"Humm..." Petra groaned, dazed.
She was lying on a bed in a separate, quiet room. "Where... where am I?" she asked, slowly opening her eyes. A faint light hit her vision as she tried to make sense of her surroundings.
"Petra!" Asuna called out, stepping closer. "Stay calm... you're okay now."
"I thought we had won..." Petra whispered, her voice weak.
"Not exactly... you were defeated by the last opponent standing in the arena. But at least you were able to leave her with more hope for victory," Asuna explained.
"Leave her with more hope? Are you talking about...?"
"Exactly. Our leader at the moment."
Meanwhile, back at the tournament arena, with firm and determined steps, she climbed each stair until she finally reached the center where the combat would take place.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... AT THIS VERY MOMENT, WE WILL WITNESS THE SECOND ROUND!" the announcer shouted, bursting with excitement. "THE WINNER OF THE PREVIOUS ROUND, RYUSUI ASTREA vs. PAN SUN!"
The crowd cheered and roared for the new match. In that moment, the two were already face to face.
"Wait... they let a little doll join this tournament? Come on... I don't want to have to mess up that pretty face of yours," Ryusui mocked.
"You talk too much. You hurt one of my friends, and now I'm going to do the same to you," Pan replied with a cold stare. From the back of her garments, she drew a long wooden sword.
"HEY! THAT'S A WEAPON!" Ryusui shouted, pointing at it.
"It can indeed be considered a weapon, but let's take a look at the rules." Pan ran her fingers along the tip of the wooden blade; it wasn't sharp enough to cut, but it seemed perfectly weighted for impact. "No lethal weapons. My wooden sword isn't capable of slicing you to pieces. And if we're going to argue, you nearly killed my classmate by suffocation, which makes you a rule-breaker as well."
The announcer said nothing, nor did Director Hiro, proving that Pan's logic held up. The wooden sword was permitted for the match.
"Whatever! I'll defeat you anyway," Ryusui hissed.
The signal for the start of the match rang through the coliseum. Without wasting a second, both took their combat stances.
Lashing out at her opponent, Pan charged with a brave stance and a cold gaze. Amidst the sequence of swift slashes, Ryusui dodged calmly; some strikes were blocked by his invisible barriers, while others he parried with his own arms.
"STANCE TECHNIQUE: Vertical Slash!" Pan cried.
Ryusui sensed the threat almost instantly: a line of tension traced directly toward his body. Crossing his fingers to manifest a barrier around himself, the strike landed. The slash came from bottom to top in a straight line, so powerful that embers flew from the tip of the wooden sword.
"Haha! As if..." Ryusui started to laugh, but his smirk vanished as the barrier shattered seconds after the hit. "Damn you!"
Infuriated, Ryusui coated his fists in barriers and threw a punch that pushed Pan back a few meters. Without pausing, he created two barrier compartments and forced them to slam into each other, catching the girl in the central impact.
"Hahaha! A slash like that won't be enough to defeat me!" Ryusui shouted.
"Is that so? STANCE TECHNIQUE: Direct Piercing!" Pan replied calmly.
In the blink of an eye, Pan vanished from Ryusui's line of sight, reappearing below his guard. The tip of the wooden sword struck the veteran's stomach with surgical precision. Ryusui dropped to his knees instantly, spitting blood as he gasped, struggling to catch his breath.
"Wait, weren't you the strongest one here? I guess it was just my imagination..." Pan mocked with a disdainful tone. "Don't worry, the two you fought before were actually quite strong. Unfortunately, they had to fight a useless nobody like you."
"I... I can't lose..." Ryusui muttered, his voice weak from the sharp pain in his stomach. "My clan would never let me return home after a humiliating defeat like this!"
Pan leaned in and whispered coldly into Ryusui's ear: "Then prove that you're the strongest."
"YOU LITTLE BRAT!!" Ryusui roared, exploding in rage.
Slapping his palms together, he triggered a barrier pulse that threw Pan backward. He stood up unsteadily but took an aggressive combat stance. Pan wasted no time and charged again. At that moment, they seemed to be on equal footing. Slashes, lunges, blocks, and shoves; the fight continued at a frantic and balanced pace.
"Did you notice? She seems much faster than before," Asuna observed from the sidelines.
"I noticed. It seems to be part of her power," Giyo replied, focused.
"So, is her skill just gaining speed?" Asuna asked.
"Not exactly. Did you see how, since the start of the fight, both began with just a fraction of what they had? It's like accelerating in a race: warming up during the walk and now sprinting at full speed. But there's a problem... how much of this heat can her body actually handle?"
The combat was fierce. Pan's stance techniques were so precise that the strikes from her wooden sword felt like they were delivered by an iron blade. Ryusui narrowly dodged, using his barriers to push her back and counter-attacking whenever an opening appeared. But in a flash of speed... BOOM! A direct punch landed!
Pan was sent flying backward, stopping just an inch away from the edge of the arena.
"W-what did you do? Just get stronger out of nowhere? Haha," Pan mocked, wiping the corner of her mouth.
"Just pushing and punching when necessary was tiring me out. I realized that by creating small, overlapping layers of barriers, I can refine my control and boost my impact power," Ryusui explained.
"This guy is practicing and testing new skills in the middle of a fight? How bold..." Pan thought. "In that case, I'll try something new too."
Suddenly stopping her movements, Pan simply inhaled and exhaled slowly, closing her eyes for a moment.
"What is she doing?" Asuna asked, worried. "I... I have no idea either," Giyo replied, his eyes locked on the arena.
"Until this moment, my friends have pushed far beyond their limits... I heard clearly what happened to my brother that night at the manor. Flames covered his body and left him in that terrifying form because of me. I saw it for just a second before I fainted... I thought it was a dream, but now I know it's true," Pan thought.
She opened her eyes, which now seemed to glow with a dangerous intensity. "IF IT'S TO PROTECT MY FAMILY, I WILL USE MY ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM!"
Her stance shifted drastically. The blade was held close to her cheek, one leg forward and the other back to build maximum momentum. Gripping the hilt with both hands, Pan exhaled, releasing tiny embers between her lips. Her hair began to glow, lighting up in a fiery reddish hue.
The entire coliseum was stunned by the awakening of such an incredible skill. Spiral marks appeared around her mouth, turning as vivid as marks of blood.
"THAT MARK!" someone in the crowd shouted. "IMPOSSIBLE!" another cried.
Giyo and Law stood frozen, shocked by what they were witnessing. The question echoed in their minds: how could she have possibly awakened that?
Ryusui sensed the immediate danger. The sudden surge in magical pressure and the flames dancing around Pan's body made it clear that his defeat was an imminent threat. Desperate, he raised his hands, modeling layer after layer of barriers, trying to create the ultimate defense to shield himself from what was coming.
"Useless... the attack you're about to take will decide who was truly the strongest," the last ember of breath drifted from Pan's lips. "STANCE TECHNIQUE: Horizontal Slash!"
One... two... three... That was the time counted until impact. Pan shot forward like a lightning bolt. Reaching the barrier, she swung her sword in a precise left-to-right arc, slicing through Ryusui's defense as if it were nothing. The wooden sword, unable to contain such immense flame and power, shattered completely after the strike.
Pan appeared behind him, frozen for a second. "It's up to you now... Giyo, Asuna... good luck," she whispered, collapsing in defeat right alongside her opponent, who fell from the devastating blow.
"THE RESULT OF THE BATTLE... IT'S A DRAW!!!" the announcer cried out in shock.
The crowd erupted in cheers, stunned by the overwhelming potential of the first-year class. Giyo and Asuna stood in silence, absorbing their leader's final words of faith as the medics rushed onto the field.
"ONLY FOUR PARTICIPANTS REMAIN! TWO FROM THE FIRST YEAR AND TWO FROM THE THIRD YEAR!" the announcer shouted, raising the tension to its peak. "RIGHT NOW, WE WILL DECIDE THE GRAND FINALE: A 2-ON-2 MATCH!"