The shocked gasps and shrieks from the audience members were a bit excessive, Aida thought—though she could see why it was shocking if she wasn’t already familiar with Dev and Lara's combat strategies.

  Dev was clearly a much more talented elementalist, while Lara was leaning completely into her preference for physical combat. Lara had managed to breach Dev's defenses, whaling on Dev's body with abandon as he staggered against her onslaught, each strike a blur as Lara supported her attacks with mana.

  It certainly looked like Lara had the upper hand; Dev wasn't doing anything to counter. But to Aida's more critical Healer's eye, she could see that Lara's attacks, despite each one being Surged, weren't doing anything notable against Dev's actual defenses. He was able to neutralize every hit with well-timed Mana Surges of his own in the areas Lara aimed for. He was a textbook example of how to perform a perfect Defense Up.

  While Lara focused on breaking through Dev's defenses, Aida could see what Dev was trying to do. He was lulling her into a rhythm, letting her think she had the upper hand over him; and while she was occupied with the task in front of her, she didn't notice that he was gathering ungodly amounts of mana.

  Aida rubbed her eyes and squinted, not sure if she was seeing correctly.

  Dev was glowing. But looking around at her classmates' faces, it didn't seem like anybody else noticed. Aida glanced at Healer Luk, who was fixated on the match, so still she wasn't even breathing.

  Each of the other professors were like Luk; it seemed like only the adults knew something was off.

  Kozu was at the edge of their ring, since they were the only two Water combatants left. He was also still, a slight tremor running through his body. Almost as if he was a wolf, facing down a dangerous stranger, hackles up.

  Confused, Aida whipped her glance back to Lara and Dev, where only now Lara seemed to notice things weren't going as swimmingly as she had been thinking. She tried to disengage, but Dev lunged forward with his arms outstretched—accompanied by a wave of water that came out of nowhere.

  Aida felt a familiar thrill of terror run down her spine, even though she wasn't the one facing the glowing, inhuman being that was in the ring. She was vaguely aware that Healer Luk was beside her, though they might as well have been moving through molasses. She was dimly aware of a bright red energy flaring where Kozu was standing before everything winked out.

  Everything following was an indescribable blur. Aida remembered feeling like she was back on the waters at North Ocean Village, so wet from all the splash and spray, completely turned around, unsure of what direction she was facing. And just like at North Ocean Village, her senses tingled with the certainty that there was something dangerous in the waters, coming for them.

  When she finally fought out of the murky memories of helpless insignificance, she was standing behind Kozu and Luk, who had somehow overtaken her and positioned themselves in front of her, acting as some sort of wavebreaker. Lara was still in the ring, seated on her bum, her knees in front of her and her hands propped behind her as support, a look of disbelief—with a little bit of fear—on her face as she stared through Professor Bruce—who had somehow appeared in front of her as another wavebreaker—at Dev, who was standing as if he was pushing against a wall, his legs bent and bracing, his arms straightened in Lara's direction.

  "That's enough." Professor Bruce's voice rumbled throughout the arena, shaking everyone from their reverie. "The match is over."

  Dev lifted his head, blinking. He saw Bruce in front of him and quickly straightened, rubbing his palms along the sides of his pants, as if he was merely drying them off. He glanced around, taking in the sudden reshuffling of positions, catching sight of Aida. He, miraculously, grinned.

  "So...I won, yes?"

  ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

  Kozu declared victory for Dev. Lara disappeared while the Wood students replaced the Waters in the arena, while Dev was swarmed by his friends and classmates, all of them punching his shoulder or shaking his hand in congratulations.

  Aida was pulled aside by her own friends, with Sue demanding—with a coy tone, nudging at Aida’s fearless recklessness with approval—what she had been thinking, pelting towards danger like that.

  “Even Kuri was shocked,” Sue said, her tone hushed as her eyes gleamed. “Honestly, none of us expected that from him!”

  “I really thought Lara would win,” Caleb added from the side, frowning slightly as he searched through the crowd. “I guess she took that loss very hard.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Sue said indifferently. She grabbed Aida around the neck into a tight hug, pressing her cheek against her. “But you’re done! You just have the graduation ceremony left tomorrow!”

  Before Aida could do more than laugh and hug Sue back, Professor Gemma landed lightly on the railing beside them, squatting down so she was level with Aida.

  “Miss Loreh, would you please proceed to the staff lounge when the matches are over? We would like to speak with you. It’s nothing bad,” she added, seeing Aida and Sue’s concerned expressions.

  “Okay,” Aida said blankly. Gemma nodded at her before leaping back onto her judging platform, and Aida saw Professor Bruce also exchanging words with Dev further in the crowd.

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  “That can’t be good, right?” Aida said to Sue in concern. She shook her head, mystified.

  “At least she said it wasn’t bad…”

  “She didn’t seem angry, so I don’t think you should worry,” Caleb said bracingly.

  Aida sat through the rest of the matches with a queasy feeling in her stomach, wondering why she—and Dev—were getting singled out by the professors.

  Despite her apprehension, she was still able to pay attention to the remainder of the matches.

  Most notably, Class 1 had clearly improved significantly since the beginning of the school year—which Aida didn’t think was possible. They all clearly gained valuable experience from their assignments: the raw power and skill they had displayed before was tempered by their field experience, and the way they moved and used their mana abilities made them look like they had been fighting for decades.

  Sue was the exception, in that she looked like she was born to fight. Caleb and Levi looked like professionals, but there was no question that Sue was a natural. The training she received made her more fluid and more adaptable, making her own fighting style very distinct. Aida could pick out some instances that looked like Kuri’s influence, such as when she torpedoed across the ring in a whirl of flames as she snuffed out her opponent’s own firestorm, but taken as a whole it almost had an artistic slant to it all.

  Her classmates in Class 2 had improved significantly as well, though there was still no question about if they could defeat Class 1 or not. Other than Dev, the rest of the boys weren’t able to beat their Class 1 counterparts.

  As Aida, Sue, and Levi reconvened with Caleb after his match (the Earth students were the last matches of the school year), the four of them congratulating each other on graduating, Dev caught up with them.

  “The teachers called you to the staff lounge as well, right?”

  Levi whipped his head to Aida, eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah,” Aida responded, ignoring Levi’s piercing stare. “I was going to grab some food first, since I get the feeling the talk might take a while…”

  Dev nodded. “That’s smart. I’ll do the same.”

  Instead of falling back, Dev kept pace with them, forcing Levi to keep his questions to himself. Aida glanced at him, frowning, warning him to keep quiet. He rolled his eyes in response, nodding slightly. A tacit agreement that she would fill him in later.

  The dining hall had taken on a new layout. Instead of having all the students line up to place their orders for food, the kitchen staff had laid out two long banquet tables laden with mouth-watering dishes. The Affiliates had lined up along one table, and the students had lined up along the other. All of the regular cafeteria tables had been pushed along the wall, making the dining hall standing room only.

  The reason for the layout was clear: after witnessing all of the final placement matches, Affiliates were looking to finalize—or even change—offers, and wanted this chance to mingle with the third years one last time

  Fortunately, Healer Bokar had approached Aida immediately to commend her on her matches, reassuring her she was top of the list for his pick. Before Aida could do more than smile at him, another Healer who had never deigned to talk to Aida snuck in to offer a warm congratulations on her final ranking, rapidly firing off her name—which Aida didn’t catch—and the clinic—which she also couldn’t hear—she represented and making it clear that she was open to negotiations.

  Before Aida could bungle the interaction with both Bokar and the other Healer standing in front of her, Dev made his way over, reminding her of their appointment with the teachers.

  "That’s right," Aida said gratefully. She gave an apologetic nod to Healer Bokar and the second Healer. "I'm so sorry, but I'll try to be back as soon as possible." Randomly snatching a few more finger food items off of the banquet table, Aida followed Dev with his own loaded lunch plate out of the dining hall.

  "What do you think the teachers want to see us for?" Dev asked airily.

  "Are you kidding?" Aida had to walk faster to keep up with Dev's long legs. "Did you see what you did?"

  "I'm aware of what I did," Dev said dryly. He gave her an oblique look. "Were you aware of what you were doing?"

  "What do you mean?" Aida asked, slightly defensively.

  "Why would you head towards a dangerous situation, when you absolutely didn’t have to? Especially when there are five perfectly capable professionals ready to take care of things if it got out of hand," Dev said pointedly. "My mana control is quite good, but thinking I will be able to stop it after I had already cast it is still a risky expectation."

  Aida flushed. "Okay, I...I don't actually know what was happening," Aida mumbled. "My body just reacted."

  Dev tilted his head, stopping in the hallway. "And it's not usually in your nature to run towards danger, correct?"

  Aida thought. As much as she wished she was one of those who stood by her principles, fearless and able to speak up against bullies or others who took advantage of the situation for their own gain, she really wasn't. She was like most other people: wanted to keep her head down, avoid any troubles so she could continue muddling on for a respectable life she could say with pride she worked hard for. At the cost of letting small injustices pass by; injustices that didn't directly affect her, because she didn't have the ability or resources to take up those causes. Not without causing trouble to herself.

  She always justified it as something she could rectify later, when she finally attained enough of a status to command respect - enough respect, enough power to actually enact meaningful change.

  And though she had power now, she still couldn't compare against the main leads, and definitely couldn't have done anything against Dev's fearsome power spike he just demonstrated. So according to her historical actions, she should have just avoided Dev's finale. But instead, for some inexplicable reason, her body's instinct had been to run towards it.

  "No," Aida said quietly. She felt the flush creeping up her cheeks. She didn't know why she suddenly felt so miserably guilty about running towards the ring.

  No, not just towards the ring. Towards Dev.

  A long pause ensued, echoes of the conversation and merriment from the dining hall floating down the hallway doing nothing to fill in the silence between them.

  Aida stared determinedly at the plate of food in her hands, refusing to look at Dev. She wasn't sure she could look at him and hide the hammering of her heart. Or the gulps she had to take to flush all of her saliva down her throat lest she drown.

  "All right then," Dev finally said, his voice low and quiet. Almost like a purr. "We'd better get going."