99 Combat

"First things first," the professor announced. "You all know my class deals with grouped combat. I usually hold these special matches during the the break so I can have time to decide the groupings. So, do your best if you don't want to be grouped with the weaker ones!"

He had made us line up in three rows, and because I didn't really have time to move around, I got stuck at the third and last row, left to peek over taller shoulders.

"We'll be-" the professor drawled on, but it was mostly just warnings about how tough and serious the matches will be. He kept mentioning words like, "to the death" and "hit like your family name is at stake".

Around me, though, students were finally taking a notice of me. Whispers and glances were directed at my direction, their eyes either featuring confusion or hostility. When the murmurs were getting loud enough that it bothered the professor, he shouted out, "What is it?! I'm usually lenient as long as you can handle a sword, but talking around during class has its limit even for me!"

"Professor Rile, there seems to be a lost student here," one of the older students explained, gesturing none too politely at me.

The short professor had to waddle around to see where the commotion had sprouted from, and when he saw me with my rueful smile, he only stared for a short second.

He huffed once, but didn't address me nor the complaining student. He only continued on with the lecture as though he hadn't heard a thing. That stopped the murmurings around me, but their glances began to grow in hostility instead.

I sighed, knowing my time in this class probably won't be easy.

I heard a short whistle coming from the front, and like a dog being called by its owner, my attention immediately went towards the source of the sound. Grinning from the first row, with green accented robes... was the crown prince of the Empire.

My eyes went wide. 'Of course! He's not a Sinus Fidei anymore!'

I felt ecstatic. At least I won't be alone in this class! However, my brief joy soon turned into mild anxiety. Ever since the end of the Test of Waning, I haven't been acting myself around the boy with brown eyes. Don't get me wrong! I've already thought about all the possibilities. I might simply have a slight... infatuation for him. I also felt this way once with Prince Albert in my past life, but it hardly matters now. I was a child! And this was all just the childish fawning of a young girl's body...

Besides, I knew I shouldn't fall in love with this boy. It will all just complicate things in the future.

So, firmly persuading myself that I would be alright, I nodded once at the prince and turned my attention back to the professor.

He was already calling out a few names, and some of the oldest looking students fell out of the lines and came forward. The professor then fidgeted a bit with a largish ring (made even larger-looking due to his stubby fingers), and soon, several metal and wooden objects appeared in thin air.

'A spatial ring,' I thought as I recognized it. I haven't seen much of these artifacts since I last saw the plain silver ring Joren's parents had with them during our trip from the Kingdom.

The short man then ordered the students he had selected (and seemed to already know) to place the mechanisms around the courtyard, almost seemingly in random order and placement.

Observing the mechanism closest to me, I realized it was one of those training dummies that threw out bullets and such in consecutive fashion. I had gone through a line of these in the past when I did the obstacle course back in the fields of the Saulian palace. However, I would think that these were built to become far more of a challenge than the ones I had encountered when I was just six.

"Pick a partner and find an open place! Let's see what each of you is made of!"

Almost immediately, the class broke down into spontaneous conversation. I, however, made a beeline for the only person I knew. But nothing ever goes too well for me. On the way, I was stopped by an outstretched hand.

He had a robe with green accents, just like Charles', but he looked far older. He sneered down at me, his familiar features nagging at the back of my head.

"Excuse me," I said evenly, already stepping to the side to evade his reach, but he easily blocked my way again. I asked him, trying to keep my voice steady, "Yes? Can I help you?"

He smirked at me, and like a flash of lightning, his younger face coincided with another one from my earlier memories. Sir Saturno. This boy was a splitting figure of the man who abused and hurt my nanny. I could remember how Hestia had looked, crumpled up in shame on the garden soil, the leering man laughing hysterically above her.

Without a doubt, this boy had ties to that wretched man. Sir Saturno might have been crippled for life because of the magic I had unleashed on him that night, but here was a child still connected to that man's parasitic house. A family of merchants with close ties to the ancient houses of the Kingdom, it was one of the few noble merchants that sided with my oldest brother Ara's faction.

My calm demeanor immediately turned more than a bit sour, and the older boy flinched at my gaze. He sputtered, "Y-You dare allow your eyes to-!"

I quickly took a hold of his outstretched hand, and gripped it tightly enough for him to gasp. I said with a smile, "Let's be sparring partners, then. It seems like you would really like to team up with me, seeing how relentlessly you tried to stop me in my way."

He gulped down noticeably, perturbed by my hostile confidence. He looked behind him, where a group of boys were observing us; some even looking amused.

It seems like in this academy, House Genta wasn't a particularly respected house. Besides, if my guesses were right, his "friends" were probably high nobles in the Empire, and knowing how highly the Empire's nobles think of themselves when compared to the "lower" nobles of the Kingdom, I knew that those boys probably wouldn't even hesitate to throw this Saulian boy away.

And to think... I was so afraid of this boy's house; enough to run from them...

But no, I knew in the deepest parts of my heart that I didn't leave my station due to fright. I wanted freedom, and that's wholly different and much more meaningful. Besides, I'm not running away from them. Not now, not ever.

"So?" I asked him. "Shall we be partners?"

In the corner of my eyes, I saw the brown hair of Charles, probably standing and worrying over me. But, I knew I had to let some of my frustration out on this boy. His face had unlocked some hurtful memories from my weary mind and I was angry. He might not have done anything to me personally, but his face and his name hold a great annoyance in my heart.

'Don't worry, since you're innocent, I won't beat you up that badly,' I reassured him in my mind, more for reminding myself than for him.

Then, before he could try to talk his way out of it, the professor had called the time out, and he was faced alone with me. His "friends" had already grouped themselves a few meters away, but still sneaking glances at us.

The professor gave a few more instructions, while the atmosphere around us became heavy with tension. "Now, space yourself a bit more farther... Yes, yes, good."

I took a deep breath, relishing in the fight that was about to come. The boy seemed to have a sheath hidden under his robes, so I knew I had to fight him while I was armless.

But it didn't matter. Right now, I didn't really know how to use a weapon anyway...

"Now, on my mark, the dummies will start shooting, and all you have to do is knock out your opponent while dodging the bullets," the professor announced loudly for the entire courtyard to hear. "Easy enough, yes?"

Then, after hearing some mixture of jumbled agreement from the students, the small man began to exude a strong aura, bent down his knees, and with a move so quick like it had been a frog leaping up, he jumped from the ground and landed nimbly on one of the roofed sidewalks surrounding the courtyard.

Sitting down gruffly on the bare tiles, he stared down at us. "Well? Begin."

I smirked, and before the boy could even react, I had jumped towards him, attacking notes swirling around my body, hands closed firmly into fists. The bullets from the mechanisms came randomly in rapid succession, but I managed to dodge all of them. Besides, even if I got hit, I've received far worse attacks from my time in the Order. I focused all my notes to creating a strong attack (which meant that I had forgone creating an effective defensive shield).

All around me, many students got pummeled by the bullets, as though they were caught off guard. Some pairs simply lost to the dummies before they could even start attacking each other.

'Idiots,' I thought. 'They probably thought it would be easy to dodge.'

But it wasn't easy. At one point, a bullet with a tricky trajectory skimmed my shield-less arm, and a burst of pain came from its impact, but I kept going. My opponent was too busy dodging in place to see me coming at him. But come I did.

'For Hestia!' I screamed in my mind. Imagining him as the arrogant Sir Saturno, my aggression came easily, and I punched him hard on the face, his eyes growing wide in recognition just a mere second before the impact.

He groaned into an almost feminine faint, and fell anticlimactically onto the ground...

"That easy?" I murmured in shock, and just barely moved away from another fast moving bullet. Unfortunately, in the process of dodging, I had stepped - quite accidentally - onto the poor boy's face.

I grinned inwardly as I allowed a brief glance at the imprint of the soles of my boot on his noble skin. While I was busy feeling good about myself, I heard some changes in the atmosphere around me.

The dummies have stopped shooting. It seemed like in barely a minute, most of the matches have already ended. And I realized... that many of the students were looking straight at me.

"Did you see-?"

"In one hit."

"A Sinus Fidei? Really?"

I huffed out a small sigh, and turned around to see Charles giving me a nonchalant shrug. I didn't even bother to look again at the downed boy underneath me and headed towards him.

"How did your match go?" I asked.

"I was paired with a really scary upperclassman because someone decided not to pair up with me," he said with a cutesy pout.

My foolish cheeks blushed, but I replied, "That boy annoyed me a lot, so I had to teach him a lesson."

He snorted, "I can see that."

Looking around though, I saw Charles' own opponent glaring daggers at him, his blue accented robe featuring singed edges where bullets had hit him. I whispered to Charles, "What did you do to the poor soul?"

He chuckled. "I just led him in a way that he almost always took the bullets for me. Hit him hard in the chest when he got busy dodging."

I laughed as well, thinking how similarly we fought. I too used the bullets as a weapon of distraction than simply looking at it as a mere obstacle. That's how I knew when to strike, guessing from when the bullets would distract the Genta boy the most. From the look of it, most of the students who were left unharmed probably acted the same way we did. On the other hand, the students who lost easily were those who had become too focused on the bullets that they forgot their real enemies.

I mumbled, "Almost like in a war..."

In fact, I've never seen a real battle before, but I've heard tales and reports from the castle in my past life. Battles with swords and magic were always messy. Sometimes, heaps of bodies can't even be retrieved due to the fierceness of the fighting. I would reckon a magic battle might seem like this chaotic scene. Many would fall from the wayward magic balls, just like how most of the students had fallen within minutes due to the dummies' bullets.

Everyone in the courtyard was younger than fifteen, I would think. Most probably weren't even trained yet to do such harsh battles before, so I wasn't too surprised that many have failed. I wondered how disappointed the professor would be...

"Good, a lot of you are still standing."

... Or not.

The professor was looking at the rest of us in praise. A mysterious glow was in his beady, red eyes when he shouted, "As a reward... let's continue!"

What happened next was a battle royale. Charles and I acted instinctively, matching our movements with each other and jumping into the fray, protecting each other's backs. The dummies' blows became more concentrated because there were now lesser targets, so dodging proved almost impossible.

"There!" I said to him, and he knew exactly what I meant without my explaining.

He rushed towards a group of older students and that group's formation broke apart as he pummeled straight at them. I did the same to another group.

They didn't know, but we deliberately shook them up so they could act as our shields. With my body at the center of their formation, they would think at first that I made an idiotic move. I mean, who would attack a greater number of opponents alone and allow oneself to be trapped inside their formation, without even a chance for a possible escape?

But soon enough, they realized the brilliance of our plan. From the inside, I attacked them the moment they let their guard down, and when they focused too much on the attacks from the dummies, I would hit them hard.

I wasn't the one being cornered. They were.

I grinned as I spun around, dodging stray bullets and human attacks. Punching around, I soon found a thin twig on the ground. I picked it up and used it as a sword.

'Ah,' I thought. 'Having a weapon does work well in terms of better reach.'

Strengthening the twig with intense notes, it barely kept its form as it rumbled with life. I hacked at the limbs of my opponents and blocked the bullets that managed to penetrate my wall of human bodies.

Because my group was smaller than Charles', I finished earlier. And in a beat, I had crossed the courtyard and reached his side, helping him out.

Together, just as only a single person was left, we hid behind the taller upperclassman's back, pushed him forward, and watched as he got hit consecutively by bullets. He collapsed with an almost annoyed groan.

Much to our dismay, however, the bullets didn't stop.

"What the-?" I shouted.

"It's not over yet!" Charles shouted back, yelping as he hopped out of a bullet's way.

Looking around, most students were already down; some simply running off to the sidewalk where the bullets couldn't reach them, sporting wounds and bruises.

Really, the only ones left able to fight were me and Charles.

I looked at him in shock. "You?"

He shrugged. "Wanna spar?"

I laughed, dodging bullets all the while. How were we even supposed to fight when we had to dodge around every other second?

But I couldn't stop the smile on my face. "Shall we?"

Staring at his brown eyes, I readied myself to fight him for real.

'A battle between sworn enemies,' I thought, imagining myself like my own battle commentator. 'The prince and princess of two rival nations, having their first match.'

Giggling, I hopped around the bullets once more before beaming at my opponent.

Once, I would have tried to actually kill you, but not now. You're now my friend.

For a weird moment, he looked like he got frozen, and when a bullet hit him, I cried out. He immediately came back to life, but his face was flushed red and he looked flustered about something.

Is he shy about having his first official battle with me?

Well, I'm not too nice to let this opportunity go.

Gathering notes into my legs, I flung myself from where I stood and started for him. He managed to dodge my first punch, but my second one grazed his cheek. Then, he took me by surprise by brandishing out his wooden sword from its sheath. I jumped back before it could hit me, but I knew my momentum had slowed down.

He had calmed down enough to focus.

I let out a slow breath. 'This is dangerous.'

But I had a plan, and no matter how dirty it was, I was still going to use it. Besides, he had a sword while I was armless, so I guess it's only right for me to employ some tricks.

All I needed was to find the best timing...

And...

There!

Our face off ended with me suddenly sidestepping and rushing straight towards him.

Fast!

Faster!

Or else!

Because of how fast I had ran, I came face to face with him the next split second. He was ready, holding his arm and sword up to block any incoming attack, but I wasn't going to attack him. I won't need to. I spared him an apologetic smile before jumping fiercely away from him towards the side. He looked at me in surprise, and managed to look back front again just in time to see how the bullet I was previously outrunning... hit him on the chest.

I flinched as I imagined the pain that could've caused.

Basically, all I did was observe the movements of the dummies. No matter how random their shots seemed, I knew there would still be a pattern. After observing it patiently during my brief face off with the prince, I noticed how it repeated the pattern every fifth shot. So, when the third bullet was shot, I jumped in haste to the trajectory path of the fifth bullet, running as fast as I could and using my body to conceal its approach from Charles' sights after the fourth and fifth bullets were fired.

It was tricky, since I knew that if I had been a millisecond slower, the bullet would have hit my back rather than Charles' chest.

Fortunately, my risk was worth it. The moment Charles had knelt on one knee, clutching at his chest with a pained and irritated expression, the dummies stopped firing, and I shouted a gleeful victory cry.

It was wordless cry, but I had to release it.

I won!

Against the crown prince, with my own strength, with this girl's body in a man's fight, I won!

I laughed mirthfully as I extended a hand down at him. He looked up at me with a raised eyebrow, the expression so adorable on his youthful face. He murmured, "You're just plain evil, you know that? To actually hide a bullet behind you..."

He shook his head while I laughed freely into the air. Then, he accepted my offered hand, and soon we were grinning at each other, our hands clasped together.

Our moment was cut short by the professor's thundering shout, "Good! GOOD!"

Then, he jumped straight down from the rooftop and landed right in front of us.

"You, boy," he spoke to Charles. "Keep it up and the Empire will grow yet again in power."

Charles nodded with a proud smile, and then the small man glowered at me next. I flinched.

"You've got a lot of nerve doing that nasty plan against the royal prince," he remarked with a growl in his voice, but I didn't back away from his stare.

Then... he guffawed so loud that some of the snoozing students flinched in their sleep, as though they were having a terrifying nightmare.

The man, a head shorter than me, reached over and placed his paw onto my shoulder, making my wounds ache. He sneered-grinned at me. "You didn't disappoint me, Sinus Fidei. I accept you. Darn it if I don't accept you in my class."

A slow and uneasy smile came unto my lips, but I felt that I won't be having such a bad time in this class as I had originally thought.

His red eyes twinkled with delight and he patted me once again, making me wince. He then turned away from us and urged the fallen students awake, calling them 'weaklings' and 'baby ducks' as he went.

I looked at the scene laughingly while I pressed on the sleeve of my shirt, right where I had been grazed by a bullet before. I guess this will leave a bruise...

"Are you okay?" Charles asked, looking at my arm.

At that time, I hadn't placed a lot of defensive notes around my body, so the bullet had grazed me while I practically stood there naked. I reckon my arm felt worse than the pain he was experiencing from the bullet to his chest.

I sighed. "It's my fault for not preparing a shield before dashing off like that, so I guess it'll be bothering me for a week, at least."

He glared down at me. "Even if it's during a class, you shouldn't be so careless."

I rolled my eyes. "I was caught off guard, not careless. Besides, you got a firm knocking down your chest too."

He sighed. "I had notes to protect me, and besides, I even deflected the bullet before it could hit me with its full strength."

I smiled at him. "I guess we can call this match a draw?"

He snorted. "As much as I'd like that, no. You won fair and square... even though you're more battered up than I am."

After seeing the teasing look on his face, I punched him in the chest where it hurts most.

After the special class ended, I headed straight to my room, but Charles stopped me.

"Let me bring you to the infirmary," he said.

And much to my numerous complaints about how I didn't need it, I was still brought to the head nurse anyway. While I grumbled around at the boy while Nurse Melinda placed some cold and soothing cream onto my bruises, I felt like my cheeks were getting warmer by the second.

I screamed in frustration as the embarrassing time went on. "Just go back to your suite, Charles! I'm fine! You're really punching low with you gloating over my wounds like this."

Smilingly, he at least heeded my wishes and left the infirmary. The moment he was gone, Melinda let out a series of giggles while I allowed my cheeks to redden as much as it wanted.

"You're being awfully obvious right now, Eleftherion," she told me.

"What's obvious?" I said. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure," she allowed and then finished gently wrapping the bandage on my arm.

I lifted it with a weary expression. "Isn't this too much just for tiny bruises?"

Her lips went up in a smirk. "What could I have done in the presence of a worried royal? I could only make sure his subject is well taken care of."

I flinched. "I'm not his subject."

"Oh, yes, we both know that," she murmured so quietly that I had to strain to hear it.

I glared at her. "Yes, because we're friends, not some lord and his subject."

Her eyes went up in crescents, and like that, she seemed almost like Hestia. "... How nice it is to be young."

That night on my bed, I busied myself with imaginations of me throwing heavy punches at brown-haired and brown-eyed boys, shooting out fire balls at him while I chased after him, with him running around with his mystifying smile.