Ambassador

The big explosion covered the entire arena, and the cadets were amazed by the exchange between Nathan and Siena. It was rare to see such an eye-catching fight, so everyone was excited.

However, the frost cloud blocked the cadets' senses, so no one could see or feel what was happening inside.

Slowly, the frost began to fall gradually to the ground, so that everyone could see the outcome of the fight.

Nathan was still in the same position with which he had attacked, trying to cut Siena vertically, while she still had her rapier pointed at him.

Slowly, Siena lowered her rapier and put it away in her sheath.

"I surrender"

Nathan smiled bitterly and lowered his sword as well, however his grip failed, and the sword fell to the ground.

His hands were completely frozen, and he had constant little spasms in his fingers.

He had to wait a few seconds before he could pick up his sword so by the time he looked at Sienna, she had already left the arena and was leaving the place.

Suddenly some blood came out of Nathan's mouth, leaving a trail before several drops fell to the ground.

Nathan wiped the blood with his hand and looked at Sienna's back.

'She's strong...'

'Are you okay?' Amelia asked worriedly as she saw from up close the explosion of essence from both of them.

Nathan sheathed his katana and started to walk out of the arena.

'Yeah, I'm just a little cold'

His lips had lost all color and his whole body was shivering with cold, but Nathan knew that if he rested for a while he would recover. After all, the fight was not to the death.

It was still early in the morning, but Nathan had already been exhausted enough to fight someone else. Besides, none of the other third category cadets would accept a fight against him in the condition he was in.

Seeing Syril in the stands, Nathan approached her and rubbed his hands together, trying to warm them as he made his essence flow through his body to recover faster.

Arriving in front of Syril, she smiled slightly as she held a meat skewer in both hands.

"That was a good fight"

Syril held out a meat skewer, which Nathan looked at for a few seconds shaking his head.

"I could only win by a small margin. I couldn't have won if she had gone in with the intent to kill"

Syril merely gave a foolish grin.

"But you didn't go all in either, did you?"

Nathan shrugged.

"My technique isn't as spectacular as his or yours"

Shaking his head slightly, taking a bite of the meat skewer.

"But you didn't even use it"

Nathan hadn't wanted to use his technique so as not to influence the fights so much, but now that he had faced a third category, he changed his mind.

This time he won because he fought aggressively without caring about his health, but he knew that he could not do the same in a normal battle and if the battle were to spread, then he would be the one to lose.

***

A few minutes after the fight between them was over, Siena reached her bedroom and went inside closing the door behind her, then fell to her knees and started coughing heavily.

Siena covered her mouth while coughing, when her coughing stopped, she saw how her hand was completely stained with blood.

"Tch"

Sighing, Sienna got up and headed to the bathroom to clean herself after the fight. She perched in front of the mirror and looked herself in the eyes, then squeezed the sink hard trying to stop the trembling in her hands.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath freeing his mind of unnecessary thoughts, then her shaking stopped, and she opened her eyes again.

"Fucking monster"

***

Nathan took a break from fighting for the rest of the day, instead, he returned to Syril's subway training arena.

There, he took a bow and started shooting at various targets on the wall. To say that Syril's training ground had all sorts of things was an understatement.

He gathered up the arrows on the targets and began to remove them to start shooting again.

It had been a while since he had used the bow and he really wanted to practice with it. Dilliard was the one who mainly taught him, but the man was still on the outskirts of the city, so for now Nathan had to train on his own.

Putting an arrow in the bow, he lifted it and pulled the string taut, took a deep breath and as soon as he was about to release the arrow he heard Syril.

"By the way, I met your brother"

Nathan completely lost his concentration, and the arrow flew completely missing the target. Turning quickly, he looked at Syril in surprise.

"You what?!"

Syril was lying on a nearby couch while using a tablet to watch a series. Without looking back at him, Syril chuckled lightly before answering him.

"It was quite disconcerting, it was like watching you but much more serious"

Nathan remained silent staring at her, then massaged his forehead in annoyance not knowing what to think.

In a short time, he had met his sister and father, but he hadn't seen his brother, nor did he want to.

"Just in case, your brother is second rank first category"

Listening to Syril, his frown became more prominent, then unknowingly a small flame of competitiveness appeared in his heart.

Somehow, without being aware of them, Nathan wanted to prove that he too was powerful... even though he had technically died almost 8 years ago.

Nathan had no idea when he would be reunited with his family again, he had no plans to do so, but he knew that someday his identity would be exposed.

"Either way, I look at this"

Sighing at Syril's indifference to such an important topic, Nathan walked over, and she gave him a space beside her to sit down.

Nathan sat down on the couch next to her and Syril leaned on his shoulder and passed him the tablet. Nathan realized that she wanted to show him a video, so he pressed play and concentrated on what was on the screen.

The video showed a large, old wooden ship with three large masts, white sails, and a bow mask in the shape of a blindfolded woman looking up at the sky. The ship was anchoring in the harbor bay of a coastal town near Radford.

Suddenly, the people on the ship began to disembark. Several smartly dressed men exited the ship first and settled into two lines, then a couple of seconds later, a beautiful young woman with silver-white hair stepped gracefully off the ship. 

The young white-haired girl was wearing a beautiful white dress that matched her hair and her light purple eyes conveyed tranquility and harmony.

Even seeing the young woman behind a screen Nathan felt something similar to what he had felt when he met Mary for the first time. His first impression of the young woman was good, but it felt strangely false.

The young woman's eyes looked into the camera and Nathan felt as if she was looking directly at him. Somehow he felt that the young woman was somehow similar to him, but he simply couldn't understand the feeling and was left wondering.

Suddenly the video ended, and Syril picked up the tablet again.

"I thought they would take longer to get here, but they were surprisingly quick"

"Who is it?"

Syril chuckled lightly.

"That beauty? The ambassador of the northern isles also known as the daughter of the king of the northern isles, Enarys Shraon"