The next morning Lupos awoke early and decided to call his spirits together seeing as he was alone. "Fenrir, Jormugand, Hugin, Munin all of you come to my room now." Five seconds later and all of the spirits showed up "Ok, so I asked around and apparently we're not allowed to use our spirits in matches until the final duels. So because of this I'm going to give you guys some jobs while I'm fighting."

The four spirits nodded "Ok then, so while I'm fighting, Hugin and Munin I want you too look for the black clothed man that Jormugand and Akari saw." Munin nodded while Hugin looked confused "How can you be sure he'll show up?" Jormugand laughed and started to explain "becausssse all they know about this boy is hair colour, eye colour and age. They also don't seem to know location, so in that case one of the biggest gathering of talented children across the nation may provide hintsssss to them about where thisssss child could be."

Lupos nodded "exactly, now if you find him I want you to contact Jormugand. Fenrir must stay near me for appearances sake, but Jormugand should be free to move or more importantly poison." Jormugand laughed "should I disposse of him immediately if we find him?" Lupos shook his head "No if he's dead we can't get any information on whoever is searching for me, and besides I think Akari's the one who wants to finish him off."

At this point the spirits grinned "revenge, what a nice gift to give your girlfriend." cackled Hugin "Shut up." said Lupos blushing slightly "anyway that's what I want you to look out for today. Fenrir you need to stay close by, but if you see anyone suspicious pass the information onto Hugin or Munin using mindspeak. Everyone understand?" the four spirits nodded "good."

It was several hours later that Lupos along with Lucio and Wing strolled back into the arena to gain the information for the second round. As soon as they entered the arena Lupos could feel a variety of hate filled gazes along with the occasional admiring one.

Although there was nothing about traps that was against the rules it was generally seen as a cowardly and sneaky way to win, though the occasional intelligent viewer could appreciate the ingenuity of the idea. Smiling cheerfully Lupos ignored the gazes and casually strode into the centre of the arena closely followed by Lucio and Wing.

As he reached the centre he turned around to closely view his competitors, attempting to see if there was anyone of any worth. However, most of the competitors seemed spoilt and soft with swordplay, useless to real life situations. Sighing at the lack of any real competition Lupos was about to try talking to Fenrir in mindspeak when the announcer spoke up.

"Welcome back competitors I hope you're all ready for round two of the competition as it will be starting shortly. This game is a simple one of capture the flag. We will separate you into eight teams of eight and evaluate your ability to think on your feet. Although this is a team game if your team loses everyone is out. However the person to actually take the flag gets an advantage in the next round, so getting greedy could lead to your downfall. Magic is allowed but spirits are forbidden, there will also be magical beasts roaming the area so be sure to be careful."

At this point all the competitors desperately stood up straight and tried to look competent hoping it would make their teammates want to pick them to capture the flag so they could claim the advantage for themselves. "Idiots," snorted Fenrir in Lupos's mind, Lupos tried not to laugh and instead to pay attention to the continued announcement.

"Now as our overall winner in the last round, Gale Foryst gets the ability to pick his teammates. So Gale who would you like to pick?" Lupos grinned as he saw the reluctant faces of the more "upper class" nobles as they shied away from him "I'll have Lucio, Wing and,"

Seeing as Lupos didn't know who anyone else was he looked around until he found the group Lucio was irritating from yesterday "those five." he said pointing to them while silently apologising at their looks of dismay as they came over to join them.

As the eight came together Lucio immediately attempted to take charge "alright seeing as how I am the most high standing noble here I think I should take charge, any objections." no one could really be bothered to argue with his idiotic ideas of how status relates to fighting strength and decided it would just be easier to agree.

"Good," said Lucio feeling satisfied, thinking that they had all agreed due to their utmost faith and respect in his leadership. "Anyway I have a plan to let this challenge end quickly and easily. Lupos and Wing will guard the flag with traps that only the lower class can get away with using while the rest of you five guard me until I get a chance to steal the flag. Any questions?"

Lupos and Wing just nodded at each both not really caring about nor needing the advantage offered. On the other hand, the other five boys were barely holding back their killing intent. Lupos just sighed, the fact that Lucio didn't even notice their killing intent just went to emphasise the fact that he had never faced true danger.

Sighing over his incompetent teammate Lupos turned back in to listening to the announcer who had finally named all eight teams "Alright, so our first match of the day is team one versus team five, please stand on the teleportation circle and we will transport you to where your match will take place. The match begins as soon as you arrive on location so make sure to make haste and good luck."

Lupos looked at his team assuming they were meant to be team one "shall we go then?" Lucio grinned and strutted on ahead with Lupos and Wing close behind while the other five followed on dejected and irritable. As Lupos stared at the other team in the teleportation circle he noticed several laughs and disdainful eyes.

Lupos smiled pleasantly, he didn't care what the nobles thought of him and honestly he planned to use this game as a chance to shine the limelight on Lucio while drawing attention away from himself. While Lupos continued to think, the circle let out a bright light and when the light had cleared he found himself standing in a large forest very similar to his home forest.

On Lupos's left he could see a dark blue flag with a large white number one painted on it. "Guess this is our flag huh?" said Wing as he stared at the flag. Lupos was about to respond when Lucio spoke "Ok let's put our plan into effect Gale, Wing stay here and defend the flag, Marco and his minions can help to defend me!"

Ignoring the other boys irritancy Lucio ran off and quickly disappeared into the foliage while the other boys followed muttering under their breaths about "useless nobles" and "stupid people." Once Lupos and Wing were alone, Lupos turned to whisper in Wing's ear "Wing, during the first round did you win using your magic or your fighting."

Wing looked at Lupos confused "magic, but I led them to believe I couldn't activate my magic without singing so as to keep an advantage in the third round." Lupos nodded "I only used my magic too so I suggest this round we do the same so we don't give away any of our fighting capabilities."

Wing nodded "good idea." Lupos smiled "thanks but I have a question, why singing?" Wing blushed "Well I like singing and I'm okay at it and it also leads people to believe my magic is something to do with sound." Lupos nodded "By the way what's the range of your ability and the longest you can use it?"

"My range would be about twelve metres and I could probably keep it up for half an hour if I have to sing too." Lupos nodded "ok I'm going to create pit traps at the twelve metre radius around our flag and a trip wire at ten metres, if anyone gets that close you need to use your ability instantly."

Wing nodded "can do." However as it turned out Wing's ability wasn't really needed. It seems Lupos made the pitfalls a bit too big so no one could actually get closer than twelve metres without falling in. Stuck with nothing else to do Lupos and Wing just talked to each other about the academy occasionally bad mouthing Lucio.

It had only been twenty minutes since the game began when Lupos saw the teleportation circle appear beneath his feet. "Looks like it's over" said Lupos smiling, glad he could finally leave, "What's the bet that Lucio shoved the others out the way to get the flag?" said Wing laughing. Lupos grinned and was about to reply when the teleportation circle lit up and they found themselves back in the arena.

Looking around Lupos could see a very pleased Lucio and some very injured members of the other team. As soon as they noticed him one of the boys on the other team covered in bruises and scratches marched up towards him. "You.. this is all your fault!!!" Lupos stared at the boy blankly "What is? I didn't even move from defending the flag, what did I do?"

The boy shivered with anger "You bastard, it was your pit traps, several magical beast fell down and we were trapped fighting them until the end, if not for that we would have won!" Lupos burst into laughter "So what you're saying is, because, you're not skilled enough to take on a couple magical beasts, I'm to blame for you not winning, is that correct?"

The boy turned an angry shade of red as he struggled to find a retort. However, all thoughts of annoying the other boy were driven straight out of Lupos' mind when he heard Fenrir "Lupos, Hugin and Munin found the man described by Akari. Jormugand's confirmed it and is on his way to subdue him."

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Sorry for the late chapter it was meant to be out yesterday but I fell asleep before I could finish it. hope you enjoyed it please point out any mistakes I made or feel free to comment.