Tournament Begins

Hadrian woke up early and donned on his duelling outfit. Professor Andy had told them to meet in his room at noon, so Hadrian departed after a couple of hours.

Hadrian and Demetri were the earliest ones, they talked quietly amongst themselves whilst they waited for their schoolmates to arrive.

It took no less than 15 minutes for them to finally gather their friends and reach the lobby.

"There are a few hours left until the tournament officially starts, you can train for the few hours. Don't worry - each school has its own training area, away from prying eyes.", said Professor Andy.

They all nodded back to him and walked towards their designated training area, which was located in the tunnel mirroring the entrance, leading to the training block.

Hadrian trained by himself for the majority of the session, sometimes he would ask Demetri to send spells at him so he could practice his countering.

During these times, Hadrian would use the 'Extienis' spell. He focused on the 'trapping' of the spell and then allowed it to disperse into the air - at first glance, it looked as though Hadrian was only blocking the spell, which Hadrian was aiming for.

This allowed him to practice the Grimoire spell secretly and after a while, Hadrian thought he could do it well enough that it wouldn't hinder him if he attempted it in a duel.

They spent around 2 hours in the training area until they were called by one of the workers, who was wearing a yukata with the letters 'IDC' on the back.

Hadrian asked Andy what it meant and was told it stood for, 'International Duelling Circuit'.

They followed the IDC worker to the space between the stage and the audience. There were many schools that Hadrian knew and some that Hadrian didn't know.

There were also the previous Duelling Champions who had their own stand. Hadrian watched as Professor Andy conversed with both the old and young previous champions.

Hadrian then watched as a tall, bald Japanese man in a black suit entered the Duelling Arena with a microphone.

Hadrian couldn't help but compare him to the Yakuza he had read about in one of the books on Japan. Aside from the tattoos, not that Hadrian could see his whole body and verify if he did have them, the man fit the ideal description for the Yakuza.

He was quite intimidating.

"Welcome!-", he boomed into his mic,"-To the International School Duelling Tournament!".

The audience roared in excitement.

"We have very special guests today, comprised of Duelling Champions! In the champions box!", a spotlight formed and pointed at the Champion's Stand as the room darkened, "- He has won the title 7 times in a row!... It's Filius Flitwick!!".

The spotlight zeroed in on a short dwarf who impishly waved back at the audience.

Hadrian covered his ears due to the blustering applause and surveyed his opponents, and found that they too were doing the same.

" Our next Champion, all the way from the states... Two-time winner of the International Duelling Tournament... Aurian Anderson!!"

The spotlight now honed in on Professor Andy, who waved and blew kisses towards the audience, before focusing on his students, who he winked at.

Hadrian and the rest of the apprentices grinned back at their professor.

The Yakuza referee went on to introduce the rest of the former champions, the one Hadrian was most interested in was last year's winner, the Duelling Champion for India - Rishu Nayar.

Hadrian read about the former champions and Nayar was quite famous for using Parseltongue spells for both healing and attacking.

Nayar then raised his wand above his head, with two hands, and did some sort of jig as he spun around. The young duellists that saw this burst out in laughter. All except a skinny Indian boy, who copied the man's jig.

The audience, of course, lapped it up - as the clapping and cheers became louder.

"Alright! Let's get started!", the Yakuza referee shouted, "First up, Christopher Harper vs Urayama Rai!".

A slightly pudgy boy wearing the Ilvermorny crest on his chest sauntered up to the stage, whilst his opponent, a petite, black-haired Mahoutokoro student followed shortly after.

The Yakuza referee waited until they were both in their part of the arena. He bowed and waited for the contestants to do the same. The Ilvermorny boy dipped his head lightly, begrudgingly - whilst the girl went into a full bow.

The referee nodded before pointing his wand at the ceiling.

"The rules are simple, No Unforgivables! No Dark Arts! No use of Runestones! The only weapons allowed are; your bodies and wands. Any other weapons have to be conjured by yourself! Also, no potions to aid you in your duel! The duel ends when you either: knock our your opponent, hold your opponent's wand in your hand, or have your opponent at wand point.", he said, before letting off a firework from his wand.

Instantly, the duellists brandished their wands and began tossing spells at each other.

"Flipendo! Flipendo! Flipendo!",Rai threw three quick knockback jinxes at Christopher who responded by batting them away.

Rai stopped casting, waiting for the second that Christopher went to attack - before throwing a flipendo followed by a cutting charm.

Christopher was too slow, he was thrown onto the floor by the knockback jinx, causing him to narrowly miss the cutting charm that flew over his head.

Now on the floor, Christopher threw a long spell chain consisting of disarming charm, a cutting charm aimed at the hand, a knockback jinx, and two full-body bind curses.

Rai used her thin build to dodge and weave out of the spells trajectory, getting closer and closer to Christopher with every dodge.

Christopher then shouted, "Tarantallegra!", a green light shot out of his wand and hit Rai.

Rai's legs spasmed and her wand rolled out of her hand and onto the floor.

She lunged towards her wand as Christopher threw two cutting charms at her, which missed by a hair's breadth.

She grasped her wand and turned around just as Christopher shot a knockback jinx at her.

As Rai turned, she batted the spell away from her and threw a disarming charm at him - Christopher's wand flew one meter away from him.

He hastily tried to recover his wand, but due to his heavier build, he failed to catch up before Rai could release her spell. Rai tossed a knockback jinx at him, square in the chest, launching him to the other side of the platform.

She coolly walked over to his wand and picked it up.

The crowd burst into cheers and applause.

"THE FIRST DUEL GOES TO URAYAMA RAI!", somehow - the applause and cheers became even louder.

The yakuza referee flicked his wand behind him, triggering a projection rune.

The projection rune displayed the names of the contestants and the days they would be fighting on.

The name 'Christopher Harper' had a red line going through it, to signify that he was knocked out of the competition.

Hadrian looked at the names of everyone that was going to duel today, he felt disappointed when he saw that his duel was quite some time away.

Hadrian scanned the list and saw that Angelica Bay, Demetri's duelling apprentice partner, was the third fight.

She was to fight someone named Nkonkoni. Judging by the name, they were most likely a Uagadou student.

Hadrian searched for his name and found the person he would be fighting in his round.

He was to fight someone called Aleksander Tsankov. Hadrian figured he was either a Durmstrang or Beauxbatons student.

Either way, his and Aleksander's fight was quite some time away. Hadrian decided to just watch and wait for now...

This was the preliminary, the round in which all the 'weaker' opponents are knocked out of the tournament - It would do good to take note of their fighting styles.

The first match had shown that Urayama Rai was fast and agile, her casting speed was alright but her reaction speed was definitely her key asset.

Hadrian wondered if she did any sort of martial arts, he wasn't thinking along the lines of the typical stereotype that claimed that 'All East Asian's know Martial Arts', but it was foolish to think that she might not, after all, it is deeply engraved in their culture.

Hadrian imagined that held true even more for their Wizarding Community, they did tend to hold tradition at an extremely high value. This made Hadrian very excited about the possibilities of the fusion of Martial Arts and Magic.

He knew that they did some branches of magic differently such as rune work. They crafted their runes onto a special type of parchment which behaved the same way a runestone did. They called the rune-parchment combination, 'Talismans'.

Hadrian read this in the Runes book that Daphne gifted him for Christmas.

Hadrian was brought out of his musings by the loud firework that shot out of the referee's wand, a declaration that the match had begun.

He didn't catch their names, but one of them had a darker complexion and was wearing the crest of a red dragon on their right breast, which Hadrian realized was the Durmstrang crest.

The other was slightly pale and adorned an aqua-green crest with a golden flower pattern branching out. The middle of the crest had the letter 'B' written in calligraphy - the 'B' standing for Beauxbatons.

The two girls started slugging out spells as fast as they could, waiting for the other to fatigue and show an opening.

Their defenses began to tire as they batted away spells and returned their own continuously for four minutes.

The Durmstrang girl slowly made her way closer and closer towards her opponent, the spells became increasingly difficult to block as they came faster and faster due to the decreasing proximity.

She deftly rolled out of the way of a spell she was too slow to block and threw a body-bind curse which made the Beaxbatons girl become frigid as her limbs stiffened.

The Durmstrang girl held her wand towards her paralyzed opponent's face.

"THE WINNER IS ALTHEA CORDOVA!", the yakuza referee shouted with a sonorous that made his voice carry across the arena.

Hadrian filed Althea under the 'not-a-weakling' category, not to say that she would beat him, but anyone that won during the initial stages of the tournament were potential enemies who displayed that they have the ability to win.

He didn't need to worry about the ones who failed at the first hurdle.