He didn’t know why he agreed to it. Of the Yani-show that Loushee had caused the day before, the only part he’d been glad of was that she’d prevented Reianna and Banca from fighting again. And here he was, sanctioning it.

  Well, it was true that he’d been more upset about the lack of a shield than the actual fight, but the two girls’ relationship was just too complicated. He didn’t know what good letting them fight would achieve, but sometimes hunters just had disagreements that could only be solved by a round in the ring.

  As a tiger, he’d had more than his fair share of not-so-friendly spars. Though he won more often than not, it didn’t mean he was always right more often than not. Natt had given her approval, though, and Banca had asked, and Reianna agreed. He didn’t think he was in a position to refuse all three of them.

  The other students continued to chant “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as they marched through the empty halls. Natt walked silently next to him with an expression he couldn’t read. He half-wondered if what he was doing was any different than what the Kruamians were doing.

  He told himself it was, that it was different because while the rest of the class might be spectating, the purpose of the fight wasn’t for their benefit. Reianna and Banca had unresolved issues, and the two agreed that fighting was their only recourse.

  When they got to the training ground, Reianna and Banca continued on into the sparring ring. The other students spread out around the perimeter, Natt hung out near the training ground’s entrance, and Basque stood at the edge of the sparring ring and accessed its interface.

  He sent an invite to the girls, and they both accepted. He set the shield up to be 200% of their health, as determined by the interface, but that made Reianna’s over 400 points more. He adjusted her shield strength until her total was even with Banca’s. Then, he went further into the menu to change more settings:

  He adjusted a few more to make the fight as realistic as possible. While Basque could sympathize with Kruamians being annoyed at needing to change and set up those options every match, as the default settings were too far from realistic fighting, he couldn’t forgive them for eschewing the system altogether and letting students die. 15 seconds of set-up for every fight was worth a lot less than a person’s life.

  While he finished setting up the match rules, Banca pulled out her chain sword, the one she’d fought Reianna with in the first tournament. Basque hadn’t let her use it since joining his class. She was good with it, but too dependent on it.

  Reianna, on the other hand, pulled off her jersey top and threw it to Fawna. Pulling two strips of fabric from her inventory, Reianna wrapped her fists. Even though the shields would prevent her skin from tearing in attacks, that wouldn’t be the case if she ever went bare-fisted against a Yani, and he trained them to fight as if a shield wasn’t there.

  The wind kicked up and blew Banca’s hair forward. She tucked it back behind her ear, while Reianna shook her head to get the loose strands out of her face. Reianna bounced twice, scissoring her legs back and forth, then removed her long pants, leaving her in her sports bra and summer shorts.

  Her figure was toned and tight, no bulk, but with definition. Most of the students in his class now had bodies like hers, except for the students like Kolt and Taraia, who were bulking for strength. It was a stark change from when they’d entered the school, and most of them had been too thin for their own good.

  “Are you really going to fight me with just your fists?” Banca asked.

  Reianna threw a round of punches in the air. “Let’s start it, Gerenet-Shr.”

  “Hold on,” he said. He pulled out a nullifier bracelet. “Banca said she wanted this on you.”

  “It won’t hurt, will it?”

  “No.”

  She held out her arm, and he clamped it on her wrist. Reianna’s eyes went wide. “It’s gone! I can’t access it at all!”

  Basque nodded. “I’ve set this to make your interface the default interface.”

  “And it really works?” Banca asked.

  “Yes! I don’t have my mage option anymore. Want me to show you?”

  “I’ve seen your nothing before, but that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

  The wind whipped up again. Reianna grabbed a hairband from her inventory and pulled her hair into a ponytail, then she tried to take the bracelet off. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Gerenet-Shr?”

  “It’s designed so you can’t take it off yourself.”

  “Can you take it off, please?”

  “Why?”

  Reianna looked at Banca. “I need her to see.”

  As Basque complied, Reianna set her interface to public view. There it was, right after Inventory: Identify.

  “Put it on.”

  Again, Basque complied. The option vanished.

  “Can we do it again so that she can see it’s not me hiding it?”

  Basque nodded, then repeated taking off and putting on the bracelet three more times.

  “Satisfied?”

  Banca nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  Basque walked out of the ring. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, Gerenet-Shr,” they said in unison.

  “No time. Round lasts till shield bust. Fight!”

  Their shield status popped into existence in the air above them for everyone to see as Basque started the match.

  While neither girl moved to attack, they also didn’t stay stationary. Reianna held her fists in a ready position, and Banca held her blade out, pointed to the side.

  Banca whipped her sword, and the sections unlinked. Her weapon whipped out like she was swinging barbed wire. Instead of dodging it, Reianna grabbed it. The blade slashed into her shield, chunking a fifth of it.

  Reianna wrapped it around her fist, sending more points flying off her shield, but she’d effectively disarmed Banca.

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  The pain setting was on. Just because there was a shield didn’t mean Reianna felt nothing. She would have felt like the blade was slicing into her hand, but she still held on as she jerked the blade towards her.

  Reflexively, Banca pulled back to keep the weapon from being jerked from her hand, but Reianna was aiming for that. She allowed herself to be pulled towards Banca. Not just that, but she also leapt into it, and the distance between them shrank to almost nothing.

  Reianna punched Banca with her free hand and knocked an eighth of Banca’s shield off. The hit stunned Banca, giving Reianna time to land a second blow, this time with the fist wrapped in Banca’s sword.

  Another quarter fell off Banca’s shield, but Reianna didn’t escape from it unscathed as the sword dug into her hand and knocked her for another tenth.

  Banca gritted her teeth and twisted her hand, sending the signal for the blade to contract and reform into a normal sword. Reianna couldn’t free her hand in time. A sixth of her shield vanished, and her hand blackened, meaning the system considered it “cut off” and unusable. Any damage from it wouldn’t count.

  The girls separated. Both of them panted. Banca wiped her mouth. She wasn’t actually bleeding, but with the Bleed option on, it felt like she was. At the same time, Reianna’s shield continued to tick down. The ‘bleed’ from her missing hand continued to suck her life away.

  “Come on, Reianna!” Jan cheered.

  Basque glared at him. Jan’s eyes fell to the ground, and no one joined in with his cheering.

  Reianna launched herself at Banca, but only having “one” hand, Reianna’s combos didn’t have the continuity to work as combos, and Banca was able to break free from them and retaliate.

  It was a close match, but Reianna’s shield ticked down to zero first, and she fell to the ground. The loss of her hand was just too much for her to overcome. Basque mentally added one-handed combat to his training schedule for the next school year.

  If she’d had a weapon, she wouldn’t have been at as much of a disadvantage, but if a Yani took their weapon along with their arm, they needed to know how to continue to fight with just one arm.

  He glanced back to see how Natt took the fight, but she was gone. He frowned. He wanted to go find her, but his students came first. He turned back to the two girls.

  “Reianna,” Basque said as she stood. “What did you do wrong?”

  “I put myself at too much of a disadvantage. I was overconfident and lost my hand.”

  “Banca, what did you do wrong?”

  She was bent over and panting. “Nothing. I won.”

  Basque shook his head. “You don’t have the endurance for your sword yet. Look at yourself and look at Reianna.”

  Counter to Banca’s slumped-over state, Reianna stood with even breathing.

  “I still won.”

  “One round, yes. But this is two of three. Round two, fight!”

  As soon as the word left his mouth, Reianna flew at Banca. Reianna went through two combos and half Banca’s shield before the lilac-haired girl could make space.

  Even then, she only had enough space to use her whip-sword as a sword. Her attacks were slow and sluggish compared to Reianna’s fists, and Reianna easily deflected Banca’s strikes by hitting the flat of the blade.

  Only a quarter of Reianna’s shield was missing when Banca’s gave out, and she fell to the ground. Compared to the first round, it was a complete romp.

  “Banca, what did you do wrong?”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t give me time to rest.”

  “Do you think a Yani will? Do you think it’d go ‘oh! She just killed my friend. I'd better give her time to recuperate for a fair fight’? No! It’ll think you look like an easy next meal.”

  “What should I do then?”

  “Put that thing into your storage until you have the stamina to use it. Use your fists or a dagger.”

  Banca’s gaze wasn’t to the point of a glare, but neither was it friendly. The sword vanished from her hand. Next, she pulled off her top. Before she could vanish it as well, Cayelyn called to her with her arms stretched out.

  Carrying it over, Banca handed the top to Cayelyn, then took off her long pants. After giving those to Cayelyn as well, Banca returned to the middle of the ring and stood in her sports bra and shorts, like Reianna.

  “Reianna, what did you do wrong?”

  “I should have kept the distance closer to prevent her from getting full swings at me.”

  “But wouldn’t that also prevent you from using your full force?”

  “Yes, but proper sword strikes will always land more damage.

  “Very good.” Basque turned his gaze back to Banca, who was finishing wrapping up her second fist.

  Once she was done, she bounced her way back towards the center while throwing alternating air punches, jabs, and upper cuts.

  Reianna tossed something from her inventory to Banca, who caught it. The lilac-haired girl held up the hairband and looked at it questioningly.

  “Your hair is long enough that it’ll get in the way.”

  Banca nodded, then pulled her hair up into the tiniest ponytail, like one Reianna would have had at the beginning of the school year.

  “Are you ready?” Basque asked.

  Banca nodded.

  “Are you sure?” Reianna asked. “Don’t want another second to catch your breath?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’d hate for you to blame losing on being tired.”

  “I’m not going to lose.”

  “Then I’m ready,” Reianna told Basque.

  “Fight!” he called, notifying the interface that the round was beginning.

  The girls’ shields reset, and they approached each other. Banca threw a light jab at Reianna, who ducked and slid out of the way. While Reianna had grown, she was still much shorter than Banca, who used that to her advantage and kept the distance between them just at the end of her reach.

  However, the distance gave Reianna too much time to react, and Banca’s punches failed to land.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to get your sword back out?” Reianna asked.

  “The match has started.”

  “We don’t have a rule about switching weapons mid-match.”

  In response, Banca stepped in and threw a punch at Reianna. Reianna blocked it, and Banca followed up with a gut punch that connected. A chunk of Reianna’s shield vanished, and she doubled over as she spun away, trying to put distance between them so Banca couldn’t start a combo, but she wasn’t fast enough. Banca’s follow-through pounded into Reianna’s chin, and she went staggering back.

  As she rubbed her jaw, Reianna asked, “Did that feel good, Banca? Feel like old times to you?”

  Banca stood up straight, and her hands fell down to her sides. She stared at Reianna for a heartbeat before her face welled up, then went flat. Lifting her hands, Banca began unravelling her bandages.

  “Banca?”

  “I’m sorry, Reianna. What we’ve done to each other…it’s unforgivable.” She finished with the first bandage. “I’ve changed. You’ve changed. The only difference between us is that you saved my life and didn’t know what would happen. I knew. I knew what I was doing to you and…I’m sorry.”

  The second bandage vanished into her inventory. “Gerenet-Shr, I forfeit.”

  Banca walked over to Cayelyn and took her uniform back. No one said a word.

  As Banca left the ring, the interface popped up an error message for Basque, warning him that one of the participants had left. He chose the “end match” option, and the sparring system shut down.

  Cayelyn, Kolt, Jame, and Kamryn trotted after Banca, who was headed inside, still carrying her clothes.

  “What are you all doing?” Banca asked.

  “We’re a pod,” Kolt answered her.

  She shook her head. “You don’t need to force yourselves.”

  “Banca,” Cayelyn said. “I know it may come as a surprise, but we don’t hate you.”

  Kamryn raised her hand. “I actually like you. You’re not one of those annoying boy-crazed girls.”

  “I hate you, too!” Avae called out.

  Kamryn stuck her tongue out at Avae, but both of them were smiling.

  Even though class wasn’t officially over, Basque let them go. After all, it wasn’t officially a class. He’d spoken with them about what he needed to say, and after the events from the day before, he wanted the students to have the time they wanted.

  Heading into the ring, Basque walked over to Reianna. Her hands drooped by her sides, and Basque took the arm with the bracelet on it.

  “Gerenet-Shr, am I the bad guy?”

  He vanished the bracelet. “No.”

  “But, she just clearly forgave me for getting her family killed and life destroyed. I lost nothing, but I still hate her.”

  “You don’t have to lose something to be wronged. Not forgiving her doesn’t make you a bad guy. It makes you human. You don’t ever have to forgive her.”

  “Then why do I feel so bad about not forgiving her?”

  He was silent for a second. “That’s for you to figure out.”

  He looked up at the rest of his class, which stood quietly. “That’s all for today. You’re free to stay here and train, or go back to the dorms.”

  “Understood, Gerenet-Shr.”

  Basque nodded, then went into the building. He had a distraught girlfriend who needed his attention.