J.ade, A.ir D.efying E.lementalist

XXII:Buried Stories

Chapter 22 - Buried Stories

Whistles and claps echoes around the room. Everyone is jumping and cheering for the two duelers in the middle of the duel room. The fight is intense, It is Julia versus a very big Rounin guy. However, the guy is not a Rounin from our batch. I think he is two years earlier from ours. Which is unfair if you ask me, the boy has got way more experience than Julia it's also an added plus that he is a boy.

"What is Julia's element?" Gale asks from behind me.

"Right. Speaking of that, I don't know," I reply, my eyes still glued on the battle. It's the last day of the week, and everyone is dismissed two hours earlier.

We've been here for three weeks now. The quirks and the rules of this school is already a little familiar to us. Rounins and gifteds are separated, Rounins having more subjects and trainings than gifteds.

The main building has four sub-main rooms. The dorm rooms for both gifted and Rounins, the mess hall, the duel room and the anteroom. The second and third building is where the classes are resumed. The whole school have a special defensive barrier that will keep intruders out. And individually, there are types of magic to contain the student's elements except when they are engaged in a duel.

Almost everything is done here by the student body as a whole. Breakfast, dinner and lunch is served for all students in the mess hall everyday. Extracurricular activities are also set so that gifteds and Rounins can be on the same team. In short, the school promotes a harmonized and mutual relationship between all of the students. Rounin or not.

My mental babble is interrupted by Gale nudging my shoulder. He is still waiting for an answer. Since I don't know myself, I give him a hesitant one, "She uses uh, Fire?" There's really no way to know. The two duelers just appears like whirrs of a fast spinning gear. 

"Fire? Really?" he inquires.

"I told you, I don't know. There's a significant red thing awhile ago that's why I guessed fire," I explain. Suddenly, an explosion of red and green made the dome light between the duelers fade.

Genuine fear ripples through my body. What happened? I'm sure everyone within that explosion will be burned.

However, I am wrong. Because when the smoke dissipitated it revealed that everyone within the radius of the explosion is safe, like it was just a mirage and nothing really happened.

"What happened?" I ask Gale.

Gale doesn't reply. Clearly, he is confused too.

"Nyle Ryver and Julia Yma duel over. Result: Julia."

A robotic voice slashes the silence that engulfed the room. Then, after a fraction of a second, everyone started cheering.

"Amazing!" Chesca marvels at the two duelers. They were still standing across from each other. They didn't make a single move, even when almost everyone surrounding them is jumping like crazy.

From my direction, you can see Julia's ragged deep breaths and Nyle's steady slow breathing. It was like Nyle is not tired at all. I go back on observing them, their blank expressionless face are staring at each other. Between them radiates an almost tangible intense atmosphere. I can almost feel it from the bleachers approximately thirty meters away from them.

"Hey, they don't look okay," I tell Jay, who is sitting beside me. I still feel a little dazed because of what I've seen.

"Huh? They look fine to me," he answers, not looking at them at all. He continues to read a book so thick it's freaky. I scoff and then turn to Chesca.