The news of the confrontation spread through the academy like wildfire.
In the hallways, the classrooms, and even in the floating gardens, Alex's name began to be repeated, always accompanied by the same whisper:
"Will he even survive?"
"Yvette doesn't fight… she executes."
"Poor guy, debuting against her is a death sentence."
Alex, however, walked in silence along one of the exterior corridors, his gaze fixed on the suspended sky of Tenryuu. The floating islands seemed motionless, but he knew that everything there was held up by invisible forces… just like the tournament.
Arianne walked beside him, arms crossed.
"Don't try to face her like the others," she finally said. "Yvette doesn't fight to win rounds. She fights to prove she's above the system."
"That makes her dangerous…" Alex replied, "but also predictable."
Arianne glanced at him sideways.
"Oh really?"
"She wants to defeat Alisce. Everything else is just a formality to her. That means she'll see me as a minor obstacle… until I stop being one."
Lucia, walking a few steps behind, tightened her fists slightly.
"Even so, her field control is extreme. She can change pressure, direction, even your sense of balance. If she catches you off guard…"
"She won't catch me," Alex interrupted, stopping.
Both girls looked at him.
Alex slowly raised his hand. A faint pulse ran down his arm, barely perceptible, like an echo.
"I've already observed her once. Her magic isn't just air-based… it's structural. She orders space as if it were a chessboard."
Arianne opened her eyes in surprise.
"You deduced that just by watching her?"
"No." Alex smiled, serious for the first time. "I felt it."
Lucia understood immediately and swallowed hard.
"Echo of Memory…"
Alex lowered his hand.
"I can't copy what I don't understand… but I can learn to resist it. And if I manage that, even for a few seconds… she'll lose her composure."
The wind blew strongly around them, making the tournament flags ripple.
In the distance, a magical bell rang out once.
"That's the signal," Arianne said. "Tomorrow's matches have been officially confirmed."
Alex looked toward the central arena, visible in the distance, where ancient runes began to glow slowly on the ground.
"Then tomorrow I won't fight just to advance a round," he said. "I'll fight to make everyone understand something."
Lucia looked at him with concern.
"Understand what?"
Alex closed his eyes for a second, remembering the voice that threatened him from the shadows… remembering his sister.
"That this tournament no longer belongs only to the princesses."
Night fell over Aquaris.
And as the artificial stars lit up one by one, the name Alex vs. Yvette De Mornaille was etched as the most anticipated match of the first round.
The Contest of Crowns was about to be stained with blood…
and to change forever.
---
Two weeks after the first encounter with Yvette…
The night enveloped Shirakuma Academy with an uncommon silence. From his room window, Alex watched the floating campus lights sway gently, like stars trapped in an artificial sky. The distant murmur of students returning to their dorms was just a faint echo.
He was alone.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, he let out a slow sigh. Too many things had happened in those two weeks… harder training, more loaded looks, rumors that no longer tried to hide when he passed by.
Yvette De Mornaille.
Her name had become a constant shadow.
"Two weeks…" he murmured. "And I still don't know if that was enough."
He closed his eyes for a moment, and his mind traveled far from Aquaris, far from the tournament. He thought of Mayuri.
"How are you doing…?" he wondered aloud.
He pictured her on her mission, with that serious, concentrated face, walking with firm but clumsy steps when it came to people. Mayuri was brilliant in combat, precise with magic… but socializing had never been her strong suit. Especially when her mind always seemed to revolve around a single figure.
Lilith-sama.
Alex couldn't help a faint smile.
"She's probably still only thinking about her…" he said, shaking his head gently. "I hope she doesn't get into trouble because of that."
But the smile faded as quickly as it appeared.
His thoughts inevitably returned to the reality awaiting him.
Yvette.
Alex slowly raised his hand in front of him, concentrating. A dark pulse responded to his will, and the air began to condense. Black fragments, shiny like freshly polished glass, emerged one by one, joining together with surgical precision.
An obsidian spear took shape.
It was identical to the one he had created during his training match against Mayuri. Dark, elegant, dangerous. The crystallization critical magic, copied through Echo of Memory, responded without resistance… at least on the surface.
Alex watched it in silence.
"Will it be enough…?" he whispered.
Echo of Memory had a cruel rule: it could copy and adapt critical magic only when he was directly attacked by it. Mayuri's magic was powerful, versatile, lethal in expert hands… but Yvette was not Mayuri.
Pressure manipulation. Spatial control. Field domination.
"If she doesn't attack me first with her critical magic…" he thought, "I won't be able to copy it. I'll have to face her with what I already have."
He clenched his teeth.
"And that means betting everything on this."
At that instant, a sharp pain pierced his head.
"Gh…!" he grunted, losing concentration.
The obsidian spear cracked in the air and disintegrated into fragments that evaporated like ash. Alex brought both hands to his head, leaning forward. The pain wasn't entirely physical… it was as if something were pressing from within, like memories that didn't belong to him trying to force their way out.
His breathing became ragged.
"No… not now…" he murmured.
Then he heard it.
A whisper.
It didn't come from the room. It didn't come from outside. It resonated directly in his mind, drawn-out, deep, ancient.
"…it has been a long…"
Alex's eyes snapped open, his heart pounding.
"Who's there?" he asked softly, not lowering his hands.
The pain pulsed once more, accompanied by the same tone, now clearer, closer.
"…long road, bearer of the echo…"
A shiver ran down his back.
That voice didn't sound like the threat that mentioned his sister. It wasn't violent. Nor was it kind.
It was… conscious.
"…and you still don't understand the price of remembering."
The pain began to slowly subside, leaving behind a disquieting emptiness. Alex took a deep, shaky breath and gradually lowered his hands.
The room was the same as before. Silent. Empty.
"Echo of Memory…?" he whispered. "Or something else…?"
He received no answer.
Only the silence… and the certainty that something within him had awakened a little more.
Alex clenched his fist with determination.
"Yvette…" he said firmly. "I'll have to provoke you. Force you to attack me with everything you've got."
Because only then could he survive.
And perhaps… discover what that voice walking alongside his memories really was.
The night continued its course over Shirakuma, unaware of the conflict silently brewing.
The tournament approached.
And the Echo of Memory… was beginning to demand its price.