"Well, the only one of us left who hadn't fought yet is you, Az. Get us another win!" Said Rai enthusiastically.

  "Please don't shorten my name, I don't like it. There's no rule stating that all of us have to participate. Besides, he's a bad match-up for me. You take him on," Deflected Azyl, looking like he really didn't want to take part in this.

  "Aw come on, don't be like that-," Began Rai.

  "Don't bother, he's already made up his mind. There's no convincing him when he gets like this. If you force him to go, he'll probably just surrender before the fight can even start or something," Interrupted Key, sighing in exasperation.

  "Well……alright, I guess. Then……mind if I take this fight, guys?" He asked, turning to the rest of us.

  "Sure go ahead, knock yourself out," I replied, none of the others objected either.

  "Well……if you guys insist, then I guess I don't have a choice!"

  We didn't insist, but whatever.

  He walked up to the middle and got ready as the fight was about to begin. His body began glowing and sparks began crackling from him……

  "Begin!"

  Tuck slid forward rapidly, as Rai boosted his own speed and charged forward as well. As they neared each other, Tuck attacked with two rising columns on either side of Rai, who jumped and landed on top of them, using them as a stepping stone to get closer to Tuck. He pushed himself off the column with his foot and flung a lightning infused punch towards Tuck.

  Before he could connect, Tuck slid away to the left, just barely avoiding getting hit. It almost looked like he was ice-skating on the earth, except that he could move in any direction at that speed without any initial momentum, even while standing still.

  As soon as he was clear, he raised another rock pillar towards Rai, who used his hand to deflect himself off the column, but wasn't able to avoid taking a hit on his arm in the process. They both shot forward at each other again as they regained their balance, Tuck using his earth columns to attack Rai as well as to block his strikes, while Rai fired bolts of lightning at him from his hands and used his feet to run zigzags and avoid the rising pillars.

  In terms of offense, they were pretty evenly matched.

  But Tuck had better defense, he was able to block all of Rai's lightning strikes, while Rai kept getting grazed and taking minor hits from the pillars that were popping up around him. Plus Rai didn't seem to be able to fire effective long-range lightning blasts, he only fired at mid and close range.

  After they kept up this exchange for a while, Rai broke away and sped around Tuck till he was behind him, a large blast of lightning forming in his mouth. He hadn't taken any major hits, but all those grazes and brushes had begun to add up, he wasn't exactly injured, but he was definitely frustrated.

  As he began to fire the bolt, Tuck spun around to face him and rapidly slid himself forward instead of trying to dodge. With a short gap between them, Rai fired the lightning bolt. In response, Tuck raised a straight pillar right in front of himself to block the blast, and from the base of the pillar, he shot out another pillar, at a tilted angle, which slammed into Rai right at his center, knocking him back quite a long way. When he'd fired from his mouth, he had to stop streaming lightning through his body, which set aside the speed he would have needed to dodge that last attack.

  "C wins."

  As Rai struggled to get up after that hit, Tuck found himself down on one knee. That last lightning blast had burst through his pillar, and although it had absorbed much of the impact, a decent amount of lightning had still made it through to zap Tuck on the shoulder. His skin was slightly scorched at the impact point.

  "Sorry, guys. Guess I lost," Sighed Rai apologetically.

  "It's just a mock tournament, so it's no big deal," I shrugged.

  Had to admit, while he could get pretty annoying at times, he was no slouch when it came to fighting, this last battle had been a pretty bad match up for him, but he still managed to land a good hit in the end.

  If this had been a real fight, it would have been pretty interesting to see how it would have played out if he had been able to use his chain-sickle.

  On another note, it was kinda calming and peaceful to see him not being all hyper for once.

  "Like Kuro said, it was just a mock battle. Besides……you fought quite well back there," Admitted Key, awkwardly trying to comfort him.

  "Key-Key……that's so swee- oof!" He exclaimed as his face lit up and he jumped towards her, before being stopped by her punching him in the same area where he had been hit by the last attack.

  Yeah, he was totally fine.

  The next match was A vs D.

  "I'll be taking on all the remaining fights myself, group A will win this thing without losing any more members!" Declared Arg, stepping up to the middle.

  This guy was painfully arrogant.

  Even his armor screamed arrogant. He was clad in light, golden armor from head to toe, easily the flashiest gear that I'd seen in this world so far.

  I'd feel too embarrassed to even try and wear something so……loud.

  "I'll take him on," Volunteered Key.

  "You do realize that his fighting style puts you at a disadvantage right?" I pointed out.

  He was strong at long-range attacks, while her attacks were more short-range, I hadn't seen her use any attacks beside wrapping her sword in flames.

  "That's exactly why I want to fight him, I can't get stronger if I only accept battles that I'm guaranteed to win."

  She drew her crimson sword and made her way to the center. Instructor Tabbs okayed it, letting her use the weapon so long as she used the back of the blade to strike.

  "There's no one here who can even get near me, your puny flames certainly won't, Leftover!" He sneered at her.

  "We'll just have to see about that, won't we?"

  "Begin!"

  Arg jumped backwards and raised a barrage of blunt spikes towards Key, who engulfed her sword in flames and dodged the incoming spikes, slicing through the ones she couldn't avoid. He was unable to hit her as she stayed on the edge of his range, but she couldn't push forward either. Was it just my imagination, or for a moment there did her legs appear to become more nimble and flexible?

  "Why doesn't she shoot out fireballs or something at him?" Rai wondered out loud, as she only seemed to use the flames sprouting from her sword.

  "Her Elemental Magic is too weak for long range attacks. Her sword is made of a metal called Fire Steel, which you can stream flames through pretty easily if you're compatible with it. But it's rare to find someone whose Fire Magic is compatible with the metal. Once you forge a weapon from the steel, a person with Fire Magic tries running their Mana through it. If the person is incompatible with it, the sword instantly shatters. But if they're compatible with it, then it becomes a lot stronger and almost impossible to break, and only that person will be able to use it, it'll be a normal sword in anyone else's hands. They'll be able to stream and intensify flames through it and discharge powerful short and mid range attacks from it. But most people who are compatible to use the steel tend to have lower Mana levels and weaker Elemental Magic than average, so long range attacks are usually impossible for them," Explained Azyl, as Key kept avoiding and deflecting the spikes that were popping up all around her, but the distance between herself and her opponent was only getting larger.

  "Wow that's the most I've ever heard you speak, Az," Remarked Rai, staring at him with a grin.

  "Please stop shortening my name."

  Key suddenly dashed backwards until her back was against the wall, with her flaming sword in front of her, well out of Arg's range.

  "What's this, are you running away? Do you really think that all I can do is attack from a distance?" Laughed Arg, kicking off his shoes to reveal wolf like feet, to go with his wolf ears and werewolf hands.

  He retracted all the spikes he had created back into the ground and dashed forward at a fairly impressive speed. It was definitely faster than the average human could manage.

  "Once I shorten the gap, you'll be completely cornered! You played yourself, bitch!"

  He wasn't planning on getting too close to her, just close enough to stay out of her range while keeping her within his range. With her back against the wall, she couldn't widen the gap anymore.

  "That's where you're wrong, you're the one who's being played here."

  Oh wow, that was a pretty intense sight. Her sword was glowing bright red, the air all around her was shimmering like a desert mirage, she herself was sweating bullets, as she kept converging her flames into the blade.

  "Oh, I guess I forgot……she does have the one long-ranged attack," Yawned Azyl, as she raised her blade.

  "You should try and block this with everything you've got, otherwise you'll be in for a lot of pain," She warned, swinging the blade down, releasing all that firepower in one powerful, blazing strike.

  Arg jumped back and raised multiple rows of stone pillars in front of him, and as the scorching fire blast crashed into them, the flames were so bright and intense that we couldn't even look at it directly. The flames roared and danced for a while before eventually dying down. The entire hall had gotten a lot hotter.

  As the smoke began to clear, a heap of molten pillars came into view, with the last few partially intact. Arg stood behind them, with small burns scattered across his body. There had to have been about ten rows of those stone columns in front of him, and they had nearly all been melted through by that attack. They had absorbed a large chunk of the impact, but it looks like a few fiery streaks managed to break through and graze Arg.

  Key was down on one knee, breathing quite heavily and sweating profusely.

  "A low Elemental Magic level is usually proportionate to a person's Mana capacity. That attack consumes around half of her total Mana capacity. So, she's probably just about running on empty now," Remarked Azyl in his usual drowsy tone.

  "You nearly burnt my hair, you bitch! I'm going to fu-!"

  "I give up," Surrendered Key, sheathing her blade and standing up, her knees buckling slightly as she caught her breath.

  "Wha- tch, you're running away!?"

  "That's right. I'm out of Mana and can't use any more fire attacks, and since we're only allowed to attack with Elemental Magic, there's no point in me continuing this fight if all I can do is defend."

  "Damn you……"

  "A wins!"

  With that, groups A and D each had three members left, while C had one.

  "Next match, A vs D!"

  What, the same match-up back to back?

  Huh, she really was just deciding the match ups on impulse, wasn't she?

  Arg was fighting again, guess he really did plan on fighting all of group A's remaining fights.

  "Hey, Azyl, why don't you-," Began Rai.

  "Pass," Came the sleepy reply.

  "Then it's one of you two," Said Key, to Persia and I.

  "I'm fine either way," Persia shrugged.

  "Same. How about rock-paper-scissors, the winner goes up to fight?"

  And so, I found myself in the middle once again.

  "Well, well. It's the freak. I really wanted to crush that redheaded bitch after what she did, but I suppose I'll have to make do with you."

  Seriously, in a world where people grew random animal-like physical mutations, my Healing Factor was unusual enough to get me labeled a freak?

  And all this guy had seen me do was reattach an arm, he hadn't actually seen me heal more gruesome or messy injuries.

  "Feel free to underestimate me, that'll make it all the more fun when I beat you."

  "Tch, why you……Instructor! For this match, I request easing the rules of this tournament a bit. This one can heal his injuries, so the disqualification by excessive force rule is unnecessary in this case!"

  "Do you……really think I'm going to relax the rules so that you'll be able to try and injure another student-?" Began Instructor Tabbs, causing him to flinch as she glared at him coldly.

  "Actually, let me make the same request. But FYI blondie, this goes both ways, you can come at me with everything you've got, but I'll be doing the same thing. Are you sure you want to risk that?"

  "Hmph, you think I'm afraid of you? You aren't even going to touch me, freak!"

  "……very well," She sighed, relenting after thinking it over reluctantly, "But I shall intervene if it looks like it's going to far. And landing a solid hit will still result in a win and end the match, that rule isn't changing. Now then……Begin!"

  I jumped backwards as sharp spikes burst from the ground towards me, avoiding them. I then spread on my fingers and discharged a web of lightning streams like I'd done in my fight against Gela. However, he blocked the sparks by raising a wall in front of him. Fine, I'll go around then. I slipped past the spikes he kept raising, a few of them grazing me.

  If this fight got drawn out, I'd be at a disadvantage the longer it goes on. I couldn't play it safe and just defend, without the lightning enhancement technique I could only keep dodging purely on instinct for so long.

  I suddenly got an idea, although it was pretty risky, and would be quite gruesome too. Oh, well. I had a Healing Factor, might as well take advantage of it.

  I took a deep breath and focused my concentration. I had to get this absolutely right. First, I needed to get some serious height. As the spikes closed in on me, instead of dodging, I jumped straight up as high as I could.

  "I've got you now!" Arg declared triumphantly.

  He shot out a single spike towards my airborne body, it was bigger and longer than his previous spikes, but before it could reach me, I got my left foot in the way, as the spike impaled and went through it. Hmm, this next part would be a lot easier if I had one of my blades on me.

  Hindsight, amirite?

  I twisted my body as hard as I could, snapping my ankle and ripping my left foot off of my leg. Then, with my right foot, I stepped on my severed left foot that was still impaled on the spike and used it as a stepping stone to jump up even higher.

  "What the-!?"

  Now, then……

  Consuming a large chunk of my remaining Mana, I sent down a barrage of lightning strikes all over the place, forcing Arg into one of the corners of the large hall. Hmm, what should I name this attack? Hmm, lightning strikes from above are associated with storms, which are associated with rain……

  And right now, I was well above the ground, it almost felt like I was lording over……wait no, like I was reigning over the ground. Lightning Reign sounded cool!

  And as a bonus, it was a pun!……

  what the fuck am I doing?

  Saying an attack name out loud would be embarrassing as hell, so why did I keep wasting time thinking up names for every attack I come up with!?

  As I landed down, with my left foot only halfway done growing back, I dashed forward while sending out streaks of lightning to prevent him from moving out of the corner. As I got closer, he smirked.

  "Do you really think you can corner me!? I may be stuck in this corner, but it also means that you can only attack me from the front! You're the one who's truly cornered, you can't dodge a thing!" He sneered, shooting out rows upon rows of sharp spikes in front of him.

  Yeah, I already knew that. But I had no intention of dodging them. I jumped off the first row of spikes I encountered and used the sides of the spikes to step on and move forward. I got a bunch of cuts and gashes across my sides, but those weren't going to be enough to stop me.

  As the distance between us shrunk, I jumped up as high as I could off a spike, he responded by shooting out a bunch of bigger and longer spikes up at me. Yeah, there was no avoiding that……I adjusted the position of my airborne body slightly……

  Several of them impaled my legs, two went through my stomach, and one poked a couple of inches into my right eye. I was well and truly skewered. However……

  "Hahaha, that looks like it really hurts, Leftover trash!"

  I was exactly where I wanted to be.

  My arms were both unscathed, just like I had wanted. I had also made sure that my heart wasn't pierced and my head stayed on, since those were the only two injuries that could kill me. Now then……

  "This time, I've truly got you cornered."

  I had just enough Mana left for this. I moved my arms out in front of me and began charging up a lightning blast as fast as I could. By raising so many rows of spikes in front of himself, he had boxed himself into the corner with no way out.

  It always took him a couple of seconds to retract the spikes back into the ground, if he began to attempt that, I could easily blast him before he could do so. Sparks began crackling around me, as my blood poured down on the spikes impaling me.

  This was a lot more powerful than the blast I had hit Gela with, it would almost certainly kill him.

  But I didn't care……in fact that's exactly what I was going for. He wanted this to be a fight where we go all out. I was about to grant his wish.

  My emotions suppressed themselves as I immersed myself in cold, calculating bloodlust……

  Die.

  "Group A wins!"

  Huh!?

  "Hey, wait a sec-!" I protested, interrupted as she suddenly appeared in front of me and grabbed my wrist, as all the Mana I had built up at my hands receded back into me, my attack completely reset.

  I hadn't even seen her move.

  "I thought I made it clear. The first person to land a solid hit wins. This clearly went too far, I made a big mistake agreeing to change the rules. Anyone else would have been killed in the position you're currently in, and that blast you were just about to fire would have killed your opponent in an instant. This match is over, I've made my decision. Retract your Earth Magic, Lehosa!" She commanded.

  He didn't land a solid hit on me, I jumped into a solid hit from him, it was all part of my set up for my attack!

  I kept quiet though, there was no point complaining now. Even if she did allow us to continue, I couldn't fight anymore. I still had some Mana since I didn't fire that blast, but healing all these injuries would completely wipe out my stamina, not to mention that I had lost a lot of blood. While repairing my body ate up stamina, replacing lost blood consumed Mana.

  "Heh, too bad, freak. I'd have liked to put a few more spikes through you."

  "……if there's a next time, I'll make sure to kill you without any interruptions," I replied coldly, before heading back to my group without waiting for a response.

  I had focused my healing on my legs first, so that I could walk straight, and I was currently regrowing the shredded gaps in my stomach and healing my eye. Goddammit……my outfit was ruined.

  "Hey, are you……okay? You took a lot of hits back there, Kuro," Asked Persia, grabbing my arm slowly with her brows furrowed, as I rejoined the others.

  "Yeah, I'll be as good as new in a few more minutes. Though I'll be totally drained."

  "Are you sure you're alright though, dude? Those injuries look seriously nasty."

  "Yes, perhaps you should go to the infirmary and rest up."

  "Some sleep will do you good……trust me."

  The others had completely circled me.

  "You guys are overreacting! I'm totally fine, it's nothing I can't heal!" I huffed sitting down on the ground as the fatigue began to hit me as I healed.

  Yeah, my strategy was pretty reckless and I'd have never attempted something like that in my old life with my old, normal body, but because of my Healing Factor, being a bit reckless to form my strategies was something I could afford to do, and something I certainly didn't mind doing.

  Their concern was completely unnecessary. In fact, it was sort of annoying. But, I had to admit……

  It was also kinda nice.

  "Next match, A vs C!"

  This should be interesting. The Lehosa twins were about to battle it out at last, I was curious to see how it would play out. What can I say, I enjoy a bit of drama.

  "Hey there, first years. I wanted to ask you something," Came a voice from behind us.

  We turned around, to face the guy we had noticed before, he'd been watching this mock tournament from behind one of the training hall pillars all this time. He was rather tall and well built, with black hair that appeared to have been partially dyed with a few white streaks, his face had a confident smirk and piercing black eyes, though the middle of his right pupil had a slight, red tinge.

  "And you are?" I inquired, raising an eyebrow.

  "Oh I'm just a third year at this Academy. I was wondering……were you the first year group that went down to the Goblin cave last week and got lost in the underground maze?" He inquired, an eerie smile on his face.

  Before any of us could answer, Instructor Tabbs walked up to us, putting a hold on starting the next match.

  "Please don't interrupt my students while my session is still ongoing. If you wish to speak to them, do so afterwards, Mr Ragiu," Informed Instructor Tabbs firmly.

  "Oh alright, then. You've always been rather inflexible in these matters, Instructor. Well then, I'll be waiting outside the training hall for you, first years," He said, as he turned and headed out.

  Miss Tabbs returned to the middle of the hall and started to signal the start of the next match. But the five of us were all frozen.

  "Uh, guys. What did she just call him?" Asked Rai, his eyes wide.

  "Did she just say Ragiu?"

  The same last name as the guy we killed in the maze.

  _____________________________________________

  Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism! Also, check out my Instagram account @aimdaqs for posts relating to this book.

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