"All right, Trafalgar," Xavier said, voice lower now. "Now I’m done warming up."

The mana behind him thickened and folded into shape.

A second figure stepped out of that red-gold distortion, translucent at first, until the outline hardened into a familiar form. Same height, spear and face as last time, though emptier somehow, as if memory had been carved into a body and told to fight.

Trafalgar’s grip tightened on Maledicta.

"At last," he said.

Xavier’s mouth curved. "You were waiting for him?"

"I was waiting for you to stop playing."

That earned him a short laugh, but Xavier did not answer with words. He moved with the brother at the same instant, both spears cutting through the field from opposite angles, one real, one echo, both carrying enough precision to punish hesitation.

Trafalgar gave them none.

Steel rang once. Twice. Maledicta turned aside Xavier’s thrust, slid down the shaft, and snapped back toward the brother’s wrist. The echo withdrew a fraction faster than expected, spearhead flashing toward Trafalgar’s throat while Xavier came low for the ribs.

Maledicta rose. The real strike missed by inches. The second was diverted at the last possible instant.

The pressure on the field changed immediately. Earlier, Xavier had been dangerous. This was different. Brother and bearer moved with the same rhythm, not identical, but close enough to force the space around Trafalgar into something narrow and unpleasant.

Xavier grinned from behind the shaft of his spear.

"You remember now, right?"

Trafalgar did not waste breath.

The brother thrust high. Xavier came in from the side. Trafalgar broke the line with [Crosswind Edge], forcing both to separate for a heartbeat, and used that sliver of room to drive [Arc Slash] across the center of the field. The dark-blue wave tore toward them. Xavier twisted clear. The brother took it half-on and flickered, his body shuddering before pulling itself back together.

Xavier caught that much from his expression and laughed.

"That one hurt him, didn’t it? Try it again. I want to see how many it takes."

The brother rushed first this time. Xavier followed a beat later, using that tiny delay to make the second line harder to read. Trafalgar met the echo head-on. Maledicta smashed the spear aside, turned, and cut for the torso. The brother caught the blow late, barely preserving his shape.

Xavier’s real spear arrived at Trafalgar’s back in the same breath.

[Severance Step]

Mana curved beneath his feet. Trafalgar vanished from the trap and reappeared outside their crossing lines, black blade already moving. [Severing Fang] burst from Maledicta in a brutal diagonal arc that split the ground between Xavier and his brother. Stone ripped open. Dust and fragments shot outward. The brother’s shoulder came apart in a burst of unstable light before reforming again, slower this time.

Xavier slid along the edge of the fractured line and planted his spear.

"Now that’s the version of you I wanted."

Trafalgar’s expression did not change.

That seemed to amuse Xavier more than any taunt would have. He rolled his neck, exhaled once, and the mana at his back surged again.

"You aren’t the only one who brought something better."

The field darkened under a broad moving shadow.

Another distortion tore itself open behind him, larger and far uglier than the first. It rose on four legs, each thick as a pillar, its body built like a predator that had forgotten restraint somewhere in its growth. The thing resembled a lion at a glance, if lions could be forged out of war and bone. A heavy mane of translucent plates framed its neck. Horns curved from the skull. Its paws hit the stone with enough weight to make the runes hum.

The crowd around the field recoiled as one.

Xavier’s grin returned, smaller now, edged with pride.

"You said you wanted me to surprise you."

Trafalgar studied the beast for a single breath and shifted his stance.

The brother moved again. The beast lunged with him. Xavier came last, spear held low, waiting for whichever opening the other two tore first.

Three lines.

One body.

The horned beast hit the field like a thrown boulder. Trafalgar slid aside before the charge could crush straight through him, but the shock of its landing cracked the stone and spoiled the angle he wanted. The brother’s spear shot in at once. Xavier’s followed from the other side.

Maledicta became a black blur.

One clash near the chest. A second at shoulder height. The third cut low, opening the beast’s foreleg enough to spill shards of unstable light across the platform. The creature did not slow. It twisted on its damaged limb and swung with a claw broad enough to pulp a normal first year.

Trafalgar ducked under it and answered with [Earthsplitter].

Mana and weight poured into the downward cleave. Maledicta crashed into the stone beneath the beast and the whole field convulsed. A brutal shockwave rose through the platform. The horned echo staggered, front half lifted for an instant by the force. The brother flickered beside it. Xavier had to leap back to keep his footing.

Dust swallowed the center of the field.

Trafalgar moved inside it.

The brother found him first. Of course he did. Spear and sword met in the cloud with a hard crack that burst the dust apart between them. Trafalgar cut once, twice, and drove the echo backward. It tried to circle. He denied it the space.

[Severing Fang]

The diagonal pressure slash tore clean through the brother’s chest.

This time the echo did not recover. Its form broke from the center outward, spear dissolving first, torso next, until the whole figure shattered into scattered motes of red-gold light and vanished.

One down.

The horned beast roared without sound and came from the left, jaws wide, plated mane flaring as Xavier thrust from the opposite side, trying to turn Trafalgar into the point where both attacks met.

He did not retreat.

[Morgain’s Requiem]

Black mana unfurled around Maledicta. Trafalgar stepped into the center of the storm and the sword dance began. One slash carved across the beast’s muzzle. Another split its plated mane. A third wave bent outward and forced Xavier to pull back before it could carve into his shoulder. Trafalgar kept moving through the sequence with cold precision, each cut placed where the echo’s frame held itself together most poorly.

The fourth slash tore through the beast’s flank. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

The fifth severed the neck almost halfway.

The sixth split the core hidden inside its chest.

The horned beast reared, its massive body distorting under the barrage. Light poured from the wounds. For one ugly instant it held together through sheer momentum. Then the whole thing broke apart and scattered across the field like a blown fire.

Only Xavier remained.

He was already moving when the second echo vanished, spear whipping toward Trafalgar’s face with enough force to salvage the initiative if Trafalgar let himself reset.

He did not.

Dark energy gathered along Maledicta’s edge, tighter, denser, carrying that vicious hum which always came before one of House Morgain’s heavier techniques. Xavier saw it and his expression changed at once.

[Morgain’s Last Dusk]

The air screamed.

Trafalgar’s diagonal ascending slash ripped upward in a dark violent line that split the space in front of him. Xavier threw himself backward by instinct alone. He dropped hard, half-falling, half-kicking himself out of the cut’s path. The motion saved him, but only barely. The black edge of the technique passed so close to his chest that the force of it ripped part of his scarf free and sent him crashing onto the stone on his backside.

The field went dead quiet.

Xavier had not even finished the breath he had taken to recover when Trafalgar disappeared.

[Severance Step]

Mana bent.

One instant Xavier was on the ground, spear half-raised, chest still heaving from the dodge. The next, Trafalgar stood beside him with Maledicta hovering a few centimeters from his throat.

Only then did Xavier understand the fight was over.

Trafalgar’s voice came out calm, almost quiet.

"I think this duel has a clear winner after all, don’t you?"