The Return Of The Exiled Villain-Chapter 272: Class Duels (III)

CRACKLE!!!

Gray sidestepped left, the streak passing close enough that the displaced air hit his coat, and looked at where it had come from.

Lyra stood fifteen meters away.

Her sword was drawn, and her lightning affinity was running at a level he hadn’t seen her use in casual sparring, the current visible along her blade in thick, restless lines.

Her expression was not her usual warm expression.

It was the other one.

"Why?"

She stared at him with angry eyes, her fist clenched tightly around her sword.

"Why didn’t you tell me?"

Gray raised his rapier.

She moved.

CRACK!!!

The first strike came diagonal, high to low, her speed immediately apparent, the lightning along her blade amplifying the force of the swing.

Gray caught it on the flat of his rapier and directed it sideways, the force passing to his left, his feet not moving.

"Tell you what specifically."

"YOU KNOW WHAT!!!"

She pulled back and came again, this time a horizontal sweep at mid height followed immediately by a thrust that used the momentum of the sweep’s withdrawal to accelerate.

CLANG, FWIP!

Gray caught the sweep and stepped inside the thrust, letting it pass his right side, redirecting her sword arm with his free hand at the wrist without applying force, just changing the line.

"That your entire class is full... of girls!" she almost shouted before taking a deep breath, and continuing.

"And that you’re the only boy. That you have been the only boy this entire time, and you never said anything to me!"

She calmed down a little, awaiting his response.

However... Gray’s words didn’t help her at all.

"You never asked me."

Her eyes went very wide.

"I never—"

CRACK, CRACK, !!!

Two strikes simultaneously, one from each side of the engagement, her footwork shifting to cover both angles in a sequence that required her to split her momentum and redirect it faster than the move looked possible from the outside.

Gray stepped back once, let the first strike’s force carry past, turned his hip into the second, and deflected it upward, the rapier moving in two separate beats that addressed both threats without overlap.

"You never asked," he repeated calmly.

"WHY WOULD I ASK THAT—"

"Because it’s relevant information to you, apparently," he shrugged.

She came forward again, the lightning along her blade spiking, three consecutive strikes in a tight vertical pattern aimed at forcing him to either retreat or commit to a guard that would cost him positioning.

CRACKLEEEE!

He didn’t retreat.

Clank, clang, clakk!

He met all three on the rapier in sequence, each deflection angled to redirect rather than absorb, his footwork making small adjustments that kept him centered without giving her the push-back she was trying to generate.

"A-ah... ugh, you could... h-hah... have mentioned it," she said, breathing slightly harder now, not from exhaustion but from someone operating on emotion and adrenaline simultaneously.

"At any point or in any conversation. Hah... You could have said, Lyra, by the way, every single person in my class is a girl."

"I didn’t think it was unusual."

She stared at him.

"YOU DIDN’T THINK—"

KRAACK!!!

The lightning strike she released wasn’t a sword technique.

It was raw affinity output, a burst of compressed golden lightning directly aimed at Gray’s chest.

"...Seriously?"

Letting out a sigh, Gray sidestepped it entirely, the strike hitting the arena floor where he had been and leaving a scorch mark.

He looked at the scorch mark, and then at her.

"Are you done?" he asked.

"I am absolutely not done," she stated

"Lyra."

"Don’t Lyra me."

"You knew something like this was going to happen," he said simply.

She froze mid-reset.

"...What did you just say?"

"You knew. You knew the moment you saw the phoenix class. You put it together immediately. And you decided to be angry about it anyway."

Her jaw tightened.

"That’s not—"

"You’ve been angry since the moment you counted the class and came up with one," he uttered in an annoyed tone.

"Not because I lied. Not because I hid something. Because you saw it and your first response was jealousy, and your second response was to find a reason to justify the jealousy."

The arena moved around them, other engagements continuing their noise and force, but the space between them had gone very still.

Lyra looked at him.

Her sword was still raised.

Her golden lightning was still crackling along the blade.

But the energy driving the previous combinations had changed quality, the frustrated urgency of it settling into something that was quieter and considerably more honest.

"...It’s a lot of girls, Gray," she mumbled.

Her voice was lower now.

"It’s a really, really significant amount of girls."

"I know."

"And... you were a playboy before you started dating me. I even remember those twins that were sitting on your lap in the cafeteria."

Gray nodded lightly.

She looked at him for a long moment.

Then she exhaled.

Her sword came down slightly, not sheathed, but no longer at the angle of imminent use.

"This conversation isn’t over. After this competition... you’ll come to my dorm, and you’re going to explain things," her eyes practically glared at Gray as she spoke those words in an unusually calm voice.

"...There’s nothing to explain."

"Gray..."

A hint of killing intent actually leaked from Lyra’s voice, causing Gray to raise an eyebrow in surprise, as he didn’t expect Lyra to have already developed killing intent.

"There’s nothing to explain, but I’ll listen to whatever you want to say," he sighed, raising his hands in complete surrender.

"Mhmph... that’s what I thought," she raised her chin proudly.

After saying those words, her eyes quickly locked onto another opponent and latched out in a flash, dissipating away from Gray’s sight.

[Pfftt...]

Jasmine, who was holding back her laugh, couldn’t do it anymore.

"....."

[PWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!]

"Sigh..."

Gray furrowed his eyebrows, letting out a deep sigh.

’...This was the exact reason why I didn’t want to tell Lyra that I was in a class full of girls.’ He spun his rapier in his hand before stabbing it into the ground.

He started looking around and raised an eyebrow as he saw everyone literally keeping some kind of unspoken distance from him.

...And he was literally in the middle of the arena for some reason.

"I stopped realizing my killing intent, didn’t I?" Gray couldn’t help but ask.

[You did. They’re probably just scared...]

At Jasmine’s words, Gray sat down and started meditating, right in the middle of the arena, where students were fighting all around him.

But just as he was about to start...

[Ding!]

A familiar yet rare sound rang out in his head.

[The innate blessing granted by the Akashic Records for your feats has finally been generated.]

Looking at the notification, Gray frowned as he remembered that it had been promised to him some kind of blessing after he fused with Dante.

It really took quite a long time to arrive.

"Check details."

He waved his finger, causing a purple panel to appear in front of him.

But just before he could see what was on the panel...

Fwoom!!!

The space around him collapsed into chaos.

Several students from different classes had converged on the same section of the arena simultaneously, their individual engagements pushing them toward the center until the center had become the densest point of the entire battle, bodies moving in every direction, techniques crossing each other’s paths, the noise of it immediate and total.

Gray closed the panel with a flick of his finger.

"Later... it is."

A White Tiger Class student came at him from the left, wind affinity trailing her blade in thin cutting arcs, her movement sharp and committed.

Shhk!

He turned his shoulder into her strike, redirected her sword arm across her own body, and used the disruption in her footing to move past her without engaging further.

She stumbled and turned, just to notice that Gray was already elsewhere.

Fwish!

An Azure Dragon Class student caught him from the right, darkness affinity running along a broadsword, the technique designed to layer sensory disruption on contact.

Gray read the affinity signature before the blade arrived and stepped back precisely far enough that it passed his chest without touching, the darkness trailing from its edge missing him by a margin that looked uncomfortable and was entirely calculated.

"...They really decided to surround me."

The arena’s center was genuinely busy now, the four-class engagement having compressed toward the middle as formations broke down and individual priority replaced collective strategy.

Gray moved through it.

CLANG!!!

A strike from behind, fast, the attacker having closed the distance while his attention was on the previous two.

He caught it without turning, rapier coming back over his shoulder, the angle awkward and entirely functional, and felt through the contact the specific weight and rhythm of the person holding two daggers.

He turned and noticed that it was Katia.

"You really wanna do this?" he asked in surprise.

Her daggers were still in contact with his rapier, the two blades locked at an angle that neither of them had released, and her expression was extremely focused.

"...You were in my way."

"You came at me from behind," he retorted.

"You were standing in the middle of a battle."

CRACK!!!

She disengaged and came again immediately, not giving him time to reset, her daggers stabbing towards two different places.

Seeing this, Gray took a step back and made a wide swing with his rapier, causing Katia to duck under, cross her arms, and attack him from his lower guard.

"...Predicatable."

Gray mumbled as he raised his knee towards her face in fast speed that made Katia’s eyes widen.

THUMP!

Directly shot directly into her nose, causing a stream of blood to rush out.