Vilhelm slammed Nero’s head into the ground using a suplex. Even though the form wasn’t entirely correct, the effectiveness of it could not be questioned. Nero’s momentary blackout put him in an incredibly vulnerable position.
By the time he recovered, he saw Vilhelm standing at the edge of the arena holding onto Nero’s legs. Nero, naturally, was not going to just watch stunned and wait to be eliminated but as he tried to lift himself up, his hands would not respond... nor would his legs.
At first Nero thought they might be dislocated, but that wasn’t it. His limbs felt numb. He could not feel them at all. Nero tried to exert all his strength to forcefully move his limbs, but it was for naught.
"In my chest I don’t have a heart, I have a wish,
A wish for a rival, and a lover, and an enemy or two,
To feel what it is to be alive, to feel what is true," recited Vilhelm, and then lifted Nero easily and threw him off the arena, ending the match.
From the moment he came to, Nero could not figure out why his body wasn’t responding, so when he was thrown out of the arena, he actually felt shocked. He... had lost the fight. That part was not so shocking, given just how much emphasis everyone put on Vilhelm’s second fights. No, what shocked him was just how devastatingly easily Vilhelm seemed to beat him.
On one side, Gabriel and Arter watched the fight and somehow, this outcome was still not surprising to them. Just as Nero was extremely impressive, so was Vilhelm. The fact that Nero could even beat him once at all is a testament to his ability... but that was it.
"I’m sorry for exposing you to my terrible poetry. My mother says it’s the one thing I can never do well," said Vilhelm as he walked up to Nero. "The fight was good, though. Don’t let the loss get you down. Everyone loses now and then."
Nero looked at Vilhelm, not hiding the shock on his face. But as he heard Vilhelm’s words he could help but smirk, and then broke into laughter.
The observing crowd looked at Nero with a hint of pity in their eyes, almost as if judging that the loss had been too much for him, yet Nero was entirely unbothered by it.
"Hey Vilhelm, I have a poem for you too," Nero said, when he finally stopped laughing, showing no signs of being depressed at his loss.
Vilhelm smirked.
"Let me guess. You’ll tell me after tomorrow’s match," he said with a knowing smirk.
Nero chuckled at the response.
"Look at you, guessing the answer correctly. You’re a prodigy after all," he said, still lying on his back on the ground.
"By the way, you’re probably wondering about why your body is stiff," Vilhelm said, looking down on Nero. "Since someone will probably tell you anyway, it might as well be me. Are you familiar with acupuncture? It’s similar to that. It’s the combat style most commonly used by Ayurvedists that I learned. It’s hard to do on a moving target since I don’t have the abilities of an actual Ayurvedist, but on a still target I can still restrict their movements for a short while."
Nero raised an eyebrow. He’d never heard of anything like that before, mainly because it was not normal to be exposed to the secrets or habits of Mystics and above. Some common, general knowledge was one thing, but combat styles? He’d never heard of anything like that.
"Thanks for the explanation. I’ll be sure to return the favour tomorrow," said Nero.
By then, the nurse had walked up to Nero and began taking his pulse. After checking him for injuries, and a concussion, she had Nero moved onto a stretcher so that he could be taken to the nurses office. Although he wasn’t seriously injured, helping him regain mobility would take some time.
Meanwhile, most of the observers felt as if everything that had happened was as expected. Nero’s victory yesterday was a surprise, but there would be no more surprises from now on.
Most of them weren’t even interested in the match the next day. Almost all who lost to Vilhelm challenged him again, but it no longer mattered. At that point, once Vilhelm had studied someone’s combat style and habits, there would be no more chances for them to win.
Still, quite a few of them still wanted to come. Officially, Vilhelm and Nero both had one victory. The next match would be the one to decide the final winner.
Meanwhile, Nero didn’t take his loss too harshly. He was shocked by it, taken aback by it definitely, but he did not hold onto that feeling of loss itself. Instead he focused on Vilhelm’s poetry.
He wasn’t in a position to judge whether it was good or bad, but it was definitely informative. It was like a glimpse into the mind of the prodigy, as well as his life up until this point. It seemed that being a prodigy wasn’t easy either, as the lack of challenge had dulled his emotions.
He could only experience significant emotions through other people, or at least that’s what the poem seemed to suggest. The positions of lover, rival and enemy were most likely to elicit a reaction from him - at least in his opinion. He probably got that notion from the books he was reading.
While the nurses worked on his body, helping him to recover, Nero continued to analyse Vilhelm’s thought process and speculate on his life experiences. If he truly lived the life of a prodigy, and everything came easily to him, then there was a chance that he’d never really worked hard for anything ever.
He’d never faced the frustration of difficult challenges, and never felt the stimulation of overcoming them. That made it difficult for him to relate to his peers, especially when he was better than them in everything, which might have made it difficult for him to make friends.
Of course, all of this was merely conjecture, as there was no evidence of it. Nero had drawn all of this information merely from the few lines in Vilhelm’s poem, and the little he knew about him.
Understanding the target would help him analyse how to defeat him, so Nero did not slack at all, and continued to think of all possibilities.
When he returned to his barracks, the mood was subdued, and all the cadets looked somberly at him, ready to cheer him up if needed. Yet in Nero’s eyes, they were the ones who needed cheering up.
Did they really think something as measly as a loss in a spar would affect his mood? Compared to watching his grandmother fight, and die, against a Stygian rift... compared to the feeling of losing his brother... to the feeling of finding out his team members had been betrayed and killed behind his back... to the feeling of learning about Noman’s death... a mere spar could not even register as something to feel depressed about. At most, it motivated him to redeem himself tomorrow.
"Come on guys, I had to at least make things interesting," Nero said with a faint smirk. "You’ll see tomorrow, once and for all, who the actual better fighter is."
All the cadets cheered and surrounded Nero, though he could still sense their reservation. They had lost confidence in him, by a lot. How fickle the emotions of people were.
Yet Nero took it very seriously. Losing a spar was one thing, but he could not let this derail his plans.
Once again, the night and day passed in a blur. Professor Isabella was not exactly pleased by his performance against Vilhelm, and she did not hide it either. Yet her childish behaviour only made Nero chuckle.
Even though he had lost a fight, he was not too worried. Everyone was treating Vilhelm too seriously, and taking him too lightly. Though a prodigy he may not be, but he was a warrior... and he was training to become a monster.
But there was no use talking about these things. Only concrete action would influence them.
Evening came, and once again crowds were drawn to the Battle Arena. Though almost no one favoured Nero anymore, most people still showed up. After all, they could not forget the heavy beating Nero had given Vilhelm on the first day.
What if... what if he managed to surprise them? That ’what if’ drew in all the crowds once more, but as always the two involved in the fight seemed to not care about it.
Vilhelm was slightly late today, so when he arrived at the Battle Arena, Nero was already waiting for him in the arena. He quickly got on, but the moment he stepped onto the arena, the hair on his body stood up, as if he was being eyed by a monster.
A tingle went up his spine as Vilhelm felt a sensation he had not felt since he left Lumina. It was the sensation... of being a hair’s breadth away from death.
He looked across the arena, and noticed something different about the look in Nero’s eyes. It was almost as if... prior to this, he had been treating this like a game.