3:28 p.m., Taimadou Academy, Water Magic Course Hall
Akane decided to leave her fire-based courses earlier than the dismissal time. Courses are held very freely, where the student is given the option to follow the instructor's teachings, partake in self-improvement, or engage in magic duels with other students.
Additionally, you can choose how long you want to remain in the classes, as only attendance matters. This system allows the students to make the best use of their time without feeling forced to perform.
In Akane's case, she followed the instructor for around two hours before leaving to visit other classes she's interested in.
Her first stop was the water-based class. Fire and water are opposite magic elements. In logic, if a user combines the two spells, it would just self-destruct. Akane is specifically targeting the self-destruction of the two spells.
The combination of two specific spells produces mist. Under normal circumstances, producing mist would be bad for the caster, but Akane has thought of a plan to make full use of it. Therefore, Akane is currently interested in taking water-based classes as well.
She is currently 'scouting' the course itself. Every magic class has three entrances, and usually, only two are unlocked. The main entrance is only open for students who take the class on the day. Visitors are allowed to enter through the second entrance on the second floor. The second floor is like a balcony or a stadium for viewers. There is a tempered glass wall in between the class and the viewers, however, to prevent viewers from casting magic toward the class participants.
The balcony for her class was fairly filled with students, as they were interested in the magic of a Hitotsu heir. Sadly for them, they were let down as the instructor mostly engaged with the theory aspect of practical magic and such, which didn't display Akane's magic.
Akane had heard a rumor that a lot of people left their courses earlier than usual to look at the physical armaments class, but they didn't manage to find Rin there, which was odd. But Akane had something she wanted to do now.
She walked through the entrance of the balcony, and almost immediately, heard murmurs around her. It seems that the students were surprised to see her there. The murmurs were more than the usual density, which felt slightly uncanny. She would soon find the answer to that.
"Hey Akane, how were your classes?"
At the end of the balcony beside a wall, was Rin standing. It was weird that Rin was here instead of his classes but giving it a quick thought made the reason obvious.
"They were fine. Are you here for Mihiro, Rin?"
Rin nervously smiled and scratched the back of his neck.
"Well, I think it's easier if I show it to you."
"What do you mean?"
"Look down your left diagonal."
At 10 o'clock, Akane made out the silhouette of two students. Upon closer inspection, she figured out the two students that Rin was looking at: Mihiro and the student from the cafeteria.
"They are about to engage in a magic duel it seems, that's why I'm here."
Rin told Akane the reason why he was visiting the water-based class and it was valid, but it didn't quite add up. Assuming the rumors were true, as Rin wasn't spotted in the physical armament classes from 30 minutes after the division of classes, which was around 2:00 p.m., and that it is currently half-past three, what did he do in the span of the difference?
"By the way Akane, it seems that you enjoyed your class, didn't you?"
Rin was hinting that he had visited Akane's class through the balcony before he arrived here. Going by that logic, it would provide a plausible time usage of his other one and a half hours. But this was odd for Akane, as she didn't feel that Rin was watching her.
Even if there were a thousand people in a baseball stadium, for example, Akane herself just knows that she will be able to make out Rin's gaze if he was looking at her. This is not to say that she thinks of herself as a sis con. It's just that sometimes there are things that being a family allows you to do. Having a very close sibling relationship with Rin probably is a reason so.
This made Akane convinced that Rin was lying, but she didn't know why he was lying. Confronting him directly would be the easier method.
"Does dating Mihiro make her rub off you as well Rin?"
Akane was inferring that Rin had been influenced by Mihiro's cheekiness.
"You got me Akane. I didn't visit your class, but I did visit the others. I was about to visit your class, but I came across this interesting event."
That covered more of the unknown timespan. Mathematically, however, Rin had around half an hour to spare. Where exactly did he go? Akane decided that she will tackle that one later.
"It seems that the duel has started Akane."
Akane looked in the approximate direction and saw a water ball in each of the two's right hands. They were standing face-by-face towards each other at an approximate distance of three meters.
"Is this… a duel?"
"I suppose this is the version that water mages use to compare magic strength."
Rin himself was unsure of the method they were using even though he was fairly knowledgeable in all the different magic elements. He assumed that they decided the details of the face-off beforehand.
"Say Akane, what do you think is the victory condition for this duel?"
Akane placed her left hand onto her chin, thinking of a logical reason. She considered the fundamentals of how a spell worked. The two were casting the same spell, KyuuMizu, which meant that it wasn't a frontal assault. That means they are judging the result of the spell cast. Different mana outputs allow the user to vary the 'shape' the spell takes. For example, for a fire spell, if more mana was pumped into the spell, the flame would be stronger, whereas if mana was pumped at a faster rate, the spell would ignite faster.
Upon further consideration, Akane came to the most logical conclusion.
"Isn't it to compare who can make the bigger ball?"
After hearing Akane's answer, Rin thought to himself for a bit while walking back and front the balcony. Before entirely stopping, he faced Akane.
"That's a valid guess, but I have a different one."
"Let me hear yours."
"Firstly, I would like to explain the basis of my thought process." Rin continued, "As they were trying to compare strength, a frontal duel would probably be optimal. But given that there are other students around then, they probably opted not to do such."
Akane nodded her head as she had the same base assumption.
"So, they chose to decide by casting the same spell, KyuuMizu."
"Yes."
"But here's where my opinion differs from yours Akane."
"As funny as it sounds, I'm fairly confident that they will throw the water ball at each other."
Hearing this, Akane was very confused at Rin's thought process. She understood his base logic as he had the same train of thought, but why did he think they were going to throw the balls at each other?
"Given that they are separated by a few meters and face-to-face, while simultaneously wanting to prove which amongst them is stronger, I think this would tick the most boxes. My main reasons are that firstly, it's not necessarily that the bigger ball will beat the smaller ball when thrown. By utilizing the preservation of momentum, if the smaller ball is fast enough, it will break through the bigger ball. Secondly, they are standing face-to-face whilst separated by a distance, if they wanted to judge who could make the bigger ball, wouldn't standing side-by-side be sufficient. And lastly, judging the exact size and speed to launch the ball by controlling a mage's mana output is a fair test to find out who is more competent."
As Rin was talking with such confidence in his answer, it made Akane hesitant in her answer. Rin was always the type to think deeply into anything he was given. However, Akane thought that in this case, he was thinking too deeply.
"I think they're starting."
Akane, noticing that the size of the ball had stopped changing, told Rin.
Rin changed his line of sight toward the two in the class. A few seconds after, the two water balls got flung into the air. However,
"It seems that we both are wrong Akane."
Rin chuckled to himself while Akane was still intently focusing on the scene. Rin was right in the fact that they were going to throw the balls, but he thought of the wrong axis plane.
Two water balls were currently being held in the air as if frozen by time directly above each of the two students.
"It's an endurance test, Rin."
Akane said this. Rin too nodded alongside.
Before the magic spell is released, the mage can alter the property of the spell itself. But there are key components that only can be changed upon release of the spell, like curvature, variance in height, and more.
In their case, they were comparing who could keep the water ball floating at the height they marked for a longer time. For this competition, there are two main approaches. One is to make the water ball as small as possible, which the student from the cafeteria did. This approach makes the ball 'lighter' to carry. However, as the water ball is smaller, it retains its mana for a lesser period. This causes the mage to have to keep 'sending' mana towards the ball, which in turn would cause exhaustion to the user.
With regards to Mihiro's approach, she threw a bigger ball. This in turn makes the ball harder to carry. Therefore, shouldn't it be worse to do so? Not exactly. If the ball thrown is bigger, this means that it can retain its mana for a longer period. Thus, instead of consistently pumping mana towards the ball in the air, Mihiro would just pump larger mana at a fixed time interval. Essentially, the choice that these two made reflects their sense of fighting style.
It could also be said that this wasn't a competition to who was stronger exactly, but which approach was better for the respective user. Instead of judging by brute force, they concluded to fight on their grounds. This was a truly beautiful showcase of skill, much to make the siblings feel that it wasn't a duel, to begin with.
In the end, Mihiro's ball lasted a few seconds longer, although the result was that as the student from the cafeteria's ball was smaller, he only got slightly wet while Mihiro got her skirt drenched. Mihiro could be seen as slightly happy that she won but the two laughed it off and shook each other's hands. They appreciated each other's ability and effort.
Rin walked away from the balcony and waved his hand at Akane, mentioning that he will go accompany Mihiro. Akane simply laughed from the sight and bid Rin goodbye.