Light and Shadow Tactic
"Luette in the lead! Are we staying in a straight sprint to the wire? Diana's hunting for her moment to break! Who's going to make the first move?! Diana! Diana pulls out! Diana takes the lead by a length! Diana!"
The student on commentary duty shot to his feet and bellowed, but the roar of the crowd packed around the finish line was louder still, and it swallowed him whole.
Diana, who had chased the leader from the start, surged past at the last and opened a gap on second-place Luette, crossing the finish line with room to spare.
"Waaaaah!!"
Victory in hand, she flashed a V-sign at the crowd and grinned like the sun.
"There's really nothing Diana can't do."
Zeroa said it while he clapped, envy plain in his voice.
From the preliminaries all the way through the finals, she had never once surrendered first place, sailing to the championship without a hitch. Whether he was measuring himself against her or simply despairing at a talent he could never catch, Zeroa's expression was not a happy one.
In some ways, Diana and Zeroa had a great deal in common. The greatest of those similarities was this: there was nothing they couldn't do. The difference was that Diana was good at everything, while Zeroa merely had no particular weaknesses — and no particular strengths, either.
"If you practiced, you could pull that off easy."
Rai said it from under Kara, who was visiting the academy and currently perched on his shoulders.
"If practice is all it takes, does that mean everyone else just didn't bother practicing?"
Aslan shot back, a note of complaint in his voice. He had Sena on his shoulders — Sena, who, like Agnes, had come to live at Rai's house. It was an uncharacteristically sharp remark, and it spoke for every student standing around them.
Rai, chewing the snacks Kara fed him, answered with a shrug.
"Difference in how much you put in, I guess."
Everyone stared at him.
Diana had shown staggering skill at last year's Martial Arts Tournament, and these days she was called a genius on par with Violet or Sozeta. Her only real flaw was that she had almost no interest in getting stronger — once academy lectures ended, she was always out playing, lazy as you please.
She was busy, in her way. But unlike Violet or Sozeta, who could burn an entire day on training alone, Diana liked being with the other students, and she took on miscellaneous chores more often than not. Granting requests, going out with classmates, helping instructors with odd jobs — outside of class, nobody had ever seen her train. And yet she did not fall behind in personal combat, grades, leadership, tactics — in anything at all.
Her nickname was the Effortless Genius. It was the kind of title that crushed a lot of students, but almost no one was jealous of Diana, because she was simply too easy to like. Plenty of people even suspected that if she ever got serious about training, she might overwhelm Violet or Sozeta outright. So when Rai chalked it up to a difference in practice, the students around him weren't so much annoyed as simply baffled.
"You're pretty hard on Diana, Instructor Rai."
"Not a chance."
Zeroa ventured that, as an instructor, Rai might simply dislike watching someone with that kind of talent refuse to work — but Rai only scoffed.
"Whatever choice you make, you're the ones who have to prove the result. Figure out for yourselves what you're missing. More importantly — how did the rest of you do? Anyone actually do well?"
When Rai changed the subject and asked about their results, the Class A students looked away and found other things to occupy their eyes. They hadn't slacked on training, but precious few of them had posted anything worth bragging about.
"I made it to the semis."
Only Aslan spoke up, and he did it without a shred of shame. He'd been hopeless once, but after mounting Black Horse he'd at least become confident in the Mounted Charge, and he'd ridden that straight into the semifinals. Aside from Black Horse occasionally refusing to listen, he'd looked set to cruise into the final itself.
"The horse race is over, so I should go compete. Kara, you be good and listen to Instructor Rai."
"Yeah. Go show 'em."
"Ahahaha... Everyone's so good, I don't know how it'll go. Anyway, I'll be back."
Zeroa left first to prepare for the team event.
"Zeroa, you're late!"
Cesset had an unlit pipe clenched in her teeth, her face arranged into a look of grave command, as if she were playing at being a general. She was even wearing a pair of sunglasses Rai had thrown away. Arms crossed, she addressed the students gathered in front of her.
"Gentlemen. Our odds are 5.1 to 1. Do you have any idea what that means?"
She waggled the pipe as she asked. Nobody answered.
"It means there isn't a soul who thinks we're contenders for the championship!"
"Well, not 'isn't a soul'... 5.1 to 1 means a few people did put money on us. Not many, but still."
"The long-shot junkies aren't counting on us!! Those bastards are just chasing a lucky score!"
Cuthbert had raised a hand to speak. Cesset roared over him. The pipe slipped from her teeth; Rin, standing behind her, caught it as if it were the most natural thing in the world and slotted it back between her lips.
"Doesn't that piss you off?! They're looking down on us! Let's show those bastards what we're made of!"
Zeroa, who knew perfectly well that she had put money on Class C, wore a complicated look as she shouted about winning. He had no intention of interrupting her while she was firing them up, though, so when the students started yelling, he yelled along. Aria's shy little cheer was so adorable that the rest of them came out thunderous.
"Our battle cry is one! Wreck 'em—! Trash 'em!"
"...Uh. That's a bit..."
"...Yeah, maybe not here?"
They were trying to build a head of steam, but the students' families were in the crowd, and the slogan was a little too savage. The reaction came back lukewarm. Cesset read the room and changed it.
"Let's win!"
"We'll win!"
In the end they settled on something harmless, and the Class A students spurred their horses into the arena.
The 10-Person Small-Scale Mounted Combat was a flag capture. A simple match, decided by who seized the flag in the opposing camp first.
"Go, Goddess!"
"Louder!"
"Goddess!! Go!!!"
"That's all you've got? My daughter isn't satisfied with that!!"
"Goddeeeeess!! Goooo!!!"
The devotees in the stands roared their support, and Andres, who had somehow inserted himself among them, egged them on until Aria ducked her head in mortification. Iliana approached with a smile that had gone a little stiff, linked her arm through her husband's, and towed him out. However high-flying a duke he might be, once his wife had hold of him he couldn't get a word out, and could only glance around, reading the room.
"Let's do our best."
"...Yes. Let's."
When Zeroa offered the encouragement from beside her, Aria nodded and set her resolve.
Class A's opponent was Class B. Their championship odds were 5.4 to 1, so not many people expected much from them either. But the other classes' shorter odds existed because of Violet or Sozeta — every student here was a talented person who had earned a place at the academy. As if to prove it, the moment the match began they tore into each other in earnest.
Students swinging wide to infiltrate the enemy camp, students driving their horses to cut them off, a fierce push-and-pull through the center — the clash between the two classes flowed in a way that made it impossible to tell who would come out on top.
Cesset, chewing her pipe to shreds, suddenly leapt to her feet and crossed her arms in an X over her chest. It was her trump card. Her judgment was that if they kept burning stamina like this, they wouldn't have anything left for the next match.
"Light and Shadow!"
"Form up!"
When Class A reset their formation, Class B cocked their heads.
"Light and Shadow? What's that?"
"They must have something prepared. Looking at the formation, it seems like a central breakthrough."
"A single-point charge with the Goddess at the tip?"
Class A put Aria at the front and dressed their ranks behind her. Seeing the triangular wedge, Class B thickened their center the way they had practiced and left a single student at the very rear to swing around behind. Hold the breakthrough; let one rider slip out and take the flag. That was the idea.
"Aria, you look amazing!!"
Andres's shout seemed to embarrass her, but Aria stepped out in front anyway and raised her sword like a captain commanding her troops. It was a thin rapier, all wrong for mounted combat, but in her hands even a tree branch would have looked like a sacred relic. When that sword — drawing every eye in the arena — came down toward the front, all of Class A drove their horses like they'd lost their minds.
"Uryaaaaaaah!"
"Wreck 'emmmm! Trash 'em!!!"
Whether it was the heat of the moment, Class A charged in shouting Cesset's original slogan, and Class B drove forward to brace for the impact. The momentum was heavier than expected, but they had stacked the center thick enough.
KRA-KOOM!
The two classes slammed together, and a melee erupted that could have passed for a real battlefield. They were wearing protectors enchanted with body-guarding magic, but there was no telling when that magic might fail, and the staff running the match watched the students' fighting with their nerves drawn tight.
Aria punched through the brawl — little better than a street fight — and the crowd erupted. Class B, though, as if they had already seen it coming, had two riders close around her and pin her in place.
"Sorry, Goddess. We win."
A Class B student who had joined the opening scrum and then immediately dropped back was already racing toward Class A's flag. Everyone had been thrown into the central breakthrough, so nobody in Class A had even noticed him, and he reached the flag without a single obstacle in his path. As the Class B rider who had slipped out so smoothly stretched out a hand for Class A's flag, the referee bellowed.
"Class A wins!!"
"What?!"
Bewildered by a call that made no sense at all, the Class B students panicked — and Cesset, wearing a thoroughly sly smile, pointed a finger at their flag. When the Class B students looked back, Zeroa was standing there holding it. He looked exhausted, but the joy of winning had put a brightness on his face.
"What? How is he over there?"
"That is the Light and Shadow Tactic!!"
Cesset was just as drunk on the win. She climbed onto the fence dividing the arena from the stands and proclaimed it for the whole stadium.
It sounded magnificent. The conclusion, stripped of poetry, was that they had drawn every eye with Aria and Zeroa had hit them from behind.
"Aria, whose presence is overwhelming, and Zeroa, whose presence is faint — together they're an invincible combo. We call it the Shadow Assassination Technique!!"
"Kh, the Shadow Assassination Technique..."
"We got played... using Zeroa's complete lack of presence..."
No matter how much fine language you draped over it, it meant Zeroa was someone who didn't stand out — someone nobody paid attention to. The longer Cesset's explanation went on, the worse Zeroa's expression became. The crowd's reaction was far too good. The more people went ooh, the sadder he got.
"We won. Thanks to you, Zeroa."
But the moment he saw Aria — eyes shining, both hands clenched tight with the sheer joy of winning — Zeroa broke into a goofy grin. However they won, if she was happy, he would do anything.
"Tsk. A boy acting like that—"
"Heheh. They suit each other."
"Suit each other? He isn't even the dirt under Aria's toenails... no. Aria doesn't have anything like dirt. Of course she doesn't."
Andres clicked his tongue at the boy who had pulled off a sneak attack by being forgettable. Iliana, watching the unexpectedly well-matched pair, only smiled.
The arena was cleared for the next match, and Cesset drifted over to Rai's side. Championship favorite Class C against Class E, who had drawn odds similar to Class A's.
"What on earth did Class C prepare that's supposed to make their strategy so outstanding?"
"You'll see."
Even to Cesset's question, Rai refused to spoil it.
Class C had a genius in Violet, but their odds were far longer than the other championship favorite, Class D. That meant they were considered less likely to win than Sozeta's class — because Violet was a terrible rider. In a real battle she could simply dismount and fight; in the match, the moment you came off your horse, you were out. The prevailing opinion was that on horseback, she would never be able to show ability matching her actual skill.
Cesset cocked her head at Violet, who couldn't even dress the line for greetings and was sticking out to one side.
"She's not a worse rider than I am, is she?"
"Not just you. She's probably the worst rider here."
Rai, who was picking Class C to take the whole thing, answered as if it were nothing.
The moment the match began, both classes organized their formations.
"What the..."
The Class E students frowned at Class C's bizarre shape. As if they meant to break through on the right, Class C's students had clustered on one side and formed up. The problem was that nine of them had gathered with no regard for defense whatsoever. And the remaining one — Violet — was standing beside the flag.
Standing. Literally standing.
Atop a horse that boasted a hippo's sagging rump and a pair of stubby little legs, Violet had drawn her sword and was guarding the flag.
"Now this is a fascinating tactic."
Cesset marveled. Violet, whom everyone had expected to come out on the attack as the most skilled rider they had, was guarding the flag. And the rest of the roster was charging with not a single person left on defense.
It was a bewildering approach, but Class E split their numbers at once, leaving six on defense and sending the rest forward to attack first. Even if it was Violet, she couldn't possibly hold the flag against four at once. That was the thinking.
"Winner, Class C!"
It had been a reasonably quick response. It was also a limp, helpless defeat. Violet handled the four who had come for the flag without the slightest trouble and unhorsed them for good measure. It was a scene that explained, all at once, why she had chosen a horse with zero mobility that looked like a hippopotamus. Moving as if it were nothing atop that broad back, she swept her sword in every direction and dealt with the Class E students, eliminating their attack team faster than Class C could even take the flag. It ended so quickly that the real spectacle was Violet standing there in a daze, spectating, while a fierce battle still raged in Class E's camp.
"We really should've brought Diana out too. What a shame."
Cesset let out a hollow laugh at the sheer, overwhelming skill.
"The die is already cast. A commander has to use everything they've got."
"I know. Even if they're the favorites. Even if I put money on them. I still don't want to lose."
Cesset answered while staring a hole through Violet. Whether she meant it or not, her eyes were locked on the other girl, but her head seemed to be working through a way to win — she looked faintly vacant.