"AH!" With a great start, Christina's eyes shot open and she pushed off the ground, leaping to her feet and assuming a defensive stance. She immediately regained her senses and warily scanned her surroundings, only to see 3 pairs of eyes staring at her from the side.
Glancing over at the woman she greatly respected, Christina was met with a steady and undisturbed gaze, completely unreadable to her.
At that moment, the princess didn't know how exactly to react; all she knew was that she had lost.
Turning next to the one who had defeated her, Christina felt a rush of different emotions. Anger, frustration, indignation, rage, shame; all these negative feelings swirled about violently and soon boiled over as she let out a great shout, "Coward! How dare you disgrace a sacred duel by attacking from behind?! Where is your sense of honour?!"
There were plenty of reactions Lucas could have had to this beratement.
If he had been an ordinary 10-year-old, he would probably have gotten angry and argued back; even if he was a bit mature for his age, he probably would have scoffed or grumbled.
However, thanks to the flood of knowledge and experiences in his head, when he was thinking clearly, Lucas felt his mental age was probably somewhere around 30 years old. This often led to him thinking he was supposed to be a responsible adult, especially when dealing with 'children'.
Not that he always felt like this, or that he couldn't act highly-immature; after all, even real 30-year-old adults were perfectly capable of being completely irrational, illogical, and emotion-driven.
This time, however, instead of getting upset, Lucas actually felt more embarrassed than anything.
The way he had won was decidedly not honourable nor righteous, a fact he was well aware of; still, Lucas didn't regret his actions as he deemed them necessary, both for his sake, and, oddly enough, for this hot-tempered princess'.
As such, he did his best to show no outward expression and simply let Christina vent.
After ranting for some time, Christina finally seemed to have gotten all she wanted to say out and fell silent, her chest heaving as she breathed heavily from speaking so rapidly and from extreme exasperation.
When the clearing eventually fell quiet, Celestina decided to speak up; though all she asked was, "Are you finished?"
Hearing these words, Christina turned her head once more, only to see a look of disappointment on her idol's face.
In that instant, the princess' boiling blood rapidly cooled, and the colour drained from her face. It was only now that she came to her senses and realized she had just gone off on a highly improper and undignified tirade right in front of the woman she most wanted to impress.
With her jaw flapping, Christina wanted to try to explain herself, but no words were able to leave her lips as her tongue suddenly felt numb and her mouth went completely dry. The last thing she wanted to do now was further embarrass herself, but absolutely no ideas came to Christina about how she could rectify this situation.
Seeing this, Celestina actually let out a sigh and shook her head before declaring, "You've failed this test."
Turning on her heels, Celestina began walking away.
To Christina, it felt like her world was crumbling around her, and whether it was out of fear or desperation, she instinctually called out, "Wait!"
Celestina stopped when she heard this cry, but she didn't turn back. Even so, this was enough to give at least some hope to the princess, so Christina summoned her courage and asked in a feeble voice, "Why did I… Why did I lose… he cheated…"
Clearly, the young princess was unwilling to accept this result. In her mind, Lucas had used despicable means to defeat her. Since the duel was unfair, how could she possibly be satisfied with the outcome?
Shaking her head again, Celestina didn't respond to Christina's desperate query and instead ordered, "Lucas, I trust your judgement. You explain it to her."
Finished with what she needed to say, Celestina kicked off the ground and disappeared, not giving Christina a chance to ask any further questions, or for Lucas to refuse her command.
Clenching her fists, Christina glared silently towards Lucas, who she now bitterly hated. It was all this little bastard's fault; if it wasn't for him, she wouldn't have disgraced herself so completely.
Still, since Celestina had told this boy to explain why she had lost, Christina would at least suffer through his explanation.
Lucas thought all of this was quite unfair to him, but he also understood that this was part of his responsibilities as his Master's Disciple… maybe… plausibly.
In any case, Lucas felt quite sorry for Christina.
Given the situation, the way his Master had spoken, and the events which had led up to the eventual fight, Lucas figured it was basically impossible for Christina to have passed Celestina's test.
That, however, was probably the point.
Celestina must have understood what was going through Tina's head and decided to use this particular kind of trial.
What Celestina was testing just now was the princess' character, whether Tina was mature enough to realize something was wrong and thus refuse on principle, even if it meant giving up something she desperately wanted.
The young princess still hadn't realized that winning or losing the battle was irrelevant, and that the moment she agreed to fight, she had already failed.
Staring into the pair of aggrieved violet eyes before him, which seemed to be on the verge of tears, Lucas knew that he had to choose his words carefully.
Explaining the truth of the test to Christina would make this whole exercise pointless.
In order for the princess to actually gain something from this ordeal, she had to figure out where she had gone wrong without being spoon-fed the answers; but, not providing Christina with at least some clues would only cause her to remain ignorant and resentful, also resulting in her not learning anything.
After wracking his brain to come up with the right way to handle this conundrum, Lucas eventually hit upon an idea and started with a question, "Why do you think you failed Master's test?"
"Hmph!" Christina snarled, "Isn't it obvious? I only lost because you cheated!"
"That's not what I asked," Lucas shook his head, "I asked why you think you failed the test you were given?"
"Huh?" Now, Christina was confused.
Hadn't she failed Celestina's test because she lost the duel?
Seeing the frown on the princess' face, Lucas tried giving her a hint, "Think carefully about what Master said."
Although she was feeling peeved at how Lucas seemed to be talking down to her like she was some petulant child, Christina still reviewed what Celestina had told her.
Having opened her Soul Sea, Christina's memory had been somewhat enhanced, so it didn't take her long to recall each word that her aunt had spoken, but even after she did so, she still remained puzzled. Only after a minute or so of silence did she venture a guess, "Did I lose because the dual had already started?"
Pursing his lips, Lucas realized that the young princess before him was still missing the point, focusing all her attention on the battle they had, rather than Celestina's intent behind proposing such a contest.
Shaking his head, Lucas sighed with a bit of exasperation and flatly said, "It doesn't matter who won or lost our fight."
Hearing this, Christina was taken aback and couldn't help asking, "How could winning or losing not matter? Wasn't the whole point of the test to see who won?"
"Did Master ever say that?" Lucas asked back pointedly.
"Uh…" Having just meticulously gone over what Celestina said, Christina realized that her aunt really hadn't said anything about winning or losing, all she did was ask her to fight with Lucas.
If Aunt Celestina didn't care who won or lost, why did she tell me to fight this brat? Christina began to wonder, soon wrinkling her brow as she further questioned, For that matter, even if I did beat up this kid, what would that have proved?
From the contemplative look on Christina's face, Lucas could tell she was finally on the right track, so he decided to give her another hint, "Your first mistake was misunderstanding Master's test."
Christina opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. She wanted to ask Lucas what he meant, but from the way her aunt and this annoying boy had been talking so far, she realized that neither of them was going to explain.
She had to figure this out on her own.
Watching Christina ponder over his words, Lucas figured he had done enough, so he got up and began limping away.
Before Lucas could get far, though, he heard a quiet voice mutter from behind him, "I still say you cheated."
She really can't stand losing, can she? Lucas chuckled to himself, turning his head back to say, "I admit that what I did wasn't exactly respectable, but I didn't cheat."
"Bah! How can you even say that?" Christina flared up again, pointing her finger at Lucas and spitting, "The rules of a duel clearly state…"
"But we weren't having a duel," Lucas cut her off, "We were having a fight."