Chapter 8: The Sanctioned Duel

 The next morning, the academy was buzzing with anticipation like a hive disturbed by an intruder.

 Something was happening—Arashi could feel it in the electrified air, in the way students whispered in hushed tones behind cupped hands.

 In the wary, furtive glances thrown his way when they thought he wasn't looking.

 He didn't have to wait long to find out why.

 As he stepped onto the academy training grounds, the morning sun casting long shadows across the stone-paved arena.

 A familiar voice called out, cutting through the ambient chatter.

 "Kurobane Arashi!"

 Renji.

 Flanked by his usual entourage of sycophants, the Takeda heir stood at the center of the dueling ring. 

 Ornate sword in hand, his expression dark with restrained aggression and wounded pride.

 The surrounding students turned to watch, conversation dying as tension thickened the air.

 A challenge. Public and unavoidable.

 Arashi sighed internally, his face betraying nothing. So this was the Student Council's first move.

 'Public humiliation. Predictable, but effective if successful.'

 Renji smirked, a cruel twist of lips that didn't reach his eyes.

 "You embarrassed me before, but I won't let it happen again." His sword flared with sapphire magic, frost crackling along the blade. 

 "I challenge you to a sanctioned duel. Unless you're afraid?"

 The crowd murmured, bodies pressing closer, hungry for conflict. They waited for Arashi's answer with bated breath.

 He met Renji's gaze, weighing his options with clinical detachment.

 Rejecting would make him look weak, would paint a target on his back for every ambitious student looking to make a name for themselves.

 Accepting could reveal too much of what he was hiding.

 A sharp gust of wind rustled his uniform, carrying with it the scent of impending storm.

 Then he smiled, the expression never reaching his eyes, tilting his head slightly in mock deference. "Alright."

Renji grinned, teeth bared like a predator, stepping forward with renewed confidence.

 "Good. Let's see if you can still talk after this."

 The referee—a senior student with impartial eyes—raised his hand, the sunlight glinting off his ceremonial bracelet.

 "This is an official academy duel between Takeda Renji and Kurobane Arashi. Standard rules apply—first to yield or become incapacitated loses."

 His eyes scanned both combatants.

 "Any lethal strikes are grounds for immediate disqualification. Is that understood?"

 Both nodded, though Renji's came with a barely disguised sneer.

 "Begin!"

 Renji struck first.

 His sword moved in a blur of steel and magic, cutting through the air with terrifying speed. 

 The ground beneath him cracked like spiderwebs as raw energy surged through his blade, leaving trails of frost in its wake.

 Arashi sidestepped effortlessly, his footwork precise and economical—too precise for someone supposedly magicless.

 No wasted movement, no flash, nothing but deadly efficiency.

 The crowd gasped at his speed, at how he seemed to flow around Renji's attacks like water around stone.

 "Stop dancing and fight me!" Renji snarled, his next strike carving a blue arc through the air. 

 The temperature plummeted around them, ice crystals forming in the air itself.

 Arashi's expression remained unchanged, as if he were merely observing a particularly uninteresting training exercise rather than fighting for his reputation. 

 His calculated indifference only served to further infuriate his opponent.

 Renji's attacks were relentless, each strike aiming to corner him, to force him into a desperate defense. 

 The noble's face twisted with concentration and growing frustration as Arashi evaded him again and again.

 A diagonal slash—dodged.

 A thrust aimed at his chest—sidestepped.

 An overhead strike with enough force to shatter stone—met with empty air.

 "Fight back, damn you!" Renji roared, his composure crumbling with each failed attack.

 The crowd watched in stunned silence. Many had expected a quick, brutal defeat for the commoner.

 Instead, they witnessed something unprecedented—a noble heir, one of the academy's most promising students, failing to land even a single blow.

 Arashi finally moved to counter, his blade a silver flash in the morning light.

 Metal met metal with a sound like distant thunder, sparks flying as the enchanted swords collided.

 But Arashi never played by his opponent's script—he wrote his own rules with each calculated step.

 He deflected a downward strike with his own blade, the metallic clang ringing across the arena. 

 For the first time, Renji smiled—believing he'd finally forced his opponent to engage directly.

 His confidence was short-lived.

 Shifting his stance with serpentine grace, Arashi redirected Renji's momentum, using the noble's own force against him. 

 The Takeda heir stumbled back for a fraction of a second—just enough time for Arashi to step inside his guard, close enough to see the widening of Renji's eyes in realization.

 Then—he simply tapped Renji's sword arm with his finger, light as a butterfly's landing.

 A humiliating move.

 Mocking. Deliberately dismissive.

 The crowd gasped, then fell into stunned silence.

 Renji's expression twisted with fury, color flooding his face. "You—!"

 His magic flared violently in response to his rage.

 The temperature around them dropped precipitously as frost laced his blade, spreading like hungry fingers along the metal. Ice crackled across the arena floor, radiating outward from where he stood.

 "You think you can mock me? ME?" Renji's voice had dropped to a dangerous whisper. 

 "I'll show you what happens to commoners who forget their place!"

 With a guttural cry, he unleashed a torrent of ice magic—not a controlled, disciplined attack, but a raw explosion of power born from wounded pride.

 Jagged spears of ice erupted from the ground, racing toward Arashi from all directions.

 Students at the edge of the arena scrambled backward, some crying out in alarm. 

 This had escalated beyond a standard duel.

 "Takeda! Control your magic!" the referee shouted, but his voice was lost in the roar of Renji's attack.

 Arashi watched, impassive as stone, though his mind cataloged every detail of Renji's technique, every flaw in his form.

 'Predictable. He always loses control when cornered.'

 As the ice closed in, threatening to impale him from all sides, Arashi finally moved with purpose.

 His blade traced a perfect circle around him, so fast it appeared as a solid ring of silver light.

 Where steel met ice, the frozen spears shattered, reduced to glittering dust that hung in the air like suspended stars.

 The display left spectators speechless. That kind of precision, that speed—it shouldn't be possible without high-level enhancement magic.

 Renji stood panting, his uniform frosted over, eyes wild with a mixture of rage and disbelief. 

 "What are you?" he demanded through gritted teeth.

 Arashi merely raised an eyebrow. "Are you done with your tantrum?"

 The taunt struck deeper than any blade. Renji lunged again, his movements wilder now, less disciplined—

 And this time, Arashi moved first.

 He feinted to the left—Renji followed the movement like a puppet on strings.

 Then Arashi vanished from sight, moving with such speed that he seemed to blur into nothingness.

 A heartbeat later, he reappeared behind Renji, silent as death itself.

 Before the noble could react, before he could even register the sudden shift.

 Arashi's sword was already in motion—not aimed to kill or maim, but to end this farce.

 The flat of Arashi's sword slammed against Renji's ribs with surgical precision.

 A clean, controlled strike. Enough force to incapacitate without causing lasting damage—a demonstration, not a punishment.

 But Renji, driven by desperation and humiliation, twisted at the last moment. 

 Ice armor formed instinctively over his ribs, absorbing some of the impact. He staggered but didn't fall.

 "Not... yet..." he gasped, whirling around with surprising resilience, his blade trailing frost like a comet's tail.

 Arashi narrowed his eyes a fraction—the first real reaction he'd shown during the entire duel. This wasn't part of the script he'd envisioned.

 Renji's recovery was short-lived. Arashi met his desperate swing with a precise parry that sent vibrations down the length of Renji's arm. 

 Before the noble could recover, Arashi executed a lightning-fast sequence of strikes—three blows delivered with machine-like precision.

 The first struck Renji's sword with enough force to numb his fingers.

 The second caught him across the shoulder, disrupting his stance.

 The third—delivered with the pommel rather than the blade—caught him squarely in the solar plexus.

 Renji collapsed onto one knee, gasping for air, his sword clattering to the ground beside him. 

 Frost melted from the blade as his concentration shattered.

 The crowd fell silent, the quiet broken only by Renji's labored breathing.

 A moment later, the referee's voice echoed through the arena, cutting through the tension.

 "Winner—Kurobane Arashi."

 Renji stepped away, slipping his sword back into its sheath with a soft click of finality. 

 He spared Renji a glance—his opponent's face was twisted in humiliation, his hands clenched into fists against the stone ground, knuckles white with suppressed rage.

 "This isn't over," Renji wheezed, each word clearly painful. 

 "You may have won today, but the Takeda family doesn't forget insults."

 Arashi regarded him with the clinical interest one might show a moderately intriguing insect. "Neither do I."

 The simple statement carried weight beyond its words—a warning wrapped in casual indifference.

 But Arashi had already moved on. Another battle fought, another piece moved on the board.

 He felt another gaze on him, heavier than the others, charged with something beyond simple curiosity.

 His eyes flicked toward the spectator stands—where Kagura Ayame watched with unsettling intensity from beneath a cascade of silver hair. 

 Her violet eyes narrowed slightly as their gazes met across the distance.

 Not with surprise.

 Not with anger.

 But with understanding.

 As if she had just confirmed something she had long suspected.

 'She's starting to suspect me.' The thought slithered through his mind like ice water. 'She's seeing through the cracks.'

 Tsk. Annoying. Another variable to account for in an increasingly complicated equation.

 He turned away and walked off the field, unbothered by the whispers following in his wake like persistent ghosts.

 'Let them talk. Words were just air given shape.'

 Because in his pocket, the letter from last night remained, its weight seemingly heavier than paper should be.

 The Unknown Masks were here.

 And that meant his past was catching up to him—faster than he had calculated, threatening to unravel everything he'd sacrificed to build.

 The real game was just beginning. 

 And this time, the stakes were higher than even the Student Council could imagine.