Chapter 50.

PART 1.

Hatori heard the performance of Shin, where he provided support to the main violin player. Then, he heard that Suresh won the championship final. Now, he is going to watch the duel of Nandan, who has qualified for the final match. Once he wins this, he will be eligible to participate in the international under sixteen competition.

“Raven, will you ask Suresh to give me his games? I would like to analyze them for myself.”

“Sure.” Answered Raven, walking besides Hatori.

Though his friends did not come to watch the duel, Hatori still has the company of Singh twins. He is currently sitting with them, waiting for the match to begin. He senses Professor Bali taking the chair next to them.

“Good. You boys should take an interest in this. Even if you don’t have an interest in dueling, it has political implications once you get involved with family politics.” He said. “Not to mention, it gives you a great idea of what the meaning of walking the path of magic is.”

Hatori notes how he doesn’t sound bitter anymore towards him, though he suspects it is probably due to being in the public. Whatever the case might be, he cannot bring himself to trust professor Bali after their arguments, and his efforts to punish him through another student.

Speaking of which, he has heard many times that Praduman was looking for him. But he always managed to avoid him, either by luck or by carefully hiding whenever he was near him. Rest of the time, Hatori is training at his secret place, so he doesn’t have to worry about avoiding anyone. Once these festivities are over, he’ll go back to his training seriously.

“Ladies and gentlemen, and those who are not ladies nor gentlemen, welcome to the final match of the qualifying tournament for Subcontinent’s under sixteen representatives! I am Samudra Sharma, your host, and much like every match of this tournament, I will be providing you with commentary throughout the match!” The crowd cheered, while I, the narrator, cheered the author. This means I don’t have to put much effort into providing commentary for the readers of this match. I take back every single horrible thing I have said about the author so far.

“So, that’s where he’s been at.” Said Hatori.

He hasn’t found Samudra, even after looking for him. Since he was so willing to share some advice, Hatori thought this would be a great time to grill him for some more things, since he might be in a good mood during this festival. But he never has the chance to talk to him.

“Why can’t we find a better commentator than him?” Said professor Bali, covering his face with his palm. Though there are a lot of great and talented students, none of them are great with their words, which is very important to describe to the audience when two mages duel.

“First is, Toofan Singh Badal. A boy from Panchnada, who has impressed everyone with his elemental magic, preferring water, and spells which he rains down upon his friend like his namesake. (Which is cloud, for those who are uneducated among us. Kindly eliminate yourself from the gene pool, for you fail to study even in the hallowed halls of this great and wonderful Academy!) speaking of which, three cheers for our great and wonderful headmaster, Corvus!”

The students went wild, chanting Corvus’s name over and over. “Looks like he’s quite popular.” Said Hatori to Ranveer, who is sitting to his right.

“Yep.” He nodded.

By this point, Hatori has made some observations which allowed him to differentiate between the twins. Ranveer is much quieter and boisterous compared to Bhavani, and wears much more plainer clothes compared to his twin. His magic also feels calmer compared to the roiling fury of Bhavani.

“See, see what I mean?” Said professor Bali, unable to contain his feelings. The children ignored him. They like the announcing style of Samudra.

“Now, introducing the pride and joy of Bhojpal, central India, Nandan Durve! Much like his opponent, he has come through this tournament, disposing of every opponent. He prefers the slow and methodical approach, and prefers to use the wind element. He also likes to use transmutation and conjuration in his battles. Who will win this match? We are about to find out now!” The crowd gives another cheer.

The referee comes between the two duelists. “The duel will continue until either of you are knocked out, or when I decide one of you is unable to continue, or one of you says “I give up!” or something to that effect. All the spells you know are allowed. Do you understand the rules?” At their nod, she moves aside.

Barriers for the safety of the crowd are raised, and a leaf is tossed between two combatants by the referee after she conjures it. as soon as it hits the ground, they begin to fight each other, their foci dancing in the elaborate motions to cast spells.

Hatori readies himself to note down whatever spells he is lucky enough to sense clearly. Though Samudra announced how Nandan prefers the wind element, he opens with a fireball. “The first offensive spell taught to fire users.” Said Bali to the children. Hatori notes it down.

The fireball is doused by Toofan. Taking advantage of the steam, Nandan decides to show his skill with elemental magic, waving his blunt-looking blade like foci in the air, and stomping on the ground. Several rocks come out of Toofan’s side of the ring, which he blocks with the wall of ice. The ice wall is broken in to shards, which he sends towards Nandan. Nandan retaliates by the use of the wind, sending the large pieces of ice to Toofan, while accepting some scratches from the smaller shards.

“A remarkable feet of elemental magic folks, which is not easy to do in the heed of the battle. Elemental magic is difficult to use in the best circumstances, much less during a battle. And yet, these two duelists already have such great control over their magic.” The crowd roared in approval of both of them. There aren’t any specific fans here, since both boys are from the Academy.

Toofan makes some motions with his club-like foci, and Nandan staggers. His sight is disoriented, effecting his balance in the process. “And we see the subtle power of illusion, as just one spell has disrupted the balance of Nandan. He looks in trouble!”

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Grunting due to his disorientation, he controls his belly by breathing, while thwarting the spells of Toofan, which just keep coming. The boy seems to have endless stamina. Once his stomach is under control, he makes a slashing motion with his blade, cutting the illusion. He makes eye contact with Toofan, and applies the one fociless illusion he knows.

Toofan suddenly finds himself in a graveyard instead of his school-arena with a cheering crowd, which is replaced with undead corpses shambling towards him. He broke through this illusion, but this gave Nandan enough time to transmute birds and snakes from the small pebbles in the ring. Ideally, he would have loved to make the strangling grass, but his transmutation is not that good yet. “And Nandan is back on the offensive, as these birds and snakes peck, bite, or strangle Toofan!”

After getting away from the snakes, Toofan transmutes his own animals, sending them to fight with Nandan’s animals. The problem is, now he is pinned to the wall of the ring at one side, unable to move much due to the wind spells used by Nandan, which keep buffeting him.

He tries to blast some sharp stones at Nandan, but they just come back at him. Just when he is getting ready to break the elemental domination of Nandan, Nandan conjures a spike of iron, and flings it at Toofan. His arm is pinned to the wall as a result, and the spell he was preparing fizzles out in the middle. Realizing his situation, he decides to yield. “I give up.”

“And we have the winner!” The crowd roared with this announcement, as Toofan gets some medical attention.

But the twins are shocked by the rather brutal ending. Hatori is shocked too, but he already has his dose of violence, so he is not affected by the finish of the match that deeply. And this narrator dies from inside each time he has to describe something like that.

“Take heart kids,” said professor Bali softly. “It could have been much worse. Besides, injuries like a sliced leg are easily repaired by magic. This will be treated as nothing more than a flesh wound.”

Though it failed to assure them, Bali tried hard. So let’s give him applause for that at least.

PART 2.

Nandan is eating dinner with Hatori’s friends. “Say, don’t you have older friends?” asked Shin.

“Nah. My training doesn’t give me much time to make friends.” Hatori’s friends look at him.

“What?” He stopped eating his delicious curry.

“Besides, a lot of them are intimidated by me. So they don’t talk to me. You kids, on the other hand, you treat me like a friend, and you’re not afraid of me.” Said Nandan. “Besides, I rather enjoy the remaining time with you guys. I have to leave for training. The international competition will be tough.”

“Yeah,” agreed Hatori. “Judging by today’s match, if they’re sending their best, hard preparation will be needed for you to win. But I think you can win.”

“Yeah!” agreed Hatori’s friends.

“Thanks guys.” Nandan appreciated this support.

“Also,” Hatori and his friends remember this voice. “I am here to say good luck to you.”

“You trained him?” asked Hatori.

“Of course I did.” Said Sargent Book. “Much like you, he was a hardworking student. though he couldn’t master the holds.”

Nandan looks at Hatori in pity. He knows why he’s training like that. He has heard enough things among circles of older students to get an idea of what has happened this year. “Well, thanks for the training, Sarge.”

“Yes. May you have a long and successful career.” The spirit flies away after those parting words.

PART 3.

After the festivities are over, everyone is going back to their classes and studies.

Except for the five boys of a certain room. Ignoring classes whenever they like, James and Hatori, are working on their projects, while doing some combat training. Hatori is happy to have some human sparring partners.

Meanwhile, Shin and Raven are experimenting with some sound related magic. Josh is wondering, what could he do for himself? His math skills don’t seem to be immediately useful here. He needs a project of his own to show his improvement and learn new things, aside from serving as a sparring partner for Hatori. Seriously. Someone should teach him not to hit his friends that hard.

PART 4.

While Josh is busy thinking about a project to improve himself, someone is plotting revenge. Swaraj tried to recruit Hatori just before the festival. Needless to say, his aggressive recruitment drive meets with a face full of acid potion. Though his face is now restored, he lost his standing in the Academy.

Thus, he plans to strike during exams. ‘He’ll be tired from the practical portions. Perfect time to get him for what he did to me.’ he thinks to himself, now alone, without any lackies.

He actually expected some help from Krishna Menon, but since the Joshis took a hit ever since the failed plan of Yograj two years ago, and this latest failure on his part, he refuses to give him the time of the day. Now he has no choice but to go on his own without any support.

“I’ll come for you though, remember this. You left me when I needed you most. You will pay a heavy price for that.” He promises to himself.

PART 5.

Hatori is having a rest day with his friends. For now, he is learning Shogi with Maria. He wishes that he could play this game without paying too much attention to color, like he used to play chess back home, but he has to make do with what he has.

The game is interesting enough to put up with it. Not to mention, Maria is surprisingly a good teacher, despite her competitive personality.

PART 6. AMRITA’S LECTURES ON HISTORY: IMPORTANT MAGE WARS.

“Throughout the history of Mage Dimension, wars have been fought. Some of them spanned the whole world, and some of them were confined to just a part of it. Here are a few important ones which we will study.

“Sorcerer’s war: this war was among the sorcerers after they created this dimension, for the control over it.

“Copy wars: an entire collection of wars which is filled with mages trying to follow in the footsteps of their non-magical counterparts.

“Name wars: This was the civil war within the Subcontinent, because everyone wanted to name it according to their chosen name.”

(End.)