Chapter 71: Shadow of Myself

  The moment the bell rang, two things happened at once.

  “I—” Asher began to say.

  I activated my Ability, freezing him in place, leaving only his head free.

  ‘—concede” he finished. Or at least he tried to. The area around us was completely silent. We couldn’t even hear the roar of the crowd. Why? Because I had absorbed all the sound energy as well. He couldn’t even concede if he wanted to.

  I slowly approached Asher, who watched me curiously. His lips were moving, indicating that he was speaking. Carefully, I created a sound vacuum between us and our surroundings, ensuring we could only hear each other.

  “—did this,” he finished his sentence.

  “You were saying?” I asked.

  “I was saying I couldn’t believe you erased the sound around us. I mean, I thought about that possibility, but I’m impressed you actually went through with it.”

  “So I take it that you were prepared?”

  “What should I be prepared for? You just wanna talk right?”

  I asked him the question that had been weighing on my mind. “What did you mean when you said I was only in this tournament for the credits?”

  “Was I wrong?”

  “Tell me who told you that.” I doubted it was any of my friends, so it must’ve been a staff member. Ms Reina was out of the question. My mind wandered to the two professors I had just met.

  “Was it Dr Smith? Or Dr Connor?”

  “Does it really matter?” His form flickered. Suddenly, he melted, right into his own shadow. The shadow slowly faded, and Asher was completely gone.

  But wait, that shouldn’t be possible. Asher hadn’t blended with his own shadow throughout the entire tournament. He had always entered the shadow of something or someone else before he did anything with his shadow-Ability. Unless… he had been faking it the whole time.

  In that case… I leapt into the air, cancelling my kinetic energy from falling and redirecting it upwards to keep me floating midair.

  I had to reevaluate how his Ability worked. If he could touch me with it, then I could probably affect it as well. But what if his Ability also allowed him to act like a normal shadow? I couldn’t physically grab a shadow or paralyse it. But if that were true, the shadow had to be touching something to appear. Which meant, if he wasn’t touching the ground, he couldn’t reach me.

  I stayed hovering in the air. Asher was still nowhere to be seen. I manipulated the light energy around us, illuminating the entire platform and eliminating any traces of shadows. Yet, he still didn’t appear. So it seemed he could remain hidden underground indefinitely without needing a shadow source. I filed that information in my head. But it also appeared he couldn’t attack me unless he had a source to work with.

  While he remained hidden, I couldn’t exactly attack him, so I just waited. I thought about restoring sound again on the off chance that he would simply concede immediately, but there was also the risk of him pulling another rabbit out of his hat. Seconds soon stretched into minutes. I could sense the crowd growing restless in the background. The announcer was probably rambling, but with the sound still cancelled, I couldn’t hear a thing.

  Five minutes passed. Then ten. At this rate, I would win since I was the only one still welcoming an attack. The ball was now in his court, so all I had to do was wait.

  However, to my surprise, Asher didn't show any signs of movement. Did he really just intend to let the timer run out?

  Finally, the timer did in fact reach the fifteen-minute mark, and I watched the referee blow his whistle. Although I couldn’t hear it, I knew the match was over. I released my hold on the platform and myself, letting gravity pull me back down. I didn't need to look at the audience to tell how they were feeling about the fight. To be honest, I felt the same.

  Asher materialised beside me.

  “Good match,” he grinned. I frowned at him.

  The announcer was absolutely going off. “Alright folks, I had no idea what just happened—our two finalists didn’t even attack each other once! But… we still have to choose a winner! Let’s see… according to our judges, it seems Cadel has garnered more votes due to him actually being visible for most of the match, so ladies and gentlemen, our winner… Cadel Ren!”

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  I looked around blankly as the crowd clapped half-heartedly. Understandably, a boring fight was an understatement. In fact, there hadn't even been a one.

  “Am I really going to leave with more questions than answers?” I asked Asher.

  “If you wanna know more about me, talk to Dr Connor,” he shrugged.

  I wasn’t really in the mood to celebrate, so I gave some quick waves to the crowd as the two of us headed backstage.

  “Well, Cadel, I’ve got something to attend to, so I’ll be seeing you around,” Asher said before heading off.

  I grabbed my belongings and made my way to the restricted office from earlier. I needed to find Dr Connor and get some answers about Asher. The boy was an enigma, even to me. And I had to know if the professor had shared anything about me with him. There had to be something deeper going on behind the scenes.

  I knocked on the door, waiting for a response. After a minute, I knocked again. No dice, huh? Seems they weren’t around.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket.

  “Grats on the win!! By the way, where are you? Are you still at the arena? We have soo many questions to ask you! What the heck was that fight??” Scarlette’s text read.

  “No. Have you seen Dr Connor?” I asked. It was unlikely she had, but I had to check.

  “No, sorry. Did something happen?” she replied instantly.

  The more I thought about it, the more suspicious I got about Dr Connor and Asher. Asher’s combat abilities were far too advanced for someone at his current level. No matter how much he trained, it seemed impossible for him to have made the jump from his Pre-Enlistment Practical Assessment score to where he was now. Had he been hiding his true abilities this entire time, just like me? And if so, why? Could he be one of Umbra’s experimental subjects as well?

  Scarlette was waiting for a reply.

  “Yeah, but it’s nothing big. Are you guys still at the stadium?” I typed quickly.

  “Yup. Are you coming back? The second and third-year finals are about to start.”

  “Okay, I’m on my way Sorry for bailing right after you guys cheered me on.”

  “Haha it’s fine! It must’ve been something important if you had to leave all of a sudden.”

  I quickly headed back down and re-entered the stadium. I had a feeling Dr Connor would contact me soon, whether it was to follow up on the results of the sports festival or the Soren incident.

  While I hadn’t been in the mood to watch the other final matches, I had to admit that they were much more entertaining to watch. The second-year final was an intense duel between a lightning-esper and a water-esper. Unfortunately for the latter, it was a relatively bad match up for him, which ultimately led to his demise. For the third-years, Celestia, the girl who I suspected had some sort of time-related Ability, easily triumphed over her opponent as well. I was really interested in finding out more about her, so I made a note to find out more about her when I had some spare time.

  “And with that, the Intra-District Games between Horizon High and Waning Crescent Institute have come to an end! We will be tabulating the results and awarding the winners tomorrow, so don’t miss the prize-giving ceremony! Until then, see you next time!” yelled the announcer.

  After my friends and I left the venue, I shared everything that had happened between me and Asher, from start to finish.

  “… and that’s why I’m looking for Dr Connor,” I concluded.

  Scarlette pursed her lips. “See, I knew Asher had always been sus. He’s way too good at combat, and I’m not just saying that because he beat me or anything,” she mumbled.

  “He’s definitely a formidable opponent, but there’s more to him than it looks. That’s why I wanna find out more about him,” I said, regretting not doing my research sooner.

  “But hey, at least you beat him,” supported Kaede. “But now the whole school know your name. Are you okay with that?”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t tell them that I would be transferring to District 1 once I had attained enough credits. This tournament victory would’ve significantly increased my balance. But I felt this wasn’t the right mood to do so. Another reason was that I was kind of enjoying my current life at this school, with my current circle of friends. It would be a hassle to fit in with a bunch of strangers all over again.

  What if we all go to District 1 together? A voice in my head told me. Technically it wasn’t impossible, it would just be extremely hard, especially for Kaede and Jonah. As for Scarlette, I wasn’t sure if they’d allow her back in. But then again, District 1 had two different schools, so maybe she could apply for the other one. But these were problems for another day.

  “We have the first and third place in our class, not to mention another 5-Star in reserve,” Jonah observed. “We’re definitely the most stacked, and famous class in our year.”

  “I can’t say I hate it,” chuckled Scarlette. "Maybe I’ll start a tutoring class for fire espers. I already have one student anyway.”

  Later that night, I received another text message. It was from an unknown number. I opened it.

  --

  Firstly, congratulations on your win, Cadel. It was a well-deserved victory. The credits will soon be deposited into your account.

  Secondly, this is in regards to the Pre-Enlistment Practical Assessment. We believe your performance there may be inaccurate of your abilities. As such, we are requesting that you retake the assessment as soon as possible to offer a more accurate gauge of your ability. Let me know when you’re available.

  Best regards,

  Dr Connor.

  --

  The first thing I noted was that while his message was formatted like an email, he had directly messaged me via text instead of sending an actual one. Wasn’t that how things of this nature normally went? I guess it would make things easier for both of us if we needed to quickly exchange information regarding Soren.

  But this was the perfect opportunity to clear up my doubts. I didn’t want to sound accusatory, so I figured I’d start slow.

  “Could you tell me more about Asher?”

  My phone rang a few moments later. It was the professor.

  “Figured it’d make things easier if we talked over the phone about that. What would you like to know?”

  Easier? Or more like he didn’t want to discuss it over text?

  “I want to know if you’ve disclosed anything to him that a normal student shouldn’t be aware of.”

  “In a sense, yes.”

  “Could you elaborate?” Somehow, I already had a gut feeling of what to expect.

  “I'm sure you must have guessed this by now, but he knows the things that you already know, like Umbra, Soren, the research project…”

  “Why would he know that? What kind of relationship do you have with him?” I pressed.

  “Relationship? What's wrong with a father wanting the best for his son?"