Three Houses Saga: White Clouds

Let the Lesson Begin

Ai's POV

The same mercenary that aided and trained us, Byleth Eisner, is the new professor of the Blue Lions. He stands in the middle of all the combatants, holding his wooden training sword stoically as I grip mine intensely. To my left, Sakura is attempting to calm herself before almost dropping her lance. Meanwhile to my right is our house leader, Prince Dimitri, who is looking confident yet is unsure if his skills match our professor's. Sylvain, Ingrid, and Dedue look over the entire group, while Saki continues to trash-talk Felix, who remains focused. Our teal-haired teacher begins to speak up as we continue staying in our battle-ready positions with our wooden training weapons.

"The last person standing is the winner. If you take too many hits or if you are knocked off your feet, you are eliminated. You are also allowed to yield if you feel the need to retreat. This is also practice for an upcoming mock battle between the three houses, so be sure to learn from this. Now everyone, get ready... " We all tense up, waiting for his signal. "Let the lesson begin!" he shouts while we all clash with each other.

My first opponent is Ingrid, her lance and my sword are in a power struggle causing the both of us to sweat, trying to take control. Sakura started slapping her face so she could gain focus on this large scale competition and headed for Ashe. The latter looked to be unsure of who to go for, which allowed for Sakura to deal in a blow with her wood lance. Continuing from my fight, we have a back and forth where we swing our weapons and dodge attacks consecutively until we got interrupted by Saki and Felix.

"Quit running and let me hit that face of yours!" She yells while Felix ducks under one of her punches. She lands a kick to the gut which causes Felix to stagger, but stay standing and swings his sword into Saki's hip. Sakura manages to eliminate Ashe and apologizes for the small bump on the side of his head.

"It's fine really, good luck out there! Ow..." he gives her a small grin before he clutches the bump and walks over to where Mercedes,Yugiri, and Junko are. Dedue is my next foe, his stature is intimidating to say the least, but regardless I deal one blow on him to his shoulder. I look to my right to see Ingrid overpowering Sakura before Saki rushes in and eliminates the former.

"Careful not to crack that eggshell of a head!" She tells her before running off to find Felix, who's battling Dimitri. Sakura then sighs before Sylvain accidentally bumps into her after being pushed back from blocking an attack from Byleth and falls on top of her.

"Gah, sorry about that, how about I make it up to you by buying you something in town." he says before Ingrid throws a training sword at him.

"Would have done the same thing..." I thought to myself as I parry another hit from Dedue and hit him once more, yet he remains unmoved. I look around and see only six of us remain, myself, Saki, Dimitri, Felix, Dedue, and Byleth, what a melee this has been so far. Our classmates are almost more skilled as we were, so we could learn quite a bit by studying together. I decide to face our house leader head-on, as I slash at Dimitri and he dodges. He jabs his lance forward and I move to his left, swinging the opposite way as my sword collides with his hip.

"Impressive, as I expected after hearing our professor trained you girls." He tells me.

Flattered, I compliment back "Your skills are far more impressive Your Highness, where does that power come from?".

"I have undergone quite an excruciating training regimen since I was young, so my strength is.... Well it's enough to shatter weapons as a child, though I also have my crest which sometimes doubles the amount of power I have." he answers, while parrying one of my hits.

"Crest?" that word lingers in my head before deciding to try one last time to take Dimitri down. I then see a small smile on his face before he counters my attack and knocked me to the ground. Like I told him, he's heads-and-shoulders above our current levels. He offers a hand to me and I willingly grab it, standing straight back up as I walk over to the sidelines next to Lily.

"You did great Ai! Almost in the top five!" She cheers as I give her a small smile and pat her head.

"Yeah, but now I know I have a long way to go." I say while turning my attention to Saki, who's managed to take down Dedue with two blows and a flying kick.

"Hah! Bring it on you three, I've beaten dozens of punks in rumbles before!" she boasts before dodging Felix's sword.

"If you'd learned how to stop being so loud, then I would be more impressed. I'll just strike you down quickly before taking down the professor and that Boar." his second swing manages to land before he sticks his sword out towards Saki's neck.

"Tch... HAAA!" she yells jumping away from him and throwing a strong punch towards his face.

He ducks, aims for her legs, and sweeps both of them causing her to fall to the ground."Hmph, too slow." he states as he looks down on her, prompting her to try and rush at him, before I drag her over to the elimination corner.

"YOU FREAKING–" she starts cursing him out while I block both my ears and continue watching the three remaining fighters. Compared to the rest of the class, it seems like they're at the top of the mountain, which means improvement is necessary in order to keep up. It's just like the idol business, we have to continue getting better if we want to be on top.

"Wow, they're really going at it..." Junko, amazed at what we're witnessing tells us.

"Indeed, we'll definitely need more training as the year goes on...", Ashe agrees observing them,

"There's also going to be a mock battle soon, probably to prepare us for the Battle of the Eagle and Lion during the Wyvern Moon..."

"Battle of the Eagle and Lion?" I ask him.

Dedue steps in to inform us, "It's a large mock battle between the three houses named after the battle where the Kingdom of Faerghus split off from the Adrestian Empire many years ago. It's a great showcase of what each class had learned over the course of the year." As Byleth manages to outmaneuver Felix and eliminate him, Saki laughs at him while he grumbles to himself, sitting in the middle of Ingrid and Sylvain.

"Well at least you got to challenge him, right?" Sylvain attempts to cheer up his friend.

Annoyed, Felix rolls his eyes and tells him, "Shut up, if it were a one on one sparring session it would have been evenly matched." Ingrid shakes her head, embarrassed at her childhood friends. We look as Byleth and Dimitri continue to clash, neither one of them are letting up as the battle nears its end. Our classmates cheered them on, though none of us knew who was going to win. We finally witness the two of them in a power struggle, sword vs lance, where it continues to look even until something unexpected happens. One of Byleth's hands starts glowing and it allows him to take control and overpower Dimitri, incredible!

"Hm, it seems as though I am the winner. You all did well today, and I look forward to the coming year. You are all dismissed, see you in class." our professor says before turning to walk back to his room. Just what was that light emanating from his hand? We all put away the training weapons and headed to the dining hall for dinner. Once again the food was extravagant, we just had to indulge with how good everything was, and the fact that we had just experienced a battle royale made it taste even better. We also had some fun conversations with the rest of our classmates, makes me hope that these bonds will be strong, despite us continuing to hide our secret. Afterwards we all walked back to our separate rooms, Tae started to curl up on the cushions laid out on the floor. Before walking inside our room I see Byleth having a conversation with someone... from behind a door? Whoever it was he was talking to probably wasn't very social. I shake my head before I head inside the dorm and change into my pajamas.

"Good night Tae." I say and she moans in response before falling asleep. I laid down on my bed with all these thoughts still lingering.... Battle of the Eagle and Lion, crests, improving my skills, the Kingdom and the Empire... I'm sure it'll all become clearer as time goes on. Oof, what a day! I wonder what lesson plan our professor has for us, and what assignments will we have to complete over the year... well as long as we're all still together I'm sure we'll handle it.

END OF CHAPTER 8

"I am Ferdinand von Aegir" count x1 (no change)