Being the second strongest person in his class, Kazuya was used to winning.

He never rubbed it in anyone’s face, and he never became smug about it, but Kazuya was well aware that to anyone watching, his fights must be boring.

Kazuya had heard the whispers of ‘he’s the rank two, of course he will win’ and other such things, and he didn’t refute them, because it would sound like complete nonsense for him of all people to deny it.

Even if it really wasn’t true.

Liza defeated Kazuya nine times out of ten in their spars despite not being able to use basic elements, and Edward and Kazuya were pretty fifty-fifty in their spars, maybe Kazuya would win eleven times in twenty fights, but it was close enough that you couldn’t really say Kazuya’s victory was obvious.

“She seemed a bit powerful actually.” Edward said as Kazuya sat down after his bout against that Earth Sage from the A-Class.

“She was skilled in macro-manipulation of the Earth... that kind of fighting style is very situational though.” Kazuya pointed out and Edward nodded, not even bothering to play devil’s advocate.

They both knew that had that girl been fighting outside of a tournament setting, she’d probably be destroyed.

Her wall of Earth was slow and obvious, her shield was not impenetrable and a Sage with enough mobility could simply bypass the wall entirely.

Kazuya was mobile enough to have been able to get behind her, burrow into her Earth wall even, and had he been using his spear he could have just destroyed her shield or knock her through her own wall by treating her shield as the head of a nail.

Jade was in the arena, facing one of the A-Class students herself, her opponent using Water and had either gauntlets as his Clad, or was like Edward who had her Armament as armour itself.

Or something odd like that, but Jade’s opponent was taking advantage of his Water Element to disrupt any Light based attacks that Jade was sending his way, leaving her to use her Blade-Bombs and any other techniques she might have made, including what Liza was calling the ‘Guardian Orb’.

The ‘Guardian Orb’ was just a ball of metal that Jade had floating nearby which would occasionally shoot out knives, saw blades, maybe even stab at the enemy, it wasn’t really amazing beyond the fact that Jade was apparently working on adding her Light Element to it somehow.

Her opponent eventually had his bracelet broken when a stab from the Guardian Orb covered Jade’s own approach, and by the time the A-Class boy realized she was there she had already stabbed him in the throat.

“Thank Elior for those bracelets.” there was a soft snicker at how Kazuya used the name of the King of Light as if talking about a higher power, a slightly ironic situation given said King being a priest… those bracelets were amazing though.

If the bracelets worked forever they’d be unfair, but they only worked once before breaking, and even when the King of Light made them the best they could do was reviving three Star Sages at the moment of death.

That was still a terrifying prospect though.

The fights after Jade re-joined her classmates was mostly boring to them, with the exception of two cases of Class Change, a B-Class student defeating an A-Class, and two C-Class students teaming up against two B-Class students and winning, and then a slightly interesting match occurred.

“Is that Barry?” Vince asked, looking at the A-Class equivalent of Leah or Tony, that being someone very, very shy...

Barry was the rank three of the A-Class, carrying a bow much like how Kazuya now did, his purple hair was still as noticeable as before, and this time he even had a partner as they fought against a single B-Class student.

See the problem?

Barry’s partner was someone who was using a mace as their Armament, an Ice-Element Sage given by the way the air cooled and misted over near the mace head, and with Barry being a long-range fighter, his partner just guarded Barry, keeping their B-Class opponent busy until Barry managed to blast the B-Class student out of the ring.

“An expected outcome really… Get ready for your fight Leah.” Edward pointed out, noting that two C-Class students teamed up, and now a sad case of a B-Class student fighting a D-Class student was occurring.

The fight would probably not last that long.

During their first ICT, Kazuya probably would have thought ‘eh, it could go either way’ but no, the result was obvious.

The attempts to battle an S-Class student in a wager were numerous. But said battles were never for a spot in the S-Class.

Only the top five A-Class students could compete with the lowest S-Class student, currently Leah, and none of the A-Class would try to steal the march on June.

So the very top ranks were calm, allowing the status quo to continue… but every other group, especially the D and C-Class students, were tumultuous, fighting for position almost daily in an attempt to climb the ladder of power.

A whole year after the ‘swap classes through battle’ thing started with their first ICT, everyone else still fought for position. By now, those who were in D-Class probably deserved to be there, and so on and so forth.

And it was proven to be true when the B-Class Metal Sage covered herself in a suit of armour and beat her opponent’s head into the ground until his bracelet broke, healing his injuries and ending the match.

Brutal, but efficient in a match where their opponents couldn’t die.

Leah stepped out to the arena, her A-Class opponent looking quite confident… to be fair this guy was someone who the S-Class students knew to vaguely be in the top ten among the A-Class, so he wasn’t exactly weak…

The battle was not as difficult as it could have been however, with the A-Class student being a Fire Element Sage.

Leah would almost never lose against a Fire Element Sage, waving her baton to summon a wave of Water crashing towards her opponent, the boy waving his whip, an odd Armament, to try and part the wave…

It was just a setup though, as while the wave crashed towards the boy, Leah was preparing her ‘signature’ move.

“Atmospheric Grasp!” Leah called, the wave of Water parting due to the attack of her A-Class opponent, but instead of simply flowing past, the wave suddenly halted, swirling around and around until it formed a dome containing her opponent.

“Never gets old.” Kazuya said with a small smirk, having helped Leah develop the original Atmospheric Lock to this point…

The original Atmospheric Lock, signature move of the King of Wind, was a terrain controlling move, making an area of the world obey her will.

From what Leah had to say on the matter after being taught by Yusuf, that wasn’t quite the case though:

‘Atmospheric Lock isn’t actually too difficult in and of itself… it’s what can be done with it that’s a bit strange, it has so much potential that it’s difficult to scratch the surface. So because of that…’

“Vacuum.” Leah said softly, a tiny hole appearing in the dome of Water, all the air inside rapidly rushing out, leaving the A-Class student wide eyed and gasping for air suddenly.

“He has to move now, or he’ll go unconscious.” Jade said with a knowing look, having already been on the receiving end of this attack herself.

By now, despite not knowing the exact details of it, the S-Class all knew this bit of information.

Atmospheric Lock was actually a source technique for which its users could then create their own techniques… essentially Atmospheric Lock was an Elemental control style of fighting, such as how Karate was a physical fighting style.

Even more, Atmospheric Lock was not even limited to Air, though it was obviously named with Air as its source, so if it was done with another Element, it went under a different name.

The idea was a simple one, dominate an area of existence and force it as you will…

Execution was a different matter, and Leah had still had problems with the technique though.

For this fight, watching as her opponent fell unconscious, futilely trying to force his way through the dome of Water with his own attacks, Leah’s problematic Atmospheric ‘Grasp’ was working.

“You’re getting better, though he still managed to attack with his Element.” Edward pointed out with a raised brow when Leah walked back, the lowest ranked of their number blushing a bit and nodding.

“Yeah… I couldn’t create a complete vacuum, so instead I just focused on keeping him in place.” Leah said, looking to Kazuya who raised a thumb in approval.

Leah had a beaming smile after that, though her eye twitched slightly as Liza stared at her blankly.

“Don’t mind it. You’ll eventually reach the level you wish.” Kazuya said with a smile, knowing from speaking to Leah that using an ‘Atmosphere’ style ability was like trying to carry a bucket of water in the palm of your hands.

The reason why Leah said ‘Grasp’ instead of ‘Lock’ was because she couldn’t exert the appropriate level of control.

And even the King of Wind Rabia would probably be unable to use that ability on a fellow King, as there were many ways to interrupt or mess with those powers.

Many seemingly unstoppable powers had limitations of some sort that one could take advantage of, though in the case of the King of Wind, it was only a select group that could stop her power by shrugging it off.

“So, I’m back.” Edward said, sitting down and getting a few looks before the rest of the S-Class realized that Edward was supposed to be in the ring fighting…

“Oh yeah… your opponent was D-Class…” the moment Vince said those words all questions were answered, with Edward apparently having gone to the arena, quickly mauling his opponent with his Lion Gauntlets and having the revival bracelet activate.

“I could also win that quickly if I could use my spear…” Kazuya fussed, growling slightly while Liza patted his head while making cooing noises, Leah sitting nearby looking lost on how to treat the scene.

Rather, Leah didn’t seem to realize she was part of the rom-com scene that left the other class members laughing.

There was another fight, a B against C-Class student which resulted in the latter winning, not a huge surprise, but an interesting occurrence, and then two B-Class students teaming up before the next S-Class student had to fight.

“You know, considering I’ve already faced Leah, fighting you means I’ll have fought all the shy ones of the S-Class.” The strongest second-year student bar the S-Class, June Hallows, held her lacquered rapier and dagger in a ready position, Tony standing across from her already had his Dark Bolts in hand just as ready as she was.

“Well… the outcome is a bit ambiguous, but the most likely victor is Tony.” Kazuya stated, looking as the two fighters tensed, waiting for the signal to begin.

Once the signal went off, the two moved, rushing towards one another with no hesitation, June throwing her dagger at Tony’s foot while running while Tony responded in kind with one of his Dark Bolts whirling towards her skull.

Neither attacks connected, with June hitting the Dark Bolt to the side, unwilling to let it fly past after seeing Tony’s last match no doubt, and Tony dodged June’s dagger by twisting on one foot and launching the other foot in a kick towards June, the Lightning crackling from the kick showing what was really going on.

June’s now free left hand curled except for her middle and pointer fingers, both pointing upwards as her dagger seemed to almost burst into growth from it’s position almost behind Tony, her right hand stabbing her rapier into the ground in front of her, allowing a wall of oaken bark to grow from the arena floor.

The lance of Lightning launched from Tony’s sudden roundhouse kick burnt the bark wall but did not harm June, and June’s dagger’s attack still continued, the small piece of wood morphing into a huge Venus flytrap attempting to chomp Tony in half.

Tony clicked his tongue, leaping into the mouth of the Venus fly trap rather than duck and ruin his posture even more, and after the jaws of the plant clamped shut, it was barely a moment before Tony burst through the ‘head’ of the plant, his skin steaming slightly and red as if slightly burnt as he landed on the arena floor, the ‘dead’ plant falling limply to the ground where it flowed back into the form of June’s dagger.

June’s dagger then burrowed into the ground, with June kneeling and drawing it from where it reappeared, at her side, before once more snapping into a ready stance.

“Impressive start from June, managing to counter Tony’s attack and escape with no damage.” Jade stated clinically, watching as Tony held out his hand, his second Dark Bolt flying back towards him to fit snuggly in his palm.

“It’s due to the information difference I think. I mean, during Tony’s battle he won using the teleportation ability of the Dark Bolts, so June already knew of it. as for June’s own Armament, while we could guess that she could control their shape, we didn’t anticipate that they could even grow and attack away from her.” Edward pointed out with a hand cupping his chin in thought.

“Probably, I mean, information on your opponent and their fighting style heavily influences how you tackle them. I mean, look at Julian and his ability against axe-users.” That was a case of information breeding familiarity, but Kazuya’s words still made sense.

“Okay, so information gave June an advantage in the beginning of the fight but… that isn’t enough to hurt Tony really.” Vince reminded, none of his classmates denying his words.

Oh sure, Tony looked to be steaming due to the odd digestive abilities of that Venus flytrap, but Tony was quite good at taking a hit…

Rather, the most durable people in the class were Edward and Tony, and even Edward didn’t have the same level of pain tolerance possessed by Tony.

It admittedly took a bit more power to damage Edward than it did Tony, but damage that would leave Edward unable to move wouldn’t truly stop Tony, it took a bit more than that…

Kazuya and Edward were actually worried that having Vince and Tony spar constantly had Tony cultivate the mind-set of ‘do not stop charging until dead’…

The proof of Tony’s durability was seen as he stretched, cracking neck, black, jagged lines going across his skin for a moment before he breathed a sigh, holding out his Dark Bolts and running forward once more.

June was disturbed by those odd markings on Tony’s skin for a moment, but set aside that feeling to capitalize on the perceived damage she had inflicted upon him, dashing at him just as he dashed at her.

“He still isn’t used to those boomerangs… they’re brilliant at close range, but they are supposedly mid-range weapons.” Kazuya noted with a sigh, not really having noticed the possible weakness until now.

“Oh yeah… he uses them alright when it comes to distracting and as warp gates, but actually attempting to use them to win…” Vince spoke with a frown on his face, as the long-ranged expert of their classroom he’d need to help out Tony with those weapons…

Vince would have to help Kazuya as well, considering that there were better ways to use the bow than what Kazuya had done in his last match.

June and Tony finally met up near the centre of the ring, Tony chopping with his boomerangs while June held up her dagger to block.

Blocking with one hand against the physically superior Tony would be a deadly mistake though, and so June let go of her rapier while doing so, the rapier piercing into the ground while the Dark Bolts clashed against June’s Armament.

June buckled under the force of Tony’s attacks, the lanky student’s frame hiding the fact that he was actually stronger than Kazuya in the physical strength department, though given June’s glare, she wasn’t being deterred by the power of her opponent.

The rapier, left on the floor to their side, suddenly had its handle extend, growing thorns and whipping to Tony’s leg, similar to what happened with the dagger before.

“Not again.” Tony growled out the words, a spear of Darkness rising from below June’s feet to stab at her throat, causing the A-Class leader to widen her eyes, raising her jaw while stumbling back, her jaw now possessing a wide bleeding gash.

June’s rapier continued its attack, though with his Dark Bolts free Tony had the ability to cut the vine, preventing himself from being damaged.

“Similar to the previous exchange, except this time around, it was only June who got injured…” Kazuya noted with a smirk, watching as Tony showed his strength.

The ‘shy one’ of the class didn’t seem so shy anymore, after his time with Kazuya’s father and some speech therapy…

To be fair, it was mostly Light and Lightning Sages who ended up with that particular problem, and only the fastest of said Sages, proof of where Tony’s specialty lie.

When it came to speed, Tony was only matched by Liza, and that was because Liza could control Time. It showed how absurd he was in that department.

Now, keeping up his lead caused by June’s injury, Tony stepped in, his arms lashing out in an attempt to remove June’s head, the Wood Sage ducking beneath the blow and trying to stab Tony’s leg with her dagger, her rapier burrowing through the ground to reach her other hand.

Tony shifted his weight, spinning slightly and lifting his right arm, June looking up and realizing that Tony’s hands were both empty, his hands balled into fists.

June had lost track of his Dark Bolts, and that was where her undoing would come in, as she stared at Tony’s right fist approaching her face, not having enough time to block, all she could do was tilt her head in an attempt to move with the blow...

As June tilted her head, lucky enough to have the massive blow glance against her cheek, June felt her rapier enter her hand, ready to attack, ready to fight back…

Except that her vision looking towards the floor was getting darker as the form of Tony’s left hand approached her face.

For a moment, June had felt as if she had just been knocked unconscious, the force of the blow lifting her into the air where she realized what had just happened, a blow from above followed by another blow from below…

But the blow from below wouldn’t have worked if Tony’s first hit had connected, June’s body would have rocked into the ground and the uppercut would have missed.

A smirk came across June’s face as she realized that Tony was still looking at her as if she was about to attack him.

Tony expected that much from her, even as the missing Dark Bolts flew back, both piercing through June’s back and into her lungs.

With a burst of Light, the Dark Bolts clattered to the floor, and June was outside the arena, taking in a shuddering breath at the realization that she would have died, evident by the shattered bracelet on her arm.

The arena roared in both shock and approval at the fight, the S-Class students clapping in agreement at the amazing fight.

It would be the most amazing fight of the second round, with Liza and Vince fighting in the next two fights against A-Class students, the two struggling with moral after seeing their strongest taken down in such a manner.

And of course, Kazuya demolished his own B-Class opponent at the end of the second round.

It was now the third round, and the fights lined up were now separated into just two blocks instead of four, with Kazuya gaining a free pass until the fourth round.

But looking at the tournament roster-

“Kazuya, you’re going to be fighting four B-Class students at the same time in the fourth round… you sure you’re going to be okay?” Leah asked looking as Jade walked out to fight her A-Class opponent, the fight before hers featuring a B-Class student defeating his A-Class opponent…

Rather, that particular B-Class student had already defeated three A-Class students… maybe he was someone to watch out for, though from Kazuya’s view, the axe user wasn’t as interesting as that Sherry girl, though he was interesting…

“I’ll be fine, sure, maybe one of them would be a hidden gem like Sherry or that Bjorn guy with the axe, but they got to this point only facing D-Class opponents.” Kazuya said, feeling his hand clench as if wanting to hold onto his Monochrome Spear.

“They’re high on the showing by Bjorn and how much Sherry damaged Vince. They’ll be complacent. I will make them regret that.” Kazuya said, watching as Jade launched a wide array of knives around her opponent before blasting her own knives with her Light, the ricochet effect leaving her opponent unable to block, defeating her.

Rather, if she could block, Kazuya would have been very impressed, the amount of calculations required to both use such an attack and block it would be immense.

All the following fights were unfortunately plain, Dean and Barry’s teams winning against their opponents in the same way the S-Class all won their fights, bar Liza and Vince, the first and third ranked students teaming up.

Worse, now that the fourth round of fights was starting, and it looked to be going into five rounds at minimum, Liza and Vince were going to be teaming up with Tony in this round.

That was very unfortunate… for their opponents of course.

In the fourth round, Jade finally faced off against that Bjorn guy, and for the number two of the B-Class, he was clearly powerful, just not enough to beat Jade with his Ice Element going up against her Light and Metal…

It was much worse than it seemed because the ‘manly man’ Bjorn couldn’t seem to hit Jade at all due to her speed.

Rather, after the fight was over-

“You are powerful, beautiful, and your gaze is as frosty as the tundra, please, be mine!” “I refuse.” It seems Bjorn was attracted to strong, beautiful, and ‘frosty’ women. Jade was against the idea though, to the noticeable relief of Vince.

The next matches were an A-Class team defeating a C-Class team, the latter already having assured their own movement into the B-Class earlier, and Barry’s team defeating a B-Class team…

After that, the next two ‘matches’ were Edward teaming up with Leah, and then Liza and Vince teaming up with Tony. The majority of the S-Class was teamed up bar Jade and Kazuya at this point.

The second-to-last match of the fourth round was Dean’s team of three defeating a team of two B-Class students.

With that, the final bracket of the fifth round was decided, Jade versus the team of two A-Class students, Edward and Leah against Barry and his partner, and finally Liza, Tony and Vince versus Dean’s team of three.

Well, this was not accounting for Kazuya and his fight against the last four B-Class students in the fourth round.

“One guy against the four of us… it doesn’t matter if you are in the S-Class, we’ll take you down!” Kazuya stood, wanting to toss his bow away and summon his Monochrome Spear…

Instead he stopped that urge, instead raising his bow, and stared at his opponents.

One of them carried a large sword, the second carried a pick axe of all things, the third had a bow and the fourth had a wand.

Judging from their auras, in the same order as before, they were a Lightning Sage, an Earth Sage, a Wind Sage and a Light Sage.

Kazuya still felt confident even as the match began, the two melee Sages running at him, the remaining two splitting up to flank him.

Kazuya wasn’t even bothered, despite now being a long-ranged fighter due to his weapon, he knew that he would not be defeated in any close-ranged exchange.

So Kazuya instead seemed to completely ignore the Sage with the sword and the other one with the pickaxe, instead launching Lightning arrows which moved in a zigzag pattern towards the bow user of the enemy team.

“You think I can’t stop this?” The Bow user shouted, launching near invisible arrows of Wind in return, bursting the Lightning arrows before they could reach him.

“Nah, that was kind of a simple attack, so the real one is this.” Kazuya said, stepping back from the swing of the swordsman, arrow shaped pieces of Earth flying out from the ground in front of the bow user and hitting him flying out of the ring.

“…You know, I’ve never seen an Earth Element archer, but I think that’s terrifying.” Vince pointed out, noting that while the arrows were slower… they could move through the very ground you stood on.

Who expected to get shot with an arrow from below when you were standing on a flat piece of solid ground?

“Damn it, take us seriously!” the tanned girl with the pickaxe slammed it on the ground, a pillar of Earth jutting out in an attempt to push Kazuya upwards and out of the arena, an impressive attack actually.

Kazuya responded with controlling the very surface of that pillar, pushing himself forward so that he could slide down the angled pillar, his hand becoming covered in Water as he pulled back the string of his bow.

Letting go of the string, a ball of Water flew forward, impacting the ground between the two close ranged Sages before it burst, two high pressure blades of Water flying out, the pickaxe girl getting cut and disappearing with the sound of a bracelet breaking, the swordsman managing to just barely block the attack.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it…” the swordsman was cursing as he raised his blade, swinging it as it crackled with electricity, a stream of Lightning blasting towards Kazuya.

“Sorry, my dad does that move much better.” Kazuya said as he slid to the base of the pillar of Earth, stomping his foot and creating a wall to block the Lightning slash.

Seeing an opportunity, the Light Sage pointed their wand at Kazuya, a circle forming beneath his feet and letting Kazuya know it was bad news.

So to escape, Kazuya jumped and kicked his own defensive wall, launching it at the Lightning Sage and bouncing away from where a landmine of Light blew up a segment of the arena.

“He doesn’t fight like an archer at all…” Vince sighed, glad for this fact actually, even if Kazuya was no doubt confusing every bow user watching.

An archer was supposed to move yes, but archers predominantly used their bows to attack, and they did so in pre-defined ways, usually through arrows.

Instead, Kazuya was using Elements typically not used for bows, such as Earth and Water, and doing many supplementary actions in regards to his movement and defence, such as creating the wall to defend and allowing his opponents to get close enough that he had to dodge their melee attacks.

It was weird, but clearly effective, and so long as it was effective, it was not the wrong action to take.

The wall of Earth launched at the Lightning Sage was cut thanks to his sword, the two blocks sailing past him and allowing him to watch as Kazuya launched an arrow of Darkness at the Light Sage, the arrow large enough to be a spear in fact.

Even with a shield of Light, the arrow punched through, losing its form and becoming a blunt force as it pushed and carried the spell-caster out of the arena, leaving Kazuya alone with his final enemy.

“Damn… I surrender.” The swordsman stated, raising his hand and signalling his loss, leaving Kazuya smirking as he walked away.

“Good choice.” Kazuya had dismantled his opponents with apparent ease, though he showed no exertion, Kazuya was in fact a bit stressed out due to a few close calls in the fight.

But Kazuya wouldn’t show any signs of his fatigue, knowing that by providing the persona of invincibility, he would help his friends.

The next, and final, three fights?

It was a resounding victory for the S-Class, as expected.