The next few days Emily was constantly irritating me to have a battle with her. She followed me around during lunch and even followed me to the cafeteria.

 

I said “No”, straight away a few times. But after that I just annoyed and ignored her as if she was air. This made her even more angry but she was the one requesting the duel so she held her temper.

 

She seemed to be surprised at my rejection. I guess as a princess she was used to being given whatever she liked. But that’s none of my concern.

 

Megumi was also a bit irritated by Emily’s behavior towards me as whenever she wanted to talk to me about anything she was interrupted by Emily.

 

Megumi told me, “Why don’t you just give her what she wants. I am sure you have a good chance of winning and she is getting annoying”.

 

I turned to her and said, “It’s not about whether I can win or not. It’s about me not wanting to fight. This is my choice and I am not going to change it for some spoiled princess”, with a serious face.

 

Megumi just sighed and kept quiet.

 

After sometime though Emily stopped bothering me as she understood I won’t listen to her. I sighed in relief.

 

But it seems like she challenged Megumi instead. Well it makes sense as Megumi is the second strongest after me in our year.

 

Megumi seemed to have readily agreed. I suspect it’s most to avoid being constantly irritated. But it doesn’t concern me, I’ll just watch the fight to gauge Emily’s strength and there’s the entertainment factor of watching a battle. All in all a win for me.

 

The battle was to be held at the end of this week at Friday. The Student Council activities were called off for that day as one of it’s members were participating and everyone wanted to be present for the duel. The school operates for 5 days a week so after that I can plan my fighting strategies after watching the fight on weekends.

 

Anyway the day of the fight came. Megumi appeared nervous while Emily appeared confident.

 

The match would be held after school. During lunch I decided to talk to Megumi.

 

I approached her and asked, “Megumi are you ok? You don’t look too well”.

 

Megumi tried to smile and said, “I-I am ok. I am just thinking that’s all”.

 

I felt a bit concerned for her, after all she was the first one to come and speak to me in this class and we were rivals. So I smiled and said, “Cheer up and do your best. You can do this”. Well she will probably lose but a little motivation can’t hurt.

 

“T-Thank you”, she said. She looked a little better. Some students came to wish her luck. But most students were surrounding Emily further fueling her ego. She was smiling happily, our eyes met and I quickly turned away. No need to associate with such rubble.

 

Then the school ended and we were to go to a school arena. The school had several arenas, they were mostly for practice or if some international or national competition is held. The arena for today’s fight was arena 4.

 

As we started going out of the class I looked at Megumi and nodded and she nodded back.

 

I went with everyone to the arena and saw Sakura standing in front of the entrance.

 

She saw me and Megumi and waved at us and we went to her.

 

She then told us, “Follow me”. And we followed them to a room which looked like a VIP seat to the arena. It had Student Council written on the entrance so this was probably for the Student Council to use.

 

All the Student Council members were present there. Sakura then said to Megumi, “On behalf of the Student Council we wish you all the best Megumi. You can do this”, with a smile.

 

Ayaka added, “Yes we wish you all the best”. The rest said that too. I just said, “Good Luck”, with a smile.

 

She looked a bit more relieved and she said with a smile, “Thank you everyone”. And went to the arena to get ready for battle.

 

After that I took a seat along with the Student Council members. Sakura and Ayaka sat on my both sides. I think Sakura planned this to make me open up. Ugh this is so annoying.

 

Sakura then suddenly asked, “So Takeru-kun who do you think will win?”. I am sure this is more to start a conversation rather than hearing my opinion.

 

Ayaka was also looking at me. I sighed internally.

 

I said, “Its hard to say. If you look at their levels certainly the princess has an advantage but combat experience also matters and we don’t how much real world combat experience the princess has”.

 

Sakura nodded and said, “Yes I think so too”.

 

She then added with a smile, “What about you? Do you think you will be able to beat her? I heard she was pestering you for a fight”.

 

I shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I will be able to say for sure after today’s match”.

 

Sakura then asked me enquiringly, “Is that so? Why did reject fighting with her? Any other person would have jumped at the opportunity to test their strength”.

 

I looked at her seriously and said, “Cause I don’t want unnecessary fight”.

 

Sakura looked surprised at my straightforward response but didn’t say anything after that. I was relieved at that.

 

Then the crowd became loud. The crowd consisted of students from all over the school. I looked down to see both participants have entered. There was a big screen to show the battle at a closer distance to everyone. However there was no audio so whatever the participants are talking among themselves we can’t hear.

 

It seems that they were having an intense conversation. Emily looked like she was taunting Megumi.

 

The referee was a female Knight. As she came in she said something and both the participants stopped talking and resumed their positions.

 

Then the referee announced via the microphone, “Today we have a match between two first year students. First on my right we have Sato Megumi, the second strongest amongst the first years and on my right I have princess Emily Roseblade who joined our academy recently”. The crowd gave cheers as the participants were announced but I felt like Emily got slightly more cheer.

 

Then the referee raised her hand after ensuring both participants were ready and said, “So let the fight begin”.

 

Emily immediately used her weapon which was a sabre to attack using a powerful fire spell, fire vortex. It looks like she started big.

 

Megumi calmly watched as it came to her and dodge it and appeared before. It seems Emily’s lack of real world experience is showing. But she was still stronger so she parried Megumi naginata with her sabre.

 

 Megumi then launched a vortex of water at Emily. Emily was caught up in it and was struggling. But she used the last bit of her strength to launch a powerful attack called eruption.

 

A large column of fire erupted from the tip of Emily’s weapon and evaporated the water. Emily fell on the ground, she looked like she would pass out quickly.

 

The column was approaching Megumi. Megumi used all her power to cast a water shield.

 

The shield held for sometime, lessening the damage of the fire spell but was eventually defeated and engulfed. It dissipated eventually showing a fainted Megumi but the damage to her wasn’t that bad and she only received minor burns.

 

The referee looked at Megumi and announced, “The match is decided, the winner is princess Emily”.

 

The crowd cheered loudly. Anyway Megumi was taken to the infirmary. I went to see her with the Student Council members.

 

Hayato was already there outside the infirmary. Well it makes sense as he is her childhood friend.

 

When he saw me he approached me and asked, “What do you think? Will Megumi be ok?”, his tone was worried.

 

I looked at him reassuringly and said, “Don’t worry, from what I saw most of the attack power was dispelled. She didn’t look that injured. She probably fainted due to shock”.

 

Hayato looked a bit relived and said, “Is that so?”.

 

After that the doctor said she had come back to senses and had minor injuries and we can see her.

 

We first allowed Hayato to go inside. After that we went in one by one so as not to create a crowd after Hayato left.

 

I went first after Hayato and saw Megumi sitting up, she looked a bit depressed. She saw me and smiled weakly.

 

I asked, “How are you?”.

 

“I am physically fine, just have minor burns. Mentally though, I don’t know what to do”, she said bitterly.

 

I decided to tell her the truth about what I think , this might help cheer her up, “You have nothing to  be depressed about. The match was close. You only lost because her magic was a bit powerful. It was very apparent that you are the better fighter. If you train a bit more you can surpass her easily”.

 

She smiled and said, “You don’t have to lie to cheer me up”.

 

I looked at her with a serious look and said, “I am not lying. This is the truth or at least what I feel after seeing the match. The match was close, very close”.

 

She was  a bit surprised but nodded and said, “Thank you”.

 

I shrugged and said, “I only spoke the truth”. After that we talked a bit more and I left to make way for other.

 

That weekend I went over their battles in my mind and thought of countering their fighting styles. That column of fire was something that I could repel with my lightning attack so I was good but I need to improve my attacks so I could defeat someone like her before she could use such attack unlike Megumi.

 

All in all I trained hard, both by myself and with the help of Himari-sensei and Jiro-sensei.