Chapter 152: Mad Red.

Behind us, the fighters of the first group were being led away. A pair of examiners guided them toward an archway set into the coliseum's far side, a healer still fussing over Damian's leg as he limped along at the back of the line. Apparently, everyone who fought was taken there after their match, winner and loser alike, to be looked over properly. Damian glanced back at us once before the shadows of the archway swallowed him.

The ten fighters took their spaces in the ring. Violet took the space closest to me. The very tall girl took her space opposite Violet. I suspected that even if I did learn her name, I would forever call her the very tall girl instead. She was about as tall as my father, after all.

The crowd held its breath. The announcer spoke. "Well, folks, it'll be hard to top what we just saw, but I think this group might just do it! There are two people you'll all want to keep your eyes on. The first -and I'm sure none of you can miss her- is the youngest B-rank adventurer in the history of the Adventurer's Guild. Brynn Wyls!"

At this, the tall girl raised her fist toward the sky. There was a roar of applause. So that was who she was. The youngest B-rank adventurer. That was impressive. We had hired adventurers of that rank to accompany us on the expedition, and they had all been grown adults. If this girl was here, then she was around the same age I was, and yet she held the rank of people at least twice her age. Maybe there was a reason for her to be proud after all.

Violet had told me once that she wanted to be an adventurer. The girl across the ring from her was living that exact dream at fourteen.

I looked at Violet, who had her hammer standing on the ground next to her. Her arms were folded. I suspected that if I could see her face, I would only find her looking bored.

"And then, after Brynn Wyls, we have someone who needs no introduction. Aelheim's newest Duchess, the youngest of the Golden Five, someone who fought a dragon and lived to tell the tale, the one some people are now calling the Mad Red Duchess. Violet Indri!" There was another roar at this, one louder than the one that had just come before.

Brynn Wyls's smile died. It was replaced by a sneer and an increasingly reddening face. Many of the others in the ring shifted and looked at each other. I saw a young boy wiping sweat from his brow. It wasn't that hot.

"We have the same rules as last time. And hopefully, this time, the stage will actually survive the round!" The announcer took a deep breath, and then shouted one word. "Begin!"

In the last round, everyone had moved the instant the match started. There had been fire and water and wind thrown out from several different directions at once. This match started, and nobody moved. On one side was Violet Indri. On the other was the youngest B-rank adventurer. Between them, everyone just stood and stared, looking uneasily at both of them. Maybe they were hoping one of the two would move first, so they could be wherever they weren't.

Five entire seconds passed with no fighting at all. Even the crowd was surprisingly quiet.

"What the fuck?" Violet finally said. Her voice carried. She reached over for the warhammer at her side, lifting it with one hand. "Well? Can we all just fight or what?"

Nobody moved at this either. Violet looked around, and raised the warhammer as high as her arm would allow. "Fine then!" she said, and charged.

She rushed the girl closest to her on her left. The girl's face went pale. She raised her hands, shooting out pellets of water. They hit Violet, and did not so much as slow her down.

"Eek!"

Violet swung a warhammer bigger than herself and the girl both. It was a simple swing. Violet did it easily, as if it made perfect sense to wield that lump of iron with one hand. The girl hurtled through the air and flew outside the ring. She almost struck the wall. One of the examiners was there, catching her just before she did. It had all happened in less than a second. Even the crowd had not yet reacted.

"Ring out!" the examiner called, setting the girl down on the grass. She looked like she did not entirely believe she still existed.

Violet stared at the rest and cracked her neck. "Well?" she said.

"You- you crazy bitch!" one of the remaining eight said.

"Come on! I'll take you all on!" Violet said, warhammer slung across her back.

"She's gone mad!"

"Quick, let's just get her out first!"

They took Violet up on her offer. Four children charged Violet all at once. Everyone else stayed far back. Violet charged forward to meet them.

The one in the lead -a thin and tall boy- put both of his hands together. Light coalesced in his hands in the form of a massive blue shield. It was so large I could scarcely see the boy himself at all anymore. "Get behind me," he said. "Just fucking get her while she's busy!" he cried out.

It was a strange tactic. Did he think Violet couldn't hear him, when even I could from outside the ring? Someone would have to be dumb as a rock to actually take him up on-

Violet charged the shield. She was grinning. She raised her warhammer in the air and slammed it down on the blue light.

The sound was a thunderclap, and I felt it in my chest. The shield wavered, but it did not give entirely.

"Oh? Looks like you can take a hit. But let's see you try and take this!" Violet raised her warhammer again.

A burst of air caught her in the side, making her stagger a step. Violet straightened herself, but a gout of flame caught her on the other side. She had to block it with the haft of her warhammer. A boy and a girl stood behind the massive blue shield, their arms extended.

"How did that not get her?!" the girl cried.

"What kind of monster is she?!" the boy growled.

Violet charged for them this time. She was fast, but the shield was in her way again right as she swung. The sound came again, and it was louder this time. The shield dented right down the middle, and I heard something snap.

"Shit!" the boy carrying the shield cried out. "My fucking arm-" He shook his head. "Just- just stay behind me." The boy raised his shield again, far more unsteadily than he had before.

I didn't know how he had blocked that last blow at all, but in the state he was in, he would be a fool to try blocking another. Then green light washed over the boy from head to heel. He straightened, and held the shield properly once more. The light came from another girl, the last of the four, who stood behind everyone else with both arms extended and glowing. Someone with a healing Gift, then. And a Gift that worked over distance, at that. That was rather rare.

The four recovered and stood in formation in front of Violet. Violet stared at them, head tilted. I understood her confusion. The four in front of her had just fallen into the makings of an actual formation. A vanguard, two damage dealers, and a healer at the rear. I'd have expected to see an adventurer party do something like this against some wild beast, not four random people who had just met each other in a ring. Then again, maybe that was exactly how they saw Violet. Nobody moved.

"Would you look at that, folks!" the announcer cried out. "An alliance forged in pure desperation! I don't know about the rest of you, but things are suddenly not looking so good for the Mad Red Duchess!"

The crowd loved that. I didn't bother listening to what exactly they were shouting.

Somewhere behind that standoff, on the far side of the ring, the other four were fighting their own battle. I hadn't been paying it much attention at all. There was a flash of silver from that direction, and a boy's yelp, and when I glanced over, only three figures remained standing where there had been four. When exactly someone had fallen, I could not say. That made eight left in the ring. I turned back to Violet. She was the only one I really cared to watch.

"Well?" Violet called out. "Four of you against just one of me, and you're still just hiding? I wouldn't want to show my face after something like that."

It was a taunt, and a rather clumsy one. She was trying to get them to break their formation. The boy with the shield had proven he could both take a blow and react to Violet, at least somewhat. With the backup he had, and the healer even farther back, even Violet had to know she was at a disadvantage. No proper team would fall for something like this.

The four in front of her were not a proper team.

"Damn you!" the boy with the shield cursed and charged. He raised his shield in front of himself and moved like a battering ram. How he could even see Violet -or anything at all, for that matter- was a mystery, but he charged straight for her.

A fireball shot out from behind his left. A gust of wind shot out from behind his right. There was nowhere to dodge. So Violet Indri leapt as the flame and wind came. She abandoned her warhammer on the ground and soared. The shield user stopped and pointed his shield upward. Perhaps he was waiting for Violet to come back down, so he could charge her then.

Violet fell onto the shield. Even from here, I could see her grin. She grabbed the shield by its edges and pulled. The boy lost his balance. He staggered forward as Violet wrenched the shield clean out of his grasp. He stared down at his empty hands, then up at the shield.

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"That's- that's min-"

Violet swung the shield at him. It hit him in the chest, and knocked all the air out of him, for he went down to his knees, gasping. Another ball of fire and a blade of wind came for her, but she simply put the shield in front of herself. Both Gifts met the shield and died there.

"Thanks for this," Violet said, gesturing with her new shield. "You can't take it back, can you? Then you should've tried not losing it in the first place." She raised the shield high, and slammed its bottom edge against the boy's back. He crumpled to the floor. I winced. That had looked like it hurt.

She waited. The boy did not move. He barely even twitched. I almost used my Gift just to confirm he was still breathing.

"Fighter down!" an examiner called out. "He cannot continue!" Two of them were already climbing up to drag the boy clear of the fighting.

Violet took a step forward, toward the three who no longer had their shield to protect them. They were all staring at her wide-eyed.

"You- you're crazy!" the fire boy said, launching three balls of flame in quick succession. Violet raised the blue shield and threw it. The thing was massive, and yet Violet threw it like it weighed hardly anything at all. It scattered the flames and took the boy right in the chest. He toppled over, and did not rise.

The crowd was cheering properly now. Many of the fighters watching near me were muttering. Most of the muttering was them thanking every God they could name that they hadn't drawn this group, which was a sentiment I could understand.

I had sparred with Violet often, and her strength was so absurd it was almost unfair that it wasn't even her Gift. It was all just mana compression, something she could do far faster than I still could. Far faster than I had seen anyone do.

"That strength Gift of hers is such bullshit," a boy near me whispered.

"Forget the hammer, she threw a whole shield," someone else muttered. "What in the hells do they feed her at that manor?"

Violet slowly walked toward the two girls who remained. The girl with the wind Gift proved the wisest of them all, for she turned and leapt out of the ring on her own. She landed on the grass and raised her hands. "I quit, I quit," she said.

She was met with a decent bit of booing, but she did not care. That left only one girl of the original four, the one whose Gift just let her heal others from a distance. She was short, with cropped black hair and very wide, very terrified brown eyes. She fell to her back as Violet approached, trying to crawl away from her. "You- s-stay back!" she said. She crawled right up to the ring's edge. It was a wonder she hadn't just fallen off already.

"Well?" Violet asked her. "Do something. Don't tell me you can't fight at all. What the hell were you doing entering a tournament if all you can do is heal other people? Are you fucking stupid?!"

I winced. That was rather blunt, and she had spoken loudly enough for the entire crowd to hear it. She raised her right hand in the air, making a fist. The girl's eyes widened even more, and then she simply… collapsed onto her side, frothing at the mouth. Violet stared down at her. Had… had she just passed out from fear? I could almost feel Violet's disappointment from here. She kicked out, almost gently, and the girl tumbled over the ring's edge and was disqualified.

"Unbelievable, folks, simply unbelievable!" the announcer cried. "This round is going even faster than the last one did, and it is all one girl's doing! Violet Indri has single-handedly taken out five fighters! If there was ever any doubt that she is Scarlet Indri's daughter, let today erase every last bit of it! And that leaves us with only four fighters left in the ring! But… hold on. Hold on, folks, something strange is going on. It seems-"

I had already seen it. Brynn Wyls sat there. She sat casually, one long leg crossed over the other, atop two struggling boys. Both of them were wrapped from shoulder to ankle in silver chains, bound so thoroughly that all they could really manage was wriggling. She had stacked them one atop the other and sat down on them as if they were a chair.

"Oh? Finally done with those idiots, are you?" Brynn called out across the ring. "For a few seconds there, I was worried they'd actually beat you."

"What the hell are you doing?" Violet asked.

"Come on. Don't tell me you're all brawn and no brain." The girl smiled. "If I eliminate either of these two, then there are three of us left, and the match ends. And that means I don't get to beat the shit out of you. And that would suck."

Violet looked at her for a long moment. "Maybe you aren't all bad after all."

Brynn Wyls laughed. I winced. I did not understand. The entire point of a qualifier was to qualify. Could someone's ego truly be so large that they would gamble their whole tournament on it? And for what? Because Violet had called out everyone -not just her- before the matches had even started? Apparently, yes.

"Is… is that even allowed, folks? It doesn't look like those two are in any fighting shape to me," the announcer asked, and it sounded like he was genuinely asking. Below the ring, several examiners had drawn together and were conferring, with a great deal of shrugging involved. "It seems… ladies and gentlemen, it seems there is no rule against it!"

"Of course it's allowed!" Brynn called back, loudly enough for the whole stadium to hear. She pointed down at her seat. "Look at them. They're still struggling! They'll get out and attack me at any moment now!" On cue, one of the boys gave a small wriggle. The other had gone entirely limp, in what I chose to interpret as an act of protest.

"Hope you don't regret it," Violet said. She slowly walked over to her discarded warhammer and picked it up by the haft. She slung it across her back. "And don't blame me for what happens next. This is going to hurt."

Brynn's smile died. What replaced it was a sneer. "Don't worry. I'm not the one who's going to come out of this with regrets."

She rose off her living chair at last and raised both arms toward Violet. Violet charged forward. Chains sprouted from Brynn's outstretched arms. There were two of them, one from each arm. They snaked toward Violet, so fast I could barely follow them with my normal sight. One hit the ring where Violet had just been, throwing up a cloud of dust and splintered stone. The other chased Violet, who dodged back, then left, then right. The chain followed her through the arena. Was this whole ring within that girl's range?

"There they are, ladies and gentlemen!" the announcer bellowed. "The Silver Serpents! The Gift that made Brynn Wyls the youngest B-rank in the history of the Guild!"

Then the first chain joined the second, and they came at Violet from both sides at once. Violet smacked one away with her warhammer and charged straight for Brynn. The chains were there again, crossing in front of her, blocking Violet's path and forcing her to dodge away.

I watched. Each chain was defense and offense in one. Every single time Violet tried to close the distance, the chains barred her path and forced her to jump back. Brynn Wyls had seen Violet fight, and she had concluded very sensibly that Violet should never be allowed within reach of her.

As for the chains binding her two unfortunate chairs, they never so much as loosened. So either she could make more than two, or a chain that had already locked around something no longer needed her attention. Either way, as far as Gifts went, this was a strong one.

"So lucky," someone muttered next to me, in what was obviously envy. A few of the others nodded their agreement. No doubt they had more 'common' Gifts.

It wasn't just luck. I watched as Violet's every attempt to get closer was blocked. As slowly but surely she was forced farther and farther back into the ring, farther than where she had even started. No, this wasn't luck. This girl was simply strong.

"Come on, you said this was going to hurt!" the girl called out. "Well? I'm waiting, Duchess. Come on. Make me hurt." She was laughing as she said it.

Violet was starting to get angrier and angrier. And she wasn't dodging everything anymore. One chain sliced a cut along her side. Another might have slammed her right in the face if she hadn't twisted at the last moment, but it still managed to open a gash across her cheek. She was starting to slow, and if she couldn't close the distance soon….

I started to worry. This first Qualifier was supposed to be simple. Actually winning the Tournament might have been difficult, but making it past the Qualifiers was never supposed to be in doubt. Yet now, watching this, I did feel a small shred of it anyway.

One of the chains came in low, for Violet's legs. She jumped up and dodged it, but she could do nothing in the air. The other snaked up, grabbed her leg, and wrenched her down. Violet hit the ground hard. Her warhammer fell to her side. The first chain joined the second, wrapping around her waist and pinning her arms.

Violet struggled against them. She gritted her teeth. The chains did not so much as budge.

"I'd save my breath if I were you," Brynn said. "You're going to need it to walk out of here, after I throw you out of the ring."

Violet Indri did not listen. She continued to struggle. I could only watch.

"Guess she really was all talk," one of the fighters near me said loudly. That got a small row of laughter from the others.

"I mean, she's strong," someone else said. "But all that strength doesn't mean much if she can't move, does it? If all your Gift does is let you swing a hammer around like a wild beast, this was always going to happen sooner or later."

Violet's knees hit the stone. She had stopped struggling entirely.

And then Brynn Wyls raised her arms, and Violet rose from the ground, lifted by those chains. Brynn began drawing her in slowly. Almost lazily. The crowd, which had spent the entire match roaring for Violet, had found itself a new favorite. The cheering now was for Brynn.

I sighed. People could be so shortsighted. The gash on Violet's cheek was still bleeding. So was a wound along her side. She could have stopped both, if she had wanted to. The chains stopped moving when Violet hung in the air directly in front of Brynn.

"I just want to hear the words 'I give up' from you," Brynn said loudly. "Before I throw you out. So come on. Say it. Or I can make this a lot more painful for you first."

Violet stared back at her. Her gaze was fierce, even past the blood covering half her face.

"Nah," Violet said. "Esra would be pretty annoyed if I lost here."

"Oh?" Brynn laughed. "You're doing all this for the Hero, then? What a shame. You might actually have some talent, and here you are, following a girl who just got lucky with a Godblade."

Violet went very still. Then, of all things, she sighed. "Y'know, I really didn't wanna show this off here."

Brynn's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"But like I said. She'd be pretty annoyed if I lost."

The blood on Violet's cheek moved in two thin streams, and the streams became two red spears, and both of them punched clean through Brynn Wyls's shoulders. The girl screamed. The silver chains shuddered, and this time when Violet heaved, they came apart around her. Violet dropped, and landed on her feet.

Brynn was on her knees. She stared up at Violet with her mouth open, her arms hanging useless at her sides.

"Thanks, by the way," Violet said, rolling one shoulder. "My range with this is still shit. Real nice of you to bring me closer."

"What- what kind of Gift-" Brynn began.

Violet kicked her. The girl hurtled out of the ring. One of the examiners tried to catch her, but she flew too fast. She slammed into the far wall, and slid slowly down onto the grass. Healers were sprinting for her before she finished sliding, four of them at once, pale green light already gathering around their hands. The chains binding the two boys shivered apart into silver motes.

It was very silent. Nobody in the crowd said a thing. None of the other fighters around me so much as breathed.

"...And that's the match, ladies and gentlemen!" the announcer finally managed. "That is the match! And in what I believe may be a first in the entire history of this tournament, folks, two of our qualifiers have advanced to the second round by doing…absolutely nothing at all!"

Down on the ring, the two boys sat up slowly. They looked at each other. Then, even more slowly, they raised their fists toward the sky. That got a good laugh from a portion of the crowd.

"MAD RED DUCHESS!" someone shouted from the stands. Then others joined him. Then more, until half of the twenty thousand were roaring the same thing.

Violet turned in the middle of the ring surrounded by twenty thousand cheers. She stood tall. Her red hair caught the light and almost shone. She turned around, and looked at me. Even her eyes looked like they were glowing. Something small inside of me ached. She was beautiful. Violet gave me a thumbs up. I smiled, and gave her one back.

Behind her, examiners were already flooding the ring, and one of them was shouting for the third group to make ready. It was my turn now.