In the arena.
Nichole clutched her eye, which was bleeding profusely.
"This brat..I'll tear you to pieces, crush your bones into powder, and refine them into pearls!"
Ciel twirled a dagger in his fingers, the blood from Nichole blending into it seamlessly.
"Whoa whoa whoa, why so vicious at a young age?"
Theresa floated around him.
/The one who slashed her eye shouldn't be talking right now./
'Was refining bodies into jewelry a new trend for young ladies? Ah, but bones are indeed pretty when polished.'
As Ciel ignored his sister, he felt a chill run through him. Ducking his head, he swung his dagger upwards.
"Ah!"
Elaine hadn't expected Ciel's counterattack and failed to dodge. Looking at the two girls standing side by side but only having a total of two functional eyes, Ciel smiled.
Great, the twins were matching again.
Glaring at him, Elaine lifted her staff, and their wounds slowly froze over.
'The f*ck?'
Ciel felt a bit tired. His mana was running out, and he had been using it conservatively, so what kind of cheat did their mother equip them with?
Erin noticed his pale complexion.
"Want some of my mana?"
He didn't know how to use it properly anyway.
Ciel shook his head.
"I'm afraid your inexperienced manipulation will let my body explode. I'll be fine, let's end this quickly before they regain their mobility."
Reaching into his bag, Ciel threw out his pre-prepared vials of blood.
With a snap of his fingers, the blood vials burst with a resounding 'Boom!'
Feeling the weakness of overdrawing his mana again, Ciel plopped down, Theresa circling around him.
/This idiot! You definitely overdid it again! I can see Lilian getting mad on the stands over there!/
The scale of this explosion was a lot larger due to more mana being infused into the blood. If not both, at least one twin should be blasted out, and the remaining one should be injured, leaving her easy pickings for Erin and Cedric.
—It had to be said that these two boys with adult minds had no shame at all in ganging up on two girls.
However, the expected outcome was not shown.
Out of the bloody mist left by the explosion came a large water spear, striking Ciel with precision—or rather, it was so large that he lacked enough time to dodge.
Reacting quickly, Erin grabbed his collar before Ciel was thrown outside the arena.
"Cough cough cough!"
Spitting out blood tinted water, Ciel quickly withdrew whatever blood he had left back inside his body. He called that oval shaped blob of water a water spear, but it felt more like a large boulder had crashed into him, dispersing most of the blood he had been controlling outside of his body.
Though he had lost more blood than he could handle, Ciel was chuckling quietly.
If it were before, there would have been two water spears.
Erin helped Ciel sit down.
"They're getting tired."
Ciel nodded, watching the bloody mist slowly dissipate.
"Looks like this older sister is quite heartless."
/Seconded./
"Like mine."
/Second—wait what?/
Ciel chuckled, rubbing his ring.
The bloody mist had cleared, leaving the sitting Nichole exposed, with Elaine unconscious and bleeding in her arms, and a large gash in her stomach. Broken ice littered the ground around them, but Nichole was completely unharmed—minus the eye.
It was evident what had happened.
Nichole let go of Elaine's neck, and her younger sister's unconscious body softly slumped to the side.
Mana started gathering crazily above Nichole as she staggered up, her eyes bloodshot.
One of her pigtails had come undone, spilling blood-stained curls down her shoulders. Her sea green eyes seemed to glow with a crazy light as Nichole tilted her head to the side.
"Just a commoner child, you dare do this to us?"
Ignoring her, Ciel turned to Erin.
"Well, you're not gonna let her finish gathering her mana are you?"
Having been his elder sister for a lifetime, Theresa was well-versed in Ciel's behavior.
/Big brother, hurry up. Our youngest is about to faint!/
Erin sighed, wrapping his whip around his waist and taking out his gun.
"I know, I know."
Instead of using the sword the proper way, he threw it in a swift motion.
–Cling!
It bounced off of an ice shield.
In silence, both boys looked behind Nichole. Elaine, who had just propped herself up using her staff, slowly slumped down.
"Persistent cockroach."
Ciel reached into his jacket, and took out two guns from his space ring. Handing one to Erin, he quickly fired a few shots.
Elaine's body twitched a few times, but this time, even if she wanted to, she would be unable to form an ice shield again.
—After all, for beginner mages like her, hands were an important part of utilizing mana. Having a hole in them would seriously disrupt the performance of magic.
Ciel watched the swirling amounts of mana solidifying in Nichole's hands, her gaze getting prouder, with no regard to her twin slumped down on the side.
"Hurry up, don't let her finish."
Erin dutifully
In the stands, Cedric tried to pull Dominic's hands off his eyes.
"Don't block my view, I've seen things like this in my own duels!"
"Your opponents were nobles with blades, not like our mage friends here using bombs and mana guns."
Dominic watched the blood scattered field with a complicated look in his eyes.
Unlike the more mana based Acyuta Empire, his Anatol preferred using the aura system—mainly because of heavy discrimination against eves, who had a natural advantage using mana.
…But were mage duels always this brutal?
How come he just remembered them as a bunch of flashy lights when watching them as a child???
Cedric grunted, finally prying Dominic's hands off his face.
"I feel that our roles are reversed somehow…"
But just as he opened his eyes, Dominic had diligently closed the curtains to the box they were in, spun Cedric's body around, and pushed him out into the hallway.
"No need to look, we've won. Let's go out and congratulate them."
By the time they arrived at the arena, he hoped that the sand should have been washed clean.
Sadly, though he had tried his best to delay their arrival, the sand was still stained a bloody red, with bits of flesh from the twins still scattered here and there from the brothers' bullets.
Standing in front of the two sisters who were being carried away on a stretch, Ciel waved cheerfully, the blood on his pale face a direct contrast to his bright smile.
"My prince! Cedric! We won!"
Erin, feeling that the blood on his brother's face was ruining the scene a little, tried to wipe the blood off with his sleeve, only to get more blood on Ciel's face.
Like two puppies.
Watching them, Dominic smiled.
How come he hadn't noticed these two were so cute before?
"You guys have worked hard. Thank you."
Erin took the handkerchief given by Cedric and finally wiped Ciel's face clean.
"There's no need for thanks between us. You're our prince, this is what we should do."
"But we wouldn't reject any appreciation gifts~"
With Ciel's hint, Dominic remembered what he had said before the duel, his smile towards the two becoming more sincere.
"Of course!"
For him, it had already been hard to find even one Cedric. So with these two handing themselves over on a silver platter—and with such sincerity too—how could he reject them?