"Luck is also a part of individual strength. For example, that little girl is part of a group with five surviving members while Rebecca is all alone. It doesn't mean that the students of Caesar High were all definitely weaker than her. There might have been someone who was stronger but got eliminated because they met an even stronger enemy. The little girl on the other hand sailed through it all without encountering such an enemy. Do you think that this is unfair? She had better luck than that other guy. That is her strength as well."
Gabby was not a guy who would be emotionally attached to anyone else. But at this moment even he was feeling a little pity for Rebecca because she looked so miserable fighting against those odds. That was the reason that he had given out his earlier analysis. He wasn't someone who discussed situations that started with "could have been".
It was not just Gabby who was feeling this way. Rebecca looked pitiful to the whole audience she was the weaker party who was showing tremendous will power. This earned her the support of most of the audience and those of the Merion High became the villains who were oppressing the beautiful girl by ganging up on her. Even the audience didn't notice the unfairness of their accusations because in the heat of the moment they were all fighting for justice for Rebecca who was being bombarded by lightning strikes one after the other but still refused to give up.
Zavier despite being a part of the enemy felt a little bad at the condition that Rebecca was in but his sympathies didn't last too long as he was able to clearly distinguish what was right and wrong in this situation. He forced himself to keep calm and adjusted his mind so that he wouldn't think that way. He recalled how talented Rebecca was at infuriating other with her smug attitude and felt that this was all brought upon by herself. If she hadn't been so insufferable in the first place, her schoolmates might have come to find her from the start and she wouldn't have been in such an impossible situation.
As Zavier was busy fighting a mental battle against himself, he couldn't help but notice that the girl sitting beside him had hardly changed her expressions ever since the start of the fight. Usually it was girls who were the most sympathetic. Even he had been swayed by Rebecca's situation but Shiranui didn't even blink in its wake. She was as expressionless as the dead sitting beside him devoid of all emotions and sentiments.
It had to be known that even if Shiranui hated Rebecca, she shouldn't have been acting so indifferent to her because this was a crucial match for Merion High school. Zavier wondered if there was something bothering her but given her cold attitude earlier he didn't bother her anymore.
Rebecca had really been having a hard time both physically and mentally. She was exhausted but wasn't willing to back down because she had something to rely on. Her teacher had given her something but she wasn't sure if it was the right time to rely on it.
She knew her own condition better than anyone else. There was no way she could hang on for a while longer under the intense assault of the enemy. If she didn't use her trump card, she might as well hand over the match to her opponents gracefully because that was she would be able to preserve the little bit of dignity that had yet to be crushed by them. She was so desperate that she cast glances at the bearded old man sitting in the audience from time to time.
The old man continued to be expressionless most of the time and after each look, Rebecca felt more hopeless. The old man did not care to answer her questioning gaze every single time. At some point she even began to wonder if the old man had been blinded by age and was unable to see her at all but held her rage in and waited a bit more all the while avoiding the attacks of the little terrorist.
She was teetering on the edge of defeat as she cast a final glance at her teacher. She had decided that she would not continue to humiliate herself if the doddering old man didn't reply her this time.
She cast a final questioning gaze at the old man while her opponent was busy gathering mana for a large spell that would eventually become the cause of her doom. She was waiting for the answer while dreading that the answer would never come.
Unexpectedly the old man nodded affirmatively while looking at her. The sign that she had been waiting for had finally arrived. The old man had finally acquiesced to her decision.
Rebecca dodged the incoming lightning storm that Nadia had cast using most of the mana that she had gathered. Rebecca had been burnt by the lightning storm even though she had managed to dodge most of it and some of it had been avoided through her diamond defense. She was smoking all over with dark patches all over her skin but somehow she managed to survive by a little bit.
Rebecca knew that she wouldn't be able to manage past Nadia's next attack. It was now or never. So without wasting any time, she pulled out the bottle that she had hidden inside her clothes. The bottle still contained the viscous black liquid that looked like some witch's brew at the first glance.
She uncorked the bottle and brought it to her mouth. Anyone would have felt suspicious drinking the contents of that bottle but Rebecca didn't even stop to consider anything like that. The reason was that it had been given to her by her teacher whom she could trust. But the main reason governing all her actions was that she didn't want to lose after having come so far. She wanted to make it till the end in place of her other school mates in order to not let down Caesar High School. After all, in order to do that she had paid quite a heavy price.
She took another look at the bearded old man and gulped down the contents of the bottle without another thought.
IT wasn't long before she was able to feel the result of that action. Her throat was constricted as if it was being compressed from both sides. The contents of the bottle turned out to be quite hard to swallow completely.
It felt as if her body was refusing to let it in. As soon as the liquid left her throat, it felt as if she had swallowed thousand of little swords and needles and all of them were currently making their way towards her stomach while cutting apart her insides at the same time. This kind of pain was something that Rebecca would not wish even upon her enemies. Every cell in her body was being stabbed over and over again by a similarly minuscule sized sword inside her body and the collective pain caused by such a torture was enough to drive anyone insane or at the very least suicidal.
Rebecca had an inkling that the consequences of drinking that potion might be painful but she was willing to do so in order to win for Caesar High school and her own prestige. But the pain that ensued after she had drunk that potion was unlike she had ever imagined. The pain of being electrocuted by lightning was not even worth mentioning in front of it.
The only way to vent out her distress was to scream. It was the only way that humans unconsciously adopted to lessen the pain inside them. Screaming helped them divert a part of their neural network that was essentially responsible for delivering the sensation of pain alone. In simpler terms, it was an unconscious reaction of humans to keep their focus away from anything that reminded them of the pain that they were going through.
Rebecca's reaction was the same as well but it did nothing to lessen her pain at all. This kind of pain was something that seeped inside the bones and was impossible to drive out. Rebecca felt like someone had filled hot lead inside her body and it was seeping into every corner and was scalding her from the inside out. This kind of hurt wasn't something that could be ignored by screaming your insides out. She now understood that but it was already too late.
The fight had come to a halt as soon as she had let out that horrifying scream like a hundred year old ghost that had come back to life suddenly.
Nadia had thought that Rebecca had gotten seriously hurt by her attacks and had screamed out in pain which was the reason that she had temporarily restrained her indiscriminate bombing. She even dispersed the skill that she was about to cast if Rebecca was still standing after her last attack.
She was a kind girl who didn't actually want to hurt her opponent. Her only goal had been to go to the same university as her big brother and study in the same class as him. That was why she had put in so much effort in the fight.
When the storm clouds cleared and the brilliant flashes of the lightning strikes vanished, she found that there was something wrong with the view in front of her. She had expected that her attacks had found their target and had hurt her terribly but the way Rebecca was acting was not similar to the victims of her attacks.
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