"What an explosion!"

"That's it then!" Kouji said, confident of victory. If Zane left the arena now and fell to the ground, Kouji would have won the fight.

"Then I have to use this." Zane turned towards the ground and with an outward movement, as if conducting a concert, Zane stretched out his arms and a greenish shimmering rune formed in front of his palms. As if directed by his arms, the air currents that had formed in the arena began to obey his command.

Wind magic? You're taking every risk, aren't you, Zane? Nathan thought as he saw the greenish rune on the screen that Zane had formed. Zane was not trained in wind magic, much less the water magic from which his ice magic was derived. But the heat and ice of the attacks had set the air in the room in motion, making it easier for Zane to 'feel' the wind.

"What is he doing now? Zane is showing us wind magic in addition to his ice magic! "

A few meters off the ground, the wind caught Zane and lifted him back into the air above the arena. Still in the air, he turned around and looked at Kouji. In the meantime, the two had swapped their starting positions and Zane was already launching his next attack while Kouji followed his flight.

As if out of nowhere, a huge pillar of ice with a diameter of about 50 centimeters raced towards Kouji. Kouji jumped to the side and dodged when the next pillar came towards him. Kouji dodged again when a third pillar came towards him.

This time, however, Kouji was too slow and the pillar hit his shield, throwing him several meters away. The shield was like a hard shell and just like the balls in billiards were hit by the cue, Kouji's shield was hit by the ice pillar. The impact, even if it was only a graze, was so strong that Kouji's shield began to crack.

Zane's flight over the arena was nearing its end when he reached the other side. He flew out of the arena again, but as he was heading for the wall of the grandstand, another pillar of ice shot out of the wall of the grandstand, from which he kicked his legs and flew back into the arena. He hadn't touched the ground, so it was within the rules.

Kouji had recovered by now. I don't have much energy left, the wretch... Kouji shot a ball of concentrated magic at Zane. The name of the spell was Acul, one of the simpler arcane spells that only fired undirected, concentrated magic.

The Acul spell flew straight at Zane, who was still on his way back to the arena. Zane created another pillar of ice beneath him, catapulting him out of the line of fire just before the Acul spell hit the ice pillar, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Some of the shards hit Zane's shield as he heard Kouji's voice.

"I've got you now!" Kouji shouted with an angry expression on his face. He had pulled his pistol from its holster and aimed at the flying Zane, who had been thrown off balance by the dodge.

The moment he pulled the trigger, Zane had created a sheet of ice in the air, which he pushed with all his might with his left hand. The plate defied gravity for only a moment, but long enough for Zane to escape the trajectory of the ball. However, Zane was no faster than the approaching ball, and so it struck his magic shield.

Kouji must have used up a lot of his magic because he's reaching for the gun, Zane thought as the bullet passed him by.

The bullets flew out of the gun one by one as Kouji continued to fire at Zane, who seemed to be running through the air.

I have to go faster, Zane thought as he began to create sheets of ice as before, which he immediately pushed away. Shit, I have to stop this soon. I used too much power. The ice pillars used an enormous amount of energy and so far he had created six of them. He would not be able to produce many more, so he relied on the thin ice plates to repel himself. Besides, the wind magic had used up a lot of his supply and the damage to the shield was slowly becoming a problem.

However, Kouji had used up the ammunition of his pistol in no time without scoring a hit. When he realized that it was empty, he angrily threw it to the ground. The moment Kouji checked the ammunition on his pistol, Zane fired two ice pillars at him. The long pillars stretched from Zane towards Kouji.

Seeing the pillars coming towards him, Kouji created two small Diruptio spells and pressed them against the approaching pillars. Immediately, the pillars shattered into a thousand pieces and thick water vapor formed. He saw Zane coming towards him. He wasn't walking on the ground, but on the pillars he had created.

When the pillars broke beneath him, Zane jumped up and created a thicker layer of ice to catapult himself towards Kouji.

"Don't get cocky!" Kouji shouted at Zane as he formed two Diruptio circles in front of his palms and ran towards him.

"Zane is flying towards Kouji! Is the fight coming to an end?"

Both of them seem to have used a lot of magic, Zane for his flying spell and Kouji for his triple spell. Zane also uses more energy as he has to fight the heat of the explosion. This is probably the last action of both of them, Nathan analyzed the battle.

Zane formed the green circles again and held them under the soles of his feet like a frog about to jump. Zane's wind magic accelerated him again and he raced towards Kouji, his speed increasing significantly. At the same time, as Zane brought his arms forward again, he formed another magical circle in his left hand while holding his right hand out protectively in front of him.

"Diruptio!" Kouji brought forward the two palms he had just drawn behind him. But before the spells found their target, Kouji's shield cracked. At first, it was only a gap that had opened up on the right side of the shield. Kouji had hardly noticed that Zane had already passed him. But in a fraction of a second, cracks formed that spread across the entire sphere and the shield shattered like glass.

Zane had run past Kouji and destroyed his shield with the blade of ice that had formed around his hand and part of his forearm.

"Ice Blade"

Shocked by the feedback from the shield caused by the destruction, Kouji sank to one side and finally fell to the ground with a thud.

"Zane wins!" The referee raised his arm in Zane's direction and stopped the match.

"Zane won! What a fight," the announcer announced as the crowd cheered.

"Yes!" Zane said happily, clenching his fists in front of him. Boxes with Zane's name and face appeared on the billboards between the arena and the grandstand, officially announcing his victory.

"Yay! Zane won," Asagi said happily while Zero put his arms behind his head again.

"His hard training has paid off. But it was a close fight".

Angrily, Kouji hit the ground with his hand. How could I lose to someone like HIM? Amidst the chatter of the crowd, he heard footsteps approaching.

Turning around, he saw Zane standing in front of him. "Hey, good fight!" Zane held out his hand as a sign of fairness and to help him to his feet.

"What a sporting gesture!" The commentator drew the attention of the excited crowd back to Zane and Kouji.

"Tsch!" Kouji slapped Zane's hand away and ran off, while Zane looked after him incomprehensibly.

Very few in the stands had paid attention, as they were absorbed in their own conversations and the obligatory handshake was nothing special. The commentator paused for a moment and decided not to comment on Kouji's unsportsmanlike behavior. Zero and Asagi noticed this as well:

"That's not very fair to Zane...", Asagi said.

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it...", Zero replied.

A few boos accompanied Kouji as he left the arena and disappeared into the corridors.

You will stop laughing soon!

⬢

A faint light shone deep into the dark supply corridors of the arena. Kouji was sitting on one of the benches used by the technicians during their break. Only the light of the PDI he held in his hands illuminated the surroundings. Two other people stood a little further behind him, the light from the PDA only illuminating their outlines.

"Damn! What do you mean?" He swore, stroking the PDA.

Then one of the two shadows approached him, a girl in a white dress appearing as she stepped into the light of the PDA. Meanwhile, the light from the PDA was joined by another green light coming from the collar the girl was wearing. Carefully, she put her hands on his shoulders, trying to calm him down.

"What are you even doing here?" He snapped at them both.

"We were supposed to take you back," replied the other shadow, who was considerably taller than Kouji. With an annoyed expression on his face, Kouji reached for the bracelet on his left wrist.

Suddenly, the color of the light on the necklace turned red. The girl let go of Kouji's shoulders and fell to her knees. She shrugged, her face aching as she tried to put her hands on the ground. The other shadow also fell to his knees, another red light visible around his neck.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Kouji glared at them. "I know what to do myself!"

"Sorry, it wasn't my intention..." the shadow behind him stammered when Kouji interrupted him.

"Enough!" He scolded them as he threw the PDA against the wall.

The corner of the glass screen hit the wall and a deep crack cut through it. Fragments of the screen flew around before it fell to the floor and remained there. Just before the light from the screen faded, a strange symbol flickered, but the noise from the crack and the impact made it difficult to decipher.

⬢

At the same time

> Alliance Base

Sunlight streamed through the glass of the long corridor that ran along the outside of the base. A lone secretary emerged from the first door at the end of the corridor on the window side. A large PDA and some paper files in her hand.

The name on the sign by the door: Leon Leadway.

Leon sat at his desk, the glass front in front of him transformed into a screen. The screen was flooded with reports, maps, statistics, surveillance images and a small window with the live stream from Halsion.

 "Seranis ... hmmm," Leon said to himself, his gaze fixed on the PDA in his hand.

There was a picture of Zane in the corner of the PDA, surrounded by data.

As if he had seen enough, Leon got up from his chair and put the PDA aside. He walked towards the glass front, all the reports began to disappear and the window became clear, revealing the ocean in front of the base. To his right was the long glazed corridor the secretary had entered.

After a while, watching the clouds and the ocean to clear his thoughts, he tapped the air to his right and a holographic window appeared.

⬢

The door to the lounge opened with a hiss.

"Hey Zane," Nathan greeted Zane, who had thrown his jacket over his shoulder. "Good job out there!"

"Thanks!" Zane grinned back.

"Kouji seems pretty angry." Nathan wondered at his behavior.

"Yeah, I didn't think he was such a petty loser," Zane laughed and put his hand on his left hip.

"Don't say that, you almost lost in the first minute," Nathan replied, infected by Zane's cheerfulness.

"I was nervous, OK? You don't fight in front of hundreds of people every day!" Zane laughed sheepishly.

⬢