>>5640337>12 vs 8Sira fades past the smoke, reappearing in front of her. Sohm is taken by surprise and gets struck on the forehead with his sword’s quillons, knocking her back and allowing Sira to strike her large sword out of her hand by hitting it with his wheellock pistol.
Enraged by the pain, she does a shoving kick to his groin. It connects, pushing him back as well.
He wants to close the distance and offend the area in front of him. This situation calls for a particularly powerful cut — the wrath strike.
Sira moves his hilt to be slightly above his right shoulder, and begins cutting diagonally downwards as he steps forward, letting the blade and quillons protect his head as he moves.
As Sohm steps back, she manages to draw her Katzbalger and perform a rising diagonal cut against it, barely deflecting the the cut. Their blades remain in contact.
With the tip pointing forward and the blade covering her head, Sohm is in Ox guard — a position that protects against strikes from above, and a strong position to thrust from.
Right after she deflects his strike, she launches a thrust aiming at his head.
Since the blades are in contacting each other, Sira is able push the thrust aside and close the distance. By continuing to being in a ‘bind’ (blades contacting), each of them can feel the pressure being exerted on the blades and react accordingly.
As soon as their bodies make contact, Sira knees her in the crotch, and tries to align his wheellock pistol towards her body. Both of their swords are off to the side and unable to he swung effectively.
Despite the pain, Sohm is able to grab the barrel and wrench it away from her stomach. Sira can feel that her strength and leverage is overpowering him, so he lets go of the gun and punches her in the throat.
While normally he would try to pull back the pistol and bring his center of gravity lower, Sira isn’t sure if his strength can match hers.
