The moon hung high, a silver sliver in a sky the color of ink, as Hiruko stood in the old conservatory's forgotten training ground. The air was cool, carrying the scent of damp earth and crushed leaves. Across from him, a few dozen feet away, stood Mina Rosewalt. She was a silhouette against the pale moonlight, her fiery hair a dark halo, her arms crossed patiently over her chest. Her expression was unreadable, her gaze a steady, quiet pressure that made the skin on Hiruko's neck prickle. This was it. The duel.
"Ready, Lukas?" she asked, her voice a soft command that seemed to carry in the still air.
Hiruko took a slow, deliberate breath, his mind a whirlwind of calculations. He needed to be the clumsy, desperate boy he was impersonating, but with a hidden, razor-sharp edge. He clenched his fists, forcing a tremor into his hands, and gave a tight, nervous nod.
"As I'll ever be."
The duel was one round. He had to hit her. His plan, a simple physical trap, was his first, best shot. He took a single, shuffling step forward, feigning a clumsy, hesitant approach. He had to draw her in, to make her think he was nothing more than a panicked boy flailing in the dark.
Mina remained still, her arms still crossed. She was waiting for him, daring him to make the first move. Hiruko's heart hammered against his ribs. He had to look like he was trying to cast a spell. He raised his hand, his fingers twitching in a pathetic attempt to channel mana. The air around him remained stubbornly still.
"Come now, Lukas," Mina said, a hint of impatience in her voice. "You're not going to hit me with a pathetic cantrip from fifty feet away."
That was his cue. He took another stumbling step forward, his feet shuffling clumsily, and then another, and another. He was close now, his left foot hovering just above the tripwire. He could see it, a thin, nearly invisible thread stretched across the path. He had to make it look like an accident. He began to whisper a fake incantation, a jumble of magical-sounding words he'd picked up from the scrolls. His face was a mask of concentration, his eyes fixed on some point just above Mina's shoulder.
He took a step forward and his foot snagged the vine.
The sound was a sharp, brittle snap, loud in the quiet night. The dry vine broke instantly, and the small pile of stones behind the thorny bush scattered with a clatter, a loud, rattling noise in the sudden silence.
Mina's eyes, which had been fixed on his clumsy magical effort, snapped to the sound. It was only a fraction of a second, an instinctive, human reaction to a sudden noise. But it was enough.
In that brief, fleeting moment, Hiruko acted. He wasn't thinking about magic or mana; he was thinking about physics and misdirection. He was thinking like Hiruko Nagasaka, the office worker who knew how to exploit a momentary weakness. He reached into his sleeve, his fingers closing around the small, smooth pebble he had hidden there, and brought his hand forward, not in a throw, but in a simple, extended motion, dropping the pebble from his fingers.
The stone bounced once, twice, and then clattered harmlessly against a broken paving stone, stopping a full yard short of Mina's feet.
Her gaze, which had flickered away for a moment, returned to his face, a slow, knowing smirk spreading across her lips. "Nice try, Lukas," she said, her voice laced with amusement. "A physical trap? I'll admit, that was a little unexpected. But a pebble? You'll have to do better than that."
Panic, cold and sharp, sliced through Hiruko's carefully constructed calm. The plan had failed. It had been his best shot, a simple, elegant move, and it had fallen short. The duel was one round, and he had just wasted his only good trick. His heart hammered in his chest, a frantic drumbeat against his ribs. He had to have a backup. He had to have another plan.
He took a stumbling step back, his foot scraping against the ground. He had to feign the panic of a boy whose one good idea had just failed. "No... no, it's not over yet!" he stammered, his voice cracking with a manufactured desperation. He reached into his satchel, his mind racing. He pulled out a fistful of dry, crumpled leaves, the kind he'd seen students use to practice basic cantrips. He held them out, his fingers trembling, and tried to channel mana into them, to make them float.
Mina's smirk widened. "Oh, Lukas, please. You're not going to make a leaf float in a hundred years."
The leaves remained stubbornly on his palm, an absurd, pathetic failure. Hiruko's mind was a whirlwind. He had another backup plan. The wind. He had to use the wind. He had to use the one element he didn't need to control with mana. He looked up at the sky, at the barely perceptible breeze rustling the leaves of the trees. It was his only hope. He took a deep breath, his chest heaving, and gave a sharp, powerful exhale. He blew as hard as he could at the leaves.
The leaves scattered, a chaotic flutter of brown and yellow, but they flew sideways, away from Mina, catching a sudden gust of wind that sent them swirling toward the broken conservatory wall.
Mina shook her head, her laughter a soft, melodic sound in the quiet night. "Really, Lukas? You're going to try to hit me with a mouthful of hot air?" She took a slow, confident step forward, her eyes never leaving his. "Just give up. You can't win. This isn't a game. You're trying so hard, but you're only making a fool of yourself. Don't worry, your father and brother won't hear about this."
The laughter, the calm confidence, the condescending pity—it all fueled a cold, quiet rage inside Hiruko. He wasn't just fighting for himself anymore. He was fighting for the boy who had been beaten down, who had been called useless, who had been dismissed as a disgrace. He wouldn't give up. Not now. Not when he was so close.
He took another step back, his mind a whirlwind of frantic calculations. The duel was one round, and he was running out of time. He had to hit her. He had to win. He had to do something she would never expect. Something that had nothing to do with magic or physics or logic. Something born of pure, desperate chaos.
"I won't give up!" he yelled, his voice a high-pitched, desperate whine that was so perfectly Lukas, it felt like it had been there all along. He picked up stones and began to throw at her, that act was useless as soon as he did that, the genius has already activated a mana shield, a basic spell which could be cast by almost anyone with decent mana which he read while researching spells, which deflected them which lasts for ten seconds.He held up a second fistful of leaves, and this time, he didn't try to blow them. He threw them, a wild, flailing gesture, his arms pinwheeling in the air. The leaves went everywhere, a confetti of failure, but one of them, by a cruel twist of fate, landed just pass by Mina's forehead.
Mina stared at the leaf, a single moment of pure, unadulterated shock on her face. Her confident smile vanished, replaced by a look of bewildered annoyance. Her eyes, for the first time, not on him, but on the small, insignificant chance of her actually getting defeated by pure dumb luck.
It was the opening. It was the moment he had been waiting for, a moment born not of cunning, but of pure, absurd luck.
He moved. He took a single, powerful step toward her, his body a blur of motion. He didn't have a plan. He had an instinct. He had to hit her. He had to win. He had to finish this.
Mina's eyes snapped back to his, a flicker of genuine alarm in their depths. The amusement was gone, replaced by a flash of fear. She saw the grim determination on his face, the reckless desperation in his eyes, and in that fleeting, terrifying moment, she realized she had miscalculated. She had been treating him like a lost puppy, but he was a cornered animal, and he was about to strike. Mina raised up her shield as she saw Lukas still trying to pathetically throw some leaves on the air, still clinging to luck.
Her aura, which had been calm and controlled, flared to life, a sudden, powerful pulse of magical energy. Her eyes, her beautiful, piercing blue eyes, began to glow with a malevolent, pulsing light. The color was a deep, vibrant crimson, the terrifying, tell-tale sign of her family's bloodline.
She didn't have time to cast a spell. She didn't have time to use magic. She had to end this now. She had to use the one weapon that could defeat a man who was fighting with sheer will. She had to use her mind.
Her lips, which had been smiling a moment ago, now moved in a silent, chilling command. The words were not spoken, but broadcast directly into his mind. Give up. You will not fight me. You will stop now.
The command was a wave of pure, mental force, a cold, unyielding pressure that slammed against Hiruko's mind. His body felt heavy, his muscles unwilling to obey. His mind, the mind of Hiruko Nagasaka, was in a battle for its very freedom.But it was futile, Mina calmed down assured of her victory " I have to admit, that you actually made me use my crimson eyes is an achievement in itself. But it's over Lukas."
But he had a plan. A ridiculous, desperate, last-ditch effort. He had been preparing for this. He had been hoping for this. He had planned for the moment she would be confident, cocky, and then scared. The moment she would try to use her eyes. He was already in motion.
Before getting affected by her eyes.Hiruko's hand, which had been fumbling in his satchel, came out in a single, fluid motion. It wasn't a leaf. It wasn't a stone. It was a single, tiny, almost invisible pebble hidden among the leaves he had been throwing in the air, He threw it.
The toss was pathetic, a clumsy, underhanded lob. But the angle was perfect. The timing was impeccable. The pebble, an insignificant speck of rock, flew through the air, and for a terrifying, agonizing moment, it seemed to hang there, motionless because of the mana shield Mina has held up. It was a gamble that she would become relaxed after becoming sure of her victory and the mana shield will be deactivate after 10 seceonds right when the pebble was on top.
The pebble hit Mina's right eyelid with a soft, gentle thud. It wasn't hard enough to hurt, but it was enough to make her flinch, to break her focus. The crimson glow in her eyes flickered, a brief, unsteady pulse. The command in Hiruko's mind vanished, replaced by a moment of silent, unadulterated shock.
He had won. He had hit her. A simple pebble had defeated a prodigy. He had beaten magic with physics. He had beaten her terrifying family trait with a simple, perfectly timed trick. He stood there, chest heaving, as Mina slowly reached up to touch her eyelid, her face a mask of utter, complete disbelief. The duel was over.
Mina stood there, her hand hovering over her eyelid, her face a mask of utter disbelief. The duel was over. She had been bested. Not by a spell, not by a burst of mana, but by a simple pebble. The frustration was clear on her face, a tight-lipped scowl that spoke of a prodigy who had just been defeated by a boy everyone considered a failure.
But then, as she lowered her hand and met his gaze, the scowl slowly faded. A different expression took its place—one of dawning realization. The frustration was replaced by surprise, and then, by a genuine, heartfelt smile. It was a smile that reached her eyes, turning them from their usual piercing blue to a warm, soft hue.
"You win, Lukas," she said, her voice filled with a mixture of disbelief and admiration. "That was… incredibly clever. And incredibly stupid." She let out a small, breathless laugh. "You could have just used a simple cantrip, but you went and built a whole trap. A physical one, no less."
She took a step closer to him, her gaze unwavering. "You've changed. I don't know what happened to you, but you're not the same person who ran away from everything. I saw your resolve, your determination, your refusal to give up. You were willing to lose a duel to win the fight. That's not the Lukas I know."
She placed a hand on his shoulder, her touch warm and reassuring. "I'm relieved. I was worried you were going to be stuck forever. But you're not. You're fighting now. And I'm going to help you win." She gave his shoulder a firm squeeze. "The exam is in two weeks. That's not much time, but it's enough. We'll start tomorrow. We have work to do."