Pruned Trees Re-Sprout!! ~ Ragazza Volpe Magica ~

Shouri’s group arrived at the stadium a little past one in the afternoon. As such the crowds were more troublesome to pass than they had anticipated.

“What the fuck?!” Rebecca cursed, beholding the crowds with annoyance. She had a hand covertly wrapped around the bottom trim of Shouri’s jacket.

“It is like halfway through the lunch break so people are getting snacks and stuff.” Pacifica had hold of Shouri’s right sleeve.

“So many people.” Taika had claimed the entirety of their Maestro’s left arm.

“I wanna go back to the hotel and sleep,” Shouri grumbled, only a hairpin trigger away from just storming out of the packed facility.

Slowly but steadily, the quartet proceeded through the masses of people to make their way into the stadium proper. However, they managed to burn thirty minutes in the process, giving them less than thirty minutes to figure out where they were going.

None of them had even seen the main arena, much less knew where the staff entrances were. Finally, they just gave up and asked someone.

“Oh! Yeah, you need to head down this walkway and talk to George, he’ll get you down to the field,” a helpful staff member directed the group.

Sure enough, they found “George” who showed them the service corridor they needed to pass through to get down to the field.

“Finally,” Shouri let out a big dramatic sigh as he plopped down on one of the benches provided for them.

They had been stationed in one of several “dugouts” that dotted the perimeter of the battlefield. All members of the staff outside of the referee were stationed in these little rooms, protected not only by the stations being slightly below the field but also by the protective Vatonium fencing that allowed them to observe the battle without having to dodge stray spells themselves.

“Woah…” Rebecca’s shoulders caught slack as she stared blankly at the field in front of her. Currently, several earth Resonators were working the grounds, using magic to restore it to a flat, neutral state.

The fire fox took in her surroundings further, her head swaying from left to right, taking it all in. The crowds were getting thick again as the spectators moved into their seats, though at this distance they looked more like specks jostling about amongst the many chairs that flanked the field.

“It’s much more impressive being on the field huh?” Pacifica commented.

“Just a little bit,” Rebecca breathed out, her eyes still wide.

“You could have been out there,” the otter pointed out.

Rebecca slowly shook her head. “No, I’m not like them,” she mumbled. “Not anymore.”

Pacifica’s lips turned up, as she placed a hand on her fellow Resonator’s back.

“Sho, are you okay?” Taika asked, sitting next to her Maestro on the bench.

“Probably could use some water.” He glanced over at the water cooler provided to their dugout.

“Oh! Let me get you that!” Taika hopped up and rushed over to get him a cup of water. The boy leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes for a moment.

The idle hum of the spectators, announcements over the PA system, the movement of dirt and earth, and many other sounds – it was just plain loud in here. Just what he needed right now, a cacophony of noise to drown out his intrusive thoughts.

“Sho.”

Opening his eyes, Taika held out a plastic cup for him expectingly. “Drink,” she demanded.

“Maybe I am a bit dehydrated.” He smiled at her, accepting the cup.

It was at that moment that Shouri noticed the earth Resonators were now leaving the field and with it, the referee for the round took their place in the booth prepared for them.

The next round was about to start. There were sixteen teams eliminated in the first half of the day. Sixteen more would follow in their footsteps. The difference between the preliminary rounds they had witnessed before and the battle that was about to start now was the format.

“It’s a full team battle,” Rebecca noted.

“Like the one we saw when we got here, right?” Pacifica asked.

“Yeah.”

The Renard was specifically looking at the Maestro on the right, who was walking in with her three Resonators. A raven-haired woman, clad in whites and yellows, her outfit was bright, but reserved. It was as if an angel had descended upon the battlefield.

Behind her was a squad of all girls.

A red mouse, a blue cat, and a lime fox. The cat-girl was keeping her mousey counterpart in line, though Shouri’s Resonators couldn’t hear it, the mouse-girl was getting an earful from her fellow Resonator, while the fox was in no uncertain terms telling them both to shut up. The Maestro in question was seemingly oblivious to her Resonator’s quarreling behind her, looking around the stadium in wonder.

Opposite of her stood a man with his trio, who stood focused, unlike the squabbling Resonators on the other side of the field.

A beep from Shouri’s tuners prompted him to pull one from his side.

The tournament staff app had updated.

Maestro: Patrick Silverio

ROUND 2 MATCH 17

Maestro: Ophira Mikami

Roster

Roster

Marnix - 100%

VERSUS

Hayley - 100%

Lino - 100%

Nika - 100%

Vinay - 100%

Fureena - 100%

“Oh.” Rebecca’s gaze remained fixated on Ophira’s team of three girls.

“What’s up Rebby?” Pacifica once more turned to

“I got my bets on who’s gonna win,” the fox said.

Pacifica studied the two teams. “It’s gotta be that guy, right?” The otter pointed to Patrick.

Rebecca chuckled. “Not a chance. Dude’s toast.”

“Eh?” Pacifica’s head turned towards Ophira and her now very visibly quarreling Resonators behind her.

“Maestros!” the ref’s voice boomed throughout the stadium’s audio system. “This is a three-on-three battle! Substitutions may occur when a Resonator returns to their Maestro or when a Resonator is no longer fit for battle! Goal is zero percent rhythm remaining!” The ref paused to catch their breath. “Please make your initial selections, you have thirty seconds!”

Hayley, the mouse girl, ceased bickering with her water counterpart and darted into the field. Rebecca heard the other fire element shout back something to the tune of “Don’t worry, I’ll leave some for you!”

It was only after Hayley had rushed onto the battlefield did Ophira pull the fiery red tuner from her side.

Patrick himself drew out a clear-bodied tuner and one of his own ranks stepped into battle. The man known as Vinay stood about roughly Hayley’s height, though where her tail was long and thin, Vinay had a big fluffy tail with pointed ears atop his head.

“Oh, a raccoon, that’s a good choice,” Rebecca commented. Already sensing Pacifica’s curiosity, the battle veteran continued speaking, “Raccoons are some of the best null elements you can have since they can also use advanced elemental spells. For example, they not only can use Lanciafiamme and Idrante, the basic fire and water spells, but they can also use advanced spells like Bolide, and Manga de Agua.”

“Holy shit…” Pacifica’s eyes widened, regarding the raccoon man with respect.

“That kind of versatility comes at a price,” Rebecca hummed.

Pacifica remained quiet and focused on the impending battle – she would see what Rebecca meant very shortly.

With the two vanguards in place, the ref raised a hand into the air. “You have thirty minutes - you may begin!”

“Precipitazioni Frontali, Accelerando!” Patrick cast, but before he was halfway through reading the spell, Hayley was already on the move. She easily closed the distance between them on her blazing heels and pivoted around to deliver a kick to the raccoon man.

Vinay himself was a seasoned fighter and wasn’t caught off-guard by the sudden assault. He blocked the attack and threw a kick of his own at Hayley’s exposed side. She pivoted around the attack bringing her other foot around now aiming for the man’s head. He ducked under the attack and managed to fire off his spell skyward in the short interval it took for Hayley to land and attempt another kick.

The name of the game was to make distance now. A tall task for the raccoon as Hayley was superior in the speed department. While this game of mouse and raccoon was going on, the clouds above the stadium began to darken as a warm wind circulated the battlefield.

“That’s the rain spell,” Pacifica noted.

“Wonder how she’s gonna handle it.” Rebecca looked to Ophira, who had yet to call a single spell.

The rain soon started, quickly drenching the battlefield in a light drizzle. Hayley didn’t bat an eye and kept up the pressure, attempting kick after kick with no sign of letting up her assault.

Patrick gritted his teeth, opening his mouth to call spells, but quickly closing it when he realized the rhythm would be wasted.

“The rain is so weak…” Pacifica gasped.

“There’s the trade-off,” Rebecca chuckled.

Shouri and Taika remained quiet. They had joined Rebecca and Pacifica up by the fencing but were in awe of how Hayley moved. It was even more graceful than their own fire element’s movement, while somehow packing the same level of power that Rebecca put into her footwork.

Vinay realized he was outmatched and turned tail to tag in one of his teammates. Though quick on his feet, Hayley was much faster, not only matching his speed but flipping over him and setting up a kick that flung him into the center of the battlefield, far from the ability to tag out.

Hayley didn’t allow a moment of reprieve, however, and chased her quarry into the center of the stage to continue her assault.

“REF! I WITHDRAW VINAY!” Patrick shouted.

“PLEASE HALT COMBAT!” the Referee boomed.

The mouse girl, in a stunning display of control, stopped all of her momenta on the spot, her foot extended out just inches away from Vinay.

She dropped her foot and smiled. “Good game!” she beamed to her opponent whom she was just beating the ever-loving daylights out of only a moment ago.

“Tch,” Vinay clicked his teeth and walked away without a word.

“Aw-right! Nika, you’re up!” Hayley skipped off the field, pleased with her performance. Ophira swapped which tuner she was holding without a word of her own.

“Yeah yeah.” Nika shrugged, stepping onto the field in place of her companion.

“Oh, since Vinay was withdrawn from the fight as a whole, they can make any substitution they want,” the otter noted.

Rebecca nodded. “Exactly right. Dude probably had about thirtyish percent rhythm left, but it was clear that mouse was going in for the kill.”

Shouri shot a glance at the staff app.

Vinay - 31% [WITHDRAWN]

Rebecca sure was a lot better at this than any of them had given her credit for in the past.

The next Resonator to step up was a blond-haired man with a reptilian tail wrapped around his waist like a belt. He was tall and thin, standing well above his opponent’s smaller frame, which forced him to look down on his opponent. Despite this, there was an air of caution in the blond’s demeanor. After witnessing Hayley’s performance, his whole team must have been on edge.

“You got this Marnix!” Vinay shouted from the sidelines.

“Give him hell Nika!” Hayley similarly cheered on her companion.

“A dragon?” Taika asked.

“No, a snake, close relative,” Shouri hummed in thought.

“The problem with snakes is unless you’re well studied in the individual species, they can have all kinds of different traits.” Rebecca studied the man before grunting and shaking her head. “Yeah, I can’t tell which kind he is,” she admitted.

“You may resume!” the ref’s shout drew the four’s attention back to the battle.

There was a tense stand-off as the two new combatants sized each other up. The light drizzle continued from the previous face-off with no sign of it letting up. The battlefield was soaked and muddy by this point. Nika frowned, shifting her weight to her toes, keeping her heels out of the mud.

Ophira spoke for the first time since entering the arena, “Idrante, Fortissimo.”

With a wave of Nika’s hand, a massive wave of water was kicked up and washed towards the snake.

“Fulmini a Catena, Fortissimo!” Patrick cast in retaliation.

Not moving from his spot, Marnix held out an open palm and a bolt of lightning shredded the water attack into nothing. What’s more, it continued heading straight for Nika. She suddenly became mobile, hopping away from the attack, however it followed her and struck home.

Rebecca’s ears twitched over the noise of the crackling lightning, her head whipping in the direction of Nika’s Maestro.

“Got her!” Patrick smirked. “Nube-Terra Fulmini, Fortissimo!” the Maestro commanded.

Electricity gathered in the sky before striking down on Nika’s position in a massive spectacle of blinding light and noise.

THWACK!

“Shit shit! Carica Traboccante, Lento!” Patrick could be heard shouting. When the audience could see again, the battlefield betrayed everyone’s expectations. Where the Nube-Terra Fulmini had struck, there was a scorched segment of the field with large chunks of ice scattered around, and Nika was nowhere to be seen.

Nika had ended up dangerously close to Marnix, holding a knee up, glaring daggers at the snake man who was rubbing his arm and gritting his teeth.

“What the heck happened?” Pacifica gasped.

“A lot.” Rebecca stared at the field wide-eyed. “That Ophira chick cast three spells under the noise of the lightning spell.”

“Which ones?” Taika asked.

“From the looks of it, that water one that makes an ice sculpture of you, a shielding one that draws rhythm-based attacks in, and then that river spell to close the distance between that cat and snake.”

“You can do that…?” Pacifica blinked in disbelief

Sure enough, there was a divot in the field showing Nika’s movement during that brief moment in time.

“And that guy electrified his Resonator as a defensive play when he realized what was going on,” Rebecca also pointed out, noting the visible electricity arcing with the drops of rain that fell within Marnix’s space.

“You can cast spells that quickly?” Shouri let out. Pacifica and Taika were already feeling inferior to these monsters, and now Shouri himself was getting a taste of that.

Rebecca slowly nodded. “I’ve heard of it. Never actually had a Maestro who could cast spells rapidly like that,” she admitted. “And honestly this is the first time I’ve ever seen it done,” she mumbled.

The battle resumed in earnest at that point with the snake rushing down the cat. However, it quickly became clear, that even without spells boosting her movement capabilities, Nika was just plain faster than Marnix, easily keeping him at a healthy distance from her.

“Fulmini a Catena, Fortissimo Tenuto!” Patrick shouted. Rebecca perked up when hearing that particular casting.

As the chase continued, Marnix threw out another bolt of chained lightning as he had at the beginning of the battle. Nika left an ice sculpture of herself behind, applying the same rhythm drawing effect to it as she had before.

And it worked!

However, the lightning arced from the statue (destroying it in the process) and wrapped around Nika, killing all of her momentum and sending her into the mud, completely bound by the electricity.

“He’s a constrictor!” Rebecca shouted. “If his spells are cast with a Tenuto modifier, they gain an effect that binds the target. The chain lightning spell is notoriously difficult to dodge too, so it’s a deadly combination.” She stared at the man in awe. “He’s so thin for a crushing attribute holy crap.” The fox shook her head.

Shouri and his other two Resonators just stared at the results in awe. Duelists were no joke.

“Hmmm, avoided casting basic spells so I wouldn’t catch on. What a cute boy,” Ophira chuckled to herself. Despite Nika’s compromised position, the Maestro remained as stoic as ever. Hayley and Fureena also watched on with no visible concern.

Nika, however, was fuming. “Getting this filthy mud on me…” she growled, her teeth grinding so hard one could almost hear the enamel wearing away in real-time. “You like dirt so badly, here have your fill!”

At that moment, Ophira spoke her next command: “Dolina, Legato Staccatissimo.”

Pacifica’s eyes darted to the fellow water Resonator; her gaze transfixed on the casting of this new spell.

“Get out of there!” Patrick shouted.

It was too late, by the time Marnix had tried to back away from the fallen cat, his foot was caught in rapidly shifting mud underneath him. The snake was rapidly pulled down into an ever-growing sinkhole that was forming underneath the battlefield, which sucked him down up to his shoulders, leaving him helpless.

“Cancella il Ritmo, Crescendo,” Ophira commanded. After a moment of focus, the lightning that bound Nika was dismissed and the girl rose to her feet, covered in mud from head to toe. Her eyes glowed with furious yellow rhythm.

“Dig your way out! Carica Traboccante, Lento!” Patrick desperately commanded.

Try as he might, however, Marnix couldn’t move a muscle, and the electricity he tried to build up in his body was quickly snuffed by dirt surrounding him.

“Loro Formato Lunare Lago, Legato,” Ophira gave another command of her own.

Shouri’s group recognized that spell, probably one of his favorite Ossias to cast. A wrathful hand was thrust skyward as a ball of ice ballooned in the sky as Nika held it out way longer than she needed to before devastating the battlefield with the water-lunar combination spell.

“Come on, that’s probably our cue!” Shouri yelled over the impact of the meteor on the battlefield.

Taika turned and grabbed her bag.

“HALT COMBAT!” The ref boomed as Shouri and his team left the dugout. As the dust from the meteor cleared, they would find they weren’t the only emergency crew rushing out, about a dozen people were running onto the field.

Nika huffed, while she attempted to get the mud off her clothes.

“You the medical guys?” one of the other staff members asked Shouri.

“Yeah, hell of a fucking attack,” Shouri muttered.

“We kinda expected it. This is like the fifth or sixth time that cat has caused a rhythm break,” the staff told him.

“Damn.” Rebecca whistled, impressed. Nika had dropped Marnix from having nearly full rhythm to having none left to protect himself in such a short time.

The other staff members that came out had earth Resonators with them. Staying off to the side, Shouri and his trio watched as they surrounded the unmoving snake Resonator. “Three, two, one - La forma della terra, Lento, ease him up.” The staff’s earth Resonators placed their hands on the ground and the snake was slowly and gently pushed up as if the ground itself was spitting him out.

“Alright healing team, you’re up.”

Pacifica and Taika shot each other a glance and nodded before they knelt next to the unmoving snake man. Pacifica got to work checking his vitals, while Taika closed her eyes and listened, lowering her head towards the man’s chest. “His heartbeat is good still, he’s breathing.” She mumbled.

“Vitals look good, rhythm is negative forty-seven though,” Pacifica told Taika.

“Che cavolo?” the fox mumbled in shock. His hair was half grey, so that assessment was accurate. “Sho, La Bella Vita, per favore!” she requested from her Maestro.

“La Bella Vita, Rubato – do what you need to,” Shouri told his fox.

Taika flashed a thumbs up, keeping her focus on her patient before getting into healing him.