The Midterm Duel

The arena at Seiryoku Academy was built for spectacle.

A bowl of pale stone fell away to a ward-laced floor, circular stands climbing like teeth all around it. Capture-mesh runes braided through every flagstone, quiet for now, ready to turn stray death into scolded light. Siphon vents ringed the rafters like silver gills, drinking off-arc heat before it found a face. Injury sprites—polite little constructs with red-cross sigils—floated in a lazy patrol, pretending not to stare at the students who would need them.

On the far wall, a scoreboard glyph idled: WARDS: GREEN • CAPTURE: ARMED • HEALERS: READY. Above it, panes of warded glass peered out at Energis-7’s evening skin—skyrails drawing bright parabolas between towers, vents on the horizon exhaling a cool industrial blue the arena swallowed and returned as a hush.

On normal days, the ring hosted practice matches or graded sparring exams.
Today, it was hosting something different.

Today it was hosting me.

“Look at all of them,” Renji breathed, leaning over the railing beside me as the stands filled—uniforms in waves of white and maroon, AR sprite-notes zipping between hands like rumor-birds. “Every single person came to watch you either triumph or combust.”

“That’s encouraging,” I said.

“It should be! Attention is power.” He spread his arms dramatically. “And besides, there’s a nonzero chance of triumph.”

Kenji adjusted his scarf, unimpressed. “Correction: there is a 2.3% chance of triumph if Himura underestimates, missteps, or spontaneously faints.”

“Which is better than zero,” Renji said brightly. “And you’ve got Mark Zero! That’s double the zero. That’s—”

“Still zero,” I muttered.

Hana stood close enough that I could feel her sleeve brush mine. She’d carried her thermos all the way up the stands like a talisman, as if I could sip tea mid-duel. “You don’t have to do this,” she whispered.

I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “She challenged me. If I run, I’ll never stop running.”

Her lips pressed together. She didn’t argue. She just whispered, “Don’t let her decide your story.” Then she shoved the thermos into my hands like a charm and turned red when our fingers touched. “For…hydration,” she stammered.

“Thanks,” I said, and meant it.

A shadow leaned on the railing one section down. Kaien didn’t call my name. He didn’t have to. His eyes did a long, quiet inventory—stance, grip, pulse. The corner of his mouth twitched, almost a sentence: Feet, not fear. Tools don’t forgive lazy feet. I breathed, once, and the arena sharpened.

The referee, a stern upperclassman with a staff capped in a regulation ward-lens, raised it high. His voice rode a whisper-spell that made every syllable click. “Combatants, to the floor.”

The crowd roared. My stomach turned into an elevator cable that had just been cut.

Ayaka Himura stood already waiting in the center of the ring, coat immaculate, ribbon tied neat, hair gleaming a controlled red flame, eyes ember-bright under the dome lights. She didn’t need theatrics. The capture mesh under her feet seemed to lean closer just to hear the shape of her stance.

I stepped onto the stone opposite her. The wards hummed. My practice sword hung at my side. Mark Zero rested heavy in my other hand—chamber empty, crystals inert, the sound-rune under the rail silent as a held breath. Dead weight. Or maybe waiting.

Ayaka looked me over. “You came. Good.”

“Didn’t have a choice,” I said.

“There’s always a choice,” she replied. “Some people choose to matter. Some don’t.”

I tightened my grip on the sword. “Guess we’ll see which I am.”

The referee’s voice rang out, echoed by AR overlays that failed to ping my null-field: “By Academy rule, this is a sanctioned midterm duel between first-years Temo Kuroganezu and Ayaka Himura. Rules: surrender, incapacitation, or ring-out determines defeat. Lethal force forbidden. Begin!”

The staff struck the ground.

Ayaka moved first.

Flame leapt from her hand in a wide slash, a whip of fire that cracked against warded stone. Heat licked my face; the siphons coughed open with a satisfied hiss. Instinct screamed to back away. If you fight her fight, you’re already dead, Kaien had said.

So I didn’t back. I slid sideways, feet finding the ring-lanes Kenji had chalked into me—A, B, C—catching the rhythm I’d practiced until my calves burned. Her whip cut air where I’d been, not where I was.

Ayaka’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve practiced.”

I didn’t answer. My sword came up, wooden but steady, and took the next lash on the flat. It glanced off with a sound like a log in a fire; the capture mesh flashed a polite yellow where the heat spilled.

She snapped her wrist—another arc, then a third. She wasn’t just throwing flame. She was writing tempo: long—longer—short, exactly where Kenji’s notes warned it would turn cruel. She widened the arena until it felt like there was nowhere to stand that wasn’t her idea.

The crowd found their voice.

“He’s swinging sticks at fire!”

“Three minutes!” someone yelled. “Bet’s on three!”

Ayaka’s pressure built, wide arcs that denied approach, then a sudden tighten that punished any attempt to breathe. I matched the first, refused the second, stumbled at the third—almost. Heat kissed my sleeve; char raised a ghost-smell. Mark Zero weighed the hand I wasn’t using, the sound-rune still silent, the chamber still empty.

“Feet,” I heard myself say under the noise. “Not fear.”

I slid again—boot, heel, pivot—into a lane that made no sense until the whip passed just behind my calf. The capture mesh pulsed approval; the stands jeered; Ayaka’s gaze sharpened like a blade finding the right whetstone.

“Don’t run,” she called, and her voice carried on the whisper-spell without strain. “Stand and matter.”

“I am,” I said, and meant I will.

We crossed once—me inside, sword up; her outside, flame spiraling in a clean helix that made the air ring. The wood hissed; my hands shook; Mark Zero dragged my balance out of its lane. She saw it, of course she saw it, and shifted again: long—longer—short.

Pain is not a strategy, Kaien had said. If you choose it anyway, choose it with a purpose.

I made a choice.

Ayaka cracked another whip. I let it come. At the last moment—inside her story but not believing it—I pulled an empty crystal from my pocket and held it out like a dare.

Her fire struck.

The crystal flared.

Agony bit my palm; for a breath I tasted metal and rosemary and the bright, stupid tang of trying something you can’t take back. The ward lens on the referee’s staff flashed a warning red; an injury sprite zipped in frantic little circles, chirping CAUTION.

But the crystal drank. Hungry. Greedy. Its heart went from dead-glass to angry ember, the sound-rune on Mark Zero singing up a fifth as if the room had been holding the note for me all along.

Hana screamed my name. Renji shouted something incoherent and triumphant. Kenji’s pen shattered and kept writing in spirit.

I jammed the burning crystal into Mark Zero’s chamber. The shock mounts we’d stolen and tamed in the lab shuddered, then held. The rune lines along the frame lit like capillaries filling; the crooked sight winked awake; the tone that meant ready rang in my ear. My skin blistered under the grip. I wrapped my fingers tighter.

Ayaka’s eyes widened a fraction. “You—”

I raised the weapon and squeezed.

The shot wasn’t clean. It wasn’t perfect. It was flame given back, shaped by steel and script instead of bloodline: a focused cough that tore across the ring. The capture mesh flared hard-white to catch the worst of it; Ayaka twisted, fast enough that the cone didn’t center, but not so fast that it didn’t break her rhythm. A heat-gust lifted her coat-hem; her second step stuttered; she had to write a new pattern on the fly.

The stands erupted. “The Nullborn fired magic! He fired—!”

Smoke curled from the barrel; the sound-rune dropped to a low, satisfied hum; my hand screamed where the crystal’s burn had branded it. An injury sprite zipped close, paused, and—seeing the staff’s green light—hovered at the edge of the ring like a nervous aunt.

Ayaka recovered, because of course she did—resetting her stance in two heartbeats, ember eyes hot with something that wasn’t quite anger. She snapped a shorter lash, tried to hook me back into the story she preferred. I didn’t let her—step where the story breaks—boot, heel, pivot—inside the arc instead of away, sword coming up not as a wall but as an answer to an angle.

We traded space in narrow lanes the crowd couldn’t see. Long—counter. Longer—counter. She went to short again, and I was waiting, feet quiet, blade low. The wooden edge skimmed her wrist; sparks fanned like angry fireflies and were drunk greedily by the siphons before they could land.

She smiled. Barely. Then she changed the problem: not a whip now, a palm-flame that bloomed—a blossom, precise and clean, the thing that made her nickname make architectural sense. A wash that would punish any attempt to blitz.

I didn’t blitz.

I showed blitz—left shoulder, sword high—then cut the angle into absence, a step almost behind myself, the kind of geometry that only works if your feet believe you more than fear does. Her blossom fanned where I’d been; the capture mesh drank; my coat smoked and did not ignite. Mark Zero came up under her elbow, not to fire—I had a single cough left and I wanted more than loud—I used the weight like a lever and let the tone in the rail guide my timing the way other people read mana on skin.

Close enough now to see the tiny scuffs on the button of her cuff, the micro-ward stitching that kept her sleeves from crisping when she breathed too hard.

Close enough.

I pivoted sharp. The wooden blade slid, gentle as a question, to the hollow of her throat.

Silence slammed the arena shut. All I could hear was the low tone humming under my grip and the small, astonished sound the crowd makes when the story turns left.

Ayaka froze. Ember eyes locked on mine. For a heartbeat, we just breathed—the smell of smoke between us, the weight of possibility heavy as iron. I felt the burn in my palm like the memory of a vow.

Then she smiled. Just slightly. Enough to shift the world.

“You’re still an idiot,” she said, voice low enough that only I caught the warmth under the steel. “But you’re my rival now.”

The referee’s staff cut the air. “Winner: Temo Kuroganezu!”

The arena detonated—cheers, jeers, disbelief, applause—colliding into a storm the siphons couldn’t drink. Renji was a single, continuous scream somewhere in the noise; Kenji had both hands on his head like he’d just seen math commit a crime against itself; Hana had her fingers over her mouth and tears bright in her eyes and then, suddenly, she was at the barrier, calling my name like it was a spell.

The capture mesh dimmed from white to green. The scoreboard glyph rolled to SAFE • HEALERS DEPLOYED; sprites zipped in to scold my hand with cool gel and neat bandages that smelled like mint and ozone.

Ayaka stepped back, flame receding to the suggestion it usually wore. For a moment, with the whole school watching, she inclined her head the width of a breath. Not a bow. A recognition. Then she turned, coat settling like punctuation, and walked toward the tunnel as if she’d just amended a law and would not be taking questions.

Kaien caught my eye across the ring and didn’t smile. He nodded once—purpose chose pain—and that was an avalanche of approval for him. A prefect whispered to the referee; the ward-lens dimmed; the arena exhaled.

I sheathed the practice sword I wasn’t worthy of yet and nearly dropped it anyway, because my knees finally remembered gravity. Renji crashed into me first at the exit, half hug, half attempted chiropractic adjustment. “You weaponized science! You made the arena cough! You—”

“Breathe,” Kenji ordered both of us, then shoved a bottle of electrolyte nonsense into my unbandaged hand. His eyes were wild and calculating. “Odds revised post hoc to 17%, which is meaningless and also deeply upsetting.”

Hana didn’t say anything at first. She hovered, small and stubborn, until the injury sprite drifted aside, then took my scorched fingers between hers like she could convince heat to un-happen. “Please don’t make me bandage you,” she whispered, which was very funny timing.

“I’ll try,” I whispered back, which wasn’t a promise and felt big anyway.

A rumor wave rolled through the stands—Nullborn fires magic—Himura smiles—Kaien nods—and for once the shape of the words didn’t feel like a cage. The wardglass above us caught the city’s night and poured it back down. Skyrails looped. Tower halos burned. Seiryoku’s bubble hummed, old magic shaking hands with new machines.

The duel was over. The wards were safe. The arena remembered how to be a room.
But the story had only just lit.