Chapter 5

Waking up this morning, Michael had felt somewhat groggy. Regardless, Michael felt ready for the day. After all, it was the day where Michael could show off his most valuable skills.

Today was the day of their annual ‘swordplay’ tournament. Most of the time people didn’t even use swords, and some didn’t even use bladed weapons. Either way the tournament is where Michael could fully utilize his skills.

For the past years, Michael didn’t get anything for placing in the tournament, but this year was different. This year, if Michael placed, he would be guaranteed a position in the officer training school for the Eclipse.

However, this all relied on Michael’s ability to place. It shouldn’t be a problem, but Michael learned to always keep on his toes. Sometimes people could be very crafty.

Still, he wouldn’t have to worry about that until the end of the day, as that’s when the tournament was. Because the tournament was at the end of the day, Michael wouldn’t be able to check his gear until then as well, as most of it was within the school.

There was one piece of equipment that Michael could check though.

Michael walked over to his sword, which was currently in its sheath placed beside the door. Picking it up, Michael removed the blade from the sheath.

A faint wave of heat could be felt radiating from the metal of the blade as it left the sheath. Michael could easily attribute the heat to the fact that the blade was made out of meteoric iron.

Every time Michael reflected on the name he realized how stupid it was. Especially considering that most meteoric iron wasn’t created from meteoric iron. From what Michael could recall, the name came from back when the Unknown world was first created, and got outdated as time progressed.

Taking a deep breath, Michael resheathed the blade, causing the heat to dissipate. Michael then slung his blade over his shoulder to take out to the front room. It was time to prepare for the normal school day.

***

Michael stepped into the wide open gym. In the gym were many families, most of which were there to cheer on their kids. As a result, the noise in the gym was extraordinarily loud.

He had to endure the loud noise for his previous matches against some of his peers. The cheering was very obnoxious, but it’s not like there was any situation where he would get silence. Things tend to get loud when you're trying to stab someone with a long metal stick, or almost get stabbed yourself.

Sound aside, Michael was excited for his last match, the finals. The previous matches had been unexciting. Despite being in the same grade as Michael, none of the other students really posed a threat to him.

Currently, the only people in the school that Michael had a difficult time dealing with were Harmony, Maya, and Steven. Only one of them was in the tournament. That person being Maya.

So far Michael didn’t know how she was doing, Michael was too busy dealing with his own matches or preparing to pay attention. Michael hoped Maya had made it to the end. It would be boring if he had to go up against another one of his inexperienced peers.

Removing his sheathed sword from his waist, Michael latched it to his arm in preparation. It was time to see who he was going up against.

“Hey Michael,” Maya started walking in step beside Michael.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Made it to the finals, so I get my match against you,” Maya said smoothly.

“Would have been disappointing if you didn’t make it to the finals,” Michael said, “then again that might have made things more interesting.”

“So you don’t think that I’m capable,” Maya’s expression turned sour, then said under her breath, “just you wait, I’ll get you eventually.”

Maya proceeded to storm off. Michael smirked for a moment, then hid it. If Maya was going to be this fired up about beating him then there might actually be a challenge.

***

Walking onto the mat, Michael checked that everything was in its place one last time. Especially the small device that hung at his side. That small shield device was the only thing that would protect him from Maya’s glaive. It was also the thing that would determine the winner of this next match.

Waiting for Michael on the mat was Maya, who just stood still, glaive in hand. She appeared to be very serious, which wasn’t odd considering their prior conversation.

None of this really concerned Michael. He just needed to keep a level head. Going up against Maya wasn’t going to be easy, but he had done it before. If everything went smoothly it would go exactly like every previous match.

Slowly, Michael withdrew his sword from its sheath attached to his arm. Pulling the trigger on the sword's hilt collapsed the long sheath into a small disc shape. This would allow for a greater range of motion.

Taking a deep breath, Michael decided to get into the zone. He didn’t need the distraction of the crowd's cheers, especially his sister whom he could see out of the corner of his eye. All his focus needed to be on Maya… and the announcer

Even without her aura she could analyze a situation better than most. If Michael slipped up for even a moment Maya would capitalize upon that.

A few minutes passed, and after some preamble the announcer started the process to begin the match. A judge walked up to the ring, marking that they would be starting any second now.

Finally, the judge stepped in and gave the countdown to begin the match, “round starting in three… two… one… begin!”

Michael was expecting Maya to stay back like she did before, but she didn’t this time. Instead she rushed headlong at Michael, immediately going on the offensive. This move was unexpected, especially because she hadn’t done this in their past duels.

Immediately Michael found himself on the defensive. This put him on the back foot off the bat. Normally Michael was the one to start an offensive to put his opponent on the backfoot. This was certainly an unexpected situation.

After deflecting a couple strikes with his sword, Michael pulled the trigger and expanded his shield to better protect himself. With how quickly Maya was attacking him it didn’t really help much. His focus was fully on protecting himself instead of attacking.

If this continued Michael wasn’t going to get back into his normal groove. Then again, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to improvise his own strategy. Assuming Maya’s plan hinged on him acting like he normally did, going off script would be the perfect course of action.

Michael hunkered down, and used his started blocking attacks with his sword rather than shield. In between Maya’s attacks Michael started to make his move.

Jumping forward, Michael bashed into Maya with his shield. Maya stumbled, trying to recover her balance. This is exactly what Michael was hoping for.

Michael pressed the trigger to get the big shield out of his way, all the while rushing forward. Using the few seconds he bought himself, Michael thrusted his sword forward.

Although, Maya seemed to anticipate this move. She shifted her weight and managed to move slightly to the left, albeit still being off balanced.

Thankfully this is where Michael’s conventional knowledge kicked back in. Turning his blade Michael slashed. If this missed he would leave himself wide open, especially with his shield collapsed.

However, due to Maya being unsteady she wasn’t able to move out of the way. The edge of Michael’s sword glinted as it swung through the air.

Just before it hit Maya a small barrier of light appeared and deflected the blade. From where the blade hit cracks started to form all along the barrier. From those cracks the barrier shattered, marking the end of the duel.

Michael then turned his shield back into a sheath and put his sword away. Then removed the sheath from his arm and attached it to his waist. Bowing to Maya, he then moved off of the mat. The tournament was over, and Michael had become the champion of their school.

All that was left was the most annoying part. Going through the awards ceremony.