Lime Zenith was called up to the arena.
"I'll be going now Eiji!"
"Hmm! Good luck!"
"Okay! Thanks!"
Lime smiled.
She was a beautiful girl to begin with and coupled with her white silvery hair, she was stunning when she smiled.
But Eiji, who always sees that everyday just nodded at her.
Lime walked towards one of the arena.
Her opponent was a civilian boy from the 5th section, called Smok Igpit.
Smok walked in the arena with his wooden katana with vigilance in his eyes.
At first, he was happy that his opponent was a girl, but the moment that her last name was called, he was now very wary!
'She's From the Zenith Clan!'
Smok looked at Lime with a frown.
His strength in his class was just a bit above average. He could do most things, but couldn't really excel in one.
He was what you call a jack of all trades yet master of none.
"Bow!"
Lime and Smoke bowed to each other.
"Ready!"
Then they positioned their wooden katana.
"Start!!!"
Yet no one moved when the teacher said start.
Well it was what the kids always do though, especially to those that were afraid of their opponents.
And at this arena Smok was the one that was afraid!
And this made him too nervous to react towards Lime as she readied to attack.
*Swooooshh!!!!
Lime rushed forward to attack!
*Swiishh!!
Slashing her wooden katana towards Smok trying to end it, it one go!
*Paakk!!!
Smok was woken up when he saw the wooden katana and managed to barely parry it with his own.
*Swiish!
But with Lime's momentum, she kept pressing on and on!
*Swiishh!
Swoosh!
Bam!
Until finally he was hit by a slash in his stomach!
He couldn't get up and the teacher helped him as he called the another teacher to attend to him. Then shouted the winner of the match.
"Winner, Lime Zenith!"
"Yeesss!!!"
The once shy girl in the past is now happily shouting and raising her hand in the arena with hundreds of eyes watching her.
Eiji smiled at her when she gave him a peace sign in her fingers.
Lime walked down the arena.
As she stepped down the stairs, the next name was called.
"Next Match, Herald Zenith! Versus Huna Ama!"
"What a pathetic display of swordsmanship, all brawns and no finess or technique whatsoever!"
When they both crossed, the boy named Herald, with the same last name as her, suddenly told Lime about her performance in the match.
Lime's cheerful appearance vanished and she lowered her head.
Her Step Brother Herald hates her. More like everybody in the clan hates her.
They hate her for being a bastard child from her father.
Her mother died when she was still a baby and didn't even know what her face looked like.
Her mother was just a servant at the Zenith clan, and they told her, that her mother seduced the clan head and made him ro promise her into becoming one of his concubines.
At that time, the wife of the patriarch managed to know what happened.
And she was in a fit of rage!
She was already pregnant with Herald at that time, and so they couldn't do anything intimate from the bed for months, but she was angry that he stoop so low that he messed around with a servant!
It would cause them to lose face and become a laughing stock in the whole kingdom!
In the end though, they still made her mother a concubine, but she died shortly after giving birth to her.
And so, since she was a child till now, she was shunned by her clansmen and even the servants, as because of her mother, the Matriarch of the clan kept a close eye to them and made a fuss to every single mistake they made.
This made the little girl lonely and afraid of her own family, and clansmen.
But when she went to school, everything changed, people didn't know or cared if she was a child of a servant.
They didn't care that she wasn't as talented in terms of swordsmanship with his step brother.
They were just fine talking and playing with her.
And just like that, she managed to find her smile albeit only when she is with her friends.
And now hearing Herald's words, her joy from winning her first opponent was gone and replaced by shame and frustrations.
She didn't say anything and just walked back to her seat.
Eiji saw what happened.
In fact, he had already known Lime's family circumstances for a very long time now when she once shared it with him, her unvented feelings of frustrations for her clan.
There was also that one incident in their 3rd grade when they saw Lime being slapped by Herald in the face in their classroom when it was lunch time.
The reason for that was just because Lime forgot to put his lunch in his bag and now he didn't have one.
At that time all of their friends was angered by Herald and went up to defend her.
But, all of them were beaten up one sidedly!
And they had their wooden katana with them!
Herald beat them up with his sheer physical strength and hand to hand combat abilities!
Eiji was shielding Lime at that time and didn't fight with Herald, but when he saw what happened he knew that Herald is very very strong!
And according to the Sword Sheaths information they have gathered, Herald was the top 1 one the first section!
The first section only consist of 10 students!
These students are at the top of the top! The absolute best when it comes to their ki reserves, physical abilities and intelligence!
And he alone stood at that top and dominated his class.
Although Eiji managed to win the 1st spot of the academics a few times, he was only always ahead of him by one point.
This one point was deducted when he argued with his teacher to just not make him take the written exams as he said that it was pointless as he knew it even before coming into the school!
He have been doing this since he came to the school and at first the teacher tried to calm him down but he insisted that he wants to just take all the exams in the next years as a first grader kid!
It was ridiculous, but he had the ability to do so, but the school still decided against it.
So Herald always complained every written exams, and the teachers just deducts a point from him.
End Of Chapter.