swung past the second instructor.

This time, the instructor was not quick enough. The ball struck him in the arm, and the cadets on the floor broke into cheers as he began to sink.

Naysha pulled Ning back against the wall beside her, and the two of them looked out across the chamber at the two instructors who remained.

One of them was Lorna.

It was now two against two, and the instructors’ approach changed immediately.

Until then, they had largely been playing on their own, each of them choosing targets independently and throwing whenever they saw an opportunity, but with only Ning and Naysha left, they drifted closer to one another and began to move together.

When one of them threw, the other was already positioning to cover the direction Ning or Naysha would most likely dodge, and when Ning launched himself out on the rope, they split apart to come at him from both sides at once.

Ning caught himself against the wall once more and watched them carefully.

It was going to be difficult to win.

Ning gave the rope a quick tug, drawing himself in closer to Naysha until the two of them were pressed against the wall side by side, with the slack of the rope floating loosely between them.

"We’re running out of balls," he said quietly.

Naysha glanced around the chamber and saw what he meant. Over the course of the game, the balls had scattered to every corner of the space. Some had come to rest near the ceiling, others drifted lazily in the empty middle of the chamber, and a few had settled against the far walls where neither of them could reach without crossing open space. The instructors had been careful to keep the nearest ones away from them, and right now, there was nothing within arm’s reach that either of them could throw.

"Then we go get them," Naysha said.

Ning nodded. "Together. Keep the rope tight."

They pushed off the wall at the same moment and launched themselves out into the chamber toward a cluster of three balls drifting near the center.

The instructors reacted immediately, throwing from both sides at once, and for a moment, it looked as though one of the two would be caught in the open.

Then Ning pulled hard on the rope, and the tension yanked both of them sharply sideways in midair, so that the first throw passed harmlessly between them.

When the second came at Naysha, she pulled against the rope in the opposite direction, sending herself one way and Ning the other, and the ball flew through the space they had just left.

The cadets on the floor shouted in surprise.

The rope had become more than a lure. With the two of them tied together, every pull and push changed both of their trajectories at once, giving them a way to change direction in open space that nobody else in the chamber possessed.

They reached the cluster of balls and grabbed two of them, and Ning snatched a third with his free hand as it drifted past. Then they began throwing back.

The fight that followed was fast and chaotic. Ning and Naysha moved through the chamber in a constantly shifting dance, swinging around one another on the rope, darting toward fresh balls whenever they ran low, and throwing whenever one of the instructors drifted into reach.

The instructors countered with careful, coordinated throws that came from angles designed to catch them both at once.