Let's see if you can annoy leadership qualities into Three

Maybe it's because she's actively avoiding your attempt at being friends with her, maybe it's because you want to speed up your date with Stephanie. Either way you make your way to the training ground in a too short toga after a night of sex. As you almost reach it you register the fact you have once again left your uniform with Anastasia, you no longer have any uniforms.

You enter the arena trying to not criticize yourself too much. You deserve criticism but right now you need to focus on making someone else feel bad. Stephanie said to make it painfully obvious that Three couldn't match you in combat but she could outclass you in leadership so first task should be to mock her attempt at tutoring by outdoing anything she does.

"You're late and dressed ridiculously." She is lazing on a viewing stand and gets up as you near.

"Sorry it's just, difference in scale." You say adding an unnecessary level of bemusement to your voice.

Three looked you over for a moment. Her aura was very carefully controlled which told you she felt obliged to control it around you. "Grab a sword." She said walking into the arena.

You grabbed one of the pig iron swords meant to be for your imbuing and activated your magic. You'd felt Three move the moment you touch the hilt but even at her limit she wasn't moving close to fast enough. Her sword tip was deflected without you even turning to face her and your sword tip was pressed to her neck.

You looked over at her with a sardonic smirk. "Really?"

"You're overconfident and."

"Overconfidence is only a bad thing if your opponent is at least near your level of skill." You activated your magic again and walked around her resting your blade on her shoulder. "Which in this case it isn't." You pulled your sword back and poked the tip into the sand. "Stephanie told you to tutor me, I think she might have overconfident in you."

Three didn't react at all to your taunt and attacked again. You shook your head and actived your magic. Not even bother to touch her this time you just walked behind her again when you saw her feet shift. She was trying to surprise you in your new position. You took one step back and let your magic go, her sword tip stopped just short of your eye at the limit of her reach.

A glimmer of frustration passed over her face before she flicked her wrist. The movement followed by magic coursing from her hand into her sword. It didn't have Anastasia's or Asune's refinement or Vatarie's brute **** but more interestingly it's edges extended beyond her blade. She swung at you and you got entirely out of the way rather than risk an unknown type of magic.

Her blade leapt out, extending a bar of white to gouge the wooden stand. You weren't in any danger and walked behind her reaching down and grabbing her wrists. "Nothing at all you can teach me?" You asked as her imbuing dimmed.

She worked her wrist free with your allowance and punched you in the face. "Hmmmmm." She grunted as her fist collided with your magic hardened skin. Pulling her hand back she worked her fingers, you saw one of them was broken. When she finished shaking her hand the finger was fixed. "Fine do whatever you want."

She pulled her other wrist free and stormed over to the stands. Sitting down you think you went a bit overboard and now you feel bad. It occurs that Stephanie might have chosen poorly selecting you for this task. "The last two of Stephanie's lessons. Everyone followed your lead." Maybe you can talk her into leadership rather than bully her into it since you suck at bullying.

"Everyone was slower than me." She answered still sulking.

"How did you orgasnise everyone without talking to them? During the defence you got everyone into position without a word. During the running you herded everyone into as much of a group as you could, I even slowed because of you. How'd you do it?"

She shrugged. "Just survival." She looks you and down. "Women are smart enough to realise they have a better chance in a group, unlike than guys who need to be herded." There wasn't a bite to her words beyond that which you instilled in her earlier.

"Then why not work with the others more, wouldn't that make getting through Stephanie's class easier?" That might be a stretch and more than a bit to obvious. "What happens if Stephanie decides that everyone has to take me on. Throwing the others at me isn't going to do anything."

"You won't hurt anyone, Asune beat you and showed everyone else how to do it. If you did start then throwing the others at you would work, you'd back down before anyone got hurt." She got up and started walking off.

"Where are you going Stephanie told you to tutor me."

"Tutor you to what? This is just her punishing me for not wanting to spend more time around some title grubber than I have to." She walked off and you didn't stop her, since you had no idea what she was talking about.

"Title grubber?" You asked yourself as you looked at the pig iron sword in your hand. "Trying to marry into a title?" Explaining it to yourself to try and make it make sense. Why would she think you ... oh right because of everything she's seen of you so far.

You hold up your sword and wrap your honeycomb lattice of magic around it. You make it to two minutes before it falls into little hexagons. She also didn't tell you have a bath to clean off the smell. You leaned your nose down to your shoulder and sniff. Yeah you smell, she just had a remarkable resilience to it.

Looking at the bucket of swords you consider just leaving to bath now. You should keep practicing but now that you've smelt yourself you really wanted a bath.