“I refuse,” said Tina Barrett with an unhappy look on her face.
Her pair of pale red eyes glared at me.
“W-why? I-I’m sure he’ll be a good partner to practice against?” Selena-san said, slightly panicked, giving me a sidelong glance and a strained smile.
“…”
I could but sigh at the situation.
–– This is how it ended up like that:
Selena-san’s favour turned out for me to become the training partner of her little sister, who wanted to win the fighting competition.
And while I did wonder why she had chosen me of all people, I could clearly see that her little sister – Tina Barrett didn’t have any talent for the sword.
“To tell you the truth… she’s not that good at swordsmanship, Tina is,” Selena-san had said to me with a troubled smile.
And she wasn’t wrong. As I watched Tina wave her sword around, her center of gravity all over the place, I couldn’t help but agree.
In other words, well-known for being incompetent, I was the perfect training partner for her…
……Can I cry now?
“Onee-sama, my goal is to win the fighting competition and join the student council…! I’ve been trying my hardest to fulfil that goal of mine! So there’s no point in having him as my training partner!”
The words flying out of Tina’s mouth stabbed my heart one after the other.
Still, it was only natural that, infamous for being incompetent as I was, I would leave a bad impression on people who trained hard with a lofty goal in mind.
‘…Can I go home now?’ was what was going through my mind when Selena-san suddenly grabbed my shoulders, grinning.
“Tina, listen here. Yuno-kun here is currently the most likely person to join the student council.”
““Eh?””
I was shocked by what she had said.
And the same went for Tina.
“No way! I know who he is! He’s the third son of the Astario family, he’s a failure who can’t use the sword or magic… I mean he’s bad at both…”
Her consideration hurt. There was no point in it though, if she only used it to amend her words.
Still, it seems like this Tina girl is actually nicer than I thought. Only when compared to Maro, though.
Anyway, the one I was paying more attention to was Selena-san.
What did she mean by that?
“Fufu… Tina, do you want to prove that, then? You’ll be able to tell whether Yuno-kun’s actually a good training partner for you or not if you have a duel, won’t you?”
…I can’t tell what she’s thinking. The way she said that almost made it sound like she wanted to see just how strong I am.
“…Onee-sama, please let me ask one thing? When you said that Yuno Astario was the closest to joining the student council, was that your personal opinion? Or did you say that from the standpoint of the student council president?”
Hold up. Did she just say what I think she did? Student council president?
Things were starting to add up.
Nine times out of ten, one of them had something to do with Lloyd-senpai.
“Who knows? But it seems like Lloyd thinks so?”
“…Lloyd-sama does? I see…”
Tina stared at the ground, holding her chin, seemingly deep in thought.
I was doing the same.
…I can more or less guess what’s going to happen next: I’ll probably have to fight Tina. The problem is, what should I do when that happens? Lloyd-senpai probably told Selena-san about what happened in the infirmary. So, I suppose I only have one choice.
––I’ll have to show the student council president-sama my spearmanship!
The moment I came to that conclusion, I noticed Tina’s piercing stare directed towards me.
“Very well. A duel it is, Yuno Astario! I’ll crush you with all the fruits of my training!” she said, not drawing the sword at her waist but instead picking up a rough wooden sword at her feet and dropping her real sword to the ground, scabbard and all.
“You’re not going to use that sword?” I asked her confused as I looked at the sword on the ground.
She gave me an unbelievably smug smile.
“Hmm? You want to know? Very well, I’ll tell you. Here, take it,” she said, picking it up off the ground and holding it out to me.
The moment I took it, I was overcome by a slight amount of surprise.
“…It’s pretty heavy.”
It was way heavier than I had thought it would be.
“Try swinging it around.”
I drew the sword and did as I was told, giving it three good swings.
Then, Tina held out her wooden sword.
“Now try doing the same with this.”
…What is she doing?
Anyway, we swapped swords and I gave my new acquisition a few swings as well.
“––How is it?” Tina asked, watching me closely, a smug look on her face.
What do you mean ‘how is it’?
“It’s… lighter?”
“––––”
“That face… it seems you’ve noticed. That’s right… I always do my practice swings with a magically weighted sword. However, the sword I am going to use against you is that feather-light wooden sword… in other words, I’m demonstrating my power!”
Well isn’t she funny?
Still, it was rather light. I decided she might have been stronger than I had thought.
“…Haha,” came Selena-san’s dry laugh from beside me.
“Please watch, onee-sama! I’ll show you the fruits of my training!” Tina said to Selena-san, her eyes glittering as she took the wooden sword from my frozen hands, took some distance, and took a stance with her sword.
She stretched out both her tense arms straight upwards, raising her sword into the air.
“…Is this some sort of ritual?” I couldn’t help but mutter; her actions were that unusual.
As befitting of something she had called as light as a feather, the wooden sword seemed like it would take off into the sky at any moment.
I glanced at Selena-san.
“Erm, Selena-san…”
“She’s being serious. Please.”
Well, she did ask me…
“What’s the matter? Come at me!” Tina-san said, full of motivation.
Not having any choice in the matter, I picked up a stick of around the same length as her wooden sword from the ground and pointed it at her.
“…I see,” I heard Selena-san mutter to herself from somewhere behind me.
And the moment I heard that––
“Haaaah!”
Tina charged towards me, her sword still held in both hands above her head.
“Take! This!”
A weak slash came towards me.
I wondered what I should do as I gazed at her swinging side-ponytail.
Losing was out of the question.
As an opponent, Tina had nothing that stood out.
I glanced at Selena-san, who was standing a bit further behind me.
“……”
I could tell she was watching me with a serious gaze.
Also––
A bit further away, Athena was standing there, her hands still held out towards the same big tree as she emitted light.
I hadn’t even gotten the chance to talk to her.
And she hadn’t even noticed me yet either. She was concentrating that hard.
“It seems like dodging is the only thing you’re good at!” Tina said, taking a step back as she pointed her sword at me again.
“However, this is the end. My strongest, certain-kill technique, ‘Lightning’!” she said, pale blue electric sparks running up and down her body.
Her red hair stood on end.
Lightning magic, huh…
Not many people use it… which makes it something akin to being obsolete…
–– And yet, for some reason, I felt like the blood in my veins was boiling.
“Haaaah!”
Tina ran at me, her lightning-covered sword pointed straight at me.
Her stab was surprisingly good.
“…I see.”
Which was why – I also moved.
I pointed my stick I had designated a spear towards her in the same fashion.
And then –– we both stopped, our weapons held out in front of us.
The tip of Tina’s sword had stabbed nothing but air. In complete contrast to that, the tip of my spear was right in front of her throat.
“That’s enough. We have a clear winner,” came Selena-san’s declaration, and Tina sank to the ground.
“No way… I lost…?”
She looked up at me with teary eyes.
There was only one thing that had decided the winner and loser of this duel, and that was the difference of our weapons’ reach.
If two people stabbed at each other in exactly the same manner, naturally the one with the longer weapon would win. Of course, swordsmen knew that, and had different ways to deal with it, but ––
“My… certain-kill… hic… Lightning… hic…” she whispered to herself, her eyes tearing up even more making me at a loss as to what to do. I decided to interrupt her.
“Tina-san! I–”
“I loooooost!”
She began crying, staring up at the sky.
“…”
I turned towards Selena-san.
“Yuno-kun, do your best! Comforting crying girls is a boy’s job, after all!” said the student council president in onee-san’s clothing as she winked at me.
“…What am I supposed to do now…?”
My murmur was drowned out by the background noise of Tina’s wailing and the cute shouts of “Hiyyaaah!” Athena was giving off…
TN: Sorry for there being no chapter yesterday, I had some extra stuff to do for school and just didn’t have the time to upload it
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