A purple haired girl sits on a rock not too far from where I am. Next to her is a large stoic man with an extremely muscular frame.

“Get ‘er turtle! Yer gonna win this time for sure!”

I anchor my feet to the ground and raise my sharpsong to point it towards my opponent. Simultaneously, I initiate my shield’s high speed rotation to increase its destructive power. As it rotates, I have it orbit me at a moderate speed to create a defensive perimeter. That allows me to respond quicker to any unexpected event in battle, and most importantly, it looks quite cool. As for my opponent, she places both hands on her warchord and rests it on her right shoulder. She pushes her hair away from her face and smiles.

“You’ve gotten much better at manipulating your aegis I see.”

A calm breeze whistles through the air and causes her beautiful golden hair to flutter in the wind. Her figure is as mesmerizing as ever. Today, she dons the basic DaiKar battle uniform. A black body suit with golden boots and a golden breastplate. Its colors are a reminder of the academy’s. While it does not compare to the military battle suit S.O.N.G, it does offer some valuable protection and a few limited features such as a communicator. It was given to every trainee on the last day of the month.

Each suit is identical in terms of practicality, but they do have some aesthetic differences. For example, Sylvia’s suit bears a singular golden eighth note. Its purpose is to display her excellence as part of one of the ten first seats of this quarter's cohort. My uniform, on the other hand, bears a sixteenth note, as I am part of the top 20, the 19th seat to be precise.

Today is the day of the week where I duel Syvlia, as it has been for the last three weeks. After much consideration, we’ve decided that the best battleground would be away from the prying eyes of other trainees or those of the Professors. Influenced by the wind, leaves fall from the trees and land on the ground. A single crimson leaf gracefully falls on my shoulder, but I pay it no mind. Right now, all of my attention is focused on the opponent before me. One of the few spectators attending today’s bout shouts, her voluminous black curls dance as her voice is carried to my ears:

“Try not to break anything this time guys! Alex had a really hard time fixing you up last time!”

I steady my breathing and tighten my grip around the hilt of my sharpsong. Our referee for this match starts his countdown.

“Three…Two… One… FIght!” Adam exclaims with a radiant smile.

Sylvia immediately lunges at me. I respond by placing my aegis in the path of her attack. However, my approach towards defensive maneuvers is much different than it was a month ago. Instead of simply letting it take the entire load of her blow and have it be subjected to all of Sylvia’s might, I cushion her attack. As her blow lands on it, I displace my shield backwards to lessen the load. It doesn't stop there, however. Using this technique, I rob her attack’s momentum and transfer it to my aegis. It spins around and is thrown back at Sylvia with a strength similar to the one she attacked me with. She knows she won’t be able to cleanly block it, so she bends her body to evade the attack. I do not waste this opportunity, and I perform a downward slicing attack aimed at her torso. She quickly regains her stance and side steps to her left to evade it. Immediately, I feel a sharp pain on the left side of my ribcage as her leg comes into violent contact with it. She performs her kick with such speed that I barely have any time to react, but my intention was never to evade it. I grit my teeth to endure the blow and immediately grab her leg. With the vast gap in our physical strength, I can only hold it for a fraction of a second, but that’s all I need.

In an instant, my shield’s rotation picks up and I send it flying towards Sylvia’s neck. Because I am holding onto her leg, the attack will be difficult to avoid. However, she once again bends her body with incredible flexibility to evade the flying disk aimed at her then throws me away using only the strength in her immobilized leg.

‘She’s gotten even stronger!’

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Some distance has been created within us, but there is no time to rest. No more than a moment passes before we are once again engaged in an exchange of blows. With each attack she performs, she is subjected to one of nearly equal strength from my shield. It is hurled towards her with the intent to take her down every single time. She must also defend herself against my sharpsong which aims for her vital spots, all the while unknowingly having the paths of her pureflow read. This may sound like a tremendously disadvantageous situation, but Sylvia is masterfully keeping her head above the water. She evades or parries each of my attacks beautifully and even counters them. In our short exchanges, I have already fallen into her traps more than once, leading to a few shallow wounds here and there.

After an especially fierce exchange where Sylvia is pushed away by one of my attacks, she sets her warchord on the ground, smiles and speaks to me.

“Since you’re using new aspects of your arsenal, let me show you something too!”

She hums a tune. It is the same one that she hummed on Lauderdale’s training field last time. I expect to find myself entering a trance or having difficulty putting strength into my hands, but unexpectedly none of that happens. Instead, I notice Sylvia’s eyes changing. The determination within them burns harder, brighter. The air around her becomes more dense, as if anticipating something. Weary, I place the aegis not too far from me, ready to come to my aid at a moment’s notice.

The humming comes to an end and my entire being screams that danger is approaching. I sense no notable difference, but I know that she did something. Sylvia does not allow me the luxury to ponder and jumps towards me.

‘Fast!!’

As she arrives within range, I am promptly subjected to a salvo of attacks, her battle style is much fiercer than it was before, as if she now plans to bring this duel to a swift end. If before her intention was to take her time to defeat me using her cunning and strength, now her only goal is to tear me apart. Her attacks are still filled with the same intelligence they always are, but they are incessant. There is no longer any room for me to rest. It’s like her stamina is infinite. At first, I can respond, use my aegis to counterattack and even inflict shallow wounds upon her, but the longer it goes on, the more I find myself on the defensive. I do not even have enough time to catch my breath, but I finally somewhat understand what she has done.

‘She hypnotized herself!?’

Instruments clash against instruments, the air ripples in the wake of our exchanges. The forest itself trembles. Even our spectators clearly feel the intensity of our battle. I hear one of them utter a few words.

“Um, should we stop this? It’s really not looking good for Alden...” Ivana says.

“Turtle ain’t even use everythin’ he’s got yet!” Zora excitedly replies.

A blow comes from above and I use Sylvia’s attack to activate my ability.

‘Song of Discord!’

What used to be the songs of imbalance, idleness and somnolence, have now all been combined to the Song of Discord. That is because It recently became evident that while they can be used for different purposes, they all work around the same guiding principle, the creation of discord in pureflow control. As such, I thought it fitting to refer to it as just that, the Song of Discord.

I infuse the Song of Discord with a specific frequency and Sylvia’s legs experience a brief drop in strength which destabilizes her entire posture. I use this chance to launch my aegis at her from the left, and attack with my sharpsong from the right. With her weakened legs, even she realizes that she cannot avoid it completely, therefore she must make a choice. The soft hum resumes, this time directed at me. My mental fortitude falters, causing my shield’s manifestation to falter as well. As I fight for control over it with Sylvia, its trajectory becomes erratic, threatening to go off course. Unfortunately for me, even if it was for no more than an instant, Sylvia’s [melody] prevails which causes my shield to miss entirely and crash into a nearby tree instead. I do not let this turn of events weaken my morale and I use that to my advantage to power my current attack even further.

‘Crescendo!’

Now, I am certain that she doesn’t have enough time to evade being sliced through by my instrument. I expect her to attempt to deflect it with her warchord or to sacrifice an arm, but what she does instead shocks me. She completely disregards the attack and raises her warchord to split my skull in half. It comes crashing down on me with terrible might. With her speed, even though I will slice her stomach open first, I won’t have time to parry or evade if I go through with it.

‘Has she gone crazy?? She can’t be serious right?!’

Some part of me hopes that this is merely a bluff to incite me to back off, but the crazed determination burning in her eyes tells me that she is completely serious. I’m not sure what exactly she did to herself, but she seems ready to throw her own safety away in the pursuit of victory.

‘Well you know what? I can be crazy too!’

I refuse to change my sharpsong’s trajectory. This exchange will be our last and will determine the winner of this duel. Plus, I’m sure Sylvia wouldn’t actually go through with it, right? Before our attacks can meet their targets, and before I can obtain an answer to my question, our blows are interrupted by something.

Both Zora and Alex wield their instruments to stop Sylvia’s attack, while Adam holds back my arm and Ivana prevents my sharpsong from slicing through Sylvia’s side.

“Are you guys insane?!” Ivana shouts with her hand trembling against my empowered strike.

Equally trembling under the weight of Sylvia’s blow, Zora speaks her mind as well. “I know yall really like ta win, but don’t ya think dyin’ for it is a bit much!!?”

Even Alex adds his input. “I’m tempted to not heal either of you today.”

We are both pulled away from each other, and the duel comes to an end. It appears there is no winner today.