"The deal was for the loser to owe the winner two favors," Gracian finally said after staring Theo down for what had to be a good two minutes. "Call me scum if you wish, but we've never agreed on what favors they would be."
Theo squinted his eyes.
Before, Gracian emanated the aura of power, the overwhelming might allowing the man to seemingly crush everything stupid or unfortunate enough to stand in his path. Right now, however, his expression, the look in his eyes…
The look in his eyes didn't match his words. His voice, in fact, didn't match his words either, with how full of hidden tension it was for it to be Gracian's mere attempt to wiggle himself free of the responsibility.
"What is it that you are trying to say, Senior?" Still respectful, Theo decided to dig a little bit deeper.
By the disjointed features of his face, voice, and words, he could tell Gracian's didn't match his true intentions. Yet, for some reason, he still decided to use just those specific words.
'Is it because of the people…?' Theo cast a quick glance around the sparse crowd, noticing their tense faces as they all awaited with great anticipation just how this conflict would resolve itself. And while there was one or maybe two cadets who genuinely sympathized with Theo and now showed looks of concern… The rest of them, simply hoped for Gracian to put Theo back in his rightful place.
'Stay mediocre and no one will bat an eye on you. Take one step ahead, and everyone will peck you to death,' Theo thought, releasing a short sigh. 'Is it a good thing for people to be pretty much the same as they were back on earth, I wonder…'
"If you want me to teach you," Gracian finally spoke again, only to bring his sword down and insert its tip into the ground just deep enough, for the weapon to give him some support as he leaned forward, "you need to first prove you are worth wasting two weeks of my life for."
The young man then smiled before switching to lean over to the back so far, he could remain upright only by holding on to his now entrenched sword.
"That punch, for how clever it was," Gracian nodded his head as he once again praised Theo's feat, "obviously doesn't count."
The next part, Gracian didn't even bother opening his mouth to communicate, opting to just turn his eyes and lock them on Theo's discarded sword before moving them back to Theo's face and then just… staring him down with an intense, empty smile.
"If that's all that it takes," Theo muttered, only to move up to where his sword ended up dropping and pick it up. He then moved right back to where he came from before assuming a proper dueling stance with his legs firmly on the ground, just a bit wider than his hips, allowing him to properly lock his center of weight in place.
The art of reading people was one of the many non-classified skills that Theo obtained in his bid to match up to his friends. A skill that allowed him to better haggle during the supply runs, read more into the quests offered or even have an easier time discerning truth from lies during an investigation.
The problem with this skill, however, was just how much the target's state of mind would affect the outcome.
Normally, just by remaining calm, one could render their emotions and thoughts invisible to self-taught empaths like Theo. Heck, reading one's opponent was one of the major aspects of pretty much every classified field, be it magic or weapon-related. This made the ability not to let themselves be an easy read one of the basics for those who stepped into the realm of masters.
Which was exactly why Theo continued to shake his target's emotions, from the audacious bet, through all the provocations and confusion he inflicted upon his poor victim, all the way to his recent remark.
And now, he could see that for all that Gracian said thus far… His senior had absolutely no intent of letting this opportunity slip from his grasp.
'He fell for it,' Theo nearly smiled. 'Well, looking at it from a certain perspective, my warning is indeed prophetic, so I can't even claim to be scamming him, but…'
"Stand!"
Paying no attention to Theo's thoughts, Gracian plucked his sword from the ground before assuming the dueling stance himself, foregoing the usual steady position in favor of a side-ways half-lunge, holding his sword slightly behind the centerline of his body, ready to lunge forth at the first given opportunity.
'Isn't it weird for a seventh rank to so easily fall prey to such a simple suggestion?'
Whatever the answer to that question was… It had to wait.
As soon as Gracian shouted his order, Theo raised the middle point of his sword to his forehead in a salute before swinging the blade down and changing his stance to a more defensive and reaction-oriented one.
'Now.'
But a single instant before Gracian moved, his muscles shifted a bit. And the next thing Theo knew, was his senior suddenly appearing just a step away, his sword already bearing down upon his head.
'Well, I expected this would happen too,' he thought, gently shifting his body as he raised his sword and struck Gracian's blade just hard enough to push it off course, to a trajectory beyond the limits of his chest and arms.
The world suddenly turned black.
Theo's vision only came back when his entire body filled with stifling pain radiating from a seemingly random point low on his back.
'Did I feel on a stone or something?' he thought, struggling to get up from the ground where he - before he could even take note - ended up. Theo reached underneath his back and then, surely enough, pulled out a jagged stone that unfortunately just so happened to protrude from the ground right at the spot Theo fell down too.
"Why did you take the hit just now?" Gracian asked, casually standing a few meters away with a bright expression all over his face, pretending to be inspecting the state of his impeccably cut fingernails.
Theo squinted his eyes, his thoughts racing through his head as he rushed to guesstimate what answer his senior was likely to be looking for.
"It's because I was too slow to both raise and then reinforce my guard."
'It's because this body can't quite catch up to the speed of my thoughts just yet,' he thought to himself as he omitted quite a lot of other details he could point to as culprits for his failure.
"Wrong!" Gracian shouted out, only to shake his head in disappointment before standing right back in the same, aggressive stance as before. "Again!"
'Is this how you are going to play this?' Theo thought, taking in a deep breath… and then picking up his sword again, only to return to his original spot and ready himself for the next bout.
"Again!" Gracian smirked, "And if you want to teach me, then you better figure out the proper answer before I will be ready to leave!"