Meanwhile outside, at the scene of the clash that same day, it was an all-out brawl. White and blue uniforms collided in a roiling mess, throwing hands, rocks, bottles, and swinging whatever they could grab — pipes, wooden planks, broken chairs.
The air was thick with the smell of sweat, dust, and copper. Shouts cracked over the thud of fists on flesh and the wet crunch of bodies hitting pavement. Glass crunched under shoes. Someone was coughing three blocks down.
But even in that chaotic mess there were people who seemed to know what they were doing.
In the middle of it in particular was a short brown-haired girl with a kendo wooden sword who was beating one Blue High student after the other. She moved through the crowd like she was cutting water.
She was helping Silver High students who were outnumbered in their fights. She was competent. Extremely so. She was knocking out her opponents in one hit, at most, and she was surgical. Every strike had purpose.
"Are you guys ok? If you can't fight just step back."
Her voice cut through the noise, steady despite the shouting. Sweat stuck her hair to her temples. She faced the Blue High students who didn't dare make reckless moves. They were panting, knuckles split, eyes darting.
The students looked at her, beaten and afraid, and they ran. She shook her head at how cowardly they were, but she couldn't blame them. Not everyone was built for this. The adrenaline in her chest was hot, but her hands were calm.
"Now then, shall we?"
She grinned. She didn't wait for an answer as she dashed in. Her shoes slapped concrete.
Before they could respond, she drove the shinai into the first one's stomach with a dull _whump_ that knocked the air out of him, then snapped it up under his jaw to lay him out cold. She dropped low, pivoted, and sweep-kicked the second, feeling his balance go out from under him like pulling a rug. The crack of wood on skull followed, clean and final.
Once they shook the shock out of themselves they decided to attack.
"Ain't no way I'm just gonna lose to a girl."
One of them said, charging in with a bottle raised. The girl skipped back, breath even, and hit him thrice — forearm, ribs, temple — _thwack thwack thwack_. He dropped. She didn't stop. She carved through them, literally making a path of knocked-out bodies. Even some of the people fighting stopped to watch, their own fights forgotten in the sudden quiet between her movements.
"Who is that chick?"
One of the guys from Silver High said, wiping blood from his lip, tasting iron. He was breathing hard.
"That is Emily Peterson. She's 1C's number 2." Another guy answered, eyes wide. "I'd heard rumors she was some kendo expert and she was pretty strong, but I didn't think it was by this much."
"Well one thing is for damn sure, I'm glad she's on our side. She's a force of nature."
The guy grinned through the pain and got back to fighting, and his friend followed suit. Meanwhile Emily was still taking down Blue High students one after the other. Each drop of a body sent a ripple through the crowd. The morale of the Silver High fighters spiked. They pushed forward with louder shouts, and the Blue Academy guys started backing down.
It almost seemed over.
Then five Silver High fighters were sent flying all at once. Bodies tumbled, rolling across asphalt, groaning.
"You had a party and didn't invite me. Now that's just not right."
Bob's voice boomed, low and heavy like a drum. He took off his uniform blazer and threw it to the side. The fabric snapped in the air. He walked onto the battlefield like a bear who'd been looking for a reason to squabble. The ground seemed to shift with his steps.
But that wasn't the end of it.
On another side, a pale guy holding a baton moved in. His eyes were devoid of emotion. Flat. Empty. Emily recognized him from a description she'd once heard.
If memory served her right, his name was Sebastian. He was ranked 8th. Rumors said although his rank might be relatively low, he was one of the most dangerous. The air around him felt colder.
Then, as if to top everything off, the dreads guy showed up behind Bob.
"Now man, I'm sure they just forgot to send an invite."
His voice was lazy, amused. There was a glassy look in his eyes that suggested he was high. The smell of weed cut through the dust for half a second.
Everyone there clocked him instantly. And now Emily actually felt fear. A cold weight dropped in her stomach. This wasn't just any other ranked. This guy's name was Joshua Newman. Like Sato, who she admired, he was also ranked number 1.
She knew she was strong. But handling three ranked was genuinely impossible. Her grip on the wooden sword tightened until her knuckles went white. The wood creaked.
_Where's Sato when I need him?_
---
Emily knew she couldn't fight all of them, so for now she made the wisest decision she could make. She chose to deal with Sebastian first, and this decision wasn't just random or because of him being the lowest rank, although that did contribute. It came down to this after she deliberated on how to face them.
She first thought of facing Bob, but although she had a higher rank, the physical stat gap was too wide for her to close with her relatively small body. The sheer breadth of his shoulders alone made the math impossible. She also thought of fighting Joshua, but she knew that'd be reckless — there was something wrong about him, something that itched at the back of her mind. So she ended up at the decision that Sebastian would be the perfect opponent for her right now.
As she stood face to face with him, she could feel a cold aura emanating from him. It wasn't so dramatic as to feel unreal, but it was unnerving — like standing too close to an open freezer, the air around him thin and dry. The courtyard dust seemed to settle differently around his shoes. But Emily stood her ground while facing him. The boy looked at her with his facial features calm and his eyes hollow, empty and unfocused, like he was looking through her.
He tried to walk past her to go deal with other Silver High fighters he deemed fodder first, but Emily blocked him.
"Move."
He said simply, his voice void of any sort of emotion. Flat, scraped clean.
Emily knew then and there that this wouldn't be an easy fight.
"You'll have to go through me first."
She says with a smile, trying to look confident, but a singular streak of sweat on her cheek betrays her nerves, catching the harsh afternoon light.
Sebastian just looks at her and without another word he just charged in, swinging at a blurring speed. The shinai whistled, cutting the air with a sharp hiss. Emily manages to react in time, redirecting the swing with her shinai — wood clacking hard against wood, the vibration jolting up to her elbows — and aims to hit him with a counter attack, but she didn't expect how fast he'd recover.
Before she knew it the black button was already swinging back at her, but she reacts accordingly as she stops mid-swing, ducks — his shinai slicing just over the top of her ponytail — and attempts an upper vertical attack aimed for his chin. He skips back narrowly avoiding it, his sneakers screeching lightly on the cracked concrete. He stands back, still expressionless, then cracks his neck, a loud pop, and charges in again, moving slightly faster than before.
The fight continues with Emily on the defensive as Sebastian attacks her from every direction he can, a storm of strikes that never let the dust settle. But even then it doesn't seem she'll lose anytime soon. As the Silver High students who were running before looked back at the scene, they began to stop, amazed by Emily's fight.
"Wow she's still fighting."
"Look how fast that guy is, how is she holding on."
"I guess ranked are built different afterall."
"We can't just let her fight alone, let's go help."
"Yeah what kinda man lets a woman fight his battles for him, this is a matter of PRIDE!"
Murmurs like that were heard as the Silver High fighters rallied once again to fight the adversaries. Bob looked at the scene with a huge grin on his face as he charged a group of guys with determined gazes and an aura of not giving up in the face of the impossible.
"Yes, that's what I'm talking about, come at me all at once!"
He shouted as he bulldozed into the group with vigor and commenced to beat them down. The Silver High fighters were trying, but it was pretty pointless for the most part. It felt like watching a bunch of ants crawl onto a human because they were being swatted away as such, but the Silver High students weren't just biding time, they were pushing back against the fodder fighters to the best of their ability.
They were evenly matched but there was one difference which was ultimately a deciding factor. The Silver High fighters fought like it was a last stand, as if they had nothing to lose so they were pushing back hard, knuckles raw, breath ragged and sour with effort.
Meanwhile as this was happening, Joshua looked dazed as he had a goofy smile on his face while he was reaching out to air as if he was trying to catch something which isn't there, his fingers twitching at empty sunlight.
One of the Silver High fighters sees this and he thinks that this guy is weird as hell, but that isn't his problem, so he picks up a nearby rock — rough, warm from the sun — and throws it toward his head. He was very confident in his throwing prowess since he was a football quarterback and he was damn sure that this would take down the weird son of a bitch in one go.
The rock flies and hits its target with a force that pushes him back, a dull thud, and it even draws blood — a thin, dark line dripping down his temple — and the guy is proud of himself, but Joshua just continues on like nothing's happened, still smiling at nothing. Now the guy who threw the rock only had one thought. What is that guy made of.
Meanwhile the fight between Emily and Sebastian was still ongoing and now it was a stalemate, but something was different now. The air around them felt more serious, heavier, charged with the metallic smell of sweat and strained breathing, and they knew that this fight would end in the next few moves. So without a word they charge towards each other to settle this.