Chapter 19 : Oceanic Tournament (1)

Nandini was going to take the first class instead of Krishna, the view of everyone on Krishna had changed but they were told by Rusjeet singh that his identity was to be kept a secret. Even though they had seen him everyday, it would have been the first time half of them would be seeing him after he defeated Ye Zhou. A man that would be an unshakable wall for them even if they fought him in a dream. One could say it was the first time someone was disappointed in seeing the beautiful goddess that was Nandini.

Everyone was whispering among each other as their minds settled with the new facts.

"What could have happened is Krishna sir still injured from the fight with Ye?" Asked Anirudh.

Reema who had been discharged but still had some bandages on her mainly on the shoulder side where the cuts from The plasma nails were the deepest replied excitedly, "you could barely call him injured, just some cuts on his arms that Jia could easily heal."

Jia budged into the conversation leaning her head towards Reema, "aren't you jumpier. I am always up for a spicy student teacher relationship, you know?"

Reema turned Red at that statement and it managed to turn Anika's head too.

"It's...it's nothing like that he probably has someone else."

Jia's eyes turned at Anika as she replied to Reema, "You mean he has his eyes on another student here?"

She had hit the mark with the reactions, even before being a healer she was interested in being able to read people and these two were Basically and open book for her.

To Rishi it was surprising that things had changed so much since they first entered RUA, Jia and Anirudh were no longer giving cold shoulder to the three low levels. Then there was Rajdeep who had changed a lot too, ever since his two ranks had been announced he had been silent for the most part and his body was becoming more and more leaner compared to the hunk of muscle he was before and it would seem he was getting into having forelocks and longer hair.

He even saw How Jia was blatantly trying to make Anika uncomfortable, "Hey Jia, you should not be disrespectful to Krishna sir."

Nandini's presence was now even more ignored as the conversations continued among the students and anger started bubbling up in her.

She slammed the table with the books to get a complete silence. She immediately calmed down as all eyes now focused on her and said, "As you may know the waves will be coming soon, there is a reason admissions are done in the time you applied, for the first half you are just trained on increasing your strength, it is important that you are able to defend yourself but the final goal of training you is that you should be able to defend others too. So for the second half you will be taught some important skills that you will be needing in the field like triage, disaster management, minimising the structural damage, evacuation procedures and communication between each other and so on. This will be the boring but important half of your year. Your final exams will be the waves themselves, you come back alive and you pass. Remember this always, It is harder to be a protector than being a fighter."

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Krishna was with Rusjeet singh as he had to go through some paperwork for the destruction caused by his fight. The report would be generally filed by guilds or if they were to work under the association it would be even easier.

Seeing as Krishna was associated with none he would be considered a freelancer. As it was his first time Rusjeet singh was to help him out and Abid had decided to keep Rusjeet singh here anyway to keep an eye on Krishna as a high value asset. Maybe all the boredom of the file work would make him join the association in the end.

Association was mostly government funded and there were many Raiders under them but not too many Heroes as they mostly preferred to join the Guilds where there was significantly more money to be made. High value gates were also given away to the Guilds while association kept the lower levels. In a way association was there to cover the rest of the bases where capitalistic approach would fail or be too expensive.

"I don't understand why would butterfl...I mean Nandini leave the lions. She had it going good for her, earning good money and helping people, two birds with one stone." Said Rusjeet trying to make small talk.

"How would I know?"

"I thought you guys were dating." Said Rusjeet singh frowning, "Well anyway, if I had to guess then maybe she was tired of fighting for everyone else. I had been with her on a few missions back when she was with the association. She was much less serious back then but then it all changed, The Andaman mission had taken a big toll on her. Lately she looks much happier probably because the island was cleared after all these years later. Also it's not like she can fight like her old days."

"What do you mean by that? She is still an S4 rank."

"Yeah she is but her sword was shattered on the island, that's like half her power you can say. Don't get me wrong, even without that she can kick some demon ass but it's just not the full potential of her dimensional slash, it was reason that 'lethal' was added in front of her colourful nickname of butterfly."

Krishna thought about it silently for a minute thinking if he had anything that would be helpful, she may not be active but there were still waves to look out for and she was going to fight in them "What do know about her power? Just tell me whatever you know."

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Reema and Anika were walking out after their class. The morning theory classes were much more boring than the ones in the evening where they had some physical training. That class was taken by Rusjeet as Krishna was still busy with his paperwork which was taking longer because he would start playing some games and procrastinate.

It would seem that college is not all fun as they had thought initially. Reema was exhausted mentally and physically as the both of them walked to the staircase and said, "We should take the lift today, I am out of juice."

"Come on it wasn't that bad, it will get better I guess." Said Anika Shrugging.

"You seem optimistic about theoretical stuff, doesn't seem like you."

"Did you assume I was some delinquent or something?"

"Maybe. What about going out today?"

"No, I have something in my schedule."

Reema was a bit shocked by this response and said in a sarcastic tone, "And what would that be?"

"Aren't you too presumptuous today? Can't I have anything to do?"

Reema looked the other way thinking and made a face like she tried but couldn't find the answer. Anika gave her poker face and said, "good job." And walked away in speed. For a moment Reema seemed a bit upset but then she had a bright smile on her face, "We just had our first fight."

Anika was fast in moving away but Reema silently followed her out of curiosity. Anika went to the parking lot which was unlike her as she had no car. She stopped around a car and looked around as Reema hid herself. She sat and the car left.

It was Rishi's car. There was a stream of questions coming into her mind as her bright smile transformed into sadness, "She is keeping secrets from me."

Reema was walking out sad and with a pout as Jia caught her from the back, "what's keeping you low girl?" Reema explained the situation to Jia, the explanation was quite in detail, too much for Jia at least as Reema intricately explained everything and kept adding her comments in between too and asked, "...So basically why would she get into Rishi's car?"

Jia was stumped as she wondered how Anika was sane till now, she regained herself and said with her titular smile, "What do you think happens when a boy and a girl go out secretly in a car?"

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Krishna somehow managed to finish his paperwork and reach Rishi's home. It was quite a mansion. Krishna had his fair share of being in a rich environment once but one only needs so much space to keep all their games and clothes he thought. So it was still a little grandeur for him to come to a big mansion like Rishi's in his current financial state.

A few days ago Rishi had requested for him to give him guidance and be a sparring partner, which was just a fancy way of saying train me. Seeing that he already had Anika in the line and Rishi had some compelling propositions which came along with his own training ground, it was an offer Krishna could not refuse.

Rishi's butler guided Krishna to the place. Anika and Rishi were already waiting in the practice grounds. Rishi waved as his butler away and said, "Thank you for considering my offer sir."

"The pleasure is all mine." Said Krishna thinking about the magnificent figure which was going to make his lifestyle even lazier.

"Where should we start sir?"

That was the trickier part for Krishna as he wasn't the best of the teacher. But then he remembered his days in the demon world and how his teacher had once taught him, he thought maybe he should just copy from her a little bit.

"We will start with you attacking me."

"We do that in the university every day." Said Anika who was clearly pissed off.

"BUT this time your target will not be a chair. It will be me. Now give me your best."

The three took their positions. Rishi brought out his trident and Anika took out her swords. They both knew going all out would be the only option.

Krishna stood there with his hands in the pockets waiting for them to attack. Rishi initiated by bringing out his dragon and charging it at Krishna which immediately evaporated in gas. He took the cover of gas to flank Krishna from the side but he could not sense him at all. The man just disappeared from existence. Krishna came from his back slowly with his hands still in the pockets. Rishi suddenly sensed him but the fog blocked his own vision and he blindly thrust his spear towards his back and missed as there was nobody there. He then got kicked in the back and the wall of the grounds.

When the steam cleared out partially Anika took her jab at the price and slashed with her swords. Krishna easily ducked and Kicked her similarly into the wall.

Krishna took his hands out from the pocket,"That will be it. Now come here."

Rishi and Anika both were still feeling the pain from the kick as they limped back to the center.

"Now tell me what you think you did wrong."

Rishi took the initiative and said, "I blocked my own vision from my own attack."

"And what about you." said Krishna addressing Anika.

"I left too many opening with my poor sword technique."

"Now let me tell you what I think." Said Krishna as he looked at Rishi, "You lack determination. Your control over your power was good but as soon as your attack failed you lost that control. If you keep holding your mind back, you will never progress. You play it safe, I read your internship report and at no point did you three ever challenge yourselves. If you're not challenging yourself then you are not pushing yourself and that means you never move forwards."

He then moved on to Anika and said, "You are right, you had too many openings and that is because you are careless. Your technique is abysmal and highly inefficient. The aura that you waste in just a simple attack is utterly unacceptable. You are one of those few who has practised with three major powers since you became able to use your aura and so your aura has adapted to these three. Normally one has only two types one being body enhancement and other being their compatible power. Sadly all your progress has just been towards tapping more into your foundation to get aura but the efficiency has never changed nor have you even touched the potential of that foundation. Add that to your sword technique and it leave too much too be desired."

Krishna moved back to the centre addressing both and said, "each of you lacks in what the other excels at. As it stands both of you should improve by learning from each other. And then there is another thing that none of you possess. THAT is the intent to KILL."

Rishi could not understand the last part and he asked, "but I attacked with full force and precision, it would have been fatal if it had hit."

Krishna looked at Rishi with a subtle smile and released some of his aura. It was enough to get his mouth dry and his limbs cold. He felt like even his ancestor's bone would rattle in their graves from the fear of dying again.

"Do you feel it? It isn't pressure nor is it the intensity. I would kill you without a second thought, that's my intent. If I were to act on the intent you will not even have a chance to flinch even a single muscle of yours."

Krishna got closer and closer to Rishi as he started sweating profusely. Krishna kept a finger over the frozen neck of Rishi and said, "But this has nothing to do with my attack." He removed his finger and went back to his position as Rishi took a deep breath.

Even Anika could feel it as her limbs stiffened from that sensation. That person she saw was not Krishna, it was a monster. One that was thirsty for blood.

Krishna went to the other end of the room and took the support of the wall and said, "This is your goal, you just have to touch me while I stand here."

He then released a chilling killing intent that froze the two in their place. This one was much stronger than before and it got really dense at the end near Krishna.

The time passed as they tried getting used to the feeling but the dread never went away. The more they fought with it the more they succumbed to it. They somehow managed to get halfway but were unable to move a single inch from there.

"You don't have to fight the fear, death is something you should be afraid of. Embrace that fear and fight death itself." It was harder to explain but this was the only way Krishna knew. In the demon world it was kill or be killed. A man who gave up was as good as dead.

It took them time but they were starting to understand what Krishna meant. It was still harder to get used to the feeling but they managed to touch him. Anika Wiped her sweaty forehead and said, "what next?"

"That's it for today."

Krishna pointed out to a clock on the wall. They looked at the time and were shocked. Time had flown so much faster than they perceived.

As Krishna was about to leave with Anika, Rishi whose breathing had become regular again said, "It will take too long, won't it? To reach your level ."

"Do you know how long it took for Vasco Da Gama to get to India from Lisbon for the first time?" Said Krishna turning his head, "It took him nearly 1 year and 1year to get back to his home. Compare that time frame from today's perspective and it would seem absurd but it was a necessary step, someone has to do it for the first time and chart the way, so that others can follow."

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Next day Jia had Joined Reema's party to find out what was up with Anika and Rishi. They are obviously not interacting with each other during the classes which was not abnormal. Reema kept thinking about those two during her lectures which were much more boring than this dilemma of hers.

After the lectures came Krishna's class, he wasn't skipping it today as all the paperwork was done but actually Rusjeet was skipping his classes as Krishna's Organization of those papers was too messy and there were too many mistakes so his whole day would be gone reviewing and correcting them. He wondered why did he not file them himself even though he knew this was going to happen from the beginning.

It seemed that Krishna's approach the other day while teaching Rishi and Anika privately also changed his way in taking the class that day. He actually went through to explain to people what they were lacking and taking his time with each student. It felt weird to everyone at first but they liked this attention.

In truth Krishna was just trying to extend the classes because if he finished early he would have to look at those cursed papers with Rusjeet singh. Though he felt bad for him he wasn't altruistic enough to help him.

Reema and Jia kept an eye out on Rishi and Anika all the time. After the whole thing was over Reema tried to catch up with Anika to see if she would tell her something but Anika was too fast for her and she got into the parking lot before she could catch up.

Reema would not showing herself in front of the car or Anika would figure out that she was following her. Jia chose not to run and slowly caught up to hold the sad Reema in her shoulder, "I was really hoping she would tell me, you think she is still mad at me?"

"I have an Idea and If it works, she... will come to us"."

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Anika and Rishi managed to touch Krishna more easily than their last time. Krishna took himself back to the center and said, "Now you two need to learn to team up. Till now you may have teamed up on me in college but those attacks were still individualistic, so I want you to learn to be synergistic. Remember to attack with the intent to kill."

In his early days Krishna would have to team up with others many times in order to defeat powerful enemies. He knew for a fact that a duo with a great teamwork could defeat an entity who was more powerful than the sum total of the power of duo.

Rishi brought out his trident and dragon as Anika brought out her swords and while trying her best to bring out a very crude image of a dragon.

Anika attacked first while unleashing wildfire but Krishna walked out without even a scratch on his clothes. Rishi took this opportunity and created ice spikes in all directions and threw them on Krishna. In response Krishna clapped his hands to create a shock wave enough to resonate with the spikes and shattering them. He then went in between those two and punched them into the walls.

"I said synergize, you aren't working as a team. Both of you want your attack to hit but in a team you don't have such an individual behaviour.

Anika got up and said, "Yeah but I work better with Rajdeep and Reema. We just don't have that chemistry."

"Same goes for me." Said Rishi.

Krishna shook his head, "That's not how it works in a battle, you need to be able to work with anyone and not hold each other back, that's how a team works."

Rishi and Anika tried a dozen times. They knew for one thing that even in perfect synergy they were not going to defeat Krishna but they were unable to work together as Anika would plan more Area of effect based attacks which had much leeway for errors but Rishi had more precision based plans and both of them were unable to fit within each other's plans as Rishi's wider area attacks were limited and he was less confident in them while Anika was much off in controlling her powers to get a concentrated attack.

After some time these two were quite injured and out of out of breath, while Krishna had not even broken sweat.

This time they had a different plan as they nodded at each other to proceed. Rishi used his dragon to attack Krishna which was immediately vaporised. He then manipulated the vapour and arranged it in a peculiar fashion and froze all the vapour. He left a small opening in the block of ice from which Anika inserted her Fire.

Rishi was already pushing himself quite a lot as he had transitioned a massive mass of water in three states and had to hold the ice state as fierce heat of Anika's fire tried to melt it. Anika was aslo trying her best to properly funnel the fire while not melting the ice. They were fatigued soon as the icy prison melted off and Krishna walked out like nothing had happened.

"Nice try but I thought you must have figured out by now that Fire attacks won't work on me."

"Like anything else would have worked anyway." Said Anika huffing and puffing from exhaustion.

"It's way past midnight, let's continue tomorrow."

Rishi checked the time and said, "Why don't you two spend the night here, it's too late and your home is quite far away from here, you won't get much rest like that."

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The next day Jia saw Rishi and Anika entering college together and rushed to Reema to give her the news. Reema clenched her fist from anger and said, "That plan of yours, I think I am ready for it."

Just as the classes were finished Reema rushed out to catch up to Krishna and held him by the arm. Jia meanwhile had the job of guiding Anika to the site, but to her luck Anika was in a lazy mood because of her sleep deprivation. She was taking longer than expected to change.

Krishna was shaken by the sudden gesture as Reema held his arm tightly into her chest while she kept looking back for something.

"Wha...what's going on? You wanted something from me?"

"Shut up for a moment please." Said Reema with a grim face as Krishna struggled to make sense of the situation.

As they were walking down slowly Krishna suddenly stopped in his path. When Reema turned around there was Nandini who was giving a demonic smile to Reema as Krishna stood there sweating from nervousness. Reema's grip loosened a bit as she felt the killing intent directed towards her.

"Let's not create any misunderstanding here." Said Krishna trying to diffuse the lethal Butterfly.

Nandini resolved her expression, held Krishna's other arm and said "let's go out this evening. It's been a long time since we went out alone."

"It hasn't been that long." Krishna could feel Nandini's grip tighten, "Besides I am busy this evening."

Just then Reema tightened her grip too as Jia had finally brought Anika. Things were a lot different from what they had planned but by the looks of it, the plan seemed to be working. Jia leaned towards Anika's ears and said softly "oh my look at that, such public display of affection, Krishna sure is a player."

Anika kept her head down and walked hastily. "We have work to do, let's go." Said Anika as she pushed Krishna out of the two grips and took him away.

Nandini frowned,"Isn't she forceful today, what kind of work could they have?"

Jia came close to Nandini and spoke in her ear softly, "What work can two young people have in the evening?"

Anika stopped pushing Krishna as they arrived at an empty corridor and hugged him from behind. Krishna stood there for a minute and said softly "Aren't we supposed to go for the training?". Anika moved her head indicating yes, though he wasn't able to see he was able to make out the movement from the feeling on his back.

"You get going, I will be back." Said Anika and left.

Krishna was left alone in the corridor as he sighed in relief thinking 'This has been a weird day'. Rishi who had hidden himself behind the turn saw Anika embrace Krishna, he walked away silently. He had come to check what was taking so long as he waited in the car, his heartbeat was fast even though he wasn't running. He kept his head down as he wondered why he felt like that even though it had nothing to do with him.

Reema and Jia sat on a platform constructed around a banyan tree while Nandini also sat on the same platform but a little distance away. Jia sat there giving a shoulder to Reema.

"You are a good friend." Said Reema in her sad voice

Jia had never had the luxury of a friend before as she constantly had to change schools and homes because of her father's job. She met many people but nobody had really been her friend or even called her one. Meeting many people had made her excel in understanding these people but before she could develop any kind of bond with anyone she would have to leave. Eventually she started keeping to herself observing people and their ways. She was deemed as the starring weirdo everywhere she went and her Korean looks were not helping her either. In a country of diversity she was deemed different and treated differently for that. She had learned to accept herself the way people perceived her and even embraced that personality. She found her ways of enjoyment also in different ways than others, understanding a person and using that to have some fun had always been her way. She was still not the monster everyone thought she was. Seeing Reema in her condition when she was brought to hospital awakened empathy in her just as much as it did in any normal person or whatever society deemed to be normal. Hearing someone call her friend made her realise that normal side of hers, unlike what everyone said she could have friends too.

"Thank you." Said Jia as tears fell from her eyes.

"What happened?" Said Reema pulling back and now giving a shoulder to Jia. Jia wiped away her tears as she said, "Nothing, I am just happy to have a friend."

Anika stood in front of Reema and Jia silently. Reema stood up, went close to her, "Why are you here?" She pushed Anika's shoulder, "You run away without talking, You don't answer your calls, text back late at night only to say goodnight and most of all you hide things from me. I thought you were my best friend."

Anika hugged her and said, "You will always be my best friend, no matter what. I am sorry for everything but I have something I need to do, I hope you understand."

Reema wasn't expecting this response. She was angry a moment ago and ready to fight but she just came to realise she was so ready because she cared for Anika so much.

Reema embraced her back and said in a wobbly voice, "I will support you no matter what." Jia joined in on the hug and said, "don't leave me behind."

Nandini who had followed Anika was touched by the moment which reminded her of her college friends who had lost their lives in the first Anomaly gate opening, came up and said, "Can I please join too?" Jia made a hand gesture and she jumped in too.

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Nandini was entered the class with an excited face and kept her books down on the table, "I have a very good news guys. We will be going to the oceanic tournament this time."

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