Ranvir dumped the last of the sand into the pit, putting the rest in a pile a few meters over. There was a lot of sand. Enough to fill the three-by-three meter hole fully and still have a pile taller and wider than he was.
Ranvir walked back towards the school entrance, looking at all the stuff he’d dumped there. It was odd, not having any pocket-spaces active. It had been years since he’d last been without, willingly or not. Even knocked out, he’d been able to maintain them.
“Oh shit, is that?” he pulled out a small green jacket from one shelf. He mostly kept his spaces the size of a shelf. It was easier to store things without getting them too messy that way. Not that he didn’t get them messy, it just took a little longer.
The jacket was made of a soft material; the cloth sliding between his fingers easily. It was only the length of his forearm. The lining on the left sleeve had torn, hanging split to the elbow. He sniffed, thumbing an off-color spot on the breast.
“Dad- are you crying?”
Ranvir shook his head and sniffed once more. “Sniffling maybe.”
“Why?” the bewilderment in Vasso’s voice was clear.
“It’s just, Frija used to wear this jacket. She was so small.”
“Oh, uh okay. Dad, can I ask you something?”
Ranvir nodded, returning the jacket to the shelf. He gestured for his son to walk with him.
“I just want to be sure. Estrid has been using her power since she was thirteen, right? She has, like, four years of training on you.”
Ranvir tilted his head back and forth. “She has had her powers for four years more than me, sure.”
“What do you mean by that?” Vasso didn’t entertain any notions of lessons.
“She’s been training at the academy for almost two years, I believe. But then, her true training only began little more than a month ago.”
Vasso snorted. “You’re that good, then?”
“Kasos is. I’m just a poor imitation.”
“Sure, whatever.”
Ranvir could sense the teenage air radiating strongly from Vasso.
“You’re going to be okay, right?”
“I might embarrass her a little.”
Vasso let out a frustrated grunt, whipping his head from side to side. Ranvir turned with a smile and placed a hand on Vasso’s shoulder. “You are worried about me. Thank you, Vasso. But there really is no need.”
“Won’t some of them leave if you lose?”
Ranvir cocked his head and looked at his son. “Can I tell you a secret? Promise to keep it to yourself.”
Vasso looked around and opened his mouth.
“Even,” Ranvir cut him off. “From Laila.”
Vasso blushed. “I wouldn’t- I wasn’t gonna.” He cleared his throat and fought back the redness in his cheeks. “What is it?”
Grinning, Ranvir leaned in and whispered the exact three ways he would beat Estrid.
----------------------------------------
“Everything’s ready,” Pashar said, standing to the left of the arena.
The rectangular field was marked with two sets of pillars, demarcating the two sides of the hundred meters long section. Kirs had set up a ritual that created a three meters tall wall of perfectly clear ice to protect the watchers.
“This isn’t some strange attempt at getting into her pants, is it?” Pashar asked, leaning in conspiratorially.
“With how you’re going about stirring the pot, I’m suspecting it isn’t Estrid I have to worry about,” Ranvir whispered back.
Pashar jerked away from him, giving him a strange look. Then her eyes narrowed. “You’re supposed to stutter. Maybe get a little flushed. Most people might bluster, but you’d be quiet.” She let out a low hum and took a step back, as if to evaluate him fully.
“That wasn’t a no,” Ranvir said. In her defense, he had seen some comment related to Estrid’s attraction coming from about a mile away. She probably knew he had, just hadn’t expected him to prepare. To be fair, it almost hadn’t occurred to him.
“No,” Pashar said, giving him an arch look. “This is: Absolutely not, you oafish bird man.”
“That’s a hefty reaction.”
“What is going on with you today?” she stepped closer, sniffing at him. “I don’t smell alcohol…” she gave him another calculating look. “You’re excited. You want this.”
Ranvir shrugged. Before he could reply, the students came tumbling out, Estrid immediately splitting off to head to the right-side of the arena. The Elusrians followed her. Usually, they struggled with her being a woman, but it seemed when compared to the ‘combat-hating instructor’, she was an easy favorite. Ranvir couldn’t blame them, considering their past.
“Okay, Students,” Kirs yelled. “Today, we have an exhibition match between Student Estrid and Principal Ranvir.”
‘Principal Ranvir’ sounded unfathomably strange.
“The purposes of this match up is to show the efficacy of our training. Ranvir represents the school, while Estrid-“
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Represents the proper fucking way!” the woman in question yelled, cutting off Kirs. There was some muted applause, but she was outside the translation field, as so was difficult to understand.
“The first match will show the principals of soul-diving and spiritual understanding,” Kirs said, continuing as if Estrid’s interruption was planned. “For this match, both contestants will start within thirty meters of each other. Are both okay with this?”
Estrid nodded and swung a hand over her head as if people were cheering for her. Ranvir simply nodded. Thirty meters would put him well within the reach of her Cloak, while just barely putting her within the reach of his Dagger.
Lines framed the arena into segments of ten meters, easily showing where they should stop. Estrid had both the Discipline of Wings and Body, though only her Wings had reached the second-stage.
She’d been a Cloak for long enough that her reach should be at the upper end, around forty-ish meters, but, like many tethered, she struggled with control at the edges of her Disciplines. She was happy to take the ten meter loss just for the opportunity to pummel him properly.
Kirs held a hand up and told them to drop their powers. Ranvir did, feeling space flee from him for the first time in most of four years. He blinked once, disoriented and confused. Kirs counted them down. His eyes seemed to burn as they faded into a middle-ground between brown and purple.
“Go!” Kirs whipped her hand down, and both tethered surged for their power. Ranvir’s tether-space was washed away in an instant, the pressure returning his control to him before Estrid even entered her soul.
Ranvir twisted space and pinched space, tearing Estrid from the plane and into a pocket-space. He felt the slight change in pressure when she embraced the pressure. It took an embarrassingly long time.
“Oh,” he heard Vasso whisper.
“Estrid has been removed from the arena and has lost,” Kirs said into the dead silence. Ranvir dumped the furious obsidian tethered onto the grass next to the field. She glared at him, eyes wide with anger. “Estrid, since you lost, you can decide where you want to start,” Kirs said, evenly ignoring the huffing and puffing student.
“Opposite ends!”
Kirs nodded and gestured to each side. One with three academy students staring narrow-eyed at Ranvir, the other with a mildly amused Pashar standing, one hand resting on a cocked hip. Frija had also arrived waiting for him with Menace, though she was standing behind the see-through ice.
“This fight relates to using your powers cleverly. Exploring unusual ways to use your power is as important as becoming skilled at the simple ways.”
She raised her hand and counted them down after releasing their power. Ranvir took his time this go around. He’d still embraced the pressure seconds before Estrid had. He prepared a few smaller tunnels, designating small terminals on the edge of her control, then compressed the space inside.
Soon, Estrid had a ring of chest-sized obsidian floating around her. With narrowed eyes, she tossed them through her Discipline, racing as fast as she could. She wasn’t very good. They cruised through her Cloak, but on reaching the end of her Discipline it was clear how she hadn’t trained this technique.
Despite their speed, they were still pieces of stone as big as her chest. The first three crashed into the grass, tearing rifts in the soil as they came to a stop. She saw her mistake quickly and corrected the following tosses.
The next five flew in clean trajectories, headed in his direction. All but one of them would hit him as well. Ranvir didn’t move. Instead, he ripped open five apertures to his bridges, sending them through the compressed space and back towards her.
Moving even faster, the five rocks suddenly appeared within her control. She started, her next barrage falling to the ground as she raised her arms, bracing the stone. She couldn’t immediately remove the momentum from the projectiles, nor did she have the control to cleanly intercept them.
She staggered a step back.
Ranvir had reached out with his tether-sense, opening a pinprick aperture behind her. He saw the realization on her face as her Discipline suddenly branched somewhere new, but by then it was already too late. She stumbled into compressed space, the sudden movement jerking her backward.
She let out a halfway yell and scream as she tumbled; her legs going wide.
“Estrid has fallen out of the arena. Ranvir is the winner.”
Estrid, eyes still wide, looked around. They’d both kept to it when she said ‘opposite ends.’ Each staying near their respective border of the fighting ground. It appeared as though a momentous amount of self-control was being employed as she vigorously scrubbed her head with her hands.
“Estrid. Since you-“
“Up close!” She yelled, interrupting Kirs again. She jumped to her feet, power pulsing from her and rattling the surrounding stones.
Kirs shot Ranvir an exasperated look, but began her prepared speech. “The last fight is about meaningful employment of your spirit, mainly through your soul-sight, though for some of you there are other approaches as well.” She looked meaningfully at the Elusrians, who seemed slightly uncomfortable in their current position.
“You’re going down this time,” Estrid said through gritted teeth. The vein in her neck stood out as she bared her teeth at him.
Ranvir didn’t bother responding, only waiting for her to drop her power so Kirs could continue. The hand went up, then swept down. Estrid jumped him before either had gained control of their power.
Ranvir grunted in surprise as she shoulder-checked him in the stomach. His own focus on entering his power had actually had an adverse effect. At least, momentarily. Lowering himself, he halted her charge. He was taller, heavier, and stronger than her.
He shoved left and stepped right. She stumbled once before straightening, her hands guard up in a hand-to-hand combat stance. Ranvir didn’t actually know much about unarmed combat, nor would he call him an expert on any form of combat, but her guard seemed well-trained.
Ranvir let her embrace the pressure, her power surging through her body. Strengthening and toughening.
Arms raised and head lowered, she stalked closer. Raising his own hands, Ranvir let her approach. The crowd murmured as he didn’t enhance himself, instead his tether-sense tensed, ready to strike.
Ranvir felt her strike. Her soul twisted, readying before her body. His eyes, enhanced by through Graywing and Perception, picked up striations of muscle tensing in her neck, the slightest shift of her stance. Her stomach clenched, expelling her breath. All happening in the moments before her arm moved.
Then his tether-sense struck and his hand whipped out. With the cruelty of a whip and the deadly intent of a viper, Ranvir struck her. His tether-sense lashing into her native-presence and Discipline of Body.
Her technique faltered, her strength faded. Ranvir snagged her wrist, pulled her off balance and seized her by the collar of her shirt. With a twist of his arm that agitated the tiny amounts of sand-mana ingrained into his body, he hauled her into the air.
“I said I’d teach you what combat felt like,” Ranvir snarled, the lethal intent of his tether-sense intensifying and slipping back into his own expression. Estrid’s face paled, and she struck at his arm, unable to reach his face.
Her native-presence buckled further, and she started kicking ineffectually at his ribs and stomach. Small sounds escaped her as she twisted in the grip he had on her collar.
“To fight is to understand terror,” Ranvir snarled. Red anger, blackened at the edges, snaked through him, agitated by the intent he used to wear her down. Her forms lost all cohesion as she attempted escape. Kicking turned to flailing as she gripped his wrist.
Ranvir dropped her, and she hurried out of the arena. Amalia, Kasos, and Sansir rushed over to the wall and grabbed her.
Ranvir leapt the wall himself and strode into the translation field, all eyes on him, both faculty and students. “The basic exercises. Soul-diving, soul-sight, and mana understanding form the basis for anything you do with your power. Whether it be combat, or item-creation, or construction, or something else. They dictate your options and opportunities far more than any one technique or Ability.
“Soul-diving affects how fast you can access your power, as well as how well you can sense it. Refining your soul increases your ability with your soul-sight, increasing clarity and sensitivity. A stronger soul-sight allows you to better understand and compare foreign effects, bettering your ability to develop and understand your mana-typing.
“These three basics feed into each other, and none are gated by a specific plane’s power. It is on this foundation that all else is built and if it is crooked, then nothing solid can be made.”