Reunion and a bet

"So you're back."

"I suppose so."

My table had gotten invaded by my former friends, with both of them sitting across me as I was enjoying my morning coffee.

James did not wear his usual charming smile, instead, it was replaced with a hard front that clearly showed me his intentions. This wasn't a meeting of reconciliation, it was one of preparation.

"Did they treat you well over there?"

He kept on wearing the mask of a polite classmate. 'At least he has a bit of respect left for me.'

Waving my hand I quickly dismissed his act of small talk, "What do you want? Your theatrics at the party was enough for me to be sure that you are just hiding behind that nice guy facade."

Sophie stood up, pushing her chair backward as she did, "Stop it Miren! You don't ..."

"Sarah, it's fine. Sit down."

James stopped her outburst before she had enough time to say what she wanted to, but I could imagine what she was thinking.

'I don't know anything huh? Sorry, Sarah, I'm pretty sure you're just too blindly in love to see it.'

Although I didn't think positively of Sarah anymore, that didn't mean I hated her. Thus I kept my thoughts to myself, not wanting to hurt her unnecessarily.

"And Miren, please stop your useless taunting. I will get right to the point as you want. I'm going to issue another challenge to you tomorrow with Mr.Borr as our witness and I assume you will accept once again."

I took another sip of my coffee and looked straight into his eyes, "And what if I don't accept? Do you honestly think anyone would find it strange if someone who has been gone for months declined a challenge issued on the first day of the new semester?"

His brows furred a bit, making his frustration leak a bit through his poker face, "You...!"

I intervened, not letting him finish his sentence, "You what? Do you think you have any sort of justification for your actions here? You are very welcome to challenge me to prove that you are the mighty James Luminary, the bringer of light, but don't try to hide it. Just admit that you have a need to prove that you are the strongest."

With those words, I stood up and started to walk away. James appeared to use all his self-control to not scream at me. But before I made my exit I left him a couple more words, "Don't worry. I will always accept your challenges, no matter what pitiful reasons are behind them."

Without looking back at my former friends, I left the cafeteria and started to walk toward Mike's training room.

It was as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I could finally cut loose the baggage that had already thrown me away.

****

The moment I stepped into the training room I was caught in a vice grip by the gorilla, hugging me as if he had no intentions of ever letting go.

"Mike, I don't think this is appropriate..."

"I don't care! It was my fault you got taken! If I had just been more aware of the artifact used during the ranking matches this would have never happened!"

It felt a bit farfetched to base everything that happened on that single instance, but I couldn't bother to refute him.

*Crzzt!*

Creating a small stream of lighting around my arms I managed to make him let me go.

"I'm fine, teacher. They treated me well to make sure I wasn't hurt in the least, In some ways, it was a lot more relaxing than spending time here. Hell, they even let me train during my stay there so I wouldn't fall too far behind.

Putting a finger on his chin he started to inspect me a bit, "It does indeed feel like you have gotten stronger. Did you break through to Rank III during your stay there?"

It was unfortunately a question I did not have an answer to, "I don't know. I think I might have, but I haven't had the chance to check my status yet."

My teacher pondered a bit, "Hmm, well no matter. You will all show your statuses tomorrow anyway so then you'll know."

"The same procedure as during our first semester?"

"Yep, exactly the same. It's to let all of you know where you stand in relation to each other once again."

I didn't feel all that bad about it. My classmates already knew the state of my status at this point, so there would be no surprises when they saw my strength once again.

"Now, why did you want to borrow my room? Did you want to dust off your skills against the dummy again?"

That had initially been my plan. A chance to reinvigorate the relationship between me and Sir. Blockalot, but as Mike was here my thinking had changed a bit.

"I want to spar with you Mike, if possible."

I looked up at the big man, unable to stop myself from comparing him to Sophie. Weirdly enough, I think she was quite a lot taller than him, which said a lot as the gorilla was pretty huge.

His eyes shone a bit when I asked him to spar with me, "Are you sure about this? We don't have Sarah here to heal you, you know?"

I had already started to stretch my limbs as he was speaking, showing I had no qualms about it, "It's fine. If I get knocked out, I get knocked out."

He took off his suit and rolled up the arms of his shirt, "Suit yourself, kid!"

We made some distance between each other but before he signaled for us to start I got an idea.

"Teacher, do you want to make this more interesting?"

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"Let's make a bet. If I can land one clean hit on you, I win. If I can't, you win."

He scratched the back of his head, "Is that it? Are you sure about this? I know about your movement skill already, so isn't it a bit unfair?"

"I'm sure." I made sure to gaze directly into his eyes, so he was sure to understand that I was serious about this.

"What do you want if you win?"

I put my hand up, connecting my index finger and thumb, "I want money, as much as I can get."

Money wasn't a problem for high rankers, most of them had enough money to live multiple lives without ever having to work, so I didn't feel guilty about it.

"Ho? But what do I get if I win?"

This was harder for me to answer, I didn't think I would lose this bet as I had a trump card that I was going to use. Or at least I hoped I would be able to.

"Whatever you want."

It didn't take long for him to accept the bet, "Alright, it's a deal. I will tell you what I want in the future then."

Thus we started the spar.

I didn't want to feel him out before getting serious, I was going to try my new trick as fast as I could.

Empowering my legs with lightning I got ready to strike.

*[Lightning Step]*

I blinked in front of him and stabbed at his chest with Nandaka, as it was faster than Khanda, but I could already see he was ready for it. His hand was already on its way to catch me, "Naive!"

I had to use a consecutive step to retreat, choosing to dash to the side.

Mike naturally relaxed when he saw me already using my two consecutive steps knowing I had to wait a few seconds to use them again.

'An opening!'

*Crrzt*

Lightning once again enveloped my legs as I executed my step for a third consecutive use, my first time trying it out.

In a matter of a nanosecond, I had arrived at his back and sliced it with Khanda.

As soon as I managed to win the bet my legs gave in and pain started to surge through them. The third step had made them too weak to stand.

Even with this, I wore a huge smile on my face, my gamble had paid off. One part of my skill was that an increase in Rank would increase the number of consecutive steps that I could use, but Mike didn't know this.

It also proved that I had, indeed, broken through to Rank III.

Mike turned around and looked down at me with a huge smile as well.

"You little rascal!"

I used my arms to push me up a bit and spoke with the grin still plastered on my face,

"So, about that money!"