Chapter 13: Showdown of the First Years

"This again?..", Seijurou sneered with some irritation building in him. "It's becoming quite annoying. I need to cook for me and oyaji. Move."

The wind howled indicating the chilling temperatures to come during the evening. The sun had already set, and it was already dark. Seijurou came a little late for home because of visiting Satsuki earlier. And it looked like dinner was going to have to wait longer with Jax and his thugs blocking his way to the doorstep.

Just as Seijurou attempted to go past Jax again, Jax struck him with a knee to his abdomen. He fumbled backwards, but he kept himself standing up as he composed himself. "I thought you wanted to talk, but it looks like your knee's a bit more eager."

"That's right, otaku-san. I like it when you try to act tough..", Jax answered with a devious smile while he approached Seijurou for another strike. "Show me how you did those things in the Octagon. Don't worry, I won't let my boys interfere."

Seijurou took a punch on the face this time and fell. However, he still taunted them. "Are you sure monkeys understand orders?"

The followers that Jax brought with him clenched their teeth as Seijurou glanced at them with a bleeding smirk. They slowly approached him but was soon stopped when the door behind them suddenly opened.

"Oi, Seijurou! Did you just fall with that punch?..", asked Kajiya, who just revealed himself on his doorstep. After that, he laughed and teased his son. "Now, that's embarrassing."

A look of some surprise took over Jax and his companions' expressions while the tall man kept laughing. Although it was quite amusing for them to see a father chuckle at his own son for being beaten down to the ground, the air around them suddenly changed as if it was making them hesitate.

"I was just talking to my classmates..", said Seijurou awkwardly as he stood up and shook off the dirt on him.

"Clearly, as you've not thrown anything back at them..", Kajiya replied and laughed again. Then, he shifted his attention towards Jax. "Do you still need anything with my son? Because it's getting late, and I'm hungry. I suck at cooking, you know."

However playful Erida Kajiya's wordplay was, his presence still made Jax take back the words he really wanted to say. The middle aged blacksmith had this fire in his eyes that ironically made him shiver, in which he could not even distinguish if it was just reflected by the forge inside or some intense flames burning.

"No, ossan. We'll be on our way..", replied Jax politely before he shifted his attention to Seijurou. "You better watch our preliminaries tomorrow and take notes. We might end up fighting you in the Autumn Festival."

"As painful as it sounds, I'm obliged to..", Seijurou replied as Jax glared at him one last time before walking away. "I seem to have to cheer for a more seasoned fighter.. Taneda Chizuru."

"Take care now! Come by again..", Kajiya sent Jax and the others off before slowly shifting his attention towards his son. "Ossan, huh? Do I really look that old?"

A droplet of sweat appeared on Seijurou's head. "I'll be going ahead.. need to cook."

The moment Seijurou turned his back, the smiles that Kajiya was flashing a while ago transformed into worry. If it had not been for him getting out right in time, Seijurou might have ended up coming home unconscious like the last time. Although there were many instances that something similar happened in the past, Seijurou's enemies were becoming stronger since they were getting older. And of course, the injuries were getting worse.

However, later that night, Seijurou took a regeneration potion before sleeping, and it lead to his face almost completely healed the following morning. Still, the blows that he took from Jax felt sore as he continuously grimaced with every movement. He just simply hoped that no one would notice while he walked through the corridors of FSG.

"You are walking unusually careful today, Erida-san..", a familiarly old deep voice resounded behind Seijurou, which caused him to stop abruptly afterwards. "It seems that you had a rather unfortunate encounter recently."

The hallway was still slightly dim. Even if the area was enclosed, with most of the windows shut tight, the cold from the previous evening managed to seep through. There were not much students yet in attendance since it was still very early. Seijurou came to school in advance assuming that he would avoid attention with his slight ailing.

Seijurou turned to reveal to his sensei his awkwardly crumpled expression. "It's nothing worse than a duel, Shirohige-sensei.. nothing to worry about."

The old man tapped Seijurou on the shoulder and looked him in the eye. "For someone who has such an ability to avoid pain, it is an irony seeing the same one in suffering."

"There is no use fighting back outside the rules..", Seijurou looked down and shook his head after. "If it's just me taking the punches, it's fine, sensei. It'll only complicate things if I responded inappropriately."

"You know, dear boy, most people would find that a mature way to tackle on things..", Shirohige smiled faintly. "However, in your case, what is the appropriate response?"

It suddenly caught Seijurou off his guard. A surge of cluelessness engulfed him with his teacher's question. "I do not know what you mean, sensei."

"You're still in denial of this world, aren't you?..", Shirohige, then, nodded and walked away towards the opposite direction. "You're trying to make sense of things by deliberately taking the blows to receive confirmation of this world's existence."

As Shirohige-sensei continued to walk, Seijurou's head turned slightly towards his teacher's direction. Hoping to have more clues on the little riddle that Shirohige left him, he tried to follow him, but he hesitated. When it made perfect sense in his thoughts, he just decided to walk away.

However, just before Seijurou was about to make an about face, Shirohige stopped once more and faced Seijurou with a smirk. "But in my opinion, that's just plain nonsense. You were much better than that, Erida-san."

Left wide eyed, Seijurou stopped to rethink his actions as he watched his mentor walk away again. But this time around, he had no questions in mind. It was clear as day. He just got reminded of what he said after his preliminary duel the other day.

"What the hell am I doing?..", Seijurou asked himself as he suddenly burst into a brisk walk towards the direction of the Octagon. Even if he was still hurting, he just squinted and shook it off. "I'm supposed to make sense out things, not indulge into nonsensical things."

While he hurried towards the Underforge, a vision of Satsuki's back waving to the crowd played in Seijurou's thoughts. He was in a state of disbelief on how he strayed away from his real objective with such a small incident. To think that only a short time had passed since that experience, it was laughable to have forgotten it so easily just because of yesterday's events.

But Seijurou stayed positive, which was quite unusual for him. "I want to see that again."

Following the events of Seijurou's brief enlightenment, the quality of his work as an alchemist in the Underforge has improved significantly. The senior alchemists were left shell shocked with his inspired work rate. The way he repaired and improved the gear, the preciseness of the mixtures of his potions, and the synergy he produced with the enhancements, were all mindboggling with pleasant insanity. It was as if he made music out of the shimmering energy of the enchanter's box, the boiling of concoctions of the apothecary table, and the pounding sound of metal with the hammer. Everything he did was a stark contrast from the previous day's work.

"So, this is how a son of a blacksmith works..", one of the senior alchemists pointed out as they all observed Seijurou hammered on a newly forged arrowhead.

"It's not that perfect, but damn. He's a genius for his age..", another one remarked as Seijurou went back to the smelter to get more iron.

Seijurou worked nonstop, like clockwork, for the rest of the morning. Until finally, the one who needed those arrowheads approached him to give him a nudge. At first, being so absorbed with his work, he did not budge. However, he eventually gave his full attention when he got whacked by a shoe.

"Oi, Baka-jurou!..", yelled Chizuru as Seijurou massaged a small lump growing on his head. "How dare you not pay attention when I greet you?"

"Sorry.. I got way to deep with my work..", replied Seijurou while he still begged not to be hit again.

As soon as the newly touted genius alchemist smiled at Chizuru, which was really unusual, she blushed and turned away. "You got my arrows done?"

"Here, that's about a hundred rounds..", Seijurou handed Chizuru's ammunition as he stared at her with confusion. "Okay.. why are you trying to be kawaii today?"

The comment instantly got Chizuru flustered into a somewhat fuming red tomato that she began relentlessly hitting Seijurou with her fists. But since his intended taunt worked on her, Seijurou just kept laughing as he got pounded.

Eventually, Chizuru halted gradually to a sweet smile. "You're uncharacteristically happy today, Seijurou. What's up?"

"Nothing really..", Seijurou shrugged his shoulders while still keeping a smile on. "I just feel good about work today."

"Is that so?..", a familiarly annoying voice suddenly went into play. It was Jax, who held his enormous weapon against Seijurou. "Then, can you work on my axe, otaku-san?"

There was a look of hesitation on Seijurou's face. He was not sure if Jax was being serious or if he just simply wanted to play around. It was a very heavy looking axe, and it seemed that Jax would want to embarrass him if he dropped it, which was inevitable. However, his job as an alchemist was to see to it that his classmates' gear was in mint condition.

Seijurou, basically, had no choice in the matter as it was displayed for everyone to see. He immediately dropped the massive axe along with himself. Muffled laughter was heard all over the Underforge after that.

"Oi! Muscle head! What'd you do that for?!..", an enraged Chizuru shoved Jax suddenly after helping Seijurou to compose himself.

Jax controlled his laughter to pretend to be annoyed. "Why are you mad at me, Taneda-chan? You should be mad at that otaku for dropping your teammate's prized weapon."

But instead of being ashamed, Seijurou had this look of curiosity towards the weapon itself. He was completely unfazed with Jax's cheap trick. "It's made with an alloy between Obsidian Ebony and iron. Am I wrong?"

Jax was baffled along with everyone else with Seijurou's reaction. "Yes. What of it?"

"It would have been much heavier if it was pure iron or steel..", answered Seijurou while he loaded the enormous weapon on a small cart. "But it would be more brittle as we sharpen it to its thinnest."

"Are you planning to make it sharper?..", asked Jax as he reluctantly allowed Seijurou to handle it on the forge.

"Yes. I'll make it as sharp as I can..", replied Seijurou blankly as he detached the gigantic black bladed head of the axe. "Don't worry, I'll polish it with 'Youkai Blood' to make it even more durable."

A wide eyed Jax observed Seijurou as he polished his weapon with a crimson black liquid. "On what hell did our smiths get a hold of that?"

"Mercenaries' loot. They sell these things to alchemists after 'Youkai extermination quests'..", Seijurou answered as he began sharpening the axe head with an Ebony grindstone. "But it only works with high grade metal like Ebony. It would instantly tarnish iron or any common metallic material."

Jax could not help but be amazed even if he hated the boy. Although he was frowning the whole time they talked, his head automatically nodded in agreement. "You are awfully talkative today, otaku-san."

"Don't get me wrong. I still loathe your guts, saru-san..", blasted Seijurou back while he hammered the metal a little. "I'm just trying to get the job done as perfectly as possible. By the way, where'd you get this weapon?"

"Imported from a western kingdom of the Orient."

"Makes sense. Obsidian Ebony isn't as expensive there because of its abundance in that region..", Seijurou said in a still blank expression again. "Rather than making it here, it's a lot cheaper to import."

Jax growled as he took Seijurou's words as condescending. "What are you implying? You think I'm cheap?"

But Seijurou did not answer. He just simply raised the blade to look at all its sides for final inspection and shoved it towards Jax to give it. "Not my duty to reattach it. You do it. It's too heavy."

Jax sneered at the person he hated most as Seijurou walked away to attend to their other classmates. Anger boiled even more intense while he continued to glare at the smith's direction.

Having to see everything that just unfolded, Toho Kazuma chuckled to himself since he found everything to be entertaining. He said to himself. "This is going to be an interesting show. Autumn festival, here I come."

The bright rays of the sun was shining relentlessly over the octagonal stage. It was as if a gargantuan spotlight was directly aimed at the stadium. An almost invisible haze rose from the ground indicating an almost impossible amount of humidity that day. The spectators were not as enthusiastic compared to the previous days of the preliminaries due to the overwhelming heat. Seijurou, too, reluctantly went up to the stands while he continued to wipe his sweat off his head.

"Why did they have to schedule a duel in the middle of the day?..", lamented Seijurou as he dragged himself to find an empty seat in the upper portion of the audience's area. However, there was none left.

It was very unusual to see the higher bleachers of the stands to be completely full. Since it offered the farthest seats from the fighting platform, the crowd would usually opt out from this area and find a better view in the front. But it was the middle of the day. With the sun directly above them, the roofing only provided shade over the higher ramparts to prevent them from the burning sensation of the summer heat.

To Seijurou's dismay, he went back down towards the empty bleachers that were currently and directly under the summer sun's blaze. He cursed to himself. "Shit. Annoying. If it wasn't for Chizuru, I would've stayed down there."

With his ears still ringing due to hours of hammering metal inside the Underforge, Seijurou did not even notice that the match had started already. All he heard was the constant cheers of the crowd and a loud bang.

"A fire wall spell to start, huh, Toho?..", Seijurou said to himself as he watched Kazuma weave the fire wall spell with one hand. "Of course, he pulled it off better than how I did it."

As a raging but controlled wall of flames blocked their opponents off, Chizuru drenched an arrow in oil and started aiming towards the fire wall spell's direction.

"Yumi no Jutsu (art of the bow)..", a weapon incantation came out of Chizuru's mouth. As she released the arrow, tens if not, almost a hundred arrows went flying. "Scatter Strike!"

The moment the arrows hit the raging fire, Kazuma undid his spell. Even though the magic flames were extinguished, the blaze continued to burn with multiple burning arrows landing in different spots.

While he continued to watch, Seijurou nodded in amazement, completely forgetting the summer sun. "Impressive strategy. Keeping the fire wall burning with a physical attack to save MPs."

Chizuru then looked at Jax to give the signal for their next move. The brief eye to eye caused Jax to blush and smile sheepishly, which annoyed Chizuru. "This is no time to flirt, you womanizing pervert! You're next!"

"Oh, right..", Jax stumbled a little with Chizuru's reaction. After that, he glanced quickly at Seijurou's direction as if telling him to watch closely.

Seijurou simply squinted at Jax. "What is that ape doing? Focus on the fight, idiot."

Jax cocked back with his battle axe after having a quick look at the fire. "Buki no Jutsu (Weapon Art).. Berserker Break!"

With a single leap, Jax charged through the blaze, barely feeling the burn as if he was immune to it. Even he was suddenly amazed with the amount of power he just generated to cover such a long distance. He then swung his large weapon the moment he saw his enemies. It was going to hit all their opponents with a single swing since it had great reach.

However, their opponents dodged Jax's area attack by jumping upwards. Chizuru and Kazuma though smirked as everything was going according to plan.

"Forced into a corner, and then, forced into midair, which is even a tighter corner..", said Seijurou in his thoughts while he looked on. "It's over."

Chizuru drew another arrow as she aimed towards one of their classmates. "Yumi no Jutsu (Art of the Bow).. Projectile Push."

At the same time, Kazuma weaved a Download hand gesture. "Mizu no Jumon (Water Spell) fifty two.. Chilling Catapult."

Simultaneously, Jax threw himself towards the only untargeted opponent. As he swung the blunt side of his axe, Chizuru's arrow seemingly formed an ethereal barrier on its tip, and Kazuma threw a round lump of ice from overhead, which increased its size as it went closer.

"They're trying to push them out..", Seijurou thought while he watched.

While in midair and unable to do anything about the impending disaster, one of Chizuru, Jax, and Kazuma's opponents chanted something. "Seinaru no Jutsu (Holy Art).. Aura of Protection."

It was a desperate last ditch effort to save the duel from its inevitable fate. However, it still worked perfectly as the protective aura with sacred symbols turned into an aerial foothold. It appeared on each of Chizuru's team's opponents right before they were struck.

"Shinazugawa Kasumi, a priestess in training in the 'Almighty's temple'..", Seijurou said in his thoughts as the said priestess and her comrades pushed themselves off the unlikely midair platform towards the center of the Octagon. "A support build, but potentially a formidable one. Great quick thinking there."

Right before she landed, one of Kasumi's teammates, Fukuoka Kanae, a "Shieldmaiden" build, threw a hand axe towards Jax's direction. Even in midair, Jax was able to block it. However, the second axe that she threw was a different story.

Jax was suddenly defenseless and vulnerable. A direct hit from a spinning hand axe could potentially be fatal. Blocking with a heavy two handed weapon in quick succession and in aerial fashion was close to impossible for him without a foothold. And the only mage in his team that could give him a somewhat midair floor, Kazuma, was busy creating a defensive spell for the enemies' counter attack.

Fortunately, Chizuru was able to shoot the axe with a single arrow. She looked at her three opponents as they landed with a smug expression. "I don't think so, '3K'. Don't forget that I'm still here."

Seijurou observed intently while massaging his chin as if making an in depth analysis. "The '3K', our class's unofficial 'all girl idol group'. Three kawaii girls with extremely contradicting personalities.. Kasumi, a 'dandere', Kanae, a 'tsundere', Kaguya, possibly a 'kuudere' with her silent and blank expression.. which is probably their key selling point, but all are talented with singing and dancing, nonetheless"

The crowd, which earlier seemed less energetic, suddenly was in a state of pandemonium. Everyone cheered wildly for the six freshmen on the stage, as they began to move towards the unshaded area for a better view. Even as the blazing sun relentlessly shone its burning hot rays, they kept pouring in front.

"Their talents as an idol group are completely useless in battle save for their looks..", thought out Seijurou as Jax landed behind the fire and away from his teammates. "But their builds, a Priestess, a Shieldmaiden, and a Crossbow Sniper, compliment each other."

With Jax being split from the rest of the group by the wall of flames, Chizuru and Kazuma were suddenly at a disadvantage with all three of their opponents facing them head on. It seemed that a look of worry slightly took over Kazuma's face, but he continued to weave his hands with a download gesture. And Chizuru remained unfazed as she drew an underhandedly gripped dagger this time.

"Although worlds apart at a disadvantage with their PC levels, each build in 3K is a horrible match against Chizuru's Trinity..", Seijurou thought out as his six classmates took position on the octagonal platform. "To counter Chizuru is a Crossbow Sniper.. for Toho is a Priestess, and for Jax.. all of 3K are extremely cute girls, which would make him hesitate."

The noise of the audience became even louder as Kasumi's Trinity began to make their move. Kaguya backpedaled and instantly vanished as she drank an invisibility potion. Kanae stood her ground in the middle while she raised her shield and sword. Kasumi stayed behind Kanae as she prepared another holy art.

"Also, Fukuoka Kanae, being a tanky 'sword and board' type under the warrior class is bad news to an offense based team like theirs..", Seijurou continued to analyze while Kanae inched forward. "Truly, this is the best match our class could offer."

Translation Notes:

Autumn Festival - a week long, campus wide event with stalls, booths, and magical rides and shows managed by the students themselves. But the center of this event is the duels fought by pitting the winners of he preliminaries against each other and likewise, the losers.

Obsidian Ebony - a rare black metallic but light material commonly found around the western region of the Orient (real world middle east).

Youkai - demonic non player characters spawning around the wilderness. In this chapter, it is implied that their blood can tarnish and corrode common metals, but can enhance rare ones.

The Almighty - the king of the gods, eldest of "The Elder Four", and father to "The Seven" and all of humanity.

Dere - a word used to identify anime, light novel, and manga character archetypes with regards to interacting with their love interests. Dere is a shortened word meaning "lovestruck".

Dandere - the word "dan" means silence, so this archetype is the silent, timid, and shy one. However, they can open up and be talkative once bonded with, especially with their love interest.

Tsundere - tsun came from the word tsuntsun which means "aloof". They can be harsh and violent to anyone most especially to their love interest. But it's usually a reaction towards their confused feelings and their own version to express care.

Kuudere - kuu came from the English word "cool". Like the dandere, they are silent, but a little more towards the cynical and tackless side. They usually seem to don't care about the world even if something happens to their love interest but secretly cares actually.

Sword and Board - a common type of character build in action and adventure role playing games, in which the character uses a shield for defense and a sword for offense.

Honorifics Guide:

Saru-san - literally means "Miss/Mister Monkey".

-ossan - a casual but still respectful way of addressing a much older man relative to the one who addresses. It literally means "old man" and another way to address an "uncle".