“Hey Hosuke, is there a chance we will ever find this wand?” I asked Hosuke as we were running around the abandoned city looking for the wand.

“I don’t know. I’m getting tired as well.”

“Tired? I think you need to exercise more. Especially when your body is like that.” I pointed out some of his flaws.

Hosuke retaliated, “Hey, my body is mine alone. I can do whatever I want with it.”

“Sure. Whatever floats your boat, Hosuke.” I gave up.

This was not the first time anyone ever spoke to him about his body. But I’m not trying to fat shame him or anything. I’m just worried that he might get a disease or something. But then again, someone who eats a lot can also count as being healthy. Especially when they eat almost everything in the food pyramid. Another factor was how active we are. Hosuke can be a bit problematic in this case. He was usually not the type to exercise a lot. But, what makes it interesting was when he always tries the hardest in anything he does.

So whenever there was a rare chance for him to exercise, he will totally go through it all the way. That what’s make him special. He always go all out in everything. Unlike me, I only take things seriously sometime. Almost everyone were like that. But whenever something was in their interest, they will totally go all out about it.

“So what do you think?” Hosuke asked me.

“About what?”

“What if we lose? What are we going to do?”

I gave a little thought and said, “I don’t know. I never thought of that.”

“So you are that confident, Airi.”

“Can we please stop this conversation. Its going nowhere if we keep up.” I decided to end the conversation.

“Don’t be a buzz kill, Airi. I’m just asking.”

Suddenly, an explosion happened across the abandoned city. We decided to head towards the explosion to see what’s up. What we saw was a Team Battle between two teams that we don’t know at all. But from the looks of it they are from the 6th and 7th class. Some of them have the average Wall magic, there was also a number of elemental users. The most distinct one are from the 7th class team. They had a Fire User, Ice User, a Transformer like Rider and a Summoner who can summon mythical being.

Those guys would be amazing if they work their hardest. If only they were in a different world though. Why? Because we decided to crash in the party. Why do we decided to crash in? Because we actually saw a wand sticking out at the top of a flag pole. That flag pole happened to be around those two teams. It looked like they were fighting over the wand.

“There’s the wand. Right on top of that flag pole.” I pointed at the flag pole.

“So…”

“We’re going to crash their party.”

“Awesome.”

“I have a suggestion. Can you make me a water globe?”

“For what?” Hosuke wondered.

“A globe that can fit me. Additionally, I could breath in it.”

“Like a water shield?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“What are you exactly planning?” Hosuke was curious.

I explained to him, “You see, we could swoop them with our powers and all but since we already used a lot of it when fighting The Magnificent Three. We gotta use our Infinitum efficiently you know?”

“I see. With that water globe or as I prefer to call it, water shield. I could save some of my Infinitum for emergency.”

“Plus, your Water Manipulation is a utility type magic. It’s not mainly for fighting. You are more of a support. I have an idea. Use your water to stop and trap those guys in that water globe I mentioned.”

Hosuke gave some thought and said, “That may work as well. I can also make your movement faster. Plus, I could increase your damage output by giving you my Water Spirit.”

“Your Water Spirit? What is that?”

Hosuke explained, “As its name suggested, it is a Water Spirit. It functions as a buff effect if the Spirit were given to one of the user's ally. If I gave you my Water Spirit, your Magnet ability will also include some water effect on it.”

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“So if I make a chunk of metal then the chunk will be a wet chunk of metal?”

“Something like that.”

“How is that helpful?”

“Your damage output will be higher than you would and you will also slow the enemy down.”

“Slow?” I scratches my head in confusion.

“You know how we have some difficulties when trying to walk around water?”

“You mean like when traversing a river that is deep below our waist?”

“Exactly like that.”

“Okay. I understand how water can slow people down. But how does water can make us fast?”

“I just mentioned a river. Have you ever considered to think that there will be a raging river? Or a waterfall?”

“Okay. Okay. I get it now. Water can make you go fast or slow.”

I couldn’t believe I was so stupid about this kind of thing. Not knowing something so basic like the movement of water was totally shameful of me. My parents would be disappointed if they know about this.

“How do you know all of this?” I asked him.

“I’ve been studying a lot after getting my ability.”

“Oh. Obviously.”

I just made myself look stupid again by asking that. Something was exactly wrong with me today. I don’t know what but it might be because of stress. Pressured over the fact that we might lose before even entering the real Magic Duel. I have a dream in mind and that was to win the duel. Before this, there was no way I could achieve that. But thanks to Blax, White and the others. Their collaborative effort have created Team Stardust. Now that I am one of them. I am more ready than ever to win for the gold. Might as well win the whole thing if we wanted to enter The Magic Duel right?

“Let’s do this, Hosuke.”

I ran toward the two teams and Hosuke gave me his Water Spirit. The Water Spirit was sitting on my left shoulder. Even so, I didn’t feel the weight at all. It was like the spirit was never there at all. Anyway, I formed a numbers of pile of rocks and wood that I could find throughout 1 kilometres in diameter from me. Surprisingly, there was a lot of rocks and pebbles thanks to the explosion they made just now. I combined the pebbles and made it into a large boulder that rolls toward one of the team like I was playing on a bowling alley.

“Strike!” I was getting excited over how easy I did my job.

Some of them tried to dodge and jump away from the boulder but Hosuke trapped them in his Water Trap. It is similar like those Water Shield only this one disables the enemy from getting out of the sphere. Hosuke could only make the sphere last for a few seconds. I better not waste the opportunity. While that was happening, the boulder successfully rolled at all of the members of one team.

Meanwhile, the woods that I collected was randomly thrown to the other team like it was raining cats and dogs all over the place. Only that it was actually raining woods and tree branches. The movement of my gravity was a little faster thanks to Hosuke’s Water Spirit that enables me and my ability to move a little faster than it would normally.

I never realise that such a utility magic would be so useful in combat. But then again, it was a utility magic. Its main role was to provide usefulness to others. Meanwhile, a defensive type like me was used mainly to provide some safety assurance. But in some cases, defensive type can still be used against an enemy. That’s why it’s called defensive. Its to defend others as well as defending yourself.

The whole team was defeated easily. We did it! All of them were scattered around the battlefield. This was the opportunity for us to ‘steal’ the wand. I climbed on the flag pole but was then interrupted by an ice user. I shrug it off by sticking him to the ground and made sure he won’t escape from such a strong gravitational force that was struck on him. Since we were about to win this, I decided to give my last spurt by making all of the enemy near me grounded to the floor thanks to my ability that could freely change the properties of the gravitational force of a person.

I was almost there but then a blinding light flashes in front of me and then the next thing I saw was nothing. The wand was gone!

“What?!”

I was surprised. I looked back to Hosuke and he was surprised as well. We didn’t know what just happened. But it didn’t took too long until we figured it out.

“Thanks a lot for the clearing, guys.” I know that familiar voice.

“Are you serious. Now?” Hosuke was disappointed.

“Thank you, Stardust. You guys owe us one.” It was revealed to be Sonozaki Wakana.

“What gives! We were almost there, Sonozaki! That’s not fair. We did all the dirty work for you.” I was very mad.

“You scum! I thought you were an honorary student!” Hosuke joins the rage as well.

“Calm down, guys. It’s not cheating when you’re talking about my Light Manipulation, you know.”

I fought back, “No! It’s clearly cheating!”

“Well, in any case. Both sides are happy now.”

“Both sides?!” I was furious.

“What is that suppose to mean?” Hosuke questions Sonozaki’s logic.

There we were, at the climatic moment until Sonozaki came in and destroyed our hope in a blink of an eye. Nobody could imagine how angry we were back then. But our fury kind of faded away after something happened.

“Are you guys, alright?” White asked our well-being.

Wait…White? White?! What was he doing here? And when did he arrived? I didn’t notice he was around this area at all. Both Hosuke and I were totally surprised with the sudden developments.

“White! What are you doing here!” Hosuke was shocked.

“Yeah. You surprised us. You’re like a ghost. It’s like you just made a jumpscare or something.” I was totally not expecting White to appear all of a sudden.

White laughed and said, “It’s fine. I’m always being called like a ghost. I can’t tell if it’s a curse or a blessing at all. But in the end, I had to embrace it.”

Sonozaki laughed as well, “At the very least, you are not a ghost in front of our eyes.”

Both of me and Hosuke was now confused. We know that Sonozaki and White were best friends. They were even considered to be one of those trio back in middle school. I don’t know about the other guy but I can tell he was probably a good friend. But what we were confused was that what was going on.

“What’s going on, White?” I asked him.

“Oh it’s simple. Sonozaki helped me get a wand, in return I helped him get a wand for his team. It’s a win-win situation.”

“Oh.”

A moment of silence until both me and Hosuke burst into realisation.

We spoke together in unison, “Wait! We already won?!”

TO BE CONTINUED