"Today you duel"

Stephanie put her hands on her hips as she said it. "However this time the rules are different. You may only challenge someone that is two ranks higher or two ranks lower if you challenge someone below you and they lose you will keep your number and they will move one spot down. If you win you will take their place and can challenge someone else. The loser of any duel cannot challenge anyone else. Twelve." Twelve stepped forwards from the line. "In three weeks we will duel again. Whoever holds that rock after the duel will be removed from this class." You saw some tension at the lower ends of the line but no one up this end was concerned. Stephanie looked at your end of the line. "Normally whoever holds one would receive a reward and two would be punished at the ends of the duels, however, in this case, two will receive a reward and third will receive a punishment." She looked at you but you didn't really react. It wasn't hard to figure out why she'd make the change and you didn't really care about a reward anyway, well unless it was a really good one. "Christopher you will sit with your eyes closed and we will speak at the end of the lesson. To your seats."

You took your seat and closed your eyes. Stephanie wanted you to pay attention to the duels and tell her all the mistakes you saw just like last time. Except now you had to blind for it. Well you've wanted to work on your perception since you got here so why not. Taking a seat you close your eyes and stretch out your perception.

"Twelve." Stephanie said and walked out of the arena. Without your eyes you could still get a decent understanding of what you needed to pay attention to. Kinda of like picturing what you were looking at in you mind while you were looking at it just without the looking part. Colours were muted like this and you couldn't get finer details of facial features but if you knew the person already it was easy to identify them.

Twelve walked in front of Eleven and issued her challenge. The pair grabbed swords and took the field. Both readied for combat and awaited the signal to start. Which didn't come. Stephanie must be leaving this to the students, which meant that this round only whoever struck first would have have advantage.

After half a minute Twelve figured it out first and with magically reinforced legs she jumped at Eleven. Eleven was surprise and fell back to avoid a blow that could have been easily countered. Twelve's jump made her swing strong but if Eleven was ready it was also a massive opening.

Twelve used her moment to advance. Trying to close as much distance and keep the combat strictly short range. She was short than Eleven so it was the smart thing to do. As the fight went on it was abundantly clear Twelve was better was was acting worse. That first attack was sloppy but you could feel her hesitation. Twelve would be ready to strike but would hold off on doing so for a moment.

You remember the first duels and how she had been number Seven before challenge Twelve and forfeiting. Was she trying to make everyone think she was worse she was for a reason? The fight dragged on for a while. Eleven was simply unable to win, the crowd did not seem to see that however as each strike was met with appreciative cheers.

As the fight progressed you felt Eleven slow while Twelve kept her pace. The delay in action by Twelve delayed to accommodate Eleven's slowing and to keep the duel going. Twelve was must be toying with Eleven. Then unexpectedly Twelve stumbled on a strike and feel face first into the sand. It felt deliberate the fall not being the result of any poor footing. Twelve was face down in the sand held up by her knees, Eleven quickly capitalised and put her blade on Twelve's neck.

"Eleven will you challenge anyone?" Stephanie asked as Twelve got up and patted the sand off her face.

Eleven move in front of Ten and challenged the woman.