( Yuuki's POV )
The last competition of the first round was decided again by roulette and this was an obstacle course that limited the routes they could take due to tall trees, and of course there was also an air route for those with the ability to fly (which were almost all to be fair) created by mountains that reached up to the maximum height of the pocket dimension.
The teams had to choose two members to participate, and when the arena was transformed for the competition, the chosen members from each team stood at the starting line.
From the Sekirei disciplinary committee were Miu and Haruhime, from the princess guard were Yumina and Leo, from the IS academy were Tsukiumi and Charl, and Sona chose Momo and Saji from her peerage to participate.
Haruhime and Leo were in their beast forms and it seemed like they were the only ones who were going to take the land route, Yumina couldn't transform into her dragon form because that would violate the size rule in the competition so she used her dragonewt form.
I was back doing the commentary and the competition started not with the stadium siren but with some classic racing lights and when the green light came on the participants went out at maximum speed, as if they were previously tied by chains and the green light freed them.
At first things were very straight but things were not going to stay that way for long, the race was divided into five parts with a checkpoint at the end of each part and the first section was a competition of pure speed and Tsukiumi, Yumina and Miu were in a close battle for the lead.
The three girls crossed the first checkpoint almost at the same time, and almost immediately they encountered the obstacle of the second section, a wall of metallic air appeared in front of the girls and they braked in midair before colliding, something similar was also happening on the land route, stone walls emerged from the ground and blocked Leo and Haruhime's path, they tried to jump over the walls but the walls started to go up and down erratically and they were almost hit but their reflexes were better when they were in their beast form and they were able to maneuver between the emerging walls.
Above them, Miu drew one of her swords and tried to cut her way through the obstacles but as it cut through one of the walls of hardened air it released a shock wave that pushed the three girls on the front, seeing that this was not the most efficient strategy and with the rest of the girls getting dangerously close, they decided to fly around the obstacles.
The three team leaders stayed ahead but the rest of the girls were on their heels and Momo seeing the effect of the obstacles she shot at the walls in front of the leaders to force them to dodge and slow down, which gave her the opportunity to join the leaders.
The others behind them began to run cover for their teammates, the girls crossed the second checkpoint in the same order as the previous one with Momo settling into fourth place.
The obstacles in the third section were visible mines, this wasn't very difficult to dodge so the girls had no problem moving forward but the girls were already expecting that things wouldn't be that simple, the girls kept their eyes open for hidden traps, which there were.
Mixed in with the visible mines were mines with optical camouflage, the first to discover this was Yumina, by pure instinct she shot an arrow of light forward and it exploded when it collided with the mine that they couldn't see.
With that discovery the girls shared a look for a second, then bullets and magic began to fly as the girls continued the race, from behind Charl transformed her IS into her armor form and she unleashed a barrage of bullets and missiles that created a clear path for Tsukiumi, that gave her the lead and she was the first to leave the minefield.
In the fourth section of the race Tsukiumi came across a mountain that completely stopped his progress, the only way to continue moving forward was to enter one of the tunnels that led to a labyrinth, I must say that those who were going by land had a slight advantage here, their labyrinth was only divided into double or triple intersections while up above it was almost double that.
When Tsukiumi chose a tunnel the image changed to a video inside the maze where everyone could see Tsukiumi flying at high speed, but at the same time my disbelief grew more and more as I watched Tsukiumi navigate through the maze, she somehow managed to stumble upon every single dead end that was in her way, completely killing the advantage she had gained before.
After a while in the labyrinth someone managed to get to the other side of it and as I thought that was someone who was going by land, Leo left at full speed and after her Haruhime and Momo left their respective tunnels, they crossed to the final section where they found some giant floating rings, the first thing they did was ignore that and aimed for the goal at full speed, but as they passed the first rings they were transported back to the last checkpoint, they were confused and I proceeded to explain how the last section works.
In the final part, the participants would go through the rings in the order they appeared and if they failed one they would be returned to the last checkpoint, upon receiving the information, the girls continued the race and those who started to leave the maze did not make the same mistake as the previous girls.
At this point it seemed like anyone could be the winner but things got complicated when the last person leave the maze, this was Tsukiumi, With a big frown on her brow she flew at top speed towards the goal, I guess it was a bit frustrating for her to go through all those dead ends.
As she passed the last checkpoint, suddenly four pairs of golden angel wings sprouted from her back and she reached new speeds and in an instant she was catching up with and surpassing the other participants.
Saji used his sacred gear to grab Tsukiumi and stop her but his sacred gear stretched to its maximum capacity and he was dragged by Tsukiumi's power in the end, she quickly caught up with the leaders and that's where the fight for the finish line began, Yumina who was in first place was ahead with Tsukiumi and while they fought for first place, they were getting away from the others, they crossed the finish line at top speed and couldn't even stop when they finished, the winner was unclear so I looked up with anticipation at the leaderboard where the scores started to appear.
The first name to appear was Tsukiumi, who came in first place with eight points, Yumina in second with seven points, Miu in third place with six points, Momo was fourth with five points, Leo was fifth with four points, Charl was sixth with three points, Haruhime was seventh with two points, and Saji was dragged to last place with one point.
All put together the final score was, one hundred points for the IS academy and the Princess Guard tied for first place, fifty for the Sekirei disciplinary committee and twenty-five for the team Sona