Ch 39: Anger
Melissa bit her lips hard and nodded at Lucien, and only then did he lower his sword and return it to his dimensional ring.
She immediately rose from the ground and wiped her tear-streaked cheeks and face with the handkerchief that Lucien had given her yesterday, which she had not yet returned. Feeling a rush of embarrassment, she quickly tucked the handkerchief back into her dimensional ring, hoping he had not noticed she was still using it.
She glanced over at Lucien to see if he was watching her, and sure enough, he was staring directly at her, his eyes cold and sharp as blades. Does he want his handkerchief back? The thought flickered through her mind, but the handkerchief was already soiled again and safely hidden away in her ring, and it did not feel right to return it in such a state.
Besides, she had still not forgiven him for pressing his sword against her neck and so brazenly threatening her into a duel.
So, with anger simmering beneath her skin, she began dusting off her uniform with sharp, deliberate strokes. Then she turned toward the iron weapon rack and started browsing the weapons arranged neatly in a row, all left largely untouched since most students preferred to use their own weapons, which they carried with themselves or stored within their dimensional rings.
Melissa gazed at the various weapons she had only ever read about in storybooks or occasionally glimpsed in the hands of knights and merchants who passed through her village. Her eyes eventually drifted to a steel-plated sword hanging loosely at the corner of the rack, one that looked remarkably similar to the sword her brother used to carry. Her brother had rarely allowed her to touch it, and only after endless whining would he relent, letting her hold it for just a few fleeting seconds before snatching it back as though she might break it or hurt herself.
She had never understood why her brother was so protective of it, but looking at the sword on the rack now, she could piece things together well enough. The quality was not particularly high, and her brother had probably felt embarrassed watching her beam with excitement and giggle with delight each time she swung such an ordinary blade.
She clenched her fist tightly as the unfairness of it all settled over her like a weight. The world was unfair, and the academy was no different. Most of her classmates turned out to be wealthy, and they carried gleaming weapons adorned with jewels and carved rune patterns, while the weapons on the rack were plain and ordinary, leftovers that no one had bothered to touch or claim. She was the only one standing here browsing these castoffs. Students like her, with no money to their name, were left to rely on whatever scraps remained while the rich arrived already armed with power and privilege.
But then, from the corner of her eye, she noticed Lucien had swiftly appeared beside her, seemingly browsing the weapons just as she was. The sight of him reminded her that she was no longer poor, that Lucien had promised to sponsor her and provide everything she would need within the academy. So doesn't that mean I will be getting proper weapons soon enough?
But the thought did little to soothe her, because her mind immediately circled back to what he had done earlier, and her anger returned in full force. The boldness of him, the complete lack of remorse, and now the audacity to come and stand right beside her as though nothing had happened at all. She bit the inside of her cheek in irritation and shoved any thoughts of him to the back of her mind, redirecting her attention to the weapons in front of her.
She was drawn toward the sword, but found herself torn about whether to actually choose one. She felt her first real weapon should be something she could use for a long time, since she knew herself well enough to know that switching weapons later down the road would feel like abandoning all the effort she had already put in, as though everything she had practiced and learned would simply go to waste.
"It’s just a weapon? Choose the one you think you will find comfortable," Lucien's voice startled her, cutting through her thoughts. She had been so deep in her own head that she had completely forgotten he was standing right beside her.
Melissa did not reply. She continued looking along the rack and found her eyes drawn to several other weapons that piqued her curiosity even further, gauntlets, a long slender katana blade if she was remembering the name correctly from the storybooks she had read as a child, and then, at the top left corner of the rack, a wand. It was a simple earthen wooden wand with a small glass orb set at its tip, resting quietly apart from the rest.
Should I go for a wand? The thought settled in her mind with surprising ease, and after a few more seconds of deliberation she made her decision. She took a step to move around Lucien and reach for it, but he was standing directly between her and the wand, positioned to her left with the wand sitting just beyond him in the upper corner of the rack.
Just as she had taken a step, Lucien reached out with his left hand, lifted the wand from the rack, and held it out toward her. Melissa's eyes widened slightly. She could not understand how he had known, but then the realization came to her that he had probably been watching her the whole time she was deliberating, and her eyes must have given her away.
"I think the wand suits your personality," Lucien said, and with his other hand he reached for the steel-plated sword that Melissa had found so familiar, the one that had reminded her of her brother's.
What does he mean that it suits my personality? The question burned at the tip of her tongue and she very much wanted to scream it directly into his ear just to watch him flinch, but her resentment from before had not faded even slightly. She did not want to speak to him at all. So, she did not say anything in response. It was her revenge, small and petty as it was, and she intended to follow it.
So, with a stream of muttered curses in her mind that amounted to little more than words like bastard and you evil and you absolute shit, she took the wand and followed behind Lucien who walked toward the center of the training field. The other students had already stopped their personal duels and had arranged themselves in a wide circle, none of them willing to interrupt whatever was unfolding between Lucien and Melissa.
"I will stand in place for one full minute and will only defend myself," Lucien declared coldly, planting his feet and standing straight, his right hand holding the sword he had taken from the rack while his left hand smoothed back his already neatly slicked hair. "If you can land a single decisive hit against me, you win. But once the minute is over, I will start moving."
Melissa gripped the wand tightly in her right hand and made sure to keep a careful distance between herself and him. She was already dreading what would happen when that minute ended, certain that the moment it did, he would close the distance between them in an instant and cleave her head away without a shred of mercy. Nothing in his expression suggested otherwise.
"On the count of three, the duel begins," Professor Max announced, stepping between the two of them. He looked from one to the other, and when his gaze landed on Melissa, his expression carried something close to an apology. "And this is a friendly duel," he added, raising his voice just enough for everyone to hear. "So make sure neither of you causes any serious harm to the other. If I feel the situation is getting out of hand, I will step in." But the conviction in his voice faded toward the end of his sentence, as though even he was not entirely sure he would be able to do much if it truly came to that, given that Lucien was in all likelihood already stronger than the professor himself which Melissa could tell from the fading voice alone.
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