I have about thirty minutes before my third and final duel of this exam, and I was currently in the classroom, leaning back on my chair. That last duel had taken nearly forty-five percent of my XFE, I sorta fired more shots from my X-Blasters than I needed to. I had planned on being more frugal, but I really wanted to inflict some pain on that guy, in case I hadn't mentioned it before, I found him repulsive as hell.

Unfortunately, by the end of the fight, I had just about twenty percent of my total XFE intact, and by the time the next duel starts, I'll only have about thirty-five percent...that wasn't going to be nearly enough, so I had no choice but to extend my break. And by that, I mean I'll use my X-Ability to delay the fight till I have an adequate amount of XFE recovered.

​​

Using Load takes five percent of my XFE, and a half an hour break gives me enough time to replenish about fifteen percent...I currently had about twenty percent, so if I lived out this half-hour break three times, I could recover upto fifty percent of my XFE. I could do more just to be safe, but waiting for even an hour and a half was going to be boring as hell, any longer would be unbearable. Fifty percent should be enough if I'm careful about how I use it.

Alternatively, I could just surrender the duel, wait a few hours, and then use Load once my XFE is fully recharged, but...waiting around for that long would likely be tedious as hell, plus the idea of surrendering, even if it was something that would be undone, wasn't very appealing.

I had to say, though, Prodigies had pretty tough bodies...even on the maximum output setting, my X-Blasters couldn't inflict lethal damage on them, at most, each shot blew away a shallow chunk of flesh and skin, maybe about an inch or so, and it probably hurt like crazy, but the damage was nothing that couldn't be fixed by a short dip in a Healing Pod. And when I slashed the side of Makoto's neck in that last duel, I had to really put my shoulder into it, his skin was tough, and probably played a big part in preventing my slash from being a fatal one.

Speaking of which, it looks like the teleport function of the Duel Field won't work if you destroy the collar, that's a pretty shitty design flaw, one that had almost resulted in me killing someone...I didn't like that, if I was going to kill someone, I'd want it to he intentional, accidentally killing someone didn't appeal to me at all.

And another surprise, the fact that Instructor Sato had intervened almost immediately meant that he really had been watching the duels this whole time...I'd just figured that he'd gone off to sleep somewhere. I had to say, when my blade cut into Makoto's neck, that felt pretty good, it reminded me of the time I stabbed my asshole father with those scissors.

Well, let's set all that aside for now and focus on the upcoming duel...though I first need to get through ninety minutes of waiting, or rather, the same thirty minutes three times, in order to recover my XFE. This is so gonna suck...

...

An hour and a half later, thirty minutes in real time, I was at the assigned training hall for my final duel. I had a little over fifty percent of my XFE, so I should be good. My opponent, Seila Khan, was already here, and I'd already stepped onto the fighting area, so the duel was seconds away from starting. I stopped a few meters away from her and took out my X-Blade handles, after setting my X-Blasters to their maximum output.

She was busy adjusting her collar, but ended up fumbling and somehow undid the clasp, the collar falling onto the ground and skidding forward towards me. How did she even do that...? In a way, it was almost impressive.

"O-oh, no...m-my collar...," She stuttered, stumbling forward clumsily.

I sighed and walked over to the collar since it was closer to me. I bent down to pick it up, lifting it and holding it out towards her.

"Here you go."

"Th-thanks, that's very nice of y-...w-woah!" She began, before tripping over her own feet as she reached for it, falling onto me and knocking me over.

You have got to be kidding me...

"Ow...," I groaned, rubbing the back of my head.

"I-I'm so sorry-! Ack!" She began to apologize, before bumping her forehead onto mine...hard.

Not gonna lie, that kinda hurt.

"It's fine, but just...get off me, please."

Her body was very...soft, it was kinda, no, VERY distracting. And her clumsy attempts at getting up was resulting in her rubbing up against me...a lot. Eventually, she managed to get back on her feet, apologizing profusely. I quickly stood up and stepped back, getting some distance. Okay, so...that was, uh...actually kinda nice.

"I'm really, really sorry-!"

"No worries, it was an accident, so no harm done..."

The timer then reached zero, signaling the start of the fight.

"H-huh, it's already s-starting...? W-wait, I need to-!" She exclaimed in dismay, fumbling with the collar.

This is painful to watch, how can one person be so clumsy?

"Sheesh, chill out...I won't attack while you're not ready," I called out assuringly, the tension in her expression easing a bit.

After all, I might lose points in the final score for the exam if I attacked her before she was ready.

"Th-thanks, I appreciate i-it, um, Mr Light."

...I know I picked my own last name, but being called 'Mr' felt really weird...

"Uh...just call me Kilzachs."

"O-oh, okay...then you can call me Seila."

Whatever, can we just start already? Time's a-tickin'. Somehow, eventually, she managed to get her act together, with a little over a minute of the bout idly used up.

"You ready?" I inquired, as I ran my XFE through my blade handles, activating them.

A chill ran down my spine as she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, her body relaxing and her expression calm and calculated, as she nodded in response and held out her hands, right as I shot forward towards her.

"."

As her yellow XFE weapons manifested, I fired a couple of shots from my X-Blasters, which she easily blocked. I then ran across to her left, before swiftly ducking backwards as she pointed and expanded one of her blades at me. I quickly let go of my blade handles and used my backward momentum to fall, landing on my palms and swinging my legs away as she swung the expanded blade straight down at me.

I then flipped and sprang away, grabbing my blade handles as I did. That was a close one. She then expanded and whipped both blades towards me rapidly and repeatedly. I narrowly managed to evade her blindingly fast swings while slowly putting some distance between us and trying to get out of her range. Her attacks were so fast that all my focus was on evasion, I didn't even have time to think about countering...and my barrier wasn't a real option since she'd probably shatter it with a single strike.

Ordinarily, I'd just wait till she tires out, but there were two reasons why I couldn't do that...one, she wasn't using much stamina or effort, she was generating that speed and power into her slashes using mostly her wrists, instead of her arms and shoulders...and two, we only had like, a little over three minutes left in this duel, I highly doubt there's a realistic way for me to make her use up her stamina in just three minutes.

I need to do more than just dodge...hm, it looks like she was getting a bit frustrated at failing to hit me. She shouldn't be though, because, going back to my point about stamina, she may not be using much, but I sure as hell was. I had to watch both blades closely and react almost instantly...and that was far from an easy task. And she was slowly taking steps forward whenever I got close to getting out of her range...she's really good. Suddenly, the blades disappeared from my sight.

In the fraction of a second for which I was confused, the blades rapidly expanded towards me again, I quickly sprang back and formed my barrier, which shattered almost as soon as the blades struck it, after which I swiftly cross my blades in front of me, blocking her blades and keeping them from striking my midsection. The impact send me flying back towards the boundary of the Duel Field, I quickly activated my barrier again to prevent my back from slamming onto it.

As I landed, she shot towards me, expanded one of her blades...and flung it towards me like a boomerang. Guess she was tired of the deadlock. I sprang up to avoid it, my feet landing on the face of the blade, before I leapt straight off it and zipped towards her at top speed, as she swung her remaining blade down at me with some serious force. I braced my shoulders for impact as I blocker her strike with my X-Blades and used all my strength to parry her downward swing onto the ground.

The force knocked me slightly off balance, but instead of trying to stabilize myself, I used to momentum to pivot on my foot and spin around, flinging both my X-Blades at her with as much speed as I could generate. She swiftly retracted her blade and blocked my blades, which deflected off and fell to the ground. I fired a barrage of shots from my X-Blasters to keep her on the defensive and prevent her from expanding her blade at me.

"!"

Using her blade as a shield, she shot towards me with electricity crackling around her right arm...and presumably her left arm too, but I couldn't see it since it was behind the blade. I balled my hands into fists and ran XFE into my gloves, charging up the taser-knuckles on it. At most, they could stun a person for a few seconds, but they weren't strong enough to knock someone out, unless they were like, really fucking weak.

In other words, pitting my tasers' electricity against her manifested electricity probably wasn't a good idea, but a part of me wanted to know exactly how much of a difference there was...nothing ventured, nothing gained!

As we closed to gap, I stopped firing and drew back my left fist, driving it forward with all my strength just as she began to throw her own electrifying punch. Upon impact, I felt a stunning shock run through my right arm and numbing my entire body, before the force knocked my arm back, causing me to stumble. I could barely feel my right arm at all, my glove had been completely blown off, my hand was badly electrocuted and I couldn't move my arm. My right X-Blaster was fried too, it was crackling violently...okay, that was a terrible idea and I'm never doing that again.

I swiftly sprang back a few paces and took it off, tossing it onto the ground with a wince of pain. I can still use my left arm just fine, though my barrier was off the table since I needed both X-Blasters to activate it. Meanwhile, my opponent was doing a lot better than I was, but she wasn't completely unscathed. Her left hand looked like it had taken a bit of damage, her pained expression confirming that.

I was around the spot where she had deflected my blades after I threw them at her, but I don't think she's noticed. She seemed to have lost control over her Primary Manifestation, both blades were gone, though her arms were still crackling with lightning, so her Secondary Manifestation was still active. There was just about a minute left in this duel.

"," She remarked, reforming her blades.

The instant she began to point them towards me, I swiftly stomped on the back edge of one of my blades handles, kicking it up to me. As it shot up past my face, I brushed it with my finger, running some XFE into it and forming the blade. I then sprang up as her blades expanded towards me, they grazed the soles of my shoes, before I twisted my body in mid-air and spun across, slamming my foot onto the back of the blade I kicked up, sending it shooting towards her face.

At the last second, she tilted her head out of the way with a slight look of alarm, the blade scratching the side of her face before dissipating and falling to the ground. Oh, crap...I had used all my momentum to twist myself while airborne and kick the blade towards her...I had no way to dodge this. She swung her bladed up at me, I tried firing a couple of shots from my remaining X-Blaster to deflect them, but my shots were too weak.

Before the blades could slice through me, the Duel Field's teleportation effect came into play, warping me out just in time, falling onto the sidelines on my back. Well...I lost. But I suppose it technically doesn't matter so long as I pass. Okay, that was a lie, I was pretty salty over losing. Fuck, she's strong...how the hell was she so clumsy when she wasn't fighting? As the Duel Field shut off and I got back on my feel, Seila jogged over to me, holding my blade handles and X-Blaster.

"U-um, you dropped these...h-here," She stuttered, holding them out towards me.

Jeez, at least act triumphant or something...I don't know why, but the fact that was back to acting all meek after beating me pretty convincingly was really ticking me off for some reason.

"Oh, uh...thanks. And congrats or whatever."

"Th-thank you! B-but i-it was really close...you're really strong," She replied, as I took my weapons from her.

I really don't like being sympathized, spare me.

"...you don't need to console me or anything."

"N-no, that's not it at all! I really mean it...when y-you kicked your weapon towards me, I-I freaked out for a second, I thought I was going to die," She said with a quiet sigh, a slight look of dissatisfaction on her face as she touched the small cut on her cheek.

She may be timid as all hell, but she took pride in her abilities...she didn't like the fact that she didn't beat me flawlessly. Was that because I wasn't a Prodigy, or would she have felt the same way regardless? I don't feel any malice or condescension from her, so probably the latter...

"I should get going. See you later, I guess," I remarked awkwardly...I wasn't too used to social interactions, I probably should have just nodded politely and walked away.

Whatever, same difference. I'm going home.

"O-okay, see you later- woah!" She began with an awkward wave, before somehow tripping forward...while standing still.

And she fell towards me, I decided not to fight it, and just accept this fate. Hm, maybe I should at least pretend that I'm alarmed or something, otherwise she might figure out that I was welcoming this...oh nooo, she's falling on me, I can't get out of the way or stop her, nooo, what do I do...?

As she fell onto me and knocked me onto the ground for the second time in less than ten minutes, I couldn't help but think...a time freezing ability, or at least an ability to slow down time, would be super convenient right now...

_____________________________________________

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