A+ Confirmed
Arena 1, where Simon and Chatel had clashed, shot up into the sky before shattering into pieces.
Arena 3, where Meilin and Serne had fought, was reduced to a sea of fire.
In the end, Kizen issued a suspension order for both arenas, and the administrators had to run their legs sore negotiating for alternative venues.
Meanwhile, Simon, Rick, and Camibarez came down the stairs to the waiting room to meet Meilin. From the far end of the corridor, Meilin was approaching with a towel draped over her head, sniffling all the while — the exact opposite of the arena's sweltering heat, thanks to the cold she herself had unleashed.
"Meilin!"
Camibarez sprinted over, on the verge of tears, and threw herself into her arms. Meilin let out an "oh" and gave an awkward smile.
"Kami. I'm all gross right now."
"Sniff! I was so worried, Meilin!"
And then Camibarez burst into full-on sobs. Her face, buried against Meilin's chest, was already getting smudged with soot, but she couldn't have cared less.
Meilin smiled softly and stroked her back.
"Hnngh! That match was absolutely insane! That's what losing a fight like a champ looks like!"
Rick made a huge show of it, reenacting Meilin bringing down her Jet-Black Frost Barrier at the very end.
Simon, who had walked up behind him, smiled faintly.
"No regrets about how you fought?"
"……Simon!"
The moment she saw Simon and her teammates' faces, Meilin felt relief wash over her, her nose stinging and her vision blurring.
But crying in front of them would be embarrassing. She desperately wrestled her emotions under control and forced out her brightest smile.
"Did you win?"
Simon nodded at her question.
"Of course."
"Beating Chatel, huh. You really are something."
The two of them shared quiet laughter.
Just then, Camibarez, who had her face buried in Meilin's chest, peeked her head up.
"Meilin! You were so cool at the end there!"
"Huh? Oh, r-really? I honestly have no idea what happened — I was totally in the zone…"
"When you went berserk and drove Serne into a corner at the end, you were kind of like a female Simon!"
Meilin's face flared red.
"K-Kami! Is that supposed to be a compliment?!"
Camibarez beamed and rubbed her cheek against her.
"To me it's a super-duper compliment."
"Y-you—!"
All four of them erupted into laughter.
Rick, cackling so hard he doubled over, glanced up at the clock on the ceiling and his face went pale.
"Crap, is it that late already?! Kami! We've got to get ready for our match too!"
"Right, Rick!"
The three of them hurried out at a brisk pace.
Simon was about to follow when—
flit
His head turned. At some point, a single feather had settled softly onto his shoulder.
—Thank you.
The moment the feather touched him, Serne's figure appeared. She was leaning against the wall of the opposite corridor, waving her hand this way and that.
"……Serne."
"Thank you for helping our dear Meilin. She's an important talent of the Ivory Tower, so as her successor, I figured a proper word of thanks was in order."
She took hold of the hem of her skirt and dipped into a curtsy. Simon, meanwhile, furrowed his brow and sighed.
"Let me guess — 'pushing Meilin to her limits was for her own good,' something along those lines?"
"Ufufu. That actually was my intention at first~"
A little-devil smile curled across Serne's lips.
"But watching our cute Meilin come snapping and snarling at me, gritting her teeth — well, it flipped my switch, shall we say? Made me want to tease her a little? So my original plan went slightly off the rails."
Simon's voice was flat with displeasure.
"……You really do have a rotten personality."
"Isn't that part of my charm?"
Watching her say it to his own face without a flicker of change in her expression, Simon shook his head in exasperation.
"Hey."
step
"What are you two doing?"
It was Meilin. She grabbed Simon by the shoulder and yanked him firmly behind her. Simon stared at her back with wide eyes.
"Oh my~"
Serne said, sounding genuinely surprised.
"I was running illusion magic. How did you know?"
"Who are you calling a pushover?"
Meilin pointed at the ceiling with a perfectly level expression. Somewhere along the way, an Illusion Nullification magic circle had been drawn onto the wall.
"Kind of fun, isn't it? Honestly, I feel like someone like me could twist you around her finger whenever she wanted."
Serne simply said nothing, offering only an enigmatic smile.
"Sure. Keep underestimating me like that. I hit the seventy-percent line at the end of first semester. Second year, I'll force you to a draw. And by third-year graduation—"
snap
Meilin pointed her thumb at the floor and declared, head held high.
"I will break you. And I'm taking that Ivory Tower successor's seat while I'm at it."
Serne's eyes curved like a fox's. Then she lifted the corner of her mouth with a look full of meaning.
"I look forward to it~"
Serne turned her back. She winked once at Simon, and with a ripple of warping space, she vanished on the spot.
"Ugh."
Meilin, hands on her hips, clicked her tongue in distaste. Then she turned back to Simon.
"Hey."
Simon flustered and stammered.
"W-wait, just hold on! Meilin! It's not like I did anything — Serne just suddenly—!"
"Thank you."
Simon stopped mid-sentence.
He'd expected her to blow up at him, since it involved Serne — but right now, a warm fondness was glowing in Meilin's eyes.
"What you told me from the stands helped a lot."
Sweeping back the disheveled hair at her ear, she said it with a sharp little smile.
"If it weren't for you, by now I'd…"
"Everything out there was the result of your own effort."
With that, Simon strode off ahead. In the distance, Rick and Camibarez were waving and waiting for him.
"At least for today, just be happy — purely, honestly — about what you achieved."
"……"
Watching his retreating back, she felt her chest tighten, and she drew in a deep breath.
"W-wait up! You dummy!"
Kizen headquarters officially announced that this Duel Evaluation would be the final one for this year's first-years.
Simon, in the High Squad, finished with an unbroken record.
Meilin had also gone undefeated all the way until she met Serne in the final round; that loss placed her in the Mid Squad.
Camibarez won once in the Mid Squad and advanced to the High Squad. Rick closed out the season in the Low Squad.
That said, Duel Evaluation grades were weighted primarily by a detailed assessment of the fights themselves. Meilin might be in the Mid Squad, but she would receive a grade higher than most High Squad students.
Of course, final squad placement still mattered in some respects.
Even those who had started out in high brackets — the bottom hundred students of the current Lowest Squad were instantly expelled from Kizen. With the Integrated Second Semester reducing the weight of duel evaluations, the number of expulsions had shrunk to just that much.
And so, of the 1,000 students enrolled in Kizen at the start of the year, 647 remained alive.
Between the failing grades sure to come out of the various practical assessments, finals, and Mission Evaluations still ahead — and above all, the casualties of the promotion exams — the survivors were certain to dwindle at a rapid clip.
And then.
The crucial hurdle began: the subject-by-subject Final Practical Evaluations.
First up was Professor Hong Peng's Magic Combat course — the TA Face-Off.
"KWAHAHAHA!"
The Magic Combat TA slated to face Simon was none other than that very 'Brad' — the man he had history with.
"What's the matter, Simon Polentia?! Come at me like you did last time!"
In the training ring, Brad's fists shot out in a relentless barrage, driving Simon back. Simon did nothing but defend, and he did it thoroughly.
The rules of this TA Face-Off were simple: Magic Combat techniques only.
Use a magic circle, and you were disqualified.
And if a student landed any three valid hits on the TA — by any means necessary — before their Barrier Gauge ran dry, an A+ was guaranteed.
"Come on! Fight me for real!"
Brad was throwing fists laden with personal vendetta.
He'd gone easy on the other students, but with Simon there was none of that. Simon's Barrier Gauge, still holding his guard up, had already dropped to nearly half.
But.
"You brat!!"
Simon stayed calm. Even coiled low in his guard, utterly unshaken, his eyes kept searching for an opening — and that only made Brad's blood boil hotter.
'No matter what he pulls, his attacks come down to Chwita, Sky Piercer, or Fixed Blade! I'm not taking a single one of them!'
Brad broke off his barrage and drew his right fist back. At the sight of his Jet-Black churning savagely, Rick shrieked in alarm.
"Simon! That's Sky Piercer!"
"Dodge it!"
The Sky Piercer — the strike that pierced straight through an opponent's guard.
Brad smirked and cocked his right fist toward Simon, who had taken a defensive stance — and in that instant—
whoosh
Simon opened his own guard and stepped forward, taking Brad's Sky Piercer square in the chest.
"What the—?!"
Even knowing it was a piercing technique, it took a stomach of iron to deliberately do that.
Simon closed the distance to Brad in a heartbeat and slapped his right palm flat against his flank.
Then he pushed with everything he had.
WHAMMM!
Brad's body was hurled backward. The first light flickered on — the signal that a strike had landed.
CRASH!
"Nngh!"
Brad flew to the far end of the ring and landed hard on his rear.
'What the hell hit me?! What technique was that—'
And the moment he raised his head, he saw Simon with his index and middle fingers pressed together, cocked in a perfect finger-flick stance.
The instant Simon snapped his fingers, a dull thump rang out and a shockwave burst against Brad's forehead.
The second light came on, and the watching students erupted in cheers.
"What is that? What's going on?"
"Keep going! Push him!"
Brad felt his mind snap into razor focus.
He'd assumed a mere student could only be thinking about the three great Matu techniques — and then out of nowhere, an original technique had popped out.
'Damn it all! Creating a new Matu technique is even harder than building an original magic circle!'
Brad sprang to his feet.
'I can't give him any more time!'
No matter what, he could not allow that third hit. This was a matter of pride as a TA.
Brad stomped his Jet-Black into the ground and charged at Simon.
"Hoooooh."
Simon, meanwhile, was drawing a long, slow breath, his arms weaving through the air in fluid motions.
The ready stance of something.
His fists showed Jet-Black twisting into a bizarre, tangled knot. His opponent was only a student, but unease rippled through Brad's eyes.
'Damn it! What is that?!'
A close-range technique? A ranged strike? A counter? A ground move?
He couldn't tell what kind of Matu technique it was at all.
Just as a flustered Brad slammed on the brakes, trying to read Simon's movements—
BOOM!
Simon suddenly drove his fist straight into the floor. The ground heaved and shuddered, and at Brad's feet, with a whump, a fountain of earth and debris erupted skyward.
'A first-year, using seismic-wave techniques?!'
Dirt and gravel pelted Brad, but nothing of this caliber was lighting that third lamp.
Of course not.
slither
Simon's real target was the left hand.
Right fist slams the ground, and a follow-up comes flowing in like water. Swinging through, his left hand was shaping its Jet-Black into a jagged blade.
SHAAAAAAAK!
The Fixed Blade — a long-range attack that blinds the opponent with a surging column of earth, then carves through them right along with it.
Brad twisted his body desperately to evade—
SKRACK!
The blade edge raked across his flank and arm. At last, the third light blazed on.
"Halt the match!"
Hong Peng clapped her hands together with a sharp crack! and shouted.
"Jimon Polentia! You've landed thtrie hits on the Matu TA, tho A+ ith confirmed!"
Simon raised his fist and whooped. Rick, Meilin, and Camibarez screamed themselves hoarse, and the other students, thrilled at the very first 'A+', clapped and cheered for him.
"……Huh?"
Brad just stood there, mouth hanging open, a dopey look on his face.