While Arina was preparing for another attack, Yamato called up to her.
"Arina, which way did Yuki go?"
"I'm kind of in the middle of something here?!"
"It's really important."
"..Just a straight line from where I came from. But be careful."
"Thank you."
Yamato ran off extremely fast. Of course nothing against magic and such, but still extremely fast. The two class 1 students looked to each other for a moment, then one tried to fly and cut Yamato off. But Arina intervened, appearing behind him and swinging her sword, which only barely missed his neck.
"Fine then… We take care of you and then catch up to him. This won't take long."
"Don't underestimate me!"
She started attacking from all sorts of angles, making it difficult for the other one to effectively support him, as he had trouble reading her and therefore couldn't prevent attacking. With each attack, she got closer and closer to his neck. Although she would never actually kill him, she knew she had to try to win. Yet he still managed to somehow block each strike. His strings seemed just absorb the force behind her attacks, even though they should be cut right through since now she was attacking with the sharp side, and it seemed to cut them earlier too. It was like he or the other one made them stronger somehow. But it wasn't going to help them. She was confident that she could beat them both. What she didn't notice was that with each attack, her sword started to glow a little. But the class 1 student sure noticed. It was quite distracting. With each strike, it glew a little more. As if it was charging up. After it was glowing quite brightly, she eventually noticed it too, but chose to just keep attacking. Suddenly the sword started making a quiet, steady humming sound. As she kept on hitting onto the seemingly endless strings, the sound went louder and higher, the sword glowing even brighter. Until eventually, at one of the many attacks, a shrill bang came from the sword together with a shockwave the pushed both class 1 students and Arina multiple meters off where they where previously.
Arina luckily landed in the soft snow on the edge between grass and snow. The class 1 students had no such luck, as they both landed with their head on a tree which had been ripped out of the ground and was now protruding out of the snow. Both lost consciousness on impact. Arina quickly got up and ran to the sword which stuck in the ground, only to notice that she was the last one standing.
"I won…? I actually won! Did you see?!… Oh, right… He left to search for Yuki… Guess I'll just tell them about it later. Wait, didn't he say he broke his leg?! Did he… No, maybe he just used really good healing magic… Maybe he is just very talented there, and that's why he never uses offensive magic. Or he just over exaggerated in the heat of the moment. He was still pretty roughed up… But whatever, I have more important things to worry about. Ah, and I should probably check if they had the objective, you never know."
After searching they pockets, she found no object that she could identify as the objective of class 1. It was said one would know when they see it, but she still felt anxious about it being there but she just didn't think it was it. But there was nothing to do about it now. Just when she thought about what to do with them, their bodies were teleported away. Probably by headmaster Reed. Though there was no mention of it when they listed of the rules, apparently students who are unconscious get removed from the exam grounds after a few minutes. Not having to worry about that anymore, she went down to the camp to check up on everyone else.
Meanwhile Yuki was still trying to catch Shin and find Satoshi. After a while of walking, she found the camp of class 1 but no sign of Shin. No sign of anyone, actually. Maybe they were all at the camp of class 3? There was no way for her to know for cetain. She chose to just destroy the camp, since she had the opportunity to and it would serve them in the long run if their enemy had no safe place to stay. As she flew up, using magic and not her wings of course, she thought about which spell to use. Fire would be most efficient, she thought. But she somehow always used that, and it was getting repetitive and boring. So she didn't want to. As she thought about an alternative, a spear made out of shadows flew towards her. She dodged and catched it, though before she could do anything with it, it disappeared right out of her hand.
"You never learn, do you… I thought you saw that this doesn't work on me the last time we met."
"Well, you gotta try."
Satoshi said as he flew up to face her.
"Looking for this, I presume?"
He held a small, glowing cube out of gold in his hand. The objective of class 1.
"Huh… I thought they wouldn't look alike at all. Kinda defeats the 'it could be anything' part… Wanna trade?"
Yuki pulled out a small, glowing pyramid, also made out of gold.
"Oh, I'd love to trade. But how would the school determine who wins in that case? So let's not."
"Aw, no fun. Let's trade for something else then. You give me the cube, and I don't break your legs! I know, suspiciously generous~ But that's just me!"
"…I have to decline."
"Aw. Well, whatever floats your boat, I guess."
"So it looks like we are at an impasse."
"How so?"
"Because neither is willing to trade their objective, of course."
"Pft, so? I'll just take yours then, duh."
"I doubt that very much. But please, you're welcome to try."
Yuki without hesitation in her eyes darted forward and grabbed straight for his throat. But he disappeared just when she was about to grab him.
"Teleportation magic? I didn't think you'd have such high level magic. Good job!"
He appeared on the ground under some trees.
"Thanks, but it's not really teleporting. It's a unique skill I was born with. It allows me to switch my position from when I stand in sunlight into shadows. Pretty dope, right?"
"Oh… Thanks for telling me, I guess."
"Like it will help you."
"Hm...… Yeah, I think it will!"
She darted forward again, too fast for Satoshi to move back into sunlight, forcing him to directly respond.
"I don't need to run from you."
He summoned a sword made out of shadows into his hand and attacked Yuki with it, while three spears flew at her from left, right and above.
"Ooh, scary big guy!"
She summoned a golden, glowing sword into her hand which she used to parry his sword with. At their collision, her sword made a quick charging noise and instantly after came a shrill boom. The shockwave threw the spears thst were flying towards her away, but Satoshi stood there nearly unaffected. He only twitched slightly before going back at the offensive. Summoning more spears but this time only dodging her sword attacks, so they wouldn't collide with his sword. But it was no use, as Yuki just hit one of the many spears as it came into range, which threw all the others away with it just in time as another shrill boom came from her sword. Realizing this was going nowhere, Satoshi went back onto the direct offensive. Slashing and stabbing at her with his sword, though it was all parried effortlessly by Yuki. Wtih a single strike, she cut Satoshi's sword in half, which he replaced instantly with a new one. Flying up out of the trees again to have the opportunity to disappear if he needed to. Yuki, realizing this, just managed to get a hold of his ankle, and threw him back onto the ground. He realized at that moment, that he really shouldn't have told her how his ability works, although she would have probably figured it out by now anyway. As he hit the ground with his back, he spit some blood and just stayed on the ground for a moment.
"Amazing. I've never had a fight this long…"
"Just hand it over. As weak as you are, you won't survive if we keep going."
"Weak, you say…"
"I wonder how you ended up in class 1. There should've been a class 4, just for you."
"You…"
"Actually, even that's pushing it. Just go to a different school at this point. I'm sure there's some elementary magic school that can take you in their program for the disadvantaged."
"…"
Suddenly, above her were to massive shadow hammers, falling down in a circular motion to crush her in between them. They fell extremely fast. Barely a second passed before they were just about to collide with Yuki between each. She was barely able to push herself out of the way, as she wasn't sure if she could have blocked that. Satoshi used that time to get up and fly back up out of the shadows. He sighed and spoke.
"We could have been such great friends…"
"…What?"
"I never met anyone who could keep up with my magic skills. I was always alone… I thought we could have bonded over this. But you are too weak. It's disappointing."
"…Ew. What the fuck are you talking about? Like we could ever be- uhg! I would never even willingly be in the same room as you. Being perceived as part of the same species as you makes me want to kill myself. I hope you and all your relatives die tomorrow."
"Such aggression, all to cope for your own lack of talent…"
"Fuck you. Fuck your talent. Fuck your weird ass shadow weapons. Fuck your sunlight-to-shadow-teleport. Fuck your life. Hope this helps~!"
"…"
"While we are at it… Thank you for waiting! I've prepared this just for you!"
"Prepared what?"
"Look up at the sky, shadow boy."
The entire sky was covered in deep clouds, which blocked all the sunlight completely. He noticed it getting slightly darker, but not this. Yuki must have moved all of them and positioned them perfectly just to counter his teleportation.