Free Web NovelChapter 6: Ash Fighting Lena
The classroom was tiered, projectors at the front, windows on the left overlooking the lower training grounds.
Standard academy setup.
Around fifty students in our massive classroom, mostly E-ranks. The few F-rank badges were grey, and they sat in clusters near the back, pressed toward the walls like they’d learned not to take up too much space.
One of them had a bruise on his jaw that appeared to be new.
The instructor, a lean man named Soren, pulled up a mana theory diagram on the projector and started talking without looking at anyone.
The lesson was dry. Soren went through mana channel capacity, the theoretical ceiling for each rank, the theory behind great collapse and other mundane things.
Kira, three rows ahead, answered two questions in the first twenty minutes. Both of which turned out correct, as if she was reading from a textbook she’d already memorized. The second one stumped three E-rankers before Soren pointed at her.
I watched the girl two seats to Kira’s left react.
She had her hair in a high ponytail, a smug expression on her face. "Typical," she said, loud enough for the entire class to hear. "F-ranks can’t do anything except memorize. You’d think being useless in a fight would at least teach you some humility."
A few of her friends laughed. Soren kept writing on the board.
Kira’s pen didn’t stop moving. She completely ignored her, focusing on the lesson.
I set my tablet down.
"Hey."
Ponytail Girl turned, her attention now fixed on me. "What?"
Half the row turned.
I wasn’t looking at them. I was looking at her.
"Apologize to her."
She blinked. Then her chin came up. "Excuse me? F-Rank trash standing up for each other now? Hahah, last I checked. You don’t get to—"
"Are you deaf? I said apologise."
She read my face, and whatever she found there made her mouth close for half a second.
Then it opened again.
"Listen, loser. You got lucky against Roman Vale, one fight doesn’t make you scary. You’re still an F ranker. You always will be, that’s just how pathetic your bloodline is."
Three other students joined the ponytail girl, siding with each other against me. There were four of them now, chairs turned slightly, the kind of passive grouping that happened when people thought numbers made them brave.
"Okay." I leaned back in my chair. "Let’s take this outside after class."
"Fine."
"Good." I picked my tablet back up.
She turned back around.
Soren, for his part, had not stopped writing. He drew a clean line under his diagram and moved on to the next point without so much as a glance at the back row.
The lesson finished on time.
Soren dismissed them as he left the classroom himself. Once he left, the room scraped and shuffled into motion. Students filed out through the main door, conversations picking back up, someone in the front laughing about what just happened.
Kira was the third person out. She didn’t look at me.
I let most of the class clear before I stood.
Ponytail was waiting in the corridor with her group, four of them, arms crossed. The corridor was quiet, with not much movement around.
A few other students had slowed down at the edges, clearly wanting to see how this ended.
I stopped three meters away and looked at her.
"I’ll let you go if you apologize." I put my hands in my pockets. "Otherwise, I’ll challenge you to an evaluation match. And I won’t have mercy on you because you’re a girl."
Silence dominated for a moment before one of the boys behind her snorted.
"You’ll challenge her?" He nudged the other guy. "Did he hit his head when he collapsed?"
"He’s serious." The second boy grinned. "The F-rank who passed out after one fight wants round two."
"Against an E-rank with a water element." Ponytail’s friend, a girl with cropped hair and too much eyeliner, covered her mouth with her hand. "That’s not a fight, that’s asking for a rough shower."
They laughed. A few of the bystanders at the edges of the corridor joined in.
"Yeah, show this trash who’s boss!"
I sighed.
Then I unclipped my badge and tossed it at her feet. The grey disc spun twice on the tile before stopping.
"I challenge you to a match, Miss E-Ranker." I held her eyes. "Show me who’s boss. If you dare."
The laughter cut off.
Ponytail stared at the badge on the floor between us. Her throat moved. I caught the flicker behind her eyes, the part of her brain replaying what happened to Roman Vale in the combat arena this morning. The part that remembered he’d been carried out on a stretcher.
"Lena, come on." Cropped Hair put a hand on her shoulder. "He’s pathetic. Your water element would drown him before he got close."
"She’s right," the first boy said.
Lena looked at her friends, then back at me, and whatever she’d been afraid of got buried under four voices telling her she had nothing to worry about.
"Fine." She threw her badge atop mine. "You want to embarrass yourself twice in one day, that’s your problem."
"Pull up the app."
She already had her phone out. The academy’s match system loaded, a clean interface with time slots and arena assignments.
"Next slot is Arena 3. One hour."
"Book it."
She tapped. My phone buzzed in my pocket with the confirmation. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
[Official Evaluation Match]
[Ash Rowan (320) vs. Lena Castille (823)]
I turned and walked away without another word.
"See you in an hour."
Their voices picked up behind me, I ignored it as I turned the corner.
Then I stopped at the sight of Kira leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and her eyes closed, like she’d been there for a while..
One eye opened.
"You regret it already?"
I looked at her. Dark hair framing her face, full lips pressed into a line. "Why would I regret it?"
"You challenged a water element to a fight an hour from now. You still haven’t recovered from the fight earlier. You collapsed this morning." She opened both eyes, staring me down. "Pick a reason."
I leaned against the wall next to her. Close enough that her shoulder tensed.
"You were listening."
"You were loud."
"You know, most people say thank you when someone stands up for them."
Her dark eyes cut to mine. "I didn’t ask you to."
"No, you didn’t. That’s what made it fun." I smiled.
She stared at me for a long beat, her expression unreadable, before pushing off the wall and walking past me.
"You’re going to lose."
"If I win, will you give me a kiss?"
Kira stopped. Her back was still turned towards me.
One heartbeat passed.
Then she kept walking, muttering something under her breath too low for me to catch.
I watched her go, grinning.
’I will make you mine...sooner or later.’
