Scarlet

I stare blankly in front of me for a few seconds before Black’s voice echoes throughout the silent stadium, “Absolutely amazing! It looks like the Blind Prophet saw far enough into the future with his foresight that he realized he had no chance at beating our young pup! So he surrendered to avoid the fight entirely!!!”

Silence fills the stadium for a little bit longer, only for it to be filled with a very conflicted sounding crowd.

I was really looking forward to battling him… it was supposed to be my therapy after last night!!

“Most people don’t go into battle as a form of therapy…” Tar mutters, but I ignore him.

“Even if we didn’t get a great battle as we were expecting, there are still the next battles! So give it up for the Scarlet Wolf, who is now one of the ten participants of the quarter finals!” Black’s voice echoes out over the complaints and cheers of the crowd, making the complaints come to a halt before being replaced with cheers themselves. “And next up, we have a long awaited battle between Zero and Lost!!!”

Now that gets the crowd to the level of ear shattering volume again as the two students in question appear in the arena far down below.

Hmm, okay, this could make up for that disappointment of a battle. Maybe.

Right when Abigail begins to prepare some of her skills, including a mental energy barrier and several weapons made out of mental energy around her, Zero calls out, “Hey, would you be interested in-”

“No,” Abigail cuts him off before he can even finish. Then she tilts her head and asks, “Do you just ask that to every pretty girl you find? Or is it just the strong ones?”

Zero blinks at both being cut off and questioned before shrugging and answering, “Only the strong ones.”

A lot of boos go through the stadium at that. Although I can’t help but notice a lot of squeals as well from girls who seem to be interested in the guy.

That’s… I’m not really sure how to take that. But it doesn’t really matter.

I know that he asked one other girl out during the tournament as well, but I didn’t realize he was just asking out every good looking girl who can fight well. Although the other girl he asked out was another one of the top runners suspected to reach the semi-final round on those betting sites. Before he defeated her that is.

“Wait, you actually checked out those betting sites?” Tar asks, sounding surprised.

I focus on the screen without answering.

“Actually, that makes sense…” Tar mutters before appearing in front of me and narrowing his eyes. “Considering how much you love money, I wouldn’t be surprised if you bet on yourself!”

I avert my eyes from the tanuki.

Don’t know what you’re talking about… the gambling site is a great website for gathering good intel on the other participants.

“Then why aren’t you looking me in the eye?” Tar asks, making me focus on his eyes again. “It doesn’t count if you look me in the eye after-”

Hey, look! They’re starting!

I look past the tanuki to focus on the battle, putting his accusations aside.

“You’re totally betting on yourself…” Tar grumbles before sitting on the armrest of my chair.

I focus on the arena, ignoring the tanuki’s words that are absolutely not true.

Tar snorts.

The battle starts out rather swiftly with both Zero and Abigail creating blades in the air, one of them making blades of ice and the other blades of mental energy that are glowing with an eerie purple light. And the blades quickly begin to clash in between the two primarily magic using Guardians. But Zero doesn’t leave it up to that as he pushes his palms out and makes that same wave of icy energy that he sent at me before go straight towards her.

Abigail narrows her eyes and the purple energy coating her body brightens before she suddenly begins to float up into the air, making my eyes widen slightly.

She never flew in any of her previous battles… guess she was hiding it for the tougher matches.

Zero narrows his eyes as well before cutting off his skill, letting the rest of it simply pass by underneath her while he raises one of his hands to point at her, following which dozens of blades of ice manifest around him and fly straight at her. Meanwhile her eyes begin to flare purple, and a large wall of purple energy appears in front of her with the rest of her mental energy weapons flying towards him, blocking half of the ice swords, and letting the rest of them shatter against her barrier.

“Impressive,” Zero says that same thing he said to me when we fought.

Abigail just nods, only for her eyes to start shining with a bright white light as she raises both of her hands to point at him, her hands also shining with that same light.

“Oh no you-” Zero begins, only for his eyes to flare with a purple light as he drops down to his knees with one hand grasping at his head and mutters, “Fuck…”

Looks like she used that mental spike skill of hers that lets her very quickly attack a target’s mind. A rather common skill amongst mental magic users. Although a brief attack and not a very damaging one.

And to prove that point, Zero begins to climb back to his feet again a few seconds later while creating the same massive storm of ice and snow he was gonna use on me before I smashed him with a ball of blood.

Both of the powerful skills rage on, the white light shining from Abigail’s hands growing brighter and the large storm above Zero slowly turning into a large spike pointing towards Abigail. And after several more seconds of the two skills building up, they both release, shooting straight at the other and making a loud explosion ring out when they clash despite the mental attack mostly ignoring the tornado, only dispelling some of it as it passes through.

The tornado on the other hand explodes against her barrier, shattering it and making the storm spread out, covering everything and making the result of the battle impossible to tell.

Everyone in the audience goes silent, simply watching and waiting as the icy mist and snow clears, eventually revealing Abigail coughing out blood with both of her arms frozen solid, along with Zero who is lying flat on his back with a blank look in his eyes.

“And the winner is Lost!!!” Black shouts, making the audience go crazy.

She might be trouble. No, scratch that. She will be trouble.

“Yeah,” Tar mutters.