The first collision cracked like thunder.
Water burst upward from Katsu's feet, a wave pushed by his own breath and the pounding of his heart.
Rei's spell met it midair.
Lightning laced in clean spirals, blue and fast. It didn't clash; it coiled.
Wrapped around the wave like a predator around its prey, electrifying the column until it burst into steam.
Katsu vanished through the mist.
Rei's eyes never blinked.
A thin arc of light sliced through the fog.
Katsu lunged out of it—an ice-forged glaive in both hands, water still dripping from its spine.
He spun, low to the ground, blade aimed for Rei's ribs.
Rei caught it with his bare hand.
Or—he caught it with the lightning coiled there.
A flash. A hiss. Sparks skated across the ice.
Katsu dropped back, rolling, planting his palms flat as he summoned another shape.
Twin spears, thin as reeds but sharpened to impossible points. They rose behind him, humming with pressure.
Rei didn't dodge.
He stepped forward.
The spears launched.
And shattered against a wall of hexagonal lightning plates—conjured not from Rei's hands, but from the sigil beneath his feet. A passive defense. A moving circle of arcane geometry.
Katsu's breath caught.
He hadn't even seen Rei draw it.
He pressed his heel down and reversed the flow. The water at his feet surged backward, lifted him like a current.
He kicked up into a backflip, hands moving faster than thought. Pulling the mist into another form: a curved pole of frozen steam and tension.
A hook-blade.
He didn't wait for Rei.
He rushed.
Rei met him midair.
Lightning crawled across his arms again, but this time it threaded.
Weaving between his fingers, forming long-fanged claws that danced with precision.
The first strike sent Katsu's blade flying.
The second nearly caught his cheek.
He spun. Slid on one knee.
Formed a disk of water and hardened it into a shield just in time to block the third.
But Rei wasn't aiming for him.
He struck the ground instead. Lightning forked through the arena, channeled in precise lines.
Glyphs lit up along the edges of the platform. Not part of the school. Rei's own.
Katsu rose, breathing heavy. Frost bit at the corners of his sleeves. His shoulder throbbed.
"Did you bring your own duel circle?" he asked.
Rei's voice was even. "I came prepared."
Katsu bared his teeth. "Good."
He dropped to a low stance, pressed both hands into the floor and the platform responded.
The air around him shifted.
Water rose.
No longer pulled from the ground.
It formed from him, from the mana woven in his muscles, the breath in his throat, the names on the slip of paper hidden under his robe.
It coiled into three long shapes.
A whip. A fan. A sword.
He chose the whip.
He lashed it forward, once, twice, cracking it like a sound made of ice and command.
The third lash split into five, seeking Rei from all angles. Rei ducked. One strand caught his shoulder. Frost bloomed across his sleeve.
He responded by raising one palm.
Spoke one word.
Katsu didn't recognize the language.
But the spell lit the platform like dawn.
Lightning shot upward in five columns.
The ground beneath them cracked—not from damage, but from overload.
Something old stirred in the stone.
The Leviathan's voice slid down his spine.
"You're being marked, Katsu."
He clenched his jaw. "I know."
"Then stop playing his game."
He raised his hand.
Not to summon.
To focus.
Water trembled around him, shaped in fractals.
Each one marked not by his magic, but his restraint. But Rei stepped forward again.
No fear. No hesitation.
He moved like someone who'd seen death and chosen to be colder.
"Enough," Rei said.
And lightning flared so bright it whitewashed the platform.
Katsu raised both arms.
And the ice answered.
The platform shattered in five places.
Glyphs burned. Water rose.
No longer shaped, but reacting.
Katsu felt it crest in his lungs.
He inhaled.
And the Leviathan's voice rose with him.
"Velak tairn un vasthrenai.
From chains—
Rise."
The platform convulsed.
Magic surged out from both of them, opposing circles, old names written in new tongues.
One spiral spun silver and blue.
The other flared white and violet.
The glass beneath their feet cracked.
Not metaphorically.
Actually.
Master Uiscel stepped forward—but too late.
Sydney stood at the far edge of the platform.
Her mouth parted. Her hand clenched.
She didn't move.
The dueling ring collapsed inward.
And both boys were thrown back.
Silence.
Then—
A surge of magic barriers rippled through the courtyard, instructors shouting over one another as snow and steam billowed upward.
The black-glass had split clean through.
No footing. No more ground. Just mist and fire and the pulse of residual spells.
Uiscel forced the arena to stabilize. Mistress Elatha wove a holding circle.
"Duel ends here," one judge said.
"Inconclusive," another added. "Magical interference. Arena compromised."
Neither fighter spoke.
Rei stood first, brushing frost from his cuffs.
He crossed to Katsu slowly, steps careful in the fractured ring. He leaned in close. Close enough that no one could hear but Katsu.
"You're Velthra," he said, "but you don't act like it. You can't hide what you are. If you don't master it… someone else will."
He turned and walked away.
The crowd parted for him like smoke.
Katsu didn't follow. Didn't move.
Not until he felt the cold of her voice.
Sydney.
She stepped across the ruined ring, stopped just out of reach.
"You almost killed him."
He didn't answer.
"And yourself," she added, eyes sharper than flame. "Are you proud of that?"
Still, he didn't speak.
"You didn't even look scared. Not once. That's what made it worse."
Katsu turned, finally.
His mouth opened, but nothing came out.
She waited.
Then:
"…I didn't mean to—"
"I know," she said.
Then she left.
He didn't watch her go.
He just stood there in the silence she left behind.
And the Leviathan whispered:
"Now they know. All of them. Good."