"I challenge you to a duel. " A green haired elf says as he points his blade at asta. Asta looks at him all baffled and then to the crowd gathered beside around them as he mutters to himself "How did we even get here? "
-Flashback, 1 hour ago-
"Welcome you pampered pieces of ****s and hopeless fools. I hope you are ready to face hell because no living being will help your as*** here." Yami? Says as he looks down upon the disorganised brats in front of him.
This is the practical combat classes where the students are supposed to fight against eachother and illusions of previous students. Yami? Is their acting instructor and is stating the harsh truth everyone would have accept eventually. There is no escape.
A buttload of physical excises one after another right away while anybody who fails was to have weights added until they fainted. While most were crying from the absurd amount of workout, asta and many others were made to ensure with thrice the weights and restrictions.
"Be like that guy over there, unlike you chumps he is treating this like a good workout. Surpass your limits you stupid wastes of space." Yami? Says as he kicks away another snobby brat onto the ground while smoking his cigrette.
"I guess somethings don't change, through I think his old name was better. What does yamata kyosenshi even mean?" Asta says as he stands at the finish line with five times the weight a normal student has.magna walks in from behind and instantly sprawls onto the ground like a turtle.
"How do you even do this? I can't even walk straight." He complains while gasping for breath, asta gives him a pat on the back and points at himself with a thumbs up as he says "You just gotta make it a hobby, then it's all just repetative work."
"Easy for you to say. It's always your recklessness that made you that hunk of muscle." Magna scoffs and stands up as wipes away dust from his face, asta just shoke his head and begins running again while laughing.
"Enough.. now that warm up is done let's get you stinking brats some combat experience." Yamata says as he gestures for everyone to remove their weights and led them to a open field with a bunch of wooden weapons in racks. He just asked a student to take everyone to choose a partner for sparing while he excuses himself away and straight onto a nearby chair.
" I as the honourable protector of the world tree woul- " "Stop your yapping, magna let's go get some training." Asta interrupts the monologue of a elven noble whose face distorts to a ugly expression as he points his sword at asta in rage. "I challenge you to a duel." He says to asta and looks around all pridefully.
-Back to the present-
The elf noble is now sparwled onto the ground with his face planted into the ground, the punk was acting all cocky with stage 1 ki and magic and basically got one-shot by asta. From the side another elf with navy coloured hair walks in and looks at the noble with disgust "Useless. Don't go around lowering the prestige of us elves if you can't even fight properly." He spat at the elf before delivering a swift kick to the grounded elf's bum.
" You really hurt the ego of those elves, would giving him a chance to fight back had lowered your reputation or something?" Gless walks to asta who seems to be helping Magna with his swinging movements and some ki control. Asta turns to him with a stoic face and says "Are you sure he is fighter? Who the hell shows his back to the enemy willingly in a fight?" "But still maybe 2 hits would have atleast saved him some public respect." Gless tries to have asta understand the difference in pride for a noble and a fighter.
"Why are you going around all dilly sally about this pride? He should happy he didn't die from that hit." Magna says as he grasps his bat and swings at asta who dodges again and hit him straight at the elbow, " I told you to stop just swinging it like a madman, you can't even control it mid swing." Asta says as magna finally faints from exhaustion.
"Wanna have a spare?" Asta asks gless who almost jumped away in fear like a cat as asta grabbed Magna and dragged him to the side. "S-Sure." He quickly brings out his rapier and walked into the fighting ring.
The crowd gathered around them while whispers of a spare between two rankers spread around the class, even Yamata himself walked closer and looked at them.
" That grey haired kid looks familiar for some reason. That name fells somewhat nostalgic." " Because you know him captain " Magna comes from the side and offers yamata a load of bread.
"Know him? And what do you mean by captain you brat? Do I look like a sport couch to you?" Asta says as he grabs Magna by the head like a pineapple. Magna laughs at the nostalgic scene and hands Yami a literal 2 page documentary.
"You expect me to read this ****? What even is this crap?" Yamata says he uses the papers as a fan while his eyes turns cold towards magna. "It will help you with the dreams." Magna says while trying to remove Yamata's grip and suddenly falls face first.
Meanwhile Asta and Gless are going face to face, asta is using a wooden shortspear like his Phantom while gless is using a wooden rapier. Asta uses the range of the spear to his advantage and deflects Gless's attacks before they reach him and twirls the spear around and gathering momentum, gless however is focusing on finding opening in asta's defence while maintaining a safe distance.
Just as asta swings the spear, gless ducks and quickly rushes in, the rapier aimed at asta's neck only for him to see the spear's butt coming at him and barely dodges a hit to the face, after a onslaught of exchanges between them asta managed a hit in Gless's chest with the spear's butt and then managed to disarm the moment his lungs lost their air and just to make sure aims the sharps side at Gless's neck while kicking the rapier away.
"You won. " Gless says as he slowly gets up, asta gives him a hand and helps him stand while from the corner of his eye he sees Magna talking to yamata in the distance just like he told him to. They shake eachother's hand as they go to different directions and rest.
"I need to train harder, this training barely put a pinch in this.. new body." Asta says after chugs down a bottle of water and leaves to the side. He brings out Goliath and increased the size threefold and begins swinging it around in a variety of techniques like swirling it and using himself as a spring to quickly rotate it's blunt side with the edges, etc. after a few minutes he puts on some weights and begins using the sword without grabbing it like the way he used it as travelling board while he uses Mugen and practiced some quickdraw techniques he saw yami use against dante once.
-Somewhere on the other side of academy, inside 2nd year's building-
"Does your words make any sense? Hidden memories from a past life is something nobody understands. Did you hit your head somewhere Silis? I know starias are not really the smartest family but delusions are too much." "We should get you checked up to see if there is any spirit cursing you or something." Klaus? And Mimosa? Ask as they look at their former teammate telling them about what their past lifes were like.
Clutching her hand as her patience slowly dwindled, Sol stopped trying to convince them and begins " I am Completely fine okay? You guys always told me about those wierd dreams too didn't you?"
"How does that even connect to past li-" as Mimosa? Says Klaus? Stops her looks at sol. " Those dreams are the memories? You have any proof? " Klaus? Says as he looks at Sol with a cautious expression while Mimosa munches on a piece of fruit bread.
"I do, i regained mine yesterday and someone who remembers almost everything is gathering his past friends again." Sol says with grin to mimosa?, completely ignoring Klaus?, his nerves bulges towards new annoyance in personality Sol just had acquired.
"Um..you mean we will regain ours too? What is it like on your side?" Mimosa? Asks as small furred ears on her head twitch. "You remember that guy that ranked one among the first years? Apparently he is one and he even got me Names for a whole bunch of your past buds. You will regain memories related to all those whose name you learn." Sol replies as she puts a small list on containing about 25 something names onto the table.
Both of them read and memorized the list while sol quickly finished her meal and says "Should we go look at that guy? Maybe mimosa will remember him.", "Who is mimosa?" Mimosa? Asks in confusion that slightly annoyed Sol but she put it away and asked them to tag along and together they flew their way on their brooms to training grounds of first year students.
-back to asta-
Asta is currently training in ki under tutorage of a 7 feet tall orc named tenoch with barbaric clothing made from monster flesh and a giant axe on his back, they are to endure inside a strong water stream and constantly use their ki to stabilize themselves and when they run out then they had to spare bare handed among themselves while the orc corrects their posture and occasionally gives them a smack on head to bring them back to reality.
Unlike others, asta was given the training for reaching stage 4 which includes practicing combat against a iron pillar under a water fall and using ki to act as dividing force so he can fight while reducing drag and friction from air and water to minimum.
After over exerting his ki, asta was then forced to meditate under the same waterfall. Tenoch looks at him far away and shakes his head in disappointment and mumbles to himself " a shame, that kid good but he too stable. He forcing the ki but that don't work." He slowly walks towards asta which asta immediately notices and opens his eyes.
"Any problem teach?" "You done good. But you using it wrong, the ki a organ but you using it as magic. See me." Tenoch says takes a fighting stance, his right knee is bended and his arms are raised into two palms in front of his chest.
He attacks with his left hand and his ki and an large area of water was blasted away to reveal a sphere momentarily, "that how you using it, now look." He again attacks with his left hand but this time shape was not a sphere but rather a fist followed by a claw shape. Asta looks at him stunned as during his time in land of sun asta was always advised to focus making the ki obey his will.
Tenoch turns to him says "Stage 4 need more than force, you are just gathering and releasing but stage 4 need you control no ki but flow, make a flow that follow you and the ki will obey like river.", after saying his words tenoch again left to attend to the others.
Asta looks at his ki and slowly watches the way tenoch moved his ki again and again in his mind. He stands up and takes a stance but instead of releasing ki like stable tap water, he tried to make way for his ki and failed many times. Sometimes the ki just wouldn't follow without effort or the flow was so weak it couldn't even stop the water.
From somewhere distance away Sol and other two are looking at the first years with a binoculars, they search around and soon Klaus? says "grey hair like yours and same in height right? I see some guy like that under the waterfall, God damn!! he is too ripped for a 15 year old." His expression one of envy as he hands the binoculars to Mimosa? and Sol who look through with one eye each.
"He.. seems familiar." Mimosa? Says as a small tint of red appears on her cheeks while Sol is looking with a hint of shock, 'Damn. I couldn't realise just how chiseled those muscles look under the vest.. with that body he would be-.. no stop it sol, you must never trust men." Sol thinks in her mind as she wipes away her saliva and forcefully stops her thoughts. Something that doesn't go unnoticed by Klaus?
They watch as he again and again tries to punch the pillar inside the waterfall until sometime later he feels back onto the ground but quickly sat and begins meditating.
Just as they were watching, soon the instructor ended the class and everyone was called back to the building for an hour of free time while Klaus? Dragged the other two back to their campus for next classes despite their constant struggle to keep looking.