26 Corson vs Kyrie

It was Friday morning and Professor Olson, along with the under classmen's combat Professor, Professor Fel, had started class in the arena. Friday mornings were spent as a joint combat class for zero-year and first-year students.

"Zero-years please select who you would like to fight," Professor Olson instructed.

The moment he was released to select his opponent Corson headed straight for Kyrie. "Fight me, hero."

Kyrie sighed and tightened his grip on Taru. "Alright."

"Good." Corson finally had his opportunity to show he was a better fighter then this so-called hero. Corson turned and walked over to his combat professor. "Sir, I'd like to dual with Kyrie first."

"Good," Corson's teacher grinned.

Corson turned towards Kyrie. He wasn't letting this chance slip, even if it meant standing far closer to the pretend hero then he was comfortable with.

"Corson! Show that bastard who's better," Professor Fel said.

Corson grinned as he watched Kyrie. "I will."

Professor Olson frowned as he glanced at his fellow teacher. Encouraging your students is a good thing but this, this felt vindictive. What did Professor Fel have against Kyrie? It had to be more than just a dislike from rumors. It had to be personal.

While the other students selected the upperclassman they wished to fight, Ren was left without an opponent. Even though the number of underclassmen was significantly larger than the number of upperclassmen.

James had gathered the most opponents and was looking at them worriedly. There were way too many students for him to do one-on-one bouts with. James shrugged and smiled, at least this should make for good training.

Professor Olson said, "Right, we'll split the arena up into eight sections. That way we can have eight instructional bouts at once."

"Wouldn't it be better for our students if they watched a fight between the strongest students of each year? We could… hold a single bout between them and split the arena later."

Olson glanced at Professor Fel, "I suppose that would be alright."

"Good. Students," Fel gestured to the arena stands, "Please take a seat in the stands. I'll ref the fight."

"You mean we'll ref the fight," Olson said as glared at the new professor.

"Of course…" responded Fel with a sickening smile. Fel was watching Olson carefully. This other professor was likely to do something… problematic. If Fel had shown a little less enthusiasm perhaps this Olson fellow would have stayed out of his way.

With the arena cleared, the professors headed to the ref's barrier off to one side. Both boys made their way to their positions. Corson was next to refs, as Fel had arranged it. An arrangement Kyrie had been all too easy to manipulate into allowing.

Time to make sure Corson knew what his advantages were… "Corson, his weapon is made of metal, wood, and magic. So-"

"Professor Fel, are you giving advice… to a competitor? When you're supposed to be an impartial ref." This prof…

Fel glared at Olson and forced a smile. "No, I was just… giving Corson a warning."

"Then let's consider him warned and start the bout. We do still have two classes of students waiting for their opportunity to practice."

Fel grinned, genuinely. "If you say so." To easy. That was way too easy.

"Hmm," was all Olson said in response. Shit, did Fel just trick that answer out of him?

With Kyrie and Corson in place. Olson asked, "Are you ready?"

"Yes." "Yes!" came the responses from Kyrie and Corson.

"Start!" shouted Olson.

The moment he was released to attack Corson sent two of his daggers shooting towards Kyrie. The daggers whistled through the hot damp air.

And were brushed from their path with a clang as Kyrie swung Taru.

Kyrie continued to charge forward as Corson grinned and sent another dagger whistling towards Kyrie.

Corson was grinning because this was turning out even easier then he thought it would. With a careful twist of the first two daggers, he spun them towards Kyrie's now exposed back. Perfect.

The blade coming from Corson rushed towards Kyrie and he carefully brushed that one away as well.

Kyrie's path to Corson was now clear. He could've simple finished his charge before Corson's other daggers caught up to him and forced Corson onto the defensive. But Kyrie didn't do that, for one simple reason. He was here to teach. And how much does one really learn if they are so overwhelmed by their opponent that they couldn't even begin to pinpoint how they lost?

So, Kyrie kept his pace the same.

And Corson took advantage of that. His daggers sliced towards Kyrie's back.

They had nearly brushed Kyrie's aura when Kyrie simple moved one of Taru's blades to cover his back. An easy maneuver to complete when he was wielding Taru with one hand.

The daggers were battered away once again.

This time the third dagger had changed course as well, and it sought the flesh of Kyrie's left side. The side opposite to the hand was Kyrie holding Taru with.

Yet, Kyrie simply took his next two steps faster than before. He easily dodged Corson's follow up attack. He was closing in quickly and had gotten too close for Corson's comfort.

Corson started to take careful – slow steps to the right as he struggled to bring the three daggers he was controlling to continue their harassment of Kyrie.

Corson hoped this would slow Kyrie's charge. But Corson's control was worse, and the daggers moved slower.

To Kyrie, the daggers had already been boringly slow and now they were excruciatingly slow. Kyrie slowed his charge and easily battered the daggers away as he approached Corson. "For this fight, you may want to stop trying to walk at the same time as you control the daggers. Their speed might be threatening to most. But to me, they're just irritatingly harmless."

Corson grimaced, stopped walking, and shot his daggers at Kyrie with a speed he had never achieved before. But it was a speed born of anger.

Kyrie continued to talk as he battered Corson's daggers aside, "The speeds better, but you've lost yourself to anger. You should think about practicing with Andray."

Corson grimaced again. That damned hero was treating him like a child that needed a lecture on combat. Kyrie's not that much older. And it's not like that just over a year difference in age would have made that big a difference in their combat experience. He could hold his own against James. Surely, he could defeat this idiot in front of him. The idiot that wasn't even trying and his fucking weapon was even made of expensive shit like aura conducting metal. Metal. Kyrie's weapon was made of metal. And in Corson's way.

Corson sent all but one of his seven daggers after Kyrie. He used the daggers that were chained together to try and tangle Kyrie's weapon in it.

The sudden, all-out attack kept Kyrie busy for a moment. Just busy enough to become distracted by his immediate predicament.

As Corson yanked on the metal elements of Kyrie's weapon, Fel grinned — for just a moment.

Corson struggled for a bit. He couldn't manipulate Kyrie's heavy weapon and his daggers at the same time. But the solution was easy enough. Corson yanked Kyrie's weapon to him and stopped moving some his daggers. He used the ones he still controlled in a now far more effective manner to keep Kyrie in place.

As Kyrie dogged and blocked the daggers, he noticed what Corson was doing with Taru and felt a chilling wave of terror wash through him. His eyes widened and he stopped caring about the daggers attacking him. Kyrie's aura flared to life as he shouted, "NO!"

Kyrie pushed through the daggers but he'd realized what Corson had intended to do, all too late.

Taru was in front of Corson. And she was hungry.

Corson's hand warped around the cold wood of Taru's handle in what felt like an agonizingly slow manner to Professor Fel, one of her creators.

With Taru in Corson's hands, everything was in place. Kyrie would not be making it out of this bout unscathed.