Yeah, you might not be all that interested in fighting but you are interested in Stephanie

And that interest does require you to take this seriously. "Asune?" You ask walking out to the field. Asune joins you coming to a halt opposite you. You feel the tension in the arena grow as everyone waits for Stephanie's mark. Asune watches you even closer than the audience studying your limbs intensely.

Stephanie walks over to Asune and stands beside her looking at you. You look between the two waiting for a reason to be explained. Rather than a reason however you are given Stephanie's dagger. Instinctively you suffice your body with your magic, speeding up your cognition and reaction speed. The dagger is grabbed out of the air the moment it's hilt enters your reach and you look down to your left at Asune rushing you with her sword pointed at your chest. You flick her sword with your fingertip hard enough that her arms are also sailing and she collides with you instead of stabbing you.

Catching her in your arms you make sure the collision doesn't break any of her bones. you know she wouldn't have minded if bones were broken but you've already broken her arm on accident and you didn't want to break anymore. The feeling and sound of it in your memory still makes your skin crawl.

She ends up held in your arms as if you had dipped her in the waltz, the Christopher damn it you've gotta remember that. "Fancy seeing you here." You say with a grin as she smiles back at you. You feel a dull pain in your cheek as she cuts it open with as yet unknown ability. The wound heals as fast its made. "Seemed unnecessary." You point out. You get ready to lift her up when you are stopped.

"If your feet leave the ground you lose." Stephanie's voice is followed up by her body. Her dagger was still being held in your hand and her heel slammed into it's pommel to try and drive it into your head. It doesn't even shift in your grip. She wasn't putting all of her **** -

You don't get to finish the thought when you feel a dull pain in your ankles. Asune grabs your arm and flips out of your grasp trying to use her momentum and magic to pull your backwards as Stephanie actual attack hits you. The foot on the pommel is joined by a foot on your chest, lightly place because it's intention is not to kick.

In tandem Asune pulls you backwards as Stephanie jumps off your chest. Your slashed achilles tendons in combination with their efforts would have dragged you off your feet if the damage hadn't already been healed. You grabbed the foot on your chest and pushed Stephanie off you sending her to flip in the air and skid along the sand. With her away you grab Asune's wrist and spin her around to your front. With something of a mischievous, possibly irate at the attempted mutilation, smirk you lean her back into the same position she had just escaped from. "We really should stop meeting like this." You'd always wanted to say that.

You feel Stephanie move to charge you so you throw her dagger into the ground at her feet. Asune smiles at you and nods getting up calmly and walking over to Stephanie who picks up her dagger. The two of them stare at you and you only just notice the audience. Everyone is quietly talking amongst each other. Only a few of them were able to see what had just happen, for most Asune had just appeared in your arms, disappeared then reappeared and walked off.

You felt an itch in your aura and looked over at Clare. Rather than Clare making a face to get your attention you see her looking at Delilah as she studies you intently. Stephanie launches another attack when you look away. Darting over with her dagger while Asune hangs back and uses her cutting to open up gashes at you various tendons. It doesn't work. You remember Anastasia's duel with her and how she had overcome the slashes. Using your magic you'd created a bubble of swirling air. Rather similar to your dead zone this one grabbed a few layers of air atoms and spun them around. Making sure they didn't ignite from the friction as you did this on the fly took a bit of focus and you weren't able to react to Stephanie's dagger as non-harmlessly as you wanted.

Rather than Asune Stephanie hadn't lead with the point of her blade she kept the blade close to her body. It made flicking it out of the way impossible without risking shattering at least one of her wrists. With no other options to back did the only think you could think of to stop the dagger. Same as when she had attacked during her focus or get punched lesson you grabbed the tip between your thumb and forefinger and let a trickle of your magic flush into it.

Last time it had turned into a blindingly bright but otherwise non-lethal explosion. This time you felt the edge of your magic hit something and bounce back. Stephanie hadn't been the only one to learn from that but she'd underestimated the size of the mirror needed to reflect you. When you felt the trickle pushing back you pushed harder. The dagger glowed bright enough that there were gasps of discomfort from the audience before it disappeared.

The dagger was still in your hand and no longer in Stephanie's. Once again the initial attack had been a feint. Stephanie darted to the side and Asune was where she had been. Her sword was not however pointed at you. She was holding the hilt in one hand and the blade in her other pointing it's tip at her chest. She was going to slam into you and drive the sword into her chest.

Once again she was relying on your lack of any sort of desire to hurt her to win. Only way to avoid it was to move, since any way you could grab her would put that blade inside her. Good thing Stephanie qualified it as leave the ground. Rather similar to the magical jet you use with your wings you push magic out your side pushing you around behind Asune without your feet leaving the ground. You do however move fast enough that the sole of your shoe melted from the sand friction if the sudden feel of grit on your feet is any indication. You grab Asune's shoulder's and pull her back leaning her, once more, into her dip position. She blinks up at you and you smile at you. Her dispassionate face cracks for a moment as a slight smile breaks out on her face.

"I yield." She says as you lift her back up and holding out her stone for you.

"You moved." Stephanie said pointing at the ground.

You look down and lift your foot showing the almost totally worn away sole and the partly melted sand in a semi-circle around Asune. "My feet didn't leave the ground." You declared trying to not be too proud of your semantic correctness.

"You need to introduce a rule and involve yourself to give me a chance to have Christopher yield." Asune answered for you.

Stephanie looked between the two of you and nodded. You went back to your new places and looked down the line, you actually didn't feel all that different being in one compared to two, aside from your feet being much breezier. Stephanie looked up and down the line and you waited for her to collect Twelve's stone and remove her from the class. You looked down at Twelve who had, surprisingly been Nine at the start of this. "Dismissed." Stephanie said then walked off.

You were confused and from the looks down the line you weren't the only one. Both your fellow students and the people in the stands seemed to share the confusion. "She said end of the day, not end of the duels." Eve's voice rang out from the crowd and everyone looked towards them to see an aghast Delilah trying to hide from all the eyes on them.

There was another beat before what she said clicked for everyone and eyes turned back to the lower end of the student line. Aside from Asune who stretched and asked you. "Join me the baths?"