Dueling was the most popur extracurricur at Te for obvious reasons. While delving was the fual building block faining power—and thus status ah—fighting monsters, even the most clever of them, fually wasn’t the same as fighting humans. And since humans were always in fli one way or another, small-scale e, there was great i in honing one’s abilities in one-on-one fights.

  Beyond that, it held appeal purely as a sport. Naturally, there weren’t many people who attee who weren’t ied in bat for the sheer art of it. With infinite varian on choice, styles, and skills, no two duels were the same—even in instances where the same two batants were on stage.

  Natalie herself hadn’t picked up dueling as aracurricur, but it had been on her list of possibilities. Maybe she would even ge her schedule at some point. Just, with her current priorities, learning how to take down oppos in a one-on-one appealed to, but not her sense of practicality. For Sofia, at least, the duelist-style fighter of the group, this sort of practice was more than a funal use of her time.

  Te had world-css facilities in every category, and that was even more true for the dueling arena. As the most popur sport in the delving world, and with Te as the emi academy in the try, no expenses were spared. The main arena could seat tens of thousands—for the big events of the year—and dozens of smaller ones could host hundreds each. The arena was even used occasionally for the rger dueling circuit, not just the collegiate one. Seeing how certain global political matters were settled through the use of dueling as a sport—as a dispy of military strength—that made the building political in nature, too. It erhaps the single most extravagant structure across campus. Though not gaudy. That wasn’t Te’s style.

  Of course, the first-year’s initial miniature dueling petition—more of ao seed the freshmen talent than anything—wouldn’t be drawing any impressive numbers like the ‘real events’ would. Only friends, family, and a few ied people would be attending. Sofia had asked her team to e watch, and so, of course they had. It was a small waste of time, sihey could easily pick up a temporary fighter a a few hours of delving in after csses, but Natalie reized perfect efficy would drive a person insane. A few hours spent watg duels would be both iing and practical too—studying the styles of her cssmates was hardly a plete waste of time.

  As the petitiressed, Sofia domihe opposition. In the bat rankings that faculty put together, many factors were taken into at, not just one’s ability to face down a single oppo. Sofia’s style had many fws, especially in a group setting, because she had few to no syic abilities or tendencies, was weak to swarming enemies, and generally offered little to the team beyond her raw offeput. The thing was—she provided a lot of offeput, and needed very little support to do so.

  And in the dueling ring, none of those downsides mattered. Natalie had spent her life watg this woman fight, but seeing her wreak havo even students of Te’s caliber retextualized a few things. She felt slightly less bad about her own failures to handle Sofia over the years. She was an aberrant talent even by the standards of the premier academy in the try.

  There were, of course, exceptions. Sofia wasn’t the best duelist of the year, only high up there. One such tender was the unfortunate obvious one: Elida, who had also chosen dueling as aracurricur. Many of the names had as well.

  Natalie, Jordan, Liz, and Ana watched from the sidelines as Sofia went about her matches. This wasn’t an official event as other dueling petitions might be, but there were still a det amount of spectators—one or two hundred—and the venieands were open, selling snacks and drinks. Natalie was used to being one of the batants in these kinds of events—she’d grown up attending them—so being on the sidelines felt a bit odd.

  Something strange was happeniween each of Sofia’s matches, too. With each of her iable victories, Sofia’s eyes would find their way to Natalie and her group. That wasn’t the odd part itself, of course, but rather—how they seemed to always nd on Natalie first, before she gave a relut roll of her eyes and a thumbs up. That would bring a smile Sofia would try to hide, and her eyes would carry along to the rest of her team, nodding and pying humble.

  Natalie saw through it. Sofia watention from Natalie so she could rub it in. ‘Look how good I am’. Still, Natalie tinued encing her after each victory. In the dueling ring, the woman was really something else. And Sofia seemed so pleased by the thumbs-up each time that Natalie supposed she didn’t mind feeding her ego. She had an annoyingly cute smile. But more annoying than cute. It agitated Natalie in a way hard to describe.

  An evening spent chatting with her team and watg spars was a nice break from the frantic pace of Te daily life. Eveer, an ued guest showed up—Sammy. Apanying her were her two friends, Evie and Dag, whiatalie had met at the party. Apparently Dag had a little brother who was a freshmen and articipating in today’s event. Their groups ended up mingling and watg the fights together, though Dag split off when his brother had a mat a different ring ing up. Sofia wasn’t always active, either, of course—there were a lot of dueling students, a was getting a wide spread of match ups to properly seed the students for future events. Hundreds or more matches were taking pce, and there were only so many rings.

  To Natalie’s bafflement, Sofia’s demeanor ged when she came out—again—the victor of her round. She looked over, saw Natalie sittio Sammy, and rather than smiling at Natalie’s thumbs-up, she frowned. Whech finished, Sofia exited the ring and their group came up to properly gratute her, but the shift in attitude held. She chatted perfectly normally with the rest of the group, but seemed to igalie. It wasn’t ht hostility or anything, and rather subdued—Sofia was hardly running to Natalie to chat with her to begin with—so Natalie wondered whether she was imagining it.

  It tihat way for the rest of the event, even after their two separate groups split off, and Sammy said her goodbyes. Jordan noticed it too, and asked Natalie if she’d done something. If Natalie had, she had no clue what. It had started when Sammy arrived, but as far as Natalie khe two of them didn’t even know each other, so she couldn’t e up with a reason why Sammy sittio Natalie would matter in the slightest.

  The irritable demeanor only grew. By the time all of Sofia’s matches came to a , Sofia was all but gring at Natalie, to Natalie’s plete fusion. Natalie and the rest of the group came up to Sofia, but Sofia made a few brief pleasantries and said she was going to get ged. Her shortness had carried over even to talking with Liz and Jordan by that point.

  Jordan watched her go, then turo Natalie. “You should go talk to her.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Still,” Jordan said. “You should go. Find out what’s happening.” Even Jordan seemed a bit perplexed by the situation.

  Natalie sidered whether she wao do that—a frontation with Sofia was sure to be a disaster—but sidering how Sofia had seemed almost friendly at the start of the event, she made her mind up.

  “Okay, fine,” Natalie said. “I’ll go see what’s up.”