To say the difficulty of the fight is five times higher would be an understatement. With one slap from werewolf Jeanne, he got flung from one side of the arena to the other.
"Cough, cough, Hey, Isn't this a bit too much? Is she even sane like this?" Louis asks while watching Jeanne foam at the mouth like a dog with rabies.
"Grrr, WOOF, AI AM OKEEE" She responds with a thu… a paws up? It is still a mostly human-like hand, though…
"Hey, Louis! Get a grip! If you ask your foe for a time-out in the middle of the battle, I will show up there and beat you up myself!"
Louis props himself up and lets out a sigh, sharpening his mind as well as he can.
[I need to look for some weakness, what was that trick I heard about dealing with angry dogs again..?]
Jeanne charges once more before Louis can set up a battle plan; with a wide sweep of her left arm, it feels like it would split him in half if it connected!
[From here the only way out is forward, so…!] With a quick roll he goes right between Jeanne's legs from below, gaining some space, and then from behind he does his best to grab and trip her to the floor.
Jeanne leans back slightly; her werewolf frame is not very stable for standing on two legs, but even then, the strength that Louis used was far from enough to accomplish this!
"GR, AHAAHAA, RET'S DOO TIS DEN" Jeanne stretches her legs strongly and puts her weight on her back, falling on top of Louis with a thud.
BAAM!
"OUCH!" Louis gets squashed by the weight of a car-sized werewolf, but even so, he maintains his grip.
"Louis, focus! Remember what we did before! Remember the tips!"
[Teacher is right! I just need to apply what I've learned so far; that should be enough!]
Doing his best to resonate his soul with his muscles, from his arms to his torso to the tip of his toes, spreading his strength evenly, he stances himself to lift Jeanne while standing up from the floor, and with great struggle he succeeds in lifting his opponent off the ground!
Meanwhile, Jeanne simply has her arms closed; it seems she gave him a moment to try his best. For a moment, as she is lifted about 4 feet off the ground, she simply curls up her body and stretches quickly to free herself from his grip, leaving Louis tripped to fall again to the floor; with a kick of her leg, Louis rolls back close to his starting position.
"Haha, come on, Jeanne, now you are just messing with him! Come on, if it's going to be like that, just finish the fight."
"Wrolf" Jeanne signals with her open hand to Fuyuko to wait for a bit. With a few steps, she returns to where she started, and then she points to Louis and does a fanning hand sign as if telling Louis to come and get some!
Louis tries to focus on his legs for a quick leap and closes the distance once again, this time motivated to at least cause some damage.
With a right swipe of her claws, Jeanne slashes at Louis's chest, ripping flesh as blood splatters, creating 3 diagonal cuts from shoulder to belly!
"Ugh!" Once again Louis is pushed back; the pain in his wounds feels dull. Seeing the blood makes him panic a little, but this seems like it hurts less than when he stubs his pinky toe on the corner of furniture.
"Louis, this might be a Dream Kingdom, but you should take the fight seriously! Were this a real fight, you might have been done for already!" Fuyuko shouts from the back of the arena.
"Kuh kuh! COME!" Jeanne still calls Louis to step ahead, but by now Louis has figured out that just rushing ahead will not be enough.
[There is no way I can win a fight like this; my only shot now would be to try and knock her out in a single hit. In that case…]
Louis widens his stance, trying to implement everything he knows up until now, getting his breathing in rhythm, and resonating his soul as close to his body as possible, and then slowly moving towards Jeanne…
Watching this, Jeanne also stands up; with small steps, she slides in closer as well. When the distance between them becomes just a few feet, Jeanne slashes with her right arm again, but this time Louis is ready!
"…!" Teacher Fuyuko watches the fight with sparkling eyes, seemingly satisfied with how it's going.
With his left hand he grabs the wrist of the incoming arm and pulls her toward him, swinging with his right fist with all of his strength, hitting Jeanne right in the snout!
"GAH, GRR!" The punch caused Jeanne's snout to bleed and stunned her for a split second, and right as he prepares his next move…
She leans forward, grappling Louis' entire torso with her arm, and proceeds to jump and hit Louis with a full-body slam right into the ground!
When Louis' mind clears, he is already on the tatami floor, but unwounded?
He looks forward and sees Jeanne standing dazedly in a seemingly human form, except for what seems to be dog ears? Her appearance seems to be a mix of human and animal.
"Huh, what happened?" Louis looks around the arena and sees Fuyuko and Laura talking in the corner of the arena.
"Oh hey there, good job on the fight. Let's do a review in a bit. Do you think you can fight Miss Yamashita already?" As soon as Fuyuko notices Louis speaking, she skips right next to him.
"Wait, give me a moment to breathe at least. Also, is Jeanne ok?" As he looks back to where she was, he notices Jeanne appears to have vanished, leaving only Teacher, Laura, and himself in the arena.
"Yeah, she is fine. While in a dream kingdom, you enter a state similar to sleepwalking. While you were doing your thing, to me and Laura, you looked like two dummies standing around blankly." Fuyuko explains as a matter of fact.
"Wait! You were there; how were you still talking with Laura… Also, where is Jeanne? Ah…!" With a quick realization, Louis asks one last question. "You just cast it again, didn't you…?"
"She did." Laura responds lazily as Louis looks at the teacher with wide eyes.
"What is that tone? Are you amazed? This teacher is quite cool, right?" Fuyuko brags while striking a pose she seems to think is cool.
"I gotta admit, seeing you casting spells like it is nothing is pretty cool, but I am a bit tired from sparring with Jeanne; I don't think I can perform my best like this…"
"Haha! Don't worry, we are almost done! There is a very important point to this, so give it your best." Fuyuko jumps to the corner of the arena once more.
"Laura, remember what I said! Get ready, START!"
Right then, Louis stands up again as he sees Laura point with her fingers and draw the golden thread from her heart. About to cast a spell, he starts running towards her, not willing to repeat the same mistake as earlier and go easy on a fight.
**Soul Collapse**
With simple motions, when the thread follows the tips of her fingers, forming a quick sign, a white line of light shoots up before he can reach Laura.
Just like that, he is on the floor again. He looks toward Laura to see her standing with her arms crossed and eyes closed, looking grumpy. To his left, he sees Jeanne, who is drooling while standing up, looking silly.
He shakes his head and tries to stand up, but he is greeted by Fuyuko's hand as she pulls him up.
"Hey there, doing good?"
Louis pats himself to dust off and responds, "I think at this point I'm just mentally tired. Did we need to go this hard right away?"
"Hey, no complaining now; if you wanted time off, you should have asked at the start! Anyhow, this was very important. Say, what have you learned from just now?"
"I… I think I am pretty weak? From how I was right now, I don't think I had a way to win on either spar…"
"That is one way to look at it; currently we are almost done with the first quarter of the year. By now team captains were already chosen. Do you know who the captain of your team was?"
He wonders why she is talking about that; just a while ago she said the captain was Jeanne. "Was it Jeanne?"
"No, the captain is the strongest one in the team, the one that has to coordinate and take the lead! And that captain was you!"
"What? I… I thought I went to the throne because I didn't have talent…?"
"You didn't, at least not enough. Your body was too fragile in certain situations, so you couldn't advance on the midyear evaluation, but between Laura, Jeanne, and you, usually you would be the one to win!"
"I…"