Chapter 128: A Matter of Debts

With a lightning-fast sweep of his back leg.

Blanche suddenly felt her footing vanish.

Before she could recover her balance, Erik had already trapped her sword arm in a joint lock as swift and precise as a surgeon's incision, locking her shoulder while using her own momentum against her.

The world flipped.

She left the ground.

A clean throw.

Precise.

Without unnecessary brutality.

Her back struck the mat with a dull thud, the impact forcing the air from her lungs.

When she looked up again, Erik was already standing over her, perfectly balanced, the tip of his sword hovering just inches from her throat.

He hadn't merely won.

He had just reminded her that, after all these weeks of training...

He still possessed dozens of techniques he had never shown her.

She lay there, breathing hard, pinned to the mat.

Erik knelt over her, removed her weapon, and effortlessly pinned both of her wrists beneath his weight.

She couldn't do a thing.

He stared at her as though he were about to devour her.

Not in any seductive way.

No.

With a cold, relentless intensity devoid of the slightest kindness.

A shiver ran through her.

Blanche's phone rang, shattering the moment.

After three long, shrill rings, he finally released her.

Still lying on the floor, she answered.

"Hello?"

"Where are you?"

The deep, worried voice sent another shiver through her.

"In the Academy attic."

She heard him exhale in relief.

"Alone?"

"With D."

Erik sat down beside her, cross-legged, never taking his eyes off her.

His sword—though undoubtedly still on him—had somehow disappeared.

"D? What for?"

"Training. Like every lunch break since..."

Blanche froze.

Four days.

Three lunch breaks.

Only Thursday.

Good grief...

It felt as though she'd spent six months with that lunatic.

She told him exactly that.

Silence.

"I'll call you back later."

He hung up.

Mr. Ardachir disappeared from her screen, leaving an inexplicable tightness in her chest.

Erik pulled out his own phone.

"Why?"

Blanche heard Kiyan's voice perfectly clearly on the other end.

Her senses were still far too sharp.

"I owe her," Erik sighed, his eyes still fixed on Blanche.

She pushed herself upright and sat beside him, resting her chin in the palm of her hand.

"How long have you known her?" Kiyan continued, unaware she could hear every word.

"Since my death."

Blanche's eyes widened.

"She's the one who saved Jer," Kiyan realized.

Silence.

"We'll talk about it later."

Those were his final words.

He hung up.

Blanche let out a long sigh.

"So... if I've got this straight..."

She looked at him.

"I saved your brother while you were dying, and now you feel indebted to me. That's why you've been training me?"

Erik stared off into the distance before smiling.

A smile straight out of a horror movie.

"Do you know what happens to a Twin Mage when their sibling dies?"

She slowly shook her head.

"They lose their magic."

"Jeremy is one of the greatest mages of our time..." she murmured.

"Without me to protect him, our enemies would've taken their revenge on him instead."

"So by saving him..." Blanche whispered as understanding dawned on her, "I tied your lives together. As long as you're alive, he lives. But if you die... he dies."

He nodded.

"Half-mages. Mage father. Human mother. We were never supposed to live this long."

She heard no bitterness in his voice.

Only resignation.

"So you're helping me survive long enough..."

"...to save both of you."

"Exactly."

He looked at her.

"I hate owing people. Remember that."

The bell announcing the end of lunch break echoed through the gymnasium.

Its metallic chime shattered the silence that had settled after their conversation.

Blanche remained motionless for several seconds.

When she finally looked up...

Erik was already gone.

He had probably teleported away.

No goodbye.

No cutting remark.

Not even a final glance.

As though he had simply evaporated the instant he considered their conversation finished.

She let out a slow breath before climbing to her feet.

Her muscles immediately protested, reminding her with brutal honesty that being slammed onto the mat by her fencing instructor definitely ranked among life's less enjoyable experiences.

She brushed the dust from her pants, tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, retrieved her practice sword, then sat back down.

"Rest."

She cast the spell.

She had earned it.

It struck her once again how utterly impossible Erik was to understand.

One minute earlier, he'd been playing with her nerves, invading her personal space with that almost unhealthy coldness that defined him, pushing her to her physical and psychological limits...

Then, the next moment, he vanished without a single word, as though none of it had ever happened.

With anyone else...

She would have called it manipulation.

With Erik...

She wasn't even sure anymore.

Everything about him seemed to follow a logic that belonged to him alone, making it nearly impossible to distinguish what was calculated from what was simply part of who he was.

And yet...

Amid all that coldness...

Something didn't quite add up.

He had shown her techniques he'd clearly been keeping in reserve for weeks.

He had pushed her beyond her limits.

He had even agreed to talk about his brother.

Erik.

Talking about his family.

For him, that was probably the equivalent of a love confession.

The thought drew a smile from her despite herself.

She slowly shook her head.

You really had to be completely insane to understand a man like him.

Or spend enough time training beside him to learn how to read every one of his silences.

She adjusted the strap of her bag over her shoulder before leaving the gym herself.

One conclusion settled in her mind with almost touching certainty.

He really did love his brother.

As she headed back to class, she even caught herself thinking that she actually preferred Erik to Derek.

At least Erik gave her something to think about.

She had already memorized every strike and every new technique he'd shown her, replaying each sequence over and over in her mind.

She would master them by heart in the Otherworld before their next lesson.

She shook her head.

She really was losing her mind after spending so much time among the elite of the Otherworld.

The desire to become the very best at everything...

That rush of adrenaline she hadn't felt since middle school...

It made her feel as though she had wings.

She thought about her new classmates, each one more extraordinary than the last.

Argy.

Asher.

Aaron.

Glen.

Derek...

It was almost as though Players were never chosen by chance.