Axel locked himself in his room once the students were requested to leave the Arena. Maeve and Nova's match would be held in the evening, but Axel was unsure whether or not he wanted to attend it. Both Nova and Wolfe had barely spoken to Axel after his match. Not because they were trying to distance themselves from him, but because every time they tried to comfort him or tried to get an explanation out of him, he would shoo them away, avoiding their questions with a cowardly "I don't want to talk about it right now."
Wolfe had retreated to Nova's room that afternoon because he felt obliged to give Axel some personal space to deal with the issues plaguing him. He was sure Axel's momentary depression would fade away soon. He believed it.
"Can I ask you something, Nova?" Wolfe asked politely as Nova gulped down a glass of water. "Yeah, sure." She replied awkwardly, wondering why he prefaced his question that way.
"Why is your last name 'Emblaze'? When Professor Emblaze first used his power to help me out I was really confused, but after seeing you use it multiple times I'm even more confused."
Nova knew what Wolfe was referring to. In fact she had been asked the same question by many other students already, and was quite surprised to see how late Wolfe was to ask that.
"You're asking why we have ice powers despite our name suggesting that we use fire right?"
Wolfe nodded as he waited for a reason.
A deep sigh left Nova as she set the glass of water atop her study table. "Since you know that Emblaze is a royal house you must also know that we partook in the fight against the Reapers long ago." The two had been brought up to speed on the classes they missed out due to their hospitalisation and therefore knew about the Reapers and their history with Zodia.
"Our family wasn't the well established powerhouse back then as it is now, and only a few of us existed. As such, our powers were not known by everyone. My ancestors, who also used the same ice powers as me and my uncle do, decided to go by the name Emblaze so that we could catch the enemy off-guard. After the attack on the Reapers, the Emblaze name became well-known so everyone assumed that our powers must be fire related. This gave us a great advantage in the following wars since we could take advantage of the enemy's lack of knowledge. Anyone who knew the truth was either part of the Reapers or the royal forces of Zodia. The former were imprisoned or killed, while the latter had sworn to remain silent regarding our powers."
"So, long story short, your ancestors just wanted to confuse the enemy so they decided to name themselves Emblaze?"
"Well, it isn't as elegant and noble when you put it like that."
The two laughed and continued conversing until it was time to report to the Arena.
"All the best, Nova. I'm sure Axel will show up. He won't miss such an important fight for the life of him, so don't worry. Just do your best."
"Thank you all for gathering here once again. Our next match brings forth two beautiful young women who have easily made their way through all their previous competitors. But how will they fare against each other in the last match of our semi-finals???!!! Without further ado I'd like to welcome our competitors for tonight.
"On one side we have a skilled weapon's expert who can create various weapons to masterful accuracy within the blink of an eye. PLEASE WELCOME NOOOVAAAA EMMMBLAAAAZZE!!" The crowd cheered as Nova walked out onto the stage.
"Her quick thinking has helped her win every match until now, but its limits will surely be tested today against the fearsome, acrobatic MAAAAEEVVE UMMBRRAAAA." Maeve's entry onto the stage was welcomed with even louder cheer and a thunderous applause. It was already clear who the fan favourite was.
"I'm sure the audience is just as excited as me to find out whether Maeve will finally reveal her powers in today's fight against the daunting genius that is Nova. But even if she chooses not to, I'm sure we will witness a brilliant fight today that will stay in our memories forever.
"Are both of you ready?" The referee asked quietly and waited until both of them had nodded in response. "WELL THEN WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, LET THE MATCH BEGIN!!!!!"
Nova leaned back on her left leg and raised both her hands slightly above and behind her head. A long, silvery-blue ice sword slid out of her hands and pointed intimidatingly at Maeve.
In response, Maeve put her hands behind her and pulled out two crescent shaped knives. She held them such that the semi-circular blades faced outwards with their tips towards Nova.
Nova relaxed her tense shoulders and dropped the stance she had been holding. Her hands remained next to her waist, fingers outstretched. The longsword in her right hand melted, starting from the tip, until a fairly-long blade remained in its place. Her empty left hand seemed to now be grabbing the handle of a similar blade.
Maeve smiled snarkily at Nova's change in weapons. Her sickles were shorter than Nova's dual blades, and this could be seen as a disadvantage, but her energetic fighting style made them far more fierce than usual.
As if it were rehearsed, both Maeve and Nova began walking towards each other at the same pace. Their walk turned into a stride and then into a full-fledged run. Nova attacked first, throwing her hands in an inward horizontal arc towards Maeve's exposed torso.
As Nova had expected, Maeve tried blocking the attack with an outward swing of her sickles. But the expected "CLANG" of the two weapons clashing did not fill the air. Moments before the sickles could hit her blades, Nova let go of her magic, causing the blades to melt and vanish on the spot. The momentum caused Nova's hands to continue inwards and wrap around her body. Maeve's sickles followed their outward trajectory, dragging her arms along and exposing her front body to Nova's follow up attack.
Without another moment of wait Nova pushed her arms back outwards in another horizontal arc, the ice blades popping out of the centre of her fists once again. A crazed smile cut across Maeve's face as a loud "Clang!" silenced the audience's cheer.
Using all her strength, Maeve had pulled her arms back inwards against the momentum and caught Nova's blades within the semi-circles of her sickles, effectively stopping the fatal attack. The two semi-circular sickles held close to each other formed a perfect circle within which Nova's blades were trapped. Maeve forced the two sickles inwards, causing the circle they enclosed to diminish into a biconvex gap that trapped Nova's blades perfectly, making them immovable.
While Nova remained shocked at Maeve's quick change of momentum Maeve used the opportunity to grab both her sickles in one hand, keeping one finger between them to make sure the biconvex shape held together, and pulling the hand behind her, hauling Nova forwards.
A punch shot into Nova's gut as she fell forward, causing her to lose control over her magic and making the blades dissipate. The knock from the punch pushed her backwards and another one shot into the side of her chest before she could catch a break.
The two sharp clinks of Maeve's sickles falling to the floor brought Nova back to her senses, allowing her to block the third punch that was aimed at her nose. Maeve smirked once again. Nova had instinctively used her hands to block the attack, leaving her torso exposed. Using an ice shield in that situation would have been better since it would allow her to block any other attacks as well.
Maeve backed up a little and then swung a kick at Nova's side, sending a wave of pain through her ribs. She spun around and followed up with a side-kick that thrust into Nova's stomach, causing her mouth to fly wide open. The kick sent her stumbling backwards, her hands gripping her stomach and leaving her face exposed. But Maeve did not attack the face just yet.
Instead she fell to the ground and swept her right foot under Nova, causing her to lose balance and fall backwards towards the floor. The attacks until that point were so fast and consecutive that even Nova wasa having a hard time following them. They were unpredictable and all she could do was get hit by them.
Maeve recovered her position besides Nova before she fell to the floor and in an exaggerated final move, executed a front flip with her right leg outstretched. Her long purple hair followed in a vertical circle and made the flashy move even flashier. The heel of her extended right leg dug into Nova's abdomen as she fell, accelerating her fall and escalating the agony slithering through her body exponentially.
The ground below cracked as Nova crashed into it, forming crooked ripples in the concrete radiating from the point of impact. There had been an immense, never before seen, power hidden behind that final kick that no one had expected.
The audience, though shell-shocked by the kick that had been strong enough to crack the concrete and cause a dust cloud to erupt from below, began theorising whether or not Maeve had finally used her powers, and if she had, what exactly that power was.
This monstrous strength had never been showcased by Maeve in her previous matches, and her rather thin body definitely couldn't have brought out that much power, making it obvious that she had finally used her magic.
But despite that, nobody from the audience to the judges, including the half-conscious Nova, could figure out what type of power could possibly give birth to such disastrous strength.