Two youths are standing on a carpet of neatly trimmed grass, with the clear blue skies serving as a backdrop. One of them is a male, with medium length black hair and piercing violet eyes. The other, a female with shoulder-length wavy brown hair accompanied by a matching pair of eyes sporting the same colour. An air of determination enshrouds the two of them. Sword in hand, the duo calculatingly eyes each other to look for the slightest opening to strike. To unknowing viewers, the scene might be interpreted as a boy and a girl trying to kill each other. However, both of the kids knew better than to seriously harm their opponent.

'She's not going to let down her guard anytime soon, is she?' Chase mused as he stares at the defiant pose of the girl before him.

'I guess I'd just bait her and hit back with a counter'

Chase deliberately reveals an opening on his left side, inviting an attack. Alice realised it was intentional, but she did not hesitate to take the chance. In her opinion, she could take him down before he could pull off any moves. In a second, she closed the short distance between the two of them while keeping her posture low. She swiftly swung the back of her blade diagonally up aiming for the opening Chase presented. Chase ducked low, the back of the blade whistling above his head by a hair's breadth. At the same moment, he swiftly rotated his body around and jabbed with the hilt of the sword, taking advantage of the momentum to knock Alice out.

A dull pain shot up from his legs and he was knocked off balance before the pommel of his sword could connect. Alice had performed a spectacular leg sweep, and had immediately followed up with a vertically downwards swing aiming the knocked down Chase.

*Duff*

The sword hits the grass, missing its target who had rolled away in desperation, leaving his sword behind.

'Gah! That was a close one!'

Instead of parrying the blow with a low chance of success, he decided to sacrifice his weapon for the more practical move which is to roll on the ground, evading the attack. What his father taught him in the past couple of months conditioned him to react in that manner.

"What decides the outcome of a battle is not skills nor weapons, but the tenacity to live!" and "Weapons aren't meant to be used for blocking, you nitwit!" float to the surface of his mind.

Quickly getting up, he faces Alice who had already bolted over to his position. Alice once again viciously brandished her sword en route for Chase's small frame. Chase thrusts his hand towards Alice's arm and stops her mid-swing, but Alice surprised him by letting go of her weapon and grabbing Chase's arm with both of her hands. She twisted her body around and threw Chase overhead of her without letting go of her grip.

*Oompf!*

Chase let out a pained cry as he was slammed on the grass-covered earth and then immediately pinned down by Alice who is currently locking both of his arms behind his back.

*CLAP*

A sharp clapping sound pierced Chase's and Alice's eardrums, causing them to slightly cringe. The booming voice which trailed after was not very pleasant for the ears either.

"The match ends with Alice Cloud's victory! The score is now 1-0 for Alice!"

Chase let out a groan as he heard about his defeat at the hands of a girl. Alice let go of Chase and got off him.

"I- won?"

It took a while before the declared results finally sank into her mind.

"I won! I won!" She yells repeatedly while jumping for joy around the lawn.

That was the first time Alice had revealed her girlishness during a training session, Aaron raises an eyebrow but smiles nonetheless at seeing her reaction.

'Sigh...' Chase let out an inaudible sigh.

'Well, I guess it's fine if she's that happy about her victory....' Chase thought while still lying on the ground, staring up at the delighted figure of Alice hopping around.

"Ahem, both of you come here and listen to my evaluation!"

Alice immediately cut out her celebration and reverts to her regular serious manner upon hearing Aaron's exclamation. She strode over to Aaron while Chase lifts himself up and scurries over.

"The sword sparring session somehow turned into a hand-to-hand match by the end, but that is fine! It trains you for the unpredictability of real life combat situations!"

"Right, firstly, Alice! You are too reckless! Charging in straight knowingly into a trap is not the markings of an accomplished swordsman!"

"You must bear in mind that the opponent could be concealing another weapon or could perhaps use magic! While it is true that this is a sword sparring session and you are forbidden to use magic or any other weapon, I advise you to consider your actions more in the following sparring sessions!"

"Am I understood?"

"Sir, yes, Sir!" Alice answered spiritedly after being chastised by Aaron.

"As for you, Chase!" Aaron turns to Chase.

He pursed his mouth in a condescending lopsided smirk. It was an extremely infuriating look, which was probably done with that intention in mind.

"You! Baiting your opponent in without a concrete counter is foolish! You were driven into a corner because of it!" spittle sprayed from his mouth as he shouted and landed on Chase.

"And you roll around too much! You're a swordsman, not a cartwheel damn it!" the comparison was redundant, but the message was cloud and clear.

"If you can't come up with a counter, take the initiative and go for the offensive!"

"Am I understood?"

"Sir, yes, Sir!" Chase responded in the same military fashion while storing the advice in his mind.

"Good! Now go and spar with each other for another six hours" Aaron said nonchalantly.

'Eh?!'

The clear blue skies had changed into reddish orange, the sun is almost sinking in the horizon. Chase and Alice lay down on the ground, exhausted. They managed to conclude another 57 matches and had heard Aaron's evaluation for the same number of times. Their battle styles improved with each match, Aaron's words guiding them towards betterment. The score is currently at 33-24 with Alice winning 34 times. Chase had unconsciously held himself back a little bit, the action of hitting a girl made him hesitate. Most of his wins were from cornering Alice into a position which did not permit any retaliation, much like checkmating an opponent in chess.

"That concludes the training session for today!" Aaron barked hoarsely, having to shout while giving evaluations for 58 times had taken a toll on his voice.

Alice and Chase picked themselves up and head towards Aaron to bow as a sign of gratitude. Gillian who had been lounging around reading books and sipping tea as per his routine suddenly scoots over to them.

"Chase, you can take the day off tomorrow for Magic class" Gillian announced in his customary relaxing voice.

"Huh? why?" Chase asked with a quizzical expression.

"You've pretty much learnt all of the Basic and Intermediate attack spells of the four basic elements, right? You've also gotten used to the attack patterns now and your mana could almost last through the whole six hours"

"We could just continue for another week, but then again you wouldn't be expending as much mana or learning new spells and that would be counterproductive to the curriculum" Gillian went on with his explanation.

"So I'll have to clear out the old magic circles and draw new ones, this time incorporating compound magic"

"Compound magic? Is that something like combining different spells together?" Chase interrupted with his question.

"Correct, you catch on quickly as always. You see, the spells above Intermediate level are actually just variations or combinations of the lower leveled spells"

"The evaluation of the Glyph is based on the number of spells you could use, including all the combinations available to you as well as the invocation speed for them"

"People usually have an affinity to one or two types of element, but you are a special case and have an affinity to all the elements...thus allowing you to combine and create a vast number of spells using the myriads of different combinations available to you"

"While it is possible for you to experiment and create your own spells at the current moment, I prefer to teach you some useful and commonly learnt compound spells for a bit longer while continuing to enlarge your mana capacity and conditioning your reactions"

"So go and play with Alice or something tomorrow" Gillian concludes his long-winded explanation with the sentence.

"Huh?" The last sentence hadn't sunk in Chase's head yet.

"Oh! I'll come over to play at your house tomorrow Chase, I'll be there in the afternoon or so!" Alice informs Chase excitedly.

Alice had been joining Chase for the early morning jogs which is part of the Close Combat classes but she had never visited their house yet.

"Eh? O-okay, I'll be waiting then" Chase replied, his mind still full of fluff.

Chase's stuttering fit had been less intense now that he had gotten used to Alice's presence. Their frequent conversations had also tremendously been helpful towards reducing his shyness.

Chase and Aaron went back home and proceeded to their daily routine. Aaron was dumbfounded with Chase's absentminded behaviour over dinner. Chase only responded with 'hmm' and 'yeah' for everything and it was impossible to make a decent conversation. Aaron gave up trying to elicit a better response from him and deduced that Chase's conduct was due to losing most of the matches today. Aaron gave Chase a look of pity that went unnoticed and pondered whether he was too harsh with his evaluations and purposely done insulting expressions.

-Chase's Perspective-

The walk home was somehow brief, and it seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye.

I mechanically bathed and changed my clothes then got into the dining room for dinner. Dad was sitting there as usual.

He was talking to me about something, but I wasn't sure what. His words seem to go in one ear and out the other, so I just responded briefly.

I walked back into my room after dinner, and laid down on my bed while staring at the ceiling. The same thoughts that I have had since the evening resounded in my mind, depraving me of any other thoughts.

'Alice is coming over tomorrow, Alice is coming over tomorrow, Alice is coming over tomorrow, Alice is coming over tomorrow, Alice is coming over tomorrow, Alice is coming over tomorrow, Alice is coming over tomorrow'

I closed my eyes in a feeble attempt to sleep, but they shot open again.

'Alice is coming over tomorrow, Alice is coming over tomorrow, Alice is coming over tomorrow, Alice is coming over tomorrow' the thought starts to gradually grow louder as it reverberates inside my head.

'ALICE-IS-COMING-OVER-TOMORROW' the volume had already reached the level of Aaron's booming voice.

I stare wide-eyed at the ceiling, the thought tormenting me.

The soft rays of sunlight invades the interior of the room and forces the darkness to retreat. The birds awake from their slumber and start to warble a little song, heralding the arrival of a new day.

I did not sleep, I could not sleep. God, help me.

---------------------

Hey guys! I'm back! I've already written out several chapters until the end of this arc :GG: .... actually no, that was my initial plan. I actually wanted to do that and release sometime after the 12th of January but it seems I would not make it in time (with my exam and studies taking up my time and all). So... to make up for not being to release a bunch of chapters on time, I decide to release a few chapters just stopping short of the final part of this arc. This arc is a bit long, mainly due to it being combined with the introduction and all.

I would be releasing them within the space of several hours in between. This is because I want to make full use of the latest updates section at the main page to promote this fiction [th_0v.gif]

Stay tuned for the updates!

Hell : Part IIArmusThe Awaited Visit