“AAAAARRRGH!!”

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

I can only hear my own heartbeat. They’re talking but I can’t hear them... Where is that fucker...

There he is... I want to fight him again. I want to win!

“You. You’re next!”

That’s it. That’s the face I want to see. Show me that terrifying battle prowess again!

... Flowers?

What’s this feeling? My fatigue... it’s disappearing. Was it the vice-principal? It must’ve been. Only the teachers know that kind of spell.

What’s he saying? I still can’t hear him... His lips... He’s asking me if I’m... ready? Pfft, I’ve been working towards this, of course I’m ready!

“Obviously.”

Fuck nobility. Being a noble doesn’t matter in the middle of a fight. Right now, I just want to fight this fucker!

Fuck... I have to wait for him to get his bow and arrows. ‘Sniff.’

“Come at me!”

“Are you both ready?” Is that the vice-principal? Even nodding my head feels so surreal right now. What is this feeling? I feel like I can beat anyone. Even those two monsters, the redhead and that lightning freak...

... Actually... I don’t think anyone can beat those two, forget that.

Can we fucking start already!

“Three.” Ah. Here we go.

“Two.” The seconds are moving slowly...

“One.” It doesn’t matter. I’ll win.

“BEGIN!”

Rai was... worried, “Something’s different... Tullian might lose this one.”

Sin nodded, “I feel it too. That George has improved a lot. I didn’t realise it until now, but the work he’s been putting in has been crazy.” She smirked slightly, “Still, Tullian's also put in a lot of work.”

Rai hadn’t been at the Academy for a month, so it made sense that everyone had been working on improving themselves. There was still something about George’s level of focus that scared him.

It reminded him of himself.

Mary pushed herself to ask, “What do you mean Rai?”

Rai turned and faced her, which she flinched at, “Our friend, Tullian. He’s a good fighter, but the other one is also pretty strong.” He sighed, “They fought before, about a month ago. Tullian won very quickly, so George has probably been training with the goal of defeating Tullian.”

Mary softly nodded, “Can I watch the fight?”

Huh? “Of course. You’re with us for the lesson, so just do what we do!” He smiled at her.

Mary weakly returned his smile.

Rai’s focus quickly moved back to the spar. Joey started counting them down. “Three. Two. One. BEGIN!”

Dust flew.

The class’s view was obscured, but Joey used the arena’s barrier function before they began so the dust didn’t fly out towards everyone. The barrier wasn’t that powerful, since this arena was designed for physical fights. Still, it was perfectly designed for something like this.

It was still frustrating for the group since they wanted to watch the fight. Sounds of the fight echoed around the arena, so the students had to figure out what was happening by ear.

Rai heard a whistling sound as the fight began. It was followed by a soft thud. The sound of wood being pierced by an arrow. Then came a series of harder thuds. It sounded like George had managed to get in range of Tullian.

Rai spared a glance at Joey, whose eyes were different. His normal plain looking eyes were now brightly glowing gold. Rai thought that he was able to somehow see through the dust. There’s a spell for that?! Of course there’s a spell for that. There’s a spell for anything if you’re creative enough.

He returned his attention to the fight, which was coming into vision now as the dust subsided. The silhouettes of the two fighters dashing to and from each other was a beautiful sight. Occasionally, there was the sound of an arrow whistling away from Tullian, but there was no thud that followed.

Tullian’s arrows were constantly missing

Their first fight was over quickly. But this time was completely different. At least, that’s what Rai thought until he heard Tullian’s powerful voice boom from the ring.

“HAHAHA! YOU GOT STRONGER!” Tullian yelled through the dust cloud.

There was no response.

Tullian decided to double his focus on the fight. His eyes dashed from side to side to see where the next attack would come from.

Nothing.

Right.

He raised his borrowed bow to block the sword strike coming at him.

A grave mistake.

What flew at him was a mound of hardened sand. It hit him in his chest.

Tullian’s breath was stolen from him.

George’s shield slammed into his gut, pushing him back. Yet, Tullian did not fall. He was winded and short of breath, but he wouldn’t give up so easily.

George didn’t allow him any breathing room.

Swish!

The blade didn’t connect. George’s eyes widened. “You can move in that state?! Just lose already, you fucking monster!”

He moved backwards to set up for another shield slam.

Something blocked him before he could gather enough momentum.

Tullian’s face peeked over the tip of the shield, giving George quite the scare. “You can’t hit me with the same move twice!” He glanced at George’s wrist. All wrapped up, just like I wanted.

Tullian gripped the shield’s edge with all his might. Cracks began forming in the wood. With the strength of a boar, Tullian flung George way up into the air.

“Wh- What THE FU-AAAAAHHHH!” George screamed as he flew upwards.

Tullian nocked an arrow. He aimed up at George.

“STOP! The fight is over, Tullian is the victor!” Joey yelled out from the side of the ring.

Tullian withdrew his arrow, and let George fall down.

Thud.

The shockwave of George falling to the ground pushed the dust outwards from the area of impact.

Tullian looked at where George would’ve fallen. He frowned to himself a little, then began walking back to the edge of the ring.

Joey knew that he wanted more of a fight, but for George to stand as somewhat of a competitor against Tullian was already a great step.

The dust evaporated. Tullian pulled on his shirt to let air in, “Is it really hot here all of a sudden?” He looked over at the group of students. There was a really bright light that reflected off of all of their faces.

Tullian turned around.

“Come back and fight me you coward!” George roared.

He’d summoned a blazing ball of magma above his head. It was about the size of a small house.

Joey was already on the move.

He had begun preparing a defensive barrier, if only he could just make it in time. If George released that magma ball, the scale of collateral damage would be catastrophic. Joey wasn’t part of the ranking committee, but he guessed it was somewhere between epic and legendary rank in terms of destructive power. It wasn’t all that surprising that a noble got his hands on a spell with this much power, but he was furious that George was doing something like this.

When this was all over, George would have hell to pay with the headmaster.

Rai stood, staring at the huge ball of magma. Mary was sobbing next to him, thinking that she was about to die.

Sin simply sat in her seat, completely unphased about what was happening. She prodded Rai, “Hey, you gonna do something about that?”

Rai slowly shook his head, “I don’t know if I can.”

Sin stood up and turned his face to hers. “The fuck does that mean? Use Antithesis, dummy.”

Rai nodded.

How do I do that now...

The ball of magma was glowing brighter.

Rai continued staring at it. Antithesis. Antithesis... Why isn’t it fucking working!?

Red hot lava pockets began spawning in the air around the ball. The spell grew stronger as George poured more of his anger and frustration into it, “COME BACK AND FIGHT ME!”

Tullian was stunned. His normal cool-headed way of thinking abandoned him. As much as he had good traits for fighting, he was still young.

Rai began to feel anxious now. Joey was running around, slowly putting together a defensive rune layout. But he was slow. Rai could tell.

Fuck! Hurry up and just work already! He grew more frustrated with each attempt.

AntithesisAntithesisAntithesisANTITHESIS! FUCK SHIT FUCK!

“Sin it’s not working!” Panic set in.

Sin held his hand. “Focus. You said it evolved right? Did you get any clues when that...” She remembered to keep the stuff about the Ancient a secret, “... guy told you about it?”

The huge magma ball kept growing. Joey was still in the middle of drawing the runes needed for the incantation. He cursed his low level magic abilities as he did so. For him to destroy the magma ball would be easy, but it would result in too much collateral damage since his techniques were primarily physical and offensive in nature. Joey wouldn’t get hurt, but the students would. He had to move faster and get the runes set up.

Rai was panicking. He had to buy some time.

FUUUCK! STORMFLOW!

Time crawled to a near-standstill. Rai’s body convulsed. He didn’t have the mental room to think. All of his focus was on the pain. “No... time...”

“Ig’lyn... how... please...”

Nothing came. There wasn’t ever any indication of Ig’lyn being there in the first place, but Rai didn’t know what else to do.

Tears of pain flowed from his inverted eyes as he forced himself to stand.

He couldn’t do it. Rai couldn’t figure it out in time. He released Stormflow, realising that it would do more harm than good right now. “Sin, I can’t do it.”

Sin smirked, “Alright. I wanted you to figure it out but if you can’t, then I’ll do it myself.”

Rai stared at her, “Huh?”

Sin used her divine form. Mimic.

The body that once belonged to Rai’s closest friend was now... Amy’s? Rai could see that Sin had morphed into Amy, but he had no idea why.

Sin morphed again, taking on Amy’s Siren form that she recalled from Rai’s spar.

Rai was blown away. How... how did she do that?

Sin took it a step further. She enhanced her voice with mana as the magma ball glowed brighter, “EVERYONE MOVE BACK!”

The students were broken out of their shock. They listened to her instruction and moved towards the back of the seats together.

Sin had the space to do what she wanted now. First, she ran forward into the newly opened space. Next, she reached out both hands to either side, summoning mirror clones of herself. Rai counted seven of them, including the original Sin.

The seven Amys that were actually Sins aimed at the magma ball.

George was about to release it.

Joey realised that he was too late, so he converted the rune layout to a different type of barrier. The one he was initially creating was to keep techniques locked in, but his adaptation made it so techniques would stay out. The adapted version of the layout was much easier for him to create, but it meant that he could only feasibly protect his own group of students.

Joey did it in time.

Joey’s barrier formed around the group of students. It wasn’t much, but this was all he could do.

Sin cast her spell.

It was a spell that Rai’d never seen before.

A humungous orb of glowing flowing water formed around the magma sphere and its globules. The Sins all contributed to the spellcasting. Joey’s barrier didn’t stop Sin’s spell from working, so she poured her all into it.

The seven Sins, in the form of Siren Amy, weren’t the focus of anyone’s attention. All of the students, barring Rai, focused on the golden orb. Joey noticed the Sirens and the lack of Sin, putting two and two together.

George didn’t notice anything. His rage was blinding.

He pushed his arm forward, towards Tullian. “FIGHT ME!”

The spell didn’t go off. George could’ve sworn that he felt the spell release. He even heard the explosion.

George looked around. The bright light emanating from his spell was nowhere to be seen.

A loud sizzling sound came from the orb as it shrunk. The orb of water quickly shrunk into nothingness, devouring the explosion and remnants of George’s spell.

After a moment, the orb was gone. The magma was gone.

George got hit by the backlash, and collapsed onto his knees.

Six of the seven mirrors shattered into rainbow coloured mana motes. The last of them morphed back into Sin.

Sin ran back over to Rai, “Hey! You saw that right? You saw how awesome I was?!” She had the widest smile on her face. The sweat on her forehead and her neck showed that it wasn’t easy, but other than that she looked as spry as ever.

Rai smiled, “You were amazing! How did you use Amy’s divine form? Was that one of her abilities? Can you copy othe-”

The backlash hit.

Rai convulsed again. He fell onto the soft grass. This time wasn’t as bad as before though. Rai thought that he’d be able to move after a little while. For now, the pain was immobilizing him.

Sin glared at him, “You used Stormflow again, didn’t you?”

Rai somehow managed to nod.

Sin shook her head, then sat next to him on the ground. “... Idiot.” She started casting a healing incantation, “I’ll explain it all later, but for now just rest while I heal you.”

Mary missed all of this since she was balled up in her chair, prepared to die. Upon not dying, she opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was Rai laying on the ground and Sindyl focusing on some kind of spell. She looked over to where the magma ball was, only to see that it wasn’t there anymore. Confusion set in, but she would have no time to ask any questions.

Rodrick appeared from thin air next to George, “I have a lesson too, you know... There have been far too many mana fluctuation disturbances today.” Rodrick looked directly at Mary, or so she thought. He was actually looking at Sin, who was sat next to Rai. Rodrick smiled.

He turned to Joey, “I’ll take care of this one. Calm your class down.”

Joey stared at him, “What about your lesson? We can take care of him af-”

Rodrick shook his head, “This takes precedence. The period is almost over, so I let them go early.”

Joey nodded, “Very well. Take him.”

Rodrick snapped his fingers, teleporting both him and the stunned George elsewhere.

Joey yelled, “If any one of you use magic like that again in this Academy, I will personally make sure you’re expelled! Consider this your first and final warning.” The class was already stunned at Sin’s spell, this just added to it.

Joey took a long breath. “Okay... apologies for the outburst. Is everyone alright?”

The students looked around at each other. Everyone looked fine. Someone called out from the side of the group, “Rai’s on the ground!”

Joey checked Tullian first, who’d since sat on the ground in the ring. He seemed fine, just exhausted.

Joey then ran over to where Rai was.

He crouched down next to Rai and Sin. “What happened?”

Sin was concentrating on maintaining the spell, so she could only muster a few words, “He’s an idiot.”

Joey had no idea how to respond to that, but he figured that they were fine considering how nonchalant she was about it. He took a second to give her the praise that was due, “Sindyl. That was very well done. Your abilities are even better than I thought.”

Sin blushed, “Oh, r-really? I just d-did what I thought w-was right...” She wasn’t used to praise. After spending so much of herself, something like this brought her nerves to the forefront.

Joey smiled, “Well done. Keep up your personal improvement.”

Sin nodded, then continued focusing her healing spell on Rai.

Joey returned to the ring. One of the students brought Tullian a cup of water, which he graciously accepted. Joey’s heart warmed up. Regardless of this incident, his students were growing. That was something he could be proud of.

“Okay! We’ll wrap this lesson up here. I will delay giving you all of your feedback until next lesson. Consider this your chance to study for your end of week exams!” The students collectively groaned. “Use the showers if you fought today, and get home safe! I will see you all next week.” Joey rushed out of the West ground.

He needed to get to Rodrick’s office before any rash decisions were made.

Rai softly held Sin’s hand. “I’m... I’m okay now. I'll take Mary back, then let’s go to the café. I want to hear more about your techniques.”

Sin put on a wide smile. “Nope. You’re healing until we’re done, then we’ll go.”

Rai rolled his eyes, “Fine.”

Tullian walked over to the two of them. He was sweating profusely, “What happened to you two?”

Rai and Sin stared at him.

They both giggled, then spoke at the same time.

“I’m an idiot.” Rai said.

“He’s an idiot.” Sin said.

Tullian tilted his head, “You guys are so weird.”