129 – The Lioness and the Raven

Mal rested his hand against the stone wall. Light streamed out to his left from where the coliseum awaited.

This was going to be a disaster.

He adjusted his robes. The cloth refracted in the sun, a mark of the Waterrose petals that he'd threaded on the inside of his clothing.

I'm going to get my ass kicked, Mal thought.

He double-checked his satchel. He'd brought along everything he could think of bringing, and even some extras. He even had several packets of seeds in there, though he wasn't sure what he was going to do with them.

"Thirty seconds!" Igna said from outside.

Mal breathed deep, then turned and faced the coliseum entrance. He walked into the open field, and caught sight of Savaly. She stood across from him, on the other side of the arena. Her blonde hair shimmered in the light of day, her blue eyes bright and noticeable even from a distance.

"I was beginning to think you'd gotten cold feet," she said with a raised voice.

"I was just mustering my nerve."

She walked toward Mal. Mal did the same.

She's just a first-year, Mal thought. She has a limited arsenal... probably. Oh, what if she was hiding her own capabilities? She almost certainly was. There's likely at least one more spell, or at least an application of that construction spell she uses that she hasn't shown yet. Damn it, damn it!

"I've been looking forward to this," she said, eyes wide and unblinking, a smile stretched from cheek to cheek. "Truly, I have. You've been on my mind, night and day."

Mal winced. "Must you phrase it like that?"

The crowd murmured up in the stands, somehow able to hear what she'd said.

Curse this coliseum design and how it carries noise!

"Are Malfrasius and the princess...?" someone said, trailing off.

"No, that's ridiculous. A has-been family and the pride of Chama?"

"But weren't there rumors about this before? I remember something about her offering him a vassalship."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean—"

Mal jerked his head at the crowd. "You see what you've done?"

A coy smirk lifted her cheek. "I have no idea what you're speaking of, my dear rival."

She likes it, Mal thought. She likes causing chaos. She doesn't give a damn. Why should she? The only S-grade core in Chama other than Headmaster Puck. She could kill a man and she'd be patted on the back for it. It's me who has to deal with the consequences.

The two stared at each other.

Just when Mal thought the silence couldn't get any more suffocating, Savaly shot forward at a speed rivaling him with his airgrass boots.

Time slowed to a crawl as Mal's battle senses kicked in. With a combination of Total Awareness and watching the way her mana flowed, he made a precise prediction as to what she would do.

She raised her hand up and summoned an Arcane Sphere. In less than a breath, it was in front of his face.

Mal jerked his body to the side and jumped out of the way. Another one appeared, and Mal dodged it all the same.

"You know—" She summoned another Sphere. "Your reflexes are incredible."

Mal's Airgrass boots with a flicker of wind around his legs. "Experience, nothing more."

He closed the distance and swung his leg for a kick. His foot met a wall, and—

Her fingers twitched. Mal made to move back, then his heart stopped.

It's different. The mana—no, not a Sphere, she's going to use a Bolt!

Mal snapped his spine back with every ounce of muscle he had in his body. The bolt swept past the tip of Mal's nose, but failed to hit.

"No, it's not just experience," she said. "You're predicting my movements too far in advance. And earlier in that fight against Hypode—it was like you had eyes out the sides of your head."

Mal's blood chilled.

She'd figured him out.

"I wonder..." She stopped and pressed her index finger to the bottom of her chin. "Can that reading of yours keep up with multiple inputs?"

She took her hand off her chin and gestured at the air. Two Arcane Spheres appeared in front of her, one after the other.

"Dual casting!" Igna shouted. "She's only a first-year. When did she learn that?!"

Mal narrowed his eyes. No, it wasn't true dual casting. It was extremely fast sequential casting. She was extraordinarily talented—not impossible. There was a difference.

Even so, she was maintaining both spells at the same time, so in some sense it could be considered dual casting. Either way, it was an incredible achievement for a first year.

She's going to try to overwhelm me. Brute force her way through my Total Awareness.

The Arcane Spheres launched at Mal in a half-circle to his left and right. Savaly's legs tensed, then she broke forward into a sprint. Steel glistened from underneath her robe's sleeves, and she pulled a dagger out of her robes and into her right hand.

It struck Mal that this was very unfair.

If he tried to move backward, Savaly would close the distance. If he moved to the left or right, the Arcane Spheres would cut him and, at best, result in mild injury, or, at worst, bring him to the edge of death.

If he tried to move diagonally, she would probably change the direction of the Spheres as well.

With no options left, Mal was forced to unveil his trump card.

He ran straight toward the sphere to his right. He angled his body such that the sphere would deflect off of his shoulder. Mal collided with it, and the spell cracked and shattered back into base mana, spread out like a dust cloud.

Mal looked back. Savaly had stopped in her tracks, eyes fixed on his robes.

Her smile widened. "That didn't look like an ordinary shield spell. Have you been skipping the curriculum, my dear rival?"

Igna's voice barked. "What the hell was that?"

"It looked to be a shield spell," Vigil said.

"I saw that, you idiot. I was referring to the fact that he didn't even have to cast it!"

"Perhaps he cast it quicker than we could see."

"I've been doing this for 20 years, you daft old man—"

"You've been doing this for 20 years, and you're calling me old?"

Igna's cry of rage was almost enough to lighten Mal's heart.

Savaly's eyes darted to Mal's hands, then his face. He could see the gears turning behind her eyes.

"Let's try something else," she said.

She swept her arm and another two Arcane Spheres appeared in the same position. She fired them, one at his head, and one at his hand, then sprinted toward Mal's side.

With no other option, Mal once again ran toward one of the spheres and deflected it with his robes.

Savaly stopped again, and Mal spotted her eyes widen with just a hint of surprise.

"So that's it," she said. "The robes. You've enchanted them, or the spell works on the clothing. Either way, it doesn't cover your whole body."

Mal remained silent, not wanting to give away any information.

"The thing about magic is that it always comes with compromises." She flicked her dagger between her fingers. "That's just how it is. A traditional shield spell isn't invincible. It can be overcome through either physical means, or through simple overpowering." She stopped her dagger flicking and gripped the hilt tight. "If it's between the two of us, which do you think has the edge in both of those fields?"

"Where is this going?"

"I'm saying that if you're at all taking this seriously, now's the time to unveil whatever ace you have up your sleeve."

Mal didn't have any aces, but he did have a wide and varied toolkit, hard-won through several months of experimentation and testing.

The issue was bypassing her specialized construct shield. If she realized that his mana-based attacks were virtually non-existent, she would simply use that construct shield, and Mal was extremely doubtful he would find a way around it.

I have got to get some sort of attack to patch up that weakness, he thought.

For now, his only option was to bluff, fool her into making the wrong choice, using the wrong shield just once, and he'd have a chance at victory.

...

But that was risky. Seriously risky, and her predictive abilities seemed to be second to none.

How had Philo managed to score that brief moment of advantage?

Novelty. Something truly absurd that she didn't see coming.

Something that she couldn't have seen coming.

Mal reached into his satchel, and his index and thumb pinched around a seed.

"You really want to see what I've got in store?" Mal pulled his hand out of the satchel, disguising the motion by tilting his hips. "Wouldn't I get in trouble for injuring a Princess of Chama?"

He dropped the seed to the ground. He wasn't even sure what type of plant it was. For all he knew, it was one of his extra tomato seeds. He didn't care. The plan didn't depend on a specific type.

I am really hoping that there's enough stored energy in that seed for what I'm about to do, he thought.

"Don't be ridiculous. I signed on to this tournament knowing the risks. No one would hold you responsible."

Mal circled her. With his satchel side faced away, he pulled out another seed and dropped it. The seed hit the ground without a single sound, so small that it might as well have been a trick of the light.

“I don't think your father would agree.”

“I don't think my father would—” She stopped, then covered her mouth and giggled. “Oh, I almost said something unsightly.”

Mal found himself not particularly interested in royal family drama.

His disinterest must've shown on his face, because Savaly took her hand away, a smirk at the edge of her lips. “No questions?”

“None at all.”

“Well, aren't you a kind sort of fellow?”

“There are many adjectives that have been used in association with me. I don't think kind is one I've ever heard before.”

She would start to get suspicious the longer he kept this up.

Fine then, he thought. Let's make a show of it.

His Airgrass boots kicked up the dust around him. He shot forward and raised his leg as if he was going to do a kick. Then, at the last second, he stomped his foot down, and grabbed out at her arm, flames sparking along his gloves.

Savaly dodged the strike, then slashed her dagger at his shoulder. He bent his back. The steel edge sliced through the fabric, Waterrose petals around the section cut by the steel and fluttered to the ground.

I need to figure out a way to imbue the cloth itself with Waterrose petals property. Looks like there are problems with just sewing it into the fabric.

He backpedaled and Savaly followed his every move. Mal traced her strikes out, then shifted to the right and went for another attack with his Firegloves. In the same instant, he used his other hand to drop a few more seeds along the ground.

Savaly once again dodged the attack, and punished him for it with a stab to his exposed arm. This time, Mal was unable to react fast enough, and the dagger sunk into muscle. Pain burned across his bicep, and he pulled back on instinct. Blood gushed from the open wound, seeping into the cloth and dripping down his arm, into the dirt, staining it a dark red.

The smile on Savaly's face faded. The creases around her eyes relaxed, even while her lips remained upturned.

“That was it?” she said.

Mal straightened his back and stared at her without response.

She sighed. “All right, then. Let's finish this.”

She strode forward, back straight, eyes unfocused and dull.

Checkmate.

Mal's internal mana touched the Bramblevine bracelet. The bracelet expanded, and the seeds on the ground closest to Savaly shifted around. They made a small noise from rubbing against the dirt, but visually, it looked as if a bug had found its way onto the field.

Savaly's step hitched just a little, but she didn't stop.

Mal channeled his intent into his Bramblevine bracelet.

Come on, grow, grow!

A few of the seeds remained still. Then Elderroot sprung to life, brown and thin and coated in bark. They wrapped around Savaly's feet and held her in place.

Savaly jolted forward, then fell over flat on her face.