1:08 p.m., Taimadou Academy, Physical Armaments Course Hall
Following the course instructor, instead of asking the students to enter through the first-floor entrance, he told them to go in through the balcony entrance. After all the students have assembled on the balcony, the instructor asked the students who wanted to go first.
The exams are taken in a way that if you have done your duel, you are free to leave and watch other classes' duel. Visitors are allowed to watch through the third entry in the balcony, which is opposite the area that leads from the second entrance.
There are pros and cons to going first or last. One pro is to scout other classes to find students with you to team up for team duels. Monthly, Taimadou has duels in many different formats. Varying from singles to four-manned duels. Making a group early will be beneficial in the long run. On the other hand, if you would like to recruit the same specialty students, perhaps going later would be better.
Generally, students tend to prefer to go first as they can leave faster. This is also the same approach as Rin as shown.
When the instructor called out to the students, Rin instantly raised his hand to volunteer. To the amusement of the other students, there was also another person who wanted to go first, which was crazy as he would be against a Hitotsu heir. The students were so scared of the title that they failed to forget that this was a physical armaments exam, where Rin wouldn't have an advantage as a Hitotsu Heir.
The unknown student and Rin looked at each other, before lightly nodding. Then, they proceeded toward the first floor of the course hall.
They walked down the stairs side-by-side, where they both looked at each other's weapons.
Rin was holding a hard-plastic blade that was black. Meanwhile, the other student was holding a pair of red gloves.
'Is he a boxer?'
This was the first perception interpreted by Rin as he could only associate a glove-wearer with a boxer. In this case, however, he wasn't wrong.
Entering the main entrance, the two areas are instantly stared at by the onlookers. The instructor approached the two and asked them.
"What type of duel would you like to engage in?"
Rin learned that the choice of a duel between the students was open to discussion. This fact could be beneficial or unbeneficial for either of the participants. Rin didn't have any ideas for a specific duel, and as such, threw the choice to the boxer across him.
Like Rin, he didn't give it much thought and passed the baton to the instructor. The instructor sighed and pulled out his tablet.
After scrolling for a while, the instructor kept his tablet.
"Let's use a similar ruleset to Fencing."
It was such a weird choice to pick, considering that Rin has the range advantage, but upon consideration, maybe it isn't as easy as he thought.
If the boxer was agile enough to bait a hit by perfectly spacing, then rush Rin, Rin would surely lose. Whiffing once with a sword can prove fatal against a melee faster, especially a speedy opponent. Additionally, this was the first time that Rin had fought a boxer considering that everyone else uses magic. When fighting mages, as mages prefer keeping their distance, he is often the one on offense, trying to close the distance whilst dodging spells. In this matchup, however, as its first hit wins, he must either go on the offense and immediately secure a hit or play defensive while abusing his range advantage.
Simply said, it is not in his comfort zone. Moreover, he has never fought this person nor has any information on his playstyle. This made Rin immediately resort to playing defensive as he was slightly scared of what antics his opponent might pull.
Resorting to his comfort zone is what Rin is used to doing. He knows it isn't exactly good, but it's the best he can do.
"The rules are simple. It will be a first to three points. The person who strikes first will get a point. To make it fairer, if Ryujin grabs Rin's blade, it isn't counted as a hit from Rin. Strikes to any part of the upper body are counted as a point. With the rules explained, shall we begin?"
The two students stood across each other at a separate distance of around three meters. It was sufficient range for the two of them to play reactionary towards the other.
Rin currently had a lot of thoughts flowing through his mind. But he had to clear his mind to ready himself for this fight.
"Three, two, one, start!"
As soon as the countdown hits zero, both students began to move back and forward by pivoting a single leg. Each of them was trying to interpret their opponent's reaction time by baiting a hit. As Rin had the range advantage, when his right foot pivoted forward, he also swung his blade down forward quickly and instantly retracted it back to its original position.
Rin held his blade two-handed, which caused him to feel that he had less mobility and couldn't kite backward if Ryujin managed to cover the distance of his blade. This made Rin not decide to swing pre-emptively too much and decided for a more passive approach: Waiting for Ryujin to approach him. Nonetheless, Rin continued to strafe forward and backward while throwing fakes in the process.
The two of them moved back and front like a pendulum ball in unison, reacting to each other's movements. However, amid strafing forward, Rin accidentally threw his blade forward slightly later than usual, which threw his tempo off. Ryujin instantly noticed this blunder and to Rin's surprise, used his foot to kick the blade upwards, causing Rin's grip on his blade to weaken and let go of the sword. From there, Ryujin easily scored the first point.
'…Will I lose this?'
Rin had clouded his thoughts unintentionally due to losing the first round. Often in a lot of scenarios, the ego of losing the first round matters in the long run. Additionally, if the second round is also lost, it is doomed from there over.
For the second round, Rin decided to change his approach. Instead of passively waiting for Ryujin to strike him, he would go on the offense.
Rin held his blade using a different stance along his right shoulder. This was a clear indication to Ryujin that he was attempting something different. Upon seeing this, Ryujin sighed. As soon as the countdown ended, Rin immediately ran forward to strike his blade at Ryujin's chest. Ryujin, predicting this from his blade's angle, punched the sword with his right glove, and turned his body to go for a left jab at Rin's stomach.
Ryujin moved very fast, which made Rin must go defensive. As Ryujin's right glove was blocking Rin's sword from his body, Rin could only block his left glove with a back-handed grip. This was not comfortable for Rin as rotating his right arm to guard his left body, made his right-side vulnerable to getting hit by Ryujin's now free right fist.
On the spur of the moment, Rin decided to employ a weird tactic, where he purposely fell to the ground. It was more like he slid downwards which allows him to firstly dodge Ryujin's left fist, and secondly, strike at his chest from a lower angle. From Rin's perspective, it was a good idea.
But unfortunately, Ryujin saw this coming due to Rin's low flexibility which made his movements considerably slow compared to Ryujin, and kicked his chest, thus scoring a second point.
The score was now 0-2, in favor of Ryujin. Rin could hear the crowd being especially noisy, which further threw him off his game. His approach should have let him win the game, which is being defensive and just fishing for hits, so why did it not work?
The third round began and after trading off blows between Ryujin's right fist and Rin's sword, Ryujin eventually secured a hit with his left fist.
An overwhelming defeat. For Rin, however, it wasn't too much to stomach, and he simply got up and thanked both Ryujin and the instructor. Ignoring the audience, he proceeded to leave the hall, wanting to see how his other friends were doing. Before he could leave…
"Hitotsu Rin, you should've stuck with your first strategy. Don't you trust in your antics?"
But Rin ignored him and left to see the other classes, seemingly have forgotten the duel even happened.