Alice asked, eyes still on the arena. Echi nodded.
"Yes, Alice."
"Thank you, Echinacea."
"Echi."
"…Alright, Miss Echi."
"Did I not just say to drop the formalities?"
"That's…"
Alice hesitated and went slightly pink. When Echi glanced at her, she muttered reluctantly.
"I'm just not ready yet."
"…Is it something that requires preparation?"
"Yes. You can use my name without the title first."
"But if I do and you don't, it'll feel uneven. Fine."
The first round proceeded quickly.
Alice advanced easily. Now the second round: Echi and Alice. Echi looked at her.
"You know it's us in the next round."
"Of course. I'm looking forward to it."
"…"
She had intended to end it quickly.
But when she saw the quiet anticipation in Alice's gray eyes, she couldn't bring herself to. Echi let out a slow sigh.
The match between Echinacea Roaz and Alice Winterbell became the talk of the competition. It was less a contest than a teaching duel - a vastly superior swordsperson guiding a skilled one through a mirror of their own technique.
The cadets in the stands watched the way they had once watched their own first masters teach them.
Winning easily would have been far simpler. But teaching someone, that demanded a different kind of mastery. To hold the answer and guide the other person toward it rather than simply applying it.
The high-level exchange lasted over thirty minutes. It ended with Echinacea's sword stopping just before Alice's neck.
Silence.
The cadets weren't fools. They knew how extraordinary Alice was. Any number of them would have struggled to hold their own against her sword.
So - the woman in the dress who had just conducted a teaching duel against Alice, from a standing start, in an uncomfortable dress and heels?
It was difficult to even guess at.
"She really is…the genius of the century."
Theo muttered to himself, staring blankly at the arena.
He had grown up hearing the word genius. He had heard it applied to Michael, to Alice, to the people ahead of him who made things look effortless. Once they became cadets, they learned that there were geniuses above geniuses.
But the lady had knocked Michael out in a single strike and then given Alice a teaching duel.
What did you even call something like that?
After the second round, everything else moved quickly. Echinacea knocked her opponents' swords away in a single exchange each time.
No one could stop her blade. Only Alice had been treated as a genuine partner.
The other matches became secondary. Most cadets ended up watching Echinacea instead.
"The Commander knew. That's why he chose her."
"How are any of us supposed to beat that?"
"Who spread the backdoor rumor? Unbelievable."
"Is this even fair? Having someone like her in the same cohort as us?"
"She could fight junior knights. Maybe formal knights."
"She's not a master yet — no mana output."
"She's only twenty. A master in a few years, maybe?"
"Where did this person even come from?"
The murmur ran through the stands and the waiting room.
The freshman ranking competition ended far earlier than expected.
Echinacea's matches were all brief.
After the final bout, one strike, Ian came over with a warm smile.
"Congratulations, Cadet Echinacea. As expected, though honestly, even more than I expected. Everyone will be on edge come the full ranking competition. The top spots are going to be in real contention. Impressive."
"You're too kind."
She was only half-listening. She was already mentally tallying the muscle soreness she would wake up to tomorrow. The second round with Alice had pushed her body further than was wise; she'd used some mana near the end to keep the fatigue from showing.
'Ointment, ginger tea, early bed.'
The thought of the ginger tea made her chest warm in a way she didn't fully want to examine. The stares of the surrounding cadets seemed much less important.
Ian went on: "Now I understand why the Commander chose you. He saw the talent. What's your background? The Roaz family isn't known for swordsmanship."
His eyes narrowed slightly, curious.
The other cadets, seeing him speaking with her, held back and hovered at the edges.
"I'm not sure myself."
"Who taught you? Did the Commander, from the beginning?"
"No. I'm self-taught."
"…Self-taught?"
"Yes. Senior, may I go? I'm a bit tired."
"Of course. Sorry for keeping you."
He stepped back with a gracious smile. But the look he gave her as he did, it wasn't the kind that could be read as admiration or simple curiosity. It was something else, expertly suppressed. She would have missed it entirely if she hadn't already seen what he was.
'I almost wish he'd just be openly difficult.'
His petty tricks with the tournament bracket weren't a serious problem, and whatever he was planning wouldn't be a real threat. It was only annoying to have him hovering nearby with that pleasant face.
Once Ian was gone, the other cadets drifted closer, uncertain. They had been avoiding her and spreading rumors; suddenly approaching her now felt awkward.
There were, of course, cadets who had no such hesitation.
Fatima swung her braided hair and came bouncing over.
"Cadet Echinacea! I knew my eyes weren't wrong! Congratulations on first place!"
"Thank you, Senior Fatima."
"I thought Alice and Michael would come in second and third. The bracket made a mess of things. But in the end it's playing out just like I said. You believe in my instincts now, don't you? Don't you?"
Her dark eyes sparkled with pride, and before Echi could respond, Fatima reached up and patted her on the head.
"I'd love to give you the full Wisdom Club pitch right now, but you must be tired. Let's talk later! Rest well, and see you soon!"
She chattered away, waved, and left.
As she went, she threw careful glances back at the lingering cadets, something in her look said: isn't it a little late to be circling her now?
The cadets, already finding it hard to approach directly, drifted apart and clustered in small groups.
Echi was quietly grateful. Less bothersome than being swarmed.
She looked around. Baraha wasn't among the cadets. As the vice-commander's squire, he must have had something come up.
On her way out, she spotted Alice still in the waiting room, tending to her sword.
"Alice, let's go back together."
"Yes!"
Alice jumped up and gathered her things. Echi picked up a cloth Alice had dropped.
"…Are you all right with your ranking? It seems lower than your skill should place you."
"It doesn't matter. I gained something more important. For now, I want to focus on my sword."
Alice smiled. Echi truly admired the answer. So straightforward, so genuinely knightly. Someone like her deserved to become a Celestial Knight.
Before she could think better of it:
"I hope you really do become a Celestial Knight someday. You deserve to be one."
It came out on impulse, but she didn't regret it. After talking with Nicole, who had come back from the dead, she had regretted all the things she had never said. At her words, Alice turned and looked at her, dazed. Echi smiled sincerely.
"If you ever want to spar, ask anytime. I think I'd enjoy it."
She meant it. She didn't like swords.
To her, a sword was a tool of slaughter, and she could never entirely separate it from the feeling of sticky blood on her hands.
Swordsmanship had always been simply the most efficient way to end someone.
But sparring with Alice was different.
She hadn't lied to ValderGiosa when she said she had been caught up in the atmosphere. With Alice, who treated the sword with such honesty. Who held it as a way of sharpening herself, who dreamed of being a knight of the sort that only existed in old stories. Echi had been genuinely pulled in.
She thought of Teresa's DimmonGiosa, the sword Alice admired. Where ValderGiosa had been forged from human malice and killing intent, DimmonGiosa was the opposite. Made from the grief of those who had lost something precious and the desperate wish to protect. A guardian's sword. It only accepted a master willing to sacrifice themselves for others.
When Echi had gathered Giosa during the long years before the reversal, DimmonGiosa had been one she could hold but not wield - not because she lacked the strength, but because, at the time, there was nothing left in her worth protecting.
The sword's condition was one she couldn't meet.
There were people who held a sword not to kill, but to guard something.
People who had found in it a way to forge themselves. People who were clean and radiant, who made even holding a blade feel like a conversation that went deeper than words.
Sparring with Alice had been that kind of thing. Enough to make her push past her own limits.
Alice's eyes softened, then curved into a genuine smile. She reached out and took Echi's hand. Through the glove concealing the cursed sword's mark, she felt Alice's warmth.
"Thank you, Echinacea. I'm so glad to have met you."
"Wh-why are you suddenly holding my hand?"
"Just because. Is that not alright?"
"…It's fine."
Echi mumbled, flustered, but didn't pull away. Alice had just been in a ranking match and smelled of sweat, but Echi said nothing about it. Like two ordinary girls their age, they walked back to the dormitory hand in hand.