The day of the contest finally arrived, and the two participants stood outside their home facing one another while maintaining a large gap between them. Alex and Luna stood at their respective positions alongside their teachers, Lucia for Alex and Samuel for Luna. Both teachers were looking at one another with serious expressions on their faces without exchanging a single word.

From the side, Sarah looked on as she was acting as the referee for this contest. She was looking dully at the two groups and sighed wearily to herself at how things had come to that. It was her idea of issuing a challenge and having both sides accept it to a one on one due between their students to decide the timetable for Alex to study his subjects.

“I’m starting to think that maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” she thought to herself, looking at her son and then at Luna respectively.

Both kids were standing firmly on their feet without showing any sign of weakness, but their facial expressions were a different matter entirely. Alex was smiling confidently while Luna looked very nervous, fidgeting with her fingers anxiously and shooting covert glances towards her beloved childhood friend. It was as if she did not wish to fight him, but she still had to with there being no choice.

“Poor girl,” thought Sarah, pitying the little girl sadly. “I wish I could change Samuel’s mind, but his decision has been made and this is how it will be.” Then she prayed silently to the gods, requesting them, “Please gods, let there be no casualties; both physically and mentally from this.”

“I hope you’re ready to be defeated, Lucia,” called Samuel from his end, a smile of confidence forming on his face.

“I should be saying that to you!” Lucia replied energetically with a broad grin on her face. She placed both of her hands on her student’s shoulders and said, “I’ll show you that my student is a great person today!”

Alex’s father shook his head in exasperation and asked, “A great person? Shouldn’t he show off his talent for magic?”

“That is true,” replied Lucia, nodding her head in agreement, but she raised a finger at him and said, “but before he is a magician, he must be a great person, and my student is a very strong minded person!”

Samuel laughed and said, “We shall see about that. Right, Luna?” He looked down at his student and asked, “You agree with me, right?”

Luna, who was shaking slightly from the nervousness, looked up at him anxiously and said hesitantly, “I… I’m not sure…”

“Luna!” Alex called to her, and she immediately looked at him with great happiness.

If Alex were to ask her to give up the contest, she was ready to throw in the towel and surrender to him. She cared more for his image than the shame that it would bring to Samuel at her loss, however, she did not get her wish. Instead, Alex looked smugly at her and spoke in a manner that was so strong that she could not believe her ears.

“Don’t you dare think of holding back against me!”

When he said those words, his expression grew very serious and it made Luna widen her eyes in shock. For a few seconds, she could not bring herself to say anything from the sheer horror she felt with the seriousness that he spoke to her in. Beside her, Samuel furrowed his eyebrows at his son and spoke in Luna’s defence.

“Strong words, but let’s see what becomes of them when you’re defeated by her!”

“Let’s stop wasting our time bickering and get this show on the road!” Lucia said, brimming with excitement. “Alex! Do your best!”

“I will, miss!” He replied strongly, stepping forward while she moved away from him to stand next to Sarah.

“Good luck out there, Luna,” said Samuel with a smile and gently rubbed her hair before separating from her and heading over to stand next to his wife, Sarah.

Luna had nodded silently to him and stepped forward nervously with her eyes glued to the ground. The shock of what Alex had said was ringing in her mind and made her feel hopeless in her current situation. It was made even more complicated with all the watching eyes of Samuel, Sarah, Lucia as well as the neighbours that were staring avidly at them with great interest.

“I don’t like this,” she muttered, feeling it was all Samuel’s fault that brought her to the point of fighting her childhood friend and have to hear him speak so roughly to her.

“Luna,” said a familiar voice, and she looked up startled to see the man himself standing there with a faint smile on her face. “Sorry about earlier. I probably shouldn’t have spoke so roughly with you.”

“I-It’s okay!” She replied quickly, alarmed at him apologizing to her and feeling relief on the inside as he was speaking like he normally did. Then she looked sadly at him and said, “I don’t want to fight you, Alex.”

“I too share your feelings, Luna,” he replied with a sad smile, “but there’s no choice. Both my teacher and my dad’s pride are on the line in this match, so we can’t just throw the match away. Instead, let’s do our best, fight hard, and may the best warrior win.”

“But… Alex…!” She said, looking imploringly at him.

“Listen, Luna,” he spoke to her in a soft voice. “My dad’s put a lot of hopes on you, so don’t disappoint him, okay?”

After saying that, he gestured sideways towards where their parents and Lucia were standing at. Seeing her turn to look at him, Samuel hesitated for a moment and looked at what Lucia was doing. The magic teacher was grinning broadly and giving her student a thumbs up gesture of encouragement. Raising an eyebrow in amazement, he looked back at Luna and gave a weak thumbs up gesture.

“Don’t hold back, Luna,” said Alex, walking away from her by the time she turned back to look at him, “and don’t disappoint me.”

His last words made her eyes widen in surprise before they narrowed into seriousness. She finally smiled, realising that Alex wanted her to fight to her best ability so that he could test himself against her while, at the same time, she fulfils their wish of not disappointing anyone.

“You don’t have to tell me that!” She said, and she stuck her tongue out at him in a cheeky manner.

Alex laughed when he saw that, glad that the childhood friend he dearly loved had returned to her normal self. They now stood with several meters of separating them from one another, and the two waited for Sarah to begin the countdown to start their battle.

She looked at the two of them and then said, “Alright! Get ready…! Fight!”

With her last word, Alex quickly reacted by aiming his hand at Luna in order to be the first to deal an attack on their opponent. At the same time, Luna clenched her fists tightly and seemed to raise her energy to boost herself as he began chanting his spell to attack her with.

“O spirits of fire, come forth and‒!”

He was in the middle of chanting his spell when Luna clenched her teeth and kicked off the ground to soar towards him at high speed. Watching her suddenly dash out to her, Alex was stunned and could not do anything while he was in the middle of his chant as she covered the gap in a heartbeat.

As Luna drew closer to him, she put on a confident smile as she knew the first attack was hers.

“Got you!” She said, and lashed out her fist that made contact with his chest.

The impact was so strong that Alex’s eyes became large, and his mouth gaped open in shock. A moment later, he was sent flying backwards towards the wall, where he smashed against it heavy impact with his back. His crash against the wall was so intense that the wall cracked all around him.

“Yes!” Samuel exclaimed, raising his fist into the air triumphantly.

The excited expression on Lucia’s face drained and was replaced with shock at what she just witnessed. She was not alone because Sarah was also looking at her son with a shocked look on her face. Even the watching neighbours winced when they saw the the painful impact the kid had when he crashed against the wall.

“Alex…!” His mother whispered, feeling a slight pain in her chest at the thought of seeing her son get hurt like that.

“How was that?!” Samuel exclaimed energetically, looking towards Lucia. “Well? What do you think?”

He was expecting her to pronounce a statement in shock, but instead he heard her ask in a quiet voice, “Why isn’t he moving?”

At her words, he turned his attention towards his son and narrowed his eyes to see what had happened. For a moment, it looked as though his son was stuck to the wall while he stood upright, but then he slowly slid down the wall and collapsed on the ground, with his face against the grass.

“Alex?” His father asked, extremely surprised at this sudden turn of events.

Luna, who had been expecting Alex to fight back, was shocked to see him slide down the wall and collapse on his front. It was then that she finally realised that her punch had been so strong that it knocked him out cold.

“Alex!” She screamed, rushing over to where he collapsed and knelt beside him. She turned him over and laid his head on her lap while asking him repeatedly, “Alea? Alex! Please, wake up! Alex! Please…! Alex?!”

The young boy remained unconscious on her lap when she felt a strange sensation touch her fingers, which she had used to lift him up. Raising her fingers to her eyes, she was alarmed to find that it was his blood from the head injury he had sustained from her attack.

“No…!” She screamed, tears bursting out of her eyes at the thought of what her actions had caused. “Alex…! No....! Please don’t die…!”

“He won’t die, Luna,” said Samuel being the second to arrive on the scene. “Now, move. I’ll take it from here.”

Luna did not move from her spot, but a gentle hand pulled at her arm, and the young girl found herself relinquishing her seating position to Sarah.

“It’s okay, Luna. Nothing will happen to my son,” she said reassuringly to the little girl while struggling to not cry herself. “He’ll be fine. Right, Sam?”

Samuel checked Alex’s injury and sighed heavily under his breath before telling his wife, “This is a serious injury. We need to get him to the hospital. Quickly!”

“There’s no need for an hospital!” Lucia remarked, standing over them with a serious look on her face. “I’m a magician! I can heal him!”

Samuel glared up at her and said in a sharp voice, “My son’s in danger! Don’t you understand that?!”

Lucia was surprised by his serious voice, but she retorted with a serious voice of her own by declaring, “You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Sam! It’s your fault that your son ended up in his current condition, or are you so blind you don’t realise it?!”

She had spoken to him with her finger pointed straight at his head, and Samuel widened his eyes in shock. Then the realisation dawned on him that the whole situation had occurred because of his determination to win, pushing Luna to her limit that subsequently resulted in her becoming so strong that she did not know how much to hold back.

Even when she raised this with him, he dismissed it as stating that there was nothing to worry about, realising too late that he would regret it with the price that his son made for his father’s mistake. Due to this, Samuel lost all confidence in what he was prepared to do and simply looked up at her as a defeated man.

“Do what you want,” he said simply devoid of expression.

Lucia, Sarah, and Luna were startled by how much he had changed within seconds, but they had no time to worry about him. While they remained there, seconds went by with Alex bleeding from his head injury. He was starting to moan from the pain it was causing him, causing Sarah to shed a tear as she momentarily felt a great pain in her chest to see her son lying unconscious like that in her lap.

“We don’t have time to waste!” Lucia said, beginning to instruct them on what to do. “Sam, bring Alex into the house. I’ll heal him there.” When Sam nodded and gently took his son from his wife and carried him slowly in his arms to not cause him discomfort. “In the meantime,” began Lucia, turning back to look at the remaining two people there, “get some hot towels so that we can wipe the injury first since I don’t want him to have a scar or be vulnerable to attract an infection while I conduct my healing.”

“I’m on it!” Sarah said, rising to her feet and hurrying into the house in the direction of the kitchen.

“I-I’m coming as well!” Luna called, and went after her.

This left Lucia standing alone out at the front of the house amidst the watching spectators from the neighbouring houses. She could almost hear them muttering to themselves about what they witnessed, causing her to glare at them in every direction while issuing her warning to them.

“If you’re so interested in what’s happening, come over here and help me fix this wall,” she told them while giving them a dead glare.

The reaction was instantaneous, with everyone becoming alarmed and escaping into their homes or closing their curtains on her. Once the coast was clear, she sighed and looked at the cracks on the wall before heading into the house to take care of healing her student while thinking to herself, “Your prediction came true, Alex. It really came true,” she thought before entering the house and closing the door shut.