Azura’s copy was deeply concerned when the body enchantments activated, and even more worried when they had yet to deactivate. The boost in his abilities had made this fight much more manageable, but not to the point where he would be able to turn his back on his opponent to try and find the original. “That’s a pretty nice power boost, but it’s pretty pointless if it makes you this unfocused.” His attention snapped back to his opponent only to see more water serpents flying towards him from every direction. He cursed and created a hole beneath himself so he’d only have to block the ones coming from above.
“Forgive my lack of focus, but you see this boost wasn’t activated by me, and that means someone close to me is being attacked, and that their opponent is a lot less nice than you’ve been.” More information than he wanted to give, but Auros seemed nice, it was worth a shot to appeal to that.
“You get a power boost when one of your friends is being attacked? That’s pretty handy when you are with them I’ll bet. Literal power of friendship boost there.” Auros had stopped attacking, in favor of his amused mumblings. He rolled his eyes. It was his original that had to activate it, but since he didn’t want to give out the copying trick unless he had to, he decided to let Auros continue with his jokes. “I mean really, you read a lot of those stories when you were little and decided to base your spells on them?” He resisted acting annoyed, and instead tried to act embarrassed as if he’d been caught. Using mana to force an embarrassed blush was easy, though the slight fidgeting was a little annoying.
“Look, can you make fun of me later? I’d like to try and help them. I’ll even let you capture me without a fight after.” specifically this version of him, not the original version. Assuming he didn’t get dispelled in whatever fight, had caused the original to activate the enchantments.
“Hmmm how do I know I can trust you? Let’s say we go, and you help your friend escape. What's to stop the 2 of you from ganging up on me?” The same thing that had stopped him from summoning his copies to fight him 5 on 1 in the first place, well other than the lack of space in the tunnel for that to be effective given his mobile fighting style.
“I won’t have time. If we fight you the clock will run out. If I go with you my friend has the chance to make it to the dorms.” Surprisingly Auros seemed to be considering it. Which was really generous, because it was pretty clear that the 2nd year was going to win. Stat boost or not the whole fight had been clearly in the older students favor.
“You know what, sure why not, sounds like it might be interesting.” Huh, he had really not expected that to work. There was always the chance Auros was lying and would attack him when his back was turned, but it’s not like he had any chance of escaping anyway so it seemed a fair risk to take. He jumped out of the hole he had made, and began rushing towards the tunnel exit, relieved to see that Auros was keeping pace, and didn’t seem to be preparing an attack. Clairvoyance really was an absurdly useful spell.
***
Azura had found a spot to hide well away from his dorm, where Kaiser was probably still waiting. He had come this far, there had to be some way for him to get into his dorm. Kaiser had an absurd sensory range, and seemed to have some way to go unseen even by clairvoyance. Not to mention that absurd level of physical enhancement. He sighed, this was really not helping him come up with a plan. He wasn’t willing to risk teleporting somewhere he couldn’t see again, and it was pretty unlikely he’d be able to get to his window without the 4th year detecting his presence and starting to attack again.
At least he could finally let his body enchantments fade. He still had some time, but 45 minutes wasn’t enough to make anywhere near the amount of preparations he’d need to even have a shot of slipping past Kaiser. “Do you know about the super scary guy outside of your door?” The familiar voice helped him calm down a little. Panicking wasn’t going to do him any good.
“Unfortunately, I seem to have become a 4th year’s chew toy.” If he was in Cynthia's telepathy range at this point, then it was a pretty safe bet that she had made it safely to her dorm. That at least was good. “How many of us made it to their rooms?” Katy would have definitely made it through, the rest of them were rather up in the air.
“Roran got in a fight with a 3rd year. He held his own, but he didn’t really feel the need to stall for a chance to escape, and just went all out. He lost, but the 3rd year didn’t walk away unscathed, other than him I don’t really know no one else has entered my range until now.” That was fair. His dorm was just barely in her range, the only other dorm close enough was Luna’s, so it was probably a safe assumption that she had been captured as well if she had yet to enter Cynthia’s range.
“Well at least you and probably Katy got through, so it wasn’t a total wipe out.” Lily’s fate was probably similar to Roran’s, Siara was calm enough that she might have made it through though. He briefly wondered if Cynthia might be able to help him in some way, but quickly tossed the idea, it would have been more likely they’d both get caught than her managing to help him get to his dorm.
“You don’t think you can make it?” He had felt both of his remaining copies make it into his sensory range, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough. Especially since one of them had to be pretty beat up if he managed to escape the 2nd year that had been chasing him.
“It’s not likely. The scary guy in front of my door is the heir to House Crimson.” The shock that came through the mental link was all he needed to know she understood what that meant. Frankly he had only even managed to disengage because Kaiser didn’t know about his abilities. If he had to try and get past him again he would get beaten down for sure.
“You really are a master of getting in the craziest situations.” He rolled his eyes. As if he had any control over it. “I assume you won’t be doing the sane thing and just accept defeat?” He gave a genuine laugh at that. That would be the smart option, but he really couldn’t help himself, he had time for one last ditch effort, and the threat of pain definitely wouldn’t be enough to stop him from trying.
“The sane thing? When have I ever done that? If the world wants to put me in crazy situations so much the only answer is to go along with it.” In a way he was relieved. Now that he had given up any actual chance of victory he could do something crazy stupid without worry. The plan was already forming as he felt his 2 remaining copies converge on his location with someone he wasn’t expecting in tow.
“Good luck, something tells me you’re going to need it.” He let the connection with Cynthia drop as he got a good look at the surprised face of the older student who had been pursuing him in the tunnels.
“That’s a stupidly convenient power. You can clone yourself? There aren’t even words for how jealous I am right now.” The copy that was with the man rolled their eyes, and gave him a basic rundown on what had happened with them. The other copy didn’t really have any new information having bailed once they realized Kaiser was going to guard his dorm room.
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“Yeah, that’s a pretty common reaction. As with all magic, it has weaknesses and restrictions, but I definitely couldn’t have asked for a more versatile unique magic.” Their biggest weakness of course came with their cost, but super expensive attack spells had never really been his forte anyway, so losing out on a good chunk of his mana didn’t affect him as much as it would most mages.
“Yeah somehow I doubt said weaknesses are anywhere near the advantages of being in 3 places at once.” So his copy hadn’t told Auros much, that was good. He doubted the info wouldn’t spread. His initial ‘fight’ with Kaiser had been out in the open, so it was unlikely that his little secret with the copies would last. Not that it really mattered. Knowing about something and being able to counter it are 2 very different things.
“You’re not wrong. On a side note any chance you’d be willing to help me get to my dorm and then just take my copy in? It was technically what you agreed to.” He got the feeling Auros didn’t really feel like fighting him anymore, but not fighting against and fighting with weren’t the same, and he was technically tricked to agree in the first place. Even if the 2nd year was the one that convinced himself of the scenario being something else.
“Against Kaiser? Not a chance. I’ll leave you be, but I’m not getting on that guy’s bad side. Kaiser once put a teacher in the hospital, and not even for any major offense or anything. The teacher just agreed to spar with him since no one else would. I hear the teacher tried to surrender, but Kaiser wouldn’t let him.” He didn’t doubt the 4th year had the strength for something like that, but he doubted the rest of the story. Kaiser had been violent against him, but if the heir of Crimson had wanted to hurt him he’d be hurt. The difference between their strength was night and day.
“Understandable. Frankly I’m quite tempted to just give up too, but I can’t just let it go without even trying to get past him.” Still He wouldn’t be wasting any of his more limited resources, as much as he wanted to see if he’d be able to do anything against the powerful 4th year if he went all out without any worry for future battles. Whatever he might get for maybe getting past Kaiser would definitely be less valuable than the resources being spent. Unfortunately that left him without any options that actually had more than a snowball's chance in hell of actually working.
Auros laughed. “Yeah, that’s the kind of thought process that will get beaten out of you real quick at this school. Failure comes with consequences, you have to know when it’s best to cut your losses and back down.” Fair enough, and if this were a real situation he would have handled a lot of things differently, but it wasn’t it was training and that meant he could afford to do things a little differently if he felt they would help him improve more.
“Things would be different in a real situation, but sometimes backing out isn’t an option, sometimes it’s do or die, and I might as well prepare for the worst of times the best I can.” He wasn’t wrong per se, but he wasn’t necessarily right either. In a lot of cases it was harder to admit defeat and retreat than it was to make a last ditch effort when your life was on the line anyway. Even so, he wanted to try. He would make the right decision if he was ever actually in a situation like this. He promised himself that.
The 2nd year shook his head. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you you’re looking at it all wrong. I won’t stop you, but remember this. If you think it’s hard to just give up now, then just wait. Sometimes failed missions will have real consequences, and I promise you it will be harder to quit on a mission that caused the death of a friend than it is to quit now.” Having said his piece, Auros walked away. He was grateful to be given the chance to try to get past Kaiser unimpeded.
He had been able to recover a decent amount of mana, but not enough that he felt making 2 more copies to be back at max was a good idea. He checked the time. 20 minutes, far too long left. He didn’t want to give Kaiser enough time to make him truly regret his attempt. So he decided 5 minutes remaining was his time to strike.
***
Kaiser was bored. The Silver firstie had been fairly entertaining, especially once he started zipping around with teleportation of some sort, but he was starting to think the kid had given up. Not that he blamed them. He was way too strong for someone like that to get past no matter how hard they tried. Still it had seemed like the boy had some fire in him, and he couldn’t help but be disappointed. He thought for sure the boy would make at least 1 attempt to get past him. Time was almost up when a smile came to his face. Seemed he hadn’t misjudged the Silver kid afterall.
He moved his head slightly to the side as a small blade shot through where his head had been a split second before. The blade glowed, and the door began to dissolve. “Oh how fun.” The boy tried to teleport as soon as the door dissolved enough for the room to be visible. That trick wouldn’t work on him twice. He gathered his mana and shifted his arm to another plane catching the boy as he tried to slip past him slamming him back into their reality. He smiled at the widened eyes of his opponent. “Unfortunately for you, I’ve seen that trick already now.”
He was given a little surprise though, the firstie proved once again to be the crafty sort as the fake one in front of him exploded raining fire and metal shards on him. Not that he was bothered by it. It was simple to use his mana to stop any of it from reaching him, and even simpler to keep track of the 2 remaining opponents. Surprisingly neither tried to teleport into the room again, probably correctly guessing they wouldn’t be able to make it. He was glad his opponent seemed to learn so quickly, this would be boring otherwise.
His smile grew even wider as he felt large amounts of mana on both of his sides. “Oooh going on the offensive. That’s exciting, let’s see what you’ve got firstie.” When the spells were released he was actually rather impressed. If he didn’t use an actual spell to guard he’d have to dodge. He wasn’t willing to risk moving away from the door against an opponent as crafty as this though, so a wall of blood rose on both of his sides, blocking both of the powerful offensive spells as if they were little more than a light breeze.
He barely heard the growl coming from both sides when the smoke cleared and he was completely unscathed. He frowned, surely the firstie wasn’t arrogant enough to think something on that level could ever possibly deal him any damage. He wasn’t the Heir Crimson for no reason. His siblings had never been able to even hold a candle to his power. Not that the Silver in front of him was really any better, but at least his tricks were interesting.
“Tick tock. Your time is running out, and I’m going to be really disappointed if you can’t show me something entertaining before then.” His taunts didn’t seem to have any effect on the boy. He supposed that was good. It wouldn’t be any fun if his opponent got reckless now. He still didn’t know which of the 2 was the real one, but he was fairly confident in his ability to keep both of them from reaching the door behind him. He sensed the one on his right set up to teleport again.
He wasn’t as in tune to the spirit world as his opponent. Actually teleporting using that as a middle ground wasn’t something he could do, but briefly slipping his hand through to grab someone was within his ability. His opponent was expecting it this time though, and managed to adjust course at the last second and end up next to him while he was still reaching to the other side. He chuckled, his foe hadn’t grasped the difference in their ability yet. Faster than the boy could react, he had turned, deflected the sword swipe, and planted his knee firmly in the younger student's stomach.
“You sure you don’t want to be my sparring partner? Not many people can take this much punishment from me.” Mana gathered on the body creating an explosion of pure light this time. He closed his eyes, hadn’t he already proven he didn’t need his sight for a foe of this level. With only the original left to deal with, and almost no time left in the clock he was rather curious what else Silver could even try. The kid had been a rather entertaining opponent though, perhaps if the younger student agreed he may still let him through.
He was rather surprised when for the first time in this attempt the firstie stood out in the open. “Yeah I think not, I hardly call being beat up over and over by someone completely outclassing me as a learning experience.” He frowned. That was how his father taught him, and he turned out pretty strong. On the other hand most of his siblings had been crushed by the pressure and never amounted to anything, but that was what training was for to weed out the weak, and enhance the strong.
The bell tolling the end of the event rang out. His frown deepened, that was a shame, he had been looking forward to finishing this little bout. A sound caught his attention as a voice rang through the whole school. “Hello students, I will be announcing the winners of the fall festival now. The number is unusually high this year with us actually having 5 winners. So congratulations on breaking the record by more than doubling it. The first year winners are Katherine, Cynthia violet, Gareth Leone, Dorian, and Azura Silver.” His eyes widened. What?!