Chapter 35: Jobber

"You’re different," Lily said, blocking the Falling Star and getting shoved back a full step, which had never happened before. "Kohaku, you’re fast. When did you get fast?"

"Healthy living has its perks, what can I say~?"

We were on the practice field the morning of the festival’s second week, warming up before my match. I was pushing her harder than I ever had, and for the first time she was the one giving ground. Not much, since she’s still the main character and all, but some.

Because the numbers were different now.

The re-appraisal crystal had thought about it for a long time and ended up coming abck to me with:

Rank: C

Level: 12

MIGHT: 6

FINESSE: 9

MANA: 41

[MANA forty-one. From two. TWO. I had two points of mana five weeks ago and now I’ve got forty-one, which is more than most third-years, and my core got stretched way out to hold it. My MIGHT’s still garbage, sure, but my FINESSE is passable now instead of tragic, but the mana. The mana’s the thing. I can throw Forms all day and not run dry. I can push a Falling Star that actually lands. I’m not going to out-muscle anyone. But I don’t have to. I’ve got a healer in my collar, a fuel tank that doesn’t empty, and enough Forms to keep somebody honest.]

Lily lowered her sword and took her time looking at me. She smiled, which was way too cute, so I had to look away.

"Well, whatever you did," she said, "I’m glad. I want you to win. I mean it." Then she looked at the grass. "It’s better that it’s you in there. Better than me. I’d only have embarrassed myself."

I squinted. Not at her, I was still avoiding that beautiful face. I squinted at the other side of the academy.

[She’s been off since the Marisol thing. She doesn’t sit as close to me at meals anymore and she goes to bed before I get back, and it’s been a week of that now. I keep meaning to fix it and I keep not knowing how.]

"Lily—"

"We should go watch," she said, bright, done with it. "Cassian’s up first. Everyone wants to see Cassian."

I raised a brow.

[... Like you care about Cassian.]

---

She was right, though.

Everyone did want to see Cassian.

He came down the ramp in the trench coat, did a brooding pose, got a nine from the panel, and then took apart a second-year mage in under a minute.

It was crazy. He walked through the mage’s opening barrage, closed the distance, and put him on the ground with three hits. The arena went absolutely feral for him.

In the original, this is the match where Lily first really sees Cassian. There’s a whole paragraph. She watches him fight and something stirs, et cetera, the reluctant beginning of the rival-love-interest arc, and I remember being very proud of that paragraph.

I glanced over at Lily.

She was... bored.

When he landed the finishing hit and the crowd lost its mind, she went, "Oh, good for him," in the tone you’d use for a coworker’s vacation photos, and then she checked to see if the food stalls had opened yet.

[There goes another paragraph. Cassian, buddy, I wrote you to be irresistible and she’s thinking about lunch.]

Then Ollivant Prue climbed his platform to read the next day’s card, and I stopped thinking about Cassian entirely.

"TOMORROW! Ring one! From the Knight Course, second-year, Rank C, the Wolf of the Western Kennels, GREYWILD FENNAAAA! Against, first-year, Commoner Scholarship, SAKANA KOHAKU!"

[Oh, it’s Fenna.]

I’d never actually met Fenna. She existed in the story and she existed on the roster, but our paths hadn’t crossed, so let me introduce her.

Fenna Greywild. Wolf beastkin, ash-grey hair, amber eyes, tall, and she does more of the Knight Course curriculum than the Knight Course asks for. She slouches all the time. She’s got one chipped fang that shows when she grins.

In the original, Fenna was what some people refer to as a "jobber."

A jobber, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a wrestling term. It’s a character whose entire purpose is to lose to somebody more important, convincingly, to make that somebody look strong.

They "do the job," if you will.

Fenna’s job, in The Heroine’s Heart, was to be a big scary rival who challenges Lily early, loses one duel, and then spends the rest of six volumes as Lily’s most devoted hype-woman.

I’d written her to lose. That was her whole thing. She loses to Lily and it converts her, on the spot, into a follower.

Except this timeline, Lily’s not in the bracket. So Fenna’s got nobody scripted to lose to. She’s a C-rank knight with no plot assignment, and tomorrow she’s assigned to me.

I was still working through what that meant when a shadow fell over me. I looked up, and there she was, hands in her pockets, having crossed the whole stands to get to my bench.

"You’re Sakana," Fenna said.

"That’s me, yeah. Sorry, do you need something? If it’s about the bench, I can scoot over."

"You’re the fox that ran at a Warden." She looked me up and down slowly. "I heard about that."

"Not one of my proudest moments, but-"

"I find you attractive."

[...Excuse me?]

I blinked.

"What?"

She just kept going.

"So here’s my plan. We fight tomorrow. I’m gonna win, no offense, I’m a C-rank and I’ve got two years on you. And when I win?" There was the fang. "I’m adding you to my harem. Simple. Clean. You’ll like it. Really, I run a good operation. Greta does the cooking, Wilma handles the schedule, and there’s a spot open that’s got your name on it."

I looked at Lily, who had turned around very slowly and was staring at Fenna with a sandwich halfway to her mouth.

Then I looked back at Fenna, who was waiting for my answer like she already knew what it was going to be.

[... What?]