Chapter 155| Unsuppressed Limits

Chapter 155: Chapter 155| Unsuppressed Limits

The day of the duel came faster than expected. It was finally Wednesday, 3:40 PM.

Arena One was louder than Zane had ever heard it.

The gallery curved around the floor in four tiers, and every seat was taken. Second years packed the upper rows, first years crowded the aisles, and a few instructors lined the back wall with their arms folded. Someone had brought a banner. It said CASTELLAN in blue paint and was already coming unstuck at one corner.

Zane stood in the tunnel mouth in his Code Zero suit, hands loose at his sides, and let the noise wash over him.

’Packed,’ he thought.

『 System Note: Attendance is approximately one hundred and fifty. The host should breathe. 』

’I’m breathing and stop exaggerating.’

『 Breathe Through the nose. Slowly. Im technically believable』

He walked onto the floor.

The roar changed. Some of it was cheers, some of it was jeers, and a lot of it was just people talking over each other. He scanned the stands without turning his head.

Front row, centre-left: Maren in her dark blue suit with the white and blue stripes, back straight, hands clasped between her knees. Next to her, Dex in his headband, waving both arms like he was landing a plane. High left: Sera in her grey hoodie, chin on her fist, one finger lifting off her cheek in a tiny salute. Far right, on the observation rail, a figure with blue hair stood very still.

’Nyx,’ he thought.

And beside Maren, taking up a seat and a half, Nil.

She wore a cropped top that stopped well above her navel and a short skirt that rode up as she crossed her legs. She’d tied her hair high, and her whole outfit seemed designed to make the person in the front row forget what they’d come to see.

Zane’s gaze slid to her and stayed.

Nil noticed. Her eyebrows rose. She tilted her head, and a slow smile spread across her face.

’I think I could win just with this view,’ Zane thought.

『 System Note: The host is distracted. The system recommends focus. 』

’I’m focused.’

『 On the wrong thing. 』

Nil lifted one hand and waggled her fingers in a lazy wave. Beside her, Maren’s head turned sharply. She followed Nil’s gaze straight to Zane, and her eyes narrowed.

Zane snapped his attention forward and studied the floor with great interest.

Dex leaned across Maren and whispered something to Nil. Nil laughed, loud enough to carry. Maren elbowed her in the ribs without looking away from the arena.

’Not helping,’ Zane thought.

_ _

Vael walked onto the floor at exactly 3:45PM.

The noise dropped by half. She stopped at the centre line with her tablet under one arm and her free hand held up, and the rest of the gallery fell quiet around it.

"This is a registered practice match," Vael said, her voice carrying without effort. "Calloway, Zane. Castellan, Ryan. Both first years, both B-rank. The rules are simple. No lethal output. No attacks on a downed opponent. Match ends when one party yields, when one is incapacitated, or when I say so." She looked at each of them in turn. "If I say stop, you stop. Understood?"

"Understood," Zane said.

"Understood," said a voice from the opposite tunnel.

Ryan walked out.

He took his time. Black training suit, hands in his pockets. His shoulders were loose and his stride was lazy, and the gallery cheered him louder than it had cheered Zane. The blue banner finally came free from its tape and fluttered down the stairs.

He stopped at his mark, ten metres from Zane, and looked him over with open pleasure.

"You came," Ryan said.

"You asked," Zane said.

"Funny how that works."

Vael raised her hand. "Positions."

They took them. Ryan rolled his neck. Zane rolled his shoulders. Somewhere high up, someone whistled.

Ryan’s voice dropped to a murmur, pitched to carry exactly as far as Zane’s ears and no further.

"I’ll try not to make this embarrassing," he said. "Your father held the line for twenty minutes. I’d hate for his son to fall in two."

Zane’s jaw tightened.

’Don’t,’ he thought. ’Don’t give him the first move.’

『 System Note: Host heart rate rising. Recommend breathing. 』

’Nah I just find this scenario funny.’

He let out a slow breath through his nose.

"Begin," Vael said.

_ _

Ryan didn’t rush.

He raised one hand with the palm flat, and the air in front of it thickened. A pale ripple spread outward from his fingers, a shimmer like heat above asphalt, and the floor between them seemed to lean.

Pressure Wave.

’Half a beat,’ Zane thought. ’He loads for half a beat.’

He activated Overdrive at B-rank 10%. The window opened. The arena sharpened, Ryan’s raised hand slowed, and the ripple stretched out in front of him like a sheet of glass being pulled.

But the wave was already moving.

It hit Zane in the chest, a wall of compressed air that lifted him off his feet and threw him six metres across the floor. He skidded on his back and came up on one knee with his lungs empty.

The gallery erupted.

"First blood to Castellan," someone shouted.

"That’s not blood," Dex’s voice shouted back, thin and offended.

Zane coughed. ’I didn’t remember his Sigil being this fast,’ he thought. ’He was already moving before the ripple showed.’

『 System Note: Ryan Castellan’s charge window is shorter than the trial data indicated. The system recommends revising the plan. 』

’I’m revising.’

"Up," Ryan said, mildly. "Come on. I barely touched you."

Zane stood.

Ryan raised his hand again.

This time Zane didn’t wait for the ripple.

He started moving the instant Ryan’s palm lifted, angling left in a long, curved run. The wave swept across the floor behind him, slamming into the wall with a crack that shook the lights.

’Fine,’ he thought. ’Let’s try the plan.’

He ran a second arc. A third. Ryan tracked him with his palm, and Zane felt the next charge building, the air tightening in a way that made his teeth hum.

Now.

He triggered Afterimage.

Overdrive B-rank snapped open and shut in under a blink. A thin, translucent copy of him peeled away from his body and hung in the air for the barest fraction of a second, a few inches behind where he’d been.

Ryan fired.

The wave hit the echo.

It tore straight through where Zane had been a heartbeat before, and the air around the copy shimmered and broke.

Zane was already past it.

He crossed the last five metres in a burst, dropped his weight, and slammed his palm into Ryan’s ribs at B-rank 10% Impact Breaker.

The shockwave hit clean.

Ryan staggered. His boots skidded two feet across the floor, and his mouth opened in a short, startled breath.

The gallery went silent.

Then the noise came back, louder than before.

"First hit to Calloway!" someone yelled.

Zane stepped back, breathing hard, one hand still extended.

’It worked,’ he thought.

『 System Note: Afterimage confirmed viable against a ranged attack. The system recommends not getting comfortable. 』

Ryan straightened.

He pressed a hand to his side, looked down at it, and began to smile.

It wasn’t the lazy, mocking smile from the courtyard. It was something sharper. Something that reached all the way to his eyes.

"There it is," Ryan said softly.

He lifted both hands, palms out.

And the air in the arena changed.