An excellent question and one you are rather invested in answering

When you wake up Vatarie is laying on top of you, a bit of her drool pooled on your shoulder. "Morning." You say, kissing her forehead.

"Shhh." She orders reaching up to put a hand over you mouth, successfully slapping you more than shutting you up.

Checking her aura you find it dull and listless. She hasn't recovered from the exhaustion yesterday. It's not bad, something to eat and a bit of rest and she'll be up and about just fine. You want to gently coax her into a morning bath and some exercise but when you open your mouth two of her fingers push inside.

"No talking." She mumbled snuggling into your shoulder and snoring. Oh what a shame, you guess you'll just have to keep laying here letting her doze.

Closing your eyes you feel yourself drifting off to sleep. It lasts until you hear a knocking on the door and Asune calling out to the both of you. Vatarie complains by rolling away, telling you to go shut Asune up and curling her pillow over her head.

You pull on some clothes and open the door. Asune looks expectant so you give her a morning kiss. She walks inside and stares at Vatarie. "You didn't have sex." She observes rather bluntly.

Vatarie moans and releases the pillow. "Exhausted." She says then throws the pillow at Asune. "Out." Asune catches the pillow and you take it off her before she decides to throw it back.

"Come on let's go." You say, putting the pillow back on the bed, Vatarie snatches it and reburies her head.

You and Asune head to the training arena where the others are winding down. Asune decides to announce your reason for being late, "They weren't fucking just sleeping." Nika closes her eyes and you see in her aura a desperate fight to not picture what you weren't doing.

After a quick warm up you head to the baths, this time Nika does not hang around as Asune gets physical with you. At breakfast Vatarie makes her appearance, her hair is messy enough that Ana asks if Asune is sure you didn't have sex.

Classes aren't anything exciting, mostly because the inevitable end of the day explosions are on your mind. The other students who'd had to regrow their hands aren't in much better shape than Vatarie but by lunch unlike her they are all recovered. Vatarie is still sleepy as she eats and rest her head on your shoulder until you wake her up for practice.

When that is over and you see Vatarie approaching she looks worse than she had. The magic she'd used in the pratical class must have been more she could handle. You don't however think anyone is going to try her obviously weakened state, at this point everyone is fully aware that underestimating her at any point is a great way to get your ribs broken.

Stephanie arrives and the filled stands quiet down. You've gotten used to there being an audience, as have you gotten used to the woman darting around with bits of paper to organise bets. You wonder what the odds are for a lot of those bets since the likelihood of who wins varies massively on what new requirement Stephanie would put on the duels. It wouldn't be hard to guess what sort of condition she'll put on the duels if you attend the weekly training but you don't recognise anyone taking the bets as having attended.

Stephanie walks down the line and tells everyone to hold out their hands. One by one she puts a cloth bracelet around both wrists of each person. When she reaches you she also adds a necklace. "This seems excessive." You say, thinking feel the firestone heat up for a moment even if it doesn't explode.

"The rules are simple. You may challenge anyone up to three ranks higher or lower, if you win you take their stone, if you lose you remain where you are. If you win but one of your firestone bracelets is destroyed you move up one rank no matter who you challenge. If both are destroyed you remain where you are, if you lose and one is destroyed you move down one rank, if both are destroyed you move down two ranks."

The new rules make things interesting for the challenged. If you know you are going to lose you goal should just be to destroy your opponents bracelet. It actually evens the playing field rather dramatically, even exclusively shielding the stones from attack comes with the risk of the shield touching them. You do take note of how your necklace isn't included in this, maybe Stephanie considers exploding your chest enough of a punishment.

"Whoever has stone Eight is eliminated." Stephanie adds. Everyone looks at Eight, who is not Ten. That makes things a lot more complex. Ten is safe unless the people above her lose their stones and she is pushed up to Eight without even having a chance to duel.

There is some hurried whispering from down the line as the obvious option to make teams is presented. "If our bracelets are destroyed will you give us new ones?" Six asks. She's been the most consistent strategist so far, leaving you wondering if she's got an idea of how to have a specific person take Eight.

Stephanie doesn't answer she just walks down the line and asks if Ten will challenge anyone. You look at the people running bets around and spot a few darting over to Cynthia and taking some scribbled notes. Cynthia was the one running the betting pool. Not that surprising really, she has been at every training session, even after she was kicked out of the class, hanging around outside the arena to watch and learn, following the advice you'd given her when you first talked to each other.

Ten challenges Seven. It took a moment to figure out why but it was the single best person to face. If she loses she can't go any lower and is safe unless Eight and Nine both lose stones. If she wins it'll be almost impossible for her to end up as Eight unless only one person below her wins. With Nika and Six above her there isn't much chance of her being knocked down to Eight either.

The two take their places in the arena and ready themselves to fight. Stephanie announces the go but neither attack, instead circling as shields from around hands. Risky, if they get hit hard enough they might lose focus and dip their shield but it stops the clear opener. Blowing someone hands off gives a pretty clear advantage in a fight.

Circling each other again and again the audience starts sounding bored. No one dares to call out or anything of the sort, interrupting Stephanie's class doesn't seem like a good decision, but the vibe of boredom is hanging in the air.

Almost a minute later the two haven't attacked. Their auras are being carefully kept in check but the memory of pain over the last few days is hard to cover up. Not that you blame them, even being able to heal like you almost always can, the thought of blowing various parts of your body off is not appealing.

The first move is a magical one. A blast from Ten's chest aimed at Seven's feet while her sword remains up to defend against a physical attack. The magic doesn't do anything but sets the stage of what sort of fight this going to be. Swords are still in hand for defence but neither approach to test that defence. They just keep firing blasts of various size at each other. Some land and do some damage, not enough to give a winner but enough to earn some praise from the audience.

You look at Stephanie and see her look less than impressed. You aren't sure you agree with impression. A strictly magical attack is the only why you can think of not risking the stones, imbuing your sword, or reinforcing yourself to resist an imbued sword have the risk of blowing up your stones.

The battle continues for another minute and both sides are starting to bare the brunt of the combat. They aren't healing any damage that reaches their elbows and the shields around their bracelets are shrinking slowly but steadily.

The battle of attrition ends very suddenly. Seven lets out a "FUCK!" Interrupted by the sound of a pop followed by another pop. Ten drops all their magic at once as she pants. Seven stares at her hands that can't quite heal from all the magic she'd put into attacking.

You take a step to go help, your aura sharing should be more than enough to cover the damage but you are not the first. A guy from the front row runs over to her, his magic pooling in his hands to give to her. She quickly absorbs the magic and her hands heal, it doesn't stop her from looking faint, but her hands regrow. The guy doesn't do so well, most of his magic had been given away.

She catches him as he falls and plants a sleepy kiss on him, the audience cheers at the sight and the pair stumble to take a seat. Seven is now Ten and you don't see anyone challenging her so Stephanie doesn't demand she return to the line. The new number Seven takes her place not looking as happy with her victory as you would expect, though that could be the exhaustion.

She decline to challenge anyone else so Nine is given the chance. You think she'll challenge Seven since it will be an easy victory but she instead challenges Eight. Rather dangerous to do as far as you can tell.

The two take their positions and you can see Nine planning something. Her aura is calm but her face looks determined.

"Begin." Stephanie's word is punctuated by a pop. Nine's left hand explodes and she drops her sword announcing that she is yielding.

Oh, that is what she was planning. Her hand heals and she walks over to the line while Stephanie moves to ask Eight if she'll challenge anyone.

Eight does the clear choice and challenges Seven. Seven walks a little shakily to the arena but it is pretty clear what she intends to do. If she blows up both of her bracelets she'll be Nine and so completely safe. Her hands aren't going to regrow with her level of exhaustion but you doubt she'll struggle to find someone who can help her recover, yourself for one.

The audience is also very aware of this. You can see that Cynthia isn't thrilled about this turn of events as her bet takers keep running back to her. The rest of the audience don't look all that excited about the prospect of watching someone blow their hands off without even a fight before hand.

The audience wide discomfort as Stephanie says go and there are two pops right after seems enough for a few people to leave. Seven falls to the ground and a few people run over to help her recover. Seven does however yield something Eight should have paid attention to. Eight looks to Stephanie to confirm her victory and there is a pop. She thought the fight was over so hadn't put up a shield.

She looks at her exploded hand as Seven collapses. She stares at her missing hand for a moment in stunned silence. If she is smart she'll, "I yield!" She shouts loudly. Seven looks like she's passed out so aren't sure if Stephanie'll accept it.

"You cannot yield to someone passed out." Stephanie says after a moment. "Do you challenge anyone else?"

Eight blinks a few times. You assume she'll just challenge Ten, easy victory since Ten looks more than a little unconscious right now. She looks at Six who is clearly planning something then at Ten and Nine. She bites her lip for a moment and sighs. "No." She looks down, her aura dejected.

There are shouts from the audience. Some demanding their money from bets back, some shouting at Eight for not fighting, others shouting at the both of them for shouting in the first place.

Stephanie walks over to Eight and pats her shoulder. "You are a good fighter and loyalty to your friends is not something that should ever be derided." She raises her voice over the clamoring of the audience and the obvious chiding shuts them all up. "Are you sure you do not wish to challenge anyone?"

Her only other option is to challenge Nika if she doesn't want to test Six or fight someone currently unconscious. You doubt a fight with Nika will go all that well for her.

Eight shakes her head and Stephanie nods. Looks like the person eliminated from the class has been decided. She walks over to her place trying to look calm and collected but you can see her eyes are watering.

Stephanie moves on to the next challenger but neither Six, Nika, Ana or Vatarie want to fight. Either they are happy with their place or they don't like the idea of blowing off their limbs. You are pretty sure Vatarie is only turning down the chance to fight becasue she's still exhausted, which is fair enough.

"Christopher." Asune says looking at you after Stephanie asked her.