The crown prince and Kit stood facing each other in the middle of the great hall.

Most people who were previously stood around the area had fled for safety not wanting to be anywhere near two of the strongest warriors in the kingdom.

The rules were called out by a eunuch standing behind the king, helping neither of the two men to have an unfair advantage.

Min Li thought differently, it wasn’t either of them that were in an unfair situation but herself she huffed. And in her opinion the rules were putting her in an even worse predicament.

The eunuch had decreed, in an impossibly high voice that matched that of Feng, that water power could be used, but no refined water power could be except for the creation of a weapon.

The crown prince was the only person in the kingdom, bar his father, who truly had an extraordinary grip on his refined powers.

His refined power allowed him to control water even inside a person’s body and right now Min Li was in the mood for the crown prince to use his power for some good instead of keeping a lid on his power as he normally did. Min Li thought that such would be very helpful in a situation like this when an absolute ogre, Min Li had changed her tune from the reasonably handsome title she had given to Kit earlier, was trying to capture a fair maiden like herself.

Who cared if it was physically impossible for Kit to use refined power to that extent? The bovine, boorish brute should have thought about it before he decided to accept the fight. Who cared if the crown prince happened to rip one or two of Kit’s limbs off when freezing him from the inside out?

Not Min Li. Such was the consequence of love and war. And all was fair in love and war.

After a deep bow to each other, the prince and his opponent started circling each other in the makeshift arena.

Even a pin could be heard if it was dropped. Everybody was on edge and everybody was nervous for the result.

Min Li had first thought that no one would be more nervous than her with the amount she had on the line, but as she looked around, she saw someone else who seemed to be on the edge of their seat.

But this person didn’t seem to be on the edge of their seat due to anxiety but rather excitement. That was weird since it was her own son who was fighting but the queen was grinning as wide as a cat who gotten the cream, licked it off its paws, caught a bird and a fish, had its curiosity satisfied and was granted another life in addition to their ninth.

Looking at her majesty’s face, Min Li could tell that the queen didn’t care which way the coin fell. If the coin fell on its head and Kit the cow lost, then the queen would have the benefit of her son winning which she would love.

If the coin fell on its tail, meaning that Kit won, the queen would have a guaranteed son-in-law. That particular result would be a guilty pleasure.

What the queen didn’t know was that the coin landing on its tail would also end up with Min Li maybe having to cut off someone else’s tail.

In the dominant hand of the two circling warriors appeared a sword. The sword seemed futile given that the two were allowed to fight with their normal water power, but that wasn’t what Min Li was dwelling on.

Min Li wasn’t even dwelling on the predicted outcome for the match. Min Li wasn’t even dwelling on how she would cut off the tail end of a coin. Rather, Min Li was dwelling on where the swords came from.

She was confused. Never before in the schools she had attended, for general education, spar training or even wielding school had she heard of such. Though she had slept for most of her formal education, she was sure she would have woken up if she was fed such interesting news.

Just like the reflexes hard-wired into dogs making them salivate when they come across food, there were reflexes hard wired into Min Li. Like only waking up in class when hearing interesting information or tuning in when Lily was talking about some very spicy gossip or thinking something snarky whenever she saw Jess.

The latter had probably been built in during the years when Min Li had her head dunked into ponds and rivers by Jess like a plunger down a well-engineered latrine, but facts were facts, the human brain knew how to react to certain things to help the survival of the fittest. Even if they had a frog coming out of their dress and a water lily perched on their head by the time they had finished surviving.

From the water produced by each of their power of water rose a sword of what looked to be stainless steel. It was ridiculous she thought, I don’t even know how to create a drop of water, and here these people go skipping steps and creating what looks to be solid metal-water-what. Absolutely ridiculous.

And now the two were flaunting their creation around like group of old grandmothers trying to dance the can-can. They were prancing forward and backwards, side to side with their swords in the air. In all fairness, the crown prince wasn’t doing all that much he just looked guilty of weirdness by association.

Lily leaned forward for the first time in a while, it seemed like she had finally finished secretly eating all the snacks that Fenhua had delivered and drinking all the fancy alcohol from Kit.

“What are they doing?” The bemused girl whispered.

“Don’t ask me.”

“Looks like a mating ritual if you ask me.”

Min Li glanced at the two men prancing around. She had to admit it sort of did look like two peacocks fanning out their feathers in search of a mate.

“They are about to fight.”

“They are about to fight for you,” Lily said.

Min Li knew that she was definitely right. The she, Min Li was referring to was not Lily about the two men being lovers of Min Li, but herself and her own thought about Lily having drunk all her expensive rice wine. The flapping girl was quite clearly mad.

“YOU MAY START,” the king bellowed.

Apparently, that was what the two peacocks were waiting for. They couldn’t start without the king’s say so, so instead they had been trying to psych each other out.

What they had done in the secondary however, was psych Min Li out, even Jess and Lily were looking at the crown prince like they didn’t know who he was and didn’t remember their crush on him.

In the moment that the two peacocks started pecking at each other, Min Li remembered her budding friendship with the prince.

She felt worried for him, and it settled like a deep black hole in her stomach with butterflies floating around. Min Li wondered whether she had been hit with the same ailment that the prince had when he had fled from his very own courtyard with his hands on his rear.

She looked at that food she had eaten feeling awfully betrayed. But with the starting of the match, she burrowed the betrayal and concentrated on the match.

The prince looked up for a second when she was just starting to focus looking a very peculiar shade of green for a second as he mouthed, “stop it” at Min Li.

Min Li was highly offended. Firstly, she didn’t even know what she had to stop. And secondly, she was annoyed that he seemed to just think no matter what the problem was that she just had to be the one who caused it.

The prince’s distraction caused his opponent to surge forwards trying to take advantage of every little opening the prince gave. But Kit had forgotten that it wasn’t merely a sword fight.

The prince easily dismissed the man with a gust of water bursting out from the palm of his hand with enough pressure that the Kit was moved backwards.

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Now the floor was wet and although both the two men had the capabilities to make the water vanish either by their own power or commanding a maid with a mop, both did not yield and rather continued on with the fight.

Their fighting styles could be easily told by the very first move. Whilst Kit liked to be on the offense relentlessly, attacking anywhere on the opponent trying to find a space that he could take advantage of, the crown prince seemed immensely confident and relaxed, practically skipping around the place like a playing schoolboy.

Kit rushed forward at the prince again. But with every jab the bovine, boorish brute tried, the prince swept every blow with a harsh swipe of the sword.

The wetness of the floor allowed for a rather fascinating fight. The two men skidded and glided skilfully around each other paying no attention to the audience gasping and mummering about their talents.

Kit seemed to know that in a fight with only powers, even if the crown prince was capped, the crown prince would still be the favourite to win, almost absurdly so. So, Kit hadn’t yet used his powers at all preferring to take his chances with the sword.

Fenhua had only used his powers when he was caught off guard at the start of the fight, but when he realised his opponent wasn’t using his own power, Fenhua dipped and dived agilely out of the way of Kit’s sword no longer using his water power. Kit had accurately predicted what would occur if he didn’t use his own water power. The crown prince wanted to beat Kit for the sake of his pride. He didn’t want it to be said that without powers he would have lost, so he also only used his sword to attack.

…….

At this point the fight with Kit attacking and Fenhua defending, the fight had only been a cat and mouse game.

The cat in this game, not being fooled by Kit’s affinity to attack, was Fenhua and the mouse, Kit.

The two hadn’t sparred much together with just swords and that could be told easily. The prince was looking as if he wanted to get a feel for the talent of his opponent. It was turning into a game of endurance where the prince was just wearing away his opponent.

In this game the mouse usually the one running scared was barring teeth that he barely even had like he had to protect his infants. But the cat, was playing with his prey, observing the mouse, seeing what the mouse wanted to do, taking occasional swipes at the man with his paw. Never being on the attack but not really even having to spend much effort to defend.

This seemed to infuriate Kit. Before at least he was thought of as a cow, a bull if it was allowed, with the ability to charge forward and use his horns to utterly unseam, to freely rip an enemy from the navel of his belly to the chaps, even if it was silly enough to mistake a friend for a foe.

But Kit was being made to look like simple prey, a rodent, an intruder, an infester of homes. Never quite welcomed. Never truly loved. Now that was insulting.

Kit looking at the crown prince, the cat; an animal freely welcomed in a home, treated well enough by his owners to be well fed and greedy enough to get even fatter trying to hunt the prey of a poor mouse simply searching for food. Even though food was not a rodent right but a human right, it was sure to vex Kit and Min Li didn’t blame him.

The crown prince, whether intentionally or not, was making light work of his opponent and showing the audience exactly what he thought of the skills of a warrior previously revered as a young star in the making.

This is where Min Li thought that there was a problem with Kit’s tactics. In her head, she advised that he changed tactics. Although he was sure to have gotten his rear end whipped if he chose to go the route of trying to use powers to fight the crown prince, at least he would keep the respect of the people. Losing in a fight of powers was understandable due to their differing ranks.

Min Li let out a whimper when she realised that she was mentally giving advice to a man who wanted to throw her over his shoulders. Even though she had minded when the crown prince had done it to her, she absolutely despised the thought of someone else, who didn’t, even though he tried, have the outstanding figure of Fenhua trying to do the very same thing.

Kit had slipped on the wet floor slightly and was now looking menacingly at the crown prince who was waiting for his opponent to get up looking so unbothered Min Li was sure that he might just start checking his nails.

The mouse turned into a roaring lion. Kit tilted his head back and roared as loud as his vocal cords would allow him too.

“ROOOOAAAAAHHHHHHH.”

The crown prince tilted his head to the side slightly and said mockingly, “roar.”

Oh, the shame. The pain. Min Li couldn’t help herself feeling a little sorry for Kit.

Fenhua raised an eyebrow, continuing to dismiss Kit’s great pain at not being able thus far to best his opponent.

Kit got up stalking forwards with a certain heaviness that comes with a broken heart and nothing to lose.

Raising both hands above his head, Kit threw his sword furiously at the crown prince aiming for the head.

Everyone around let out a scream.

The crown prince ducked.

The sword hit the wall behind Fenhua and clattered on the ground.

Min Li looked around, wasn’t that treason? Why isn’t anyone making a big deal of this? CUT OFF HIS HEAD. FEED HIM THE LIONS. THROW HIM IN A DUNGEON. AT THE VERY LEAST TAKE HIM AND HIS ENTIRE FAMILY TO THE DARK FOREST.

Min Li shouted all of this in her head, she wasn’t silly enough to challenge the king’s authority. But as far as she knew this was not meant to be a fight to the death.

Remembering her predicament, she let out a quick cry rather dramatically taking advantage of the situation and the show of violence from Kit, voice shaking, “iT iS oNLY i wHO iS aT dANGER oF dYING fROM tHIS fIGHT.”

She looked around to see if anyone was looking as if they felt sorry for her enough to challenge the king over Min Li becoming Kit’s bride.

The queen looked at Min Li and shook her head dismissively, mummering something about how she didn’t know where Min Li had gotten her dramatic nature from and how at Min Li’s age, she was already married.

Min Li stopped whimpering at once, she had no idea what the latter part of the queen’s mummering had to do with anything, but she wanted no part in such dangerous thoughts.

Both the fighters had stopped moving as if they were taking a breather. It seemed as if Kit’s actions had shocked even himself.

The sword that had clattered on the floor disappeared from its position and again appeared in Kit’s hand. Min Li looked on, eyes wide, she had no idea that they could do that with a sword made from their power.

At once Min Li’s face dropped and she held her head in between her hands. Why are the hiding things from me? Am I so pathetic? Do I matter so little? Do they think I can’t take it? Am I that much of a liability?

She looked around. Other people looked shocked too. Oh. This must not be common knowledge for anyone. She took her hands off her head, wiped her brow and smiled. Min Li was just happy to fit in.

“Throwing swords,” the crown prince let out a long whistle, “Wow. I didn’t know we were going to fight that hard.”

Min Li’s hands were back on her head. Her face again a picture of victimhood. Why would you provoke the man? I don’t like violence; it is never a good idea.

That hard, Min Li thought broken. How dare the man say that when it was her head on the line. Was he kidding? Fighting hard was the least of all the things that the crown prince should be doing, she wept.

“ROOAAARRR!”

At Fenhua’s words, Kit let out another roar, although he was intelligent enough to roar a lot more reservedly just in case the king took offence at Kit looking as if he was intending to kill his son again.

Then Kit charged forward.

With his surge forwards, he was now he was fighting as hard as he could. Min Li could hardly see the man’s feet; he was moving so fast. He was moving in a circle around the crown prince, attacking the prince at every angle.

The prince also now seemed to be having to give a huge amount of effort… Well… relatively to the amount he was giving before. The prince rotated rapidly, trying to keep the front of his body facing the whirling storm circling around him.

The game which had before been of endurance was turning into a game of speed, strength, and agility.

Now, they were both fighting fast and furiously. Fenhua no longer swiped his sword leisurely but followed through with his sword with fury looking as if he was aiming to kill.

That’s more like it. Min Li cheered deep inside. Rip that Kit boy up. Swipe at him. Jab at him. Poke him like a pin cushion. Pin him like he poked you. Remember he is a bovine, boorish brute.

She seemed to be enjoying the violence, she had not long before criticised.

It happened before Min Li had any time to register it.

Kit, without any warning still swiping with the sword in his right hand, threw a gush of water into the eyes of Fenhua.

Fenhua had thought that the rules of the game were set between the two of them, that they were only going to sword fight with no usage of their powers. Min Li took a second to think about how Fenhua had helped her at the expense of her own fighting opponent by using his powers when they had stipulated that it wouldn’t be allowed. It seemed as if the same was happening to him. Unfortunately, the crown prince’s assumption that there would not be any power used in the fight, did affect the contest.

Fenhua was able to block the gush with his arm. But his blocking his sight, though it didn’t impact some things, he was still fighting off Kit’s sword through sixth sense, impacted others. He couldn’t see the little pool of water Kit had deposited right next to his foot. An unexpecting Fenhua trying to block a strike of the man’s sword, slipped on the water and fell to the ground flipping around with his stomach on the floor.

Min Li gasped. When she had advised Kit in her head some time ago that sword fighting wouldn’t allow him the win, she didn’t think he could hear her, she had said it in her head.

Was Kit able to read her mind?

Funnily she didn’t feel scared for Fenhua in that moment, rather covering her mouth with her hand, Min Li felt sorry for herself. She felt as if her privacy was encroached on. She felt violated. She felt dirty.

Before Min Li could get too far in her thought process, she found sense. She dismissed her thinking reassuring herself that Kit couldn’t hear her he was just insisting on playing all the cards at his disposal.

It turned out Fenhua, that idiot, also didn’t feel scared for himself. He was looking at Min Li and smiling. He gave her a thumbs-up and grinned in his position.

They both smiled at each other, but that moment of peace was allowed to continue for only a second.

Kit was stalking behind the crown prince coming up behind him, with his sword again up in both his hands.

The little bit of butterflies that Min Li had been feeling regressed into caterpillars quaking with fear, clearly able to sense how perilous the situation was.

Kit’s lopsided smirk was back painted across his face as if he finally was able to be in the position he wanted.

The man was in a position where he was ready to bring his sword down hard and fast and then fix the crown prince’s head upon a spear, probably the useless, bejewelled spear that the king was now gripping with white knuckles.

Now that should definitely be treason.