"Erza?"
Shane looked at the figure he lived with day in, day out and sighed a little. "Instead of looking for the stones, why are you coming after me?"
The girl didn't answer.
Those clear eyes of hers—usually so bright—now held nothing but pure battle intent. She snapped the black wings on her back and became a blur, closing in again and bringing her sword down in a clean overhead slash!
"So you're really not holding back…"
Shane raised a brow. Since she attacked without a word, he didn't linger—he immediately slipped aside again and tried to climb upward to open distance.
Erza's Black Wing Armor could fly, sure, but in agility and top speed it was nowhere near his dragon wings. Give him even a small gap, and he could break away in an instant.
But Erza clearly understood that too.
She didn't give him a chance to accelerate.
Her blade flashed like liquid mercury, a continuous spill of steel. Every strike bit into his flight line, forcing him to jink and twist again and again—no time to build speed at all.
"No wonder you won't talk…"
Shane dodged as he muttered, exasperated. The moment she entered combat mode, she became someone else—an emotionless combat machine.
And…
This shameless, clinging close-quarters pressure—like she'd decided he was weak in melee—rubbed him the wrong way.
Shane stopped dodging.
His hands shot out. In his empty palms, two exquisitely crafted short spears materialized out of thin air.
"Second Release!"
With a thought, the pale-blue shafts stretched and warped.
In an instant, the elegant short weapons were gone.
In their place were two black, predatory killing tools, gleaming with a cold, hungry edge.
"CLANG—!"
The vicious spear-blades drew a dead line through the air and caught Erza's storm of a strike perfectly.
Sparks burst between them like fireworks.
In that split second of deadlock, Erza—so close she could feel his breath—sensed something off.
It was strange.
The lazy Shane she knew was gone. This Shane moved with precise, elegant economy. Every parry, every counter-thrust was so sharp it made your heart clench.
And beneath it all was a calm so absolute it turned into something else—
Arrogance.
A confidence in his violence so complete that, in his eyes, everything in the world was equal—
Because compared to him, everyone was weak.
Erza couldn't understand it. His raw power hadn't suddenly increased—so why did he carry himself like he was looking down from above?
"Hah!"
Confused, she pressed her sword down again, probing.
And again, Shane dissolved it—like he wasn't thinking at all, like his body knew the answer before her blade finished asking the question.
Erza's surprise deepened.
This was high altitude. Shane couldn't use his other class cards up here. Even with training, his base physical stats were still below hers.
And yet—purely through spear technique carved into the bone—he erased the disadvantage in strength and initiative, even starting to turn the tables.
This was a realm of "skill" Erza had never seen.
"But… I still have a chance!"
She didn't falter. Her eyes only burned hotter.
The whole point of her aerial ambush was to hit his weak spot.
"If I can't beat him with technique—then I'll crush him with absolute power!"
Her magic surged without restraint into her black sword and her body.
"Get… DOWN!"
Her power spiked. The slash came down like a mountain splitting—
But at the instant her blade was about to touch him, she caught a pair of eyes with a faint, mocking curve to them.
That look seemed to say:
So you laughed at my close range—yet now you're the one abandoning technique and relying on brute force to suppress me?
"Damn it—!"
The moment she understood, panic punched her chest.
Without realizing it, she'd been dragged into Shane's rhythm. She'd gotten impatient.
And that single, impulsive moment—
was an opening.
Shane's eyes half-lidded as the "aerial, non-human combat experience" granted by Lancer's second release surfaced in his mind.
"CLANG!"
The twin spears crossed at a razor-thin angle, catching the sword edge and shedding most of the force.
Then he twisted, snapping into an eerie posture midair.
"WHOOSH—!"
The pair of cold, mechanical black dragon wings on his back became his deadliest third weapon.
Like two enormous guillotine blades, they swept toward Erza's face with a shriek of air.
"Not good!"
It was too sudden.
Fully committed, Erza couldn't recover in time. She had no choice but to abandon the strike and throw herself backward.
Shane's mouth curved into a thin smile.
"See you."
Air roared. His wings slammed once—
BOOM!
He became a streak of light, exploding away and opening a massive gap.
In the next instant—
A thousand meters away, atop a jagged rock spire, Shane landed cleanly.
His dragon wings were gone. In their place fluttered deep red shoulder straps, and in his hands was that all-too-familiar phantom greatbow.
With Clairvoyance open, the girl was still suspended in the air—fierce and unyielding—
But now, the roles of hunter and prey had completely reversed.
"Your high-altitude ambush plan was good, Erza. But… once you give me space, with no cover in the air, you're just a living target."
As he spoke, he drew the bowstring back slowly.
TWANG—!
His fingers released. The string trembled.
A dazzling arrow of light shot forth, slicing the sky.
"You can dodge this, right?" Shane murmured.
…
In the far sky, the moment Shane gained distance, Erza's alertness snapped to maximum.
"Requip—Flight Armor!"
Light flashed. The heavy black armor vanished.
In its place appeared a tight, wild, leopard-like leather set—pure predatory beauty—with a pair of beast ears on her head.
Not for cuteness.
This armor sacrificed nearly all defense to push speed and reflexes to the absolute limit.
Her wings were gone, and she hadn't begun to fall yet—
She used the last inertia from Black Wing's final wingbeat. Her body curled, then snapped open—
and she traced an impossible arc in midair, violating common physics.
In that instant, she was more than twice as fast as before.
"FWOOSH—!"
The golden arrow passed so close it nearly kissed her nose, the slipstream tugging her hair.
"I dodged it—!"
But before she could breathe, a harsher sense of danger flooded her whole body.
On the distant rock, Shane—who understood her abilities far too well—had already drawn again before she even finished moving.
This shot predicted her prediction.
TWANG! TWANG! TWANG!
Three strings sang in overlapping beats.
Three light-arrows flew in a triangular spread, sealing every possible escape line.
Midair, old momentum spent, new momentum not yet born—
This time, she had no room left.
"Mm—!"
Erza clenched her teeth. With the arrows about to hit, she forced one more burst of magic.
"Requip!"
Flight Armor vanished, replaced by heavy plate that wrapped her completely.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The three arrows struck almost simultaneously.
The impacts detonated in the air like a blooming firework.
Even with heavy armor, the force was terrifying—Erza was blasted away.
She became a falling meteor, crossing half of Clover Canyon before slamming into the earth with a thunderous crash, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
…
Deep in the canyon, Gildarts sat on a boulder, bored out of his mind—until that brilliant trail in the sky caught his eye.
"Oh?"
He looked up, surprised. "They're already fighting?"
"Those looked like arrows… Shane's kid?"
He rubbed his chin, clicking his tongue. "Tch. Watching from here is boring. Should've learned some long-range observation magic."
And just as he was complaining about missing the show—
Footsteps sounded nearby.
"Hm?"
Gildarts blinked, looking toward the sound.
"Someone's already here?"
He estimated the time. The exam had only started a bit over twenty minutes ago.
"In that short a time… they collected all four stones?"