[ The Administrator ]

Part II Chapter 34 - Duel

***Lynett***

Today is Friday and here, Fridays are special. There are only morning classes on Fridays. The afternoons are reserved for spare-time, cultural activities, and most importantly: duels. It was on Friday afternoons that all the duels that had been declared during the week took place. Although they were allowed -and even encouraged- in the school, duels followed a very strict code of conduct, so they were strongly supervised by teachers. It was one of the reasons why all duels were held at the same time: because it's simply easier to organize.

The duels took place in the academy's arena. Originally, they were simply held in an open field, but since duels are open to an audience, it didn't take long for them to become a public event where the students would come in droves to watch them. It was not only a great source of entertainment but it could also be very instructive. So, ultimately, the headmaster deemed it wiser to contain the public and hold the duels in the school's arena.

I met up with Vivian and the others at the arena a quarter of an hour before the beginning of the fights. I spent the past few days coaching her, but I wanted to make sure to give her one last overview about her training before we went in. As I thought, she is pretty nervous. She was already pretty tense about fighting Lucius before, and even though I did manage somehow to raise her confidence these past few days, now it's all gone. Hopefully she'll be able to get a grip on herself soon, because we need to part ways now.

The duels were held in order of level, and since beginner classes were not allowed to participate, combatants from intermediate classes would be the first to fight. Vivian was among the first participants. It was probably what she was thinking about as she stepped inside the arena, blood completely drained from her face. Come on Vivian, you can do it.

As she disappeared into the participants' zone, Frost, Jalone and I went to find a seat in the stands. The arena was already quite crowded. Definitely not crowded enough to the point where it would fill even a third of the stands -it was designed to hold thousands of spectators after all- but it was an impressive amount of people for a duel between children. Since I was in the advanced classes and considering Aoban's reputation, I knew I would be among the last to duel. So, I decided to watch the fights with Frost and Jalone in the stands until then.

As the two boys simply tried to find seats with a good view, my eyes were surveying the stands, looking for someone.

"Is Mustache coming?" I asked, still looking.

"Huh? Of course he is, he is in charge of the magic department," Frost responded as if it was obvious. "All of the head-teachers need to be present for duels. They are the judges after all."

Yeah, I thought so. I need to know where he is going to be.

"Is he going to be in the stands?"

"Nah," the boy shook his head. "They have special seats down there in case they need to intervene. The other teachers will be though, if they're coming."

My eyes followed the direction his finger was pointing in and I immediately spotted the head-teachers arriving, as the duels were about to begin. Among them: Mustache.

Perfect.

As Frost and Jalone were about to sit, I called them both.

"Guys, we can't sit here," I told them. "We need to go a little bit further."

"Huh?" They exclaimed in unison, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "Why?"