"Go Kaito! You can do it!"
Mina's voice cut through the arena noise like a beacon of pure support. I could see her in the spectator section, practically bouncing with excitement despite being surrounded by Academy officials who probably wished she'd sit down and be quiet.
Hearing her cheer gave me the confidence boost I desperately needed as I faced Saki across the arena platform.
"Begin!" the official called.
I opened with basic flame techniques, testing Saki's defenses while trying to gauge her capabilities. She responded with wind barriers that deflected my fire with elegant efficiency, but nothing too overwhelming.
For the first few exchanges, it felt like an even match. My flames found openings in her defenses, while her wind techniques kept me moving and prevented me from establishing dominant positioning. The crowd was engaged but not amazed—a solid, competent duel between Academy graduates.
Then Saki decided to stop holding back.
The change was immediate and devastating. Her wind techniques suddenly carried power that made the air itself seem alive. Pressure waves that could crush stone, cutting winds that carved grooves in the reinforced arena floor, vortexes that pulled at my very soul.
"What the hell?!" I gasped, barely diving away from a wind blade that would have bisected me if it had connected. "This isn't Academy-level!"
Saki's response was a technique that turned the entire arena into her weapon. Multiple air currents moving in impossible patterns, creating a three-dimensional maze of death that left me with nowhere to run.
The first time I hit the ground, it was because a pressure wave caught me mid-dodge and slammed me into the arena floor hard enough to crack stone. The second time was when she trapped me in a wind prison and systematically dismantled my defenses with surgical precision.
"Come on, big brother!" Mina's voice reached me through the chaos. "Don't give up!"
I pulled myself upright, blood running from a dozen cuts where wind blades had found their mark. Looking across the arena, I could see Saki preparing something that would definitely end this match—and possibly my life.
No. I wasn't going to lose. Not here. Not in front of everyone who believed in me.
Reaching for the flame threading technique Kyoto had taught me, I began weaving fire into semi-solid constructs. The threads materialized around my hands, glowing with controlled intensity as I shaped them into defensive patterns.
For a moment, it worked. My flame threads actually stopped Saki's assault, creating barriers that could match her wind techniques.
Then she escalated again.
Wind techniques that shouldn't be possible began tearing through my defenses, each one more lethal than the last. I was losing again, but this time I could feel desperation clawing at my chest.
I can't lose. I won't lose.
Without thinking, I poured everything into the technique. Every scrap of Shinzai, every ounce of determination, every desperate need to prove I belonged here.
The flame threads began to change.
They glowed brighter, moved faster, cut through the air with lethal precision that made the arena barriers shimmer with heat distortion. This wasn't the controlled technique Kyoto had taught me anymore—this was something else entirely.
"That's it!" I shouted, feeling power surge through me like lightning. "This is what real strength feels like!"
The flames around my hands took on qualities that seemed to bend reality itself. Threads of fire that moved like living serpents, carrying death in their wake, seeking targets with predatory intelligence.
Saki's wind barriers shattered like glass. Her advanced techniques were swept aside like cobwebs. For the first time in the match, fear flickered across her face as she was forced into pure defensive movement.
But something was terribly wrong.
The technique wasn't responding to my control anymore. The flame threads were moving with lethal intent that came from somewhere deeper than conscious thought, seeking vital points with surgical precision that would leave no room for survival.
"Kaito, stop!" I heard multiple voices shouting, but they sounded like they were coming from another world.
The flame threads were accelerating toward Saki with the inevitability of death itself. She tried to dodge, tried to block, tried everything—but nothing could stop what was coming.
They were going to kill her.
"STOP!" I screamed, trying desperately to cut off the technique, but it had taken on a life of its own.
That's when the world exploded.
A presence slammed into the arena with the force of a natural disaster. The air itself seemed to crystallize under pressure so intense that several Academy students collapsed in the spectator area. Guild leaders who had been sitting casually were suddenly on their feet, hands moving instinctively toward weapons.
Izuma stood between my technique and Saki, but this wasn't the man I'd met in the forest. This was something else entirely—a force of nature wearing human form, radiating authority that made the very stones of the arena crack beneath his feet.
My flame threads struck his extended hand and simply... ceased to exist. Not blocked, not deflected—erased from reality as if they had never been.
The silence that followed was the kind that comes before earthquakes.
When Izuma turned toward me, I felt my soul try to flee my body. His eyes held depths that spoke of power beyond mortal comprehension, authority that could reshape kingdoms with a word, and cold calculation that weighed lives like grain.
"How," he said, and his voice carried the weight of mountains, "did you learn that technique?"
I tried to speak and found my throat had forgotten how to work. Every instinct I possessed was screaming at me to run, to hide, to do anything except meet the gaze of something that had transcended human limitations.
"I... someone taught me..." I managed to whisper.
"That technique," Izuma continued, each word falling like hammer blows, "was designed to kill guild leaders. It carries the signature of someone who betrayed everything we stand for."
The arena had become a tomb. Academy officials were pressed against walls, some openly weeping from the pressure. Students in the spectator area looked like they were witnessing the end of the world.
"The person who taught you," Izuma's voice could have carved stone, "where are they now?"
Before I could answer, the world shifted again.
Another presence entered the arena, and this one was wrong in ways that made my eyes water. Where Izuma radiated controlled power, this new arrival was chaos given form—authority that existed outside normal rules, strength that answered to no law except its own whim.
Captain Hazama stood up from his chair, and reality bent around him.
"Now, now, Iron Crown," he said in a voice like silk hiding razors, "aren't you being a little dramatic?"
The collision of their auras made the arena floor buckle. Ancient reinforcement spells that had weathered centuries of combat training began to fail under pressure that was never meant to exist in the same space.
Academy students were dropping unconscious. Guild leaders were bracing themselves against forces that threatened to tear apart their very being. The air itself was screaming.
"This doesn't concern you, Hazama," Izuma said, but for the first time since entering the arena, his voice held uncertainty.
"Oh, but it does." Hazama's casual smile contained depths of menace that made hardened killers weep. "You see, I'm interested in this particular boy."
"The technique he used—"
"Is irrelevant." Hazama interrupted, and the word carried finality that brooked no argument. "What matters is that he's under my protection now."
The standoff that followed threatened to unmake the physical laws governing the arena. Two forces of nature locked in opposition, their mere presence warping reality around them.
I could see cracks spreading through the viewing platforms. The medical stations were evacuating. Even the other guild leaders looked like they were preparing for war.
"You know what that technique represents," Izuma said, his power pressing against Hazama's like colliding storm fronts.
"I know what you think it represents," Hazama replied, and his authority pushed back with interest. "But I also know you're jumping to conclusions based on old fears."
The air between them had become visible—distortions that hurt to look at directly, forces that existed beyond normal perception clashing with violence that threatened to spill over into pure destruction.
Then Hazama did something that made everyone in the arena question their understanding of power.
He smiled.
Not the lazy grin I'd seen before, but something that contained depths of amusement and menace in equal measure. Something that suggested he was enjoying this confrontation in ways that should have been impossible.
"Izuma," he said with gentle affection that was somehow more terrifying than any threat, "you're making this much more complicated than it needs to be."
The pressure in the arena shifted. Where before it had been two forces in opposition, now it felt like a predator toying with prey.
Izuma's eyes widened with what might have been recognition of just how outmatched he was.
"The boy stays in consideration," Hazama continued conversationally, as if they weren't locked in a battle of wills that was threatening to level the Academy. "Winner: Kaito Hayashi. Any objections?"
The silence stretched for eternities.
Finally, Izuma's power began to withdraw. Not defeated, but acknowledging a superior force.
"Winner: Kaito Hayashi," he announced, his voice carrying resignation that spoke of political realities beyond my understanding.
The moment the words left his mouth, both presences vanished as if they had never existed. The arena returned to normal so suddenly that several people collapsed from the pressure change.
Hazama settled back into his chair with his usual lazy demeanor, as if he hadn't just demonstrated power that belonged in legends.
"Well," he said cheerfully, "that was fun! Nothing like a little excitement to keep recruitment interesting."
The other guild leaders stared at him with expressions that ranged from awe to terror. Academy officials were checking students for injuries caused by pressure they couldn't explain. Medical teams were treating people for conditions that shouldn't exist.
But I barely noticed any of it. My mind was reeling from what I'd witnessed—forces of nature wearing human faces, authority that could reshape reality, power that existed beyond anything I'd imagined possible.
Someone had taught me a technique connected to betrayal and forbidden knowledge. I was caught between guild leaders who commanded forces that could level cities. And somewhere in the spectator area, Mina had just watched her brother become the center of a conflict involving powers that mortals weren't supposed to witness.
I had won my match, but that victory felt insignificant compared to the revelation that the people who would shape my future possessed strength that belonged in myths.
My life hadn't just become complicated.
It had become legendary.
And I had no idea if I was strong enough to survive what came next.