And then the crowd roared.
"Oh my god? She actually won?"
"How can that drunkyard be that stronger than that delinquent?"
"As expected of Gildarts daughter. She might have a chance of winning this whole exam."
Halphas dissolved. Mira pushed herself up, blinking like she'd forgotten how to find the ground. She stared at her own hand.
"…No way. Other than Erza… no one should be able to…"
Kazu stepped in, gently patting her shoulder before that spiral got ugly.
"Relax. Her Destructive Interference is not real-time," he said. "She prepared for your spells. It was bad luck. With the limited time, she had the option to choose between you and Erza. Next time, you might want to think about the place before showing your spells." This was one of the important lessons a mage could get.
When a mage gets famous, many people can create countermeasures for their techniques. This was also the reason hidden cards were pretty important.
Mira swallowed hard. "…So if she faced Erza first, she'd lose?"
"Yup."
Something in her deflated—equal parts relief and bruised pride. She nodded, standing up straighter before walking off.
And, just as expected, when Cana faced Erza, the fight didn't even last five minutes. Cloth, armour, swords—Without any neutralisations, Cana couldn't keep up with Erza's pace or power. She was pushed out of the ring with a clean, merciless finish.
Gray winced. "That was… fast."
"Yeah," Cana sighed, rubbing her shoulder. "I kinda knew."
But the exam wasn't done. Not yet.
Erza stepped forward once more, stepping into the final ring where Kazu waited.
He crossed his arms. "Alright. Let's test you."
She didn't answer. She requipped in a burst of light—Heaven's Wheel Armor—and the air immediately tightened. Circular blades floated around her with rigid precision, each pointed toward Kazu like a drawn bowstring.
The first wave came instantly.
Ten swords. Straight lines. No flourish.
Kazu lifted a hand, and thin, angled barriers flared. The first five blades deflected cleanly, skidding into the dirt. The next five dissolved on impact—dissolved as soon as they touched the barrier's black, magical surface—darkness magic.
Erza didn't waste the result. She knew that Kazu had helped Mira in her training of Darkness magic and was familiar with fighting against it.
She switched armours mid-motion—Black Wing Armor—and shot forward, dark wings carving a streak through the air. Her speed spiked, her sword coated in crackling dark energy as she aimed for a diagonal cut meant to break through stationary defence.
Kazu side-stepped and redirected her momentum with a palm against her forearm, dropping a short-range barrier between them. Her blade smashed through the first layer but not the second.
She flipped back, expression tightening. "Still reading everything."
"Still repeating everything," he countered.
She didn't argue. A flash of light—Flame Empress Armour—and the temperature jumped. Fire-enchanted swords formed behind her in a ring, each one humming with enough heat to deform weaker metals.
She hurled them in volleys. Not straight lines now—curved trajectories, spirals, and overlapping angles.
He adapted quickly, firing condensed magic bullets at the spiralling attacks, breaking a path through the heat before raising multi-layered barriers against the rest. The bullets blew apart the first swords; the barriers neutralised the next.
Erza narrowed her eyes and went airborne, using the armour's fire output to push herself upward. She spun once, releasing a scorching downward strike.
Kazu didn't move.
A dome barrier expanded over his head. The blow slammed into it, flames splashing across the surface. The energy dissipated in a controlled ripple, leaving him standing in the centre, unmoved.
Erza dropped to the ground, landing hard. She already knew Flame Empress wasn't enough.
Another flash—Adamantine Armor—and the ground shook under the sudden weight of the twin shields. She charged, using the bulk of the armor to create raw force. Each slam of her shield sent vibrations through the arena, pressure strong enough to break a lesser wizard's stance.
Kazu held his ground with reinforced barriers that absorbed the impact like stone taking rain.
"You're getting predictable," he said lightly.
Erza grimaced, pushed back, and requipped again—Lightning Empress Armour. Sparks danced across her skin. She darted forward and vanished in a streak, appearing behind him with a blade already crackling in her grip.
Kazu twisted, a barrier forming just in time. Lightning exploded across its surface, scattering arcs of blue through the air. Erza didn't stop; she chained the movement into a spinning strike, then another, her footwork tighter and faster than in any fight before.
Kazu blocked each attempt, barriers shifting like transparent tiles snapping into new shapes around him.
Then Erza surprised him—her third swing wasn't a slash. It was a stab intended to lock his wrist against his own barrier. The moment it made contact, she discharged lightning directly into the barrier's feedback layer.
The barrier thinned.
Kazu blinked. "Nice."
Erza followed instantly—no gap, no hesitation. A heavy swing meant to punish the brief falter.
Kazu dodged by centimetres and reset his defences.
She stepped back, chest rising slightly, assessing. Every armour had been used with a specific angle, a specific purpose. None of them had broken him.
Kazu let the silence sit before he exhaled. "Okay. My turn."
He raised his hand, and a sharp pulse radiated outward—Destructive Interference.
Every half-formed telekinetic thread attempting to control the next set of swords—
Gone.
Not just the projectiles; even the ones still sheathed in Erza's spatial storage, which were trying to get summone, didn't get a chance to be summoned.
Erza's eyes widened. "This wasn't the range you had before."
"No." 'I have finally overcome that weakness. My range is now 300 meters. I don't need to get super close to my enemies.'
She tried to reform her telekinetic grip, quick and subtle, the way she'd practised for years. But even before the spell circle could stabilise, the magic wavered, then collapsed—Kazu's interference simply outpaced her casting.
Her eyes flicked to him—frustration, pride, and a clear acceptance of reality blended into one breath.
"…You're still growing," she said quietly. "Even after S-rank. You really don't stop."
Kazu shrugged once. "Of course. I haven't reached my peak. S-rank was just a milestone."
She let her armour fall away entirely.
Light washed over her, revealing Clear Heart Clothing—simple attire, no plating, no defence.
Her posture changed with it. No rigidity. No guard-like stance. Her shoulders loosened, her breathing evened, and her grip on her sword felt almost relaxed.
"This form has no armour to hide behind," she said. "If I want to fight you properly, it has to be like this."
"Alright. Let's do this the old way." Kazu summoned a sword of his own—a clean, straight-edged weapon.
Erza raised an eyebrow. "Requip?"
"You're surprised?"
"…Fair point." Kazu had been guiding multiple members in the guild for nearly a year. His general magic knowledge was naturally high, and he had already shown basic applications of some magic before. So, learning requip isn't that shocking.
Moreover, his speed of summoning was way slower than Erza's, showing the lack of affinity.
They closed the distance without a signal.
Their blades met with a single, sharp metallic note. No spells, no tricks, no telekinesis—just pure combat.
Kazu mirrored her footwork almost perfectly. His instincts gave him unparalleled combat intelligence. When she stepped left, he matched with the mirrored version. When she cut upward from the hip, he recreated the same arc he'd drilled into her at twelve.
Erza tightened her jaw. His instincts weren't copying her moves—they were predicting them. She wasn't unfamiliar with this. After all, she had been taught proper handling of a sword from Kazu himself.
They exchanged a flurry of strikes. Steel scraped. Dirt shifted under their feet. Kazu's eyes tracked her shoulders, her breath, the tightening of her fingers on the hilt.
He saw everything she intended the moment she intended it. That was the gap she could never close.
'He can predict all my moves. At this rate, the result would be the same as all the spars until now.' Erza frowned.
In the last few years, she had sparred with Kazu nearly a thousand times. However, she hadn't won even one spar.
It was natural, as Erza had been initially sparring to learn how to wield a sword. However, even after learning all the techniques, she still wasn't able to defeat Kazu.
It wasn't because Kazu was using different techniques or his base stats were different, but rather his use of the same techniques at different moments made him different from Erza.
She lunged again, pushing speed, pushing intensity—hard enough that dust rose with each connected blow. Kazu didn't get overwhelmed. His eyes sharpened. His sword answered hers like it knew her movements before she made them.
She forced him into a close grind, blade locked against blade. Their faces were inches apart.
"You taught me everything I know," she hissed.
"That's why I can stop you."
He pushed her back effortlessly.
***
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