After his meeting with William, and unexpectedly with Rose, Allen had headed back to his dorm room for the night. He wasn't sure how he was going to tell Thomas and Cecily later that Rose had agreed to train him for his upcoming duel with Nathaniel.
As of recently, he had been training with both Thomas and Cecily, anytime the three of them had the chance. He wasn't sure how they would react if he suddenly told them Rose would begin training him. He figured they would be okay with it, but he didn't want to ditch them to instead train with Rose, even if temporary.
Then again, he remembered how Thomas reacted when he first mentioned how William thought it would be a great idea if Allen and Rose trained together. Thomas had thought it was interesting, and he even seemed a little jealous too. She is the Student Council President after all, but that didn't really matter to Allen. Allen focuses on an individual's personality and how they treat other people over some title they may possess. Allen will respect those in higher positions if they live up to their title, no matter how high their title may be.
Allen kept thinking various thoughts in his head when he had finally drifted off to sleep. He once again had a similar dream to what he had not long ago. His first dream was when he had recently turned nine, and William had introduced him to a young girl who didn't look that much older than him. This time, he was a little bit older.
He dreamt of when he was ten years old. He still wielded the wooden sword that William had given him. And often, he would spar with William in order to get better at wielding a sword. No matter how many times Allen had challenged William, he never won once.
At one point within the dream, the mysterious girl showed up, which resulted in the dream similar to his other one. The interesting thing was, this girl too trained with a wooden sword like Allen. But, she seemed to be uncomfortable with it. She seemed to be most uncomfortable with its weight, and how she held the sword. Even with her being uncomfortable with the sword, she had talent when it came to using a sword. Allen and her would duel as William had watched them. No matter how many times Allen tried, she always bested him.
While within the dream, Allen tried to get a better look at who this mysterious girl was, but her face always seemed to be blurred out. Perhaps the dream didn't want him to know who it was, or maybe Allen didn't know who she was even if he saw her face. Then again, this was all a dream and most likely was something that never happened. Allen was sure that if he had met a girl like this when he was younger, he'd remember to today.
Before he could continue with the dream, it had suddenly ended. He woke up in his bed to the sun rising. Today would be another day of class, but also his first day of training with Rose.
When he walked into class, he could see a curious looking Cecily, and an eagerly looking Thomas.
"So, how did the meeting go with the head director yesterday?," Thomas asked as Allen took his seat next to him.
"Well, there was quite a bit," Allen scratched his head, thinking where to start.
"Oh, why don't you explain it then?"
"He should probably tell us after class," Cecily said. "It looks like Ms. Florence will be teaching again today"
Sure enough, she was giving a lesson today. Whether or not Allen already knew what she will be talking about will be up for debate until she starts teaching.
After the end of the lesson, Thomas and Cecily looked over to Allen, most likely expecting him to start explaining his story. After noticing them looking over at him, he finally told them the whole story.
"Wait seriously?! She finally agreed to train you?!," Thomas raised his voice in excitement.
"Yeah. After I told her that I was going to be dueling Nathaniel, she agreed to train me, at least until the duel happens," Allen explained.
"Allen, if you don't mind can you please ask Rose if I can train with her too?," Thomas' eyes were wide open. "I'd love to see her-"
But once again, he could not finish his sentence as both Allen and Thomas could sense Cecily's bloodlust.
"Do you wish to die?," Cecily muttered as Thomas was almost sweating from the dread.
"N-No," Thomas managed to make out as he nervously put his hands up.
"Good, looks like you are learning," Cecily smiled, although both Allen and Thomas could sense malice from her smile. Thomas blew a sigh of relief from not being murdered then and there as Allen just laughed to himself.
"Anyways, what do you plan to do?," Thomas asked. "You plan to train with her, right?"
"Well, I wouldn't be against it. She is in her third year, and an A rank. She also fights with a sword like me, so I would figure she would be a great partner to train with to practice for my upcoming duel," Allen explained. "Only problem is, normally I train with you guys, so…"
"Ah, I get it. You don't have to worry about it Al," Thomas said to him as he gave him a thumbs up.
"Are you sure?," Allen asked, worried. " I told you guys I would train with you even if I still trained with her back when it was first brought up"
"If you are to focus on your training, the best bet would be with the student council president," Cecily added. "She has much she can teach you"
"Yeah, that's true. But…," Allen started to say, but wasn't sure how to finish his sentence.
"Hey don't worry about it Al," Thomas reassured him. "You have helped train us enough. Without you, we would've been just training on our own, probably not getting any better. Training with you has helped us a bit, if not better! We should be the ones thanking you for the training!"
"Well, I have learned plenty from you guys. It's just…", Allen was trying to say more, but couldn't come up with anything. He felt guilty if he went training off with Rose. Sure, he never promised them he would only focus on training them, but still they were his good friends and he didn't want to feel like he was abandoning them in any sort of way.
"Allen, you don't have to worry about it," Cecily added. "You have helped us plenty. Unfortunately with your upcoming duel, you'll need to train as much as possible. The student council president can help you with that, as I mentioned before"
"That's true. I'm not sure how powerful Nathaniel really is. He has that bad demeanor, too," Allen said as the three shuddered at the thought of Nathaniel. Allen didn't know what truly caused Nathaniel to act that way.
"You know," Thomas started to say with a smirk on his face. "If you train with the Blue Rose, maybe I can sit in and watch you two trai-"
But before he could finish that sentence, Thomas was suddenly hit by a flying textbook. The pure shock in his face was clearly seen as it fell to the floor after hitting his face. Never before had Allen seen something that made him laugh this much, while still feeling concern for Thomas.
"Wh-, Cecily?!?," Thomas just looked in pure shock at her as Cecily had a mad, yet blushing expression on her face as she picked up her own textbook. The textbook took no damage, but the same probably could not be said for Thomas' face. He was left with a slight mark.
"Oh shoot," Allen said as he started to recall what Rose said yesterday. "I believe Rose said to meet her directly after class!"
Thomas and Cecily just started to giggle as Allen was quickly putting his stuff together.
"We may come in a bit to wat-," Thomas started to say, but quickly remembered what Cecily did before as he felt her dangerous aura again. "I meant, we will probably come in a bit to train ourselves and see how it's going for you"
"Thanks you both," Allen smiled as he started to stand out of his seat.
"Good luck!," Thomas and Cecily simultaneously said as Allen paced out of the classroom.
After pacing out of the classroom, Allen started to rush over to the training grounds. He had no idea what Rose would do to him now that he is late. He wasn't sure how late he was as well, considering he wasn't paying attention to the time after class finished. All he knew is he spoke with Thomas and Cecily for a short while.
While rushing over to the training grounds, there were various students walking around the grounds of the academy for whatever reasons they might have had. Some of them saw Allen, but surprisingly didn't pay him much mind. More than likely due to the fact he was an F rank, but Allen was set to get to D rank within a few months. He's been studying in class recently in order to pass the D rank written exam, and then whatever the physical exam would be.
Before making it over to the exit out of the academy building and out to the training grounds arena, he thought he felt a presence to the right of him. As he turned to the right, sure enough it was Rose. She stood against the wall there, hands crossed and wearing an annoyed expression on her face.
"Well, you sure took your time," Rose sighed.
"About that, I was late because-"
"No excuses," She cut him off before he could finish.
"I-, then I apologize for-"
"No apologies either," she cut him off again.
"Then, what do you want me to say?," Allen asked, confused.
"If you want to apologize, do so by working hard in our training sessions," she explained. "You aren't going to get better and defeat Nathaniel Rivertide with that weak air magic of yours by apologizing to me. From now on, we train together and learn from each other"
"I- I honestly don't know how to respond to that," Allen said, scratching his head.
"One of the first things I learned about dueling is that your actions have more meaning than your words," she explained. "You can talk about how powerful you are, who you can defeat, and how fast you can defeat someone, but what really matters is showing you can do those things by dueling with me. This is the fastest way to separate those who have all talk and no game, from those who possess talent and work hard"
"I really haven't thought about it in that way before," Allen said, a bit dumbfounded. "I see now why many look up to you and respect you Rose. You're a great person who works hard for what you want to achieve"
"I-", she started to speak, but wasn't able to find the words she wanted to say. She stood there blushing for a moment, trying to avoid eye contact with Allen, yet kept looking back at him nonetheless. "You dummy"
"I-, what did I say?," Allen asked, honestly confused.
"You're just an idiot, you know that?," she crossed her arms and sighed, still having a flushed face. "Anyways, it's time we started training"
"Yeah, good idea," Allen agreed, but he was still confused about what he might've said that made her so flustered like that. Why did girls have to be so confusing?
Rose started walking down the hall to the right, which is where Allen initially saw her standing over by. He got confused for a second, as the exit to the training grounds was followed outside.
"Umm aren't the training grounds that way?," Allen asked as he pointed towards the exit behind them on the right.
"Oh, we're not going there," Rose explained. "We will be training in the indoor training grounds".
"The what?," he said, confused. Far as he was aware, there was only one grounds used for training. "There's more training grounds?"
"Yes, but only one. It's smaller, but should provide us the necessary space we need. It's also isolated and no one will bother us there," she explained as she kept walking ahead of Allen.
"I- okay?," Allen was still confused, but nonetheless trusted what she said was right and followed her.
They walked down a few hallways to get there. It felt like it was on the other side of the academy. The halls after classes were over were silent, especially since anyone training afterwards was at the actual training grounds, now far away from them. It only took them what felt like a few minutes, but they finally made it there. It was a bit of a stretch of a rather long and wide hallway, with double doors at the very end of it. Allen assumed that this must be the training room. As they approached the doors, Allen went up to open the door, but the door was unfortunately locked.
"Umm Rose, the door is locked. What do we do?," he asked as he looked back at Rose.
Rose was scrambling through her pockets. "Give me just a moment," she muttered, barely loud enough for Allen to hear her. "Ah, here it is"
She pulled out a singular key from her pocket, silver in color. She walked up to the door, put the key in and unlocked the door.
"Go ahead," she said as she opened the left door, which squeaked as it opened.
"Wait, how did you-"
"I'm the student council president, so of course I would have a key to various parts of the academy," she explained with a hint of pride in her voice. "Normally, students aren't allowed in the indoor training grounds for various reasons, however I can make an exception. Also, William said it was okay as well"
"Well, that's William for you," Allen shrugged as he walked in the door.
Upon arriving inside, he was met with a fairly sized room. It wasn't as large as the outdoor training grounds, but it had plenty of space for others to train if they weren't the only ones here. There were seats aligned all along the sides, similar to how the outdoor training grounds are set up. The dead of silence within the room was gone with the echo from Allen's footsteps, and their voices that followed.
"Told you no one would bother us here," Rose said as she locked the door behind them.
For a moment, Allen didn't respond. He took a moment to look throughout the room. He had a sense of feeling he wouldn't only be here for the training with Rose.
"This room is used for duels in the academy," Rose responded as if she was answering his question. "It will also be the room used for the preliminaries of the tournament later this year"
"Wait, there's preliminary rounds?," Allen asked, surprised.
"Of course. Not every student will be able to get into the actual tournament because we usually have more applicants than the tournament has room for. Therefore, the academy holds preliminary rounds to determine who can be in the actual tournament. Although there aren't that many rounds of the preliminaries, as we usually just get enough applicants anyways," she explained.
"I wasn't aware of that. Well the tournament is going to be harder than I thought," Allen said as he sighed. "Either way, that won't stop me from working hard"
"Good, you shouldn't quit just because of preliminaries. Preliminaries aren't that hard anyways. Just do your best and you'll pass easily," Rose said as they walked towards the center of the room.
"Alright, so how will we start our training?," Allen asked as they got to the center of the room.
"In order to start training you, I need to know how you fight," she said as she drew her sword. "I want you to come at me with everything you have"
"Wait hold on," Allen said, confused. "You want me to come at you with everything I have? Are you sure?"
"Just as I said, I need to know how you fight - your fighting style. I also want to know how you use your magic," she said as she pointed her sword at him.
Allen studied her stance for a moment. She was in a battle ready position, similar to what Allen does before a fight or a duel. However, the way she held her sword was different. She held her sword in a sort of graceful manner, pointed at Allen.
Upon further inspection of her sword, it was no ordinary sword. The blade was about as long as Allen's sword, but slimmer and looked like it weighed less. The blade was a bright blue in color, a color similar to the color of hair Cecily has. The handle was a dark blue and the hilt was a dark gray in color. What surprised him the most about it was the hilt of the sword. The hilt was a sort of guarded one, protecting her sword hand. Allen figured this would come in handy if someone tried to swipe at her hand to render her sword hand useless. In this case, it would be harder for her opponent to do just that.
"Well, I hope you're not just going to stand there," she said with a smirk and a hint of pride in her voice. "If you're going to take your time, I may just start right now"
"Ah, my bad," Allen said as he started to get ready. He took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself for a moment. He then drew his sword, the sword that William gave him back at the end of his training, and got into position. "I'm ready whenever you are"
"Good, then let's get this practice duel under way. I'll let you make the first move," she said as she began to study what Allen would do.
"Very well," Allen said as he began to prepare for his first move. He closed his eyes for a moment and began to visualize his air mana within him. He began to sense it within him, seeing the air mana constantly moving around his body. It wasn't much, but it was what he had. He began to move it towards his legs, in order to make him move quicker. Once he felt it moving throughout his legs, he was ready to make his move. He opened his eyes, and saw Rose was observing him. She was probably wondering what he was doing.
Well, she said to put in everything I've currently got, Allen thought. Here goes nothing.
Allen proceeded to rush at Rose as best as he could. He knew that she was definitely stronger and more than likely more skilled than he was, but it was worth a shot. This wouldn't be anything like his entrance exam duel with Charles. He was facing someone who has been at the academy for two full years in their third year, an A rank, and also skilled with a sword like he was.
Rose more than likely was expecting Allen to rush in on her in some way, but probably not expecting the speed in which Allen was rushing towards her. As he was about to make contact with her, she quickly guarded his attack.
"Well aren't you the quick one Allen," she said with a serious expression, yet she was grinning. She managed to push him a bit back with her sword.
Allen made no time to waste after that first move. He quickly moved in again, slashing his sword at her. She once again blocked his attack, and the ones that followed. He repeatedly kept attacking her trying to hit her where he found openings, but each time he did she managed to block each one. In terms of speed, Rose was quicker due to her thinner and lighter blade.
"You move quick Allen, but not quick enough," Rose said as she started to move towards Allen. She began to strike with her blade, but not how Allen normally does. Instead she was making strikes with the tip of her blade, and very quickly too. It was difficult for Allen's eyes to keep up with the constant strikes she kept trying to hit him with. He managed to dodge all of them, unable to block with his sword. If he tried to block with his sword, her sword would glide past him and stab him. She threw one last strike which Allen managed to push to the right with his sword just in time, in which her sword glided past Allen's head by a few millimeters.
"That was close," Allen muttered right after the exchange.
He put some distance between Rose and him a few moments after the exchange. What surprised him the most so far is the fact that Rose has yet to use any of her magic. As far as he was aware, she didn't know how to control her mana within her to boost herself, so she has yet to cast any water magic. If this was how powerful she was without magic, what kind of beast was she with magic?
"Hope you're ready, because this duel isn't over until one of us submits," she said as she began to rush him again.
"I thought this was a practice duel?," Allen shouted as he managed to get out right before he had to dodge her attack.
He once again managed to put distance between them, but he knew it wouldn't last long. He could feel himself running out of mana. He knew this wasn't good. He wouldn't be able to keep up with her speed once he runs out of mana. So far he's managed to be just barely a little quicker than her, but with how she attacks with her sword, it's been difficult for him to get back on the offensive and as a result, has been stuck on the defensive.
"You're starting to lag behind," Rose said as she once again started to rush him.
Allen was out of options and low on time. He decided to make a last effort to hopefully beat her. He switched gears and went full on the offensive. Right before she went in to attack, he quickly veered to the right. Before she could notice what he was doing, he was already behind her and moving in to take her down.
"I've got you Rose," Allen shouted right before he was about to defeat her.
However, she managed to quickly turn around and switch it up on Allen. She quickly summoned a good sized water magic circle. Allen knew he could cut through her magic, but depending on when she casted the magic and how powerful it would be, he could lose at this very moment. It was an all or nothing attack by Allen.
Right before he made contact, Rose summoned a large amount of water heading straight for him. Since he was really close to Rose, the magic would hit him dead on.
Well this is it, Allen thought.
He managed to cut through some of it before he was suddenly thrown back pretty far. He landed on his back, but luckily it wasn't that bad. He felt a little pain, but nothing he couldn't really handle.
"And I'll consider that my win," Rose grinned as she walked over to where Allen was laying down.
"Yep, I admit defeat," Allen said as he was still laying on the floor.
"You did really well. I honestly wasn't expecting that," she smiled as she was standing over him.
"Well, you did say to come at you with everything I had," Allen said as he laughed.
Rose laughed a little as well. "Here," she said as she crouched down and put her hand out to help Allen up.
"Thanks," Allen said as he took her hand and got up. He still felt a little dizzy and injured from when he was suddenly thrown across the room.
"No problem," Rose responded as Allen was finally up. "Are you ok though? I did just send you across the room, after all"
"You ask me that now?," Allen sighed.
"Figured I'd ask, but you at least seem alright if you are still breathing and conscious", Rose shrugged.
"I'd be concerned what you'd do if someone was on the ground bleeding all their blood out," Allen laughed.
"I would hope that would never happen though," Rose laughed as well.
Allen went over to pick up his sword, which had been left on the floor over where Rose initially blasted him with water magic. Once he picked it up, he put it back in his sheath.
"You did pretty well as I said before, but there's a lot you have to work on before your duel with Nathaniel," Rose started to say. "I intentionally didn't use magic until I had to, so I could gauge your skills. However, later on you will need to be able to fend me off when I am using both magic and my sword"
"That seems like a tough task, but I'll give it my best," Allen said.
"If you wish to defeat Nathaniel, you need to be able to at least hold off an A rank like me," she explained.
"Didn't Nathaniel defeat you though? They didn't raise him in rank for that?," Allen asked.
"Yes, he did defeat me," she said with a look of disappointment in her eyes. "And he was offered A ranking, but he declined. He wishes to sit back and have his little fun. He doesn't fight fair and won't give you any chances to get up if you fall"
Allen remembered what happened when he first met Nathaniel. Once again, he felt anger swell up. But he decided to put that aside to better use to help train himself hard.
"If I were to bet correctly, he will most likely place the duel in about two to three weeks from now. That gives us a little under a month to fully train you until then. It isn't much time, but I can assure you that I'll train you so hard that your duel will seem like a simple jog around the academy," she explained as she had such a dark smirk on her face that made Allen start to question why he accepted this in the first place.
"Well then, I'll do my best!" Allen said enthusiastically.
"Alright great. We will start again at the end of class tomorrow, and will continue every day except for the weekends as I have student council work. We will have more time to train if someone manages to come here on time," she said as she gave him a glare.
"My bad, my bad!," Allen apologized. "Also, you don't have to push yourself too hard if you have student council work. You don't have to prioritize training me"
"Don't worry too much about it. You're now my student so you don't have a say in this!," she said with a smirk.
"Alright, I look forward to training with you for the next few weeks Rose," Allen said, smiling.
"I-," Rose started to say while blushing, but paused for a moment. "You idiot!"
Allen couldn't help but laugh. Rose just rolled her eyes.
After the whole exchange, they left the room and Rose locked the door behind her. They began to walk back to their dorm rooms but Rose's dorm room was apparently in a different building, so they said their goodbyes and practically walked in opposite directions.
As Allen was walking back to his room's building, he thought he felt a presence behind him. He quickly drew his sword and looked behind him, anticipating a possible fight for whoever suddenly came up behind him.
"Well it seems we meet again, Allen Fleming," the voice behind him said in an almost ominous yet intrigued tone. He had an almost menacing smile on his face.
"Nathaniel Rivertide," Allen angrily responded as he pointed his sword towards him.