Yvette's opponent took a step closer, deliberately crossing the scorched line, treating it like it was a joke carved into stone for his entertainment.
Embers licked along his blade again, brighter than they needed to be.
"You hate heat," he said, almost delighted with himself, voice carrying just enough for the people nearest the ring to hear. "You're Rank 1, and you can't even handle a little—"
Twng—!
An arrow snapped past his cheek and slammed into the stone behind him.
It missed on purpose.
A warning shot, close enough to make the air around his face twitch.
He paused for half a second, then his grin widened like he had been rewarded.
Yvette lowered her bow.
Her hand didn't shake, but it didn't look relaxed either, and Soren could see the tension even from where he stood: every tendon in her wrist pulled too tight, her grip controlled through force rather than ease.
"Don't," Yvette said, voice low.
The man's smile stretched.
"Don't what? Don't come closer?"
He tilted his head, smug.
"Or don't make you panic?"
Disgust flashed across her face at the word "panic", sharp and ugly for a heartbeat, then she smothered it back down until it became nothing but a tired blankness again.
Yvette shifted sideways, creating distance without turning it into a retreat.
He matched her immediately.
He didn't rush this time, and Soren hated that more than the swagger, because patience meant he understood what he was doing.
Chasing wasn't the point anymore.
He wanted her to keep moving until she ran out of space.
"You know," he continued, voice smooth, "people talk about you like you're untouchable. Some elegant elf princess who can do whatever she wants."
His sword lifted slightly, embers pulsing in a slow rhythm.
"But you're just… tired. Tired and scared."
Yvette didn't answer.
She fired.
The arrow struck his shoulder guard with a heavy thud and bounced away, not deep and not lethal, but hard enough to dent metal that should've held.
He grunted, then laughed, as if pain was an inconvenience he could afford.
"Good," he said brightly. "At least you still have teeth."
Yvette's eyes narrowed, expression tightening in a way that wasn't anger so much as refusal to give him anything.
"Come forth, 「Rammy」."
The electric ram formed low and charged, lightning crackling along its horns as it surged.
This time, the man didn't swing.
He sidestepped with a clean pivot, letting it pass, and the ram burst into lightning behind him, snapping against stone instead of flesh.
He was learning her rhythm.
Yvette didn't look surprised.
If anything, she looked resigned, like she had expected him to adapt, and she was already calculating what came next.
"Come forth, 「Glaskin」."
The frost-bird shot forward and detonated near his face in a bloom of cold shards, a burst designed to steal vision and force a bad reaction.
He raised his forearm and pushed through it anyway, eyes narrowed, blade already moving, heat tearing a narrow path through the chill.
He was close again.
Too close.
He got within arm's reach and leaned in, smiling like he thought proximity was a weapon all by itself.
"You smell like flowers," he said, and something about his tone made it worse than the words. "Does that help you pretend you're clean?"
Yvette flinched.
Not away from the sword.
Away from him.
Her shoulders tightened, and her face twisted with disgust so sharp it bordered on nausea.
For a heartbeat, her gaze went unfocused, as if the ring had fallen away and she was somewhere else entirely.
Soren's stomach tightened.
That wasn't tactics.
That was instinct.
Yvette reacted fast, automatic, like her body did it before her mind could catch up.
"Come forth, 「Iren」."
The wind-hound snapped into existence and slammed into the man's side, not to damage, but to shove, stealing the angle of his approach and forcing him into a corrective step.
A micro-step.
Yvette punished it immediately.
Twng—!
The arrow hit his forearm.
He hissed, jerking back, smugness cracking into irritation.
"Stop doing that," he snapped, voice sharp now.
Yvette didn't respond.
She didn't gloat, didn't look satisfied, didn't give him any of the reaction he was clearly trying to harvest.
She kept moving and kept shooting, as if she was executing a task that had been assigned to her, something to complete, nothing to enjoy.
The man exhaled hard, shoulders rising.
Then he did it again.
He dragged his embered blade along the ground as he advanced, carving another scorched line into the stone.
Screeeee—
Sparks spat, heat rolled out in thin waves, and the smell intensified, sharp enough that even the spectators at the edge shifted slightly as it hit them.
Not enough to burn skin at range.
Enough to make the air feel wrong.
Enough to make something in Yvette's chest tighten.
She went pale.
Not dramatically, not in a way that invited sympathy, just a faint, sickly drain that made her look even more exhausted than she already did.
Her bow dipped for a fraction of a second before she forced it back up.
It happened.
The man saw it.
His grin returned like a reward.
"There. That's the face I love."
He lunged.
Fast.
Rank 1 speed that didn't look like sprinting so much as the space between them shrinking without permission.
Embers surged, blade cutting toward her shoulder at a controlled, non-lethal angle, still meant to win "clean," still meant to prove he could do it whenever he wanted.
Yvette's body reacted before her mind could.
She didn't block.
She didn't parry.
She ran sideways, and the first step nearly stumbled because the movement was too abrupt, too forced, as if her balance had been yanked out from under her and she had to rebuild it mid-motion.
For the first time since the duel began, her control looked strained.
Not broken.
But strained.
The man chased, embers brightening, voice low and pleased.
"Come on, show everyone what you really are."
Disgust spiked again, sudden and ugly.
Yvette's eyes narrowed to slits.
Exhaustion didn't vanish, but something in her restraint thinned, as if she had been pushed one time too many and the thread holding her patience had started to fray.
Her fingers flicked in a harsh motion.
"Come forth, 「Rammy」「Glaskin」「Iren」."
All at once.
The arena filled with movement.
The ram charged from his blind side and burst into electricity near his leg.
The ice bird detonated at his shoulder, cold shards forcing him to turn.
The wind hound slammed into his ankle, stealing balance at the worst possible moment.
He tried to fight through it with brute timing, embers flaring, ego refusing to give an inch.
Yvette fired.
An arrow struck his thigh, not deep, but dead-centre.
His leg buckled for half a second.
Another arrow hit his sword wrist.
His grip loosened, fingers twitching, and he snarled as he forced them to tighten again.
A third arrow hit his shoulder guard and dented it further.
The crowd murmured properly now.
Not excitement, but assessment.
A ripple of quiet acknowledgement that Yvette was stripping him down piece by piece, turning a strong opponent into compromised joints and forced corrections, turning "Rank 1" into someone who was always half a step late.
His breathing turned harsher.
Retreat wasn't an option his ego would allow.
So he doubled down.
The embers flared brighter, heat pulsing out in a sharper wave that made the air shimmer, and the scorched lines on the ground felt less like a gimmick and more like a statement.
Yvette froze for a split second.
Her eyes widened, not with surprise, but with that old involuntary terror that didn't care where she was.
Her throat moved as she swallowed something bitter, and her fingers tightened so hard on the bow that it looked painful.
The man saw it.
His grin thinned into something cruel.
"You can't do it," he said quietly, as if he had finally reached the truth he wanted. "You can't finish it while you're scared."
Yvette's lips parted.
For a heartbeat it looked like she might answer, or snap, or say something that wasn't controlled.
Then her mouth closed again.
Instead, she drew in a slow breath, and the lowest-rank spirits around her stopped drifting.
They pulled inward.
Condensing.
The air cooled, sharper, heavier, and a larger summoning circle formed beneath her feet, pale and intricate, lines layered on lines, dense enough to make the earlier circles look like rough sketches in comparison.
Soren felt his breath catch.
Not because the circle screamed power.
Because he recognised what it meant.
The man slowed, smugness finally faltering, eyes narrowing.
"What's that—"
Yvette spoke, voice flat.
"Enough. Come forth 「Lerona」."
A figure stepped out of the circle.
Human-shaped, tall and calm, draped in pale shimmering fabric that looked closer to mist made solid than cloth.
It didn't radiate divinity, and it didn't make the world bend around it, but the difference was immediate anyway, the way a room changed when someone truly experienced walked in.
A professional, stepping into a ring full of people who were still pretending talent was the same thing as mastery.
The man lunged anyway, because his pride didn't know how to stop.
Ego carried him forward even while his expression flickered with uncertainty, even while his instincts clearly screamed that something had just shifted beyond what he wanted.
Lerona lifted one hand.
And stopped him.
Not by striking.
Not by grabbing.
It simply refused his movement.
A pressure pressed into the space in front of him, invisible but absolute, and his body halted mid-step as if he had hit a wall that didn't exist until he tried to pass through it.
The ember coat on his blade sputtered, heat thinning under suppression, fire struggling to hold shape.
His eyes widened.
"Hey—!" he snapped, voice cracking with indignation, like he couldn't believe the world had told him no.
The spirit didn't react.
It didn't need to.
It just stood between them, calm enough to make his anger look small.
Yvette raised her bow again.
Her hand didn't shake now.
Her face, however, looked emptier than before, not calm and not relieved, just hollow, as if summoning that spirit had cost her the last of her spare energy and left nothing behind to cushion the aftermath.
She fired once.
The arrow struck the man's sword hand.
Not deep.
Not lethal.
Perfect.
His fingers went numb.
His sword slipped.
Clang.
Steel hit stone, and for half a second, he stared at it like it was betrayal, like he couldn't process that his body had failed him in front of everyone.
Then the overseer's voice rang out, sharp enough to cut through the murmurs.
"Match over!"
Lerona released the pressure.
The man stumbled forward, catching himself with an ugly jerk, face twisting in humiliation.
Not because he lost.
But because he had been contained.
His gaze snapped up at Yvette, rage flashing hot and immediate.
"You freak—"
Yvette's expression twisted with disgust again, sudden and visceral, as if his words crawled over her skin.
She flinched, just slightly, then turned her head away as if looking at him was contamination.
The man took a step forward on instinct, anger trying to push him into doing something stupid.
Lerona took one step forward, too.
Just one.
The man froze.
His jaw tightened.
He swallowed.
He didn't try again.
The overseer cleared their throat, voice returning to official neutrality.
"Yvette Astrin Yggdrasil wins."
This time the murmurs carried a different edge.
Unease.
Not about her strength.
About her.
Yvette didn't react to the announcement.
She didn't bow.
She didn't look at the stands.
She just stood there with her bow in hand, staring slightly past the ring as if her mind was somewhere else, somewhere far enough away that the people around her couldn't reach.
Lerona didn't vanish immediately either.
It lingered beside her.
Waiting and guarding, as if it didn't trust the world not to touch Yvette again.
That was when Soren noticed something else.
Yvette wasn't breathing normally.
It wasn't obvious unless you watched closely, but her breaths were shallow and controlled, like she was forcing her lungs to work through a tight chest, like the air itself had become something she had to negotiate with.
Like she had been dragged too close to something she hated.
Like she was trying not to fall apart in public.
After several long seconds, Yvette finally lifted her fingers, slow and tired.
Lerona dissolved into pale motes and vanished.
The last traces of the lowest-ranked spirits faded too, dismissed without ceremony, as if even telling them goodbye was more effort than she could spare.
The man retrieved his sword with stiff hands, face dark, and walked out without looking at anyone.
No bow.
No dignity.
Just resentment.
Yvette didn't watch him leave.
She stared ahead for another second, too still, then turned toward the exit.
Her braid swayed gently with the movement, and her steps were controlled, but slow, as if her body was moving on routine rather than will.
Soren realised, suddenly, that he had been holding his breath.
He exhaled.
Then, without meaning to, he whispered under his breath.
"…Amazing."
It came out too soft for anyone else to hear.
But it was true.
Yvette was strong, not because she flooded the arena with overwhelming power, but because she controlled the fight from the first arrow to the last, because even exhausted and dulled, she made a Rank 1 Martial Studies student look like he was always reacting a fraction too late.
Yet the way she walked away didn't look like victory.
It looked like she had finished something she didn't have the energy to do in the first place, something she had been forced into and had simply endured until it stopped.
Soren's eyes followed her until she disappeared from view.
The uncomfortable feeling in his chest didn't fade.
————「❤︎」————