Asterios and Tina stared each other down while releasing spiritual pressure into the air. Thankfully, the audience didn’t have to experience any discomfort caused by the increased density of mana in the air due to the barriers raised by the Royal Division. The small turmoil was locked inside the rectangular box with an open top.

Naturally, Ast’s aura was much bigger and better visible than Tina’s. They both emanated slight wisps of spiritual energy around their bodies but the amount wasn’t really comparable. Asterios had much more of it, thanks to his second source, just waiting for his call. In Tina’s case, she could only make use of her single-source reserves, which would actually be very impressive if not put against Ast’s.

The atmosphere grew tense. Even the spectators could feel it from behind the magical wall separating them from the challengers. Everyone waited in suspense, watching who would make the first move to break the stalemate. Both Asterios and Tina kept themselves ready to jump at each other at any moment.

Finally, noticing the signs of movements in Tina’s muscles, thanks to his enhanced senses coming from Miria, Asterios lunged forward with the use of his wings to strike before she could. He quickly closed onto her, aiming to catch Tina at an awkward moment, raising his chances of scoring a hit.

But, before he reached her, a tiny smirk on Tina’s lips caught his eye.

With all senses screaming at Asterios about an obvious trap, he used whatever strength he could to halt his charge. He had already passed half of the distance in a flash and would end up very close in a vulnerable state if he didn’t slow down at once.

Shoving his shadow greatsword into the ground, he saw Tina change the initial movement of her hands and thrust her water scythe into the floor after hastily switching the form of its tip from a blade into a spear. Asterios came to a screeching halt just moments before a swirling tornado of violent water erupted around Tina’s figure, creating a deadly, spinning wall he had almost crashed into.

Quickly and easily withdrawing the sword from the damaged tiles—thanks to the fact that it was Umbra’s shadow which could change its consistency and form at will, unbothered by any issues coming from having a weapon lodged in stone—Asterios jumped back a bit and swung his greatsword horizontally. An arc of darkness shot towards the violent tornado.

Unfortunately, it didn’t manage to penetrate the water, which seemed to be enhanced with spiritual energy, and ricocheted to the side, crashing into the protective barrier and scaring the audience a little as it trembled. He tried a few more attacks, a little better positioned, but the result was the same.

Just as he was going to set the sword on his shoulder and speak, all the black fur covering Ast’s body stood up and he got a really bad premonition, with all his strengthened senses again screaming at him.

~Dodge!~ Umbra added his own, actual scream to the mix and Asterios followed his advice immediately.

A fraction of a second after he twisted his body in hurry, a sharp projectile whizzed past him at an impressive speed, hitting the barrier behind Asterios. He followed it with his gaze and found a swirling javelin of water stuck in the spiritual barrier at one-third of its length, still spinning and drilling into the spiritual wall.

Asterios saw that a few spectators had fallen on their butts from surprise, wide-eyed at the sight of a deadly spike reaching their side of the barrier. The members of the Royal Division upholding it were no less shocked at the power of the projectile and quickly supplied their summons with more mana to strengthen them and the safety measure.

Turning his attention back to Tina, he chuckled to himself. “Now, things got a little bit harder.”

Not giving him even a moment to rest or think, Tina launched another attack and Asterios barely noticed something shooting through the surface of the swirling tornado, heading his way again. With quite some effort, he sidestepped out of the scary projectile’s path, letting it join the previous one in the barrier, this time, penetrating it a bit less.

The spinning curtain parted slightly in the middle while the rest of it kept swirling in place and revealed Tina standing inside with a giant bow made of water in her hands, almost as big as she was. She had the string drawn back and another javelin ready to be launched at her opponent whenever she wished.

A small but proud smile painted her lips. “Did you think scythes are all I can use?”

Asterios smiled back. “You never said you practiced archery too.”

“You never asked.” Tina giggled adorably. “There’s a lot more you still don’t know about me.”

“I’m looking very forward to learning about all of it, then.”

A faint blush surfaced on her cheeks as her smile grew a bit more.

“I think now is a good time to start. Let me show you why I’m not called the academy’s ace for no reason.”

Soon after, the obstruction returned and hid Tina away. Asterios watched the water tornado attentively. It was a perfect cover with a great defense. He was unable to deduce when the next attack would come without any visuals on his opponent. Tina could bombard him continuously at will and he had to be fast to react to every projectile without knowing when it was going to come.

And, surely, another extremely fast whirring javelin shot through the spinning wall with a loud splash, flying in Ast’s direction. Just as before, he chose to dodge it and succeeded almost at the last moment with how fast it was, but another splash reached his ears and Asterios hastily covered his body with the shadow greatsword, setting it vertically at his side.

A strong impact followed, pushing him a few meters away, and the impressive arrow ricocheted off his weapon somewhere to his left. Asterios groaned and his additional pair of ears twitched, warning him about one more attack. Tina was truly merciless.

Flapping his wings strongly, he moved away much further this time, avoiding the third javelin with relative ease. Before he could even stop, a fourth projectile was already after him, somehow shot perfectly towards the place where he would end up in just a moment if he continued flying that way, forcing Asterios to spin his body horizontally in an attempt to avoid getting impaled.

Carefully watching the surface of the thick water pillar, he constantly kept switching directions after just a second or two of heading one way. A deadly javelin of water whizzed through the air right in front of him each time. Asterios was amazed how Tina could perfectly predict his movements while he couldn’t even begin to think about hers.

Doing a tight, horizontal barrel roll to dodge another attack that had caught him on the move again, he noticed something in the sky. Shortly after landing his feet on the solid ground, Asterios hastily glanced up and saw Ori, Tina’s Shearwater familiar hovering in the air just slightly above the edge of the stormy cyclone. He had no doubts the little bird was relaying its vision to Tina through their bond.

“Hey, that’s cheating.” He chuckled, catching a muffled giggle answering him from behind the whooshing water.

Even so, that didn’t stop Tina from releasing more of her projectiles at an even quicker pace. All four walls of the spiritual barriers had at least a few of them stuck in their surface before they reverted to shapeless water. The leftover holes were quickly healed up to prevent one of those from sneaking through and causing an accident.

“Well, I better do something before you accidentally nail a certain someone on a water spike. Just like you accidentally released five javelins where he and his family stand.”

Another giggle reached his ears and Asterios smiled to himself. He was glad Tina was having fun. He too was having a blast.

~Help me out a little too, Umbra, will you?~ he asked his shadowy companion.

~At your command, Master.~

Gripping his weapon stronger, Asterios dodged another javelin and flapped his wings with all he had. He rushed toward Tina’s tornado as fast as it was possible. Of course, she knew about his movements well and launched a counterattack in the form of more projectiles to prevent him from reaching it.

While Asterios used his greatsword to parry one or two, numerous shadowy spikes surged from the ground in front of him and altered the trajectory of most oversized arrows. He had positioned himself just right to have the sun behind his back, causing a darkened spot to move ahead of him, which allowed Umbra to easily use his abilities with no delay.

Getting rid of the javelins in their joint effort, Asterios managed to arrive in front of the spinning wall of water and drove his foot hard into the ground. Putting all the strength he could muster from Miria’s help, he made a wide, horizontal swing, extending the length of the shadowy greatsword a little.

The ominous blade cut through the water with ease, surprising Asterios a bit. Split into two, the tornado revealed nothing inside and the spell broke. The water began dissipating both ways from the sliced part.

Asterios quickly glanced up while still mid-swing after the unexpected lack of resistance from Tina’s defensive barrier and saw her figure being uncovered high in the air. With both hands above her head, she was gathering a large amount of mana and funneling all of it into one, gigantic water spear, which he could clearly tell was Hydran.

With a loud shout, Tina dropped the massive lance onto him. The gigantic javelin of ferociously swirling water descended onto Asterios with no mercy. In just a moment, it crashed into the ground with the strength of a meteor and caused a small earthquake, throwing a bunch of people off their feet.

All the water surged to the sides while splashing loudly and hit the spiritual barrier, climbing up with its momentum. Some of it escaped the edges of the unsealed box before the members of the Royal Division increased its height and fell onto a few unlucky spectators, with Roz being one of them.

After a few seconds, the waves calmed down and the water quickly dissipated. Tina flew towards the ground while flapping her wings a little awkwardly and dropped onto one knee as she landed. The feathery extensions disappeared in a greenish flash.

Panting heavily, she stood up and looked around the wet and completely destroyed from their fight arena. Before she spotted Asterios and made sure she hadn't gone overboard, a black blade showed up under her chin and lightly pressed into her throat. A chuckle reached her ears from behind.

“That was incredible. If it was anyone else, they would be out cold from that attack.”

Tina sighed in relief. The tension left her body and she let herself fall back, hitting Ast’s chest as he caught her. She glanced up at his smiling face and smiled brilliantly too.

“Figured it still wasn’t enough. Even after all that planning and coming up with ideas to surprise you.”

Asterios dismissed the blade and patted Tina’s head. “You certainly did. If I had any doubts about what you are capable of, they are now all cleared up. And not only mine.”

Prompted by his words, she looked around. The barrier was gone and a few weaker members of this regiment of the Royal Division were wiping their faces out of sweat. They had clearly not expected a random bout between the students of some magical academy to pack such a punch. Silvia smiled at them when their gazes met.

Besides the knights, the other spectators were even more astounded by what they had seen. A loud round of applause filled the air the moment Tina turned her attention to the crowd. It quickly rose by a magnitude as more and more people joined, amazed by the wonderful, albeit a little scary, display.

The only not-so-thrilled expressions could be seen on the faces of the Council and Roz. They had most likely realized not just Tina’s actual might but also Ast’s. As powerful as her last attack had been, it was as impressive for him to come out of it without a scratch. The general audience might have not focused on that point too much, but a few people had.

“How did you dodge it?” Tina asked, turning her face up to look at Asterios again.

“I cheated a little.” He smiled.

“How?” She raised a brow at him.

“I think you forgot I can use shadows to move from place to place. I can do it fast but nothing says I can’t delay my arrival a little.”

“Oh, right.” Tina giggled and slapped her forehead. “That makes so many tactics completely obsolete.”

He chuckled too. “Yeah, but only if Umbra is free and available to focus on me. Since he was literally in my hand, I could jump in instantly.”

“I don’t think it’s cheating. You used the ability of your familiar. That’s fair game, and what we both were doing.”

“I guess.” Asterios shrugged.

Tina steadied herself with his help and left Ast’s embrace a little unwillingly. She would love to let him hug her from behind for a tad longer but they were in the middle of an official event with tens of spectators. She had to show some tact.

They both made a bow towards each side and turned to the Principal and the rest of the important figures. Tina stepped forward, causing everyone to stop clapping. She roamed her gaze over the audience.

“Now you know what a frontline Summoner can do with some proper knowledge, experience, and strong familiars. This path is no worse than the most common, supporting one, and it’s completely false that it isn’t suitable for women. It’s magic. Magic cares not about gender, and neither should we.”

She waited a moment to let her words sink in before continuing.

“But, that’s not the only thing I wanted to show you today. You have seen what I am capable of, but it’s nothing when compared to Asterios, who was able to dodge or protect himself from all of that while barely breaking a sweat. His prowess is much more impressive; someone who was banished from the academy, humiliated during his stay, and bullied for being the weakest. Yes, you’ve heard it right, for being the weakest.”

People began glancing at each other and whispering, creating a murmur. The old man from the Council opened his mouth to say something but no voice came out of his throat, to his surprise and bewilderment. Madam Teireshia, who stood close to him, smiled to herself, gripping a wooden token inside her pocket.

“And it wasn’t just colleagues who did it,” uninterrupted, Tina kept going. “Even professors and other teachers openly displayed their disapproval of someone who was struggling while doing his best, while doing more than any other. Yes, I get it, this is not for everyone and people can fail, but can you call it failing when someone is weaker in one area and exceeds even the professionals in another?”

People showed different responses but the general majority seemed to agree with Tina’s opinions.

“Just because he had issues on the practical side, for whatever reason, Asterios was ostracized for his strong will, determination, and dedication. Barely anyone tried to help him instead of bullying him for that, as we can see, temporary incapability. Just because he was an eyesore, many tried to get rid of him under any pretext, to improve the academy’s image.”

Tina took one more step forward and scanned through the faces of all the people present around them.

“Now, tell me, does that improve the academy’s image? Does seeing a bunch of seniors kick out a person who excels in knowledge but lacks in practice a little just because they care more about practical results improve the academy’s image? Because that’s exactly what the Council did and I don’t think so. It makes me hate it. And I’m wondering how Asterios doesn’t. I saw everything that happened to him and I can’t confidently say that I would want to continue living that life if I was in his place.”

A few gasps broke from the crowd after Tina’s quite strong and shocking statement. Her parents were as surprised as the others, perhaps even a little more, and she looked their way with a slightly wry, apologetic smile, trying to look at least somewhat reassuring.

“Something has to change. And that change needs to start with the Council.” She threw a cold glare at the people near Madam Teireshia. “The Principal is powerless against a group of people, unable to help even if she would want to. Taking this chance, as bold as my request might be, I would like to ask the royal family to intervene in this matter before more potentially great Summoners are forced away from their path by incompetent leadership, of course, if it’s possible.”

It seemed that the old man had figured out the Principal’s trick and hastily started walking away from the woman to leave the silent zone but Silvia stepped forward before he could say anything, capturing everyone’s attention after their gazes moved to her due to Tina’s words.

“I’ve heard your request, Tina Nobelle, Ace of Rosewind’s Academy. I can promise you that I will bring this matter in front of my father for just and righteous judgment. We do not condone such treatment in our lands. If your words hold true, proper actions will be taken.”

The gathered people began clapping again, a bit quieter this time, to respectfully respond to the princess. A wide smile painted Tina’s lips while a few other people in the background paled a little, or a bit more than a little, depending on the person.

“Let us leave those proceedings for later and not spoil this wonderful day anymore,” Silvia added and glanced towards the Principal.

Madam Teireshia reached her side and nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. As usual, we welcome everyone to the ceremonial banquet taking place in the grand hall of the oldest building. Please, follow the students or teachers if you would like to participate in this social event. The more the merrier.”

Taking Principal’s words as the sign that the current show had come to an end, people began walking away in different directions while fervently discussing everything they had heard and seen during the graduation ceremony. No one even noticed when the members of the Council had escaped amongst the crowd too, clearly not wanting to stay around in such an atmosphere.

Tina sighed and Asterios placed a hand on her shoulder. She glanced at him, saw him smile warmly at her, and responded with the same. A small blush surfaced on her cheeks as she sneakily looked to the sides, turned around, and raised herself a little to peck Ast’s lips. He received the gentle kiss with gratitude and supported Tina with his arms.

Someone clearing their throat interrupted them and she hastily stepped back, finding her father staring at them with her mother by his side. Tina blushed even harder after noticing many more people who had come closer, including Principal Teireshia, Professor Grea, Princess Silvia, and even the Richtenstein family.

“Well, then. I think it’s time for us to return home, to our own, little, celebratory banquet,” Viscount Thomas began. “I hope you can join us, Asterios. And, of course, your family’s presence, Marquess Wilhelm, would honor our house greatly if you decided to join us. If you haven’t planned something on your own, that is, of course.”

“Oh, I think we’ll gladly oblige, Viscount Thomas, won’t we, dear?” The Marquess glanced at his wife.

“It would be rude if we didn’t, dear husband.” She smiled softly.

Tina glanced at Principal Teireshia and received a nod answering her unspoken question. She then found Professor Grea’s gaze and the red-skinned woman grinned at her expectantly as her tail danced behind her back impishly. Finally, Tina’s eyes landed on the princess.

“Ummm… I’m sure a small banquet in some unimportant noble’s house is much below a royal family, but if you would like, Princess Silvia, you are of course welcome too. Although, I bet you are very busy and I’m already extremely grateful for you showing up, which was totally amazing and unexpected, and for even the Royal Division to be here, but… Ummm…”

Silvia showed a very faint smile and glanced between her and Asterios. “I wouldn’t want to disrupt your important day, Tina. My presence would surely make some people tense or uncomfortable. That’s just how it is when someone from a royal family is involved.”

“From what I know, it was going to be just Tina’s family and a few friends, so I think it shouldn’t really be a problem,” Asterios commented. “If Marquess Richtenstein doesn’t mind, of course.”

“Not in the slightest! It would be an honor!” the man quickly responded with a bow.

“Since I’m already around, I might as well stay for a little longer if you allow me,” Silvia replied with a polite nod.

“Great. Let’s meet in front of our mansion, then,” Viscount Thomas suggested. “Tina, could you—”

“Have you ever ridden a winged lion?” Silvia asked Tina, interrupting him.

“No way…” Tina’s eyes opened wide and sparkled. “Can I really?”

The princess extended a hand to her and they walked away together, beginning to chat a little. Asterios chuckled to himself and followed them after nodding at Tina’s parents. He had a feeling someone would need to make sure the two didn't stray away from their path to her home too much.