I Am The Greatest Femboy Mage

By the time he focused back onto the fight, they had already exchanged a few more blows.

Darrow was now stuck defending as Oizys attacked him relentlessly strike after strike, not even giving him a chance to take advantage of the openings between her moves.

Sharp thuds of wood slapping against flesh echoed through the room, every single person now entirely focused on the match between the two students.

Then, Seizing a chance in between the flurry of strikes where Oizys was half a minute late to bring her sword down, Darrow ducked sweeping his legs in a wide arc, feinting low before pivoting into a sharp, snapping kick that caught her square across the ribs.

It was clean, fast, unmistakably deliberate despite how loose he’d looked the entire fight.

Oizys staggered back a step, breath knocked out of her.

The brief moment of loss of footing was all that Darrow needed.

He closed the distance before she could reset, sweeping her legs out from under her in one smooth motion.

She hit the ground hard, and he was on her a half-second later, one knee pinning her sword arm, the wooden blade plucked cleanly from her grip and tossed aside before she’d even fully processed the fall.

Silence held for a beat.

Then Oizys let out a short, breathless laugh, staring up at him with something that had shifted entirely from earlier composure into genuine, startled respect.

"I yield." she said, still catching her breath.

Professor Callan Reyes strode forward, calling the match with a sharp nod.

"Tanner wins. Clean finish, no illegal strikes."

He offered Oizys a hand up, which she took without complaint, still shaking her head, a slight, impressed smile still stretched on her face.

"That kick," she said, rolling her shoulder where she’d taken it.

"Where in the world did that force come from."

"I just adjusted on Instinct." Darrow said again, easy grin firmly back in place, though Elian noticed he didn’t quite meet her eyes when he said it.

"You keep saying that. I’m starting to think it means something completely else."

She said it lightly, not pressing further, though the assessing look she gave him lingered a beat too long to be purely casual.

"No wonder Vale wanted you," She said as they stepped out of the arena. "Anyone would be impressed if they found someone like you in the wild.

Reyes addressed them both before Darrow could answer her, the instructor’s debrief brisk and efficient.

"Rosemere—good recovery instincts, controlled fall, no damage from the throw. Your offense telegraphs slightly when you commit fully without holding back, which is what let him read the opening. Work on adding variations to your tempo, your movements start to become repetitive in drawn out fights."

He turned to Darrow next, something sharper in his gaze.

"Tanner. Good technique. Better than good, honestly, for someone with no formal record of training. There is too much to go through right now for your, so we’ll be having a separate conversation about it later, stay after class."

Darrow’s grin didn’t waver, but something behind it went very still.

"I’m looking forward to it."

Even an inanimate rock could tell that he wasn’t.

The class shuffled back into loose rows as the two of them—Including Oizys, who for some reason decided that she was friends with the rest of them now.

Elian gave them an approving smile.

"Amazing fight."

Darrow shrugged without answering.

"Thanks." Oizys answered with visible good humor despite having just been thrown across a stone floor.

A handful of matches passed after that in a blur—names Elian didn’t fully catch, brief exchanges that ended quicker than the bout Darrow and Oizys had.

One thing that was notable was that the matches had ended up consistently either being completely one sided or Reyes calling fouls and ending the matches in the same flat, efficient tone throughout.

Elian still made sure to mentally note a few things from all the matches, quietly cataloguing everything he would need to survive one his turn was up.

He was also, despite his best efforts, growing increasingly nervous as each call went on without his name being there.

Still, he settled into a certain flow that let him split his attention onto various things such as studying the matches, listening to Cordelia’s and Milena’s thoughts about them, and actively choosing what kind of weapon would be the best to choose once his name was inevitably called.

His first thought was going with a sword, which he quickly discarded the idea since he hasn’t practiced with the sword after he had turned twelve.

In the end, he ended up deciding that choosing a plain staff would work the best for him, since it’d be the closest thing he’d get that would let him leverage his short experience of using the Everbloom.

A few more bouts finished before professor Reyes’ voice cut through the settling noise, his voice steady as ever, reading out from from the ledger.

"Suryavanshi and Belyanova. You’re up."

Elian turned to Milena, blinking.

Milena glanced at him.

"What."

"You can ask for an exemption if you want."

"I’m not scared of that guy." She shot him a glare as she gently uncoiled her snake for her shoulder, who was actively complaining in a hiss that Elian was starting to associate with a baby’s cry.

"Hold onto him for a while, I’ll be back soon." She said, holding out the small, unbothered snake toward him without waiting for a response.

Elian took it the way he might’ve taken a live coal. His arms out stiff, holding it at the maximum possible distance from his own body while the snake, entirely unbothered by his obvious terror, curled itself contentedly around his wrist and settled in.

"It’s not going to bite you," Milena said, already walking toward the weapon rack.

"You don’t know that."

"He likes you. I told you that already."

She didn’t look back, scanning the rack with the same clipped efficiency she brought to everything, and pulled a long spear from its mount—simple, practical, a blunt wooden head over a shaft nearly her own height. She tested its balance with a single economical turn of her wrist, apparently satisfied.

The snake, meanwhile, had decided Elian’s sleeve was an acceptable substitute for Milena’s shoulder, and was making itself comfortable with a series of small, hissing chirps that Elian was becoming increasingly convinced translated to,

This is fine, you’re doing great, why are you sweating.