Chapter 9: The fight continues! Touyo vs. Jun!

********************
Finally! The conclusion of the fight! I had a lot of fun writing this, so I hope you guys will have lots of fun reading it!
By the by, I took into consideration the comment from the last chapter, but I decided to leave it be for several reasons. There's a lot more content in store for this novel, and I realize that the idea was good (perhaps I'm just lazy), but I felt that it'll take away the content I created a very long time ago that have made this story into what it is today. I will still consider your advice (and will always think deep on them), but this time I'm going to let this slide at least for now.

Thanks for the helpful comment Stella Procella, but I hope you can keep reading to see more depth into the characters (cuz trust me, Jun and Shouko will come back ;) so keep on reading!)
********************

The night rolled on, the moon continuing its shining embrace to the people below. Standing in the park in the dead of night where nobody else was around—not that anybody could, since the barrier was still up—the Black Witches and the Dark Sorcerers fought off against each other to prove which is the most superior.

Or in this case, to see which students were taught the best by their teacher, so this fight is mostly to appease their masters.

Standing upright with a solid stance, Touyo glared the best he could towards the one standing before him—his new opponent.

This time, it wasn’t a monster, but a person—and another mage at that. The hooded figure stood before him with an upright position as well.

Meanwhile, the girls from their teams remained behind them, each offering their own words of encouragement.

“You got this, Touyo! So you better not let up and lose!” Tsubaki offered her own sense of encouragement, cupping the side of her mouth with a hand while grinning.

“Y-You can do it, Touyo! F-Fight on!” Yuki, not usually the one cheering others, did her best to voice out her cheer in a way she could.

This was the first time he received cheering from his own teammates. Touyo became giddy inside, pumping himself as he now had no choice but to win.

“Jun! You better not let him win! We already got a blemish enough as it is!”

Adrena cupped both sides of her mouth with her hands as she screamed out her complaint to the hooded figure named Jun.

“Jun! Avenge me!” Shouko, on the other hand, fully accepted that her loss was a blemish, and shouted to her companion as loud as she could.

By the way, she managed to recover thanks to Adrena’s professional first aid, and now only have a few scratches on her that will heal up in time.

“You stand no chance! Jun here is the absolute best in everything he does! He’s a genius compared to even other Dark Sorcerer trainees!”

As if to pile on more cheering, Shouko directed her shouts to Touyo to put him down, while praising Jun at the same time with a jubilant smile on her face.

“Genius…?” Touyo muttered to himself.

“What does she mean, Adrena?” Tsubaki asked after hearing that and getting curious.

“Mmh, she means exactly what she means,” Adrena only offered a sneering smile at Tsubaki.

Jun pulled on his hood and tore off the cloak to show off, leaving Touyo somewhat dismayed from the over-the-top flashiness.

The cloak flew about in the air, revealing the boy. At the same height as Touyo, the young boy had a mean look in his eyes, wearing black clothing of shirt and pants along with chainmail covering his arms. He showed to have spiky gold blond hair, and the strangest part of it all was that he was wearing a hat called a visor that showed off his spiky hair. There was an emblem on the visor hat that looked like a staff within the diamond’s center.

His tanned skin along with his orange-colored eyes made his appearance all the more intense to see.

“Jun here, back at the Dark Sorcerer academy, has the best grades among all the other students. He’s the top student along with Shouko here. These two were assigned to me by none other than the empress herself, proving that I have what it takes to cultivate these two’s talents to become top mages of their time, and perhaps across all time!”

Honking her own horn, Adrena praised her students along with herself while showing a grandiose pose of raising her arms wide with closed eyes.

Tsubaki, on the other hand, looked away while she rolled her eyes in annoyance. However, even as Tsubaki didn’t take that to mind, Touyo became somewhat intimidated by the boy’s glare.

(So he’s on the same level as Yuki…?)

The moment he made this comparison, his earlier confidence he got from his comrades slowly dissipated away.

“This boy is on his way to becoming the best Dark Sorcerer around, I know it! That’s why there’s no way he can lose to that boy raised from earth!”

Adrena now pointed exaggeratingly towards Touyo with her finger, a wild grin on her face as she does it. Touyo nearly flinched at her statement but kept his ground as he planted both feet on the ground with a steady stance.

(Damn it, it’s not like I can just call it off!)

Touyo had no other choice but to fight, otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he has to hear Tsubaki constantly calling him weak or coward. He raised both his hands into his combat stance, readying himself to fight.

“Hmph… I can barely sense arcana from him… this isn’t even worth it.”

However, Touyo widened his eyes when he heard Jun suddenly treated him like an invalid. He turned back at his master, a furrowed look in his sharp eyes.

“Hey, ‘master’, why don’t you just let this be? I got better things to do than to keep this hack busy.”

Touyo nearly gritted his teeth at his response to calling him a hack, but from the looks of things, Adrena looked even more insulted than him.

“Come on, Jun! At least do this much for me! You don’t want Tsubaki to keep slandering the Dark Sorcerer’s name, do you?!” Adrena furrowed her brows as she swung her fist up and down, not wanting to let this injustice towards the Dark Sorcerers any further.

However, Jun only sighed as he turned back towards Touyo.

“Hah, fine. Guess this will be at least a sparring match.”

Jun raised both hands so that his left was near his face, and his right was outstretched towards his opponent, ready to grab Touyo’s neck and squeeze the remaining life out of him.

The wind blew by, caressing the two boys as they stood against each other, the tension rising between them.

Yuki swallowed whatever air she had in her throat, the tension overwhelming her. Moving her hands towards herself, she prayed in her mind that Touyo would make it out okay.

Raising her hand high in the air, Tsubaki looked at the two with a fierce look in her eyes.

“Alright… start!”

Once Tsubaki swung her hand down, the fight finally commenced. Touyo’s heart nearly jumped after seeing Jun suddenly jerk and jumped back.

The action he did tilted Touyo’s head, surprising him to see that he was actually backing away.

“Touyo! Don’t give him space! He’s going to use his spells!”

Tsuba shouted at him after noticing Touyo’s hesitation, snapping him back into reality as he should have known that mages typically likes to fight in the distance.

However, it was already too late.

“Star Shower!”

Jun raised his right hand towards Touyo. A golden colored magical circle appeared in front of it. As soon as it appeared, a torrent of flying energy blasts shaped like stars flew out, all towards Touyo who widened his eyes.

“Aah!” Touyo’s body instinctively knew when danger was coming, and urged him to lunge towards to the side. He evaded all the stars except for one which grazed him on his foreleg, “Gah!”

Touyo’s grunt echoed as he landed on the ground. He turned back, the intense burning from his wound coursed through him as if he was cut by a hot knife. Blood dripped down from his wound and dyed the grass red.

“I-Is he trying to kill me?!” Touyo panicked, shouting as he stood back up. He tried to ignore the pain on his leg as he usually does whenever he gets injured.

“Don’t worry! The barrier around us is a special one—it makes any damage taken from spells reduced in potency/. Even if you get injured, once the barrier goes back down, the injuries should be erased like everything else!”

Tsubaki, explained the barrier’s purpose clearly, reminding Touyo about the very handy Existence Barrier placed around them. However, even if he knew that he would get out of his okay alongside Yuki, and explaining how Shouko was able to survive from Yuki’s torrent of spells, it didn’t help that he still has to fight like his life depended on it.

Touyo gritted his teeth. Jun remained in the distance with a glare. Somehow, Touyo grew rather annoyed—the fact that this jerk suddenly attacked him without a moment’s hesitation, and even looking at him as if he was studying him from head to toe—Touyo’s anger rose as he creased his brows.

“Fire!”

Touyo decided to copy his movements and keep a short distance away as he lifted his hand. A crimson magic circle appeared in front of it and burst forth a flamethrower like flame at his opponent.

However, even after the torrent of flames was coming towards him, the heat nearly burning his face—he just lifted his hand with a cool face and shouted.

“Moon Guard!”

A magic circle appeared in his hand, only this time it was larger than even Jun. At the center of the circle looked like a crescent moon. The fire crashed into the circle, the wind being blown from the impact as the flames danced across the magic circle without even touching Jun at all.

Touyo raised his brows in shock as he stopped the attack, the torrent of flames soon disappeared as only the powerful heat was left behind in the air. The magic circle disappeared, showing only Jun who seemed completely unfazed by his attack.

“…That’s your level? You gotta do better than making a simple fire spell.”

Jun practically scoffed as he appeared bitterly disappointed by Touyo’s level. Something within Touyo’s mind snapped, as if a thread that contained his anger compact split apart. Heat rising from his face, his anger rose to the brim and overflowed.

“Oh yeah?! We’ll see about that!”

Touyo now grew disinterested in holding himself back, and made a pistol-shaped hand gesture towards Jun. A crimson magic circle appeared again, causing Jun to raise his right brow.

“Fire Bullet!”

Touyo shot a small but blazing fire through the magic circle that flew towards Jun. Jun widened his eyes for a little bit before furrowing his brows.

It was fast, but apparently not fast enough. As soon as the bullet was closing in on him, Jun merely moved his head aside—the fire bullet missed by a long shot, shooting at the unfortunate tree that was standing behind him. The tree got shot at its wooden base, exploding upon impact that left the tree’s center smoking.

Touyo gaped at the sight—his own fully accurate spell missed by him just moving his head. Usually, one would be pretty desperate and dodge it with their whole body like Touyo would do, but Jun showed nothing of that desperation—only a cold and true analysis of the situation.

“That’s impressive,” Jun said with his eyes closed, then he opened them up and frowned. “However, if that’s the best you got, then it’s severely disappointing.”

Gritting his teeth, Touyo would like nothing else than to clock him across his face. But as long as Jun kept his distance, Touyo was at a loss of what he could do.

Then, Jun rushed in by running, ignoring the advantage he had.

“H-Huh?!” Touyo flustered—he didn’t expect that Jun would suddenly run at him when he already had him pinned.

Jun got close to Touyo and placed his hand on the grass, “Planetoid Smash!”

A giant golden circle appeared under Touyo’s feet. The light shined brighter as Touyo panicked as he tried to jump back, but it was too late.

The ground suddenly broke apart, and white-colored stone jutted out of the ground shaped like walls. The impact hit Touyo directly on his stomach, and his body flew upwards.

“Aaaaagh!” Touyo’s scream pierced through their hearing as his body flew across the sky and landed on the ground.

“W-Why did he run like that?” Yuki asked which prompted Tsubaki to explain.

“Probably to confuse him. Touyo was already losing his cool—it only takes a small move to completely shake him up. He already has this in the bag.”

Tsubaki, for once, didn’t appear to have fun. She bit her thumb with her teeth as the tension of the fight was getting to her.

“What else did you expect?” Adrena confirmed Yuki’s fear, showing a smug grin. “Jun’s a genius. Against someone fo that caliber, this is really nothing but hard to see.”

As they talked, Touyo’s stomach stung in pain as he curled up to hold it in hope of recovering from it. However, his ears perked when he heard Jun’s voice again.

“And another—Star Shower!”

Without missing a beat, Jun swung his left hand forward and summoned the golden magic circle to shoot out another torrent of star-shaped energy shots towards Touyo.

Touyo already grew accustomed of being hit around and raised himself quickly to meet up with the energy blast being thrown at him.

“G-Ghh, freeze!”

Touyo gripped his fist tight, holding onto the piece inside of his glove as he slammed it down on the ground. Soon the ground became encased in ice, and it quickly formed into a wall of ice which seemed so cold that the air turned into a cold mist.

The stars hit the ice wall with a strong impact, causing the ice wall to explode and making the earth rumble around them. The girls behind Touyo grew wide-eyed to see such a powerful attack coming from Jun, and Touyo even more so as he was the closest of them all.

However, on Jun’s side, Adrena peered at the ice with a raised brow. After a while, she realized what just happened.

“Hold on,” Adrena shouted, catching Tsubaki’s attention. “Why didn’t his magic circle appear when he used that spell?”

After asking that, Adrena noticed something flying by in the sky. She looked up and immediately caught the flying object with her hand, shocking Touyo that the object in his hand was gone the moment he used the spell.

Adrena took a closer look at what appears to be a small square-shaped piece of paper. She widened her eyes to see a magic circle drawn on it that looked like it was erased by an eraser, but it didn’t do a good job on it as pieces of the circle could still be seen.

“Is this… a Paper Pentagram?”

--Back a couple of hours ago—

“Hey, Tsubaki, what are you drawing?”

Before their fateful fight against the Dark Sorcerers, the Black Witches gathered back at Touyo’s home for their meeting as usual. Touyo’s mother was still out due to work, so Touyo had the house to himself.

Touyo stood beside Tsubaki who sat down cross-legged near a table while holding a pencil. She drew on a small square-shaped paper a circle with intricate designs. Touyo noticed that the drawing looked like a magic circle with a pentagram shape in the center.

“Is that a magic circle…? What are you drawing it for?” Yuki also viewed from the other side, the intricacy of the magic circle catching her gleaming eyes.

“This, my little students, is a Paper Pentagram—in short, a temporary magic spell.”

““Temporary…?”” Touyo and Yuki simultaneously said.

“Right—a Paper Pentagram can turn into a spell with a set potency. That means that no matter how much you practice with them, the Paper Pentagram’s power will always be the same. Usually, these handy items are used for beginning mages who have difficulty using diverse black magic.”

“Eh?! Then why haven’t you gave me one before? I could have learned a spell or something!” Touyo complained after he could have improved much farther than usual, but Tsubaki shook her head.

“I believe that using these actually demerit your imagination—the Paper Pentagram activates when the user pours in arcana through the paper. The drawn circle activates, allowing the user to use only a basic elemental spell.”

“Is there a reason why you have to draw it?” Yuk asked, growing curious about the circle’s purpose.

“You may not see it, but in truth, the magic circles you make are all different—they just have a few nuances of differences between them. So, even though they fall in the same category—an earth spell and a fire spell actually have different looking magic circles.”

““Oh…””

The students nodded their head slowly in understanding.

“But these pentagrams are special—they’re only designed to take in any basic elemental spell. Even a slightly advance one such as ice and lightning, as long as they’re all elements, it’ll work.”

“But why only elemental spells?” Touyo asked. “Why not use a higher grade spell?”

“Because the pentagrams are not strong enough to handle it. When these Paper Pentagrams are used, the circles get immediately erased, and the paper that’s left behind is all but useful. But if you use a higher grade spell, the paper gets burned to smithereens before it could even use the spell.”

“Oh…” Touyo nodded in understanding.

“But like I said, it actually demerits your education. If you keep using pentagrams, you’ll only be forced to rely on it instead of your own imagery. It’ll hurt your imagination, so I don’t like to use this technique to cultivate a student’s education.:”

“Ah…” Yuki understood as well.

“But in this case, we have no choice but to rely on them. Touyo, take out a few pieces of paper, and draw the exact pentagram circle I’m showing you now.”

“Eh?! W-Why not just keep drawing it yourself? You’re doing it just fine…”

“Because! The papers can only work when it’s drawn by the one going to use it. You pour in just a bit of magic as you draw it, so it’ll become effective.”

“Eh…” Touyo groaned as Tsubaki shoved another piece of paper towards Touyo’s face. It was then that Touyo had a crash course of drawing pentagrams at a fast speed.

--Back to the present…--

“Haha, hahahahaha! I can’t believe it!” Adrena held onto the erased paper in her hand, guffawing as she does. Her eyes teared up as her laughter echoed all around the park. “Y-Your student is actually using Paper Pentagrams?!”

Touyo shrunk back a little after Adrena pointed and laugh at him. Somehow he was embarrassed despite not knowing the reason why.

“Only absolute beginners use Paper Pentagrams! Practically babies and five-year-olds! Hahaha! D-Does that mean that this boy can only use fire spells?! Hahahahaha!”

Adrena continued laughing out loud, holding her stomach as she kicked the air multiple times while still floating. Touyo’s cheeks burned red, and his urge to crawl into a hole in the ground filled him. He didn’t know that Paper Pentagrams were practically treated like training wheels for a bike.

“Shut up!”

Tsubaki suddenly snapped back, surprising Adrena as she clamped her mouth shut.

“So what’s wrong if he has to!? He’s trying to learn and that’s what matters!”

“Phht,” Adrena scoffed. “Yeah, right. If he has no talent, then there’s no point in training him. Aah, there’s not even a point of continuing this fight.”

Adrena floated upwards to the sky, her eyes closed as she moved her hand to the side like she was swatting a fly.

“I accept the fact that your girl Yuki has what it takes. Seeing those powerful spells one after another proves that she has enough talent to even become a Dark Sorcerer. However, if that boy can’t even make another elemental spell—then he literally shouldn’t be a mage. A combat one, at that.”

A jolt ran through Touyo’s heart—a sense of pain formed in his chest that wasn’t painful, but it was unbearable. He gripped his fists tightly, gritting his teeth behind closed lips.

“If he becomes a mage, he’ll die when the going gets tough. Even you, Tsubaki, should learn that teaching a boy like that will only lead to his death. It’s much better to just give up on him so that he’ll live.”

Even if Adrena was wording it in a way that showed her concern over his life, her tone and mannerisms made Touyo lower his head. His shoulders shook as he couldn’t bear to listen anymore.

Learning magic was the first thing that he became passionate about in life. Nothing else, not even music, drove him into pursuing it with all that he had. But when he had something that he could be passionate abou—it turned out that he is not even worthy of it.

Talent… Yuki has it, and apparently, so did Shouko and especially Jun. Forget talent—Touyo can’t even make magic right. Was his magic core broken? Or was it just underdeveloped from his birth?

He asked himself these questions when he noticed the huge differences between himself and Yuki.

“I don’t like to agree with her, but she’s right.”

Then, another voice entered, It was Jun who crossed his arms with furrowed eyes. Touyo looked back at him with a mild glare.

“You don’t have any talent. You shouldn’t even be here. For someone like you, who can’t even make any other spell, the path of a mage is worthless to you. You’re only giving other mages a bad name!”

Jun extended his finger at Touyo, pointing out his flaws as he delivered painful words right to his heart.

“H-Hey!” Yuki intervened after Touyo became insulted, but her fists shook with nerves. “You can’t say that! Touyo is trying his best!”

“Be quiet!”

Jun snapped back, causing Yuki to whimper loudly before shrinking back behind Tsubaki for protection.

“Hey, don’t yell at her!” Tsubaki shouted back.

“I apologize, Lady Tsubaki,” Jun made a short bow to her and continued. “But if she keeps saying that, it’ll only make it worse for him. That girl, with so much talent, saying that he can become a mage when he has no talent—there’s no greater shame than this. It’s better that he learns this right now.”

Yuki couldn’t even answer to that somewhat sympathetic reply. Tsubaki furrowed her sharp eyes, growing frustrated over the boy’s overly-arrogant tone. But she instead turned to Touyo, who kept looking down at the ground.

“Hey, you,” Jun turned back to Touyo and shouted. “Give up now and let’s end this pointless duel.”

Jun demanded to end the match, surprising the black witches from hearing such arrogance. Adrena merely shrugged as she figured that this is the correct course of action while Shouko, not caring about this conversation at all, marveled at Jun’s seriousness with a jolly smile.

However…

“…Make me.”

Jun perked his ears up after hearing Touyo’s low voice hitting his ears.

“…What did you say?”

Jun tilted his head, his eyes growing even fiercer. Then, Touyo raised his head and pointed at Jun.

“I said MAKE ME, you bastard!”

Touyo’s shout permeated the air, the very aura around him growing intimidating. Jun immediately furrowed his eyes and gripped his fists as the girls behind him widened their eyes in shock.

“…I see, then,” Jun then put himself into a combat stance. “I’ll see to it that you’ll learn the truth with your body!”

His tone overflowing with anger, the young boy let his emotions control him as he charged in just like before. This time he moved his hand forward to create another spell.

“Meteorite Sword!”

Jun’s magic circle appeared over his hand, and coming out of it was an object shaped like a sword, but it was made entirely out of purple stone that glistened under the moonlight. Though it looked blunt, everyone could see the sharpness shimmering from the edge of the blade. The Dark Sorcerer grabbed the sword and proceeded to swing it down towards the Black Witch—aiming to seriously damage him.

Touyo’s anger fueled him with energy, and he focused his sight on the sword. He could actually see a line which let him see where it would swing down. Thanks to his experience in the field, his body moved quicker than he expected and took a sidestep to the left.

The sword swung down and barely missed him by the side as it took a chuck out of the earth in the process.

“Ghh, hold sti—”

However, right as Jun was about to make a ludicrous demand, his eyes widened after seeing something unexpected.

A fist.

Touyo put everything he had into his swinging fist, and swung it from above along with his momentum, enough so that his feet actually left the ground for a moment. The punch connected, contorting Jun’s cheek. The resulting blow caused his body to lose its balance and fell to the ground.

The girls’ eyes grew wide in shock and astonishment. None of them could have seen this type of attack before—mostly because it wasn’t even made out of magic. It was purely a simple punch—a punch that he gave everything he had into hitting his opponent.

Jun’s head became dizzy as the pain coursed through his cheek, causing him to have a near headache from how hard he hit. However, for Touyo, it was the complete opposite.

A sense of elation filled his body. A certain thrill much like how he would fly in the sky with his broom. Every vein in his body was pumping with adrenaline just from that one punch.

Whether it was because of pure satisfaction by hitting the guy who insulted him, or that Touyo was just naturally a violent person—he didn’t know what to say. But he does know that he wants to do it again—and again, and again.

Before Jun could get up from the ground, trying to lift himself up with his hands, Touyo took the upper hand and grabbed the back of his shirt and collar. Jun’s eyes widened when Touyo’s hands were on him and grabbing him from above, pulling him up from the ground like Jun wanted.

But a sense of dread filled him as Touyo used the momentum of his weight to spin him around, and eventually tossed him aside like a garbage bag. Jun’s body fell to the ground, groans could be heard from him as he lifted himself up from suddenly being tossed.

But as soon as Jun raised his head up, his face was met with another impactful punch from Touyo’s fist.

“Gah!”

Blood trailed from his nose and cut up lip as his body fell over, but Touyo didn’t stop as he grabbed Jun’s shirt again, pulling him closer to him. Jun winced and groaned as he looked up to see his apprehender, and trepidation filled his mind.

His eyes looked different—much more different than the nervous look he showed before the fight. He was no longer an inexperienced and untalented mage—he was a beast ready to devour him.

Touyo raised his arm and tightened his fist. He delivered a series of blows one after another to Jun’s face, each punch becoming stronger than the last as adrenaline fueled him.

“J-Jun!”

Shouko practically shrieked in terror. Her hands cupping her face, she watched in horror to the person whom she admired the most suddenly being assaulted by physical blows.

“H-Hey! Hey!” Adrena, shouted, becoming frightened at each punch thrown. “Stop him already! That’s not how it supposed to go!”

“Hehe, it’s a magic DUEL, right?! So if Jun doesn’t do something, he’s just gonna keep going!”

Rather than being surprised and appalled by Touyo’s sudden violent streak, Tsubaki practically praised Touyo as he delivered a punch one after another. She made shrill calls as she raised her fist high in the air, getting more pumped up. Meanwhile, Yuki gazed on in shock, a harrowing look on her face.

“T-This isn’t how a magic fight is supposed to go!”

Yuki is a big fan of magical fights like in the ones from Magical Girl Miyuri, so she became shocked to see a clear and total opposite of that in this fight.

As the punches rolled on, Jun’s face became battered and bruised, purple patches of skin left on his face and blood from his lip and nose continue to trail down. He looked nothing like the arrogant and cocky boy he was before.

Touyo’s fists became bloody, but he continued to punch him without remorse. Then, soon enough, he finally stopped, and raised both his hands up high in the air, and conjoined his fingers together.

The girls behind Jun’s side all gaped in shock as they expect what was about to happen next.

“Here’s what I think of all of your ‘talent’!”

Touyo wailed from his heart, his shout targeting not only Jun, and swung down his conjoined fists towards Jun’s face to give the finishing blow. But then—

“Huh?!”

Light began to flash underneath him. He turned his sight below to as the same golden colored magic circle appeared below Jun. He then noticed the look on Jun’s face, his expression contorted into pure anger with his eyes furrowed down.

“Take this! Planetoid Smash!”

Shouting out his spell again, Jun poured in every arcana he had within his body to take out Touyo—even if he might take himself out in the process.

(T-This guy’s crazy!)

But even after Touyo thought of that, nothing went as he expected. The ground around Jun’s body cracked apart the stem appearing like spider webs, and stone jutted out from them—missing Jun entirely and bending its shape to hit only Touyo.

His entire body became hit by the rocks, and his body flew upwards and fell right back down to the ground. It was a familiar sight for the girls as Jun raised himself up, destroying the white colored stone in the process as the stone crumbled away into pieces.

“Hah, hah…” Jun breathed in heavily, pain coursing through his head and mouth as he wiped away the blood trailing from his lips. “I’ma kill you, you damn bastard!”

His emotions grew rampant—as expected from someone who received a whallop from a boy with barely any arcana—the aura around him becoming like a blazing fire. He had a look in his eyes filled with killing intent.

He actually planned on killing him. Even after Touyo took a direct hit from his spell, his body aching in pain, Touyo turned upwards. His face also cut apart and blood seeping from his wounds, with furrowed eyes just like before.

He showed the same killing intent as Jun, gritting his teeth that were stained with a reddish liquid.

“Not if I kill you first, you son of a bitch!”

Both shouting expletives at each other, Touyo rose from the ground, his torso bending over but still gazing directly at Jun. Jun also appeared the same way, his body aching in pain as he heaved heavy breaths one after another.

The girls looked on in worry, from either concern over the boys fighting, or from how the fight will turn out before they have a chance to intervene. It was already becoming too much for the young boys to handle.

But they couldn’t get in their way—the masters could see something in their eyes. Adrena looked on in shock at the difference in Jun’s character apart from his arrogance and pride. Tsubaki noticed how Touyo has changed, but deep inside, this is how he usually feels—full of adrenaline and excitement enough to challenge the entire world.

He was ready to fight, no matter how battered and bruised he might be.

“I’ll kill you!”

Shouting once again his attempt, Jun pressed both his outstretched hands together towards Touyo, and a magic circle of brilliant golden color coursed through.

“I-Is he planning on—No, stop! Jun!”

Knowing what Jun was attempting to do, Adrena shouted, outstretching her hand to stop him. However, at this point, the spell was already underway.

“Moon Burst!”

Jun shouted, pouring his arcana into the circle as a burst of energy blasted towards Touyo. It was a beam of yellow energy, shaped like a round blast that was bigger than the two boys. The streaming blast of pure yellow headed towards Touyo who furrowed with a furious glare.

Touyo needed to use something. A fire—no. Something much stronger than that.

He didn’t know what, or whether he even has a spell like that. But right now, he didn’t care whether he would wind up dead from the heat of the energy beam coming towards him—he just wanted to fight back no matter how cornered he was.

He swung his hands forward, all fingers outstretched as he poured all of his arcana into his hands. He needed to fight back with everything he got.

Touyo roared, a magic circle of brilliant crimson appeared. Red sparks jutted out from the circle, the air quaked in its presence as the beam headed closer.

Something shot out of the red circle—shocking everyone that it was something different than just a fire spell.

It shot out an energy beam that was a cluster of red roaring beasts huddled together—They came out one after another, aiming their giant jaws and fangs at the front which headed directly towards the Moon Burst.

The two beams collided, the ground shook and a massive blast of air passed through the girls. Their hair were blown by the blast while trying they tried to cover their eyes from the shining light of the impact.

Jun widened his eyes that his own powerful attack was being countered, and worse enough, being repelled by the sudden new attack. The beam filled with ravenous ethereal beasts pushed back against the yellow stream of energy, eventually reaching towards Jun.

In his eyes, everything turned bright white.

Boom!

An explosion ensued from where Jun was, a massive airwave passed through the girls on Jun’s side.

“Jun!”

As the rising smoke headed towards the sky, Shouko ran towards to where the explosion happened. She turned her head down and knelt towards the boy who was sprawled on the ground, his skin covered in soot and blood.

“Jun! Jun!”

Shouko shouted, her screams echoing across the park as Adrena showed an expression of total shock. She turned back at the boy on the other side, undisturbed by the blast as his body heaved heavy breaths one after the other.

With his own eyes, Touyo witnessed his own attack, yet he still couldn’t believe what just happened. He looked below at his hands, both covered in soot and smoking from the intense heat of his spell. He has never seen a spell like that before even from watching anime and reading comic books.

Questions filled his mind as he switched to Jun on the ground, completely beaten. Only one feeling passed through him—a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

“Haha… I did it…” Touyo whispered to himself, then he raised both arms towards the sky. “I did it! Hahahahaha-gah!”

Before he could revel in his victory that was hard-fought and filled with danger, his body suddenly flinched, every limb and part of his body experienced a twinge of pain that was worse than everything he went through just now.

His body couldn’t keep up with the pain and soon fell over to his front on the burnt up ground.

“A-Ah, Touyo!”

Yuki couldn’t comprehend what she just saw, but now she knew what to do as she ran toward Touyo and knelt down just like Shouko did. Becoming flustered on what to do, Yuki used all of her strength to pull Touyo aside to have him face the sky, and became shocked at the mess.

Covered in soot and blood like his downed opponent, Touyo grimaced as he gritted his teeth in discomfort, his body contorting several times as even his bones ached in pain.

“Gah…! Ghh…!”

“T-Touyo, what happened!?”

Yuki became at a loss on what to do. Tsubaki floated towards Touyo, both eyes locked on the boy who gave his all and ended up in the disastrous situation he is now.

Time passed and the Barrier soon disappeared, erasing any damage done by the students to each other. Unfortunately, even though the Existence Barrier erased his injuries, Touyo’s body still contorted in pain, though he had enough energy to stand by himself as he grabbed onto his shirt by clutching it tightly.

His teeth gritted while his right eye was closed to bear with the aching pain. Yuki was at his side, rubbing his shoulders as that was the best thing she could do at the moment.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Shouko gazed at Jun in concern from him looking at the ground in distraught.

The masters faced each other off, both standing upright and on the ground with their arms crossed as they glared at each other.

“…I admit—your students are good,” Adrena became the first to break the silence between them, offering praise to them. “Though they could still practice a little, the fact that they have such power makes them worthy of being mages.”

Unlike the attitude she put on before, after witnessing the awesome power of Touyo’s new spell that downed Jun, Adrena conceded defeat. She was absolutely wrong about her assessment. However, there was still a pompous tone in her words.

“However, don’t think that this is over! You may have won, but they were just taken by surprise. My students aren’t so careless to let this fluke of a loss happen again!”

Adrena glared at her sister while gripping her hand into a fist. She appeared dead set on getting a rematch with them.

“Hah, just make sure to save your tears for next time,” Tsubaki replied back with a snarky comment of her own, aggravating Adrena as she gritted her teeth in response.

However, she let that go for a moment as she closed in towards Tsubaki to whisper.

“And that spell the boy made… is that what I think it is?”

“…I believe so,” Tsubaki answered in the same volume. Her tone turned solemn, and her slanted eyes furrowed.

“How is that even possible, I mean he…”

“Heh,” Tsubaki interrupted Adrena’s assessment. “Haven’t I said it before? My students are talented.”

Tsubaki ended with that, a grin on her lips which made Adrena roll her eyes in response. Before long, Adrena floated back towards the two students and opened up the vortex-like hole in the sky above them.

“Let’s return home.”

The two kept silent despite what Adrena said. Normally, this would be when they would complain about something and usually put her down. However, they remained completely silent, and Jun looked particularly out of it by the way he bit his lips.

“Mmh, if you’re frustrated from this loss, then just become stronger so that it won’t happen again.”

Adrena gave out her lecture, pinning both hands on her hips as the two students looked up at her with wide eyes. Adrena led the two towards the hole and disappeared into wherever they were headed next, probably to their home.

As the atmosphere became silent, Tsubaki looked back at the two, and smiled so widely that it left an impression on them.

“Congratulations, my wonderful Black Witches!” Tsubaki extended both arms wide and embraced both Touyo and Yuki with an outrageous hug.

Yuki’s cheeks burned red from suddenly being hugged along with Touyo, but unfortunately for him, it became a harrowing experience.

“Ooouch!”

Touyo lashed out, his body aching in agonizing pain.