CHAPTER 1 : Ice Dance

"...He's very late."

The team room on the school's first floor, with the initial round of the combat league swiftly approaching. Oliver and Nanao were sitting on a bench, playing Magic Chess, but half his attention was on the clock.

"The match is only ten minutes away! Where could he be?"

"That piece is a werewolf," said Nanao. "It lashes out and claims your head."

"Again?! This version's werewolves are brutal! Why make the game even less fair…?"

Oliver's brow furrowed, and he scowled at the board. Someone burst into the room, out of breath—Yuri.

"Made it! The match hasn't started yet, right?"

"Yuri! We said get here half an hour early!"

"Sorry, sorry, drifted off in the lounge. But hey, that means I'm fresh and ready to go!"

Yuri hopped up and down, demonstrating his claim. Oliver had leaped to his feet, poised to scold his teammate, but he gave up and sighed instead.

"…Well, at least this time we don't have any complicated strategies. But it's always possible last-minute intel will force us to rethink our spell choices. Try to be here early!"

"Mm, I won't be late again! And, um…we're up again Team Valois this time?"

"Yeah, the advancing team we know the least about. Which doesn't mean they're not a threat. Let your guard down at your own peril."

As Oliver urged focus, Nanao rose from the bench. Yuri spotted the Magic Chess board between them and leaned in to look.

"Ooh, what's this? Looks like a fun game. Tell me more about it later!"

"Hrm?"

Nanao blinked at him, and Oliver frowned.

"…Yuri, are you still half asleep? You're the one who first mentioned Magic Chess—"

"Time! Head on in, Team Horn!"

The upperclassman staffing the event interrupted, and the minor confusion was soon forgotten. All three teammates focused on the battle ahead.

"AaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHH! Lllllet's get this staaarted! The junior combat league!"

The colosseum occupied a whole chunk of the massive main school building, and in the newly installed announcer's booth, Glenda was already bringing the noise.

"Settle down, Ms. Glenda," Garland said from his seat beside her. "You're so hyped up, you sound like a madman."

"I—I know, but I can feeeeeeeeeeeel how good this is gonna be! I bit my tongue five times today already. Why are you not all screaming with me?!"

Glenda flung her arms out wide, and the packed stands let out a roar in response. The fights thus far had been unusually good, and that had everyone amped up. Even Garland was nodding.

"I'm sure these will be fights to remember. The free-for-all was impressive enough, but now we've got the top four teams in direct competition. And the outcomes are hard to predict, even with the cards they've shown—"

"This seat taken?"

A voice from behind as their pre-match hype peaked. Glenda jumped and spun around—but Garland had noticed this person's approach. He waved at the chair next to him, glancing at his colleague.

"Instructor Aristides! Not often you show yourself at these things."

"I'm not the only one."

The astronomy teacher, Demitrio Aristides, took a seat next to Garland and pointed at the roof above the colosseum. Standing upside down in a dandy dark-brown suit was the ringlet instructor, Theodore McFarlane. Garland shook his head, and Glenda's eyes gleamed.

"Two instructors here to view the junior leagues? That smells like trouble brewing!"

"You're free to speculate, but perhaps you should focus on the task at hand, Ms. Glenda."

"Ha-ha, point taken."

Glenda had long since learned when to back off and soon buried her head in her real job. At the center of the colosseum floor stood the ring—as square as a chessboard. From the east and west, the headliners were entering. Using an amplification spell, Glenda got things going.

"And in come our teams! From the east—Team Horn! From the west—Team Valois! Both teams strong enough to make it through the chaos of the free-for-all, but who has the advantage here, Instructors?"

"Hard to say either way. Team Horn overcame greater odds, while Team Valois made smart moves to ensure the odds were never against them. Given the former's existing fame and the sheer number of matches they've fought, Team Valois has an intelligence advantage."

But at this point, Garland broke off, glancing up at Theodore. The ringlet instructor's voice rang out from above.

"Each member of Team Horn would be the ace on any other team! If Team Valois lacks the talent to match that, no amount of hidden skills or schemes will make up the difference. If they could be felled by that ilk, they'd never have made it through the previous round!"

Garland grinned, nodding, and his gaze turned to Demitrio. The astronomy instructor's tone remained as composed as his lectures.

"It depends on how they utilize their quality differences," he said. "Team Valois's strengths are of a fundamentally different nature."

"It's the samurai!"

"There's our Hibiya!"

"Cut 'em all down again!"

"Hang in there, Horn! You're the junior league's Lanoff rep!"

"You've gotta play for keeps, Leik!"

Passionate cries from all directions. Taking stock of the ratios on names used, the girl on the ring's west end—Ursule Valois—turned to her teammates.

"Ah-ha-haaa! I knew it. No one cheers for us."

Like she said, a solid 70 percent of this crowd was backing Team Horn. Probably a direct result of their impressive showing in the previous round, fighting all three opposing teams at once and coming out ahead.

"Still, I don't, like, care?" Valois said, her inflection rising at the end of each phrase. "We're mages. Basking in the adulation of the crowd is just weird. You get me?"

"Yes, Lady Ursule."

"We know our place."

One boy, one girl, both nodding quietly. Valois scanned the seats for the last time, then fixed her gaze on her opponents.

"This ruckus will be silenced by the time the match is over. It makes me wanna, like, gag? Just have to grin and bear it for now."

Meanwhile, Team Horn. Oliver was feeling a bit rattled by the shift in their reception.

"…That's a lot of noise. The audience is right on top of us."

"Wow, everyone's so excited!"

"A fitting stage."

Yuri and Nanao just seemed delighted. Neither one of them was prone to tensing up or having qualms—he alone was reacting that way.

"Guess I don't need to issue warnings about not letting the crowd get to you guys," he said with a laugh. "If their enthusiasm seems fun, then go on and bask in it. Our only foes here are the three across the ring."

With that, he turned his mind to their opponents. As he did, Garland's voice rang out.

"Time for the rule rundown. This match will be three-on-three—with a twist. Both teams will send a single fighter to the ring, and every three minutes, each will field an additional teammate. The teams will only be complete after six minutes have passed, but anyone taken down in that time will be escorted out. The order of entry will be vital. Who do you send in first? Who do you keep in reserve?"

Oliver nodded. Should they aggressively try and eliminate the opposition at the one-on-one or two-on-two phases? Or should they focus on avoiding losing anyone until the whole team was in play? The best answer would change depending on the team in question. Each would have to predict the other's choices based on their previous matches. The choice of starting fighter was particularly critical—they would have no one to watch their back.

"Match format is an all-rounder, spells and blades allowed. And for the finals only: Dulling spells are at half strength. We're allowing that because we believe every finalist has the strength of an upperclassman. The goal is to make the conditions closer to a real fight, with the added tension that brings."

That announcement sure sent ripples through the stands. At Kimberly, it was hardly a fight if no blood was spilled. Oliver steeled his nerves anew. This match might not kill him—but one mistake could lead to serious injury.

"That's all!" Garland called. "Both teams, put your starting player forward!"

Oliver glanced once at each companion, then took the stairs up to the ring. They'd sent their entry order to Garland ahead of time, and neither side could change things up after seeing what their opposition did. As Oliver reached the ring, he saw Ursule Valois coming up the other side. The opposing team was going leader first, too.

"Hmm? Mr. Horn, you're leading? That must mean you won't get serious until all three of you are here."

"I'm not good enough for you, Ms. Valois?" he said, taking his starting position.

Chela had relayed Valois's message to him. That suggested she had something against him, and he was trying to figure out what. But she just grinned and shook her head.

"Nooo? That's not it at all. I'm more, like, pleased? I want to take out Ms. Hibiya the most, but I want to crush you first."

Her head snapped over sideways, her eyes now in a vertical line. Oliver felt a chill run down his spine. This was different from that aura of strength he'd read from Jasmine Ames in the last match—this was something darker, something sinister.

"Draw wands—begin!"

A hush fell over the colosseum. Oliver had braced for a starting spell, but none came his way. Valois shrugged, not even striking a stance.

"We only have, like, three minutes together, so let's not waste time with spells, 'kay? The audience came to see a fight, after all."

"…You wish to fence, then."

Oliver struck a mid-stance and stepped forward. Valois merely trotted closer his way. As the crowd watched avidly, the gap between them narrowed.

"Oh, neither one casts a spell! They're going right to blade range!"

"Mr. Horn took her invitation. Given his skills, he's got no reason to avoid a sword fight—while in her previous matches, Ms. Valois has barely shown a glimpse of her sword art style. This first exchange is one to watch."

There was a grin on Garland's lips. He himself had encouraged a "real fight," and this was hardly that—yet, he had to admit, he liked this better.

"You always start with that stance? I sometimes wonder if you would do the same thing against a behemoth."

"..."

Even in one-step, one-spell range, Valois kept up her wall of chatter. She took no stance at all, her arms hanging limp at either side. Oliver frowned. Even if one was confident in one's sword arts skills and extremely scornful of his talents—this was odd.

Logically, he should make the first move. But his instincts were blaring a warning: Don't be too hasty. He stuck to his mid-stance, and Valois snorted.

"Cat got your tongue? Suuuch a dull boy."

Her feet firmly planted together, bolt upright, Valois began to raise the athame in her right hand, holding it out before her. At a glance, this hardly seemed worth calling a stance. Her arm was fully extended, and with her feet together like that, she could neither step in nor out with any efficiency. She couldn't even attack without pulling her arm in first—her previous posture had actually been better.

The tip of her blade rose slowly. And as Oliver's gaze locked onto it—Valois was on him, as if the time in between had not existed.

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━?!"

His arm moved on pure reflex. Barely deflecting the blade as it shot toward his eyes. Oliver turned that into a slash at her—but the moment their blades clashed, Valois's body slipped to one side, like a willow caught in a gale. His athame caught empty air.

"Nice parry," Valois said, recovering their range. "Still…"

At last, Oliver's eyes caught it: her feet, not moving at all…yet sliding across the floor. A spectacle that seemed downright unreal.

"…the dance has only just begun. Are you fit to serve as my partner?"

"Whoa, she cut in standing bolt upright! No warning signs! The way she moves—it's like sliding on ice! Instructor Garland, what is this?!"

"Ice Walking. A gait made possible by eliminating friction below the soles with spatial magic. The terrain type affects the difficulty, but the smooth stone here is ideal. And the way her first move drew his attention to the tip of her athame to obfuscate the distance—the Point Pull—was very clever. But this—"

Garland's eyes had followed her every move, even as he spoke. It was so strange—nothing like any other student in this league. When she moved, when she turned, when she stopped—she never pushed her feet against the ground. A mage with complete control over their center of gravity could use that to disguise their coming actions—but Valois's approach was something else entirely. As Garland gaped at it, Demitrio took over the analysis.

"She's switching from one action to the next without transition. Impossible with Ice Walk techniques based on conventional inertia. Even combined with balance control, these movements are inconceivable. Which means she most likely used—"

"…The repulsive element!"

Midway through the commentary, Oliver himself figured out the secret. Attacking with inhumanly complex, unpredictable movements, like dancing on ice, Valois heard him and spoke up.

"You noticed? It's called Floating. Fun, right?"

Even as she talked, her blade snapped at his throat. Oliver just managed to deflect, thinking fast. This couldn't be a matter of simple friction reduction. He'd suspected conventional Hovering, but that would generate air currents at her feet, and he could find no trace of those. That led him to the repulsive element—namely, sliding by pushing against the floor via the element laced through your soles. The propulsion was an application of that principle, likely generated by intentionally disturbing the balance of the cushion beneath the soles of the feet. Likely categorized as an advanced form of Ice Walking.

He could grasp the outline of the logic, at least. But that drove home the horrifying degree of position and mana control it would require. Years of training just to move at all, and to get good enough to use it in a sword arts duel—the difficulty was so mind-boggling, he couldn't even begin to estimate a time frame. The flat stone surface was almost certainly aiding her, but this technique was nonetheless positively transcendent.

"Hfff…!"

He couldn't let her slide free. With that in mind, when she was in range, Oliver activated spatial magic. He slightly softened the ground before him in a five-by-twenty-foot area. Not enough to trip anyone up, but floating via the repulsive element wouldn't work there.

"Ughhh, I don't get why you'd do that. Why not just slide yourself?"

Valois came to a stop right in front of the softened ground. Naturally, Oliver had expected as much.

"Hah…!"

He lunged into a thrust, aiming for that momentary pause. Even when Floating, as long as the person had weight, inertia applied. Valois was paused, and Oliver was lunging—he had speed on his side. With feints eliminated, Floating was no match for pure velocity.

Valois just managed to get her blade up against his—but since she'd been in nothing resembling a stance, merely raising her hand made this a very feeble block. And Oliver had momentum—she couldn't stop his lunge. Even as their blades clashed, his easily pushed hers back—

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━?!"

That didn't feel right. It was too easy. He'd sensed no resistance at all. Her blade was repelled, and Valois's body was knocked into a spin.

Sensing danger, Oliver yanked his athame back as her rotation completed and her blade gleamed. He bent backward and felt a searing heat on his cheek. Drops of crimson fell, mottling the ground below.

"Sooo close! A little deeper, and it would have been all over."

Valois was poised at relevé. A wave of fear brushed aside the pain in his cheek. For the first time, she'd used a technique he could identify—the Koutz-school piqué stance.

"Ah!"

"He took a hit!"

"Was that…?!"

Kate and Guy yelped at the sight of their friend's blood, half rising from their seats. Pete's eyes went wide, baffled by the clash he'd just seen. Their questions were answered by the witch next to them—Miligan.

"Tour is an advanced Koutz technique. When you block an opponent's blow, you absorb the impact, spinning like a top into a counter. To make that possible on land requires footing with minimal friction."

It had been too fast for their eyes, but Miligan had caught Valois's every gesture. She'd blocked the blow standing on the toe of one foot, and if Oliver hadn't bent back in time, that slash would have eliminated him.

"It's considered most effective as a response to an opponent rushing to end things and lunging in too deep…which is not really what happened here. Oliver's thrust was at an appropriate range and force, yet Ms. Valois still turned that into a Tour capable of drawing blood. Calling her arts refined is an understatement."

"Very impressive," Garland effused. "That is well beyond incorporating a taste of Koutz."

In the ring, the fight was back on. Oliver Horn on the ropes against unfamiliar moves, and Ursule Valois using her Floating step to make her attacks shifty and unpredictable. It looked less like a fight and more like a ballet performance.

Demitrio seemed equally impressed. "I'd say she's adamantly eliminated anything but Koutz. The way she moves her feet and body on friction-free footing proves it. It's been decades since I've seen a student at her level in the third year."

A missed block left a shallow cut on Oliver's arm. He swung back, but it was deflected harmlessly, occasionally converting into a nasty counter. The Floating footwork defied his comprehension, and in each exchange, he was on the defensive.

It was a relentless struggle, but gritting his teeth and bearing it was his only option. He knew full well her goal was to frustrate him into lashing out. So he hunkered down, grimly avoiding a fatal strike, enduring, enduring, enduring.

"Pure Koutz, yes?"

Amid the endless agony, he dropped a question. Raising a blade dyed red with his blood, Valois's languid voice answered.

"Yes? Unlike you poor, talentless souls, the sword chose me. You and I simply started on different stages."

She slid toward him once more. By this point, she was combining her Floating moves with more conventional footwork to feint in ways Oliver couldn't read. He was using Grave Soil to soften the floor and resist, but no sooner did it take effect than Valois's own spatial magic corrected it. And since the ring itself had a self-repair spell built into it, playing Whac-A-Mole would leave him drained first—she had the larger mana pool.

"People think Koutz is, like, abstruse? But that just means it's a cluster of moves that Lanoff and Rizett couldn't theorize. Teaching conceptual and abstract techniques requires the learner to have the capacity to feel how they work—in other words, you need a knack for it. And thaaat is why the mediocre never get anywhere."

Each turn of phrase seemed designed to wind him up. But however extreme the rhetoric, Oliver was forced to concede that Valois had a point. In fact, he had tried to learn some Koutz moves, and his efforts had bounced off the very impasse she described.

Of the three core schools, Koutz had the fewest practitioners. This was simply because so few people had the knack required to learn it, and even those blessed few tended to learn a mix of it and other schools—so pure Koutz users were exceedingly rare. Supposedly one in a thousand. Whether that number was accurate or not, it was a fact that Ursule Valois was the first pure Koutz fighter Oliver had ever encountered.

"Still can't accept it? Then I'll make you."

A standard step in and a thrust. Oliver backed away steadily, defending—but as Valois's arm hit full extension and her feet stopped, the tip just kept coming.

"...!"

Surprised, his defense came late, the deflection flimsy, and the blade gouged a shallow cut in the side of his neck. She'd connected the standard step to a Floating move—he could grasp the logic, but the speed of it all was so uncannily consistent that it confused his perceptions.

"You're trying sooo hard to understand. But you see? I don't have to. I just, like, get it? I was born this way. Since I was a tiny little girl, I was raised in a frictionless room."

As her onslaught bewildered him, Valois began reminiscing. Oliver knew the way she moved was not achievable with just an innate knack. These techniques were mastered by honing those senses through training in every aspect of life. Koutz practitioners believed friction was a result of impurities of motion, and Valois had likely been raised in an environment based on that principle. At the cost of anything like a human childhood.

"You mediocrities with your languages and principles and experience, all that binding you. Banal reasoning in a banal vessel—already unfit for Koutz."

She sneered at him. Oliver knew she'd lived the opposite of what she'd just described, that this was how a pure Koutz fighter was given shape. Never teaching her common sensibilities in the first place. Never once allowing her to develop ordinary rationales or morals. Thoroughly eliminating all that clutter and honing only her unnatural aptitude, crystalizing her into a mage—she was a creation manufactured accordingly.

"And people like you just run away to Lanoff, which is why it's always so popular. When I see you all fighting among yourselves, I cannot help but laugh. Why spend sooo much time ranking one another when no one can tell the difference?"

Her scorn was no longer even directed at Oliver, but the entirety of Lanoff sword arts practitioners. The presiding strength of Lanoff was the polished logistics of it and the reproducibility of the techniques at higher levels. But to her, that was simply the escape provided to the talentless.

"…What's your real problem?"

Valois's shoulders twitched. By this point, Oliver had a solid grasp on where her ideals lay, why she looked down on him, but that alone wasn't enough.

"I've heard your speech," he continued. "I could disagree, but let's not for now. The thing is—if you truly believed your own words, there'd be no real enmity here. At best, you'd have felt a mix of pity and contempt. But you clearly despise me—us. Right?"

Oliver was hammering this point home. Since the second Valois took the stage, he'd felt it. Felt what lay beneath her goading and her insults. Sensed the swirling heat of her hostility.

This was the polar opposite of what he'd once sensed from Joseph Albright. Both placed Oliver firmly beneath them, but Albright's contempt had masked a hollow core. Valois was something else. Not duty, not obligation—she loathed Oliver Horn for personal, emotional reasons. Or perhaps those were directed at something larger than himself.

"…You really piss me off."

Sounding extra irate, Valois renewed her onslaught. Their athames clashed; she used Sticky Edge to attach herself to Oliver's blade and twist herself, sliding around to his side. Oliver's impulse was to fend that off with a sweeping slash, but her counter would likely take out his sword hand. Instead, he used Sticky Edge himself, delaying her blade's release and turning enough to attempt a left-handed grab at her dominant wrist.

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━?!"

But as he did, his right foot slipped. Valois's spatial magic had negated the floor's friction. He used balance control to right himself before taking a tumble, but by that time, Valois's blade had already shifted to her next attack. He only just managed to block it, gritting his teeth.

"See, seeee? You're nothing but talk! Did you think you knew Koutz after facing Mr. Rossi's sad imitation? His sensibilities are not that shabby, but his approach is riddled with impurities. I can't bear to watch. He's smearing dirt in our faces."

Valois's abuse was now spreading past Oliver onto his rivals. His blade struck hers with added force, less an attack than a demonstration of intent.

"…Take that back."

"That ticked you off?" Valois looked utterly baffled. "You get angry over the oddest things."

"Frigus!"

"Flamma!"

A blast of ice from behind her, answered by flames over Oliver's shoulder. The two spells collided and canceled each other out, and the duelists' teammates took up positions alongside them.

"Ohhh? Was that three minutes already? Perhaps I chatted too much. Whatever!"

The fight had shifted to the two-on-two phase, and both sides stepped back, resetting the battle. Her katana pointed at their foes, Nanao spoke to Oliver at her side.

"A formidable opponent."

"Yeah, be careful. You've never fought anyone like her. Sanavulnera."

Oliver pressed his athame to his neck, healing the wound there. The longer this fight went on, the more that blood loss would wear him down. That was the biggest difference half-strength dulling made.

Valois had taken no injuries and needed no healing. The only reason she'd taken a step back to reset was because Nanao's entry changed up her opposition in ways she couldn't ignore. Nanao herself was a powerhouse, and her presence meant Oliver could play an entirely different role. For all her scorn and hostility, Valois was no stranger to how dangerous he could be.

"Lady Ursule, instructions?"

"Crush Mr. Horn first. Match me precisely."

Her team's second entry was Gui Barthé. Valois's answer was swift and clear—taking out the weaker opponent was a standard tactic. And three minutes sight-reading pure Koutz had taken a hefty toll on Oliver Horn. The fight had been skating on thin ice all along, but he'd cleared a major hurdle—and moments like that could provide the opening they needed.

Naturally, Oliver and Nanao were aware of that. And they weren't prepared to play along.

"It's time, Nanao!"

"Indeed. Gladio!"

Nanao stepped in hard, firing the first blow. A severing spell broad enough to catch both opponents—but with a different effect on each side. Her swing had been a rising diagonal, going for Valois's shins and, to her left, Gui's waist.

"Hmm."

"Impetus!"

Their responses differed inevitably. Valois merely hopped forward, but Gui had to pull up short and counter with a wind spell. Oliver did not let this discrepancy go unpunished.

"Tonitrus!"

As Valois's feet left the ground, he fired a bolt aimed to strike her in midair. Her free-form Floating footwork didn't help her there; plus, Gui had just fired a spell on his end, preventing him from assisting. Valois would be forced to counter with a spell of her own, leaving her defenseless the moment she landed. The plan was to have Nanao take a swing at her there.

However, Oliver's expectations were soon thwarted. The bolt came at her, but Valois chanted no spell. She simply pointed her athame at it—and like a pinwheel in a sudden gale, her entire body went spinning off to one side.

"Hrm?!"

And she didn't just spin. The electric bolt was caught up in it, turned a solid ninety degrees, and sent flying away—passing right before Nanao's eyes and forcing her to pull up short and use her double-handed Flow Cut on it. While she did, Valois landed safely, sliding smoothly across the floor.

"That's the Koutz Flow Cut. Your feeble output? It's a mere trifle to deflect."

The move alone was enough to make Oliver shudder. Where Nanao's Flow Cut used elemental synchronization to affect the spell and deflect it, the Koutz variation used a repulsive element to make the spell push the practitioner. Avoiding the strike like a leaf on the wind and cleverly bending the course to strike her foe. Oliver had known it existed, but it'd been a long time since he'd seen it used with such precision.

"Shaaa!"

The bolt handled, Nanao resumed her charge. She'd missed her chance to strike on the landing, but she was hardly the type to let that get her down. Valois met her with a hazy sort of stance, while Nanao didn't hesitate to unleash a bamboo chopper from a high stance.

"Ah-ha-haaa!"

Blocking the heavy blow made Valois lean way back, but turning horizonal didn't mean a Koutz practitioner was dead. Her spin dragged Nanao's katana with her, and Valois came out from it with a strike on the other side. Nanao pulled her arms back quickly but couldn't quite dodge—the tip scraped the top layer of skin. Not because her response came late—the sheer strength of Nanao's strike lent speed to Valois's Tour.

"Hng…!"

"Such power! And you aimed for the axis, too," Valois said, sliding backward. "But the flow of power one moment ago and right now? They are always different."

Nanao had lined up her strike with her foe's axis—she'd seen the Tour in action against Oliver and knew how it functioned. But that was exactly why Koutz fencers spent so much time learning to disguise the angle of that axis.

"Your double-handed Flow Cut is, well, nice. But it's no more than a buffed-up version of an ordinary's swordplay. I know I'm faaar better at manipulating power than you. Shall we test that theory?"

"By all means!"

Nanao looked delighted. She cut in, blissfully unaware she was being goaded, just thrilled to be up against a new kind of fighter.

"…Damn, she's good. And she was just hiding out in our year?" a boy in the stands grumbled—Rosé Mistral, leader of the group that had given Team Horn headaches with their splinters and transformations. His two teammates sat with him, and in the row in front were the three girls they'd worked with in that same match.

"I was not expecting a pure Koutz practitioner. My mind can't even grasp what's happening. Yet, Mr. Horn is fending it off sight unseen."

"Yo, get it together, Horn!"

"Jaz's rep is riding on this!"

This team was led by Jasmine Ames, a skilled sword arts practitioner with bangs hiding half her face. While she was quietly watching the match unfold, her teammates were positively frothing—in large part because Oliver had defeated Ames one-on-one near the end of the previous match.

The third team from their makeshift alliance was seated some distance away, perhaps mindful of having been on the other side during the bone-recovery mission. Jürgen Liebert, the team leader, was an expert on classic golem arts.

"That'd be tricky," he said, watching Oliver and Valois's battle avidly. Then he asked his teammates, "How would we handle it?"

"Outgun her from blow one. Kinda rough to do under these terms, though."

"The ring itself is so much smaller. Hard to stay at range the whole battle."

Camilla Asmus, a skilled sniper, and Thomas Chatwin, her partner. Camilla's hawklike eyes were locked on the match, catching every second of Oliver's struggle.

Team Valois's second member, Gui Barthé. Average build, polished Rizett, striking swordplay in a style vastly different from Koutz. Oliver had fought him at close range for a while, but they were interrupted when least expected. Ursule Valois had been fighting Nanao to the southwest, but now she used the strength of a strike to send herself sliding over to them.

"…Gah…?!"

A sharp stab aimed right at Oliver's face. He twisted himself to avoid it but couldn't do the same for her follow-up slash. The blade raked across his brow, splitting it, and Valois delightedly pressed the advantage.

"That looks, like, painful? You worked sooo hard to fend me off. It must hurt to have someone else after you! I bet you wish you could focus on just one, hmm?"

"Gladio!"

Nanao jumped in, not about to leave a friend on the ropes. Oliver sensed her spell coming from behind and ducked under it. The spell passed overhead, bearing down on Valois, but her teammate stepped up and canceled it.

"Hmm…"

Her surprise attack easily handled, Valois frowned. Clearly displeased.

"I did not need you backing him up. It might seem like we're doing the same thing, but I don't see it. You are nothing like us. Teamwork as an extension of phony friendship. So gross. Makes me wanna vom."

As she muttered, she was persistently on Oliver's heels. Insisting she was strong, that her way was better—as if her parade of blows would force him to concede that point. Like getting him to admit as much mattered more to her than the outcome of the match itself.

"So I'm going to demonstrate the difference. I have taught my arms and legs properly, and our teamwork is just sooo much better. You and your beloved trust, bonds, camaraderie—all of those mean absolutely nothing."

With that, she spun, slashing. Oliver managed to parry, but then a spark burst before his eyes. Not much of a shock, but it landed square on his wounded brow.

"...!"

"Ouch? Even a little pinch scatters your focus like mad," Valois teased with a smirk.

She'd used Flash Wisp not to blind him but to prod the wound. On its own, merely a nasty trick, but Oliver could hardly afford the loss of concentration that momentary pain brought. A clever means of wearing him down.

"Hahhh!"

Here Nanao's blade came swinging in. Valois caught the sweep of it and went flying back. Her teammate retreated with her, and both teams stood at range again.

"Ughhh, this again? Every time your little friend is slightly disadvantaged, you go for the lukewarm assist. If that had been us? I would have used him as a decoy and circled around behind. Why didn't you? That pawn is sooo raggedy; what other use for him could there be than as bait?"

Valois was positively fuming now. As Oliver caught his breath, Nanao stepped up beside him.

"Oliver, your forehead—"

"On it," he said before she'd even finished.

Flames laced his athame, and he seared the wound shut with the flat of the blade. No time to waste healing it, and at least this way he'd keep the blood out of his eyes. Nanao nodded, and he focused back on the enemy before them.

Watching this from the stands, Katie let out a little shriek. She was the queen of ignoring her own pain when hyperfocused but found it far harder to handle when her friends did the same.

"…I can't look… Oliver's covered in wounds!"

"Can't believe there's really someone he can't handle…"

Guy seemed as stunned as Katie was horrified. Miligan merely shook her head.

"At ease. There's no cause for concern."

"Agreed," Pete said, nodding emphatically.

The others turned to him, shocked.

"…Ms. Valois is strong, for sure. But she's a fool—she's chosen to fight Oliver on his turf."

"We're almost at six minutes, hmm? I'm getting tired of lecturing you," Valois whispered.

She'd been after Oliver every one of those minutes. Her plan had been to take him out before the teams were complete—if he hung on any longer, the finale stage would be all the more difficult. Certain she'd whittled away his focus by now, she saw him stagger, and she went for the kill.

"Sooo—it's time I end things!"

She floated around to his side, used a spin to feint, then a diagonal slash from below that she hoped would be the clincher. But instead, a hard hit landed in the pit of her stomach. Caught flat-footed, she staggered back—and Oliver's foot came into view. He'd intentionally staggered to make her commit, then used his cloak to conceal his Hidden Tail.

"…Gah—"

"Lady Ursule!"

Doubled over, she floated away. Oliver chose not to pursue, standing at the ready.

"You lack patience, Ms. Valois," he said. "I could keep this up for six hours."

"Whoa, the tables turn on Ms. Valois!" Glenda cried. "Her Koutz had Mr. Horn on the defensive, but has he finally found a way to fight back?"

"…No, that was more…" Garland trailed off.

"Mr. Horn still can't read her Koutz," Demitrio said. "That was a simple error on her part. The natural result of taking a risk when your opponent's still in the fight. Anyone could see it coming."

Harsh words, but the results spoke for themselves. On the ceiling above, Theodore nodded, folding his arms.

"This could be interesting," he said with relish. "Ms. Valois's talents are far superior, but Mr. Horn is prodding the weakness behind them. They're an excellent match."

"I can't read your blade. But it's quite easy to read your mind."

Oliver spoke softly. Six minutes had arrived, and the last member of each team took the field. With both leaders in poor shape, the fight had a momentary pause. Healing the wounds Valois had left all over him, Oliver let his voice grow stern.

"Our fight didn't wear me down. It got to you. You meant to take me out in the first three minutes and failed. When the next three resulted in little more than scratches, you got flustered. The rancor you thought would undermine my confidence was reflected back on you. That's why you tried to settle things fast—and the result was that banal assault."

That word made her shoulders jump. His breath caught, Oliver struck a mid-stance. Not merely a pose but an aspect of his routine—a gesture meant to settle his fraying nerves. And that tipped her off: She knew his mind was not nearly as battered as he looked.

"The depths of Koutz are unfathomable. But that means the practitioner must be equally inscrutable. Ms. Valois, your heart is not where you moves need it!"

As his cry echoed, there was a dull snap. Something fell to the ground at Valois's feet. Glistening white, tinged with red. A molar, snapped by the force of her bite. Both teammates—the third was Lélia Barthé—blanched in horror.

"L-Lady Ursule…!"

"…Okaaay, I'm calm again!" Valois said, blood running down her chin. "Spare me, would you? Getting howled at by a dog makes my brains boil."

Valois handled her fury by beating the cause to a pulp, but when that was not easily done, she had a backup routine. Intense pain and the taste of blood. This didn't quell her fury—it simply focused her scattered emotions into unadulterated bloodthirst.

"But you have a point? Sure, it's all puke from a doggy's mouth, but, like, I concede the validity. I did not expect you to last this long. Clearly, I misread things. Which means I have to change the plan."

She may have soaked a hit, but she still had her aplomb. Her teammates leaned in.

"…How do we play it, Lady Ursule?"

"They're good. Our formation should be—"

"No need."

"Huh?"

They both blinked at her. Valois never even glanced their way.

"I don't need your minds. Those are just in my way. I'll handle the rest, so gimme all you got."

Both grew tense. And began to beg.

"…Lady Ursule, please…"

"We can win this! I promise—!"

"No one asked for your opinions. 'Kay, good niiight. Domininexum."

Valois's spell came without mercy, and her teammates' heads drooped. Yuri caught up with the rest of Team Horn, frowning at the sight ahead.

"Hmm…?"

"What's up with them?"

The two teammates' heads came back up, eyes hollow. Leaving them off to the side, Valois wiped the blood from her chin and stepped forward.

"All done. Time we got the reeeal show underway."

No sooner had the words left her mouth than her teammates started Floating.

"?!"

Oliver gulped, and then all three fired spells. They were easily dodged. Movements without tells, darting in every direction—exactly like Valois fought, using her Floating footwork to befuddle their opponents.

"Hrm—?!"

"Whyyyy?! Weren't you just using Rizett?!" Yuri asked, wide-eyed, his sword clashing against Gui Barthé's.

Eyes on the other two opponents, Oliver thought the same thing. The boy he'd been fighting had definitely favored the Rizett style. Yet, now he and the new arrival were using the same Koutz style as Valois herself.

Faced with the same puzzle, Nanao frowned, muttering, "They've changed their very styles. 'Tis as if they are entirely different foes."

"…No, that's more than a change," Oliver growled.

Those vacant expressions had him worried. Before Oliver's thoughts caught up with him, Yuri broke off his exchange with Gui and got ahead of him.

"Oh! They haven't changed. They're all the same."

Like her teammates, Valois turned two, three times, but her destination was, as always, Oliver. Her own fighting style remained the same, undisturbed. Desperately fending off an assault that could easily end him at the slightest error, he looked her squarely in the eye.

"What did you do to them, Ms. Valois? They're your teammates!"

"Teammates?" she asked, looking blank. "What are those? I never had any."

Forget what lay before them—Oliver sensed a fundamental perception gap. He shuddered, and her next words proved his instincts were accurate.

"Team Valois was always just me. And two familiars."

"…Mind control?" Godfrey growled, watching the match from the stands.

"She's not just turning them into puppets, though," Lesedi said from next to him. "The burden of controlling all three would diminish the performance of each—but they're clearly all matching Valois's standard."

This seemed bizarre even to her. Robbing others of their will and pulling their strings—that was not particularly unusual in mage circles. They'd fought against similar techniques several times. And that was exactly why the singular nature of Valois's approach stood out.

Tim got there first. "I bet she's messed with their minds and bodies till she got a channel established, directly linking the etheric bodies. Got total control over 'em down to the functions of their brains. Shit, that's digging up some gnarly memories."

He swore, reminded of the late Ophelia. Godfrey knew all too well why he felt that way, although his own brow furrowed for very different reasons.

"But to Team Horn, that means they're functionally fighting three pure Koutz practitioners. Possibly even worse—now all three are a single organism, operating in perfect tandem. There will be no gaps in their teamwork…"

"Whoa, this is something else! I can't figure out how any of them move!" Yuri cried, bewildered by the perplexities of the Koutz style.

His preternatural instincts were alive and kicking, but even with that assist in place, he was unable to fight back here. Oliver had expected as much. Fighting three Koutz masters at once was virtually unprecedented, even in the history books.

"What's wrong? I get serious, and now you're, like, helpless?"

Flawless coordination buffeting them from all sides, Valois continued to taunt. Oliver longed to shut her up, but doing so would be no small task.

Dancing wildly around the stage, Valois cried, "This is true synergy! Fundamentally different from your childish games! All that useless thinking swept away, every synapse, every reflex under my control! They are my arms and legs, fighting as I see fit! Nothing could be stronger! Nothing could be better! Anything else is inherently mistaken!"

As her pitch rose, so did the ferocity of her attacks. Three spinning tops bouncing off one another, altering one another's paths, their trajectories far more complex than when she alone had been Floating. And against that, Team Horn could read no patterns, make no careless moves.

"You seeee? Everything you hold dear was never of any use at all! Your arms are filled with worthless trash, weighing you down for absolutely no reason! Yet, you do not even realize this! Because you are hopeless imbeciles!"

But their movements weren't the problem. Oliver ground his teeth. Facing challenges in combat was all in a day's work. Utterly unacceptable assertations, and the insults they encompassed—those went in one ear and out the other. What he couldn't stomach was the third factor.

"They're your servants, aren't they? They've been with you for years—since you were a child."

"Yes? So what?"

Valois's head dropped to one side again, clearly utterly missing his point. A vortex of rage and sorrow swirled within him. Pouring both emotions into his glare, he looked her squarely in the eye.

"Don't you get it?" Oliver growled. "Do you not even see what you're trampling?"

Her head throbbed.

The tiny body growing cold in her hands. A piece of her heart lost with it, an insistent void left behind.

"…Hold your tongue."

Valois slipped across the floor, attacking. Weathering the onslaught, Oliver kept his gaze locked on hers. Cries went up from the stands.

"Hang in there, Oliver!"

"Don't let those puppets get you down!"

Katie and Guy were screaming at the tops of their lungs. Oliver heard them loud and clear, but so did Valois—and she couldn't bear the din.

"…Silence… Be quiet…"

Her irritation surged. More voices poured fuel on the fire.

"Don't half-ass things, Hibiya! You were ten times fiercer against us!"

"Mr. Horn! Your Lanoff is far better than this!"

Mistral and Ames chimed in, voicing the experience of their earlier match. And those cries made something in Valois snap. She was incapable of letting this wash over her. She broke off her attacks, head leaning all the way back, bellowing at the rafters.

"Shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!!"

Her fury shook the air across the entire arena. The audience gulped. Valois's wrathful gaze swept the crowd, sparing no one present.

"You are so gross! Them, you, everyone! Anyone rooting for Team Horn! Clowns who lost to them and have the nerve to be here at all! Every one of you is smearing dirt on the face of Kimberly!"

These emotions were far more raw than what she'd shown before. A cry from Ursule Valois's very heart. Oliver and his companions all drew up short, listening closely.

"You are impure! You are mages, yet you pretend to have friends?! Laughing and crying like humans! Love? Respect? Consideration? That is all clutter, worse than refuse! Do not bring that crap here!"

The roar left her breathing hard, head hanging. Physical demonstrations of unbearable fatigue.

"…Control and obedience…! If you have that…then you need nothing else! Nothing!"

This was more of a croak than a yell. It hurt to look at her.

"Is that actually what you believe?" Oliver asked. "Or is it a cry for help?"

"Rrrgh—! You do not get to talk!"

Valois's head snapped up, and she rocketed toward him on Floating feet. Oliver absorbed the force of her blow with his blade, sending her into a spin. Motions boggling the eye, she attacked from the air. He couldn't possibly see her. She was certain she'd claim his head—

—but the proof of that never hit her hands. The moment of truth never came.

"…Huh?"

Hitting nothing, Valois landed—and blood sprayed from her sword hand. She gaped down at the wound. It took a moment for the horrifying reality to dawn: This wound came at her foe's blade.

"He's got her," Garland said.

Glenda turned to him, eyes wide, so he offered further explanation.

"This time, it wasn't her mistake. He predicted her attack and got ahead of it, then went for an Encounter."

"Y-you mean he can see her moves now? His eyes have caught up with Ms. Valois's pure Koutz in these scant few minutes?!"

Glenda clearly found that hard to believe. Listening to them on the ceiling above, Theodore shook his head, speaking with conviction.

"Only a true genius could do that. And Mr. Horn is no genius."

He'd taught many a student in his time and had an eye for the source of their individual strengths. To him, it was plain as day. Patently obvious. The sheer quantity of work that lay in Oliver's past, the work that had brought him to this point.

"He's simply spent years on it. Not here, but outside the ring."

"'Each Koutz master has a style all their own.' A famous line we've all heard before."

Valois was staring blankly at the cut on her arm, healing forgotten. So Oliver started talking, his voice calm and quiet. Nanao and Yuri had been fighting the mind-controlled duo, but they backed off, letting him talk.

"That was meant as a jeer at the discrepancies in ability between practitioners of a notoriously difficult style—but if you ask me, it's not only an exaggeration but part of the Koutz school's attempt at controlling their own reputation. However deep your techniques go, they are still a set of sword arts based on the capabilities of the human body. There are only so many valid core theories in existence."

His voice stabbed into her. No matter how much she detested the sound of it, Valois could not make him stop. No matter what she said or how she argued, the blood flowing from her right arm agreed with him.

"From our clashes so far, your techniques are strongly influenced by a famous Koutz master from a century ago, the Ice Dancer herself—Luana Pederzini. Floating is a technique she developed late in life, yes? She never made it official, but for the sake of argument, I'll call her techniques the Luana style. After making careful observations and comparing that against my knowledge base, I've finally formed a cogent notion of your moves," Oliver said at length. "Of the three main schools, Koutz fighters are the toughest to pin down a specific pedigree. The school itself is inherently abstruse, compounded by that myth about each master's unique style. You yourselves have intentionally made it harder to trace, and that attempt is supported by the sheer scarcity of practitioners at all. Before you even hit the ring, you're winning the information battle."

He paused, raising his arm into mid-stance. The sheer time he'd poured into his training ensured that pose was steady as a rock.

"Based solely on knowledge gleaned from trusted sources, I've put together my own chart of Koutz fighter connections. Where do you fall within that tree? From the moment I realized I was facing a pure Koutz practitioner until a few minutes ago, that's been my pressing concern."

Oliver curled the fingers of his left hand, beckoning to her. Valois shot across the floor, bearing down on him in a flurry of feints. But his response showed no trace of hesitation. Their blades clashed with a shower of sparks, the metal of her blade screeching as it made no headway.

"I can't read every move of yours. And I certainly can't reproduce them myself. But I'm familiar with the concepts. I know how you want to fight and what you don't want me doing."

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━!"

Valois bit her lip in frustration. He seemed so far away. She couldn't picture her blade reaching him no matter how she approached. Like a firmly rooted oak, a sturdy fortress. Just looking up at it choked the air from her lungs. He pushed back on her blade, and she retreated. With that outcome clear as day, he wrapped up his speech.

"That means I can make predictions and adjustments. Nanao, Yuri—it's time. We're done playing defense."

At that, his companions sprang into action. Team Valois's mind-controlled duo followed suit, moving exactly as the original Valois did, each sliding after their opponent.

"Flamma!"

"Impetus!"

Nanao and Yuri each cast a spell. The Valois duo made to counter them with a Flow Cut but were forced to stop and cast an oppositional spell to cancel—the incoming spells were too close. And with the elements mingling with one another disruptively, the delicate balance a repulsion-based move required was unfeasible.

""Clypeus!""

Nanao and Yuri quickly threw up walls on either side of their foes, trying to limit their movement options. The Valois duo attempted to back off a step and spin out to the flanks, but that was predictable; Nanao and Yuri charged forward, using spells to drive their opponents to the corners of the ring. Much of the Koutz school's strengths were lost without space to maneuver in; getting trapped in a corner was the last thing any of them wanted.

"Urghhhh!"

"Your response is simplistic, Ms. Valois!"

She'd taken a step to help them out, but now Oliver himself came swinging in, locking her down. She tried to deflect and brush past, but he predicted that and altered the flow of her force. Valois went spinning clockwise, giving him the positional advantage. Fancy Floating footwork was her bread and butter, yet turning that against her made her easy to manipulate. Her teammates had been behind her, but now Oliver was between her and them, making it even harder for Valois to assist.

"If your brains are linked, your mind-controlled teammates are only capable of making the same decisions you would! Your synergy gains are offset by a fatal lack of variety! That's the penalty for robbing a mage of their individuality!"

"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

!"

"We're doing the opposite! I might be nominally the leader, but this team has no strict chain of command! If any one of us makes a move, the other two can back it up as they see fit! You ought to know that! A mage's battles are ever against the unknown, and what matters most is not your initial plan but your ability to improvise!"

Now Oliver was on the offensive, physically and verbally. It sent shock waves through Valois, but still she refused to relinquish control over her teammates. They dashed backward to the edges of the ring, so fast that the crowd wondered if they'd ring themselves out—but then they began Wall Walking on the arena's sides.

"Hrm—!"

"Is that even allowed?!"

This surprised both Oliver's teammates. The floor they stood on was elevated a good five feet above ground level—and that left a wall around the ring. If they touched the ground outside, they'd be disqualified, but running on the ring's wall was technically permitted.

Nanao's and Yuri's pursuit came too late, catching empty air—and Team Valois escaped their predicament, returning to the center of the ring. Oliver cut off his own onslaught, letting Valois slide past him to her teammates.

"Hahhh…hahhh…hahhh…"

The three of them stood back-to-back. Valois was badly out of breath. Exploiting a loophole in the rules had allowed a narrow escape, but even she wouldn't dare brag about the tactic. It'd simply been the only means of restoring the match's precarious balance.

A team in her own year had her in serious trouble. That fact alone was making her seethe, rattled her to the core—driving her one step closer to madness. And she had no teammates to help reel her back in. She herself had reduced them to mindless puppets. All alone with her dolls.

Nanao gave her a look of pity. "I can hardly bear to watch," she said.

The Azian girl had born witness to many a mage's way of life since her admission to this institution. Some she'd respected, others she'd feared. But the mage before her inspired only sorrow.

"Control and obedience," she echoed. "You spoke of those as if they were the natural state of man. I offer no argument against that concept; even in my own country, the samurai have long risked life and limb in service of their liege. Yet, at the same time, we had a saying. 'A warrior will die for one who knows them.' However high a liege's birth, however elegantly they profess their ambitions—we cannot fully dedicate ourselves to a master who does not truly see us."

Valois's shoulders shook. Nanao's eyes were piercing, allowing her opponent no escape. And her speech went on.

"How well do you know the companions whose hearts you've stolen? What do they feel, what do they lament, what do they desire? Can you answer me that?"

Valois spoke not a word. But silence would not let her escape this query. Nanao waited for a reply, and that proved too much to bear. Her breath grew ragged; her gaze wavered.

"I spy fear within thine eyes."

That quiet proclamation made Valois stop breathing entirely. Nanao had broken through to her opponent's truth.

"Control and obedience are not your true desire. Have you not merely been fleeing what you really want? Afraid to see them as people? To face them as equals?"

Valois's vision flickered white. Memories rushed up from the depths of her soul.

"Thank you for coming, Ursule. Grandma is delighted to see you."

The day after her fifth birthday, her parents made their choice, and Ursule was sent to live far away with her grandmother. They had promised long ago to send her one grandchild, but the Valoises chose their fifth daughter for a particularly cruel reason—she simply had the least potential. They did not expect her to withstand her grandmother's methods, but if those methods destroyed her, it would be no great loss. That was Ursule's parents' rationale—and if she did turn into something, well, that would be a nice surprise.

"I'm supposed to make you into a proper mage, but my methods are a little old-fashioned…and a bit harsh. A lot of children give up along the way. But you won't do that, will you, Ursule?"

She shook her head, unable to answer otherwise. Even at age five, Ursule knew there was no place for her in the home in which she'd been born. Her failures had disappointed her mother and father any number of times, and she fully understood why she'd been shipped off to Grandma's house.

That was, of course, sad. She cried a lot the night before she left. But there was one bright silver lining. When her grandmother visited, she always doted on her grandchildren, and Ursule loved her very much. For that reason, she did not want to disappoint her. If her grandmother gave up on her, too, she would have no place to go.

"That's what I want to hear! Let's get started. Take off your shoes."

She was led inside the house, then downstairs to a cavernous basement. The white floors had an uncanny gleam, and the moment she stepped onto them, she slipped and fell. Her grandmother was right behind her and saw this coming—she caught her, smiling.

"Hard to walk, isn't it? This floor has almost no friction at all. Don't worry—you'll get used to it in a couple of months. Then you'll finally be ready to start learning Koutz."

Thus, Ursule's new life began. It was less training than adapting to all aspects of living. She was not allowed to take one step off that basement floor. Walking was impossible, and even crawling was inordinately difficult. And even getting food made demands on her that Ursule struggled to meet.

"Oh dear, Ursule. If you can't reach me, I can't give you anything to eat! You're getting so thin! I hate to see it. Don't make Grandma sad, okay?"

Each time Ursule fell, getting back up was a titanic struggle, but her grandmother slid off across the floor, giving her yet more trials. If Ursule could not reach her, her belly would remain empty, but the attempt left her falling down over and over again. Broken front teeth or bloodied knees became her default state, and these wounds were left unchecked until she could prove herself.

"Honestly…are you even trying? All I've seen are these pathetic displays, and they're really not convincing."

Her grandmother had an unerring knack for when to hint at disappointment. Those words were always enough to get Ursule back up and trying again, even when she was lying in a pool of blood gushing from her broken nose. She feared nothing so much as the absence of a smile on her grandmother's lips.

"Oh, well done, Ursule! I just knew you were my granddaughter! I'm sorry I have to be so strict with you. Don't hold it against me—I only want to see you grow…"

When her granddaughter fought through the blood and made it to her, she would wrap her up in her arms and rub her head. Imprinting joy upon the young child's heart, a powerful drug that gave Ursule motivation enough to battle through any pain. She craved that affection more than anything. The more she failed to live up to her grandmother's demands, the colder her heart grew. She learned to push that aside and keep going by hurting herself. At first, she bit her fingers, but she soon realized that would make her training harder. In which case, wounds on the inside of her mouth were ideal. The blinding pain of a broken tooth made her mind go blank and was nearly always enough to banish any bad thoughts. She broke them, healed them, broke them, healed them, and broke them again. That horrific cycle became her routine.

"You want to go outside? Don't be silly, Ursule. You've only just learned to walk in here! If I let you go out, it would sully the senses you've worked so hard to learn. I told you friction is an impurity Koutz abhors. Were you not listening to what Grandma said?"

She'd been doing well, and her grandmother seemed to be in a good mood, so she'd asked for her permission. Her grandmother usually said yes when she was in a good mood, but this time was a firm no. Ursule assumed she simply hadn't worked hard enough, so she threw herself into her training with even greater intensity, no matter how much blood she spilled. Her body had adjusted to movement on the frictionless floor, but now she was starting sword arts training, and that proved very painful indeed.

"Happy birthday, Ursule! I've got a present for you."

This was on her seventh birthday. She gingerly opened the big box and found a kitten inside, anxiously looking up at her. It was so tiny and cute, the first living thing she'd seen beside her grandmother in years. It immediately got its claws in her. She named this new life Terre. In the language of her country, that meant earth or soil. The name of the thing taken from her when she came here.

She was given a small patch of friction to raise it in, where she spent hours playing with the kitten. Her grandmother smiled at the two of them.

"You like it? That's good. It'll be your first familiar. Train it well!"

Having Terre around certainly split Ursule's attention a bit, but her grandmother didn't scold her for it. She merely assigned even harsher tasks, cleverly adding the cat's treatment to the demands to further motivate Ursule.

"You've got to earn food for your familiar, too! It's hard for Grandma to carry all of this, but for you, Ursule, I'll do my best. You'll do your part, right? The slower you are to improve, the more it hurts your grandma's heart."

Ursule acted like her life depended on it. Unable to bear the idea of Terre suffering, no sacrifice was too great. Furious devotion won her their daily bread, and when her exertions proved inadequate, she refused to eat herself, enduring the hunger with Terre. Mad devotion to her cat was all that sustained her, kept her going. And at long last, she reached a level that exceeded her parents' expectations.

"Oh, good! Simply wonderful, Ursule! To reach this stage at your age—even Grandma never hoped to see it. You are such a good girl! This means your training here is complete."

Not long after seeing signs of a pure Koutz practitioner, her grandmother told Ursule the good news. It was the girl's tenth birthday. An intense wave of joy left Ursule positively shaking. She could go out. She could see the sun, walk upon the soil again, run around with Terre, and see everything.

"Then time for the last test before you're done! It's nothing hard. Compared to everything you've been through, this is just a little game. You could finish it in one second if you wanted to! I'm serious; it really is that simple."

But her grandmother's next words petrified Ursule. The training she'd endured so far made it impossible for her to trust these assurances. Seeing her hackles go up, her grandmother told her to go get Terre. Worried about what this could lead to, Ursule did as she was told and brought the cat back, cradled in her arms.

"Now you just have to give that neck a little twist. Then you'll be free to go!"

Her mind went blank. Why was this happening? Why did she have to do that? She couldn't understand the first thing about this. So Ursule asked why, and her grandmother looked surprised.

"You want to know why? You mean you really don't know? That can't be true. I mean, it's obvious. You're done with that thing!" Then she said, "Listen, Ursule. You're going to learn a lot of things. Swords, spells, brooms, alchemy—so much more. There will never be enough time. You're going to be so busy, you won't even want to sleep! You definitely won't have any time to waste on a useless kitty cat. I shouldn't even need to point that out!"

The logic of that was terrifyingly sound, which broke Ursule's heart. She couldn't very well argue it was wrong. But none of that answered her question. This was another subject altogether.

Unable to put that disconnect into words, Ursule was left stringing together any phrases she thought might protect Terre. Her grandmother listened for a few minutes, then clapped her hands together as if she'd only just understood.

"…Aha—you had the wrong idea all along. You see, Ursule, this animal was only ever a tool. Something you use when you need it, then throw away when you're done. That's what familiars are! They're no different from pens or scissors. Nobody carries around soiled tissues with them, do they? Ursule, you wouldn't do something that nasty, would you?"

Tears in her eyes, Ursule shook her head. No, she wouldn't do such a nasty thing. But her grandmother kept taking the conversation in bizarre directions. Ursule couldn't seem to make herself understood and wanted to scream with frustration and anguish. Instead, she just hugged Terre tight. Her grandmother sighed, like Ursule was being a stubborn baby.

"If you really don't want to get rid of it, then tell Grandma how it'll be useful to you. Explain how it won't just be a waste of time and food. If you can find any real work for it to do, then maybe I'll reconsider. But, well, I'm pretty sure you can't."

Her grandmother waited to be convinced, and Ursule racked her brain for any argument. She ran back through everything that Terre had given her, trying to put that all in words.

"It's soft to touch? Please, a pillow can do that!"

No! Pillows won't make you smile, Grandma.

"It's warm when you hug it? The hearth provides far more warmth."

No! No matter how hot it is, a fire won't ever warm your heart.

"It has such big eyes? A crystal ball is much bigger and rounder."

No! No matter how polished the crystal, I'd never want to stare into it for long.

This went on and on, but their words never meshed. Each argument went over the other's head, and at last, one side threw in the towel. Her grandmother put her hands on her hips, leaned back, and sighed.

"…I just don't get it. It sounds to me like you're coming up with reasons that don't even make sense. Or, wait… Ursule, are you trying to trick Grandma?"

This accusation came like an icy spear through the heart. She shook her head as hard as she could, denying it, but her grandmother paid that no attention, her words twisting the knife further.

"If you are, that changes everything. It only seemed like you were getting better, but you didn't really learn a thing Grandma taught you. I'll have to start all over, beat these lessons into you. Of course, that means you won't leave this place or go outside. You'll be stuck in this room for years. I don't want to do anything that mean, but it's my job."

Dangling hope before her nose and offering hell as an alternative. If Ursule killed Terre, then she could go out—if she didn't, she was stuck in this basement. And she had to choose. Did she want to go out? Of course she did. She'd lost track of how long she'd wanted to be outside and see the sun again. How she'd dreamed about that all those nights she'd huddled up, trying to sleep on an empty stomach.

But if Terre wasn't with her?

If abandoning this warmth was the cost of achieving that goal?

Huge tears rolled down Ursule's cheeks. It felt like she was being crushed inside. The warmth drained from her grandmother's face.

"You still can't make up your mind? Ugh…I don't want to waste too much time on something this silly," the old woman said. "If you don't do it this instant, Grandma will be very disappointed in you."

A squeal escaped Ursule's lips. The harshest weapon her grandmother had was pointed right at her throat. She vividly remembered the looks on her parents' faces when they abandoned her. And now her grandmother looked just like they had.

Her heart cried out. She didn't want to be discarded.

That was ten times, a hundred times worse than not going outside.

Hands trembling, she released her embrace, lifting Terre before her eyes. The cat looked back at her, puzzled. The warmth of it was achingly dear. It had been all that kept her going in this frigid basement.

"Oh, finally ready? Good—that's my girl, Ursule! See, your beloved grandma's faith is worth far more than any old cat. Not even worth comparing!"

Sensing her granddaughter wavering, she piled on the pressure. As if the voice controlled her, Ursule's hands began to tighten up, slowly but surely. The pressure on its throat made Terre squirm. And her grandmother's voice gave her another push.

"It'll suffer more if you draw it out. Make it quick. It's been so useful to you, and now it will die by your hand. The best way to discard a used-up tool."

Reassuring the child she was doing a good thing. That there was nothing wrong with this, that it was the right choice. Ursule gritted her teeth so hard, her molars cracked. She knew no other way to live than to accept what she was taught and obey it.

Her fingers tightened around its neck. Terre let out its last cry. The thin little bones broke.

And it was over.

Like her grandmother said. She'd broken off a piece of her heart so easily.

"Oh, very good! That's how it's done, Ursule! You're my pride and joy! I was worried, since you took so much longer than I did, but clearly I didn't need to be."

And the grandmother's arms wrapped around her granddaughter. Ursule hugged the cold body to her, her hand stroking its head. Her eyes never left the dead cat in her hands. She could feel the warmth draining away, never to return.

"Now then, hand that filthy thing over. You're spoiling the moment by hugging it like that. I mean, you're about to go outside again!"

At last, her grandmother pried the corpse from her grasp. Ursule stayed rooted to the spot; her grandmother left the basement and came back a few minutes later with something else in tow. A girl and a boy, both Ursule's age. Their eyes just like hers, standing before her like they'd been sculpted in that place.

"A new present from me, to celebrate your graduation. Two brand-new familiars! Nice, aren't they? I didn't know which you'd prefer, so I procured one of each: a male and a female. I handled the training for you this time, so you can simply use them as you see fit. Oh—just because they're shaped like people doesn't mean you need treat them like you do Grandma. They're exactly like that cat. Tools for you to use up as needed."

Everything her grandmother said was the truth. Ursule nodded like her strings had snapped. She knew better now. She'd just learned that lesson. She knew how to treat them and how to get rid of them. Her hands remembered the right movements and would not forget. The next time—she'd do it right. She'd never disgrace herself again.

This was right. This was how it should be.

This was how her grandmother said a mage should behave. Familiars were tools, to be used and thrown away. She had not one single doubt about that. No hesitation about cutting them loose. She would use up these two someday and need not feel bad about it.

So why…why…why…

…do you all keep saying it's wrong?

Splttt. The sound of torn flesh.

Valois spit it out, and it tumbled across the ring, leaving a trail of crimson in its wake. Oliver's eyes followed it, and when they identified the object—he gulped.

She'd bitten off her tongue.

Blood gushed out of her mouth, down her chin, staining her uniform red. A means to yank her mind back to the fight, a violent rejection of the doubts rampaging through her. The explosion of pain in her mouth grouped up with her fury and consumed Valois's entire being. She could no longer chant any spells. She'd forgotten the rules of the match. The outcome of it no longer mattered. All she had left was the urge to kill. She and her puppets were reduced to creatures incapable of anything else.

(…She's after our lives.)

Team Horn was arranged at three points on the ring, around their opponents. Watching Team Valois from the northwest end, Yuri addressed his teammates via the same mana frequency cypher Oliver used to communicate with Teresa. No doubt about it—their foes were going for the kill. Oliver was equally certain, and that decided his plans.

"Yuri and I will handle the others. Nanao, you're on Ms. Valois."

"You're certain?"

"If I take her down, the wounds will merely fester. But if you do it—"

Oliver had faith those wounds would help guide her to the future. Nanao's blade had that power. The same power that had illuminated Joseph Albright's heart and given Diana Ashbury the push she needed.

"…It's all in her sword. Her anger, her sorrow, and her hopelessness. Go out there and answer to it."

"Gladly!"

Once more, Nanao accepted the task readily. Oliver put his full faith behind that. Yuri was smiling and nodding. You could search the whole world over and find nothing more reliable.

As they stood their ground, Team Valois's hostility rose higher and higher, pricking their very skin. That invisible force saturated the ring—and proved the signal. Three shadows slid out as one.

"""Impetus!"""

Spells cast from all corners, focused on Valois herself. No longer capable of casting, she has no means of negating these spells and made for a prime target. If she tried to dodge with footwork, they'd just have to lead that trajectory; if she went for a Flow Cut, then they'd merely hit her while she was exposed directly after. Their primary goal—keep Team Valois pinned down in the center of the ring. Like driving them to the corners, this would deny them the space to maneuver.

"""Ffff…"""

But counter to all Oliver's expectations, each member of Team Valois turned their athames in to the oncoming gale.

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━?!"

The wind hit, and all three spun. Each guided the wind to the center of the ring, where the gales merged, swirling. Team Horn swiftly fired follow-up spells, but again their expectations were thwarted—Team Valois kept their backs turned, firing further spells into the eddy.

""Tonitrus!""

""Impetus!""

These extra winds only served to strengthen the gale's force. Using the spell recoil and aftershocks, Team Valois slid back across the floor, past Team Horn's electric spells, scattering across the ring. Team Horn each ran after their target, but the winds blowing toward the center of the ring yanked them in.

"…A tornado…!"

The winds they'd cast and those Team Valois had added—a five-spell-strong tornado still gaining speed, swirling faster and faster. It had crossed the threshold of a fleeting magic effect into a self-sustaining tornado. The barrier-free field was only enabling the convergence magic. They should have moved not in pursuit but to tame the winds. Oliver realized his error now, but Valois's side was already attacking, the winds abetting their force. His side pulled up to fight back, but no blows were exchanged—instead, Team Valois slipped past their flanks and away.

"Hng, they ride the dragon's wind…!"

"It's awesome! I can barely stay upright!"

"Stand firm and face into the wind!" Oliver called, taking his own advice. "At this gale force, they can't maintain Floating! If we follow the air currents, we should be able to read their approach!"

With this much turbulence, it was impossible to maintain the delicate balance of repulsion Floating required. Their enemy were sliding, but this was ordinary Ice Walking, their backs as sails, their movements dependent on the direction of the wind and much less complex. If Team Horn kept their wits about them, they could win the exchange.

"Huh?"

Yuri noticed it first. He took his eyes off the enemy for a moment to turn into the wind—and one member of Team Valois disappeared. Only two were still out there sliding; there was no sign of Valois herself. The remaining two were closing in on him and Nanao, but Yuri spotted the trick.

"Nanao, behind her!"

That was enough for her to spot it: a second figure, hiding in the shadow of the foe sliding toward her. Ursule Valois. While the tornado had them distracted, she'd lined herself up with her puppet, moving in perfect sync. Her puppet was not much bigger than her, so it wasn't easy for her to hide—unless, of course, she was using mind control to manipulate their every movement.

"Tonitrus!"

A bolt from the puppet in the lead. If she stopped to block, they'd both hit her. Nanao made a snap decision and jumped.

"Tenebris!"

The wind caught her, carrying her back, and her oppositional canceled the spell. The puppet tried to follow up with another, but Oliver's and Yuri's spells came in from the sides. She shifted targets and canceled one, but avoiding the other required a dramatic lunge—and Yuri had already fired yet another spell, pinning her down.

"Grahhhhhhhh!"

But Valois just charged straight at her target, ditching the stalled puppet. While Nanao was buffeted through the air, Valois caught up on the ground, trying to take a swing at her before she could recover from the landing. Realizing that, Oliver planted a spell in front of Valois, but her athame was charged with the repulsive element. She turned the blade into the tailwind, altering the course of her slide, avoiding the bolt at her feet with the minimal evasion. Now her prey was right in front of her, nothing capable of stopping her from finishing it off.

With her feet off the ground, no exchange of blows would serve Ursule well. In these winds, no spell could aim true. It seemed certain she'd be cut down—but Nanao aimed her katana skyward.

"Impetus!"

Winds erupted from the tip, at full output. The recoil slammed her toward the ground. Her falling speed greater than Valois expected, hastening her landing. Her blade remained raised—yet, when her feet touched down, that became just a very high stance.

"Arghhhhhhhh!"

"Seiiiiiiiiii!"

Valois lunged in, her roar spattered with blood. Not an attack of pure fury but a Koutz move, acting like she was attacking first, then using her opponent's response to counter with a Tour. But Nanao read that and swung her blade straight against the rotational axis.

The tornado raging in the center of the ring began to gradually die down. The audience watched with bated breath—and in time, the outcome grew clear.

"…You said control and obedience will suffice," Nanao intoned, her blade's swing complete.

Before her, Valois tried raising her athame with a shaking hand, but it slipped from her grasp. A gash ran from her throat to her flank, and she no longer had the strength to fight.

"It seems you have failed to discard the rest. Else those tears would not be manifest."

Valois toppled forward. Nanao caught her with one shoulder, pointing at the ceaseless flow from her opponent's eyes. Oliver and Yuri watched in silence from a distance. The puppets they'd been fighting had lost consciousness the moment their operator fell and were lying on the floor beside them.

"…I…kiyyou…," Valois whispered in Nanao's ear. With half her tongue gone, she couldn't manage an l sound or even many words at all. Yet, she didn't stop. "I'm gohha kiyyou! I shwearrr! I'm gohha shice you ah peeshes!"

Sobs mingled with blood, and the waterworks still flowed. A warm dampness seeping through her uniform shoulder, Nanao let her katana go. And wrapped both arms around the girl's back.

"I look forward to it. I hope to face all three of you again someday."

And thus, the fight drew to an end. Valois went limp, the weight of the life she'd led resting on Nanao's shoulder.

Nanao laid Valois gently down on the floor, holding her hand for comfort. Seeing that, Glenda at last remembered she had a job to do.

"…I-it's…it's all over! Team Horn met Team Valois's onslaught with attacks every bit as fierce and came out ahead! A first half spent defending, and that made the back half all the more exciting!"

She turned to Garland for comment, but in his stead, Demitrio Aristides snorted.

"The finish was impressive, but I have to say it's a shame. If Ms. Valois had been able to cast spells, that last exchange might have gone the other way. But if biting her tongue was the only way to clear her mind, I suppose that's all there is to say."

"Hmm, I'm not so sure."

That voice came from her back, and Glenda spun toward it. Theodore McFarlane must have left the ceiling at some point—he now stood right behind her.

Moving up behind Demitrio, he added, "Team Horn's response was predicated on their opponents having one less caster, and that's exactly why Ms. Valois's disappearance in the finale proved effective. When you're at range, the focus of your precautions is necessarily on anyone who can shoot at you. One could argue she intentionally reduced her own apparent threat level and used that to make the trick succeed. Had Ms. Valois been in prime condition, no one would ever have taken their eyes off her."

Theodore was answering all Glenda's questions before she even had to ask. The astronomy instructor nodded, arguing with none of that.

"You have a point there. Using Flow Cuts to create a tornado was so impressive, I may have been left with heightened expectations. Had they used those winds to lay down a smoke screen and reduce visibility, perhaps Team Valois's mental links would have given them the advantage."

"You were hoping they'd make better use of the benefits of directly linking their brains? I appreciate that, but the downside to mind control is that it gets harder to conceive of such varied approaches. Especially near the end, when Ms. Valois was driven largely by bloodlust. Such indirect means were likely beyond her capabilities."

"Then you'd say the mind control largely worked against her team, Theodore?"

"I wouldn't go that far. It's a considerable feat in its own right. But I do think this battle might have turned out differently if she'd had a teammate capable of cooling her down."

Theodore glanced forlornly at the three limp bodies.

His colleagues done, Garland quietly took over.

"You've explained things well, but as the sword arts instructor, I must give my appraisal. She failed to take Mr. Horn out in the first half, giving him time to adjust to pure Koutz. Those two points are the primary factors in Team Valois's loss. Dancing across the clouds makes Koutz a formidable challenge, but Ms. Valois underestimated the tenacity of the roots Lanoff sends deep into the ground."

He pulled the discussion back to their respective schools. Yet, this was also the highest praise he could muster for Oliver Horn. The sheer accumulated knowledge required to analyze, dissect, and strategize against his tricky opponent—therein lay the crux of the sword. His student had provided a living example of that at work, and no true instructor could let that pass unmentioned.

With the instructors done talking, Glenda began her wrap-up. Demitrio rose to leave.

"Instructor Aristides?" Garland asked.

"…The contestants are badly hurt. I'll help with the healing."

With that, he bounded off, vaulting over the students' heads to the stage, where the passion of the battle still held sway.

"Instructor Demitrio volunteers for emergency healing!" Glenda cried. "Let's call that praise for both teams' efforts. Dulling spells were at half strength, so these injuries are to be expected, but let's all breathe a sigh of relief. I mean, this is a hundred times better than calling in the school physician!"

"Whoa, that'll come back to haunt you when you're hurt," said Garland. "But it's true Instructor Aristides is a skilled healer. He's had a lot of experience tending to children's injuries."

"He has?" Glenda asked, blinking at him.

Garland looked mildly surprised by that reaction. "Oh, didn't you know? He used to be a remote-village mage. He spent far longer looking after the ordinaries than he has as a researcher. Kind of goes against the usual Kimberly résumé."

"Uh, so you mean…everyone around was ordinary, so he had to be a doctor, a teacher, and a fortune teller all in one? Hard to imagine." Glenda frowned, trying to picture him in such a bucolic locale—the polar opposite of their current surroundings.

"The least popular career option for Kimberly students," Theodore murmured. "But if you turn back the pages of the history books, you'll find a time when that was the traditional way of life for most mages. Living with the ordinaries and sharing in their bounty."